To Give Him a Super Power

Our family is a story family. When my daughters were two and three years old, we began creating our own family mythology. We invented Teddy and Marianne, the child jockeys; Ricky the Ostrich and his magnificent submarine; Cowboy Pete and his fearless deputy, Rocky Raccoon (my apologies, Mr. McCartney, sir). Those characters became woven into our family lore. There have been theme songs, illustrations, and even clay figurines. Cowboy Pete is like an uncle!

As the girls grew into teenagers, their little brothers began requesting stories of their own. At their age, they don’t just want to hear a story, they want to star in one. So naturally, I gave them the Super Brothers. Super Sam (age seven) leads his team of crime fighting siblings with his super strength and indestructibility, and Tackle Boy Nate (age four) provides comic relief and epic, climactic thumpings of the bad guys and their vehicles.

I was sitting next to their bed on the night of that first story when Sam asked the inevitable question:

“Dad, what’s Jack’s super power?”

I swallowed. The first two Super Brothers practically wrote themselves. They were caricatures. Sam wants nothing more in life than to be the mighty, noble protector. Nathan just wants to crack jokes and knock things over. But Jack… what does he want? I mean, besides a viewing of Monsters University at three in the morning. What does he really want?

I’ve gotten lost in that mystery too many times to number: when a burst of laughter escapes him with no apparent cause; when he flaps his lanyards in front of a glowing blue screen; when he stands in front of me trying to make his mouth work in his favor—trying to tell me…something. And again, my mind calls back to Bono’s haunting lyric, “I want to trip inside your head, spend the day there… I want to see your thoughts take shape and walk right out.”

As the author of the Super Brothers story, I knew I had the power to give Jack a voice. But would that be right? Would that be (dare I ask of a children’s bedtime story) ethical?

It sounds like a petty consideration, I know, but believe me, in the world of autism, all roads lead to identity. Implications lay like land mines, even in the story world. My thinking went something like this: Autism is not a disease. It is, for better or for worse, a part of who Jack is. But is it all of who he is? Would the removal of symptoms constitute a fundamental change in personhood? And if so, doesn’t that get us right back where we started before the awareness campaigns began? Wouldn’t it mean we are once again defining our beloved children by the things they cannot do?

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My other children are constantly changing, and yet they remain, wholly and beautifully, themselves.

Jenna, my thirteen year old, used to have the cutest lisp. She couldn’t say her “R”s, and we all loved it. You might even say it was part of who she was. But then one day, she started speaking with perfect precision, and she hasn’t stopped talking since. To date, Jenna is still Jenna.

This has happened with all our kids, hundreds of times, and we never bat an eye, because we see the world with storytellers eyes: characters grow, learn, change, advance, relapse, and overcome. Characters are fluid. They encounter conflict and failure; they rise to the occasion and they fall flat; they despair and they save the day. Sometimes they even use their super powers.

So I made a decision. I gave “story Jack” the ability to speak. All it would do, I decided, was give him an avenue to express what was already inside him, autism and all, and believe me, he has lots inside him.

But I didn’t leave it there. I gave him something he already has, and exaggerated it.

“Jack has golden socks, and when he flaps them, a strong wind comes that blows away the bad guys.”

The little brothers gaped. “Whoa! Flapping power? Awesome!”

I continued, my mind racing. “And when he flaps them at the ground, it pushes him high into the air, and he can go wherever he wants to.”

“Jack can fly?”

Yes. Jack can fly. And when it’s time to rain justice down on the great ice cream capers of Junction City, Super Sam and Tackle Boy Nate will latch onto the shoulders of their big brother Flap Jack, and together, they will fly high over the trees until they see that particular black pickup truck hightailing it out of town. Because if he could, I believe Jack would do that for his brothers. He would take them anywhere, and he would use his powerful stims to bail them out of their boyish recklessness.

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On warm afternoons, we can hear crashing and squealing sounds seeping in from the back yard as Sam and Nathan reenact their adventures from the night before. I open the door a crack, and see them running up to their big brother who is flapping at the sky, lost in his own thoughts as always.

“Hey Jack, you just saved us! Good job, Flap Jack!”

He eyes them, then turns his back to resume his business, just as they return to theirs. They remain undaunted by his dismissals. Visions of hope will do that, I think. They will make allowances for temporal winces. Acts one and two are always filled with trouble, after all. Today, there may be rejections and silences, and even self injuries and wanderings. It’s hard. It might get a lot harder.

But tomorrow, who knows? Those villains might be vanquished with a single gust of wind. The Author of this story is far more creative than I, and He alone knows the storehouse of abilities locked inside our boy. We will see them. Some day, we will see them. But for now, we don’t just wait; we imagine.


Photos by our dear friend Anne Nunn.

A Reflection of Aching Joy (A Poem for Jack)

Update: The Facebook version of this video went viral, hitting 1 million views in 4 days, and going on to get over a million more. On the original thread, scores of parents began posting photos of their own autistic children; their “beloveds.” It was a beautiful and inspiring thing. You can visit that thread and add to it here.


This is an original poem and video that I made with my buddy Robert. He’s an extremely talented photographer and composer, and he just got a drone, which we put to good use on the magnificent Seal Rock beach in Oregon. I hope it gives you a better glimpse not only into my inner world, but into the life and personality of Jack. I’ll paste in the text below.

A Reflection of Aching Joy

What do the waves mean, son of mine?
These swells of salty outrage
Over which name tag you ought to pin to your chest:
Are you autistic? Or do you have autism?
Or are you merely affected by this condition,
This blessing or this blight?
With ever shifting definitions?
Who’s right?
I don’t know, and I’m weary of caring.

What do the waves mean, son of mine?
I watch you play tag
With those frigid foam daydreams
As they grow and progress to your toes,
And for an instant, I see them—
Sandcastle Visions
of a typical future.
The kind with graduations
and nuptuals and…
simple conversation about summertime.
But the wave retreats… Recedes… Regresses…
And again your voice is lost in recesses
Of silent staring at meaningless crashes
Of water upon on the sand.

What do the waves mean, son of mine?
I watch you flap your hands
In sines and in cosines,
Over shapes and colors sending shocks of sheer delight.
We’ve tried to flap them with you,
But the magic eludes us,
Our experience excludes us,
From the poems of your palms
And the fables of your fingertips.

What do the waves mean, son of mine?
The brain doctor shrugs at the ripples in your scans.
What mysteries lie beneath
The tranquil surface of your sea?
Are they epileptic jolts
That still your tongue
From singing those melodies you can now only hum?

Sometimes I flail in these oceans uncharted,
And sometimes I swallow the sea
But oh, my dear boy,
How you dog paddle!
Can you teach me how to wade these waters
with winsome eyes
And a laughing chin?
Can you show me how to swim
Shirtless and shameless
In my own pasty skin?
Can I, too, blink away
the incessent splashes
And errant sprays
That haggle over your name?

Because you are not a disorder, my son,
Not a blue puzzle piece
On a clinical spectrum.
But neither are you normal,
You’re a piece of God’s own daydreams
A reflection of aching joy.
No, you’re not normal.
You are… beloved.

#Blessed in the Land of Unanswered Prayer

Yesterday, I read this heartfelt post by Phoebe Holmes, the blogger behind Herding Cats. Like me, Phoebe is the parent of special needs child, lives in the Pacific Northwest, and laments the exuberant overuse of hashtags. Here is an excerpt:

I see this all the time. People who are all “God answers prayers!” and hashtagging photos with things like #miracles and #blessed and all that. And I can’t help myself, I roll my eyes.

… And I wonder… what must they think of us? I mean, if praying to God fixes things in their life, what am I doing wrong? Why is Maura still the way she is? Why didn’t God answer my prayers with her?

I wonder, do they all thing I’m not praying right? That I’m not a good enough Christian? I mean, back in the day, if you had a child with some sort of problem, it was seen as a punishment from God for the sins of the parents. Do they think my child’s health status is because of a lousy prayer life? That I should find Jesus and have a talk with Him about things, and then poof! My daughter is healed.

Good stuff, right? I mean, you might not agree, but she gets full marks for honesty. Haven’t we all felt this way?

There are two issues she raises that I want to address: the  meaning of “blessed,” and the implications of unanswered prayer.

First, I am going to come right out and say that I am blessed, but not in the way you might think. My life is far from perfect. I have experienced my share of heartache and hardship, and I’m still waiting for God to answer my prayers for my Jackson.

Even with those prayers unanswered, however, I still say I’m blessed.

After all, I have Jackson. He’s my son. I’ve got four other amazing kids, too, and a wife who has stuck with me for seventeen years. I also have a steady job, a house, and I live in one of the prettiest places anywhere. And you know what I’ve done to be so blessed? Nothing. I don’t deserve any of it.

Does that mean God is biased toward me? Certainly not. It is unfortunate that so many people think He rolls that way:  their business is doing well, so God must be endorsing their practice; their kids are healthy, so they must have prayed for the right amount of time; they experience an unexplainable positive turn of events–a miracle, even–so God must like them extra.

It’s just not true. God doesn’t play favorites. “The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.”

Rain is a blessing for parched crops, but a curse for flooded streets. In short, there are too many factors we can’t see. We didn’t call down sickness or neurological disorders on our children, and neither do we pull down a forcefield of health and riches. Reality is far more complicated than that. Life just happens sometimes.

When I say I am blessed, I simply mean I am thankful. Most people do, I think. If every good and perfect gift really does come from the Father of Lights like the scripture says, I can look for all the good things in my life and marvel with gratitude. In fact, as a believer, this is my responsibility.

When Jesus used the word “blessed” in His famous beatitudes, He was making an even greater point: God’s face is turned toward all of us. His kingdom has come even to the poor, the mourners, and the persecuted. All of us are #blessed.

So why the unanswered prayers? Why does my blogger friend feel so forgotten by a God who is supposed to be good above all things? Why has my Jackson’s language gone away again? Why is there epilepsy? Why bloodshed? Why cancer? Why AIDS? Why terror and hate?

My answer, I admit, is radically unsatisfying:

I don’t know why.

I don’t know why it pours when it rains. I don’t understand the flooding. I don’t know why this one gets breakthrough while that one doesn’t. But I know we can’t pull a lever and win his favor. As C.S. Lewis reminds us, “it isn’t as if He was a tame Lion.”

So I stand next to Phoebe with shoulders slumping at all the death, all the sickness, all the brokenness of this world, and all the brokenness inside my own heart. I want it all fixed. I want God to put it back together. And on the great day of resolution, I believe He will.

For now, though, on this side of eternity, we go on grappling. We research. Like the persistent widow, we ask, then we ask again. We pray and keep on praying. Who knows? Maybe He will finally answer us with an unexpected breakthrough. If that happens to us, we ought to celebrate. It’s only right. Hashtags away!

But what if it doesn’t happen for us? What if it happens for someone else? Herein lies the challenge.

We will want to roll our eyes, to torpedo their hashtags, to resent their gain, as if it has anything to do with our loss. That link, however, exists only in our minds. We can’t pin our disappointment on the joyful.

The Apostle Paul offers a different course of action. He says to “rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” Who would have thought the rejoicing part would be the harder of the two?

No, it isn’t easy, but there is a new strength that comes when we celebrate one another’s victories. It is a painful brand of thanksgiving, but it is worth it. Community is born out of such sacrifice. Family happens here.

And when the party is over, when the “congratulations” comment threads die down, we can return to God to remind Hm of all the things left undone.

“God, I am still hurting. Still waiting. What’s taking You so long? Do you still see me?” God invites us there, to that raw and prayerful place, so we can pour out all our frustrations, all our anger, all our confusion. Our complaints might come out like David’s poems, complete with the snot and the vitriol and the cursing. That’s okay. God meets us there anyway. The Comforter can only sooth our aching places when we actually admit to having aching places.

Indeed, that is where He meets me. And most of the time, His answers comes not in a resolution but in a whisper that recalls the beautiful, throbbing tensions permeating the land of unanswered prayer. Yes, there is pain, but in oh so many ways, I am still blessed.

 

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Photos by my good buddy Robert Bearden

Parenting Dory: An Autism Dad’s Take on Pixar’s Latest Film

I’m a huge Pixar fan, and I was thrilled to hear reports that the Nemo sequel “Finding Dory” was essentially the story of a special needs child. So I took team Hague to watch it this weekend, leaving only Jackson, my 10-year old autistic son, behind. That sounds ironic, I know, but Jackson hates the original film. We think the sharks scared him off. Anyway, we loved the movie, and I want to share my perspective as an autism dad.

Ready? Good. SPOILERS AHOY!

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Dory is, of course, the friend of Nemo and Marlin, and she suffers from short-term memory loss. This film flashes back and forth between Dory’s childhood and her new quest to find her parents.  As a side character in “Finding Nemo,” Dory’s forgetfulness created some delicious hurdles for Marlin, but this time, those memory issues take center stage. The flashbacks were of greatest interest to me. It was amusing to watch Dory continually botch Nemo’s name in the first movie, but it is much harder this time to watch her parents try to protect her in spite of her disability. Dory is an insatiable explorer, after all. A wanderer. This makes her vulnerable, and her parents can only do their best to drill their safety lessons through the gaps in her memory. They can only hope…

These lessons, these endless repetitions, were instantly familiar to me. My heart sank a little as I watched the faces of her parents struggle to stay optimistic, even while their child forgets her instructions for the thousandth time. I get it. All of us with wanderers get it. The dangers outside are all too real. The world is too cruel a place for such innocence.

Dory’s parents know they are swimming upstream in this fight, so they fall back on social stories, hoping that they will be more effective. She has an affinity for shells, so they turn this into therapy, teaching her to follow lines of shells toward home if she ever gets lost. But there is a sense of inevitability in their voices. All they can do is tell her again and again. All they can do is assure her of their love.

But of course, their lessons are not enough. Dory forgets. She gets lost, and the world finds her.

And now no one understands her. She is a foreigner everywhere she goes. “I suffer from short-term memory loss,” she repeats ad nauseum. The fish smile politely, then swim away out of sheer awkwardness.

Indeed, special needs can create a world of awkwardness. Strangers don’t know how to respond. They don’t want to say the wrong thing. So they back away. I’ve seen the way many kids react to Jackson. They look at him sideways, unsure of what to say or do. They are polite, but, you know, it just feels better to be with other kids. Normal kids. Kids who talk and stuff.

But that’s okay. Dory didn’t need a hundred friends. She needed one friend who would stick around. That was Marlin. When she found him and joined his cause something took. He didn’t run away, but became her new reference point. Now, he becomes an ally on her quest.

Our kids, too, need allies. Safe people. They need communities.

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This is community. (Jack being hemmed in by his brothers at the river…

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…and his sisters at Crater Lake.)

 

Yes, of course, all kids need community, but those with special needs need it more. Because, duh, these are special cases. My wife and I are beyond blessed to have such a community with our church family. I don’t know how people possibly get on without one…

But, as we soon learn, even the safest faces can wound a child. In one poignant scene, Marlin loses his patience with Dory’s disability. He snaps at her to go away and forget. “It’s what you do best.” He says it in frustration, not really expecting his words to sink in. She’ll just forget them anyway, right? Except she doesn’t. His words bruise her in a deep place—somewhere in her subconscious. Somewhere below her disability.

This also rang true. Jackson, despite being essentially non-verbal (again…) is listening. Always. And I know he takes in far more than he acknowledges. This remains a sobering consideration: how many times have I lost my cool with him? How many times have I stormed out of the room when his stimms gets too loud, or just thrown down an ugly “go away, kid!” I shudder with shame at the thought. It makes me want to embrace him all the more, and to reassure him time and again that I not only love him, but I also like him. That I take immense pleasure being with him. Those feelings are far more real than any fleeting frustration I might occasionally give into. But words aren’t easily forgotten.

Back to Dory… Soon, images and clues begin to filter through the fog of her memory, providing her clues that advance her cause. The more she remembers, the closer she gets.

This development may be the film’s most subtly subversive theme: Dory’s disability really has been a disability.

It’s not a strength in disguise. Dory’s memory loss has been the obstacle that has kept her from her parents, but now it’s fading, if only a little. And what’s more? Her disadvantage has given rise to a new strength: improvisation. Since Dory hasn’t been able to remember, she acts with her gut, often to great effect.

It’s a good lesson. Sometimes a child’s special needs turn into special strengths. Sometimes. But if these needs were predominately advantageous, then a diagnosis would earn a child a cape rather than a caring, understanding community. Lest we forget, special needs are, first, needs.

In the end, Dory requires more than improvisation to find her parents. She also needs a few good memories to come back, and a few good friends to come along. That combination does it at last: Dory is found. Or rather, Dory finds.

My son’s disability, like Dory’s, is an actual obstacle. It does no good to sentimentalize it.

Something has stilled Jackson’s tongue and confused his brain. We don’t know whether it’s his autism or some form of epilepsy or something else. We’re testing it all right now. But the diagnosis never was the point. My son’s value was never rooted in his abilities in the first place. He is not “special” because of his autism or because of some viral-video-ready talent that has popped up in lieu of communication skills. No, he is special because he’s our son.

Years ago, my wife started a blog which she called “Finding Jackson.” It remains an apt title. Our son’s autism was regressive. He was in full bloom before he went into his fog. And even though he’s broken through that fog in many ways, we are still in the process of finding him. We see the helpless expression on his face every day and miss his conversation. He wants to say more. We can see it on his face. He wants to tell us what troubles him. What delights him. He wants to let us in on his jokes, his irritations, his affections. But his mind just won’t allow his body cooperate.

So what does a special needs parent do? We heap love on him right here. Right where he’s at. And then, we do what Dory’s parents taught her: We “just keep swimming, just keep swimming.” We keep trying to find him, because I promise you, he’s trying to find us.

 

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An Ovation For Mrs. E. (And all Special Ed Teachers Who Go Beyond)

It was a cool February evening, and Jack was running around shirtless, ignoring the Super Bowl festivities in the living room. It was also the day after his birthday. The boy remembered what happened two years earlier when he turned eight: snow fell on the valley. The angels had gifted him a white blanket of wonder that had lasted several days. It was a present we haven’t yet matched. They set the bar too high.

Still, he seemed grateful enough with his new Monster’s University read-along book and CD, and was meandering to and fro in front of the game, flapping his socks at anything he found interesting.

The doorbell rang.

“Oh good, you’re here,” the familiar lady said when we greeted her. She waved for her husband to come over. He carried something large in his arms. A white chest.

“Jack, Mrs. E. brought a present for you,” we called.

IMG_0064He came over, eyeing his favorite teacher with only a little out-of-context confusion. They opened the chest together.

“You brought him snow?!?” Sara and I exclaimed.

I’ve got a friend from Papua New Guinea who, in joyful moments, used to say, “If I was a dog, you should see my tail.” It’s one of my favorite of his many native phrases. Dogs smile with their entire body. And Jackson, in moments of exultation, does the same.

You should have seen his face erupt in awe. You should have seen him jumping up and down flapping the snow at humming-bird speed. You should have seen him sprinting zig-zags around the house in barely containable laughter.

“Jack, are you happy about the snow?”

He could only answer with red faced giggles; the kind where you run out of breath and have to gasp for more air. It went on for days.

