World Down Syndrome Day is upon us, and our story has evolved with the years.

Julia is older now. We are preparing for high school. Jocelyn and I are surfing the waves of semi-verbal teenage angst where Julia is often quite disagreeable. But somehow, we find common ground by the end of the day with a story and a snuggle before she goes to sleep.

The developmental and relational gap has continued to widen between her and her typical friends. Don’t get me wrong – we get regular reports of the love and affection Julia receives as she walks the halls of her school. She often gets invited into a pick-up volleyball game or now and then a turn shooting hoops at rec time. 

But the gap has widened, nonetheless. It’s not an indictment – just a sad reality of inevitable divergence as individual interests and affinities develop. 

Elementary school felt like a community where all the kids experienced things together. And then the “great sort” happened in middle school, where everyone scattered. The friendships are still there, but I sometimes get nostalgic and a touch of melancholy for a time when interaction between Julia and her typical friends wasn’t quite as heavy a lift.

It isn’t as if Julia doesn’t have deep relationships, though. That was proven again at a recent dinner we hosted for some of her friends (all with Ds) from her LRC class at school. We have gotten to know these families over the last couple of years and count them among our closest friends. We encourage each other through the ebbs and flows of adversity and joy that are inevitable in a life with our very special kiddos.

Julia talked about the dinner party for days after we put it on our family planner board in the kitchen. She kind of drove us crazy as the anticipation grew day by day. But then the crescendo of the arrivals… 

It’s now a routine ritual, but it still makes me smile. Every time she sees a friend, it’s as if she’s greeting an A-list celebrity (which they are in her book). With high-pitched glee, Julia announced each friend’s arrival to everyone in the room:

“Momma – it’s Sara!!”

“Daddy – it’s Sara!!”

< repeat for the next friend >

It was as if Julia’s parched heart was finally getting the relational sustenance it longed for. And her joy was reciprocated by her friends; but I have literally met no other person for whom relationships are so vital than my daughter.

As we sat around the table over our feast of cheese pizza and take-out Thai food, I watched as Julia and her friends connected. Their conversation was at times nearly unintelligible to the unpracticed ear because of their individual foibles of articulation, but that didn’t stop them. They had private jokes that totally sailed over my head and shared gales of laughter over an occasional belch or passing of gas. 

And in the din of excited conversation, I locked eyes with Jocelyn across the table, and we gave each other a knowing grin. I wondered if we would’ve ever seen this for ourselves when we were dating 17 years prior. 

Julia‘s smile and look of ease were clearly on display the entire night. She was in her “shoulders down” place (thanks, Heather Avis for the imagery) where she feels no anxiety or need to measure up. Julia finds home  with these friends and would likely pick them over any others. 

Throughout the night, the sense of belonging was thick and luscious in the air. Each kid felt totally free to be who they were and let the others do the same. Their interactions were raw and life-giving; real and utterly devoid of guile or artifice. We stopped to navigate when opinions didn’t agree. One consoled another’s disappointment when the after-dinner movie she had her heart set on wasn’t available. 

After that pause to let everyone “catch up”, we all agreed to watch Encanto, and the smiles and giggles eventually returned. And there was no better way to end the night than a dance session with parents and kids alike jamming to “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”.

It was a simple dinner and movie night; but it ended with the feeling like we had experienced something much deeper. Everyone walked away with full bellies and full hearts – full of the promise that it’s possible to love well and not lose oneself in trying to measure up to the people around you.

The following day, I got some clarity on the strange fullness I had experienced the night before.

One of my favorite Bible commentators was walking me through a challenge Jesus made to the religious elite of his day. They had put on a banquet and invited the upstart Galilean rabbi to dine with them.

Jesus watched as the social one-upmanship and jockeying for position unfolded. Elbows were thrown for the seats of honor. Reciprocal invites were proffered in strategic pursuit of a business deal or an advantageous marriage. 

But Jesus swept all of the silliness aside and told them what a real banquet looks like:

“The next time you put on a dinner, don’t just invite your friends and family and rich neighbors, the kind of people who will return the favor. Invite some people who never get invited out, the misfits from the wrong side of the tracks. You’ll be – and experience – a blessing. They won’t be able to return the favor, but the favor will be returned – oh, how it will be returned! – at the resurrection of God’s people.”

~ Luke 14:12-14 MSG Translation

Jesus had the clarity to know that our identity and worth do not rise and fall on social status or net worth – that using others as a ladder to grasp something as ephemeral as “worldly success” robs everyone of the dignity placed upon them by their Creator. But if we embrace the scandalous hope that we are God’s children and lavishly loved simply because of it, that identity will begin to crowd out all of the self-constructed personas that scream for our attention and constant maintenance. 

Then, we can act out of that sole reality and serve others – abandoning them to God’s transforming love, even as we make it more manifest in their lives and our own. Right here and now.  

Love recognizes and acts on the reality of the seminal connection we have with each other as God’s image bearers – despite our sad tendency to categorize, analyze, and value others according to a self-conceived and ultimately bankrupt standard.

And the blessing Jesus spoke of at the “resurrection of God‘s people“? What will be that gift I receive when all is said and done, and we stand on the precipice of the New Reality? Maybe, as I stare at the extravagant beauty that awaits, I will be given the glad realization that I got a taste of it around our family table over a meal of pizza, Thai food, and juice boxes.

I hope that we are all lucky enough to experience a “banquet of misfits” more than once in our lives, and realize to our great relief that we are one of them…