Lent: People with Disabilities

The older I get, the more I become aware of how judgmental demeaning people really are.  When I think of the ill or people will disabilities, I don't think of useless.  A lot of people are afraid of disabilities so much that they have a need to over exaggerate someone else's illness or disability.  For example, my nephew has Asperger's Syndrome, and I've recently heard a family member refer to him a toddler.  He is not a toddler.  He does a lot of things and isn't at the mental capacity of a toddler.  He has been referred to this way for most of his life.

My nephew is very a very high functioning autistic person.  It has been assumed by a lot of people that he would never be able to live on his own.  He could easily work a job, go to school, and live on his own.  The real problem in the situation is what everyone else would do to him.  He would easily be targeted by other people, and they would mess with him to mess with him.  It was during this conversation that I was told that he needed to learn to pay attention to what everyone around him would think of whatever he was doing first.  This is why in that person's estimation that he is a toddler.

The primary example is that during the Christmas season he wanted to get something for his mother for a surprise, so he put it under his jacket.  It was obvious that something was there, but there was a little concern in my sister's mind that someone would think he was shoplifting.  Well, people could have seen it that way or they could place the situation in context and ask questions.  The problem was not really with what he was doing as he wasn't stealing.  The problem is that is was over exaggerated and tied to his Asperger's and whittled him down to a toddler in someone's opinion.  

One of the main differences between how my parents raised my sisters and I and how my sister is raising my nephews is that they have a lot of freedom of choice.  I don't think what he did had anything to do with his Asperger's Syndrome.  The same family member is convinced that I would show up to teach in pajamas.  I wear a shirt and tie almost every time I show up to teach.  I wear professional attire.  She's convinced that I wouldn't know to put on a collared shirt and tie to teach.  It is the rare occasion that I wouldn't do such a thing.

I don't know one person whom doesn't have a lifelong illness.  Even hayfever is a lifelong illness.  Yet, I am not my hayfever.  It is not going to keep me from being a gardener either because it is something that I am learning to do.  Several years ago, I was seriously injured so much that I wasn't able to work for several years, regardless of what any naysaying highly judgmental social perfectionist says, I was unable to work at my profession.  It was during this time that the same family member said that I should just be committed to an institution.  I was the equivalent to a $.  More than that, my freedom was a $.  What's even worse to me is that the same person has disabilities.

To me, sister is teaching her son something that teenager's learn.  Realistically, he is more like a 12 year old and will not be able to move out of the house immediately when he turns 18.  My parents gave us the option of the military or college when we turned 18.  Even though those aren't the only two options in the world, it is what they thought we were allowed to do.  My sister probably has great hopes for her son and so do I.  I don't think he needs to be concerned about lookers on would have thought about a Christmas present under his coat so much.  She thought that she was going to have the other nephew for the day instead of the one with Asperger's.  When I'm there, I hang out with both of my nephews.  I don't choose between them.  I also know about a tremendous amount of assistive technologies for my nephews.  Both of them have medical concerns that change their communication.

My sister told one and didn't tell the other or the schools until her youngest son needed to know for himself.  He was mainstreamed through the public school system and his brother wasn't.  If the schools had known, he would have been in remedial classes and his education would have been completely different.  Instead, they just didn't tell him.  He also wasn't devastated when they did.

Like so many people, my oldest nephew is understood by his medical status as opposed to what he can actually do.  I am an English instructor at a university, and one of my sister's dyslexia is so bad that I can't read what she writes.  Yet, members in her family of origin understand her as too dumb or an irresponsible non-educated person.  She's really smart and runs restaurants.  She understands customer flow and the audiences of where she is really well.

One of my main concerns, and it has been for a long time, is that our society understands people very differently than how I think we should or how educated people should.  Recently, I turned a my phone's video recorder on as my neighbor was fighting with her girlfriend.  Why?  The light caused them to stop fighting in the yard which means that they know not to do it.  They are self-conscious enough that they care about what other people think, but only if it is shown to people they don't know.  She doesn't know me, but as soon as she moved in, she decided that it was her duty to demean me for being poor.  After fighting with her girlfriend, she yelled at me for having a light on in my house.  It could have been a flashlight, but she didn't like it.  This is not my problem.  It is her problem.  The same thing would happen to my nephew, so his parents are raising him to question and ask why people are doing things.

People live in multiple generation homes throughout the globe for longer than 18 years.  Most of my students live in community with others, dormitories, or with the families origin, and it has been that way my whole teaching career.  American society still thinks that people whom live at home past 18 are odd.  I think a 30 year old who has never lived anywhere but with parents is a little odd.  I suggest dorms for university students all of the time.  Even if the person moves home after graduation, then he or she has lived elsewhere.  It's a valuable experience.  Getting to know and live with a lot of other people causes human beings to have to be far more considerate and less judgmental usually.