That gift encapsulated the beauty and care of the fantastic Mrs. E. She taught our boy for the past four years, working with him one on one through endless hours of math and music, reading and recess, but her gentle care for him never stopped at the 2:30 bell.  She never accepted Jack’s rebuffs, and oh, does he rebuff! Our boy has perfected the use of the A-card. He often hides his capabilities from his teachers, pretending not to know the answers. Mrs. E. never accepted that. Rather, she would text us late into the evening, asking questions, probing for new ways to challenge him. To break through to him.

And break through she did.

Jack knows how to add and subtract now. He knows how to put sounds together to read words. There are a host of lessons—academic and social—that our boy has learned only because Mrs. E. cared enough to look past his protests and apply the right amount of pressure.

Why has he responded so well to her? Part of it, I’m sure, was sheer personality. She’s impossible not to like. Her spirit is both fun and gentle, and kids like him pick up on that more easily than the rest of us. But it can’t be that simple. Lots of people have great personalities. Only a precious few can “get through” to individuals the way that Mrs. E. did.

No, I think it was this: she laughed with him. She took fun pictures of him on field trips and sent them to us so he could look at them later. She sent him videos of her and her husband with Lightning McQueen on their vacation to Disney Land. She delighted in him.

Rather, she chose to delight in him. And he could tell.

Of course, she’s not alone. All of Jack’s teachers and aides have been terrific. The whole school has shown extraordinary kindness to him, and the administration has prepared the entire student body to understand some of the mysteries of autism. The other kids greet him every day in the hallway, and they celebrate when a rare word escapes his lips. It’s a beautiful culture the staff has created, and one which makes us rest a little easier in our son’s future. He will have people looking out for him as long as he lives in this town.

He will have to move forward, however, without his beloved Mrs. E., who retired earlier this spring due to health issues. Her absence has been felt by all of us. Jack has regressed these last months. Most of his language has gone away again, and we’re running a battery of neurology tests to figure out why. It’s not her fault, of course. Jack’s regression began before she left. But he misses her. School hasn’t been the same for him. Not by a long shot. She was more than a teacher.

Some will argue, “why should we be so impressed by someone who simply cares our kids? Shouldn’t we all be doing this?” And yeah, of course we should all care. Of course we should all take a special interest in people, especially those with special needs. But what of those who know go beyond what they merely ought to do? To call that type of care “pedestrian” is a great insult.

We should never shrug at the devotion of those who love with extravagance.

We can’t all deliver chests of snow to our young friends who crave it on their birthdays. But perhaps we can aim to love at least one person in the same way. And the only way to do that is to learn the delights of those we aim to love.

That is why Mrs. E. succeeded. Indeed, that is how all of our greatest special needs therapists and teachers break through to our children. And that effort is worthy of a standing ovation.

Thank you, Mrs. E. For everything.

In Defense of Jeremiah 29:11 (For the Graduate)

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV)

Jeremiah 29:11 used to be a safe sentiment; a well-respected, if predictable, sliver of scripture to write on a graduation card. That isn’t true anymore. We are in the midst of a backlash against this well-known verse, especially on the Christian internet.  There have been a myriad of snarky blog posts and smug Facebook updates pointing out the fact that Jeremiah wrote those words to Jewish exiles who had survived the destruction of Jerusalem 2600 years ago. As such, his encouragement should not be applied to a modern graduate.

The critiques come in all snarks and sizes. Some are harsh, and some hilarious. Take this one from the Babylon Bee, a Christian satire site that I happen to love: “Man with Jeremiah 29:11 Tattoo Recounts His Time in Babylonian Captivity”. And on Twitter, there was this, my personal favorite:

While technically correct and entertaining, I find this to be a curious critique. After all, Jeremiah 29:11 is not so different from any other scripture. Every piece of the Bible has a specific context. A real author was writing to a real audience in a real circumstance a real long time ago. Jesus spoke the words of John 3:16 to an anxious first century Pharisee in the middle of the night. James directed his instructions about caring for the widow and orphan to “the twelve tribes dispersed abroad.” Micah’s admonition to “do justly and love mercy” was intended for the split kingdoms of Israel and Judah seven hundred years before Christ. We quote and adopt these scriptures all the time.

And you know what? It’s okay, because we read the scriptures not as direct recipients but as beneficiaries. They are our inheritance. The bible was not written to us but for us. Together, as a church, we read over shoulders of our ancestors in the faith: the Galatians, Pastor Timothy, the church of Ephesus, and yes, even the exiles in Babylon. We eavesdrop on history. Then, with the help of the church and the Holy Spirit, we figure out how to apply those stories, those covenants, those sacred truths to our lives.

The question, then, is not whether it’s acceptable to quote a Bible verse that was written for another, but whether the verse in question is applicable and true in our current circumstance.

So what about it? Does God have a plan to give a good future to a freshly-tassled graduate?

In a general sense, the answer is obvious. God has good plans for everyone. It’s why Christ came to earth in the first place. He has a particular affection for the human race, and he wants us all to experience the fullness of joy, which is life with Him. The Gospel of the Kingdom proclaims the promise of Christ’s utter re-ordering of the world toward restoration. Broken things will be rebuilt. Ashes to beauty. Orphans to sons and daughters. This is message of redemption: regardless of the circumstances, God has a plan for our good.

There are particulars to be haggled over, of course, concerning judgments, hardships, and the circumstances that lead us to the cold realms of pain and destruction. The scriptures foretell of those grim realities. We will have trouble in this world. Nevertheless, Christ goes through all of it with us, and His modus operandi is hope.

The fact that the vast majority of Christians would agree with this principle leads me to think the real problem is less theological than cultural. In the digital age where we celebrate SELF above all else, we tend approach everything, even the scripture, with a narrow, individualistic bias. It is hard to fault a modern dreamer, then, for reading Jeremiah 29:11 through the lens of his own material success. He reads the words of the prophet and sees visions of his own professional triumphs and creative conquests. And somewhere inside him, he thinks, “Wow. God’s about to make me into something extra special!”

In this case, the critics make a crucial point. Jeremiah 29:11 is not a guarantee of personal achievement or even a sense of spiritual fulfillment.

Worldly success has never been the measure of God’s intentions. Rather, He calls us all into a life of self-sacrifice and generous humility. In short, He calls us to enter into His redemption story.

I cannot speculate about what God’s customized dreams might be for the graduate, but I am confident in this: His plan is good. He calls us to receive His love and to give it away for the rest of our days. He will show us how to do that, step by step, provided we will listen well and stay humble.

Whether we are living on the banks of the rivers of Babylon, or in an off-campus apartment above the Waffle House, that is a hope worthy of embracing.


photo credit: As The World Keeps Turning … via photopin (license)

To Preserve Their Innocence

It’s a crisp evening in small-town Oregon, and the boys and girls of summer are out early, crowding the metal bench in  numerical order from the white numbers on the backs of their navy blue jerseys. Aligned like this, they look like too many birds on a wire. They are first and second graders, and the game is coach-pitch baseball. There is no score-keeping, except the mental tallies running inside the heads of most of the players.

The golden-haired number three–that’s Sam. He’s mine. You can hear his voice above the others, leading the cheer for his comrade at bat: “Let’s go Ezra, let’s go! Let’s go Ezra, let’s go!” They’ll go on like that for every batter, unfettered by the grown up notions of monotony and self-awareness. Their voices sweeten the breeze. You can’t help but smile. When a kid gets a hit, they “Woo-hoo!” If he strikes out, they “Awww. Good try,” and raise up the chant for the next batter.

“I love how they cheer for each other,” I tell Gonzalo, my friend and fellow dad.

“It won’t be like this forever,” he says.

I sigh. He is right. Soon, these innocents will discover the ugly sides of humanity, and even baseball will look different. They will taste betrayal and mockery. They will feel the stings of their own failures. They will find that they do not measure up to anyone’s standards, least of all their own. And then, they will be tempted by jadedness. The ugliness of experience will pollute the evening breeze, and cheering will all die down.

As a dad, my first inclination is to keep my son here on this field of simplicity. I don’t want him to taste the temptations to vanity and lust. Not yet. I don’t want him to learn of the horrors of Auschwitz. Not yet. I don’t want him to find out he is more Clark Kent than Superman, made from the same deformed flesh as the father he still considers indestructible. Not yet.

I swallow, thinking of his sisters. In a month, they will both be teenagers, eyes already wide to humanity. I feel a pang of embarrassment the more they learn. “Yes, this is the world we have all prepared for you. We should have done better. I’m so sorry.” They take it all in, accepting. Knowing. Not as surprised as I would have hoped. The depravity of this world began its desensitizing magic long ago.

If a father’s job is to shield his children, we have all failed already. Their jerseys will be soiled by spots of blood and the stench of regret.

But what if a father’s job is not to prevent brokenness, but to show our children how to be mended? How to admit where life hurts, and to receive the balm of forgiveness and grace? What if a father’s job is to model the process of restoration?

I cannot prevent their hearts from aching, but I can point them toward true healing. I can let them hear my own regrets, and show them my own scars. I can model the words, “please forgive me.” I can teach them prayers of confession, for I am not strong enough or pure enough to overcome the world. There is only One who is. And He waits for them.

I am being mended. If my children will let themselves be mended too, we can all–with gloves in our hands, crutches under our arms, and ice packs at our ankles–limp back out to the diamond, laughing the laugh of the redeemed.

***

Sam is all shoulders at the plate. He swings awkwardly, prompting the coach’s wife to come out and adjust his stance. A little closer to the plate. Bat a little higher. There. He hears his name chanted from the bench, but misses again. The coach has one more ball at his feet. He tosses it. Sam swings.

The ball dribbles down the first base line. He takes off running and kicks up dirt all the way to first base. He is safe. For now. Today is a gift that will not last forever, so I breath in the innocent air and say a prayer about tomorrow.

A Letter to My Autistic Son on his 10th Birthday

Dear Jackson,

Ten years ago, I was watching Super Bowl 40 when your mom went into labor. The silly woman… did you know she told me we could watch the rest of the game before we left for your delivery? She really did! But I knew that decision might come back to haunt me, and I was eager to see you anyway. My first boy.

We left during the game and met you a few hours later. We gave you the middle name Landry after the legendary Cowboys’ coach, because football is a part of Hague culture. Part of my world. Like every dad, I had visions about sharing my world with you. We would watch sports and read Narnia, and you would have lots of friends to better annoy your sisters.

By now, you know what happened next. When you turned two, you lost all your words, and we felt like we lost you. We couldn’t bring you into our world. That’s when we began searching for ways to reach you. To connect with you. We’ve been on that same journey for years now, and the truest piece of advice we have heard was this:

“Stop trying so hard to bring him into your world. Come into his world instead.”

We’ve done our best to follow that advice, son, especially this past year. And right now, on the eve of your 10th birthday, the most prominent features in your world are your movies. I confess, I don’t understand the appeal of all the DVD covers and screenshots that adorn our living room bookshelves, but that doesn’t matter. You do. You line them up, you flap them, you quote them, and you sometimes even watch them.

It is only natural, then, that these movies have become our access point into your world. Into Jackson-ville. We have become experts in Pixar and Dreamworks. We watch everything from Monsters to Minions, we do the voices, and we create all manner of fan art for you. And I suspect that you love it.

Last month, you asked a random question. “Cars 2 or Despicable Me 2?”

You might have been talking to yourself, but Jenna and mom took it as a question.

“Well I don’t really like Cars 2,” mom said.

“Yeah,” Jenna agreed. “Despicable Me 2 is funny. Cars 2 is not as good.”

You responded with this crystalline jewel:

“All right, just because everybody hates it doesn’t mean it’s not good!”

The house exploded in laughs and wonder. You may not be classified as “non-verbal” anymore, but you don’t ever string that many words together to make a sentence. We knew right away that you were quoting Gru from Despicable Me after he tasted Dr. Nefario’s new jelly recipe. You even delivered the line in Steve Carrel’s vaguely Russian-ish accent.

Scripting movie lines is an hourly occurance for you. What excited us was the question of timing. Had you just re-purposed that quote for your current conversation? Were you using Gru’s words to defend Cars 2? Had you just found a way to communicate to us using your own favorite things?

Maybe some day you can set us straight on your intentions, but for now, it takes faith. And I’m okay with faith. There are plenty of reasons to believe.

* * *

“Come on, Jack. It’s bed time,” Jenna said.

You resisted for tradition’s sake.

“Jack, let’s go. I’ve got to brush your teeth.”

You put on a pouty expression and gave another quote from an agitated Gru: “You’ve got to be pulling on my leg!”

* * *

“Jack, do you like school?” mom asked early one morning when the house was quiet.

“No, okay,” you said. That’s just how you say no.

“Why don’t you like school, bud?”

“Awkward,” you said, lifting the line from Rio.

“Oh, is it awkward at school?”

Your voice went low as you answered her. “I… awkward.”

* * *

These are the moments that make us believe you know exactly what you are saying. You are in there, son. We know you are. We know that there is more to your world than we ever could have imagined.

Do you already understand all our conversations? Do you just sit back and take it in? Do you feel frustrated that your body has trouble making words of its own? And why do you like Cars 2 so much? Is it Mater? Do you relate to him? Do you feel… awkward?

My dear boy, your family cheers for you. We want so badly to share your frustrations, to join your laughter, and help shoulder your fears. We want to experience the beautiful messiness of life with you. And it is beginning to happen. Thanks be to God, it is beginning.

* * *

When I got in the van you were waiting for me in the front seat, all buckled up and giddy. I was taking you to get McDonalds fries, your favorite sticker-chart reward. When I started the van, you looked up at me with one special request: “Hiccup?” You asked.

I launched right in, doing my best impression of the Stoick the Vast from How to Train Your Dragon. “Hiccup, son! We’ve got to gooo gaaaate yer fraaaainch friesss!”

Your eyes glowed. I know why. The scene is made up, but familiar. A boy and his father.

“I don’t know, dad…” I countered in Hiccup’s ever-quivering voice. “What if a dragon takes one?”

Your smile stretched as I switched back to Stoick.

“They woooon’t, son! Not if ya eeeeat them fossssterrrrr!”

You fell apart in laughter even before the tickling began. We shared every drop of that moment.

There are so many moments. So much laughter is ours now.

Your future can look however you want, son. Jackson-ville is your world after all, not mine. But I’m so glad you have chosen to let us in. Thank you for letting us in.

We love you, buddy. Happy Birthday.


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When our Prayers Fly like Pebbles From a Widow’s Hand

There is a widow hiding outside the judge’s bedroom in the dead of night. I’ve seen her. Don’t worry, she isn’t up to anything salacious. She just wants him to hear her case. As if 2 a.m. is an opportune time. As if this particular judge would listen at any hour. She’s exhausted, leaning up against a tree in the shadows with a fist full of pebbles, but she’s not going away.

It’s dangerous. It’s stupid. Someone else might see her and haul her away. Yet there she is, sizing up the wide window across the lawn just above where the old man sleeps. She feels a stab of guilt for even knowing that fact. It took some snooping. What must the neighbors think?

She takes a breath, wipes the hair out of her eyes, cocks her arm back and lets the stone fly.

Tap.

She holds her breath. Did a light just come on? For a moment, she panics and hurls herself back into the shadows. What if the man sees her? Wait–that’s the point of this entire plan, isn’t it?

The widow makes her face hard. No desperation. Just focus. He can’t outlast her. That is the message. This issue is not going away, so he might as well give in.

She steps out of the shadow. Slowly. The curtain inside rustles, then yanks to the side. And there he is. Eyes sunken. Hair in knots. He’s wearing a bathrobe and waving a white flag. He tells her he will listen. For the sake of his own sanity, he will give her a hearing.

And the great Storyteller says,

“Do you hear what that judge, corrupt as he is, is saying? So what makes you think God won’t step in and work justice for his chosen people, who continue to cry out for help? Won’t he stick up for them? I assure you, he will. He will not drag his feet. But how much of that kind of persistent faith will the Son of Man find on the earth when he returns?” (Lk 18:6-8 MSG)

I always thought this story was about the judge. About how he’s different than God. He’s arrogant and unfeeling. And if even he will give in, than how much easier will God give us breakthrough?

I was wrong. This story isn’t about the judge. It’s about me.

I’ve been praying for breakthrough for a long time. I want to have a conversation with my autistic son. A real, honest-to-God “how was your day, buddy? // not bad, except i skinned my knee” exchange. I want to cut through all the scripting gibberish and hear where he is aching. Is it his legs? His head? His heart? I want him push pause on all his glassy-eyed flapping so he can finally answer when I ask, “what are you thinking about, pal?”

I’ve been praying for years. Even though we’ve seen some growth, we are still miles and miles from any kind of language that ushers in relationship. And relationship is everything.

The widow’s tale, then, is my story. And if you still pray unanswered prayers, it’s your story, too.

The challenge for us is simple: many years from now, at the end of everything, will people like us still retain the courage to throw our pebbles? Because faith is sometimes measured in the asking. Pestering judges is not a trait of weakness but a badge of high belief.

Wear that badge, friend. You hurt, but you have not lost heart. How do I know? Because you’re still asking.

It’s been six years, and I’m still here, too, waiting behind my tree. Some nights I just lean up against the trunk and go to sleep. But not tonight. Tonight I remember my son and take aim at the Judge’s window. He’s a good Judge, this One. He hasn’t answered me yet, but He’s a good Judge. And maybe tonight is my night…

For Those who Ache on Father’s Day

I know this day sucks for you. You’ve been ripped off in the dad department. Most days, you hardly even think about it. Sure, there’s that dull ache in your psyche, but you can usually ignore it now. You’ve taught yourself how. Just like you’ve taught yourself all manner of things.

Does it help you to realize you’re not alone? I’m sure you know that already. Even if your friends haven’t shown you the scabs on their memories, you have seen it in the culture. You’ve seen it in the cynical presentation of fathers on TV. When was the last time you saw a good one? A really good one? My friends and I used to pose this question all the time. Why are TV dads so distant and aloof? Why are they incapable of being serious? Why can’t they, for the life of them, offer one piece of solid advice that their wives do not have to come sweep up afterward?

Cliff Huxtable (a.k.a. Bill Cosby in The Cosby Show) was the shiniest of exceptions. He was always caring, but firm. He knew his kids inside and out, and he did not let them walk all over him. He was smarter than they were, but always deft enough to validate them, and guide them toward better wisdom. He was never intimidated by his wife’s graceful brilliance, but welcomed it and complimented her with his own keen insights.

We loved Cliff. He was a fantasy father for the millions who did not have one, and an uncle, at least, for those who did.

But I can hear you objecting: “Yeah, but look what happened! Bill Cosby turned out to be a—-”

Yes. Yes, I know. Another father, letting us all down…

Listen, this is a crappy day. I’m not going to try to cheer you up, or tell you that you shouldn’t feel the way you do. That resentment… that frustration… those are real pains, and you have a right to feel them. Your dad had a job to do, and it was more than just helping you into the world. He was a sub-creator, and a sub-caretaker. He was duty bound, in everything, represent the One who brought all of us into the world: to bandage your knee; to hold you close; to listen. Oh, how he should have listened! But he didn’t.

This throbbing pain that rises to the surface on a day like today—this reason you want to stay home from church and mute any reference to “father’s day” on Twitter—it is a wound not easily healed. Even Dr. Huxtable, when he was still squeaky clean, could not do it. You cannot sub-lease a pop culture stand-in and live vicariously through his child actors. Fantasy only has the power to distract, not to fix. No matter how you bury your pain, you will get the same temporary result. It will resurface.

