Microphone down their people can come up as questions and after which there will be a book signing in the rectory right next door. You are all welcome to produce they cannot. For those of you who did not a chance to have your book signed at the reception iq will be right first in line, but there will be plenty of books and opportunity for tim to meet everyone and personalize your books. So we at the iv bookshop are really delighted and think the church for being the host site. This is the first of hopefully many events we hope to collaborate with with the church and we thank them for opening their doors to the public and also want to thank the Special Olympics of maryland, the wonderful work you do and for all the great work you did for us and let them rest of maryland now about this event and so we thank you for tweeting and face looking and letting your friends know about it. Let me talk a little bit about tim. Hes a graduate of Saint Albans School and he earned eight ba from yellow and masters degree in from Catholic University a phd in education from the university of connecticut. Spent 15 years in Public Education as a teacher and activists and a Creative Force behind a number of important programs. He has been a force as well in the entertainment world. His coat produced a wide range of films and television programs. He summer has found enough time and energy to serve as a board member for numerous organizations such as the future project of young people the American Association on intellectual and develop in all the edison school, the Frank Porter GrahamChild Development center and the university of northern carolina. And council of Foreign Relations and many other important nonprofit organizations and institutions. He holds an Honorary Degree from maryland here in baltimore. He was named a connecticut for the sunday year in 195. He has received other owners and degrees, too numerous to mention. As most of you know tim is the chairman of the Special Olympics, a Worldwide Organization founded by tims mother. For over 40 years Special Olympics has great opportunity for Young Athletes from all walks of life to discover their inherent strength abilities and skills and to experience success. The organization supports 80000 events each year. There are 4 million special olympic athletes. Somehow and i dont know how maybe he can answer this question to mismanaged to find the time and energy to write this new book. Fullly alive discovering what matters most the book is a gripping memoir of a man on a mission. Mr. Schreibers mission is to create opportunities to celebrate the differences in human beings and to teach us to knowledge that each one of us possesses powerful capabilities and has the capacity to add value to our communities, our families and at the world. I would like to introduce tim shriver. [applause]. What an amazing introduction. There were a lot of things in there i had forgotten and im not sure our troop, but im grateful you are sure . Fact checked all of that . Anyway, sounds very grand and way beyond what i deserve so thank you very much have to also say that i think this is the first time i have ever had the chance to speak on the altar and if any of you have even glanced at the book you will know that i was raised catholic and of course i have no shock at speaking from a Catholic Church because i married and have five children, but im thinking appear i got a shot; cracked . I could aim for the episcopalian credentialing get comfortable appear. Im grateful for allowing us this space. Im grateful for all of you coming on a friday night in the mill of a solid Holiday Season when aarons and gifts to buy in summary things to do to prepare for celebrations and for coming out tonight. I would like to begin by thanking in a special way the special olympic athletes that are here. We had a chance to talk to a few and maybe i can ask them all if they wouldnt mind a standard for a moment so that this gathering can celebrate and recognize them. [applause]. I dont want to just talk about one or two people, but i do want to say if i looked nervous its because i have a high school senior, a daughter, who is applying to colleges and she is a nervous wreck. She wrote her College Essay about Joe L Packard who is sitting here in the front row. Joelle, stand again. [applause]. And my daughter caroline, just two hours ago got accepted to tulane university. Isnt that exciting . So, with complete honesty and total accuracy joelle told me tonight she got caroline into tulane, which is exactly true and joelle, i thank you for getting my. Out Daughter College acceptance. So, what is it in life that makes us feel fully alive . Some people have said this is the book about disability. Its not a book about disability. Some people have said its a book about the kennedy family. Its also, at least in my view not a book about the kennedy family. I dont want to disappoint some of you are big and 80 family fans but, its not a book about the kennedy family. Some people have said its a book about education. The publisher said was the john roth . Its a book about education actually no its not a book about education. Its a book about a search for how to fuel and how to become and how to access the part of my life the part of my being if you will that feels fully alive so being a teacher want to start with getting each of you into the conversation a bit because i dont want you to just listen. I want you to take a chance. I wont embarrass you, i promise. I want you to just pause for a moment and i want you to think of a time in your life it could be today or last month it could have been 20 years ago. A time when you felt you were fully alive, no definition no check no right or wrong answer. But, i want you to pull up into your mind into your consciousness now a moment or an experience or a situation and you think back to it or you think of it and you think i was fully alive then. That made me feel. I became, that was my sweet