It is impossible to please everyone around us.  This, however, is why people with disabilities have needed to have legal protections from others: fear.  Social services were created to control people.  Of course, others will just say that I am finally just now catching on to how the world works.  No.  I just stopped telling you because you think I need special education for your elitist narcissistic issues.  While I am not a counselor or therapist, I have enough of those hours to know what looks like someone else's problem being projected on others and myself.    

People miss out on changing the way they view the world in their educations.  I do mean people and not just ones I am related to.

Life is simple dear nephews.  Keep a song in your heart.  I don't have much, but you can always stay with me.  I know what's it's like for someone to decide that you are not capable of anything because of a medical difference; I'm transgendered.  Besides, I found a game design program for my nephew to enroll in if he wants to when he graduates.

Let's all think about the ways that we understand difference.  None of us owe anyone else an explanation of our lives.

  

    

Lent: Temple Mind is not Orthodox

"Temple mind" has several components in it that are antithetical to orthodox Christianity.  Orthodox Christianity is also called Biblical Christianity.  There are other kinds of Orthodox Christianity, but I am not writing about the Byzantine, Russian, or American Orthodoxy which are tremendously awesome traditions.  Those traditions have incredible depth and when lived correctly tend to be focused on joy, mercy, and love.

Orthodox Christianity is Biblical Christianity which should also not be confused with fundamentalism or literal evangelicism.  Orthodox Christianity looks to scripture, reason, traditions, history, archeology, hermeneutics, and experiences throughout time to find orthodoxy.  It highly relies upon the words of Christ in the Gospels and relies on what is not there just as much.

Temple mind was destroyed from the new covenant as seen in Matthew 27:50-51.  In the verses, Jesus is dying and the curtain of the temple is torn in two.  

"Temple mind" has several components that are not a part of the new covenant of Christ.  Temple mind has, at least, the following points of view or criterion.  Not all sections need to be valid for a person or mindset for a person to have temple mind.  They are:
1.  Understanding the law of the Old Testament as rules.
2.  Having to go a certain place to commune with God.
3.  Requiring a sacrifice for sin.
4.  Requires separate roles for men, women, and children while claiming scripture.
5.  "Spiritual" looks a certain way to someone.
6.  Requires a dress and speaking code.
7.  Often uses Christianese.
8.  Maintains an us and them false dichotomy lacking hospitality.
9.  Has an element of functional illiteracy.
10.  Does use Biblical languages to expound upon a text.  Often, the KJV is used without a historical context.

Christians do not require anything to commune with God.  We don't have to go anywhere and have follow Christ everywhere.  People who are stuck in temple mind wouldn't go into a Jewish Temple to pray.  Instead, they would claim that a different God is there while shirking the Abrahamic roots of Christianity.  They find a specific place where Jesus doesn't exist.  The problem with it is that Jesus dwells in the heart of the believer.  It is the Immanuel.  God is with us not over there.  the same people will say things like "It was okay for me to drop out of college because Jesus came into my heart."  The experience really propels people into education as we are to study as we are disciples.

In the song, Take My Life and Let it Be, we have the desires of Christians and it doesn't focus on the materialism within Temple Mind.  To live as a flawed offering instead of requiring a perfect one is the mark of orthodoxy.  Embracing humanity and finding holiness at a part of universal incarnation is where Christianity is found.  It is only by desiring holiness that we find holiness.  Rule counters and creators require offerings.  Christians live as an offering.  We don't need to be a show.  Our disciplines don't change our identities.  We are the flawed children of God professing praise, goodness, and joy in Our Creator.

Orthodoxy means that I confess and profess my flaws.  I accept me for me and God for God.  I don't try to be in a certain state for God.  It is different to use a discipline to become a spiritual leader.  Spiritual leaders become them.  Real ones don't need a cushion or a cloud.  Real spiritual leaders follow God by critically thinking about the world around them as creation.  They often use mops instead of speaking prayer.  They serve.

Spiritual leaders live a process on consecrating life to God.  May we all consecrate our lives to God's orthodoxy.        

 

May Light Perpetual Shine Upon Him

I have just been made aware that Dr. Ernie Roberts has gone home.  When I met him, he was the Vice President of Administration and Financial Operations.  It's a big fancy title.  He was a tremendous man.  He did more than I can write about right now.  Whatever we needed, he sought a way to provide for instead of shutting down projects.  He was gentle, kind, and loved people deeply.

