My place in time...

This is for me, about the things I know, but it is also for my friends...

I have reached the conclusion that time is a human construct, not a divine construct.  For God, for infinite Divine Power, time is fluid.  I think it is our ability to hold on to time that makes us "God-like", "in His image"... we can conjure up memories and get lost in them with just the strength of our will.  We can choose to live in the past or the future, not just the present... we are able to be fluid through time.

So much of my study/ personal growth lately has focused on living "in the moment", in the "right now!"... finding ways to connect to what exists before me, with me, in me.  And I am getting better at it.  I am really able to acknowledge love and beauty in better ways than I have ever been able to in my life. I want to keep working in that direction.

At the same time, I have often felt like I can see "ribbons" of time attached to people, places and events.  It is as if there is a tapestry being woven and the threads (ribbons) weave a complex and beautiful whole that is both eternal and momentary.  There are people who I meet, know and can "see" them through time.  It is as if I have known them when they were young, in their prime, and when they are wise in experience.  There are other people who I do not "see through time" but they keep showing up "on my timeline", their ribbon, though I cannot follow it, continues to interweave with mine.  I am deeply appreciative of both, desperately curious to see how they come together, and honestly in love with all of them.

The past couple days I have been really reflective of where I specifically am in time.  I know I am approaching a transition, though I am unclear on the particulars, so I am assessing my position.  

Several of my friends also seem to be assessing.  One friend younger than I am posted a question on the importance of his college degree this week - and lots of his age peers supported his concern.  One friend younger than I had a long heartfelt conversation about personal direction and leaving home.  Many of my staff are starting or finishing college, and there is lots of tension about direction and making good decisions. There is also lots of pressure to be sure there are no "lost opportunities".  I remember that pressure.  As I looked to my experience to help inform theirs, I realized that mine was shaped with an unexpected and unusual physical disability (surgery on both knees).  The lesson was to hold on to what I needed and work through the challenges.  I could not have predicted how that played out, but I was driven to achieve the pieces I needed... the associations and events that still link to where I am today (scouts, foreign travel, my university, needle arts, family, the mountains...)

As I have looked to the friends and family I have re-encountered, I know that I could not have predicted where they are either.  In the last year, several have divorced, but i discovered others have never married (though I would have expected them to).  Girls (now women) I was in scouting with for years, who I knew in deeply emotionally intimate ways, who I grew up with, are not in places/ situations that I could have possibly predicted!  While a base essence of them is constant, still there, the specific manifestation of that is unexpected.  The deeply religious girly girl became a member of the National Guard, and is now a foster parent.  The life of the party (she led every late night sing-along) is a special education teacher with 2 beautiful children.  A boy (now man) I went to elementary school with is a well traveled missionary, who has rebuilt the organ in the Crystal Catherdral.  From my circle of "high school posse" we are all over the nation, living with parents, struggling with special needs children, finding new ways to connect with our spirituality, advocating in our communities, and just trying to get by...  Of my cousins - we are all over the country, still getting our educations, touching lives in academic and military endeavors, dealing with cancer and tragic accidents, trying to equip our kids with the best tools we can, and just trying to get by...

As I look at me, I am overwhelmed with realities that I never expected.  I grew up driving L.A. freeways, I never expected to spend my life exploring scenic by ways.  I loved camping and scouting, but overlooked its power because it was so constant in my life.  Only after the dysfunction of my body "took" those activities away from me did I understand - and I make a living doing them despite the limitations of my body.  I expected to be a mom, but never ever a teacher.  And I certainly could not have possibly imagined being an autism parent, and the amazing journey it has led me on.  I knew I would seek knowledge all my days, but never imagined that I would learn to honor experience over "book learning"/ academic rigor.  If someone had told me 20 years ago that I would be living in these blessed mountains, homeschooling, or working at a camp, I would NEVER have believed them.  I would never have believed someone if they had told me I would miss authentic Mexican food.  It would been beyond my realm of reality.  I ask you to take a good look at you, but do not believe for one second that it in any way represents all that you will be!

More importantly, I would not have believed that I could be in such a rich emotional place - that I would have a job where my co workers are my friends, that I could be so in love with my coworkers that they are my family.  I would never have believed that I could be surrounded by people who accept me, people who are not just tolerating me, but loving me, growing me... I COULD NEVER HAVE BELIEVED THAT I WOULD BE EXACTLY WHERE I NEED TO BE!  Because, "back then", I was so emotionally invested in the struggle, in the transition, that I couldn't imagine the destination.  I was too busy looking for answers that I didn't see people. 

And this is what I want to say to all my friends, to everyone who is transitioning RIGHT NOW: It's OK.  You will not be able to imagine the destination.  You will not be able to see where this is heading.  Unexpected diversions will come up, and they are not "missed opportunities"!  They are the windows and doors that will lead you to exactly where you are supposed to be, exactly where you need to be.  DO NOT BE AFRAID!  There will be angels and friends and loving people there, both along the path and at the destination.  You are right - you will be sad sometimes, and frustrated sometimes, confused many times, and doors will close.  But your confusion will pass, even if you choose to stand in front of that closed door, some one or some thing will come along and drag you through a different one (the secret is to listen to invitations so they don't have to drag you).  The essence of you, the Gift that God made you to be, the Good that you are created to do will fight its way out, some paths will become clear, patience will be rewarded... and all those other idioms of happiness really do happen!  

If you are not sure where to go next: LOVE PEOPLE, it is the most important thing you can do!  In acts of love paths become crystal clear - you will know exactly what you have to hold on to and let go of.

I will say that the confusion does not ever TOTALLY disappear.  My mother told me when I was 18 that I would never feel older than I did right then.  Her exact words were that I would gain knowledge, information, but I would never feel more prepared to make decisions than I did right then.  A good friend repeated that sentiment to me this week - saying he felt like he was still making the decisions of a 17 year old even though he was in his 20's.  I have to say, I remember feeling that way right through my 20's... but I also have to say that some things did become clear, some decisions were easy, with no clouds of doubt.  There were times I looked at a person, a place, an event and knew immediately what I needed to do.  Many of them were not even conscious decisions - I just acted... because my heart knew it needed to, my soul just led me, I just "went there".  Follow THAT.

And while I feel like (and hope) that I have gained wisdom, there are still choices that I struggle with, decisions I am afraid to make because I fear the long term ramifications, still pieces of me that I feel like I should know better.  I still get frustrated with waiting for things to play out, and doors to open, I still find regrets on how I could have touched a life better, or beat myself up for not doing a better job.  I try now to look for a lesson, not just be sad...

And as I wrote this, it became clear my soul is "going there" again.  These words are for me too - to remind me to let the destination go, because I can't see the destination anyhow.  I have been living in a fearful transition for 2 months now, but I also have some things I know I need to do, some places I know I need to go.   I have people I KNOW I LOVE, and it is time to look at what is clear instead of trying to peer through the obscure mists. 

The doors that open are the ones you are supposed to walk through.  You exist exactly where you need to, when you need to.  Love, Good, angels, surround you right now!  Go kiss 'em!  Live Love as an active verb!

Early on the CT shootings

I know that my voice is small, that there are so many other, louder voices shrilling right now...

As well there should be - the mourning of the families who lost loved ones needs to be held sacred, and we all need to be "helping" their recovery in a strictly emotional sense - reaching out to them with prayer/ feeling/ collective consciousness and helping them carry their sorrow until they are strong again...

What we do NOT need to do is "help" the "healing" by fighting, arguing.  It is VERY VERY clear that there will be some serious very long term repercussions from this incident - and not just that we have been robbed of some of our most valuable resources - children.  LOTS of fear from this incident is still stirring - widely.  I have read of Autistic adults that fear public retribution, I have read of parents legitimately afraid that violence will be so largely identified with autism that all autistic kids will be restrained "for public safety".  I have read other autism moms who see posts declaring Hitler's social cleansing correct and now needed.  While all these things are possible, my gut feeling is that we will not see that kind of behavior widely.

But I am no fool.  There are MANY people who invite hatred to rule their lives, who make all their decisions from a place of fear, and they share that fear with others.  I have been offered prejudice I did not think existed.  The specific target changes, but the acts of hatred still go on.

