Reformed Autism

Music Stats

2011-10-16T13:22:00.000-07:00

"What does Robert listen to?" I'm sure you've asked it. Actually, I'm pretty sure you haven't. However, my OCD/ASD won't let me fail to analyze all the statistics from my iTunes library. I've started using Last.FM as Aquatiki, but what about all the data not graphed there? Look no further:

The 'Audiobook' genre is totally wrong. It's 1239. 'Podcast's should be 548. Sermons tend to get deleted after they've been listened to, so they don't stick around.

Obviously, I've taken lots of time off from accumulating music. At the rate I've been going the last 120 days, I could've only started 7.23 years ago. In fact, I started two decades ago.

Ignoring the unplayed albums, this is precisely the curve I was going for. I enabled half-stars in iTunes a while ago, and I was going for an exponential meaning to the scale.

Here you can see the juxtaposition of my two lives. Somedays, I'd get up at 5 a.m. and start listening as I drove to work. I'd work out at 5 p.m. and go to bed at 9. Lunch was always evangelistic, so no music. But when I worked nights, I'd wake up at 5 p.m. and listen as I drove to work, and work out at 3 a.m. This graph is a combination of the two "time zones".

I've been forced to label all albums with more than one artist as "various" so they'll stay together. Ignore that. The Chinese writing is Yo-Yo Ma. Alex Jennings is the narrator for the Psalms on CD.

Soundtracks are good to study to!

This current decade is on track to be the most listened to ever. I had to look up the 1720's: Bach wrote his solo cello suites, solo lute suites, solo violin suites, sinfonia's and inventions and WTC during these 10 years.

The first four are a majority instrumental. I can't study to words.

This graph makes me feel guilty about how much stuff I haven't listened to yet. I'm listening to unplayed stuff only right now!

I guess I need to find some medieval music to fill in some of that gap...

Having one-of artists (e.g. Rage Against the Machine with Maynard from Tool) drives me nuts. So the featured-artist gets relegated to part of the song title, as you can see evidence of here.

Autism Unveiled

2010-12-12T12:19:00.000-08:00

I recently got into a very stupid spat on Facebook with some very good men. I wrote rashly and harshly when there was no reason. And yet I felt I was right, not even seeing that the way I fought completely obfuscated what I was arguing over. This is the beginning of my repentance.

I had a VERY good and super HEATED discussion with Jessica on the way home. What I realized is that in this area, I am my most profoundly autistic. Autism is a disease of the heart that flattens or eliminates human beings from consideration AS human beings. When people start talking about Truth Claims -- what is true, what is right, what is the correct way to do things -- I lose perspective of honor, position, humility and office. I believe (in those moments) that the world is no longer about politeness or courtesy but solely about RIGHT AND WRONG. It's as if everyone becomes disembodied voices, or even written words without intonation or affect. Everything is written in fixed-width font. All I see are Venn diagrams, circles with labels like "TRUE" and "FALSE". Someone's point of view becomes a sphere which overlaps with TRUTH to a greater or lesser extent. I don't care who they are or who I am in reference to them, I only care about what is TRUE. Their "feelings", the connotations of my words, or the deference I owe their authority or position become irrelevant. I feel like a super-human robot.

As I speak with my wife about this -- and thank God she is so the OPPOSITE of autistic -- I see some of how unbelieving this is. When I talk to my atheist friend, he says that the category of MORALITY is something made up, it has no ontological standing. He says "good" and "evil" are just social constructs, they aren't real like physics or logic is real. I am appalled by this and try to show him (presuppositionally) that he doesn't live this way. He is autistic in this respect and just, plain doesn't "see" that whole side of life.

This is what I do with regard to honor, authority and position. I want my daughter to obey me because I am her father, but I don't want to do what my boss says when I think he is wrong. I do not have the authority of Rob Rayburn, Bryan Chapell, Tim Keller, Eric Irwin or a lot of people. It is sinful disobedience for me to wrangle about who is right or wrong about homiletics as if rank and office don't matter. I must struggle A LOT more with this side of my self. It is sometimes useful to consider whether something is true, regardless of who said it, but it is another thing entirely to pretend that Those Made in God's Image don't matter AS human beings. I think myself dispassionate when, in fact I am impersonal/inhuman.