There is only One with the power to soothe those old wounds.

He is the One who your father was supposed to represent. And now, even that title makes it difficult for you to trust Him. How can you call God “Father,” and why would He even want you to?

Friend, I cannot explain why things worked out the way they did, but I can assure you of one thing: this original Father of yours is different than the one who hurt you. He has wept with you in your loneliness. He felt every fear, ached with every disappointment, burned with you in the midst of every searing-hot betrayal that branded your soul and convinced you that you were an orphan.

But you were not an orphan.

I will not try to push you toward Him today. I will simply tell you that He waits for you on His porch swing with tenderness and feasting. And through His gentle embrace, He will give you reason to trust again.


 

photo credit: Memory Lane via photopin (license)

To Know What Would Have Happened

I will spare you the melodrama and tell you plainly what happened last weekend. It was one of the scenarios parents of autistic kids fear most. For the first time in two years, Jack ran off.

We were having a perfect Saturday. The kids were playing outside in our freshly cut lawn, Sara was making lunch, I was writing fiction, and Josh Garrels was crooning in the background about “Home.” Then, my phone rang. It was my buddy Aaron.

“Dude, I just got Jack! He was running on the other side of 6th street.”

I bolted up and, for an instant, found myself scanning the room for him against all logic, as if my friend had found the wrong kid. Because Jack wasn’t gone. He couldn’t be gone. He was in the backyard…

“Jack got out!” I yelled for my wife to hear.

They were five blocks away. I ran outside to cross the street, but I had to wait for an inexplicable line of traffic. On my honor, there were more cars than I have ever seen on this street. And Jack had just crossed it…

Sara grabbed the van and picked me up two blocks down. We drove the remaining three blocks and found the two of them waiting across another busy street at a fenced in playground next to some basketball courts. Jack was standing atop the slide, shirtless as always, wearing elastic pants that were sagging halfway down his bum. He was clearly proud of himself.

“I didn’t know where else to bring him,” Aaron said. “He was just running down the sidewalk.”

“Shhh. Quiet,” Jack was scripting when he saw me. It was a line from Monster’s University, his latest obsession, but it was also a clue into what he had just done. He had sneaked away on purpose, just like Mike and Sully in the Monster’s library, and he thought it was funny.

We promptly installed an extra noisy alarm on our front door, put a new lock on the back gate, and have been scouring the internet for GPS bracelets—the kind that don’t come off without a fight. We also figured out where he was headed that day: to a house where he had recently seen a DVD case that he wanted (from the first Monsters movie, of course). He was running in the right direction, but he had another nine blocks to go.

Two words dominate a parent’s mind in moments like that: “What if?”

What if he had taken a different street? What if Aaron hadn’t been walking through his front yard to spot him? What if some creeper saw him? What if the drivers on 6th had not seen him? What would have happened?

And then I think of the words CS Lewis spoke through Aslan the lion: “To know what would have happened, child?… No. Nobody is ever told that.”

I have often read that scene and wondered if it was true. Is no one ever told? And is there not some benefit in visiting the specters of alternate history?

This week, my mind is settled. No, there is no benefit. Speculative horrors are an inevitable prison for those prone to worry. Negative fantasies—future or past—leave no room for gratitude or peace. When I do anything more than acknowledge them, I cannot stop and take a deep breath. Even the happiest, sun-shiniest days become tainted with two concerns over which I have no control: things that might have happened, and things that still might. Some day. Any day now.

So how do we recovering pessimists vanquish these ghosts? By focusing on what actually is.

This story of Jack’s escape, it is, truly, a happy story! My son is safe. He went on his own adventure. He crossed two busy streets without incident, and just so happened to walk by the house of my one of my dear friend who already knows and loves him, and who just so happened to be working in his front yard.

I must take note of these positive plot twists, and acknowledge that Providence Himself must have been watching over him that day, coaxing him to safety, whispering, “Shhh, quiet. You know what? I love you, son.”

Barabbas Speaks (Five Years Later)

Oh, you’re leaving, are you, friend? That’s fine, that’s fine. You’re going to the Passover feast, then? Well, be careful now, be careful. There’s a particularly nasty man out there from Tarsus hunting down people like you, who follow “the way.” People are starting to disappear, they say…

Go with you? I don’t want a knife between my ribs, but thank you. I’m sure somebody still remembers my face in that city, I don’t care how many years it’s been. And besides, I … I mean no disrespect, friend… but I don’t understand you all. You go down there to the temple, side by side with people who are remembering Moses, but you talk only of the Rabbi. And you say so such peculiar things about him.

“The Christ,” you tell people, “died in your place.”

I confess, that still makes no sense to me.

I was even there the day he died and—

Yes, that’s right, I was there. It was while I was still a guest of Pontius Pilate. In his dungeons, I mean. In the months before, I had done my best to stir up the zealots all around Judea, and we were ready to kill the governor. I wanted to be the one to do it. It was no problem to my conscience. I had killed before. And the flaming man had murdered my three cousins. I was going to make him ache for it. We had it all planned out. We were going to storm the Pretorium. And we weren’t going to fail this time.

But guards caught wind of it first. Three Centurions beat me senseless in my bed and hauled me off to Pilate’s dungeon. You should have seen the governor’s snarling, bloodthirsty face when he captured me.

He left me rotting there for a month. I figured he was going to parade me out and kill me when there was a crowd. So I prayed for my freedom. For one more shot at revenge against the brute.

And then came the loudest day I had ever heard in Jerusalem.

We couldn’t see the crowds from inside the prison, but we could hear them. We could feel them. Rabid beasts they were. Screaming and hollering threatening to revolt. “My children! Those are my children,” I taunted the guards. You’d never have thought Roman soldiers could look so scared.

Then the crowd starts chanting something all together, and the prisoners turn to me and say, “did you hear that?” I listen more closely, and there it is, plain as day. They are shouting my own name.

“Barabbas! Barabbas!”

They stop. It gets quiet for a second as if they’re all listening to someone. Then, after a moment, they start chanting again.

“Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”

My cell opens and two guards step in and haul me outside into the sunlight. I try to fight them, but they’re too strong. They toss me to the ground. I just close my eyes and beg them for the sword. Anything but the cross. See, I had witnessed crucifixions before, friend, and I wouldn’t have wished that on anybody. Not even Pilate himself. So I find myself begging for mercy and bracing myself for pain.

But it doesn’t come. Nothing comes.

When I open my eyes, I see the guards have walked away from me and were holding someone else: turns out it was your Rabbi. They’ve already stripped him of his clothes and his skin is draping off him like loose cloak.

And they’ve got him pressed against the cross with iron spikes lined up to his wrists. Then comes the sound of rock on metal. And then the man’s screaming out in agony while his blood spits out from his limbs. And the crowd responds by hollerin’ in a drunken rage like it’s a Roman festival to Bacchus the wine god.

“Crucify Him,” they’re still shouting as if they hadn’t already begun pounding holes in the man. Animals, they were. I suppose it was only right that I had called them my children.

I stand up and scan the crowd and there’s Pilate, overseeing the whole thing. We lock eyes, the two of us, but I don’t see anger there. Just fear. Like he knows he’s doing something he’s goin’ to answer for. And in that moment, I know two things: that he’s not going after me, and I won’t kill him. Because this man being nailed to the post… he was bleeding enough blood for both of us.

So I start to push my way toward the back of the crowd. Nobody tries to stop me. They’re all watching your Rabbi, some laughing, and some crying.

“What’s he done?” I finally ask. “What’s he done?”

And can’t one of them tell me his crime. He hadn’t stolen anything or killed anyone. He’d never threatened the gorvernor. He was a holy man. Probably never violated the Sabbath!

All of a sudden my mind get’s foggy and my stomach goes all sideways as I think to myself, “that’s your cross, Barabbas.” And an insane part of me wants to go pull him down and take my rightful place as a knave and a wretch and a thief.

But all I can do is stand there and weep like a fool child.

You keep telling me he didn’t stay dead, friend, and I don’t know how that can be, but I hold onto it anyway because it’s my only hope. But I still cannot fathom what you all mean when you say that man died in your place. Because I was there, I tell you.

And Jesus of Nazareth died for me.

A Foot in Both Worlds: My Interview with Stuart Duncan

If you have spent any time in the autism community online, chances are, you’ve heard of Stuart Duncan. Even before he created the now celebrated AutCraft — the world’s first Minecraft server dedicated to autistic kids — he was blogging all over the place about his own experiences as an autistic father of an autistic son. Those experiences have given him a foot two communities that often misunderstand one another. I figured Stuart would have some excellent advice for us Neuro-typical parents who are raising autistic kids, and he did not disappoint. Here is my interview with blogger, advocate, and all around great guy, Stuart Duncan.


Your son Cameron was diagnosed with autism when he was 2 1/2, and you say your experiences with him led to your own eventual diagnosis at 36. How did that happen? What kind of commonalities did you see between the two of you?

It’s funny but it was in all the ways that made him different, the signs that helped me to notice he had autism that I had never seen in myself until I was laying awake one night thinking… that reminds me of me when I was young.

When I would have an important talk with him, he couldn’t look at me. He’d keep his head down or stare at his feet as he kicked them. I did that. His teachers read a book to the class in September and he remembered it word for word in April yet he couldn’t remember the instructions that his teacher gave him 10 minutes prior. I did that. The way he’d focus on one topic and not be able to talk about anything else, even when others would try to digress the conversation on to something else, he would stay strictly on topic. I did that. The way he preferred to stay inside, in his room, by himself, content to just sit and play in one spot for hours… I did all these things.

As I laid there, memory after memory flooded over me all the way back to when I was 2 years old and each of them making me think… that explains that!

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense and over time, I was convinced that I most definitely did have autism as well, Aspergers at least. But I was still reluctant to say it to anyone unless I could have it diagnosed by a professional. And so, I did.

Interesting. A lot of autistic kids want to be left alone like you did, but we live in a world that wants them to be social. How did you deal with that tension as a boy, and how do you help your son work through it?

I had a bit of a dual life. My school life I spent in my room, on my own. I had few friends at school and no friends when I wasn’t at school. I had everything in my room that I needed to occupy my time and rarely left it.

In the summers though, it was a completely different story. I spent my summer’s at my grandparent’s hunting & fishing lodge where I worked in the restaurant and trailer park, around people just about the entire time. I learned to socialize and even become quite popular and well liked. I had no other real choice. However, when it did get to be too much, being so far remote, I was able to retreat into the woods to my favourite spot where I could just sit by the lake and relax for a little while.

It was chaotic in the summers and didn’t always go well but I always found time to take some quiet time for myself.

For Cameron, it’s tougher for him since he shares a room with his little brother and doesn’t have the same sort of freedom to just wander off into the woods. But we still make sure to give him that time and space as he needs it. I keep his little brother out of his way when he goes off to his room for alone time and we never rush him. There have been times when we’ve even had parties, like birthday parties, where Cameron will just disappear for 20 minutes or so. We explain to the other children that he’ll be ok and be back soon and sure enough, he rejoins the party as good as ever.

It really is something that more kids should be able to do I think, rather than let the tension and anxiety build up.

stuart_meme

Back when you were a kid, there was very little understanding of autism in most circles. What are some positive changes you have noticed, and what would you MOST like to see change in our community?

Probably the best thing, which isn’t really a change in the community so much as an external factor which has improved things, is social media and how it’s allowed parents to connect and share stories and advice and be able to relate.

In the past and still to this day for many people, an autism diagnosis would often mean isolation… Now though, all they need is a social media account and there are literally millions of other people who know exactly how they feel that they can connect with and immediately have someone they can talk to any time they need them. It’s that sharing of information that has benefited everyone the most I think.

Unfortunately most of the dialogue that’s been taking place whether it be on blogs or in social media has been dominated by parents and in recent years, autistic adults. Often times this results in some rather large disagreements and those can get quite ugly sometimes.

What I’d like to see is a larger stake of those conversations being given to autistic adults that are also parents of autistic children. I really feel that while parents and autistic adults argue over who should be listened to more, those that fit into both camps are really being ignored completely.

I think that often comes down to there being extreme view points from one group or the other and that the autistics that have autistic children are often able to see these situations from both perspectives and end up offering up suggestions that offend neither but also appeases neither as well. This middle ground of understanding is extremely valuable but often ignored.

We’ve heard from doctors for years and learned very little. Then parents discovered that they could be heard via blogs and articles, and people started learning much more. Then autistic adults began to take control of the conversations about autism via social media. These have all made such a huge difference but now I feel like it’s time to bridge the gap and start paying more attention to autistic adults that have autistic children.

This is precisely the reason I wanted to talk to you. Between these two communities, so much gets lost in translation, and you are a gifted interpreter for all of us. And I, for one, need to learn more from the adult autistic community. So help me with that: I am the parent of a severely autistic child, and I have dealt with all the meltdowns, self-injuries and various difficulties of having a non-verbal son. What would you, as an autistic, like me to better understand about my situation?

My advice for any parent, no matter how autism affects their child, is to never give up on the hope and the faith that things will get better.

Thanks to these social networks and the Internet in general, we see more and more non-verbal autistics finding their voice whether it be by actually talking or alternate forms of communication and once that happens, their lives and the lives of everyone around them transforms dramatically.

It’s easy to think “everyone but me” there’s no reason that it can’t be you and your children too.

Also, even if not, these stories teach us that no matter how unlikely it may seem, your child is aware of your presence, your words, your efforts and your love. Even for those that can communicate quite well, people still throw around this stereotype about lacking empathy but I have never met anyone with autism that isn’t very aware and very appreciative of the love that their family gives them.

It’s your unconditional love and support that gets both you and your child through the toughest of times.

Treat and think of your child the same whether they have “severe” autism or “mild” autism or no autism at all. Talk highly of them, love them, do your absolute best for them and never speak as if they’re not there, or not listening, or a handful or now the person you want them to be. Because when you boil it all down, no matter the circumstances, they are your child and true love comes without conditions.

Excellent perspective. Thank you, Stuart. And thanks for all you do for our kids.

For more about Stuart, check out his blog, and of course, check out Autcraft.

You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter (@AutismFather).

That Time I Had Coffee with My Two Selves

I like to write early in the morning, provided I can get past my snooze button. As a positive incentive, I started setting my coffee timer to 4:55 AM, because a fresh cup is at least 8.5 times as wonderful as a stale cup. I smelled it when my alarm went off this morning, then dragged myself to the kitchen, filled up my trusty Allan Bros mug (not realizing the pot was already half-empty), and tiptoed into the living room. When I switched the light on, I saw at once that I was not alone. There were two men sitting on the couch, waiting for me. I almost let out a scream until I recognized them. They both looked just like me.

“It’s a good brew,” one of them says. He wears a thin beard, jeans, and an earthy flannel. “But we’re out of half & half.”

The other one shakes his head and takes a sip from his own mug. “Nope, he’s just blind. Sara just picked some up yesterday.” This one’s hair almost looks combed, and he wears khaki pants with a nice blue sweater.

I gape. “Who… what is…”

“Come on, you know us,” Flannel Jay says. “We’re you. The different sides of you. And by the way, I freaking LOVED your last blog post. The letter to Jack? You really put yourself out there.”

I sit down, feeling a bit less panicked. “Okay. Uh, yeah, thanks. I don’t know…” I look over at Sweater Jason and see he is biting his lip. “What did you think?” I ask.

He takes another sip and looks up at the ceiling. Is he unsure of what to say? No, he is just being diplomatic. He has an opinion. He always does.

“I don’t know,” he begins.

Flannel Jay interrupts him. “Don’t say that. You do know. Spit it out.”

Sweater Jason shrugs. “I think you over-shared.”

I nod. “I knew it! I agree with you. I feel like I’ve written about the whole ‘I have trouble with hope’ thing already. Several times, probably. And this last time, it’s like I told the whole world that I still suck in that area.”

“Dude?” Sweater Jason raises an eyebrow.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t say ‘suck’ in a blog post, should I…”

I hear a snort to the left. Flannel Jay has a mouthful of coffee and is trying not to spit it out in laughter. He lifts a finger, swallows, and opens his mouth. “Sorry, but nobody is offended by ‘sucks’ anymore. And even if they are, you’re just being real, dude. People need to connect with… realness.”

“Transparency?” I offer.

“Exactly, but not in a cliché kind of way,” he says.

Sweater Jay slaps his knee. “‘Transparency’ is a cliché whether or not you say ‘not in a cliché kind of way.’ That’s like using the phrase “just saying’” to get social acceptance for a rude comment.” He stands up and starts to pace. I hate it when he gets angsty like this. “Transparency in and of itself is not a good thing.”

“It’s not a bad thing, either,” Flannel Jay counters.

“Right. It’s not. But in that post, you,” and he points to me, “got transparent and even vulnerable about something you’ve supposedly beaten at least three times already. In front of a ton of people. Many of whom are in the congregation where you serve as one of the leaders.”

I slump in my chair. “I know. I know.”

“And you teach on hope all the time. You always used to quote Hebrews 11 about faith being the assurance of things hoped for, and then you say ‘if you don’t have hope, then you can’t have faith.’ You see what I’m getting at?”

Flannel Jay waves his hand. “He gets it. Give him a break.”

But Sweater Jay presses on. “You are called to build up peoples’ faith. But if you are telling them that you yourself don’t have any hope, then…”

“I get it!” I start to yell before Flannel Jay shushes me. We all get quiet for a moment. Then, I hear Jack in the next room. I can tell he’s wide awake and stimming. Specifically, he’s flapping his sun-glasses and duct tape while scripting something. A piece of dialogue from Kung-Fu Panda, I think, but I can’t tell which scene.

“Just admit it,” Flannel Jay whispers at last to his companion. “You want him to write posts about rainbows and butterflies, and how he’s got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in his heart even when he doesn’t. Well, there are real people who read this blog, and they are struggling, too. Some with autism issues, and some with… well anything. And being real is the only way to encourage them.”

“Encouraged?” Sweater Jason asks, looking baffled. “By the fact that he, a pastor, can feel every bit as weak as everyone else? What does that do?”

I’m getting nervous now. The two of them are whispering, but they are clearly upset with each other. I want to diffuse the argument.

“Who wants a bowel of generic Cinnamon Toast Crunch?” I ask.

“Don’t do that! Your wife hates it when you evade conflict with banter,” Flannel Jay says. He’s right. I feel ashamed. “I’ve been defending you here, but you actually need to answer this question. Not for anyone else, maybe, but for you: How does ‘being transparent’ show the hope of the Gospel?”

I put my head in my hands and close my eyes. My companions both fall silent. All I can hear is the sound of my son’s flapping, and a muddy voice that sounds vaguely like Dustin Hoffman as Master Shifu.

And in that moment, I remember the words of Jesus: “Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

I take a breath, then speak. “If I have stressed my own poverty instead the Hope of the Kingdom–the beauty of Christ Himself–then I am truly sorry. Sometimes I get stuck in my head, and that’s a bad thing, because the answers aren’t in my head.

“But I’m still going to be honest, because He meets me in the honest places. That’s where I find myself being reborn. If I can point people to their own honest places, well… maybe they’ll find Christ there, too. Because that’s where He waits.”

When I open my eyes, my guests are gone. I take another sip of coffee and in a moment, my son runs into the room. He is wearing only his sagging green pajama bottoms and a hyperactive grin: “Daddy tickle me?” he says. It is not really a question.