My concerns are that the ripples of this act will be VERY wide, through time and space.  And not just in a social sense, but in long-term legal, logistical issues.  One blogger posted that the schools called parents today to let them know that armed policemen will be at every school tomorrow.  What does a 7 year old build out of a reality where they are surrounded by armed guards at school, but "unprotected" at grocery stores and parks?  It sounds like the shooter was known to the staff (a family member of a staff person).  Will denying access to schools help?  What about those who fight for cameras in the classroom because their child is abused - parents are already fighting for their right to even observe in the classroom.  Will the schools be given total free-reign control within their walls?  Will I have to check my child in and out like a library book? Will they come "fine" me if I don't meet the "due date" or "use requirements"?

My concern is that the passionate desire to "fix" and prevent will lead to choices that have very unpleasant unintended consequences.  And do NOT preach to me about how these murders were consequence enough.  I was 3 blocks from the capitol on 9-11 - I KNOW terror and loss.  We keep being "blown away" figuratively and literally because we see people commit UNFATHOMABLE acts.

I think this whole points to a MUCH LARGER underlying issue/ concern/ dynamic: What is appropriate violence?

Here's a Facebook post I made earlier today:

The whole thing just BEGS more open conversations about violence and what is acceptable in children.  Are we looking at history saying "there were less psycho paths"? And if we believe that - then WHY?  What were they doing that we are not?  Butchering animals in their yards to eat? Burying their own dead on the farm? Seeing family members maimed in freak accidents with everyday farming implements? Doing the doctoring themselves?  ARE we trying too hard to protect children from even having knowledge of violence?  I am guilty of that too... I haven't even spoken to my children - we are homeschooling, they are not "threatened" (ha).  We know boys play war & fighting - should we be letting them?!  Would that help them see how much it really DOES hurt?  It's terrifying how every generation of Americans (and Western civilization) has had a global war in every generation... it's like clock work : Rev war (1770's), 1812, Civ War (1865), WWI (1914), WWII (1945), Vietnam (1970's), Iraq (1990's) - every 30 - 40 years.... genealogists consider 30 years a new generation...

It's a point I have made to every history class I have ever taught: How tragic that we have to teach ourselves what horror looks like again...

I will say what I have often said to people: that they do NOT understand what it means to physically hurt.  I CAN NOT watch scenes in movies where they torture or maim people, even replays on sporting events where they show the injury occurring.   I have taken LOTS of being made fun of for that.  But I CAN NOT because I know how it feels.  I have watched as my own knee cap moved to the back of my leg.  IT HURTS - A FUCKING LOT.  I saw my dog die when I was 9.  Most of my friends had never had an injury or been to a funeral before high school.  The only difference I could see was that I had experienced pain, they had not.

"It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye" - but people don't lose eyes anymore - those are just rhetoric.  A little bit of research into the past shows incredible injury.  Did you know that Robert E. Lee's daughter was blind in one eye?... because she feel on a knitting needle and poked her eye out.  Did you know that Juliette Gordon Low (founder of Girl Scouts) was deaf in one ear?... because a grain of rice at her wedding fell into it and in removing it her eardrum was punctured.  Did you know that my great grandfather had no thumb?... he lost it in a machine during the Great Depression and had to find a new means of work to support his family.   Did you know that my great great grandfather was paraplegic? ... he was hit by a train on his way to a house call - the only doctor in the entire county.  Taking a look at REAL people shows us how many of us live with injuries... but they still seem taboo/ hidden, unspeakable.  Is this what our returning wounded warriors are running into?

Maybe we are too busy padding playgrounds?  Maybe we are too busy moderating siblings?  I read an account of frontier life (late 1800's, New Mexico) that narrated a VERY interesting incident.  She talked about how the ONLY child she had to "play" with was her brother (though they mostly worked) - and that for MANY of the frontier families children might never encounter "age-group peers".  In one particular story she mentioned a family who were blessed with only 1 surviving child.  Another family came over (passed through), with a close in age child (I am remembering they were nearly 7 years old - she mentioned how novel it was to have 2 kids so close in age together in the same place at the same time).  She describes how the 2 boys circled in the yard for several minutes, and then ran at each other full speed and walloped the snot out of each other.  When they wore themselves out they became fast friends for the remainder of the visit.  She said that only one adult even suggested intervening, and was told to "let them work it out" - and the rest just observed.  An anomalous incident?  Maybe.  But it was clearly "common wisdom" to let them establish their pecking order physically. 

DO NOT MISS UNDERSTAND!!!! I am totally against bullying, against school yard violence.  I am no idiot and know that my child would end up with the brunt of it, as I did, as my brother did, because we are "awkward" and "annoying" and "invite" that kind of treatment by repeating words/ songs, using complicated vocabulary and erratic movements (stimming).  But I can also tell you that as a SUBSTITUTE teacher I have observed harassment on the playground that translates into classroom behavior, and noted it to teachers and administrators, but they refuse to look.  Instead of mediating, teaching acceptable alternatives, facilitating the underlying dynamic, regulating the expression - the answer is TOTAL DENIAL.  The violence is simply denied/ ignored.  It is not "tolerated" so it does not "exist" - 'cuz if it DID exist, then we'd have to punish it drastically to "nip it in the bud".

I don't know that I am offering an "answer" or a "solution" or a "course of action"... I am more talking through the associated material, seeking to find some kind of connection at the base, to keep us looking for the roots of the problems rather than putting on more ineffective band-aids.  I imagine that the answer lies somewhere in the middle, in moderation, in balance - just like everything else.

And it may not matter at all what I think...

On the Brain - to the extreme

So this is a reflection of my musings, NOT a research paper, so while I will certainly "cite my sources", I am NOT going to avoid writing this post because I can't find the exact place I read that info...

I have been reading a book about Brain-Based-Education lately - a book written for teachers by a teacher who was also a neurologist, and it has reminded me of several important points.

1)Brains "chunk" - meaning that a memory is created and stored as a "chunk" of information, not each little piece isolated in the head.  THAT is why Graphic Organizers work - because our brain automatically stores information in charts and Venn diagrams in our head.  I think this is particularly important in the "thinking in pictures" conversation started by Temple Grandin.  I know that even as a kid, when ever I am confronted with the need to locate a piece of information in my head, I actually visualize the page I saw it on - which puts it in with the "chunk" of information it "goes with" already.  The book also talks about "chunking" in terms of sensory input: one remembers a food's smell and texture as well as appearance, and usually the context of the food (celebratory dinner or school cafeteria).  I am not entirely certain why my head is holding on to this as Important, but I just think there is an association to be made somewhere in the SPD discussion...

2) All information must enter the brain THROUGH THE SENSES.  While that seems pretty clear - it again leads me to really wonder about the effect of SPD on function and global brain wiring. Is the "different operating system" that we see in our ASD kids what creates the SPD, or is the SPD what creates the "different operating system"?  I don't really know if this question is relevant, unless we are looking for the cause-effect relationship that we can reverse, or at least... monitor?  I feel like there needs to be MORE looking at this senses - brain wiring relationship.

3)The author makes it clear that METACOGNITION trumps brain-based-teaching.  So, regardless of how much empirical data is collected, of the statistical evidence we have, of the trends that we see playing out - how well a person knows their own mind is more important than any effort on my part to meet the data.  The best way for a student to learn is by the student understanding their own thought processes, seeing their own trends, knowing "what works for them".  Ultimately, this says to me, that if the person is just different, there is nothing you can do about it! - they HAVE TO teach themselves (which is exactly what Montessori says).

ALL this brain-based-learning information keeps mixing in my head with what I have read about Nuero-feedback/ Bio-feedback.  What I read indicates that the process is hooking a person up to see their own brain imaging so they can consciously associate sensory experiences with certain mathematically measured "states of mind" - in other words the "patient" can see directly in the monitor when their brain-waves are within a certain range ("normal") or what parts of the brain light up (get used) to perform a task.  I think the idea is that by seeing how your brain works it gives you the opportunity to better control it - to "make" areas light up or brain waves be within a certain range when you "feel" a certain way in your body.

Is that Metacognition?

I also had the opportunity to take an all day seminar on mediation with the Smithsonian recently.    He had a lot to say about meditation's affect on the brain.  I believe his effort was to "prove" that mediation "works" - but ultimately all that is proven is that the physical shape/ construction of the brain IS altered by meditation - specifically the parts dealing with sensory awareness and attention to detail.  I think reading into the studies he cited also shows this metacognition piece, that a person in "control" of their mind processes can decide when to turn them on and off (like when to socially engage or linger in anxiety)...