In Harms' Way

2010-10-13T20:04:00.000-07:00

Recently, some friends lent us "Releasing True Potential: A Journey through Developmental Growth" by Elizabeth Harms. It was a presentation she gave at the Washington homeschooler's convention. After a lengthy introduction, she is prefaced by her teenage son's poetry performance, which helpfully served to highlight the enormous strides he has made since his childhood diagnoses. But it was all downhill from there.

Before I say why, let me tell you what standard I judge things by. How do we tell whether science is good or bad? What is the measure of systems? Of course, it is the extent to which they accord with reality. Reality is determined by Scripture, our senses and rationality. Almost all systems don't even attempt to explain all of reality, so then there is the additional consideration of how faithfully the system measures it's designated slice, and also how important that slice of reality is.

Medicine (as a sub-species of science) is about trial, observation, hypothesis and falsifiable theory. This is a good system for facing acute, distinct problems. Come see me in the ER if you are having a heartattack, stroke, appendicitis or car accident. These problems are inherently reducible in nature. But come for chronic back pain, and the doctor will just shrug at you. A myriad of small problems add up to big pain for you, but the best you can hope for (most of the time) from Western Medicine is some Vicodin.

Autism is not monolithic. They don't call it the Autism Spectrum Disorder for nothing. There is a reason that disease diagnoses have proliferated in recent times (e.g. ADD, ADHD, OCD, ODD, etc.). That's because such things fly below the radar of Medicine and are not immediately treatable one pill or one procedure. The brain is most complicated part of us as human beings, so naturally it does not reduce well to a simple model.

But what we cannot do is pretend Science never happened. Now admittedly, if you were the parent of an autistic kid 200 years ago, there was no label for what was wrong with your kid and there was no label for what you were doing to try to combat it. But to ask a modern person to retreat backwards to such a time is to check your brain at the door. Irresponsible.

So, my problem with Elizabeth Harms is that she claims to have the solution to everything wrong with all manner of children. She even said she treats the "root cause" of things such as Down's Syndrome. Now unless she's got some extra chromosomes she's handing out, that is flatly untrue. She has a lot of good treatments which produce measurable results in many cases, but she does not have a theory that explains more than Neurology does. Neurology doesn't have a good explanation of autism, but it doesn't pretend to either.

What I strenuously object to is Ms. Harms' system (and her organization ICAN), which is based on disproved, EVOLUTIONARY hypotheses. They are the Christian version of the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential. Their method (and hers) is based on the Doman-Delacto method. It's contention is that the brain evolved in layers, with a vertebrate section covered with a mammalian section, covered with a simian section, covered with a human section. Find where the problem is and everything else will work itself out.

I can like things about her individual methodologies, but I can't get behind her whole philosophy. There is no silver bullet for autism like there is none for back pain. Science can only group symptoms and treatments together, like it does with COPD and IBS. Beyond that, it is a grey area where no one has a clear vision. I know that's depressing, but that's the state of the world. And always remember, all of us have a worse problem --- that is, sin -- but it has been solved by God, in his son Jesus Christ. Keep it in perspective.

New Autistic's Blog

2010-08-24T11:32:00.000-07:00

via Paul Levy:
I heard a wonderful interview last night on National Public Radio with Lisa Daxer, an autistic biomedical engineering student. It is worth listening to, here.

But Lisa also has a blog, Reports from a Resident Alien, which is also worth reading. Here's a lovely excerpt:

Most neurotypicals (who aren't artists or children) will probably never notice the beauty in the patterns on a cracked sidewalk, or the gorgeous way the sun reflects off an oil slick after the rain. They'll probably never know what it's like to immerse yourself in a subject and learn everything about it, and the beauty of having all those facts lined up. They'll probably never know what it's like to flap their hands in happiness, or lose yourself in the feel of a cat's fur. There are lovely things about being autistic, too, just as there must be about being neurotypical. Oh, make no bones about it: It's difficult. The world's not set up to operate with autistic people in mind; and autistic people and their families face prejudice every day. But being a happy autistic person isn't "being brave" or "making the best of it". It's quite simply being happy. You don't have to be normal to be happy.

There is no cure

2010-06-07T22:12:00.000-07:00

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7801077/Autism-test-could-make-the-condition-preventable.html

Detecting Autism before it manifests itself is no guarentee of prevention. All the ABA therapy and intervention in the world might help someone develope the tools they need to communicate sooner, but you have changed the make up of our brains one iota.