spot. I was fully fully alive. If we were a Smaller Group i would make you share stories but im likely to do that. Im going to give you still another second to pull that up. I dont want you to shortcut on this. Because i want to test the idea that some of us have moments when we are fully alive and of course that means many of us have moments when we are not when we dont feel fully alive. When we feel like something is missing. When weak us though we could just have one more thing to be where we wanted to be. If we could just have that extra job are extra friend or a new iphone or a new ipad or a sister who is not annoying then one more thing then i would be fully alive. Im kind of close, but not quite there. If you think to yourself if there are moments in your life as i suspect there are when you dont few fully 11 you look around and you think what is the culture saying about how it could be fully alive . Now imagine another scene. Imagine you are looking at that news stand in an airport or bus station or wherever you go in just look at what you see in front of you on the magazine stand. Take a snapshot in your head avoids telling you. What is telling you to help you be fully alive. Its going to be money its going to be used, beauty it might be gossip, anger frustration. It might be having your life go off the rails ditch on the cover he met eczema. Get your attention. Its you same. Gets you fortune. Being on a Reality Tv Show the culture says if you could just beyond tv if you could just get a little famous wouldnt you feel are fully alive if you were . Or just a little richer . Or little more powerful . Or a better job . I wrote this book because to be honest i grew up with a lot of that. I grew up with people who were some of them were really famous. I mean, famous like you can believe famous. There was quite a lot of wealth around me. There was quite a lot of access to power and influence but at a certain age, very young i realized that that wasnt going to get it done. That wasnt going to make me have the snapshot that i hope you pulled up of a fueling fully alive. It wasnt going to come from any of those things. So i started to press myself even from an early age, even from when i was little looking out at the backyard in maryland just 50 or so miles from here where my mother who was determined to change the world to make it more fully a live where she had a summer camp i was only four or five, six, seven years old and i could see children come in in the morning in the summer and they would get off of a Yellow School bus as i had no idea where they were coming from and they would proceed out to the flagpole and we would raise the flag. A trumpeter would play the trumpet and i would look at my window. I could see this was one of my scenes like when you remember when you were a kid like a picture. I could see all the campers and see them standing around in their tshirts and shorts and sneakers. I had no idea they were coming from institutions, no idea many of them were orphans no idea many of them never went to school. To me they sang if youre happy and you know it clap your hands. We and out after that ply was raised and played kickball and rode ponies and swam swimming races and had a blast. So, one of the first lessons i had was, whats going on here . Why do these people make my mother look so fully alive . What is it that makes turns my house into a summer camp . Why is it so much fun to be here . Of course, i had no idea the clue was there. There had to be some other way. Some of the way that didnt have any thing to do with politics or anything to do with senators or congressmen or Supreme Court justices or nobel Prize Winners professors or fancy titles. It had to do with those kids though six, a, 12, 13year old. Some of them did not speak. Some wore helmets in those days. Some did not walked away i walked, but boy do we have fun. It had to do with seeing the world differently. I think that was the first lesson my mother and father taught me. There has to be a different way of seeing the world. Because of these children are being told that they are invalid, invalid that they belonged institutions for idiots , for morons, these words are so hateful to say, imbeciles then they had to be we had to see the world differently. We couldnt see the world that way. We couldnt accept the idea that any child didnt deserve the chance to play. One of my favorite scenes from the Special Olympics movement came in 1995 1995. The present of the United States came for the first time to the opening ceremonies of the special olympic world summer game, but security was not good so they had to keep them in the top row of the stadium. He couldnt come down to the field but down on appeal yet 6000 athletes that are trying to get a look at him way up high and there were professional photographers around and every athlete had a single use camera so they were all catching snapshots of each other in hootie the blowfish where there and not by nature was performing in the supermodel Kathy Ireland was there and celebrities everywhere and the lights in the athletes getting pictures of each other and professional photographer comes over one point and he sees a group of athletes and he thinks they are from an african nation big colorful outfits and he notices they have their cameras try to get a picture of the president who is way up high and he takes a closer look and he sees the cameras are backwards. The lenses are pointing against the athletes moses, so he realizes that never used a camera before. They have come from a nation where they dont have those. He goes over not knowing if they speak english and he says you are trying to get a picture of the president and the athletes he said you have to turn the camera around and you look through this little hole and push the button and you get a picture of the president. The athletes said oh thomas thank you. But, if you look through the viewfinder backwards it works like binoculars