And now I am caught in a conundrum:

If the senses are the window to the mind, and we are saying the senses are catching a reality different from the rest of us for "normal" people, then how do we know if we have reached the mind of the autistic person?  Do we have to actually alter the mind of the autistic person to the point that we can recognize it?  As in, do we need to make the ASD person less alien to us in order to recognize/ respect them?  And should we be changing them to recognize them? If they are, in fact, a different operating system, if they are, in fact, wired so completely alien to us that we have a hard time recognizing them, then shouldn't we respect that they were divinely created so?  If God "made them different" - whether by disease or genetics - how much are we supposed to leave that alone?

Is THAT where the spirituality comes in?  That we are "communicating" - connecting - through LOVE instead of our physical bodies?  Instead of our physical bodies?!  THAT sounds pretty darn close to what I am hearing postulated by the 3 psychics I have found on Facebook that "claim" to communicate with ASD kids for their parents.  That's 3 different people, who came to this through 3 different journeys (NOT through each other, as far as I can tell)...  I have heard the claim that ASD people ARE aliens on their own bodies (from a higher "frequency" or "plane"), have even felt that way numerous times about my own son.  I look at him often and just know that he is truly beside himself, not in himself... like he is manipulating his body through a marionette...

At what point DO I cross that thin line between crazy and genius?  Does only HISTORY get to prove who is crazy and who is genius?  Thomas Edison, Leonardo Da Vinci... those guys were crazies of their times, and seem geniuses to us...

Dear God, what if that IS what this Autism Phenomenon is all about - about pushing our collective envelope of crazy so that when history unfolds we can see the geniuses!?  I am NOT sure I want to be around for that!

BTW - my son has claimed in several meltdowns in the past month that the only thing that matters is who will live or die at the end of the world...  He uses this to explain to me why he does not need to eat with a fork or wear pants or touch the cart at the grocery store - what ever direction it is at the moment he does not deem important enough to follow.  I sure hope he is WAY off on this one...

I am secretly hoping that someone will respond to this and demonstrate the Great Flaw in my reasoning .. PLEASE

On Names

The "hot topic" today is names - as in should people who are blogging about the Autistic family members use the names of those Autistic family members? - I guess it is also classified as "Confidentiality"

My immediate response is "well, yes, duh!" - but let me delve into that one further.  WARNING: My head is going to wander around the topic of names, naming and secrets.  My point is that you have to own what you are before you can explain it to others and ask for understanding.  Self-advocacy requires using labels (names) that others can identify with in order to connect with the people around you who are going to support (or at least tolerate) your idiosyncrasies (weirdness).  OK, here comes my *academic* treatise on "names"...

I am named after a legendary German mermaid of the Rhine River who lured men to their deaths by crashing their boats in the rocks.  In some name books my name translates as "man-catcher".  I was told by my mother at the age of 14 that my father found this name in a National Geographic.  Apparently his first choice had been "Bambi", and when he read my name in the magazine and suggested that it had a good ring, she IMMEDIATELY agreed.  My father has long defended his choice of "Bambi" as being feminine and delicate [?!].  I was already a C cup by the age of 14, a tall leggy blonde from Southern California.  Yes well.... I seemed to have narrowly missed being forced into the oldest profession by my name!  I often tell this story and joke OPENLY about it - because it does NOT define me.

My name is nearly impossible to pronounce correctly when you read it first.  My father, in his infinite creativity, spelled my name incorrectly on my birth certificate, so I truly have A Name Like No Other. In Jr. High, my 8th period teacher read our names for roll the first day, and mispronounced my name for the 8th time that day.  My classmates, who had heard the correction made 7 times already that day, corrected him.  He found it HILARIOUS that the whole classroom corrected him, and so intentionally said my name incorrectly EVERYDAY thereafter.  In True math teacher fashion, he thought it was funny every time, all 180 days of the school year.  I have NEVER corrected a person who mispronounces my name again.  As a matter of fact, the priest who married me called me the wrong name for years, and was corrected only hours before the ceremony by my bridesmaids.  It was a very loving act on their part.

My married surname is VERY long, and spelled exactly like it sounds - in German - except that it is NOT German, it is Pennsylvania Dutch, and there is no record of the name in Europe - though there are American records dating to the 1600's.  The family genealogy on my side of the family shows that same "Amercanization" of names several times [Krieder to Crider to Grider - etc.]  After getting married, I often introduced myself as the "Nameless Frau".

I have been told that my name sounds like a "tropical flower" - the Latin root for some mysterious species.  It has been misspelled by countless teachers and friends for years, and mispronounced by telemarketers and phone professionals eternally.  

I often find my name pretty much useless.  

In fact, most people simply address me without naming me, only using a title like Mrs., or Teacher, (Miss Teacher is always cute), or Ma'am.  Even my family often just uses affectionate titles like Honey, Sweetheart, or Sugar.

I did not earn many monikers as a kid (with the exception of the variations of my name - the teachers who just could not conquer it) - can't think of a one.  Even when I chose my own aliases, they just didn't stick. I did have a Camp Name (Girl Scouts, high school) was used for about 1 month.  I have an Alias in the Single Actions Shooting Society - it took 3 years to finalize it, and most people still just call me by my "real" name.  I earned a new Camp Name about 3 years ago (Big Mama) - and that one gets used a lot.  

But WHO I am is NOT what you call me.

I respond, now, to several names (Mrs. D, Big Mama, Mom...) and what you call me indicates what you need from me, what role I play for you, but it does NOT define me.  Who I am, what I expect from my self, the purest, Truest elements of me, do not change - no matter what role I am filling.  Your name for me reminds me of the job I am doing at the moment, of the tasks I need to complete to help/ serve you, but they don't make me.

I read "Look Me In The Eyes" by John Elder Robinson, and one of the interesting things he mentions from the outset is that people do not have names to him.  The "given" name by which the rest of the universe calls them is irrelevant.  The label, the handle, the title, the name that he assigns them is all that he can remember without undue effort.  One Autistic boy who comes to the pool with us has names for all the staff.  Each lifeguard has a name from him, that the boy uses consistently for each of them (Biggs, April, Exterminator, ...) that are not our "names" - but they are to him.  He goes out of his way to find each of the staff and address them specifically by his name each time he comes.

Ultimately a name is just an Adjective, a descriptor for a particular context.

So let's talk about confidentiality...
I am clearly a "live out loud" person.  I am pretty much incapable of having a secret and keeping it secret.  It's been that way since I can remember.  There are a few times I learned hard lessons about what other people think is secret and shouldn't be shared - I am starting to pick up on that one! ;)  An excellent example of my transparency is the story of the time I got a little tipsy at dinner with my staff.  One of them drove me home after dinner, and when asked by co-workers what I did, he said, "She just told more stories, faster."  When I apologized to him he said, "No, don't apologize! It just means you are are really you, you wear your heart on your sleeve."  I seek to be Genuine, and as a general rule, I find that the more you explain yourself, the better off you are - you create opportunities for others to see a sense of identify with you, which leads to connection, which leads to being helped and or protected by that person - creates friends, not enemies.  In true Aspie fashion I find that I over front load sometimes and scare (overwhelm) people, but usually they get over it.

Don't think that with his transparency I have never been hurt, or insulted, or judged by others.  Don't make the mistake of assuming that I am brave enough to "be me" because I am naive, or sheltered, or arrogant.  It has been a conscious decision, made when I was in Jr. High, that I would be as honest with and to myself as I could be so that I could be honest with others.  I spent years wishing I was different, doubting myself because of others, denying my gifts and abilities to fit stereo types imposed upon me by myself or others.  I still do sometimes. 

Confidentiality is a tricky, messy word.  In my experience "confidentiality" is really used to say "secrets" - specifically "that make you feel bad about yourself." Confidentiality is about "hiding" something.  Who exactly am I supposed to be hiding things from?  Every job application requires I could swear in a court of law about my ethnicity, my driving record, my employment history, my credit history... they could track down any info they want!  Who am I hiding info from?  Definition comes from use & context, so let's look at some places the word is used:

Like medical confidentiality.  Comes up in first responder work often... the victim or patient may reveal something relevant to you in a medical emergency that they do not want broadcast  - though, of course, the more you know about the victim the better chance you have of helping them so that they heal.  Examples are pregnancy, use of medications, or previous injuries.  I don't get it - leaving out information like that could get a person killed!

Maybe you refer to the injury that comes from abuse, with the emotional guilt.  You mean the kind where someone beats you and then tells you not to tell your parents?  The school I was at during the primary grades would beat our hands with a wire bristle brush, until they went numb... and we were told not to tell.  Or when the teacher berated you in front of classmates because you didn't show enough respect - and told you that your parents could be killed any day?  But this conversation is private... It took five years before I finally let it slip to my mom what was happening.  Being open about it solved the problem.  