Jennifer Knapp

2010-05-25T20:40:00.000-07:00

I recently learned that another piece of my cultural legacy has changed.

As an Aspie, I notice culture all the time. This is because I don't have one. Now admittedly, there really is no one without a culture, but Autistic culture is different than any other because it is self-consciously feeling disconnected from other people. All Aspies went through childhood feeling like Spock or Data, baffled about the thoughts and feelings of others. "What does that facial expression mean?" "How did she know he felt that way?" I may be White, but I don't any more at home in rural America than I did in metropolitan Korea.

I coped by drawing solace from my intelligence. Nerds and geeks are typically too busy with Information to care much about social graces. As computers have taken over our lives, people care less about how odd I am, as long as I can fix their Windows box. But that doesn't mean I feel any less awkward as a human being.

Now I was an Antagonistic Atheist in High School. Cutie-Pie-Christian-Girl-Culture was repugnant to me, because it was anti-intellectual, and intellectualism made me feel OK. The Risen Son of God, however, wasn't impressed with my IQ. My brokenness transcended my mind, my heart and my will. I am not a sinner because I sin, but I sin because I AM a sinner. No culture can get beyond that, even 'no culture'. I confessed my great need and Jesus saved me from the wrath I deserve, paying my price in his person. And those darn, Cutesy Christians were the only friends I had after that!

My intellectualism had choked my heart (and still does, to an extent), so my first several years as a Believer were very weepy. It was cathartic for me. John Piper talks about people breaking down in front of him at book signings. They are Reformed-types who never deal with emotion and think Christianity is only books and facts: I can relate to that.

And so it was that began listening to Jennifer Knapp. Actually, I only ever got into Kansas, her first record. It's a lot like Ten by Pearl Jam: hand-crafted over years and mountains better than the spontaneous fluff made in succeeding years. But Kansas became suspect for awhile, because of some blatantly Armenian lyrics. Nevertheless, I have kept listening. So it was with great amazement yesterday, that I heard about her 'coming out'. And as a "Nerd for Jesus", I immediately wanted to know her reasons and debate them with her. Of course, as a fellow disembodied brain in a jar, she made her decision based solely on intellectual grounds and has a coherent, logical argument through which she wants to lead me, in order that I might agree with the soundness of her inferences.

That last sentence is only a tiny bit facetious. I know myself well enough now (thanks to my wife) to see that I, at heart, believe that's the way the universe works, or at least ought to. But, coming back to the point, that's not the way Jennifer Knapp operates, and it's not the way Bob Botsford operates. See them in action here on Larry King:

In the first video, I was struck by how Ms. Knapp's culture was communicated so strongly by her words and emphases. There may or may not be academically rigorous explanations for what she does, but they are not what impels her. "Love" and "self-honesty" are culturally assumed to be virtues, values which Larry King shares. We all have unquestioned presuppositions which will determine our values. Given enough motivating force, they will overturn God in our own minds as the normative. Ted Haggard approaches the Bible with these same "givens" and finds excuse for his, hers and anyone else behaviors. What if we're all guilty? What if "there is a way which feels right" to Jennifer Knapp "but in the end leads to destruction?" Is the universe measured on our scales?
I admire Bob for trying, but as soon as he allowed the field of the debate to be "Is Homosexuality OK?", he had lost. The only way to engage ANYONE apologetically is to

Begin with ontology (existence): God is the "ground of being" and you did not make yourself (a logical impossibility).
Move on to epistemology (knowing): you don't know ANYTHING by your own power. We are dependent upon God for revelation in order to have ANY knowledge.
And land on the Bible: we have no higher standard within ourselves by which we may judge God, the world or anything else other than God's Special Revelation.

I am just like Jennifer Knapp: I am prejudiced by my values, and they determine how I see everything. I do what I do because it seems right to me; no one looks in the mirror and sees a monster. If God is like us, only better, than his better vision must let him look at us and see the non-monster as well.

But God is not like us. His values are ultimate: He is not beholden to anything. We hare gone off the reservation, and the brokenness of our lives screams at us, even while we flail for the "mute" button with whatever soothes us. We must all face the horrifying possibility that the God who made the Universe could look at our whole lives and say to us, "Get away from me, I never knew you." Being too scary to face does not make it any less of a reality. What legal loophole will you exploit to get off the hook from the Judge of All Space-Time? If not His Mercy -- solely His Favor -- then none.