and you can see the president perfectly clearly. [laughter] i love that story for two reasons. First, because it reminds me that so often we get it wrong. This was a good man. He wasnt a bad guy. He wasnt malicious. He wasnt discriminating. But he judged the book by the cover. He assumed. Dont we all do that . Dont we all assume that if we get a bad diagnosis, that if we become some way limited ourselves that we are no longer capable of speaking the way we speak or walking are talking that something terrible wilbur follis . It will no longer be valuable no longer be valid. We are afraid of being left out of the circle. So often we look at those who are left out and we think house, that is tragic. We ask ourselves what is wrong with them . As one sibling told me when he grew up with a brother with down syndrome he said my whole life people asked me whats wrong with your brother, whats wrong with your brother whats wrong with your brother. It wasnt until i was 18 i figure the answer. Nothing is wrong with brother. We too often assume what is wrong with tim, whats wrong with george . Was run was steep . Nothing is wrong with any of them. The arc of this story begins in some ways all the way back, as i dug deeper and deeper it begins with the story of my mothers family into which in the last century, almost 100 years ago we had Rosemary Kennedy who was born in diagnosed early as having mental retardation at a time when there was enormous shame but her parents who could have they had the wealth to put her in an institution, to room remove her from the family as many did tragically they kept her at home and they had one piece of advice come a one piece of direction to her brothers and sisters. Include rosemary. Keep rosemary involved. If you go out, rosemary goes with you. When you play make sure she is on the team. Never lead out your sister. At the same time society wanted nothing to do with someone who is different. No schools no medical professionals who wanted to care, almost no place to go. But, in those relationships, in that family of a nine you have three people who almost everyone in this room would recognize to be famous, john f. Kennedy Robert F Kennedy edward m kennedy, president ial candidate lifelong senator big heroic even if you dont agree with him if they are are any republicans in the room its okay. You dont have to agree with them. But, they have big careers, but right alongside them brother sister, Sister Sister is rosemary. When i asked my uncle before he died, ted kennedy, i said what affect do you think rosemary had on you as a human being not a Public Policy or the foundation of big organizations, but on you what affected she have on you . My uncle turned it to me and he said, well, i remember one time when we were younger and we were down in palm beach in the wintertime and all of us were there and we were invited to a big party and i went and jack went and mother and dad told us to take rosemary along, so rosemary came and we were out on the big long and all the young people were there in palm beach and he took a deep breath and he said he looked over one point and saw rosemary and she was seated all by herself on the side over by the pool all alone and he said then i looked over and i saw jack and he was talking to a lot of people and he looked over and he excused himself and got up and walked away and he went over and he sat down next to rosie and he put his be in the pool and the two of them to set their alone together. He said i will never forget that and then he said, can someone get me some dessert or Something Like that, it was a family dinner. He didnt say more. But, wherever that took place out one of those two people sitting along with their legs in the pool 20 some years later would be the president of the United States, the most powerful man arguably on earth and one would be hidden one would be almost considered one of the most powerless people on earth. But, when those brothers of Rosemary Kennedy got their chance what they said to the world was we are going to fight relentlessly to include those on the margins. Thats what my mother did. When president kennedy stood in 1961, at his inaugural address and said asked not what the country can do for you what was he saying . He said dont ask what i could to give you ask what you can give. Ask who you cant express solidarity with. Ask what you can contribute and he must have known either intuitively consciously if the when you get asked you get something beautiful in return. He must have known that he had been asked by his own mother and father to care to have concern to have loyalty, to solidarity to be an include her and he had been asked he got thousands of moments like that on with his sister touched, moved compassionate happy, joyful. The two of them together. No explanation needed. So, go back to your stories when you are fully alive where you at a moment of great relationship and connection where you had a moment when you would describe as religious maybe at peace with yourself, peace with others were you at a moment where you felt like you are connected to something big, creating equality or justice for others . Some people identify moments when they were involved with some big enterprise where they thought the world would be better maybe its interpersonal. Maybe the language of psychology , purpose, fulfillment in all of those moments what seems to me comes through is that at some level we are no longer afraid of where we are. We are connected. We are no longer worrying about what other people think of us. I dont know if its true of all your moments we now want to worry about of others. We are giving ourselves either to one person to an idea, nature to a cause to something that matters and feeling if its to a child come into a brother sister, husband or wife to a religion, to a religious cause, we are feeling free. We are feeling like oh my gosh this is the real me. This is me no longer inhibited held back. There a