Am I supposed to be secretive and "confidential" about my past?  Am I supposed to hide those events that have shaped me into who I AM?  So I should deny that I have made grave mistakes?  Or that I regret some things I have done?  I am not saying that I killed a man... but I am willing to bet that some choices/ actions I have made have cost people jobs, and money, and peace of mind...

How about schools?  Teachers have a "responsibility" to be confidential about every student.  Really?  So if the teacher observes behaviors they are NOT supposed to be open and talk about it?  Behaviors that might give insight to how an child learns or why a child behaves in a certain pattern, learn about a personal history that gives context to the student's fears and strengths...  teachers should hide and smother that information?  But then, if the teacher learns something that could even remotely imply dangerous activity (abuse, drug use, neglect) the teacher is legally bound to report it.  We have turned our teachers into the "front line" of social policing - and the result is that teachers actively AVOID learning personal context for their students so that they are not involved in false accusations, AVOID watching too closely for fear that they may discover something they don't want to find.  The current culture in "professional educators" does NOT lend support to caring, loving people who observe students closely and offer insight into how a child works.  Clearly, "confidentiality" is *helping* our children!

They talk "confidentiality" at IEP meetings all the time.  "Well, we can't tell you what accommodations have worked for other students, that would violate their confidentiality."  "We don't want to single your student out in front of the others - we don't want to tell the other students he has Asperger's - that would violate his confidentiality."  "You can't come observe in the school.  You would see students besides your own and violate their confidentiality."  Who in the hell are they hiding from?

They are hiding from ME!  "Confidentiality" is a tool, to be sure they can keep parents unknowledgeable about other students, so parents can't compare notes, or discuss options, or know what is really possible.  It is so they can negotiate from a place of power in the IEP process, bully parents into accepting less than the student needs, or keep services within the abilities of their current staff.  

"Confidentiality" does NOT protect my student! It protects the school system!

And quite frankly, hiding only creates problems, not solves them!  We teach kids not to hide from firemen - we want to be able to save them in an emergency.  We teach kids not to run from the police - running assumes guilt.  We don't want people to hide their abilities - we expect them to share them with society.  We don't want people to hide their identities - it makes us suspicious.

So what exactly is it about my son that I am supposed to deny when I am blogging/ facebooking, asking questions, seeking a sense of identification and comparison for him?  What am I supposed to be hiding if I am seeking information?  It is his essence, his inherent qualities, that I am trying to explore, celebrate, and compare.  If I am describing him, I would use Autisitic, Aspie, Blonde, Thin, Tall, Energetic, Boy... the PURPOSE of a name is to sum up all these adjectives into the one singular, unique collection that is that person!  Should I tell you that he is a she with red hair, mismatched leg lengths and no teeth?  NO?  You don't think that matches what you've heard before? 

And does it matter what name I give you for him?  The name I give him is a reflection of how I see him, NOT how he sees himself.  Regardless of what we call him, he will need to define Himself, he will have to decide what he wants people to think of when they hear his name, he will have to choose which adjectives and titles we settle upon him are the ones he owns and the ones he throws away.  He will have to make a name for himself, no matter what I do, or you do, or anybody does.  We ALL do.  Teaching, modelling, that transparency and genuineness will help him self advocate.  It is the best way for me to prepare him for his world.  

JT has ONE responsibility: to make other people comfortable enough with him that they can support him.  We all have that responsibility: to control our selves, to put forth a "person" that the rest of the world can live with.  Putting forth a false person only leads to receiving the wrong support, the wrong "fit".  It is NOT sustainable.  Honest and thorough reflection leads to an accurate, correct "fit", to successful relationships that fulfill people and societies.

Unless, of course, I am a spy.

Community in the past?

So, I am a Challenge Course Facilitator - that means that I have the job of that guy in the dreaded "team building" activity to mediate the trust fall and then blow sunshine up your butt about it no matter what.

Actually, I am NOT that kind of facilitator.  I make it a point to never ram sunshine anywhere, though I have learned to be more tactful and less critical in my expression of my observations... ;)  I seek to connect information, and I have yet to pretend a group is nicer to each other than they actually are...

So there are many aspects to this that I need to to continue to explore, to grow, and that are VERY VERY relevant to how I raise my Aspie, including my insights about teaching by "front loading" and then "processing" experiences to milk them with reflection.  It is how we deal with Autism EVERY DAY...

But I am thinking tonight about a specific event that occurred this summer.  We have an element (that is like a "station", a specific activity/ obstacle that we have on our "low ropes" course - and no, there are not any real ropes at most of them) called the Trust Fall.  It is a platform about 4 feet off the ground, upon which a person stands, their feet on the edge, facing the center of the platform, and then they fall as a plank into a group of people (peers).... so it is exactly what the name implies.  A person participating in this activity must fall in a trusting way, with complete trust (if you don't trust and you sit, you will hurt the holy snot out of yourself and the people trying to "catch" you).

I have recently done this activity with a group of high school students.  They did well, with each other, with me, supporting each other physically and emotionally so that everyone had the chance to physically feel their team supporting them in a moment of ultimate vulnerability.  While it was awesome, that is NOT the interesting thing that occurred...

There was a teacher with the group, a man who had enough years on him to be well-versed, a man with previous military experience, probably old enough to be a grandfather... and what he said to his students was AMAZING  to me!:

"This was a difficult task for you all, but 15 years ago it would not have been.  15 years ago, before the schools were so competitive, youngsters like you would have had complete faith that other people would be there to catch them."

The man had told me that his wife was a classroom teacher as well.  And the students had talked about how they could totally have done this activity into the pool, where they knew the water would catch them, but that they could not do it with peers underneath them, they just weren't "sure" they'd be safe...

There are some of you reading this thinking that the kids on the platform are RIGHT - how WOULD you KNOW someone is there to catch you?  but I think I see the teacher bringing up an interesting point.  Those students would rather put all their trust into an inanimate object than a thinking, sentient human being.  It's like trusting the ATM more than the teller at the bank, or seeking the do-it-your-self check out line at the grocery.  There comes a place where we isolate ourselves in an effort to ensure rote behavior rather than go through the painful process of unpredictable human interaction.  

Boy! Does THAT sound like Asperger's?!  

And it is not just something that comes up with public interactions, but within our most intimate relationships - seeking the "traditional" /"romantic" interactions rather than truthfully considering exactly who and what our partners and family members need or prefer.  "We will just get your sister something pink for her birthday" or "Let's go to dinner and a movie" or "Daddy wants us all to spend time with him for Father's day, but Mm wants us to give her space".  Stereotypes - that are NOT absolute Truths...

I mentioned this teacher's insight to my mentor, and her response was, " I wonder what else was different 15 years ago..."  Well, even in the movie E.T. the kids could get on their bikes and ride away from home without anyone assuming they were runaways or hoodlums.  When I was little, my mom would ask my brother to "run around the block" 5 times before coming inside to help control his energy - as in he was trusted to go out of her immediate sight and no one thought she was delinquent.  I have twice been "reminded" of the "safe child policy" at our local library (which is only a 30 by 30 foot space) because each of my 2 children wished to go to different sections and I couldn't be in their immediate line of sight at the same time.  15 years ago the Girl Scout program was based on 5 Worlds and exploring them, now it is down to 3 themes, with less than 1/3 the available badges - you know - kids just can't "handle it" these days.  If my dog accidentally gets off leash and takes a "walk about" (from which he will of course be home in less than 2 hours) We get nasty calls from the neighbors instead of them encouraging him to "go home".  What would they do with Lassie?!  My Sensory Kiddo/ Autistic son has real issues wearing clothes, but if he is in HIS OWN YARD naked (aged 3) my husband is worried that the neighbors will call Social Services on us [if you have EVER been through potty training with a kid like that, you understand why he just needed to be naked to get it!]  When I slap my child's hand, I am formally reprimanded by the school principal.  When we were trying to figure out how to deal with transitions and make a universally "safe" place for my autistic son - he took ownership over the car - it was his, and he could stay in that protected place.   To get him out of the car to go in the store used to involve long and arduous amounts of prying and cajoling and threatening, often pulling him out the car only to have to plaster his body between me and the car to be sure he didn't run away - and all that is caught on the store's security camera and we lived in literal fear that we would be turned in for abuse - but to let him stay in the car is to be turned in for neglect.  How the hell was I supposed to get groceries?  The only solution was to go in the middle of the night, slinking around like a social derelict (or drunk college student) while the other parent (hopefully) had him sleeping at home.  Would I feel like my neighbors were "out to get me" for bad parenting 15 years ago?  Or would they have offered to help shoulder the load (instead of just criticize)?  I have asked every high school aged kid on our street to babysit in the last 5 years - and for every one of them the parents have discouraged me, saying they would not trust their own kids to babysit.