Evangelizing Human Being

2010-04-09T00:52:00.000-07:00

I've gotten into the rut of only evangelizing "Safe People." They are nerds, aspies and scholarly focuses-persons. Sometime I fear I'm so bad a being human that I can't imagine what others must really by thinking. "What do I say?" "What are they really thinking out?" "Can push them on the issue or not?"

I do blame my aspie-ness for some of the problem. I good visionary sees the goal in his mind before arrival. I have so little assurance that the models in my head for how people "tick" that I lack all confidence my ability to imagine what they might people as a saved person, which I what I should be offering

But I don't get discouraged now, thanks to Christopher J.H. Wright's talk at an A.G. conference. After having the in-gathering of the nations so richly defined and defended, I am painfully aware of how God is calling me to do more than evangelize the nerds, aspies and geeks. So tonight was a gay-friend. And tried to more Francis Schaeffer and less Cornelius Van Til, and I made tiny, baby step progress. I hope to find more lectures on how evangelists mentally project as they're with people.

Not Disappointed

2010-02-27T16:00:00.000-08:00

It took a long time to get someone to tape it off HBO for me, but the Temple Grandin film with Clare Danes is SUPER PERFECT. I loved every minute; I cried repeatedly. I hate to see people struggling against a stupid system, and this featured a love of that. People's anti-autism and sexism was so insipid. I really feel like one of my reasons for being is because I understand both normal people and autistics/asperbergers. I want to ease their way and explain what they are thinking to the rest of the world. I really want to build my son a squeeze-machine. I'm getting tired of being it myself!

Temple Worship

2010-02-05T12:46:00.000-08:00

I am so excited about the movie debuting Saturday at 8 p.m. on HBO, Temple Grandin. My daughter is coloring in the coloring book right now. Temple herself can be a little abrasive and would be hard to listen to for two hours, but Claire Danes is gorgeous. Not to say that this is a Hollywood Beauty Pageant version of Autism: all the reviews say that grit is there.

It's the End of the World

2009-12-03T16:16:00.001-08:00

After I was so disappointed in The Fantastic Mr. Fox, some manic-like bug stuck in my craw and I had to go see 2012. I'm not sure why, but I was glad I did. I was in a rare funk and I allowed myself to totally go with the movie. I laughed, cried, screamed, pleaded, rejoiced and mourned all out of proportion to an OK movie. That being said, it was the most epic Disaster Movie ever!

The illustration above (of the Sistine Chapel being fractured precisely in the middle of the Creation of Adam) was chosen on purpose. Jessica was telling me about KNOWING, a stupid movie she saw and its lame ending. I am confident neither group of film makers were truly aware of the Biblical symbols they were using. The earthquake at St. Peters meant much more than the supposed failure of religion, it (were it real) would've represented a failure on God's part to keep the Noahic Covenant:

Genesis 9:11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.

But that might be too specific for some. Genesis 8:22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.

Call me OCD, but I see these kind of connections having taught a class on Covenant Theology.

Essay I had to write for work

2009-11-24T10:11:00.001-08:00

“Within seconds, the sunlit sky above them had turned dark. Whitecaps sprang up on the water, and sheets of rain began to batter the boat. Fraizzoli hurried to release the jib as Morgan jumped up to get a life jacket from the cabin. Before she could grab one, a powerful gust slammed into the boat, tilting the sloop onto its side and sending the mainsail into the water. As the boat tipped, Morgan lost her balance and tumbled onto the rail. Looking facedown into the waves and fearing the boat was capsizing, she made a split-second decision—"I'll be safer in the water" and jumped into the bay.”

In times of trial, peoples’ hearts are revealed. It is not enough to say we are here to heal people. Something motivates all of us to pay for years of school, treat ungrateful patients and wrestle with stupid computers. If medicine is just a job, we might be tossed overboard by the first substantial wave. We are here to be part of something great and greater than ourselves, healing people and using our skills.

At the efficiency conference back in January, they said people need a “burning platform” underneath them, or they will never “jump.” Do you feel such a motivation? I know there are some people who disagree, but I believe most of us feel the yearning to fix this place, to quit tacking against the wind.

