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As we all are, I am saddened deeply by the tragic shooting at the elementary school in Newtown, CT. But I am also saddened for the millions of children and adults who will have an extra burden added to the stigma they already bear because of careless associations between this violent act and suggestions of autism or Aspergers Syndrome.

I hope that all would read this article by Priscilla Gillman, published the New York Times, and reprinted below. Very helpful.

Don’t Blame Autism for Newtown

LAST Wednesday night I listened to Andrew Solomon, the author of the extraordinary new book “Far From the Tree,” talk about the frequency of filicide in families affected by autism. Two days later, I watched the news media attempt to explain a matricide and a horrific mass murder in terms of the killer’s supposed autism.

It began as insinuation, but quickly flowered into outright declaration. Words used to describe the killer, Adam Lanza, began with “odd,” “aloof” and “a loner,” shaded into “lacked empathy,” and finally slipped into “on the autism spectrum” and suffering from “a mental illness like Asperger’s.” By Sunday, it had snowballed into a veritable storm of accusation and stigmatization.

Whether reporters were directly attributing Mr. Lanza’s shooting rampage to his autism or merely shoddily lumping together very different conditions, the false and harmful messages were abundant.

Let me clear up a few misconceptions. For one thing, Asperger’s and autism are not forms of mental illness; they are neurodevelopmental disorders or disabilities. Autism is a lifelong condition that manifests before the age of 3; most mental illnesses do not appear until the teen or young adult years. Medications rarely work to curb the symptoms of autism, but they can be indispensable in treating mental illness like obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Underlying much of this misreporting is the pernicious and outdated stereotype that people with autism lack empathy. Children with autism may have trouble understanding the motivations and nonverbal cues of others, be socially naïve and have difficulty expressing their emotions in words, but they are typically more truthful and less manipulative than neurotypical children and are often people of great integrity. They can also have a strong desire to connect with others and they can be intensely empathetic — they just attempt those connections and express that empathy in unconventional ways. My child with autism, in fact, is the most empathetic and honorable of my three wonderful children.

Additionally, a psychopathic, sociopathic or homicidal tendency must be separated out from both autism and from mental illness more generally. While autistic children can sometimes be aggressive, this is usually because of their frustration at being unable to express themselves verbally, or their extreme sensory sensitivities. Moreover, the form their aggression takes is typically harmful only to themselves. In the very rare cases where their aggression is externally directed, it does not take the form of systematic, meticulously planned, intentional acts of violence against a community.

And if study after study has definitively established that a person with autism is no more likely to be violent or engage in criminal behavior than a neurotypical person, it is just as clear that autistic people are far more likely to be the victims of bullying and emotional and physical abuse by parents and caregivers than other children. So there is a sad irony in making autism the agent or the cause rather than regarding it as the target of violence.

In the wake of coverage like this, I worry, in line with concerns raised by the author Susan Cain in her groundbreaking book on introverts, “Quiet”: will shy, socially inhibited students be looked at with increasing suspicion as potentially dangerous? Will a quiet, reserved, thoughtful child be pegged as having antisocial personality disorder? Will children with autism or mental illness be shunned even more than they already are?

This country needs to develop a better understanding of the complexities of various conditions and respect for the profound individuality of its children. We need to emphasize that being introverted doesn’t mean one has a developmental disorder, that a developmental disorder is not the same thing as a mental illness, and that most mental illnesses do not increase a person’s tendency toward outward-directed violence.

We should encourage greater compassion for all parents facing an extreme challenge, whether they have children with autism or mental illness or have lost their children to acts of horrific violence (and that includes the parents of killers).