We, of the parents-of-spectrum-kids community OFTEN say that we find those who identify with us in far away places - SELDOM in our geographically local communities.  Would it have been like that 15 years ago?

Did the schools respect an informed involved parent 15 years ago?  Did the teachers listen to what worked at home and explain what happened at school?  Were parents welcome as volunteers to observe and participate in their child's education?  Did we villainize people who needed assistance? or did we actually just help them out?

have we REALLY lost that much Community in 15 years?

What If....?

More Controversial Autism Spirituality

So, the previous post is about how I have found a connection with my Christian upbringing, my Christian Faith with my own Journey into Autism, but there is more to it than "just" that.  So now I'm gonna "jump off the deep end" and try to verbalize my "heretical" insights.  This may be VERY convoluted, so bear with me... I hope it doesn't sound too much like a sci-fi novel.  Of ONE thing I am VERY, VERY sure:  THIS IS STRICTLY A DESCRIPTION OF HOW I WRAP MY HEAD AROUND IT.  IT IS NOT AN EFFORT TO PREACH OR SWAY.  I am convinced that we each, separately and individually, must build a relationship with God that is inherently distinct and different.  The way I know God cannot be the way you know Him/ Her.  The purpose of sharing is to awaken insight, to define by comparison, to weave our journeys together into a Divine Tapestry.

I profoundly agree that Jesus was sent to Earth to solidify that bond between God and Man; I think Jesus was "sucked up" as a living being into the heavens, the realm of God.  I think it just might be possible that God needed some "flesh" to cement/ create/ validate/ "magic-ify" that very real connection between our physical selves and our spiritual selves.  Almost like God needed a piece of "dirt" to make the connection happen?  I actually saw a show about the Shroud of Turin on the History Channel Easter weekend that kinda led me to this same place.  The whole point/ connection of the show is tat we live in a "2 dimensional" world while an "invisible 3-dimensional" world exists around us...  It left both me and my 5 year old unable to sleep because it touched something profound...

But I have some conflict about the linear nature of time.  I am pretty sure that time is a physical? construct.  I am not sure what the best word is... We clearly see the effects of time here, in this world.  Plants and children grow, new buildings go up, old practices die, empires wax and wane, and mountains diminish.  Whether counting seconds or eons, time most certainly passes for us.  But the common belief of heaven is eternity.  We expect to see lost friends and family, to lose all the pain associated with aging bodies and illness.  "No beginning and no end" is a phrase I heard a lot at church as a child.  God simply IS, always has been, always will be... and those ideas are pretty universal between ALL religions.  So does that make time a human construct?  Clearly God does NOT have to obey the "laws" of time; God transcends them...  How can each life exist both "trapped" by time as well as "free" from it?  What would the logistics of that be?

There have been Truths in my life that my deepest being recognizes without reservation.  Convictions that I simply cannot explain to you why I KNOW they are true, except to say that at some place in my core, I recognize them.  Like the term "old soul".  Certainly it seems clear enough, but when I met an Old Soul, it was as if 2 Tetras pieces matched in my heart.  People like Yoda, who just have more insight than one lifetime would seem to allow...  Like the term "kindred spirit".  There are people in my life, through out my life, whom I have "recognized" the very second I saw them.  While I am known to be gregarious upon occasion, it's more than that.  These are people I have instinctively known to not let slip out of my life, or they have kept showing back up in new, odd contexts, or I have been able to share and love them in the time I spent with them, clearly able to connect their presence with a new direction in my life path.  Most CERTAINLY, these are the everyday angels we speak of.  I see it as Proof that I am being woven into the Divine Tapestry, and there is no denying that I recognize these players...

So, I struggled as long as I can remember about trying to decide "why was I here?"  What purpose could this life have?  Why did God spend time combining this selection of matter with the knowledge I posses?  The "typical" teenage questions of "why me?" turned into "why THIS me?"   Why did I have to live in California?  Why did I have to watch my father leave for work every night knowing it was another night he may never return?  Why did I have some people as friends, but not others?  Why did I have to have certain physical ailments that inhibited my lifestyle?  Why did I feel compelled to some choices, but not others when the "logical" examination would not match?  How did I know the day I visited my university that I needed to be there (I still had 5 more to visit)?  Why did drugs and alcohol not look attractive to me?  Why did I always feel like I had to marry my husband, as if there simply was no other man on earth (even when he was a dolt and jack#$% - how did I know that guy was gonna grow up and have exactly what I needed)?  How did my "nurture" combine with my "nature" to create a me?

I came up with 2 answers that Rang True for me:
1) The process of living is the process of learning.  I am here, exactly where I am geographically and in time, because this is the place God needs me to be to learn or do whatever it is He/ She needs me to do.  Too many events in my life, both tragic and triumphant, have worked out P-E-R-F-E-C-T-L-Y for it be other wise.  While it is well and good to say that my upbringing "taught" me to look for silver linings and learn from mistakes, the reality is that I am VERY strong-willed, and have been VERY thick-headed about some decisions.  When I persisted in a path that was NOT my role in the Divine Tapestry, I paid for it.  So every experience I am brought to, every choice that must be made, every door and window that gets knocked on, every rough patch or smooth sailing, all are there to inform me, to teach me, to make me into whatever it is God needs me to be.  I believe in my deepest of hearts that each person is created for the purpose of growth.  How, where and what God's task for them is, is between them & God, but that is why we are here  - to learn.
2) There is WAY more to be learned than can be mastered in one lifetime.  Holy Smack... I have enough on my plate working through what I get dished to even consider the lessons in all the stuff I haven't tried yet!  How can there be SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO many people on Earth, and SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO many different experiences that I could learn from them ALL?!  The magnitude is overwhelming.  Clearly I, this me, the body I am in now, is NOT meant to encompass them all.  I get to learn from my tiny dot in the Big Picture, just like everyone else does (because the Divine Tapestry is not mine.... the plan is bigger...).  How can I reconcile this idea of "old soul", of a "returner", with my conviction that we are each singularly and solitarially exist to complete a distinct spot in the Big Picture we don't see?

This is where the time thing comes in.  What if....?  What if the time does not exist to God?  If Time is "permeable" for God, then all our "manifestations" could be at the same time spiritually even though they are at different times materially...  What if...?  What if God is over "there", and He/ She sends us over to learn, and we don't get it?  Wouldn't He/ She send us back, to try again?  Don't we deserve that chance? But, if time doesn't exist "over there", then couldn't our "second" shot actually be earlier in physical time? or later?  I mean, if you had a Divine Plan, wouldn't you want to mix it up so old souls could teach new souls, or so new souls could remind old souls?  Would you want to have a bunch of novices at the start and then just old fuddy-duds at the end? - But wait, we are saying there IS NO beginning or end.. it's just a continuous looping cycle....

The cyclical nature of time is apparent in the study of history.  We see it in fashion clearly.  James Madison studied it in empires to inform his creation of the Constitution.  Empires wax and wane, and archaeologists are surprised to find ancient civilizations that harnessed similar technologies to today (like flush toilets in Pompei, or aqueducts in the Andes, or the Chinese circumnavigating the globe over 100 years before Europeans did).  We are baffled by mysteries like the Easter Island heads, or the Great Pyramids, or the Anasazi Pueblos...  My Padrino (godfather) and I spoke on the new discoveries being made about ancient civilizations in South America - mummies freeze-dried in the Andes.  And he said to me: And those are the youngest mountains on Earth... IMAGINE THAT!  My soul stirs to be here in Appalachia, and geologists have proven that this range was once connected to the British Isles... Funny how Southern Appalachia found itself settled predominately by the Scotch-Irish... or is it?  My genealogy goes back to Scotland.  What if it's even older than THAT?