“The future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed.” Rather than paint a negative picture, let me talk about the working example we already know. The East Wing, where you don’t waste so much time looking for each other, wandering around the department. The East Wing, where there is a HUC always in EPIC. The East Wing, where there is a tighter, more efficient work environment. The East Wing, where patients are seen and discharged more quickly. We all love it there because we’re all here for the same reason.

Paradoxically, the spread of “East Wing Style” comes by the sacrifice of the actual East Wing as we know it. Six beds, two nurses, one tech, a doc and a HUC can be great, as we all know firsthand. The only enemy here is geography: we can’t do care teams anywhere but in the Main and the East. We have to tear apart 10 through 17 and put them back together again, but it’ll be worth it.

Now I’m no nurse and I’m no doctor. I’ve been manning the ER desk for eight years. I’ll be so sad when my ER time ends, because I have found out how to be excellent at something worthwhile and enjoy it. My job is instantly gratifying. And after six hours, two or three codes and fifty patients, I used to get into “the zone”. Everything was automatic and I didn’t even have to think about what I was doing. The doc walked out of the room having intubated, and the portable chest was already ordered stat. The nurse came towards me with blood, and I had labels and a Ziploc ready. The techs’ questions were answered before they formed on their lips. Expectations were known and met.

Care teams are the orchestrated version of that. Nothing is worse than a system without clear roles and rules. A well-defined system makes it’s easier to succeed. Done right, I would prefer to work on a care team than anything else! I want to keep all my patients in my head at once, and anticipate all your needs before you know you need them. Care teams mean we can make each other great, doing better medicine. We are sailing into bumpy waters, so baton down the hatches and remember why we are here. And let me collect that blood for you.

Presentation

2009-11-03T08:15:00.000-08:00

One of the hardest things for me to do -- when relating to NT people -- is to grok how they don't want all the information as fast as possible and then to just stew in it: I like a fire-hydrant-to-the-mouth followed by beautiful drowning in intellectual Crunch-mouth. Not so for them.

A List Apart used to be (and still is in the archives) a blog/site about web-design. I mean, HTML and CSS and JavaScript. Coding and nerd-stuff. But as they've nearly exhausted all such topics, they've moved on to Usability issues. I still read it, but it's less engaging to me. Today, however, they had a fantastic article on learning. The author (@ambersimmons) wove stories about reading the Bible and Wikipedia into plans for website design and knowledge acquisition. I really saw a strong bridge for aspies and neuro-typicals. Cool.

Nerdy Presbyterians

2009-10-02T03:11:00.000-07:00

So I get to go to Presbytery. I'm "coming under care" to go to seminary. But I don't even know what makes up by Presbytery. So, as Joe Holland blogged about, DeSocios made a map! How awesomely nerdy is that!

I'm Always Right on the Line

2009-09-19T20:10:00.000-07:00

I scored 32

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aqtest.html

Lists of Lists

2009-08-28T19:54:00.000-07:00

I stumbled upon a really good Ph.D. paper by James Sparks of Murdoch University in Perth Australia on 1 Chronicles 1-9. When those chapters came up in my Bible reading, I really struggled to make it through. What Sparks shows is that these lists of genealogies function not as history, but as social glue in their Eastern society. As the guy who cleans up tags on Web 2.0 sites, I can appreciate ancient nerds memorizing lists of names and getting geek points for being a cool Rain Man in 600 B.C.

Art

2009-07-29T14:09:00.001-07:00

Every since I saw Rivers and Tides, I've been a sycophantic Andy Goldsworthy fan. (Jessica has me beat by about ten years.) What person on the Spectrum isn't utterly fascinated with flowing water?! Now a new artist is doing very creative stuff on the beaches of San Francisco. It makes me want to go make crop circles right now...

Obsessed

2009-06-20T19:00:00.000-07:00

I can't stop watching Alice

and Expialidocious

Does anybody else ever think all DJ's must be aspies?

Sobering Math

2009-06-12T21:28:00.000-07:00

I love numbers, statistics and graph. Hence, I subscribe in Google Reader to Flowing Data and Chart Porn (forgive the title). I had to stop and reflect, however on FD's latest post: abortion in America since 1970. My state is in the top 10 for rate of abortions (15 for number). It's hard most of the time to remember that figures add up to people, but not this time.

