We read “The Helen Keller Story” in September of 2014. I loved the story and I didn’t know just how touching and meaningful it would be for me having a daughter who is also unable to communicate as “normal” children do, being unable to speak any words. I found Helen Keller’s story very inspirational and thought that it was great for the girls to hear this story of love and hope and also to see that there are other children and families with disabilities.

Having a daughter with autism really has taught me an even deeper love and compassion and to learn to really see and feel things beyond the five senses. Life has such a deeper spiritual reality and I really do believe that  babies and children who have delays in their development are able to sense the spiritual reality that we fall from as we grow older. She is so sweet and has such a love for life and the world. I feel blessed to be able to have a daughter with autism and honored to have been chosen as her mother.

I believe that we can all learn a lot from these special beings who have come to teach us great lessons in love, compassion, and spiritual awakening.

These are the quotes that we highlighted from “The Helen Keller Story.”

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“What is love?” asked the student, and that was not as easy as think.

“Is it the smell of flowers? Is it the warmth of the sun? Is it when my heart beats? Why can’t I touch love? “You cannot touch the cloud, you know,” said her teacher, “but you feel the rain and know how glad the flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it after a hot day. You cannot touch love either; but you feel the sweetness that it pours into everything. Without love you would not be happy or want to play.”

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“If you knew all the joy I feel in being able to speak to you today, I think you would have some idea of the value of speech to the deaf, and you would understand why I want every little deaf child in all this great world to have an opportunity to learn to speak… I can remember before I learned to speak, and how I used to struggle to express my thoughts by means of the manual alphabet–how my thoughts used to beat against my fingertips like little birds striving to gain their freedom until one day Miss Fuller opened wide the prison door and let them escape…of course, it was not easy at first to fly. The speech-wings were weak and broken… nothing was left save the impulse to fly, but that was something one can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar…”

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“Swedenborg believed in eternal life, and so he did not fear death. God, he says, was the “light of heaven” within each of us. It was the influence of the “light” within us that made us want to live lives of service or charity to others, and it was the “light” that gave us comfort and strength in time of grief.”

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Beside her task our efforts pale,
She never knew the word for fail;
Beside her triumphs ours are naught,
For hers were far more dearly bought.
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“Love,” she told him, “is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance, makes the garden a place of delight just the same.”

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“Love,” she wrote of Swedenborg’s ideas, “is the all-important doctrine. This love means not a vague, aimless emotion, but desire of good united with wisdom and fulfilled in right action. For a life in the dark this love is the surest guidance.” Swedenborgism was really a way of life, a philosophy for every day in the week. In order to be happy she must live a useful life with no thought of reward. Let the cruel criticisms fall where they would. With such help she could go on calmly loving and forgiving and serving.

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“I can dream of that happy country of the future where no man will live at his ease while another suffers; then, indeed, shall the blind see and the deaf hear.”

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“Peace! World peace! If there was to be goodwill to all men, if there was to be an end of poverty and injustice then there must be peace in which to achieve these ideals. Swedenborg taught that God is love, wisdom, and power. War, then, was Godlessness. So, to her campaigning for the blind, for woman suffrage, and for social reforms, Helen Keller added pacifism when she went on a lecture tour, it was to speak for peace and disarmament.”

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Dear reader [she wrote on this point later in her memoirs], let me ask you to stop for a moment and try to visualize your blind neighbor. You have met him often in the street, in sunshine and in rain, casually threading his way among his unseen fellows, his cane tapping the pavement, his body tense, his ears straining to hear sounds that will guide him in the invisible maze. You have glanced at him pityingly, and gone your way thinking how strange his thoughts must be, his feelings how different from your own. My friend, have done with this cruel illusion and try to learn the truth. Hearts are heats and pain is pain, and joy, ambition, and love are in the blind man even as in you. He wants the same things that you do. Like you he dreams of love and success and happiness. You would still be yourself if an accident blinded you tomorrow; your desires would be the same.

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