What was important to me about Ernie Roberts was that I never experienced him in a negative way.  He always thought in possibilities.  More importantly to me, he was the first psychologist I ever told that I was a man.  I was terrified of him.  He was awesome.  He was one of the first people who could sign for that I needed to change who didn't freak out over it.  I never had a judged moment with Ernie Roberts.  His generosity and vigor for life was intoxicating.  Ernie was fun.  He sought God and humanity to the fullest.  Ernie's smile knew God.   I remember his happiness the most.

In the email I received, this is what he sent to everyone through his lovely wife, Laurel:

I  WISH YOU ENOUGH

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright no matter how gray the day may appear.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting.

I wish you enough pain so that even the smallest of joys in life may appear bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.

-        Bob Perks

I didn't know him for very long, but it was enough to grieve in my life and feel joy for his Home Going.  

May God hold his faithful son, Ernie Roberts, and wrap light perpetual around him.  So, be at peace, our brother has gone home to Our Heavenly Father.  May he watch over us in the communion of saints to help bring us enough in our lives.  

Lent: Jews and Food/Cheese on Bread

Lent is usually the Christian season when people give up chocolate, beer cookies, and whiskey cake in order to do penance for their sins.  I've never given up chocolate for Lent.  I've given up frowning for Lent.  I've given up video games, extraneous driving, and believe it or not, extra pillows to sleep with to remind myself of those without a pillow.  When people think of fasting, they tend to think of food.  My Jewish friends have taught me a lot about food.  The number one thing they have taught me is: eat.

While it seems simple, we all have to eat.  Fasting from certain foods has been a part of my spiritual practice.  What is more dangerous that I have been encountering, in the past few years as I have been living differently in society, is the some people are completely obsessed with food and will control others with it in American society.  While it is not surprising to me that people would do such a thing, it is surprising to me that businesses wouldn't just refuse service to those that they didn't want in their restaurants.  The number one thing that people have challenged about my life since I started my kippah/skullcap/headcovering (a medieval multiple religion) discipline is where and what I eat.

Now, I am larger person.  I have never been skinny person.  I am not built to be a skinny person, I have highly documented medical conditions that don't allow me to be a skinny person, and I like food.  But, it is only really since I started wearing a recognizable head-covering that people in public wouldn't give me the same courtesy in restaurants and other places to choose my own food or even be there.  For example, I usually don't eat pork.  I love pizza and pretzels.  So, when Little Ceasars' menu showed up with a pretzel crust, I was in line and ready to order it.  When I got to the front of the line, I was immediately told that they couldn't make a pretzel crust pizza without pepperoni.  I know how to make a pizza.  Why?

Well, I know why.  In time, I was confronted about ordering only cheese pizzas.    

Let me point this out.  I do -- cheese on bread.  Cheese on bread is of God.  Every culture has a form of cheese on bread recipes.  It seemed over time that whenever I went into certain stores that I was either refused service in one way or that I needed to eat their understanding of what I should order -- air or pork.  I love cheese on bread.

The real reason was either: 1) No Jews allowed or 2) Lose weight.  The second experience I had was where I used to teach.  I actually had someone tell me from behind my back that if he had a gun he would shoot me immediately as I stood in line for lunch.  The real issue in that people are more concerned with their understanding of my weight and what I am eating rather than fasting from arrogance and disciplining their spiritual and emotional need to control the people around them.

Seriously, be calm.  There is really no reason to control the people around us by their food.  We live in America.  It is a privilege of the first world to control others by rice, beans, and dare I write it -- cheese on bread.  It is more spiritual and far more important to care that the person sitting next to us in our pews, bus stops, and classrooms have been fed rather than worrying about how it looks to our own egos.  People have to eat.  People with expendable incomes get to eat well.  I know people who pride themselves on living on oatmeal and Ramen noodles because it is cheap.  It is unhealthy not to allow people to eat.  Both body and soul require nourishment.

The saddest part of this is that human beings use scripture, God, and their own sexism not to allow people to be able to have nourishment in their lives.  Today, while talking about dogs, I heard a man say, he won't let her eat."  While I was walking home, I thought about the Garden of Eden.  God created everything and then placed a seemingly arbitrary rule about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  While Adam and Eve were there, the serpent encouraged them to eat.  So, they did.  The problem was not with the food they ate.  The problem was that God received lies from Adam and Eve about what they had been doing.  They had been in communion with another teacher.  They had followed another's teaching.

God is a jealous God.  Even so, he repented of His jealous anger by placing a rainbow in the sky.  He is still a jealous God, but He matured as His children did.  He learned not to banish out of anger.  Instead, He communes and breaks bread with his disciples.  I hope it was really cheesy bread.  :)