Gut Trouble

2009-03-28T19:52:00.000-07:00

My son, Reason, has lots of abdominal issues. They thought for a while that I had Irritable Bowel Syndrome. It seems like this is pretty common with Autism. I got my Primary Care Doctors to write me a prescription for Miralax. I bet, however, that I'm the only one in the world who puts it in Mountain Dew.

Wordle Genesis LXX

2009-03-18T18:56:00.000-07:00

Somehow, I hadn't heard of Wordle before last Sunday, but I'm not sure how. What an awesome nerd tool! Basically, it takes the text you give it and makes a montage of all the most commonly occurring words, make more frequently used one bigger. Here is Genesis from the LXX (Septuagint). I'm sure I'll post more in the future.

Autistic in Ministry

2009-03-16T19:17:00.000-07:00

According to Mark Driscoll, there are three kinds of talent needed in ministry: Prophet, Priest and King. (This is not the Biblical definition of these roles; Driscoll has his own way of doing things.) Prophets are guys who think about what the Bible says; the Word of God burns inside them so they must tell others. Priests care about people; they lose sleep over men’s souls. Kings rule the roost; they administer and organize.

I’m an aspie and a nerd. Having felt separate from and confused by humanity as a child, I have made it my life’s ambition to study people and interact properly with them. As a teenager, upon being saved, I began studying theology of all kinds with ever increasing intensity. Now, as an adult, I have begun to study leadership. I think I must be backwards from most people interested in ministry, who begin by being a “people person”, go to school and do as little “paper pushing” as possible. I’m OCD first, a Bible scholar second, and a people person last!

Is there a place for people like me in Ministry? I think so. Maybe someday, in the distant future, I might be capable of being a lead pastor somewhere, a John Piper to ordinary, Neuro-Typical people. But not today. Today, I evangelized by unchurched, aspie friends. Tomorrow, I could teach Sunday School to a more diverse group. In a year, I could preach at the night service, once in a while. Eventually, I will get comfortable with hospital visits and even funerals. Weddings and Sunday mornings are a long way off. I hope I can explain myself to presbytery.

Autism Puzzle 2

2009-03-13T17:17:00.000-07:00

Watch The Autism Puzzle [Part 2] | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Watchmen

2009-03-11T01:22:00.000-07:00

Sex scene superfluous. Violence too gory. But what a film! I heard people walked out -- probably required too much thinking. Full of autistic or dysfunctional people.

Stop reading to avoid spoilers.

The entire spectrum of detachment was on display in one movie. Night Owl II felt some allure of going above and beyond humanity. I think most people would feel some kinship to him. Rorschach seems designed (at least by his name) to be a test of the reader to see what they will project onto him. And yet I felt the most kinship to him of all. Live is hard, so hard as to require simplification. There must be cold absolutes, good and evil, no gray areas. I had no traumatic childhood, nor have I witnessed any atrocities, yet I rage against mankind for being what they are. My deepest confession is that I'm just like them.
My fear is that my son is Mr. Manhattan. So aloof from humanity, his world of superpowers has carried him away from all that people love. Yet there is a tiny thread connecting him to those who he looks like, yet is mystified by why they feel what they do. Mountains of regret over tiny actions (mostly beyond his control) drive Mr. Manhattan away.
I haven't read any other reviews, and I went alone to the movie, but my Aspie friend and I are gonna go see it in 12 hours, so I may write more then. I'm glad they rated it 'R', but as always, my 'R' is their PG-13. Five out of five stars.

autism puzzle 1

2009-02-25T12:41:00.000-08:00

Watch The Autism Puzzle [Part 1] | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Maybe I'm Half

2008-10-28T09:12:00.000-07:00

Every time I take the Aspie-quiz, I end up having equal parts Aspie and Neuro-typical. This in itself is weird. I haven't heard of anyone else tasting that way. *Sigh* ... even among weirdos I'm weird!

Tell me to shut up for a month...