I pull him into my arms instead, and thank my Father for new beginnings.

A Letter to My Autistic Son on His 9th Birthday

Dear Jackson,

You turn nine tomorrow, and there is one moment from this past year that I want both of us to remember always. We were at the lake. The one where we can see the mountains up close. Your brothers and sisters were splashing around, soaking in the afternoon, but you weren’t having any of it. You were standing on the shore looking concerned and very dry. This had been your way for the past several months, which was sad because you love the water. Always have. But something had changed.

“What’s the matter buddy?” I asked, not expecting you to answer. You like to keep us guessing, see.

But this time you did answer. You pointed to the water and spat out three panicked words: “Great white shark.” Because you had been watching Wild Kratz, see…

It was a sad, beautiful moment for us all. Sad because we saw you were afraid, and beautiful because you finally gave us the answer to our long-standing riddle.

I picked you up your tense little frame and tiptoed through the shallow water, assuring you that there were no sharks in the lake. With every step, you started to release your breath. To believe me, little by little. To exchange those irrational bits of fear for the pieces of joy they were keeping you from. When that transaction was complete, you spent the afternoon glorying in the lake like a river otter.

This is my story as much as yours.

I have my own irrational bits of fear that have kept me from joy, and those fears are about you.

10689832_10204435416837159_1226580369505442984_nYou see, when a dad discovers that his son has autism, one of the first things he has to learn is to let go of his expectations. And I did. It took me a long time, but I did. I learned to embrace you where you were. To let go of my desire to rush you along in your development. I learned to stop comparing you to the other boys your age, who are playing basketball, reading books, and having heart-level conversations.

I thought that meant I had learned patience. I was wrong. I had simply learned not to hurry. But that is not the same thing as patience.

Let me explain: Last week, I met a family who had a boy like you. An autistic boy who did not use words, but kept to himself and his chosen comfort toys. They were sad, just like I am sometimes, because they wanted relationship with him. But when he was seven or eight, something amazing happened: he started talking. He started relating. He went to school and learned all the same things as the other boys his age. And now, he is a teenager and has a bright future ahead of him.

When I heard their story, I thought of you, of course, and I wondered, “What if Jack were to break out of his box?” And immediately, I felt a panic like you did on the shore of that lake. I tensed up and pointed to the water, yelling: “Hope! Hope!”

What an ugly revelation that was. After all I have learned, I am still afraid to commit to believing in your eventual breakthrough. Hope, to me, is a scary animal with teeth in it.

And that is why I now believe my patience has been false.

A man who waits without any expectation is not being patient. He is simply loitering.

I have been a loitering father. As a result, I have cheated you out of well-deserved praise, and cheated myself out of joy. I have glossed over the very real strides you are making. You are interacting with other people far more and far better than ever before. You have, by and large, stopped injuring yourself. You are learning and deploying new vocabulary to the point that your mother just said to me, “he wouldn’t be classified as non-verbal anymore.” She is right.

And then there’s something else which I confess I never saw coming: you are learning to read.

Last night, you were getting into the van and you dropped a homework paper. I picked it up and motioned to the big black letters at the top. “What does that say, Jack?”

You pointed to each word as you spoke:

“I. Can. See.”

Yes, you can. I want to see, too.

I want to see forward without fear. I want to be the kind of father who not only loves his son through the challenges, but who believes he will overcome them, too. I want to be like the early riser who faces east and waits for the dawn with certitude. I want to anticipate the inevitability of our sunrise–yours and mine alike. In our breakthroughs. And despite my fears, I know this is a good and reasonable hope, because the same God who programed the sun also programmed us with a deep desire for wholeness. And why would He give us such desires unless wholeness was a real thing?

It is coming. Hope is rising.

My son, let me begin anew: You are winning. You are kicking down the doors of your box. I can see it. I couldn’t be more proud of you and all the strides you have made. And this year… this is the year we overcome. Together.

Happy birthday, my boy. I love you.

Dad


Click here to read the next birthday letter

And if you liked this post, check out my book, Aching Joy!

For Anna and Simeon (An Advent Poem)

(This poem was formerly called “When the Soul Felt its Worth,” since it carries threads of “O Holy Night. I wrote and performed it a few years back for our church’s Christmas program. It’s technically a spoken word piece, but I thought I’d share it here anyway.)

I

Since the days of old
When prophets told
Of a King who would hold
The government on his shoulders,
And milk and honey in His hands,

The chosen race
Adorned in white lace
For centuries past her wedding day waits
At the alter for her faceless groom
A Messiah her grandparents swore would soon
Topple the Empire and finally deliver
The white picket fences from father Abraham.

Long lay the empire,
In a Pax that required
Legions, phalanxes and arrows afire,
Long lay the world
With battle flags unfurled
The everlasting hills groan
With agonies of war and famine and hope deferred.

Creation remembers
A fire, now embers,
Where family members
Were supposed to gather round
Feasting on fresh fruit and marshmallows
Plucked from the Tree of life,

And best of all,
He would be with them at their garden party.

But those far off pictures
Are eclipsed by real fixtures
Of sadness and tricksters
Shuffling thrones like shells
Over one elusive ball called deliverance.

So with limp expectations,
And weak incantations,
The world falls asleep again, and dreams about nothing…
…but morning.

396505396_db80e3fd75_b

II

Sin and error,
Grief and terror,
Grip the image bearers
Of long forgotten Hope,
And the angels wince at this new normal.

They surround His throne
Begging that He alone
Would call his faithful home
Or else get down there Himself
And do something.

But His ears are attuned
To the voices of two
Aged prophets who
Still sees visions of a coming King:

Anna and Simeon stubbornly sing.

From their wrinkled lips
Over incense whisps,
Their whispered melodies insist
That the violent plots of jilted progeny
That prodigals plotting their recompense
That the unbroken strings of brokenness would all,
themselves,
At last,
Be broken.
That HE would finally come to take His throne.

Anna she weeps,
Simeon keeps
The incense burning,
If for just another day.
Unless their strength finally falters,
And their heartbeats give way.

Not today.
Not till we’ve seen him.
Dear God, not today.

shepherds and angels

III

When Rachel’s weeping fills the skies
Her innocents, slaughtered like flies
By petty kings with jealous knives,
Midnight threatens to paint the hills
in permanent despair.

And it would have, too.
But for a star-shaped window
In the firmament,
And the Fathers light pouring through.

There, from that perch
He whispers words
The most anticipated ever heard
“The fullness of time has come.”

And at that,
Giddy galaxies dance and run
To watch Bethlehems skies
Where Heaven’s minstrels arise
With joyous operas improvised,

“He is here!
He is here!
Glory and Peace!
He is here!”

Herdsmen and Cherabim
Elbow the Seraphim
Just to catch a glimpse of Him
The Emperor of the Cosmos,
The King of a Billion Suns,
Under cover —
Sleeping on a horse’s breakfast.

And Men and angels
Wings-in-arms
Raise their glasses
To the Newborn Caesar.

But an honor still higher
Meets the ones who conspired
Over wax-fueled fires
In sleepless prayerful nights:
Anna and Simeon
Faithful and frail,
Feeble and mostly blind,
At last, receive Destiny Himself in their hands,
To be dedicated,
consecrated
and celebrated.

Long lay the world
In sin and error pining,
Till he appeared
In their arms,
In swaddling clothes
With a violent clash of hymns and prose
And the soul of man finally knows
It’s incomprehensible worth.

Because He came near
And His rule still advances
Taming cruel hearts with redemptive romances
Leading us back,
Calling us home
To the campfires of Eden.


Photo Credits:

Creative Commons license, Spiritual Boundary by vincos

Shepherds image, free use from FreeBibleImages.com

Feature image of Simeon and Anna: Artist Unknown

A Letter to God Concerning the Bruises I Saw on My Son’s Head

Dear Father,

You know that I’ve tried to pray for my son, but I can’t seem to complete a single sentence. My words run out, and I resort to a weak, babbling, “Oh God… Oh God…” that fades out when something shiny distracts me. Sorry about that. You deserve better, I know. Sometimes, when I can’t figure out what to say, I have to start writing, and let my fingers help me sort it all out. So I’m going to try that right now as I fly home from New York.

Oh God… I’m so confused.

My words have run out because I don’t know how to pray for Jack anymore. Shortly after his diagnosis, it was an easy and obvious prayer: “Lord, please heal my son.” But then I started to learn about this thing we call autism, and the more I learned, the more aware I became of my own ignorance. I grow more ignorant all the time.

I’ve learned that autism is not a disease, but something else. I don’t know what that something else is. In some sense, it is a part of him. Some say it is an integral part of his identity. Is that true? I would be okay with that, I think, if he was just “different.” Really, I think I would. But you’ve seen us the past few weeks. You’ve seen us installing the new alarm on our door to keep him from wandering. You’ve seen the black bike helmet we’ve been strapping onto his head to keep him from hurting himself during his meltdowns. And you see the bruises he gave himself at school on Wednesday. They couldn’t get the helmet on him quickly enough. When I saw them on Facetime, I knew exactly what had happened, and it about tore me up.

This is all new territory, God.

I am afraid. And I am not okay with any of it. Jack is not just a quirky kid whose mind works in it’s own exciting way. I could accept quirky, but this? Something is wrong. Something inside of him is not working the way you designed it to work. He doesn’t have the words to tell us what troubles him, but whatever it is, it is so extreme that he has decided that the best way to deal with hist frustration is to injure himself.

Dear God, this is no the way you designed him, is it? To live with unbearable frustration that turns to pain? Is that part of the identity that you have planned for him? Because I’ll be honest: if it is, well… I just don’t know how to deal with that.

I have always believed the world is broken, and that you didn’t break it.

That you are the great Restorer. That your Son came to make all things new. This has been my conclusion after years of study and thought, but I have to admit, I am bias on this point, because I desperately want to believe it. I need to believe that You are truly, wholly good. That you don’t desire innocent children to live frantic and bruised. That you don’t lock up a boy’s future behind impaired speech centers in the brain.

I don’t know how to help my son, and I don’t know how to pray. I can’t just pray “heal my son” because I don’t even know what that means anymore. I don’t know what anything means.

So I won’t pray anything too bold for now. Instead, I will just remind that your name is Immanuel, which means “God with us.” Come close, Immanuel. Prince of peace, draw near to my son, and give him rest.

Amen.

Photo courtesy of Kanegen under Creative Commons License

When We Thought You Might Die

“Six years old,” I say to myself, looking at my son from across the little MacDonald’s booth. He is disassembling his bacon, egg and cheese biscuit. I tell him he can eat it like a sandwich.

“I know,” he says smiling, continuing to pull his food apart. He is always confident, but today is his birthday. He can do whatever he wants.

Six years. How could it be six years. It was yesterday. No, it was a hundred years ago.

“Sam, I haven’t told you much about your heart. Do you know how worried your mom and I were for you when you were born?”

“No,” he says, ripping out a piece of bacon.

“We found out your heart had a problem right when you were a tiny baby. Real tiny. And we were scared.”

“Why were you scared?”

I swallow. We have never spelled this out to him before.

“Because sometimes little babies who have heart problems don’t live.” There it is.

“You thought I might die?”

“Yes.”

*****

I grew up crisis free.

My parents loved me. I never wondered whether they were proud of me because they told me they were. My family was whole. My teachers were encouraging, my friends were loyal, and I had only the tiniest acquaintance with death. It all added up to an unsettling form of insecurity. I knew my good fortune would not last forever. I knew crisis would find me. And I wasn’t sure if I would be able to survive it when it did.

When Sam was born, his heart sounded like Darth Vader. They called it a murmur, but I heard a breathy, almost squishy sound. They sent us to San Francisco for tests. I was on edge when the nurse called us back for the results.

“Come on in. Take a seat.”

My heart–my healthy heart–pounded when I stepped into the cardiologist’s office. My eyes went straight past the thin, gray haired man to the giant window overlooking Golden Gate Park. It had to be one of the finest office views on the planet. I clench the back of the leather chair, not wanting to move.

The doctor looked up at me with feigned nonchalance.

“Why don’t you sit down,” he said.

One thought dominated all others: “So this is what crisis feels like.”

*****

Sam is soaking it all in.

He listens intently while taking small bites and staring out the window. This is his thoughtful posture, where he goes from ninja-hero-superspy-cowboy to tiny young adult. He could be a therapist. Tomorrow.

“The doctor wanted to fix your heart, but you were so small, and it is very dangerous to try to fix a little baby’s heart. So Mommy had to keep you alone at home. Just you and her and Jack. Nobody could come over and visit you because we didn’t want you to get sick.”

“He wanted me to get bigger so he could fix my heart?”

“Yeah.”

*****

We sat with him in a small room adjacent to the big metal doors.

sam_6 months

The scariest doors in San Fransisco. A lady came out in a mask and blue scrubs. She knelt in front of us.

“Hi little guy,” she cooed.

He smiled the greatest six month old smile that ever was. Then again, he always smiled. Sam had broken all Hague baby protocols by refusing to cry. It was the greatest relief in our nine year marriage: this child, of all children, did not cry. His cardiologist had warned us that crying could deplete the oxygen in his blood. He could wear himself out and turn blue. He could pass out. It could cause brain damage. It could…

“Oh, look at that smile. You want to come see me? Come here.” He reaches for her like he reaches for any happy face.

I squeeze my wife’s hand. We wear phony grins. Lumps like softballs are lodged in our throats. Our eyes are wet with fear.

“You want to come with me little man? Okay. Let’s go. Say goodbye to mommy and daddy.”

We wave. They disappear behind those doors. Those wicked, violent, life-saving doors. And all of creation stands still.

*****

“So the doctors had to cut open your heart so they could fix it.”

I take a sip of my coffee.

“I didn’t feel it?” he says, already knowing this part. He takes great pride in the scars on his chest, like any boy would.

“No, because they gave you medicine. They poked you with a needle and the medicine made you fall asleep. You couldn’t feel anything.”

“Could I hear anything?”

“Nothing.”

“Not even the cars?”

I grin. “Not even the cars.”

*****

We spent four hours in the waiting room.

My wife sent out texts to family, and I read a spy novel. Three hours passed, and I put the book down. Now I was concerned, but not for my son. I was concerned for me, because I felt I should be concerned for my son but I wasn’t anymore. I had been on edge for the past six months. But now, in the very moment that his most vital organ was being sliced open, I felt nothing but peace and confidence. And I was sure I had broken something inside myself. Some emotional muscle.

And the angels giggled above me. For they know the mystery of a “peace that passes all understanding.”

******

Sam sips his orange juice, drinking it in slowly with the tale.

sam_born“Now you’re six years old. You will still have to see doctors about your heart. That’s why we went to Portland a few months ago. And they will have to fix your heart again. But we’re not scared anymore. It’s not an emergency now. God protected you.”

“Mmm-hmmm,” he says with a grown up sigh. “God always protects his people.”

Six years old. I look down on him, thinking about the complexities of life and theology. How sometimes even God’s people go through horrendous pain. How there will be unanswered prayers and sickness, and heartache. I think about his big brother, whose life has been defined by his “severe autism” diagnosis. How his mind might be whole for all we know, but whose mouth is still held hostage by his uncooperative body. How his diagnosis came on the heels of Sam’s surgery. How that double crisis had us reeling for months on end, leaving us feeling decidedly unprotected.

Yes, there will be many questions Sam will have to wrestle through. So much uncertainty. And more crisis. But I know this boy will be all right, because he will never be alone. God always protects His people. Sometimes through doctors. Sometimes through miracles. And sometimes through the comfort that follows the river of tears.

We walk to school together, and he hands me his orange juice because his hands are getting cold. I smile and ask him what he wants to do this year. His seventh year.

“You want to become a spy? Or a Dallas Cowboy?”

He skips in front of me. “Yeah. Just whatever.”

Just whatever. He can be whatever. Because he is whole. The angels are giggling again. And I can hear them whisper, “Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of lights.”

An Ode to Stubborn Optimists (And One in Particular)

Dear Madame Optimist,

In darker days like these, when the screams, the tantrums and the safety helmets are close by, I wonder whether you will change your mind about our boy’s potential. I pray you won’t. You have this abounding faith in him that I envy, even in my doubts. You hear him mimic Nemo, and you think it means he feels lost. He hits his head and stomps, and you assume he doesn’t like our topic of conversation. He flaps his socks in the general direction of a tree, and you explain it’s because that tree reminds him of one he used to see before we moved here. Before all of this. When we still thought we were a normal family.

You know how kids stand against the wall for a height measurement, and then want to do it again the very next day? It never fails. They always think they are taller than yesterday. Every time. It could be the shoes, or the angle of the pencil, but they will claim a new centimeter.

This, I would wager, is how that particularly difficult person sees him right now (and you know of whom I speak). And if I am honest with myself, this is how I see you when I let my guard down. The realists (don’t dare call us “pessimists”) surrounding our boy bite our tongues and hang our heads. We see the wall and sigh, for all the pencil marks show up in the same vicinity.

It’s not that we doubt you. We just know how unreliable measurements can be.

Especially when those measurements concern him. A hundred times over, we have watched him progress and then regress, charge and then fall back, climb and then slide down. And so we hesitate to “go all in” on his progress.

But this is supposed to be about you, not us. About how you seem like you’re in denial sometimes. About how you need a teaspoon of tweaked expectations. About how we, the “properly adjusted” ones, are concerned that you are setting yourself–and all of us–up for further disappointment. Because let me tell you something, my love: belief is not as easy for all of us as it appears to be for you. Some days, it feels impossible. The truth is, many skeptics actually want faith. They would believe if only they could conjure up the courage. And on bad days, even after all the lessons I’ve learned being his father and your mate, I still feel a coward.

Forgive me. Forgive me.

You married the man who babbled, “I do believe. Help my unbelief.”

And that is why I need you. That is why we all need you. You are not the child with her heels against the wall; you are the loud cheerleading grownup. You swoop in and holler, “you HAVE grown!” We need you because you are well aware of the padded socks and the angle of the pencil, and yet you still see progress. We need you because, at the end of the day, you are exactly right: the child is taller today, if only by a hair.

My dear Lady, I am sorry I have trouble seeing in tiny increments. I read stories aloud but I miss “the little words,” as you are fond of saying. The forest is clear, but trees are all a blur. And I want to see them. I need you to keep pushing until I do see them. Until I live and love like Paul prescribed: hoping and believing all things. Because that kind of love, he assures me, never fails.

Give me time. Give all of us time.

I am only a couple of steps behind you now. I know the tantrums will subside. The safety helmet will return to attic storage. Our boy will grow. He is growing.

And before long, everyone will celebrate that fact.

Because even the “realists” around you, in our deepest places, understand that your way of seeing is not only nobler than ours, but lovelier and wiser as well.

Autism, Baseball, and the Whispers of Beauty

Sometimes a moment grabs you by the collar like Liam Neeson, throws you against the wall and demands, “remember this” without giving any further explanation. I had one of these moments two weeks ago at a minor league baseball game.

Jack (my 8 year old autistic son) knows nothing of baseball, except that you’re supposed to sing “Deep in the Heart of Texas” during the 5th inning. He learned this from a video on my phone, taken at a Texas Rangers game in Arlington two years ago. Since they, uh, don’t sing this song at Eugene Emeralds games (jerks…), we were concerned that he might be disillusioned. He was not. In fact, Jack watched all 9 innings of baseball, ate popcorn, muttered movie lines to himself, and laughed at the fluffy green mascot. He was content. We were content.