Consider this, posted on Facebook yesterday by a friend of mine from high school who has an 8-year-old, nonverbal child with severe autism:

“Today Timmy was having a first class melt down in Barnes and Nobles and he rarely melts down like this. He was throwing his boots, rolling on the floor, screaming and sobbing. Everyone was staring as I tried to pick him up and [his brother Xander] scrambled to pick up his boots. I was worried people were looking at him and wondering if he would be a killer when he grows up because people on the news keep saying this Adam Lanza might have some spectrum diagnosis … My son is the kindest soul you could ever meet. Yesterday, a stranger looked at Timmy and said he could see in my son’s eyes and smile that he was a kind soul; I am thankful that he saw that.”

Rather than averting his eyes or staring, this stranger took the time to look, to notice and to share his appreciation of a child’s soul with his mother. The quality of that attention is what needs to be cultivated more generally in this country.

It could take the form of our taking the time to look at, learn about and celebrate each of the tiny victims of this terrible shooting. It could manifest itself in attempts to dismantle harmful, obfuscating stereotypes or to clarify and hone our understanding of each distinct condition, while remembering that no category can ever explain an individual. Let’s try to look in the eyes of every child we encounter, treat, teach or parent, whatever their diagnosis or label, and recognize each child’s uniqueness, each child’s inimitable soul.

Once a couple weeks ago I was nosing around the settings on my blog, and saw this odd option:

So, I clicked it.

And forgot about it. You see, I never go to my blog. (Like most of the world, actually.)

Today it was pointed out to me that snowflakes on a white background is, um, ‘ineffective’. Very tactfully said. And accurate.

So, goodbye snowflakes!

Our sorrow is often a measure of the distance between our idealized vision of reality and its actual form. So it was that in the days of the Old Testament prophet Haggai, when the foundation was laid for the new temple, that as some rejoiced, others wept. They wept when the awareness dawned that their idealized vision for the temple was not going to be matched by reality.

This is the cause of so much sorrow in marriages. A husband or wife brings an idealized vision of their spouse and of marital bliss into a relationship that cannot be matched by reality. When the distance between the reality and the dream becomes unavoidable, sorrow sets in.

So, could it be that many of our children feel an almost telepathic sense of disappointment from us, their parents, because our idealized vision of what we think they should be is unattainable for them?

So many parents are certain that everyone else has children who are more compliant/intelligent/athletic/cooperative/accomplished than their own. And the more pervasive this idea, the greater the gap between this idealized vision of their children and the reality of who those children really are. By so doing, many of us can miss the beauty that is our children.

Those who have children with Aspergers Syndrome, or know those who do, will especially appreciate the honesty and insight of this article, written by journalist Ron Fournier. His conclusion which is valid for every parent is this:

I learned that while Tyler was not my idealized son, he was the ideal one.

For our children to know such acceptance from us, their parents, should be our deep, compelling desire. When we can love the children God has given us, and not the idealized image which they can never attain, we will give them the greatest gift we could bestow.

Country star Sara Evans sings:

I keep looking, I keep looking for
I keep looking for something more
I always wonder what’s on the other side
Of the number two door
I keep looking
Looking for something more

So true.

In Walter Isaacson’s fascinating biography of Steve Jobs, he recounts the purchase of the one-billionth purchase from the iTunes store. It was made by a sixteen year old from West Bloomfield, Michigan. For his purchase of Coldplay’s “Speed of Sound” he received a personal phone call from Jobs, ten iPods, an iMac, and a $10,000 music gift certificate.

And all I could think is, “I never win anything like that.”

I keep looking, I keep looking for
I keep looking for something more

The reality is I had a great childhood, I have a wonderful wife, amazing kids, and a good job. I have a hope for life granted by a God whose love has been proven to me and a place to rest my fears, anxieties, and guilt.

Borrowing once again from Ms. Evans:

I’ve found all I’ve waited for
And I could not ask for more

The ever insightful Garfoose on his own hypocrisy and tendency to judge. Or, shall I say, OUR own hypocrisy…. The whole sets the context, this the conclusion:

Most parents send their children off to school when they are five or six, many earlier when pre-school is an option. We sent our youngest son to his first experience of school when he was eleven years, three-hundred and fifty-five days old. My wife has retired after 24 years of home-schooling.