2008-10-11T05:42:00.000-07:00

...if I ever get on an emotional schtick.
The thing about Autism that I love is that when I get focused on something, I can drill down into it for longer and with more enthusiasm than anyone else. I mean, if I find my topic of interest, I will pursue it without regard to sleep, time, energy, expense or sense! There are a lot of issues that have nothing to do with my schooling or job, but one day I just got the fever and Google'd and read until my eyes popped out and I understood the topic forwards and backwards. Theology, philosophy, quantum physics, music theory, linguistics, cosmology ... all have been short-lived passions that I burrowed down into harder than I had any business doing. But now I can hold my own in these topics, even with a professional (for 15 minutes).
But the skubala hits the fan when I think I'm being all dispassionately intense about something, but in fact, I'm motivated by nothing beyond short-sighted, ludacrisly biased, personal drudge-bearing madness!
I recently went off an attacked all kinds of Christian brothers, nation-wide, for being obsessed with Intellectualism to the neglect of their hearts, turning the people into egg-headed, unbalanced people who value doctrine of life and think just reading is spiritual growth. Now, I think there are people who do fit that category, but man! did I only go after this because I was bitter about my own heart condition!
The reason I blog about this here is because there is an autistic friend I've been emailing back and forth who is unable to let go of his emotional-bound fixation on Free Will (in the worst sense) and the Evils of Competition. He is an Aspie, and capable of awesome focus, but he cannot even hear the gospel he is so focused on his pet issues. I know I am that way, and I am so glad God helps me get over these things. It just takes about three months (after I quit screaming) every time!

Christian Plumbers

2008-09-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

So I had a good chat the other day with my pastor. I find over and over again, that debates which are new to me have already been well hashed out centuries ago, and that I don't know the right lingo for framing my debate to veteran theologians. Anyway, turns out that I'm "Kuyperian" and not "Two Kingdom", that I'm like Tim Keller and believe in "Christ Transforming Culture" a la H. Richard Niebuhr. What that means is that I think there is a Christian way to do everything and it ought to be done so. This done mean you can be a Christian gangster or prostitute, but that there is no area of your life you can segregate and exclude from Christ's influence and change.
The counter-example of those from the other side is that "There's no such thing as a Christian Plumber, just Christian's who are plumbers." I look at that the same way I see questions about whether God wants you to eat CoCo Puffs or Frosted Flakes for breakfast: there are a million outside variables that come into play, but even if we eliminate all of those, just because we can't see an answer, doesn't mean one doesn't exist. We might be able to say enough to define a Christian business practice and a Christian work ethic, but it would be very hard to talk about Christian plumbing. But if we can talk now about Christian obstetrics and Christian investment banking (given the evil examples of abortion and finance) then perhaps Christian Plumbing will come of age someday soon.
Why is this a worthwhile debate, and not meaningless theologic minutiae? Because more and more, people compartmentalize their lives. We apply our relentless microscope to our behavior over here, and lead misably post-modern lives over there. Christ's dominion will be over every area of our lives, and He has something to say about all our practices and vocations. There is a Christian way to do (or not do everything).

Now what do I do?

2008-09-09T02:53:00.000-07:00

I thought I was on a life long quest for the truth. I suppose I am, but I've been quite stumped by having definite answers to all the big questions in life. Secular philosophy would be out of job if anyone ever found concrete truth, because they wouldn't be searching anymore. Reformed Theology is so appealing to me as an Aspie because it is all need and tidy, perfectly wrapped in an OCD bundle of Systematic goodness. No people in the way, no confusing ambiguity between me and the truth; just solid, unflinching Truth that I can stare out in Awe til my eyes bleed!

But then, from a man who spoke like he was Autistic, came the peal of bell; a clarion call to the unending quest. Cornelius Van Til doesn't appear to have been on the spectrum, but he sure could be obtuse and aloof in his writings! What is the point in all this perfect theology? If we find all the answer, what do they mean, in toto? God is a person, more real than I am. God has all the feelings I don't want to feel and manages them perfectly. God knows all that I want to know, but never uses it as a distraction from genuine interaction. God is totally in control, like I want to be in control, and like I never will be. He holds me in His hand; He knows me. It's not that I know Him.

All this knowledge which I've obtained, only means more is expected of me in my daily life. All these intellectual hurdles I've overcomes were given to me, and I'm no better than someone who has not. My old nature, my sin self if always one fixation away, lurking underneath my skin, ready to captivate my whole being with some flash trinket of intellectual pride. I must live the greatest commandment and love God with my whole being. My mis-proportionality of mind and tastes will be a thorn in my flesh til the day I die, but it will go away, someday. Everytime I try to live these things I know, I see that they never really became a part of me. Everytime I try to argue points I'm sure are right, I find new fears within me. I must put myself in places where I become desperate for God. Jesus came first when I was that desperate, and now I see so much more of how evil I am.