It wasn’t until after the game that his OCD kicked into high gear. The field was calling to him. So he ran down the stairs ahead of Sara down toward the dugout where some Emeralds players were signing autographs. There was a pitcher who saw him and understood at once. Sara tried to get a picture of the two of them, but Jack was not interested. The man smiled and signed a ball for him, but he wasn’t interested in that, either. In fact, his response was to take the ball and throw it onto the field.

The pitcher just grinned. “He’d better go get it.” Jack was already gone.

That’s when we spotted him.

I was fifty yards away with my other four kids and a small band of friends. And there was my son, marching toward the pitcher’s mound, where the grounds crew was already tidying up.

“Jack’s on the field!” I yelled.

The boy was on a mission. When he reached the mound, he did what he had seen pitchers doing all night long. He threw the ball.

It did not go far. It did not have to. There, amidst the couple hundred remaining fans filing out of the stadium, we cheered like Cheeseheads in Lambeau.

He even gave us an encore, picking up the ball and throwing it one more time.

More cheering. My kids were exploding with jealousy excitement. And I wanted to dance. To enshrine the ball in glass forever. To preserve the memory.

That was my Liam Neeson moment.

I have tried to write about that night for the past two weeks, but I could never explain the impact. Why did it hit me so hard? There was no real breakthrough. Jack did not discover a hidden talent, or find a new passion. He just threw a baseball. It was barely even a sports moment. But there was beauty in it. Unmistakeable beauty.

This morning, I found an answer as I considered the other beauties in my life. The beauty of the Oregon countryside. Of Crater Lake, that impossibly blue pool in the mountain, where snow hides in the shadows of the rockslide walls even in the summer. Or the beauty of music. Of a Civil Wars song, where two desperate voices cling to one another just above a sea of acoustic hopelessness. Or the beauty of family. Of my wife, when she reaches up and pulls out a hair pin, letting her sandy blond ribbons tumble down over her shoulders like Sahali Falls in October.

Real beauty stills our breathing and stops our mouths, but never demands an explanation. We can describe it with poetry and metaphor, but we cannot diagram it with theorems or postulates. Real beauty just is. All we have to do is drink in the moment and listen, because it comes with a promise. A distant promise whispering in the wind: “This is only a taste. There is more…”

Today, I want to be done analyzing. What happened on that diamond was gorgeous. My son on a mission… that was art. And I look forward with a fan’s fervor to “more.”


(Ed’s Note — I think this guy deserves a special shout out: Eugene Emeralds pitcher Cory Bostjancic. You’re not supposed to just let a kid wander out on the field, but a good man knows when it’s okay to wink at a rule. I love how the grounds crew, too, pretended not to notice that Jack was out there. Just a great organization all around. Thank you, Cory!

In Defense of Happy Stories

My friend Janae only wants to watch “H.E.A.” movies (Happily Ever After.) If it doesn’t end with with the shy guy and the pretty girl riding away on the gilded stallion, she’s not terribly interested. Every time I make fun of her about it, she makes me this falsetto Chewbacca growl and tells me to back off. Nobody ever accused Janae of being a pushover.

“HEA movies” are the bane of postmodern existence, second only to Thomas Kinkade paintings. They don’t win the awards or critical acclaim because they aren’t realistic. Life isn’t all kisses and sighs and sunsets. It’s full of coldness and blood and starvation and cancer. The stories we tell with art should reflect those factors. Besides, it is not nice to raise people’s expectations to unrealistic levels.

There are shorter H.E.A. stories all over the internet now. You’ve seen them. They are tailor made to go viral:

“Dalmatian Puppy Shows the True Meaning of Christmas!”
“Boy Without Feet Auditions for a Tap-Dancing Role, and YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HE CAN DO!”
“Dolphin and Her Former Shark Enemy Finally Meet Face to Face, and we DARE YOU NOT TO CRY!”

Autism parents get more of these than most others, I’d wager, and they usually look something like this:

“Boy with Autism Sings a Michael Buble Hit, and it will BRING YOU TO TEARS!”

Or like this:

“Yada Yada Yada, Something About Carly Fleischmann.”

And you know what I do when I see these? I move on. I almost never click them. Because I am such a postmodernist: I sneer at H.E.A. stories.

These stories come to me face to face even more often, especially on Sunday mornings. I’ve preached openly about my own struggles with Jack’s condition—even stood up on stage and cried like a baby once—and whenever I do, I get a boatload of encouragement from a congregation that has embraced my son. I love these people. But in the midst of the encouragement, I often meet a first time visitor who wants to tell me about a friend’s cousin who has an autistic daughter who was doing badly but now is doing so great, and…

*Eyes… glazing over.*
*Concentration… Waning.*
*Head… Nodding anyway.*
*Keep… Smiling…*

My mind presents arguments against the stories. Every kid is different. They’re not all as severe as Jack. Not all kids have special skills that will “BRING THE AUDIENCE TO THEIR FEET!” Not all kids are going to break out of that non-verbal box they live in.

Nice to meet you, first time visitor, but can’t you see I’m trying to manage my hopes here?

This scenario played out a few weeks ago, but something changed. Just when my customary eye glazing began, I caught myself. This story I was hearing was not fiction. There was a real kid who had real breakthrough. Her parents had probably felt all that I had felt. They were tired of the H.E.A. stories just like as I was. And then… breakthrough.

I forced myself to listen. I forced myself to be encouraged. And you know what? It worked.

There is an inherent weakness in the postmodern insistence on despair, and that is this: the reality of joy. Of breakthrough. Of Good News. Joy flies in the face of our desaturated tragedian lives and emo soundtracks. The major chord has a way of breaking through the dissonance, and it is indeed beautiful.

The happy stories remind me of the childlike wonder of fairy tales. The promise that we can overcome. They whisper to us, as Lewis says, of the mountain where all the beauty came from.

And all of this humbles me. It makes me want to kick a rock and hang my head and tell my friend Janae that I am wrong and she is right. That I need H.E.A. stories as much as I need the sad ones. Because joy is at least as realistic as sorrow.

Walk-Off Moments for Special Needs Dads

My friend Mark is a great father to three neuro-typical kids, and he is currently floating on the highest cloud in the Dadosphere. His son Zach–a sophomore in high school–just hit a walk-off home run to win the Oregon 2-A state championship. I know, right? A walk-off home run! For. The. State. Championship. I expect Mark to stop smiling sometime in mid to late November.

When my son Jack was first diagnosed with autism, I had to come to grips with the fact we might never share those types of experiences. I hit pause on my inner Sports Center Top 10 highlight fantasies. My visions of him graduating with honors. Or delivering a killer speech in front of thousands. Or standing next to his groomsmen, beaming at his bride.

Every special needs parent goes through that phase, I expect, with varying degrees of melodrama. I might have had more drama than most, because for some reason I thought that I was required to do something catastrophic. I thought letting go meant setting fire to my fatherly hopes–forgetting them, scorning them, and most importantly, feeling sorry for them. But I was wrong.

Letting go demands only the loosening of the knuckles and the opening of a fist.

It requires not the burning of hope but the surrender of expectations. This will be different than what you thought. This will be different than what your friends are experiencing. And you’re going to have to be okay with that.

Timelines no longer exist for us. There is no such phrase as “on schedule.” We embrace Jack where he is at, and we push him to move forward at the same time. Our goal is progress without regard to time. We challenge him to learn his letters and use his words, knowing full well that it might take him years to permanently remember them. Years.

But when he pulls out the right word in the right moment? That’s gold.

Herein lies the inherent advantage of being a special needs father:

We don’t have to wait for the big moments. We get to celebrate every tiny victory.

“You waited for me when you crossed the street? That calls for french fries!”

“Did you see that? She waved at us. She actually waved! Kiss me hard.”

“Why am I drinking champagne before noon? Because he put his poopies in the potty!

Those celebrations might seem mechanical at first, but they won’t stay that way. I mean it. I can honestly say I know what Mark felt like when he watched his son win the state championship, because my boy pointed at his penguin book and said “Jack and Daddy.” That was his walk-off moment. Our walk-off moment, if I may say so.

I don’t know which comes first–learning to celebrate others’ victories, or learning to celebrate our own–but I know the two are linked. When we laud other families without comparison or jealousy, it makes our own victories at home all the sweeter. And when we enjoy our own children, it makes it easier to cheer on our friends.

We have no idea whether Jack will ever excel in any spectator event. Whether he’ll knock down a trey at the buzzer, or wear a cap and gown, or fall in love. He might do none of those things, or all of them. But for now, it does not matter because those are not his yard sticks. Not anymore. He’s on his own journey. We take progress a day at a time, and we throw dance parties when he gains an inch.

You Have Permission (A Letter to New Autism Dads)

Dear Autism Dad,

This past weekend, I went backpacking with some friends through Big Indian Gorge in Eastern Oregon’s Steens Mountain. From a distance, Steens appears as a tall, wide rock with some snow on it. A two dimensional cutout along the horizon. But when I started toward it, the entire landscape opened up. Steens is a glorious maze of cliffs and creeks, gorges and waterfalls, aspens and sage. Every simple mountain wall turns out to be four or five layers of rock face, each with its own weathered angles and Instagram temptations that beg to be explored. The sights are as mysterious and beautiful as they are dangerous.

Likewise, this thing called autism–this mountain that has, it seems, picked your family–looks a certain way to you right now. It is large and looming, and you will be tempted to stay at base camp and “let her handle it.” But you’re better than that. And you’re a man. So suit up. Your expectations are already being shaped by many sources: books, family, movies, and blog posts that your friends have shared and tagged you in. That’s one reason you feel so apprehensive. But you love your kid. So you start walking.

You have heard that there will be dangers to look out for: things called IEP’s, insurance companies, vaccines, and depression. You have also heard that there are treasures along the way: miracle diets, adorable “Different Not Less” memes, bio-medical magic bullets, and a mindset called “acceptance.”

Dangers and treasures are real, but they often look identical. You will read about the horrors of vaccines, then about the insidious nature of those who distrust them. You’ll read a post scorning Autism Speaks… just as you’re “lighting it up blue.” You’ll spend a week Googling “Autism Cures,” then you’ll chastise yourself because you looked up “Neuro-Diversity” on WikiPedia. You will continue to love your kid, but you’ll want more for him. You will want to celebrate your child’s differences while simultaneously helping to normalize his future. You may embrace him a thousand times just before you send him to therapy.

And you’ll want to quit, because it’s all too damned complicated.

That simple landscape you saw from afar will have become a wonderland of confusion.

steens2

There is a dirty little secret about this whole thing that you need to know up front. All of those people who are screaming out for your attention–every single one of them–is on his or her own hike. Some are screaming down from a narrow waterfall, “you’ve GOT to try this!” Others are lathering up among the poison ivy, saying “Don’t come this way! Please!” Bloggers hang upside down from climbing ropes about whether to say “autistic” or “with autism.” And they will call down to you, “THIS is the way to see things.”

I’m not suggesting there is no truth on this mountain. There is. But even the experts can’t agree on causes or definitions–the most basic of landmarks. I trust they will, eventually. Just not yet.

Until that day, however, I want you to know this:

You have permission.

You have permission to be lost.

You have permission to not have an opinion.

You have permission to ask honest questions, and to not feel guilty or stupid about them.

You have permission to put your hat over your face and cry.

You have permission to yell at God. He can take it.

You have permission to go into a cave and swear at the top of your lungs.

And you have permission to strip down to your skivvies and cool off in the river when it gets too hot.

But there’s one thing you do not, dear friend, have permission to do:

You are not allowed to lose hope.

Your family needs you. Your child needs you. And he can feel it when you stop expecting him to win.

The hardest part about this hike is its unpredictability. You don’t know what might be around the bend. It could be a thousand foot cliff or a shaded meadow. You don’t know. But that is also the exact reason why you cannot give up: You don’t know what might be around the bend. Your kid has far more passion and ability than you realize, and you simply must give him a chance to use it.

So gear up, friend. Grab a buddy who will let you vent (but not keep venting), offer up a prayer of weakness, and get to it. The mountain is calling.

steens3


Photos courtesy of my good buddy Paul Nunn. Hire him and his wife, Anne. They are amazing.

Regression and Renaissance

Back when “Early intervention” was a new term and a thin hope for us, I used to drive my son to school every afternoon. We were lucky to get him in the program. He was four years old. Just months removed from his diagnosis, and two years from the initial regression that took away his words and all but severed our connection with him.

Those afternoons were great for sleepwalking. I would drop him off, choke back my new reality, and zombie over to a coffee shop where I would open my laptop and medicate myself with work and sports talk to avoid daydreaming.

Four o’clock would come and I would retrieve him from class with a numb, vague idea that he might have learned something he would remember tomorrow.

The regressions had kept coming back, you see. We would hear a new sentence. A new skill. A new glimmer. But the next day? Gone.

“I swear, he was doing it last night!” we would insist to his teachers.

The mystery of those regressions had been hanging in our minds and our stomachs for weeks. Everyone was concerned. The tests had been extensive and traumatic. My poor wife, trying to keep him asleep for hours while they tested for absence seizures…

Everything came back negative.

Then came the worst day. On this afternoon, I found a parking space out front. There was a big silver handicap button for the door that Jack always loved to push when I dropped him off. I avoided the button and pulled the door open instead. My personal rebellion.

A few moms were waiting outside the classroom gate. Inside, I saw Jack with his teacher. She looked apprehensive. We walked a few steps out of earshot from the moms, and she delivered her tentative conclusion about the regressions.

“We think he might be mentally retarded,” she said in a kind voice.

I died a little more at her words.

I thanked her and mumbled something about how we’d wondered about that, and no we were not offended, and thank you again, we’ll be fine.

I wept like a baby the whole way home. It is a wonder I stayed on the road.

That was my worst day. I have almost never spoken about it.

 

* * *
 

It wasn’t a diagnosis, first of all. It was a concern, and a well founded one. A theory that seemed to fit the facts, but was far from conclusive. And this is how Jack’s teacher presented it. She was professional, insightful, and sensitive, and we loved her for it.

Secondly, I know the term has since been replaced by gentler ones. I am thankful. Remember, this conversation happened several years ago, and in context, it was not offensive. We knew what she meant.

Still, the words stung. The possibility stung.

Sara and I didn’t talk about the theory much, though I think she dismissed it almost out of hand. She inherited the faith of her late father, I think. Forget moving mountains; that man could move entire mountain ranges with his faith. And true to form, his daughter held on to her small, almost imperceptive observations of Jack’s growth that I suspected were pure denial.

 

* * *
 

I tried to prepare myself for the grim possibility that Jack’s condition might go beyond autism. That he might not be able to learn. But everywhere in the autism community, I saw statements like, “Autistic people are NOT disabled!” And of course, it’s true. Autism and “cognitive disabilities” are completely different. And yes, I know that many, many autistic people are not only verbal and accomplished in most areas of life, they are often brilliant. And yes, yes, yes, I know: “different, not less.”

But what about the times there actually is a “retardation” (I use the term in the literal sense) that makes progress all but impossible? What if there is a permanently disabled brain that will not ever latch onto information or make relational connections?

In those instances, I fear that the insistence on a strict differentiation becomes a slap in the face of those dealing with cognitive impairments. It feels to me like we’re molding a new kind of caste system in the special needs community. And there is no doubt which class is at the bottom.

And I thought, that could be my son you’re trying to keep your distance from! And even despite my own lingering depression–the great failure of that season of my life–I knew his value has never been based on his abilities or his possible disabilities. Jackson’s value, like all of ours, is inherent. God-given. Soulborn.

 

* * *
 

Four years it’s been, and I’m learning to daydream again, little by little.

Part of that is my own spiritual journey. The other part is my son’s personal Renaissance.

First came “Jack and Daddy.” Then came a video sent home from school a few weeks ago. Jack was answering his teacher’s questions in the clip. Giving his address. The names of his brothers and sisters. The name of the school. He has never done any of this before. Ever.

Then, last week, he gave me an unsolicited hug and an “I wuv you, Daddy.”

And finally, this morning, while he answered all those same questions for my parents via my iPhone with clarity and certainty, it all crystalized for me:

My son is learning. He is growing. And I am finally believing.

I am believing that there really is a treasure trove of skills and knowledge inside him that can be unlocked. That he knows our affection. That he knows we love him.

I am believing that his mind is not, in fact, stuck.

This is why I’m revisiting that afternoon. I need to put the incident to bed. Because I made a decision on that day to hope for less, and Jack is currently waging a campaign against that decision. By my oath, the boy is relentless.

And today, I am choosing to surrender.

Autism Awareness: What I Want the Church to Know

Dear Church,

You don’t know me, but I am one of you. I was born in you and raised in you. I did mimes in parks and marinated to the soothing rasps of Chapman and Smitty. And now that I’m mostly grown up, I am one of the guys who sits on the front row and “brings the word” on a Sunday morning.

I have five children, and one has autism. When he was diagnosed, it rocked my world. We couldn’t communicate with him, and I got depressed about it. I withdrew. I got angry.

Five years later, he has made good strides in his communication, and I have grown, too. Granted, I’m still moody, but I’m not depressed anymore, and one of the biggest reasons is because of my brothers and sisters. The church. You.

I wasn’t on staff at the time of Jack’s diagnosis but my church leadership embraced my entire family. They took us in. They let us vent and cry. They listened. They went out of their way to love my son and accommodate us. To let us hurt and to help us heal.

You did this. And I love you for it.

But it went further. The entire church body embraced my boy. One Sunday morning, I was on stage giving the announcements, and he bolted to the front of the sanctuary to see me. I picked him up and let him say hi in the microphone. Nobody was irritated. They were delighted because they, too, are striving to know him. They love him.

You did this. And I love you for it.

I am a gushing fan, because I have personally felt the healing of Christ at your touch. My only regret is that so many others have had such radically different experiences.

In the past year, as I’ve hung around the online autism community, I have found very few others who are discussing autism and the Christian faith. There are many reasons for this, I’m sure, but the biggest one is this: we have not known what to say about the issue, but we’ve still tried to offer solutions, especially when it comes to children. And those solutions have driven people away over time.

Okay, it’s worse than that, actually. I’ve talked to many parents of autistic kids who have been simply uninvited from church fellowship. Their son was loud one service, or he was running through the foyer. So they were told not to come back. These are the exceptions, but make no mistake, they happen. All too often. Can I speculate on a reason?

I think it’s because of our views on parenting.

The fact is, there isn’t very much written directly about parenting in the Bible. I wish there was more. It’s hard to list good parents in the bible, but it’s alarmingly simple to find poor ones, even among the heroes: Jacob, Eli, Saul, David, Solomon, and Hezekiah, to name a few. Maybe it’s because we are so short good examples that we have turned to the book of Proverbs, where sayings such as,“Spare the rod and spoil the child,” become our textbook.

Having kid problems? “Give ’em some discipline,” we tell them, as if it’s enough. Because we know people who don’t discipline their rug rats, and their kids are brats, so that proves it, right?

I use that example for a reason: it has wounded many, many children with autism, and it has confounded their already hurting parents. I’ve talked to them.

This is what I want to say to you, brothers and sisters in Christ:
Autism is not a discipline issue.