Another Dutch Uncle spoke to me about the "path" of souls.  I knew him as a traditional Jew, as in we had to cook Kosher meals when he visited.  I don't know enough about the man or the religion to tell you how these ideas fit into his relationship with God, but he described to me a book he'd read that proposed that souls travel through time, through existences, as "family groups" - that we keep seeing each other again in new relationships, working out new ways to know and care for one another.  Funny that he instinctively knew that I would be receptive to that idea when he knew my parents would not.  Interesting that a man who does not and wishes to never have children, an academic who served in the Army with my father, a man who certainly has been a blessing to me and my family even though I have been in his presence maybe 20 times my whole life felt compelled to share that idea.  Even more amazing how as soon as he said it, I felt the words become... solid, for lack of a better description... in my very core. I had the physical sensation of seeing Truth. (Boy, I wish I could explain that better.)

I sought to learn about and compare many religions, trying to find the grains of Truth that comparison would highlight - something MANY people do, academics and not. There are connections I made about peace and conflict, about sharing and hospitality, about learning and progress that I am not even listing here.

And then I had an Autistic son.  He CLEARLY has some insights and abilities that are ... untraditional :)

I will go into ESP stuff later, but he has orated some incredible thoughts about God.  Understand that he was baptized in a traditional Lutheran Church, and that while my husband accepts that I know God in my way, he does expect his children to meet God in a traditional way, in the ELCA, with all the ceremonies and common experiences that entails.  We go to Church on most Sundays, we have only ever attended ELCA (Traditional) Lutheran churches or Episcopal churches with our children, we do VBS and Sunday School, have many books on bible stories and I use Christian biblical parables to help explain concepts and set rules for my children.  I have told him on MANY, MANY occasions that his differences are a gift to him from God, that he is distinct because he needs to not hide his light under a basket, that only by being exactly who he is can he be a part of the Body of Christ, play his role in the whole being of God's plan.  We have discussed that God is loving and forgiving, and more powerful than anything else, that Our God is a God of Love, that God is Love, and that love should guide every decision he ever makes, big or small.  We have talked about stewardship, and that God created the plants and animals for us to manage, and use - that it is OK for us to eat living things as long as we are thankful for the gift of that life, and wise and kind in managing it.  (Yes, before the age of  7 we have had some all out battles about not being "able" to eat meat or plants because they are alive.  You tell me what he is "sensing"...)  But there are many times when he will offer a rebuttal to our exhortations, tearfully, intensely describing to us how what we are saying about God cannot be true...

He tells us that God does not "exist" because, He is broken into tiny pieces that are inside each and every person.  My son asks us how God can be bigger than his nightmares when He is broken into tiny pieces...
He tells us that God is not "powerful" because, we are God, so how can He be stronger than we already are...

Mostly the arguments are about the "size" of God, whether or not he is "big", but there have been lots of discussions about eating or using living things....  It is easy and nice to academically dismiss these statements, his passion, as an acute misunderstanding of an underdeveloped mind - that he is just too young and cannot comprehend the magnitude of life - that he is trying to make sense of all the disparate chunks/ pieces he hears, those paradoxes of Christianity.

But what if....?  What if I were to entertain the notion that his insights are valid, that he is compelled to share them to help inform MY understanding, just as I am compelled to show him how I know God?  What if he has touched on an understanding that is Truth is his heart?

This is where the "psychic"/ "intuitive" piece comes into play.  I will elaborate on specific experiences we have had in another post, but I have witnessed evidence that my son can touch the minds of others, that he can communicate without his body, and that he touches/ sees a reality that is beyond?/ above?/ next to? where he physically exists.
 Sometimes the stuff he says is like a sci-fi novel... and what if it's True?  

On Grief, Guilt & Grace

I have had this odd thought for a while now, and recently read several posts from various circles about how special needs parents feel that brought this idea into focus.  While clearly each one of us, as blogging special needs parents, is finding sharing with the communities we've built here cathartic, it becomes clear there is a pattern here.  A post will come up about parenting guilt, and 2 days later one will come up about special needs grief, and 2 days later there will be one about seeing the blessings, and 2 days later guilt will show up again.  Even though each of us works through our thoughts, out emotions with this (basically) public journaling, it doesn't seem like we are "through"... it keeps coming back.  It's as though the grief, the guilt, the finding joy through the pain is a ...constant, as though we just keep seeing more reasons to keep going through that process over and over again.

So here's my crazy idea, and maybe you can see if I am off base in this association with the guilt/ grief/ grace cycle.  There's lots of background story building here (in typical Asperger's fashion, I cannot assume that my "common sense" is entirely "common"), so bear with me:

I consider myself a Christian, but it is probably safest to say that I am "non-denominational" since what my heart/ soul perceives as Truths are not commonly held in the modern Christian church, but I DO believe that basic tenet of Christianity:  Jesus was the Divine incarnate, the Son of God here on this Earth, and that he was a living sacrifice for the sins of all people, and that he conquered death and ascended into heaven.  I am absolutely convinced of that as a Truth, so lets start there.  One of the most quoted versus is that "...He gave His only son...".  One of the things I admire about the Christian Bible is that it goes out if it's way to tell parables, to put ideas into a context that demonstrates the idea in action, uses a language that would be familiar to its hearers.  While I certainly identified with the story-telling as a child, I really figured it out when I had a nursing infant and the reading at church used language describing how man seeks God like a nursing infant seeks a mother.  Oh yeah - now that was understand able.  Then I realized that even the language of the "only child" was supposed to elicit that level of understanding.

Certainly Isaac had an only child to sacrifice, and God spared him (both), but it is easy to keep that barrier between you and the story, to think "well, I am not THAT faithful, so I do not identify with Isaac".  But in the New Testament, it's about God's son.  A son who saw his share of danger and threat as an infant, and yet was able to survive to adulthood - he got through the "worst".  Worst, you say?  This is where the historical perspective comes in.  Think very, very carefully about your own family histories... my grandfather was one of 7 living children.  My great grandmother was one of 13.  My grandmother has an infant sister in the family plot, my husband has an infant brother buried in the family plot.  I was surprised how many miscarriages there are (because people don't tell you until you are pregnant/ a parent - they just don't identify that information with you).  Why so many children?  Sure, we can talk about farm economies and free labor, but the Truth:  most families lost a child before they grew to adulthood.  This, today, the current generation is the first generation to believe that parents should outlive all their children, ever, in history.  We have "eradicated" childhood diseases that kill and maim, we protect them with softer playgrounds, and closer supervision, and protective gear.  I would say that public discourse makes it clear that parents are supposed to die first.  The public coverage of things like children being kidnapped or missing just proves that.  I remember hearing/ reading many, many times the lament that a parent should never outlive a child.  Yet that is EXACTLY what God does.  His child survives that dangerous, questionable period of childhood, and then his "life's work" takes him in the "line of fire".

Now I grew up in a police officer's household.  My dad worked as a street cop in Los Angeles for 25 years.  He was on the streets during the Watts Riots and the Rodney King Riots, he lost a tooth in a gang fight, and I don't even know what else (he is trying to protect me from that reality).  I can only now imagine how my grandmother felt, but I can tell you that as a kid, we knew the risks he took, and we accepted them as part of him, part of the package that made him into what he was meant to be.  He was an adult, making the conscious choice to endanger himself for the sake of others.  It's kind of a "love me, love my flaws" kind of thing.  God made Jesus to die, and Jesus owned it, he chose the mantle.  Good man; he's got the gonads to own his purpose. That's Jesus's contribution to the event, to carrying the sin.

Does that make losing a child easier? I have not yet lost an adult child, so I don't know.  I deeply honor the sacrifice of other officers and military personnel.  Theirs is a road I did not choose; I did not step up to that burden.  But I have watched my infant die in my hands.  The baby came back with resuscitation, but he DID die.  The burden came to me.  And Lord, the guilt and grief!  I replay the whole incident nearly weekly now, after 7 years, admonishing myself for not giving the rescue breaths sooner, for not knowing how to get to the hospital faster, looking for whatever I could have done to have prevented and lessened the impact.  It doesn't help, AT ALL.  I have finally come to the conclusion there is nothing I could have done differently (though, of course, my heart does not accept that), that it was "meant to be" - that it was an event that helped shape who we are as a family.  The grief part is in the later development.  The neurologist told us that that oxygen deprivation probably triggered the autism, and my child turned into an alien.  I remember asking my husband and my mother, "Where is my son?!  What happened to the child I knew?"  I see that same lament over and over in MANY autism parenting books, & blogs, & comments.  I had to know it was OK to grieve from a stranger before I allowed myself to do so.  And I have worked very, very hard to alleviate that grief with advocacy.  I have tried very, very hard to watch my little alien and try to bring the world to him and him to the world, to be the liaison, the interface, the interpreter, the facilitator, the warrior mommy, and also to give him space (more than many are comfortable with) to create his own terms with the world.