It really is not. There are boundaries that will need to be drawn and enforced, but those are secondary.

Autism is primarily a sensory issue. Autistic people see things and hear things and feel things in a much different way than the rest of us. They receive extra “data” from their senses, and they don’t always know how to react. Sometimes their bodies just rebel against sensory overload, and that can be a confusing thing. A disconcerting thing.

But please, don’t assume it’s a character issue.

I prefer a different Proverb to inform my parenting: “Train up the child according to the tenor of his way, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Prov 22:6, Darby) In other words, there is not a specific mold for our children to fit. There just isn’t. There’s no perfect playbook. No magic bullets. Every child is different, and it is our job to figure out how best to lead them based on who they are.

This is a proverb for us, the church, as well as for parents. How can we encourage the health and growth of our own if we don’t understand them?

Hear me, friends. I am not bashing. I have seen such beauty in our midst. But I have also seen confusion at these intersections.

The CDC tells us that there are more kids getting autism than ever. They say it’s 1 in 68 now. Whether or not you take those numbers seriously, you need to know that there are many families in your neighborhoods that need the beauty of love that is found in your midst. Some of them are invisible, but you can open your doors to them like we did. Others will work up the courage to visit your services, sitting (or standing) in the back, looking apprehensive when the kids are dismissed to Sunday School. In order to share that love with these families, we must adamantly refuse to assume causes and solutions that we know nothing about.

I know we like things to be simple, and we sometimes panic when they are not.

We try to convince ourselves that the answer is easy. Right in front of us. We’ve got the Bible, see, so we’ve got answers. Nothing to see here, people. Move on!

But today is Autism Awareness day, friends, and we need to be aware of the insufficiency of our advice. We need to go back to our roots and remember that Christ Himself is the Answer. We cannot always think His thoughts, but we can at least be His arms. To welcome. To embrace. To be there for one another.

This is the place I found healing. Not in the abundance of words, but in warmth.

And I love you for it.


Photo from GeekyGlass.com

A Letter to My Autistic Son on his 8th Birthday

Dear Jack,

You’re turning 8 today, and the snow is falling just for you. We don’t get much snow in the valley, but all of a sudden, it’s coming down, and you are right now glorying in the experience. It is a testament to you that none of us doubts the possibility that God sent the snow just for your birthday. Because you delight us, son, and it stands to reason that you delight the hosts of heaven even more.

While I hope the snow lingers a bit, it must not interrupt the mail, because your present is coming. The “American Spy Car.” You’ve been checking the mailbox for it every day. When it comes, you will do what you always do. You will line it up on the bookshelf with other toys of its genre–in this case, Lightning McQueen, Mater, and Finn McMissile–and then you’ll flap the daylights out of them all. And I will think of the autistic boy in Japan, who could not speak but learned to type. He wrote a book explaining why he does the things he does. Flapping? He explained that light can be so harsh sometimes, and the act of flapping filtered it. Calmed it. Made whatever he was looking at more beautiful.

Is that why you flap, son? To make things more beautiful?

There was a time when these questions depressed me, but they intrigue me now. You intrigue me. Especially after what happened last week.

You brought this book home from school. It was a red, cardboard book for very young children. Every page showed the same two characters: a big penguin and a little penguin. “I like it when we hold hands,” one page said, or “I like it when you tickle me.” You opened it up next to your mother and smiled brilliantly, pointing at the big penguin, then the little one:

“Jack and Daddy,” you said.

Mommy sent me a frantic message about it. When I came home, you were almost as eager to say it again as I was to hear it.

“Jack and Daddy.” It made you giggle. Your eyes were alight. And mine were welling up.

It’s not a simple thing, son, to understand relationship. This has been why your mom and I sometimes still get so sad about your experiences. The limitations of your autism have stopped your tongue, and severely hampered your connections with people. With us. And this is not the way it is supposed to be. It is wrong.

You have probably heard me say things like “God created us for relationship,” because I am a preacher, and I say that often. I believe it with all my heart, and that is the top reason why we fight for you. Because you are our son, and we want you to experience all you were meant to experience. And the most basic experience a child ought to feel is the love of his own family.

We didn’t know you felt it.

But then came, “Jack and Daddy.”

Did you understand what those words would mean to us, my boy? Did you say them on purpose, to assure us that you do know our love? That you get us?

I hope that you can read this someday, and understand the joy that comes with your overtures of affection. Just a glance from your eye does wild things to our hearts, son. And I am honored beyond words to be penguins with you.


Click here to read the next birthday letter

And if you liked this post, check out my book, Aching Joy!

On Praying Dangerous Prayers

Once, there were three brothers who found a magic lamp. They were good brothers, passionate brothers, with a deep affection for justice. So when the Genie emerged and offered them three wishes, none of them even considered themselves. They all thought of the terrifying lions which had long threatened the safety of their village.

The older brother knew what he wanted right away. “We need awareness. I wish for an advanced early warning alarm system that will sound when predators are near.”

“Brilliant!” the second one agreed, “And lions are beautiful, but dangerous. So for my wish, I want for everyone in our village to understand just how dangerous lions can be.”

The Genie snapped his fingers. “Both requests… done.”

The two slapped each other on the back and turned to their younger brother. His mouth was twisted in consideration.

“What’s it gonna be, kid?” the Genie asked.

“Make me a lion tamer.”


* * * * *

I spent last week with a gang of young lion tamers in Texas who are not satiated by “awareness” alone. They stand out amidst a culture obsessed with educating one another. We pin colored ribbons to our jackets, and pat ourselves on the back for telling people why. We find enlightening quotes over filtered images. Then we pin them, share them, and urge our friends in 140 characters or less, “Be aware of my cause!”

We bloggers are often the most guilty, especially on sites like this one. We write about subjects that many people know only a little bit about. We say a few honest words about these subjects, and then, out of nowhere, people gush about how “courageous” we are for saying them. Because that word, especially, has lost its meaning. Its worth.

Real courage does more than speak. It does more than raise awareness about personal difficulties or societal sins.

Real courage does.

These young people I mentioned, they are doers. Even now, they are preparing to roll back blatant injustices in far off lands. Places the rest of us might not even be aware of. Places where injustice does not even bother hiding. They will smell it everywhere they go. It will break their hearts in a hundred places. And yet, they go with healing in their hands and songs on their lips.

They do not have to go. In fact, they are paying through the nose for the opportunity. But they are volunteering anyway, because they understand “what is good and what the Lord requires,… to do justly, and to love mercy.” They go because they ache for the broken. They go because Jesus went.

One of the evenings I was them, I told this group all about my son Jack, and about the risks that special needs children face. After my talk, one young lady opened her mouth to pray, and courage—real courage—came out. “Lord, give us opportunities to love these children. Bring them into our lives.” In another setting, with different people, those might have been empty words. Not in this group. I knew she meant them, because she already is doing. And I fully expect her request to be answered. Dangerous prayers usually are.

I want to pray dangerous prayers, too. I want to live a wilder story. After all, as Mr. Lewis reminded us, Christ Himself is not a Tame Lion.

For The Ones Who Burn

I see you circle up when that Proclaimers song starts to play. You laugh, stomp, and dance for five hundred miles, then five hundred more. There is a childlike cluelessness in your arm-waving lunacy, as if you don’t even realize you’re being watched. You do, of course, but it doesn’t matter. You really don’t care. If dignity was a man, and if he stood in the doorway gasping at your impropriety, no less than three of you would pull at his wrist so he would join the circle.

And amid your lip synced harmonies and air guitar solos, I see it: The desire to Burn like this even when the music stops. To take audacious risks. To live shamelessly. To create fearlessly, as if no hipsters could mock you from corner booths.

What you need to know is this: You already have permission.

You have permission to do what Beuchner says: to meet the world’s deep hunger with your deep gladness. It was for this reason that you were given gladness in the first place. Maybe someone told you that it was selfish to revel in it. That it was more spiritual to sacrifice passion in favor of safe service.

They were wrong. A real sacrifice is never for it’s own sake. There will be lots of “dying to self,” friends, but God delights in His family more than in burnt offerings. He created creators so they would create. He gave you talents to invest.

So don’t bury them. Let your ideas breath on their own. Wield your daydreams like swords, your wit like scalpels. Paint prophecies, sunsets, and hospitals. Sing ballads of love, and healing. Speak beauty in your tales of kings, elves and dwarves.

But beware the trolls, whose cynicism is cyanide.

They criticize, but they do not create. Your energy is too precious to waste on them. Your pearls are too costly to throw at swine.

Look to the skies instead, and find where the Light is shining. Be about your Father’s business. Write your memoir at His breakfast table. You might not see the art in every scene. Not right away. But over time, tragedies will become opportunities. Mud will turn to gold. Dirges will become dances.

And when they do, you will link arms with others who Burn, and together, you will dance a thousand miles, then a thousand more.

Savoring Somersaults

When a five year old yells out, “Wanna see a somersault?” it is not a question. When he is already dressed like Superman, you had better be watching.

I was watching, from five states away, through my 3.5″ iPhone screen. I watched him plant his head into the carpet, kick up, then fall sideways. Enthusiastic cheering ensued from all sides. My girls tried to take the phone–they just wanted to tell me about their day–but their brothers kept stealing the limelight with their dancing and super hero moves. The phone shook with my wife’s laughter.

I lay there and considered the miracles of technology that allowed me to be with my family, even when I was two thousand miles away. I marveled about how grown up my daughters are, and what a little brute my 2 year old is. But most of all, I thought about apps: “I wonder if there’s a way to record Facetime calls so I can watch this again later.” That thought dominated my capacities for the next 5 minutes.

When I recognized what I was doing, I felt a sting of rebuke. Rather than tasting the moment, I was asking for a to-go box. How utterly silly that was, especially when I could just call them again the next day. Why was I trying to hoard this experience like someone who is about to lose it? It was a small thing, and I might have let myself off the hook, but this is a trend for me.

I try so hard to save things that I forget to savor them.

Case in point: we are a family who takes walks to the park. They usually involve a double stroller, a couple of bikes, and sometimes a tricycle. When we reach the playground, I pull out my phone, and my kids pull out their processed-cheeeeeese-smiles. I follow Jack around the most. “C’mon kid, this is for the blog,” I say. He looks at his feet and tries to duck away from me. “Smile, buddy,” I plead.

“My-o, buddy,” he parrots back.

I squeeze the trigger rapidly and stop when he runs away. I don’t know whether he’s headed for the slide or the bench, because I want to see if I got any good ones first. I flip through them and pass the phone around. “Awww, that’s a good one, dad. He’s almost looking at you,” my girls tell me. And they’re a little interested, I suppose, but they really just want to play lava monster.

When it gets dark, we head for home, where we will relive our playground adventure. I might even throw on a sepia filter. It will go nicely in my digital library with the other thousands of forgotten moments. The best ones will go in a Facebook album, because I’m cool like that.

And years down the road, my kids might even remember that precious evening when we had yet another photo shoot.

Pictures used to prompt memory. Now they can replace it.

I worry about these Instagram filters and Facebook albums. I worry that they could become graven images; sacred stones of remembrance that, by sheer accident, replace the tangible affection with loved ones. I worry that our retina displays are getting between us; that we are living vicariously through our own thumbs.

I’m not assuming that you are the same way. My wife finds joy in the act of taking pictures. Plus, she has a lousy memory, so iPhone photography is a healthy activity. If you’re like her, I applaud you.

But this is about the rest of us. The ones who enjoy gadgetry too much. The ones who take our phones out and flip it between our fingers when we’re idle for more than thirty seconds. For me, technology has become like a nervous tick. I don’t bite my nails, I read the news online. All of it leaves me dryer. More detached from the beauty around me.

And I’m tired of it.

My wife and I went to a Civil Wars concert a couple of summers ago, and I couldn’t wait to hear them sing Poison and Wine. There’s this one part in the final chorus where John Paul and Joy jump the scales together in crystalline harmony. It’s my favorite moment on the entire album. When the song came, I got ready. When the chorus came, I started recording. And when the song wound down, I realized I the moment had flown past me. I couldn’t even remember it.

Oh sure, I had captured it with my hand-held sub-sub-sub par recording device, and I could enjoy that muffled, 20-rows-back, heads-in-the-way rendition ad nauseam. But as for that genuine raw, live beauty… I had missed it. It missed me.

I don’t want to miss live beauty anymore. Especially when it’s doing somersault in my living room.

An Open Letter to Death

Dear Death,

Well, that was really something you did, taking out a 3 year old girl. By everyone’s account, she was sweet, adoring, and perfect. She could have been the poster child for Life itself. And her family… I barely know them, but I know they deserved more time. They are the best kind of people; the kind that pour themselves out for their neighbors, and who define their neighbors liberally. Instead of a reward, their little girl got a brain tumor, and now she is gone.

There were thousands of people storming the heavens for a better outcome. Is that why you persisted? Were you sticking your finger in the eyes of the faithful?

I know, I know, this is nothing new. Please don’t give me your résumé. I am all too aware that you take children every day. Some of my dearest friends have lost sons and daughters on the very day of delivery. Their tears poured out in buckets while their nurseries stayed empty.

And at that, I can almost hear your taunt: “Why are you still surprised at my coming? I am the only inevitability of life, and yet you persist in your impotent weeping!”

It’s true. Your coming still shocks and paralyzes us.

Mourning ought to be easy by now, but it is not. We wail, we wretch, and we swear. Then we retreat to a safe place until we can breath deeply. When we emerge, many of us do so with duct taped masks of composure and strength. Those masks, over time, might even become real. We can, in our weakness, become wiser and softer and stronger all at the same time.

Yes, Death, I am admitting the truth: we can learn from you, and we often do. We learn how to press forward. We learn the scent of sacred moments. We discover what it means to really embrace one another. Softness and gratitude–both treasures of the dark–become ours.

Perhaps this is why the Egyptians of old praised you so. They knew the little glances of good that came after your touch, so they celebrated you with myths and monuments. In doing so, they became your vassals.

But I will do no such thing.

I will not treat you as a lord but as a foreign brigand who drags the innocents away in the dead of night. For that is all you are. You were never made for this world. You are an invader. You haunt us with your inescapable shadows–tales of victories over every King and Pharaoh, every soldier who dared tempt you, and every soul who hid to avoid you. You eventually defeated them all.

Except for One.

Yes, Death. I remember your single humiliation: two thousand years ago by the Man on the tree. So you see, you are not so inevitable after all.

What’s more? This age will not last forever. That same Man will return to put an end to your dominance. His victory will belong even to the least of these. The children of the world will stand over you and laugh.

Until that day, we will not shrug at the sight of you, nor become accustom to your touch. Not ever.

This is our act of defiance: we will not call you “normal.”

Instead, we will continue our stubborn fight. When our fathers die and our children fly with angels, we will weep for them, and taste the wrongness of our separation. We will pour out our foreign grief like drink offerings to your Conqueror, the One who promised,

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

– J. Hague

The Big Sister Speaks! (A Guest Post)

I haven’t had any guest posts here before, but what better time to start? My daughter Emily (the one on the left) is eleven, going on twenty-three. I wrote about her and her sister earlier this year, but she topped me with this, which she wrote for school last week. I couldn’t be prouder. It’s worth noting that we didn’t help her on this, except to clean up a few details in her timeline, and fix some minor punctuation. This is all her. And the best part is, she really lives it. Her sister does, too. I’m thinking more and more that the siblings of special needs kids are some of the most amazing people on the planet. -jh


Don’t Judge a Boy by his Diagnosis

By Emily Hague

It was June 2009, and it was that crazy year that my life changed forever. My little brother Jack was three, and I was eight. Everything seemed perfect. School was out, and my friends and I were playing every minute we could together. All of that changed when one day, when mom and dad called me and my little sister, Jenna, inside early. I had no idea that what I would learn would turn my whole world upside down.
     
I remember thinking how frustrating it was that my friends and I were right in the middle of making a perfectly good fairy house when mom and dad had to come in and ruined all the fun! Mom set the stirring spoon down next to the stove and sat down in a chair as Dad opened the door for us and sat us down on the couch. I can’t tell you exactly what was said, mainly because I can’t remember, but it went something like this: “Girls,” my dad said, “things are going to be a little different from now on.” “How so?”I grumbled. I didn’t want anything to change. “Well,” my dad said, “Mom and I, just found out that Jack has autism.” I was about to ask what autism was, when Jenna beat me to it.”What’s Autism?” I think Mom and dad had a hard time explaining this to us since Jenna was only seven and I was eight. They did their best to explain but I still didn’t understand for quite a while. All I knew was that Jack couldn’t think like we did, and that was good enough for me.
 
Three days later we moved to rainy, cold Oregon, and there Jack started going to a school called a Child’s Garden that specialized with kids with autism. I saw him slowly learn and grow, and it became obvious that he wasn’t quite like other children his age. He liked to wander off by himself. He didn’t look you in the eye, and he couldn’t talk. One morning we were excited to show mom and dad that we had taught Jack how to say “Please,” but when we told him to say it the next day, he looked at us as if to say “What are you talking about?” His mind had lost the words again. 

Suddenly it all fit together in my mind. Autism made it hard to communicate with Jack because he couldn’t talk or understand everything. It was like he was trapped in his own world. I asked Dad why Jack would stare out the window and not look us in the eyes. And he said, “He sees things differently than we do.” Little things like a light or a sound that wouldn’t bother me at all, would drive him crazy. When he pulls away into his own little world, that means he can’t cope with the light, or the sound, or whatever else is bothering him. Even now, Jack has a tendency to get attached to random things that we see as every day items (we’re not sure why), such as a certain shirt, or a spatula, or a bean can. If you take one of these things out of the equation, you get a fit.

So eventually we each developed a special way to communicate and connect with him. My personal way was and is to talk directly to him, play directly with him, not act like we’re talking to somebody from another planet. He’s a kid too. We play tickle tag throughout the house, go on walks to the park, and play games on the iPad together, just like normal siblings. Because we are normal siblings.
 

Over the years I’ve seen people look at him in his state of being as if to say,”What the heck?” And I know that they could never really understand who Jack is. As Jack’s sister, I’ve learned not to look at Jack’s outward appearance. I’ve also learned that you need to take time to understand somebody before you form an opinion about them, otherwise you could be making a big mistake. So the old saying’s true: “Never judge a book by its cover.” But in Jack’s case, I say, “Don’t judge a boy by his diagnosis.” I love Jack, Autism and all. He brings joy to my life every day, and I can’t imagine life without him.

Waiting in the Land of In-Betweens

It happened at the end of a long church conference. I was exhausted, but the preacher was in no hurry. I hate it when they don’t hurry. 

“If you are the parent of a special needs child, come up and get prayer.”

I wanted to slip out the back, but six of our church staff were with me, and I knew they wouldn’t let me wimp out like that even if I tried. They had held up my arms for too long.  So I dragged myself to the front of the sanctuary where a line of young ministry students stood eager to pounce. I chose a tall Canadian man in a brown, business-like sweater.

“My son Jack has severe autism,” I told him beneath the ringing synthesizers. “He’s seven, and he can’t speak and… yeah…” I stopped there to brace myself for a loud and sweaty prayer. But my Canadian merely closed his eyes and started to whisper. I leaned in to hear. He sounded gentle and confident. A prince next to his father’s throne. And then it happened: He said the word “breakthrough,” and I started to weep. 

It was a frustrating moment because I thought I was done with all that. For more than two years, I had walked that familiar path of grief. Denial I remember, but only because my mom used it in an email, as in: “I think Jack has autism and you are in denial.” I laughed, thus proving her point.

Anger and Bargaining came and went quickly, but Depression lingered. There were two, maybe three years of numbness and hiding places. There were specialists and therapies for Jack, and for me, a new personality that wanted to be left alone. I used to be an extrovert, they say. 

At the time, I failed to recognized the commonness of my journey. Only when I reached the end of it did my friend tell me,

“You’ve been going through the stages of grief, and I think you just reached Acceptance.” 

It was a surprising revelation for two reasons. First, I had always thought of grief as something that follows funerals and longs for the past. I missed the obvious other kind; the kind that slumps forward, casting a permanent shadow over tomorrow that can no longer be.

But even more significantly, my friend’s assessment of my progress was spot on. I had come to terms with Jack’s condition. We had been playing together and laughing together like never before. Even on bad days, when he might be in the middle of an epic melt-down, I could still feel peace. Joy, even.

And yet despite all this, I still found myself at the front of a sanctuary in a snotty mess. Still craving “breakthrough” more than anything in the world.

Seven months have passed since that night, but I haven’t really left the foot of the stage.

I confess I want holes knocked through the wall that keeps my boy distant from me, my wife and children. I want sunbursts of language, comprehension, and relational abilities. I want him to have a future.

Some have told me to let this hope die and embrace my new normal. They say autism is part of who my son is, and if I struggle with it—if I treat his condition as a thing to be cured by human or Divine hands—I am rejecting him. This viewpoint has its merits, but the accusation inside it knocks the breath out of me, because I already accept and embrace my son. For everything he is. I delight in him, his curiosity, his affection, his laughter. And if he never learns speech, or safety, or independence, I will love him no less. 

Others have told me just to try harder and refuse contentment. They imply that it’s my fault Jack hasn’t been healed or cured yet, and if I would just get with the right therapy or take authority (i.e., pray louder), then I would finally catch my breakthrough. That accusation hurts, too, because they don’t know how hard we have tried; how many nights we have held him, wept and begged God to intervene. 

Here is my dilemma: if I pray too hard, I start fixating on change, and I become less satisfied with who Jack is today. But if I accept too hard, then I give up on a better future for my boy. And try as I might, I cannot see how to call that “loving.”

How, then, am I supposed to live? Neither of these extremes is correct. Not for me, anyway, and not for many parents of special needs children. I trust there is a solution, but it must come from Christ Himself. Who else knows how to hope all things, endure all disappointments, and love without condition?

So for now, I wait in a land just east of Acceptance and west of Breakthrough. Here, I get swept up in my son’s unbridled laughter, then in quick flashes of torrential fear. Here, I thank my Father for my boy, who is enough, and in the next breath, beg Him for more. This is where I wrestle with God: in the already not yet kingdom. The Land of In-Betweens. 

What my Autistic Son is Teaching Me About Measuring Results

Here’s an accomplishment: I’m 34, and already on my fourth midlife crisis.

My wife says it has all been one crisis chained together. She might be right. All I know is I want a Harley, or something less practical for a father of five…

What’s my problem? Oh, just the same old midlife-crisisey stuff, but mostly this: I feel like I’m not where I should be. I have yet to finished a book I’ve been trying to write for five years. I do not have a master’s degree. I have never been picked for “So You Think You Can Dance,” and it’s been like, four years since I have won my fantasy football league.

Results are hard to measure. Success looks so relative. For me, every time I accomplish something, I look up to see a dozen other people who accomplished it ten years earlier, with ten times the results. “Oh you’re blogging? And you’ve got almost 400 followers? That’s cute. I’ve got half a million, and a book deal with Harper Collins.

Stupid twenty-five year olds getting their stupid books published…

But then I look at my son. By almost every societal measure, Jack is years behind his peer group. At seven, he doesn’t talk, ride a bike, tie his shoes, or soap himself up. He has no interest in wiffle ball or show-n-tell.

There are some formidable challenges here that can weigh down on the psyche of any parent. Concerns about the future (let alone the present!) can consume me during rough patches, especially during regressions: awful days of stress and meltdowns. Defeats. However those instances do not create a complete picture of Jack’s progress. If I insist on counting defeats, then I must also count victories. My own intellectual integrity demands it.

For example, in the past two years, Jack has learned:

  • How to initiate play with his siblings
  • How to say “mommy” and “daddy”
  • How to go potty by himself (!!!!)
  • How to stall his bedtime by claiming the potty privilege 3 times an evening. (Isn’t that so NORMAL? I love it!)
  • How to find the Netflix app no matter what folder we hide it in

There are more, of course, and most of them aren’t earth shattering discoveries either. Just real, measurable results. And these simple victories seem to fuel him.

Simple victories. I’ve had a few of those recently, too.

  • I learned to whistle two years ago, and now I rock the Andy Griffith theme like a boss. An old boss.
  • I’ve preached some sermons this year that I thought were decent, and one in March that I was actually quite proud of (because I didn’t say “are you with me?” or “does that make sense?” fifteen times…)
  • I am writing often, and some people are even reading what I write.
  • And then, of course, the bigger victories:

    • I bought a house for my family last fall, and we adore it.
    • I got a beautiful girl to marry me fourteen years ago, and she hasn’t left yet.
    • We made five kids, and all of them like me.
    • I came through a long, hard season, and I did not lose my faith that God is good.

    In order to properly measure success in life, we must acknowledge our wins and not just our losses. Then, we must, like Jack, take at least a little satisfaction in those wins.

    It’s a simple lesson, but it’s sturdy enough to help me laugh off my own fake midlife crises. (Yeah, they’re fake. Mostly.) I might not be as far along as I’d like, but I’m a blessed man with an amazing family. And together, we are moving forward.


    * Photo by Sugar Beats Photography

    Jack and his Bush's Baked Beans

    A Boy and His Bush’s Baked Beans (A Love Story)

    It was an affair of Hugh-Grant-ian proportions. You’ve seen an aimless youth, lazy and passionlesss, morph into Romeo after a single glance from her? That was Jack. Wandering through Safeway aisles next to his mother without an inkling of how his life was about to change. But one turn around the bend, and there she was. The most beautiful thing he had ever seen. A perfectly stacked display of Bush’s Baked Beans.

    Practically speaking, Jack never cared for beans. To this day, he doesn’t eat them. But there was something about the way the gold gradient glimmered under the florescent lights that he found irresistible.

    He threw a fit when he got home, and we couldn’t figure out why he was upset. He could not tell us, of course. Even though he’s seven, he cannot really speak. His autism usually turns his words into mush, and when we do recognize them, they are either one word requests or familiar nuggets of encouragement from Bob the Builder. But this time, in the midst of his angsty malaise, his words crystalized for one clear instant: “Go to Safeway!” he commanded his mother.

    Well… a three word sentence from Jack should always be rewarded. Into the van they both went, and the moment Sara stepped out with him through the automatic doors, the boy bolted through the store. He knew where she waited. Aisle three! He came home with a can of Bush’s Original Baked Beans, round and true. You’ve never seen a boy so proud. He set his prize on the bookshelf, and flapped in his hands in front of it. His love dance.

    It was a fine discovery for Sara and I. These bean cans have since proved a fine reward for completed sticker charts. In an otherwise dismal summer, Jack has had flashes of strong motivation during “work time.” The Safeway trips have become more frequent, and the cans have multiplied. Original, Vegetarian, and Country Style. We have bunches of them. He lines them up and flaps them. He runs around the house with them. He holds them at night like teddy bears.

    beansdonationThen came our big church-sponsored event. It was an outdoor festival: a concert, kids’ fair and, most importantly, a fundraiser and food collection for the local food shelf. Two cans of food got you in.

    I was on Jack duty that day while Sara took the other boys. Jack is terrible in crowds. Really. He has no sense of boundaries–his or other peoples–or of danger. But on that day, he saw the food donation table, and that was the only place he wanted to be. I wasn’t supposed to be working that station, but I ended up helping take donations for about an hour, while Jack searched the table for any cans of Bush’s Baked Beans. He would find them all of them: short cans, tall cans, cans of every flavor, all golden and glorious. We would hide them, and he would find them again.

    We told him he could choose a can to take home since we brought extra donations, and he took a long time to choose. When he did, his decision left me speechless…….
    .
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    vancamps
    Wait, what? Van Camp’s? I don’t get it either. But like so many other things with our boy, we just shrug, laugh, and go with it.

    “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”

    Forgiving Cosmo Kramer

    In the 90’s, Thursday nights were a high point of my week, because I knew Kramer was going to find another way to explode into Jerry’s apartment, and it was going to be awesome. But then, years after the show, the entire country saw Kramer explode on stage during a stand-up routine, and it was not awesome. To say Michael Richards’ rant was ugly is far too kind. He turned on his audience. The hecklers were black, and his storm of vitriol zeroed in on that fact. It became a racist, almost frightening tirade. Say it aint so, Kramer!

    Richards has pretty much disappeared form the public eye since that disgrace, and I only recently saw him resurface in Jerry Seinfeld’s simple, ingenious little web series “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.” I’m not able to embed the video, but the picture will take you to it. It get’s serious and heavy around 14 minutes in. I’m not ashamed to say I almost teared up.

    I wrote last week about people who demand mercy when they’ve been caught doing something. Brokenness and humility are a pre-requisite to restoration. What struck me most from watching this, aside from the fact that Jerry Seinfeld is an excellent friend, is that Michael Richards is a broken man. He obviously still feels the weight of it every single day. He ruined his career that night, and while he has apologized, he himself has never gotten over it. And I confess, I feel sorry for him. I want to see him restored as a man, and one day, even as an artist. I want him to be forgiven.

    Some will certainly scoff at that. After all, what he did… it was awful.

    Tell me, who needs forgiveness if not the people who sin awfully? Who needs more grace in today’s society than the recovering racist?

    David was an adulterous murderer. Peter was a coward and a backstabber. John was a scheming opportunist. Paul was a religious bully and an agent of violence. Christ came to forgive them of those crimes, and me of my aggressive self-righteousness.

    I realize that Michael Richards did not offend my race. I get that it’s easier for me to forgive than it is for others. But when a person humbles himself, comes to terms with his sins, and does not demand absolution… isn’t that the kind of man we want to see absolved?

    To See Your Thoughts Take Shape

    I want to trip inside your head
    Spend the day there…
    To hear the things you haven’t said
    And see what you might see

    I want to hear you when you call
    Do you feel anything at all?
    I want to see your thoughts take shape
    And walk right out.

    -U2 (“Miracle Drug”)

    “Waffle! Waffle! Waffle!”

    The word rushes out of Jack’s mouth. He is panicked. We try to calm him down. We offer him waffles, but he turns his head. We know it’s not about the waffles, but we had to try.

    I get down to his level. “What’s the problem, bud? What do you want?”

    He reaches up my shirt sleeves and digs his nails into my arm. “No scratching, Jack,” I snap, a little too harshly. He doesn’t hear me.

    “Waffle! Waffle!”

    That’s when the screaming starts. As a baby, long before his autism diagnosis, Jack had the rare ability to cry like a Ring Wraith (Nerd points to you if you catch that reference and can hear it right now.) He grew out of it, but found it again all of a sudden when he was five. It took us two weeks to discover why: he had been on a Monsters, Inc kick. If you’re like Jack, there’s a lot of fine screaming to emulate in that film. We made the DVD disappear, and he soon forgot about his talent.

    In the last six months, however, the scream has resurfaced. And this summer, he has perfected it. It’s loud, a bit scary, and immensely sad.

    Sometimes his problem is obvious: he is annoyed by the baby’s crying, or the iPad battery died, or he can’t find one of his prized cans of Bush’s Baked Beans. Other times, his cries are a complete mystery. He cannot tell us what’s wrong. The screams are not respecters of setting: they come out in the car, the grocery store, or the backyard. I worry that one of our neighbors might call the police, and not out of suspicion, but out of sheer concern for the boy (“Hurry! It sounds like he’s dying, officer!”).

    Yes, it’s been a long, lousy couple of moths of tantrums and regressions. Not that this is new. Summer is always hard. I suppose if you’re as OCD as Jack, the lack of a routine must be frustrating.

    Sara has caught the brunt of it. I’m at the office for most of the day while she’s at home trying to decipher all of this. She told me tonight she thinks that “waffle” is just his frantic attempt to communicate that something is wrong. Maybe he is scared. Maybe he is hurting. Or maybe something just seems off. So he reaches for a word–any word–and that’s the one that comes. It makes sense since he eats waffles every day.

    I like her theory, if only because it sounds so normal. When stress comes, we all have our go-tos for comfort: Nail biting, griping, eating. Given enough stress and enough habit, those responses can morph into unhealthy addictions. For Jack, maybe just the idea of waffles is enough to fill that comfort gap.

    But that’s the most troubling part. We don’t know why he needs comfort, and he cannot tell us.

    Forgive me. I don’t mean to sound melodramatic. We’re okay. We’ll get through this. I just hate that this wall still stands, four years after his diagnosis.

    I want to see your thoughts take shape, boy. More than anything else.


    Non-Apology Apologies

    Paula Dean, Anthony Weiner, Ryan Braun, Riley Cooper, A-Rod… Is it just me, or do scandals come in clusters? All of them did something. Said something. Took something. And when the news broke, they crafted carefully worded speeches to atone for their sins, just like thousands of embarrassed celebrities that came before them.

    Sometimes they seem sincere and contrite. Other times, they offer stubborn, ridiculous defiance. Worst of all, some offer maddening, squishy Non-Apology Apologies.

    I recognize these, because I have used one or two of them myself. They don’t work out well for celebrities, and they don’t work out for regular folks who blow it, either. These are really just disguised defenses. Nothing more. And in a court of law, only those who plead “not guilty” are allowed to defend themselves. (And if you’re not guilty, then why are you apologizing?)

    So here they are, for all of us: the top 5 Non-apology Apologies. If you’re saying “I’m sorry” while using these phrases, you’re probably doing it wrong:

    5) “If I’ve offended anyone…”

    You have. That’s why you’re here. And it sounds like you’re still not sure “if” you did anything wrong. If you’re not sure, then stop and listen to the one(s) you’ve offended. Because what you have there is not an apology, son.

    4) “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through…”

    What, this thing that you did to yourself? I’m sure it sucks! And I have sympathy. I really do. But why do you seem to think you are the victim all of a sudden? If you are the guilty party, then by definition, you aren’t the victim. (And for future reference, sin generally does injure the sinner. True story.)

    3) “I realize now I’ve made mistakes.”

    Gosh, I hate to sound snarky, but most of us realized that about ourselves when we were six. And even back then, it didn’t work as “get out of jail free” card. We know you’ve made mistakes. But right now, it’s all about specifics. What did you do?

    2) “I deserve a second chance.”

    Wait, you deserve a second chance? Methinks you are confusing mercy with justice. Nobody in the history of sin has deserved a second chance. We call grace “amazing” precisely because it is undeserved. Forgiveness is only beautiful because guilt is so hideous. If you think you can demand mercy, you are probably not ready for it. (Note to Christians: If you are the offended party, you don’t have much a choice, here. You need to forgive. Jesus was pretty clear on that.)

    1) “I’m not perfect. There’s only ever been one perfect man…”

    Do you hear that head banging against the wall? That’s St. Augustine. Even he isn’t buying this one. Yes, all of us have sinned. But right now, we’re not talking about any of that. We’re talking about you. We’re talking about now. Did you do this thing? Because you didn’t have to, and you know that’s true. You’re too powerful to play this card. Don’t do it.

    So there they have it. Five apologies that will actually make it harder for other people to forgive you. And since we are looking for actual reconciliation here, best to stay away from them.

    When King David Ruled the Blogosphere

    I see him running bloodstained through a dry riverbed. His men, blistered and spent, beg for a rest. He suppresses a sigh, checks the sun, and nods. It’s a terrible time to stop. Would Saul’s men be stopping? Maybe. Probably not. But there was a little distance now. And besides, a rest would give him a chance to write.

    There is a dying tree offering shade over rounded rock nearby. That is the spot. Reaching into his satchel, he pulls out his treasure from a Philistine raid: a laptop computer. It is old, of course, but it does the job. Nothing like what he used in the palace, but that was a long time ago.

    He plugs in a network adapter and signs in. More notifications. He had intended to shut those off months ago. The comments were always the same now. He’s either a hero for the underdog, or a young public menace, leading this rowdy and impressionable generation into rebellion. The truth was less interesting. He was just running for his life. Why couldn’t they see that?

    The comments don’t interest him today. The unfinished post does. He had almost published it the night before, short as it was. His readers loved those visceral, angry posts. The Bethlehem Gazette was especially enthusiastic:

    “As a blogger, David is pithy and controversial, and that’s why I read him. He doesn’t try to tie up his thoughts with cute little bows. The priests may hate him for it, but I say, Rant on, young warrior! We are cheering for you!”

    Of course, that was the hometown opinion. It was supposed to be gushing, wasn’t it? There were just as many detractors, and not just the ones loyal to the current King.

    He squinted at the dim words on the screen:

              “Forty-Three”

              You are God my stronghold.
              Why have you rejected me?

    He had been exhausted when he wrote that. Hungry and afraid. And now, twelve hours later, he still had not eaten or slept after yesterday’s near disaster. The question felt more tangible now than it had in the dark.

    He shakes his head and types in another question:

              Why must I go about mourning,
              oppressed by the enemy?

    It would be yet another in a long line of questions in his head: What had he done to provoke the King? Hadn’t he been loyal to God and to Saul? Hadn’t he obeyed every order, no matter how dangerous? Hadn’t he begged for the chance to kill the giant? Why had Samuel not warned him of all this?

    Life was messy. Samuel had never understood that. Maybe none of them had. The priests. The prophets. His father. Had they ever been hunted by a man they had adored?

    Despair. That was all he knew now. God had deserted him. Just like everyone else.

    And yet, his fingers start to twitch and crawl on their own.

              Send me your light and your faithful care,
              let them lead me;
              let them bring me to your holy mountain,
              to the place where you dwell.

    A prayer? His prayers had run as dry as this river bed, but there it was. His hands continue moving. Faster now.

              Then I will go to the altar of God,
              to God, my joy and my delight.
              I will praise you with the lyre,
              O God, my God.

    He stops to remember the lyre. The songs in the court of the king. Better days. Days long gone.

    But he would sing again, one day. Maybe not today, but one day. And his voice would find the notes without a struggle. They would come easily.

    He looks down over his men stretched out along the rocks, some still panting and bleeding. Loyal men. Good men. Some of them not even men yet, but fierce nonetheless. Time and again, they had stood firm against Philistines and Hebrews without falling back. They were true warriors. And to think Saul had once laughed at “that band of drunkards!”

    David exhales slowly. He has not the strength to smile, but he can exhale at least.

              Why, my soul, are you downcast?
              Why so disturbed within me?
              Put your hope in God,
              for I will yet praise him,
              my Savior and my God.

    His clicks “Publish” and closes the computer, not giving himself time to reconsider.

    The Bethlehem Gazette would not like the upturned finish. They would call the post “trite.” They would say he was losing his edginess. But he did not care. Hope and sorrow… who ever said they could not live together for a time?