I can NOW understand MUCH better this idea that God gave up His only son, that he saw a success sacrificed, that he turned his living son into an "alien"  - and there are many ways to look at that.  And I NOW understand how to love an alien, how love is GREATER than whatever else, why Jesus says that the new commandment is to "love your neighbor as yourself".  I can justify that I am an alien too, that we are all weird in our own ways, that we each survive in our own peculiar perceptions of reality, but the Truth is that justification does NOT change that LOVE IS BIGGER THAN THAT!

And this is only a "Christian" spin on that insight, my personal history trying to come to terms with my personal experiences.  There is a LARGE group of people in this autistic community that have a more nebulous (to me), more "fringe group" type of understanding of this same Truth.  They talk about UNCONDITIONAL LOVE, and how it will set you free, and you will be able to see and harness energies around you and through you.  It's "intuitive" or "psychic" or even "telepathic" for some.  And I can say that I have seen events justifying all those ideas in our Autism Journey too!  (I'll try to give examples later.)

SO, my point is that the spiritual nature of this "Autism Thing" is undeniable.  There is a Divine purpose to the event.  An autism diagnosis, or a family member touched by it, or even public discourse about the condition, these things are divinely purposeful, even if the hearer is fighting the significance.  I can tell you how it has played into MY faith journey, and I am seeing lots of other parents demonstrate how it is playing into theirs in their blogs and stories.  The vocabulary we are using is about guilt, grief and grace.  The stories are each singular, each specific, but there are universal themes.  Just like parables...

How humbling to think I am living my parable, the one story that will help me see the main idea...

I hope my insights help you see your parable...

On Weird

Several blogs have brought "weirdness" to the discussion.  I am thinking that is a bandwagon I can definitely ride, maybe even provide the rousing chorus that keeps it rolling :)

These are the odd things, the unique things, the weird things that define me... some of them are the things that lead me to believe I am Asperger's, but I have come to learn that ALL of them are the things that convince me that God made me to be ME, and no one else, so that I am equipped to fill the niche He has made for me.  I could have come to that conviction in self-defense, true, but my experience has shown me that there is a core singularity that defies my best efforts to train it differently... a weirdness that is inherent to me.

For me, definition is all about context.  Know that I come from a long and honorable line of crazy people.  My father worked 30+ years as a police officer in Los Angeles (as if THAT isn't crazy!) and I learned that law enforcement/ first responder people have a pretty crazy sense of funny.  Lots of practical jokes, lots of finding the absurd in tragedy (I think it is what allows them to compartmentalize and deal with the gross realities they see).  Things like kidnapping the station dog and dying him pink, or putting old perfume in the windshield washer jets and turning them to face out, or the gross stuff, like finding the dismembered reproductive organ of a train-pedestrian victim ready for action ("It must have been a GOOD dream").  There were LOTS of stories. But they didn't come from no where.  My dad and uncle nearly killed their uncle when they put popcaps in his cigarettes - they were lit while he was laying down, so he lost all his chest hair.

Of course he came by that naturally.  My grandmother (his mother) once ran out of gas 3 times in one day.  First she called her husband, and he brought her 1 gallon and told her to go to the gas station. She forgot, so about 20 minutes later she called her father, who brought her one gallon of gas and told her to go directly to the gas station.  She got sidetracked.  Within the next hour she called her brother.  By that time the men had spread the word and they didn't take her gas, they went and picked up the kids....  She also loved BRIGHT color.  In my father's childhood apartment she painted their basement kitchen "day-glow orange" as my father called it.  The fire department came 3 times because neighbors reported a house fire seen through the basement windows.  I was VERY worried about what she would wear to my wedding.  Her tastes were.... eclectic.  She knew I wanted her to dress "conservatively", so she went and bought a fuzzy pink suit... yes, eye-lash fabric in pale baby pink in a well tailored suit.  It was pretty horrific.  I convinced her that I did not want her to feel so repressed, so she wore a pale blue sun dress with florescent green shoes. (Feet aren't in pictures.)

And the stories about my uncle.. whooo-heee.  Looking back, it is CLEAR that he is ADHD at least.  He is VERY social, but he is very..... salty?  A living TMI, if you know what I mean. And he taught us how to cheat at cards.

My mother's family is somewhat more refined, but after my grandmother's death we found that to be more farce than reality.  My mother has her own issues.  I will not dwell on them, because I am not really at peace with them, but I can tell stories about her family! :)  Both her parents were chemists, on the Manhattan Project.  My grandmother was a chemist on the Manhattan Project.  She convinced a small town banker in Georgia to give her a personal loan for a college degree in the 1930's.   She was a pilot in the 30's and 40's.  My grandfather forced her to meet him by setting her sweater on fire in the lab.  They were well known in their circle of academics as the destination for luaus and happy hours.  And his family... we just found a genealogy record in my grandmother's stuff recording that my grandfather's father's family had been so tight-knit that they had a secret family language, and spouses were not allowed to learn it.

Clearly the oddness, the weird goes back FAAAAAAR here.  I tell you, if you want to know weird, do genealogy!  Some other highlights are that we are related to the famous "cattle rustler" Rob Roy McGregor, and to Captain John Smith of Jamestown (by marriage), and my parents are 34th cousins.  There was a man who had a wife in 3 different counties, spelled his name differently in each county, named the first born son in all three families after himself.

So, I am weird too.  I was identified "gifted" in 2nd grade (when we moved out of a Montessori school).  I was in a magnet school, with other "gifted" kids, but that did NOT make me normal by comparison!  I spent almost every recess sitting out, doing all the written work I just could NOT get done in class.  This happened right through grade school.  Middle school is tough, but for me the "weird" felt right. I was BIG into Girl Scouting (my best friend called it our "church meeting" so other kids wouldn't think she was weird).  I got into the Academic Decathlon.  That is exactly what it sounds like... TONS of studying to take a Saturday to go take 8 multiple choices tests, perform a judged speech and do a game-show-type quiz.  I thought it was AWESOME, but soon discovered that most others did not.  I loved it.  I did that right through High School. It got even un-cooler (until the other kids realized how good it looked on a college application).

Our family life was "weird".  My dad worked the graveyard shift most of his life.  He slept all day while we were at school (we had to play outside quietly after-school), and we all had dinner together at 8:30 pm.  My friends in high school were appalled that I had to be home for an 8:30 dinner... but eventually they all just started joining us for dinner, so it must have been a "good weird".  The sitting all together, the having a blessing, the discussing world history, the raucous jokes (usually at my expense since I was the blonde - that is my prescribed role in the play, with the knowledge that I was a Master rope splicer in the regional Girl Scout competition and had a 4.0+ GPA.  You know, I was gullible - too literal - and they apparently thought it was amusing to watch me turn colors when I got worked up about something), and the awesome international fare my mom has mastered. (She was in her sorority's Gourmet Cooking Club.)

And then there is our family hobby: Cowboy Action Shooting.  Hear of that?  Check out SASS - the Single Action Shooting Society.  It is a global sport of target shooting with historic firearms.  Basically we dress up and play cowboys.  Everyone is a character - no real names.  For a historical re-enactment group, it's pretty open.  People are actual characters (Annie Oakley), or fictional characters (Snidely), or farcical characters (Flint Westwood), and everything in between.  We started going to these events when I was 5.  I won a marble spitting contest at 5 years old.  In high school I had a scholarship interview the weekend of a big shoot - so I went in my 1880's bustle gown - a replica from a historic pattern, in a color suited to me, of course, made by my mother & I.  I bet they thought THAT was weird.  The stories there are eeennnndddllleeessss.... trust me.  Re-enactors OWN history, even when they are being flippant about it; it become an obsession.  And yes, my obsession is history.  Usually clothing and children's games, but I tend to get into most anything - looking for connections with my family's past.

And then I grew up and got weirder.  I mean I tell myself all the time that I am going through all the life events that everybody else does, but it's pretty obvious my path is solely my own...  I splatter painted my kitchen cabinets (love it!).  I have a serious fabric habit.  My favorite color is plaid!  I prefer dinner foods, even for breakfast.  Bell peppers and celery make me burp for hours, but I can eat a curry with no problem.  I had a hard time adjusting to layers of clothes when I moved to the colder East Coast (I feel like a snow man when I am in more than 2 layers - like I have no joints), so I tend to shed clothing more than some people are used to.  I think it is safe to say I have absolutely no modesty (there is a story there about my grandmother too!  The first time my mother ever saw her future mother-in-law, my grandmother was running naked through the forest. True.)  I have followed an odd career path that has led me to exactly where I need to be... using unconventional methods to teach an Asperger's son at home.  At the age of 35 I became a lifeguard and a challenge course facilitator - jobs for college kids.  My joints do not take to it well all days.

There are other peculiarities.  I am probably the worst house-keeper known to man (at least according to my mother & husband).  I can't eat til I have been awake for at least 1 hour or I get sick.  Unless I am deathly ill, I can't sleep through the night, never have.  I cannot STAND closed toed shoes - wool socks & sandals all winter.  I wear my underwear inside out so the seam will not bother me (actually my best friend noticed that one on a Girl Scout camping trip).  I talk to my dog empathically (I know that is hard to prove, but I don't have to - he doesn't make you have to pee when he wants you to wake up.)  I have some pretty odd ideas about the space-time continuum and how God permeates it.

Yes. I AM WEIRD.  The secret is to OWN IT.  Be odd, be strange, be unconventional, be unexpected.  If you own it, people don't question it, they RESPECT it.  As long as you are honest and act from a place of love, weird is GOOD, probably divinely created.


And this isn't ALL of it!.. there is more about it in the next post...
If I could figure out how to do the links in the text, I would. I will get that done later - I promise...

We went to a movie...

We were lucky enough to see The Lorax this weekend.  While it did open this weekend and many, many people got to see it, our viewing was a very special event.  We were visiting our grandparents and cousins out-of-state and were invited to join our cousin’s Cub Scout pack for a special screening.  It turns out that the town is so small that the theatre had to get the movie from another town and had permission to use it for only a matter of hours.  We actually saw the theatre owners put the giant reel in their van to take back.  It was amazing to feel like we were let in on such a special secret, such an exclusive opportunity.  While yes, we could have carted the kids to a bigger town and felt like part of the general public, it was awesome to see what lengths a small town mom-and-pop joint used to ensure that kids in their town didn’t get to miss an opportunity.  It was powerful to see what trouble they had experienced to make that screening happen - especially since it was very inexpensive and included popcorn & drink for every kid.  They put their time and their money where their mouth was.

      So the movie was AWESOME.  It was very powerful.  The themes are not new, and certainly not the story (published 1971).  The use of musical numbers to make a point is not novel either, but the movie was GREAT.  Even my husband was in tears at the end (don’t tell him I saw!).  The message of stewardship for our earth was clear (as Wikipedia reports is the point) and accurate.  A good look at history will show you that industrialism has taken its resources for granted – often.  Whether it’s taking the viewpoint that natural resources and raw materials are endless or taking advantage of the workforce, Industrialism, and the industrial economy system tends to lead to excessivism and callousness.  The whole idea of a market economy is that the balance is reached after the demand has been exceeded. We have seen this cycle repeated since the Age of Exploration – tribes in Africa stealing members from each other to be sold into a global workforce that grew and processed sugar on plantations that drove local peoples and ecosystems into extinction, master workmen driven to abandon expertise for interchangeable parts, turn-of-the-century industrialists consolidating businesses vertically and/ or horizontally so that economies-of-scale would allow volume to turn profit even when underselling… the Roaring Twenties boom had to be evened out by the Great Depression, an economic “depression” that reflected industry’s (Wall Street’s) excess “greed” and overextension of natural resources (Dust Bowl) making a depression in our hearts and souls as well as our pocketbooks (ensuring I come from a long and honorable line of hoarders – waste not, want not).

The modern age has conversations about these concerns, sure, and has found improved ways to address some of them.  The 4-H was established as the arm of the USDA to bring “scientific health” back to farming practices (but not stop cash crop farming…), and the Scouting movements (established 1910 and 1912) were designed to combat the moral starvation of a youth left unable to contribute to their family’s economies (child labor laws and white collar work left children with out a role in society).  The Lorax was written at the height of environmentalism, when we finally began entertaining a public discourse on what our stewardship responsibilities really are in this industrial economy.   Forests do need to be replanted, and harvested carefully.  The trade off between the value of a raw material and the impact of collecting it need to be weighed thoughtfully (which the mining industry is doing).  I would argue that the current “Occupy” movement relates directly to the 9-11 terror attacks that saw the middle class (white collar workers) sacrificed (every individual lost was a person who had invested time and money into improving themselves, finding that exact niche that led them to that sought-after job.  Yet they were all replaceable.  Even New York’s finest and bravest have not been manned-down.  Businesses are not losing money; the city is still safe; how valuable were those lives? WARNING: do NOT read into that statement – you don’t know what happened to me on that day.  When I get the strength to write it, I’ll put up another post about it.  I only intend to make the reader think deeply.)

I think that we are approaching another point in history where we are looking in the mirrors and realizing that we are just specks, and we are trying to find significance.   Modern discourse is full of it.  We are all looking for the right labels to wear, whether they are racial or ethnic, or regional, or disabled.  Lord knows my experience in the autism community has shown this.  Lately the argument is what kind of autism you’ve got (the one comparing the Harry Potter jelly beans?).  The parenting books are about Mean Girls, or Jocks, or Geeks, or whatever subset of cultural identification you remember from high school.  Parents classify themselves as Soccer Moms, or Homeschoolers, or Warrior Parents, or Working Moms, or Single Parents, or Organic.  Even in country music I have heard an effort to solidify that sense of identity and classification – Red Necks can be any working class person, Camouflage is the national color of the South, and country folks can survive (again, I will post more about this later – but I would argue that we have seen a growing dynamic between rural and urban America through this generation – it’s visible even in our electoral maps).   We use these labels in our politics commonly, because democracy requires collectivism, but we don’t keep them there, we look for them in all aspects of our lives, and we ask our kids to too; its how modern culture works.

How is it that I am watching this movie about clear cutting forests and am moved to tears when we have stopped that practice and replanted them?  We have been teaching for years that clear-cutting is evil – showing the burning in the Amazon by satellite when I was a kid, including environmental science in our curriculums (my 1^st grade state standards this year include it), seeing it as I road tripped through the West and the South.  What could have been in this movie that was powerful?  The message in The Lorax seems to be clear, but like most Great Authors there is depth to Dr. Seuss’s message, and all the characters get to grow.

“Unless someone like you

Cares a whole awful lot,

It’s not going to get better.

No, it’s not”

      This limerick says nothing about seeds or trees, or mystical creatures… it specifically talks about YOU CARING.  It’s that simple, and that complicated.  Who needs to do something? YOU.  It starts with yourself, not with making someone else do it, not with watching someone else do it, not with “we all do it together”, YOU have to do it.  The subject, the one committing the action has to be YOU.  What is it that you need to do? CARE.  The action verb here is CARE.  The only qualification here is “a lot”.  Not be empathetic, not walk away, not pretend you don’t know, not give up, but CARE DEEPLY.  And what does caring a lot lead to? BETTER!

      The place where contention comes up is the “what”, we argue incessantly about what you are supposed to care about.  REALLY?!  It can’t matter, because the subject is YOU, not me! Don’t you think that it is very likely that we truly ARE made with different gifts, with different abilities, with different passions for a reason?  It is possible that I am the only one who is right, but it is far more likely that God made us each to be a different “part of the body of Christ”, a different piece of humanity, because

We only fit together when our shapes are different, not repetitive.

The call to action is: YOU CARE DEEPLY – live passionately in that thing that drives you to a passion.  Surely God made YOU to do that job, to be the one who will fit that niche, to CARE enough to make it better!  The differences are the Gift, the thing that lets you be the one whose caring makes it better! 

            There is CLEARLY still work to be done in the world!  The Lorax shows that, not just with a Once-ler who saves a seed from a world he destroyed, but also the boy whose love for a girl is strong enough to drive him to fight the whole world for her dream.  In the end of the movie, the characters sing about how they all agree to plant the seed, but each does so for a different reason!  YOU CARE DEEPLY – that is your job, and when you care deeply for that thing that you are driven to care for, then Divine Will is met, and the Great Plan will come together, and we will ALL be glorified in our differences that create a whole!  We all need someone to stand up to bullies, someone who is gifted at fixing machines, someone who is excellent at giving hugs, someone who makes us think really hard, someone to help us.  Don’t you find that every person in your life offers you a different strength, a singular gift?

            I am begging you, please care deeply, because unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, it’s not going to get better.  No, it’s not.