    My Imaginary Support Group Gets in My Face

    After not being able to blog for almost four months, I finally hauled myself into an imaginary support group meeting with other autism parents. This is how it all played out… in my head.


    JH — Hi, I’m Jason, and I’m a lousy autism blogger.

    GROUP [in unison] — Hi Jason!

    JH — Hey. Thanks. But… It’s just that, I don’t really belong here. In cyberspace, I mean. Writing about autism.

    Sweater Guy — Tell us why you feel that way.

    JH — Well, for starters, I’m not an autism expert. I know my son, but that’s about it.

    Sweater Guy — Are you saying you know Jack, but besides that, you know… Jack?

    JH — I see what you did there. Very clever.

    Sweater Guy [after a high five from Captain Mustache] — Jason, all of us feel that way. We’re all just–everybody, say it with me:

    GROUP — “…On an unplanned trip to Holland.”

    JH — Yeah, I’ve heard that line before. I get it, but… you, Steve is it? You lead a coalition to change insurance laws. And you in the green. You have a degree in the childhood development field. I’m just a dad.

    Hair-in-Buns Lady — Is there really such thang as an honest-to-goodness expert in autism, Jason Hague? I mean, if you seen one chawld with autism–

    JH — “You’ve seen ONE child with autism.” Yeah, I’ve heard that one too. But I don’t know if I even want to write about this.

    GROUP — [laughter]

    JH — What? What’s so funny?

    Captain Mustache — You think we wanted to write about this? Dude, I wanted to write about Pez Dispensers. I have the best collection, as far as I know, on the west —

    [Sweater Guy clears his throat loudly. Silence follows.]

    Captain Mustache — Sorry, sorry. We’ve been working on launching out into conversations nobody cares about… The point is, I wanted to write about Pez, but I found out other parents needed what I had.

    JHYou have a degree?

    Captain Mustache — No. I have experience, dude. Experience with my son’s emper tantrums. Early diagnosis. Expectations. Pediatricians. Special schools. Social Stories. You’ve got some of those same experiences, dude. People want to hear about it. Young parents, especially.

    JH — Well, my wife does a better job of writing advice like that. She’s super mom. No, seriously. She wears the suit to bed and everything.

    Hair-in-Buns Lady — That might be true, but you have thangs to say, too, hon. As a dad you get pretty personal when you write about your Jackson. How does that make you feel?

    JH — [Shrugs] It stings. Every time I do it, it stings. Because whenever I put myself out there like that, I start to think about the whole thing more. All that Jack is missing out on. All he might miss out on.

    Spaghetti-Straps Grandma — Is that why you haven’t written for nearly four months?

    JH — I don’t know. Yeah, maybe. But… It’s just… When I write about autism, I’m really not writing about autism. I’m writing about my son, and our life with him. I haven’t tried to give advice or anything. I just try to tell our story, and people still get…

    Spaghetti-Straps Grandma — What? Pissed off?

    JH — Yes. Thank you. That’s what drives me crazy about this subject. There’s so much bickering, it’s unreal! I thought we were all on the same team here! I once implied that dealing with Jack’s hard times was like suffering, and I was mobbed by an angry Facebook group who said I had insulted them. Why? Because a doctor told them that they sit under the same metaphorical umbrella as the one my son sits under.

    Sweater Guy — The Autism Spectrum.

    JH — Yeah. And for the record, I think it’s a stupid method of classification that has to change. Seriously, it’s way too broad. My son doesn’t speak, doesn’t stay close to us, he has no fear of moving vehicles, and he may never be able to groom himself let alone live an independent, adult life. If people can offer intricate, verbose arguments about why they are the same as he is, they have proved my point, and I have nothing to say. It’s apples to oranges. I would give anything for Jack to be able to speak and reason like that. To have passion for something besides the shelf of Bush’s Beans at Safeway.

    Spaghetti-Straps Grandma — We hear you.

    JH — No, I don’t think you do. Because you’re telling me to keep writing, and I’m trying to tell you I don’t want to write about autism. I am sick of the labels and all the yelling about them. I am sick of the gotcha posts and endless vaccine debates and all the political stuff that goes with it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for advocates, but I don’t want to be one. Can’t I just leave autism out of it? Can’t I just write about my son, who mysteriously had his speech stolen from him? Most of his relational capacities, stolen from him? His future… stolen–

    Sweater Guy — NO! You don’t know that! Don’t go there! Anything could happen.

    Spaghetti-Straps Grandma — You’re a pastor, aren’t you? Don’t you believe that God could intervene?

    JH — Well, theoretically, yeah.

    Captain Mustache — And lots of kids have breakthroughs later on, bro. There are tons of examples.

    Hair-in-Buns Lady — What about the therapies that haven’t even been developed yet?

    (Silence…)

    JH — I know. You guys are right. And I’m not giving up. But I have to write about other stuff.

    Sweater Guy — You have already. Lots of times, even on this blog. You can write whatever you want. It’s your blog. Your story.

    (Silence…)

    Sweater Guy — But Jason? You won’t be able stop writing about autism. This journey is in your bones now. Your son is too deep inside you.

    JH [Nods] — I know.

    [Stands up slowly and walks to the door. Stops. Turns around.]

    JH — Jack ran off in May, you know. Freaked us out. He was trying to get to our old house. We found him four blocks up the road, on the sidewalk. Not the street. The sidewalk.
    That counts for something, doesn’t it…

    [Smiles. Exits.]

    “Jesus, Autism, and Why I Still Believe”

    I’m guest posting today at a terrific blog called “Find My Eyes.” The author is a fellow autism dad, and he’s a great guy. This month, he’s been featuring a different guest post by someone in the autism community. When I offered to take a day, he asked me to write about my faith, and how it works with my family situation. This is what I sent him:

    Jesus, Autism, and Why I Still Believe

    The Christian faith is a lousy force field. Some of us think we can hide inside of it like it’s a super sleek Jesus bubble that locks in the happy times and repels sadness. We think it will keep the lights glowing and the fires crackling inside our little Thomas Kinkade lives, and nothing can breach it. We teach our kids to sing, “I’m inside, outside, upside, downside happy all the time” since we found Jesus. And if they grow up with a shred of motivation, they might just sue us for religious malpractice, because it’s a lie. We are living neck deep in the stink of life just like everyone else.

    Oh, we try to deny it. When someone asks us how we’re doing in church, we have a script for that:

    “I’m fine, thanks!”

    Because we’re all fine. Everything’s great, because we have Jesus, and we’re just… so… great.

    Read more at Find My Eyes.

    Our Kids Need THIS More than Autism Awareness

    “1 in 50.”

    That’s the new statistic that was trumpeted from the rooftops just a few weeks ago. One school-age child in fifty is on the autism spectrum.

    Is that an inflated statistic? Yep.
    Is there over-diagnosis? Sure.
    Was it a poorly-conducted, only quasi-professional survey? Indeed. Fellow autism dad Stuart Duncan has a great analysis here.

    And yet, the very fact that so many people are ready to believe it is, in itself, significant. After all, no stat sounds far-fetched if you “know somebody.” And these days, in my experience, almost everyone knows at least one child with autism.

    It will take years for the real statistics to come to the surface. The hype will die down, and one day, everyone will be able to agree not only on the numbers, but on an actual definition and cause. Personally, I suspect the blanket “autism spectrum” will be completely re-imagined and divided with better descriptions and far more specificity.

    But for now, 1 in 50 does mean something. It means that we need to be ready, no matter what sphere of influence we swim in, to embrace more of these kids. Ready to withhold judgment, to accept their quirks, to help out, and to adapt in ways we never had to think about before. In Christian circles, we have a word for this kind of thing, and it’s not awareness. It’s grace.

    Last month, my son interrupted our church service. We have a special classroom for kids on the spectrum, but they come out while the worship band is playing. They like it. As one of the pastors, I sit on the front row, and on this Sunday, Jack saw me and bolted through the aisles. I didn’t even see him because I had my eyes closed. But when I heard a commotion and opened them, I saw a bunch of smiles. A mom had snatched him up in her arms, grinning ear to ear. Half the congregation saw it, apparently, and they were smiling too.

    That, friends, is what I am talking about. That is grace.

    We need grace for the boy who interrupts our worship services.
    We need grace for the kid hugging the floor of the frozen food aisle. His mom is doing the best she can.
    We need grace for the chatty little girl in the movie theater. Sitting still and concentrating are harder for her.
    And we, the parents, need grace as we try to figure out how to correct, protect, and train our kids to live with the rest of society. We’re probably doing it differently than you would. I’m sure we’re getting many things wrong. Please, give us grace. We’ve had to throw out our playbooks, here, and the game is very, very complex.

    Being aware of the latest stats isn’t all that important. Not for everyone, anyway. What matters is that you, the business owner, the waitress, the teacher, the mailman… you will meet more of our special children in the days to come. They are different, but not that different. They can feel your warmth. And they could use your patience. Your good humor. Your grace.

    <

    On Remembering Passion Week

    cross_10


    I need to cry my own full-throated “Hosanna’s,” free of illusions but awake to my naked needs.
    I need to climb the hill, to look down over the city, and to weep for her lost innocence.
    I need to feel desperation again; to feel it in the temple pilgrims who dared to hope He might be real, and He might be good.
    I need to see Him heal the broken—on His own terms, and out of order.
    I need to listen to His stories. Vibrant, full of mystery scandal, and hope.
    I need to hear the clinking of coins, the crashing of tables, and the roaring of a Lion.
    I need to follow the weary One, who ducks the crowds to rest with those who know Him most.
    I need to weep with Mary, to anoint Him with my tears.
    I need to smell the perfume and indignation, gratitude and greed, juxtaposed like clashes of ancient hoards.
    I need to recline against His breast, like John.
    I need to marvel at the Emperor of the Stars, scrubbing mud from traveled toes.
    I need to suffer weariness, yet stay awake and pray with Him.
    I need the crow of the rooster to siphon pride from my bones.
    I need to cry with Him in His torture, even while they run.
    I need to forgive, even while they shout, “Crucify Him.”
    I need to know the weight of injustice on my chest, for “this man has done nothing wrong.”
    I need to understand what blood and water means—that there exists a grief which kills faster than torture.
    I need to mourn. Oh, but I need to mourn…
    I need to light a candle for Him—an old, out of fashion candle fitting for the saints of old—to remember that my faith is not new, and its goal is not relevance.

    And before night’s weeping turns to morning’s joy, I need bow my head and speak the five most insufficient words I know:
    Thank you for saving me.

    Why I’m Still a “Christian,” Not a “Follower of Christ”

    Yes, I know they’re the same. To be a Christian is to follow Jesus. And I like the fact that “Follower of Christ” is more vivid and precise. It’s a great term. But I am not going to rush out and change my Twitter bio. “Christian” is good enough for me.

    I understand why many do it. They want to say, “I don’t need chalky, legalistic Phariseeism. Just give me Jesus.” I have no problem with this.

    But others do it for another reason: they want to distance themselves from Christians. I saw a Twitter update from popular pastor some months back. He was decrying the political actions of Christians he disagreed with. His embarrassment was obvious, and he used the incident to demonstrate why he no longer called himself a “Christian.”

    Look, Christians of all stripes and affiliations have played the moron. Worse yet, some have been hateful and cruel. At such times, it is appropriate to say, “This is not me. This is not Christ.”

    But is it right to then throw away the name based on distant association?

    Ravi Zacharias said this: “To judge a worldview, philosophy or religion based on its abuse is flawed logic.” We know this is true. It is why our culture goes to battle against stereotypes of all kinds. We don’t judge the Muslim in the coffee shop for an act of terrorism abroad. We don’t pin the crimes of Mao Tse Tong on the college student who is enamored with atheism or Communism.

    Neither do we demand that they change their names.

    Do I think Christians are always right? Of course not..
    Have Christians have done awful things in the past? Some have, yes.
    Am I sometimes embarrassed by the statements and actions of men and women who call themselves Christians? Every time I flip past certain TV stations…

    But despite the crusades, despite the fact that many self-proclaimed Christians were pro-slavery back in the day, and despite the fact that some have too much eyeliner and ridiculous big hair, I will continue to call myself a Christian.

    If I stop, I distance myself further from the historical church. I say “you have all been wrong about everything.” I say “None of you got it, so I am starting over right now.” The church has grown and morphed and fought and split and worshipped and cherished. She has been ghastly wrong and gloriously right. She has given and earned black eyes, but she has also touched with healing hands.

    Therefore, I will not throw the church under the bus. I will not weaken my link with St. Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, or the Apostle Paul in order to appease a cultural stereotype. I want to honor the memories of Wesley and Wilberforce, Lewis and Tolkien, of the saints thrown to lions, and of my own Grandfather, George Hague, who prayed with fire. I will even remember John Calvin.

    Because all of our high-minded blog posts and reinventions would not exist without shoulders of saints on which to stand. We would not be tinkering with our own labels were it not for these men and women. These historical followers of Christ.

    These Christians.

    A Salute to the Siblings of Autism

    There is so much to say to you all, you fierce soldiers of breakthrough. You grow up in the same house as one they call “special,” and that carries more weight than we understand. It means that your parents’ eyes look past you. That we take it for granted that you are whole even when you are not. It means that you give and give and give. Every big sister shares with her siblings, but most of them don’t give away their entire portion. You do it. Often.

    You watched your brother grow bigger but not older. We had that talk, introducing you to that mysterious word, “autism,” but you already knew something was wrong. When did you figure it out? Was it when you saw other boys trying to play with him? Or when he threw himself on the floor and screamed in the lobby of the bank? I hope it was something like that, and not something we, your parents, did. Because I’m sure you saw the change in us, too. We traded in our laughter for dark clouds and chronic busyness—not just from the doctors’ appointments, but from the other appointments, too. The ones that took our joy and concentration even when we sat next to you on the sofa.

    Since those days of shaking, you have forgiven much. The family’s attention has been fixed on your brother. He absorbs so many resources: concern, affection and especially time. It must hurt sometimes to see so much of your inheritance spent on him. After all, there is only so much attention to go around. You’ve had to settle for out-loud readings in the living room, and the occasional daddy date at the movies. But you treat those consolation prizes like championship trophies.

    The way you act, the dollar theater might as well be Disney Land.

    You’re not perfect, I know. You struggle with all of this, even though you hide it. If there is one thing I fear, it is that you bury it too well. Many in your situation grow up to resent their childhood and their parents for not seeing them. And while I wish there was some way to ensure that this won’t happen, I can at least tell you this:

    We do see you. We see how you buckle your brother’s seat belt on the way to school. We see you tickle him and chase him and laugh with him. We watch you lead him by the hand through the noisy crowds of kids and grown ups. When he pulls away from you, you call him back with care and patience in your voice. You read to him, you cuddle him, and every day, you teach him.

    You teach us, too.

    While we struggle to understand and accept your brother’s condition, you prove again and again that love is infinitely richer than tolerance. For unlike tolerance, love chooses to engage, even when there might be no positive response. Love enters into the uncomfortable, the mysterious, messy places, and says “I love you. Even here.”

    This is what you do so well. You teach the people around you how to love their brothers. We see that. Our friends see that. God sees that. And all of our hearts are bursting with pride.


    Months after I wrote this, my 11 year old daughter Emily penned this essay about her brother. It was for a school assignment, but I published it as a guest post, because, well, it proves everything I have said here. These are amazing kids. -jh

    I Am an Expert on My Son

    I admit; I don’t know much. I’m new to this autism thing. I’ve done some reading, and I’ve talked to some people who seem to know what’s what, and I’ve talked to others who contradict them.

    To be honest, I don’t know what to believe about vaccines, gut issues, biomedical treatments, or how evil this or that organization might be.

    All I have is my own story. And you have yours.

    But for the life of me, I can’t understand the vitriol hurled over the heads of our children. I really can’t. Whether autism is a thing to be cured or embraced, whether it is caused by chemicals or genes, all of us are trying to figure out which way to go with our kids. If we are talking together, researching, pursuing what we believe is right for our kids, well…shouldn’t that be enough to prove that each of us loves our kids?

    I’m not trying to form a Kumbaya circle. I’m not trying to make everyone get along.

    I’m saying it’s time to honor each other’s story.

    That’s why I write about this issue. I am no expert on autism, and I won’t make experts of any of you. But I am an expert on my son.

    If autism has been a blessing in your life, I honor that. There is much gold to be mined in every situation. I will not try to dissuade you of your story. It is your story.

    My story is different. My son was progressing normally, and then he changed. He retreated inside himself. His words disappeared along with the personality he had developed. Jackson is still, at the age of seven, a phenomenal blessing in my life, and I love him more than I can ever say. But he is not autism. His condition is different than his person. And I’ll be honest: thus far, his condition has not been a blessing. It has caused a good deal of frustration and angst for him, and confusion for us. There is a block in our communication.

    I want that block gone. God help me, but I do.

    Maybe my perspective is wrong. Maybe it will morph in the future, and I will realize that autism really is a joy and a blessing. But thus far, in my family story, it hasn’t been that.

    I hope we will, one day, come to a consensus about these issues in an objective way. I want to be able to agree on the definition and cause of autism at least. Then we might have a better idea on how to move forward.

    But until then, all I have is my story.

    And you have yours.

    My Son has a Reputation

    Two days ago, Jack got one of those embarrassing bruises on his chin. You know, one of those that makes you scared to take him to the grocery store for fear of being reported to Child Protective Services. It happened at school during recess. He is totally fine, but it looks like someone colored purple marker all over his chin.

    Then this morning, I was walking him to his class. He goes to “regular” class with a personal teacher for the first half-hour, and then to his special autism classroom. In the hallway, an irregular flood of students greeted him.
    Read more

    A Letter to My Autistic Son on His 7th Birthday

    Dear Jack,

    I’m writing this letter in faith that one day you will be able to read it, understand it, and forgive us for the mistakes we are making with you.

    Tomorrow is your birthday. Seven years ago, I was watching the first quarter of the Super Bowl and your mom’s water broke. I joked that it meant something. That you wanted to come out and watch the Steelers beat the Seahawks. I took it for granted that we would someday watch football games together and practice fade routs in the back yard. Read more

    Confessing Cocaine and Twinkies

    It was a Hall of Fame calibre excuse. One which hasn’t been seen since the Twinkie Defense. And it worked.

    Here’s the story: A professional tennis player tested positive for cocaine. Big trouble for him. But his explanation was profound. He claimed the cocaine kissed off. Read more

    When Moses Needed Matt Foley

    mattfoleyandmosesThe Burning Bush episode in Exodus 3 and 4 ranks among the most compelling scenes in the Old Testament. Here’s Moses, once full of promise and potential, but now considered the biggest Draft Bust in history. He’s a total washout now, living with a desert tribe, traveling in tents, looking after sheep.

    Then he sees a bush on fire. He watches it for a minute, and notices that it’s not falling. It’s not turning to ash. Somehow, the thing still looks completely intact. He just has to take a closer look. Read more

    Joseph, Pharaoh, and the Ghost of Christmas Future

    Ghost of Christmas FutureSo Pharaoh has a nightmare. Two of them, actually. And he’s mortified. He calls for his wisest wise men and demands an interpretation, but they’ve got nothing. That’s when the cupbearer—an ex con—remembers that funny little guy he did time with. Joseph was his name, and he was smart. Scary smart.

    Pharaoh summons him. Read more