Needless to say, it has been an adjustment for him, as well as for us. Not only has he (courageously, I might add) faced a barrage of new challenges, many never before imagined, but so have we. We are public school rookies trying to navigate a complex system to help our son’s transition to this new world be as smooth as possible.

In this process we have had several opportunities to intersect with his teachers and other professionals at his middle school. I know there are many complex issues related to education in general and public education in particular. But I also know that while the political, philosophical, and theological winds blow and the multiple degreed people debate how and why and where education best happens, there are teachers in classrooms who care about the children and young people they teach. I’ve known that for a long time, but this experience has put names and faces to that knowledge.

I’ve seen the bumper stickers with the political message “What if schools had all the money they needed and the Air Force had to have a bake sale to buy a bomber?” and ignored them. But I was surprised in our first meeting with our son’s teachers that nearly all of them in listing needs for their classrooms requested Kleenex. I realized then that if my son were to show up in class with a runny nose, these teachers would not use (non-existent) district issued tissues, but those they could beg or, failing that, buy. I understand that many teachers willingly spend hundreds of dollars each year from their own pockets to so stock their classrooms.

In the second week, my wife and I were able to have a meeting with all our son’s teachers to address some common concerns. We thanked them for all they were doing. At the end, we gave them each a cinnamon roll, and then picked up a laundry basket of Kleenex boxes and dumped them onto the conference table. In the midst of the ensuing ‘feeding frenzy’ (I don’t know what other words to use) there were expressions like ‘best parents ever’ spoken around the table.

We are hardly that. But it says something both about the needs of teachers, and their dedication, when one can make their day by giving them boxes of Kleenex. I cannot think of words with which to express my wonder at and appreciation for the good people that God has raised up around my son to guide his success.

My hat is off to all who teach. Who teach not history or English or science, but teach children.

Hope does not exist in that place where we think we can see all the possible outcomes and through some algorithmic magic determine that the worst ones are unlikely.

Rather,

Hope exists in that place where we know that the One writing our story will write the very best outcome.

❦

It must be hard to be a missionary and to have to write reports home detailing your life and ministry. I’m sure all want to be honest, but many must find it hard to be honest when those to whom they are writing control the dollars which enable them to stay where they are. So, rare is the prayer letter which says “the strain of ministry here has put a great strain on our family” or “we find that after four years here, we have not seen any conversions” or “sometimes I feel like quitting”. Such things are often felt, but rarely written. I understand.

But that can give us a false image of the brokenness that can often be a part of cross-cultural ministry. When a missionary is able to crack a window on his or her broken heart, it not only helps us appreciate what they confront, which can inform our prayers, but it as well can encourage us in our own brokeness.

For a number of years we have been friends with a couple who have been serving in a difficult, predominantly Muslim, part of the world. They find themselves now in a situation which demands that they leave that place which has become their home. They may never be able to go back. And so it is with a profound sense of sadness and grief that they face this move.

Perhaps reading the wife’s reflections on their impending move will give you a greater appreciation for the missionaries you know and the struggles that the tenderness of their hearts cause them to face.

This is a long quote, but worth reading and pondering. It is quoted with permission.

I began preaching this morning a series on the book of 2 Samuel. In the first chapter of that book (which could just as easily be understood as the 32nd chapter of 1 Samuel, so tied together are they) the not-yet-king David hears word that the recently-deceased king Saul and his three sons had died in the midst of Israel’s crushing defeat at the hands of the Philistines. David does not celebrate this news, even though Saul had become an enemy, but mourns it, for there was much to mourn.

But he does not merely mourn. He leads those around him in an act of public lamentation that all might grasp the depth of what has happened. He is not an opportunist but a leader after God’s own heart. His grief is genuine, and his instincts are wise. To enable the public grieving, David composes a poem of lament which is preserved for us at the end of 2 Samuel 1.

Walter Brueggemann, in pondering this act, so unprecedented in modern society, reflects on our own temptation to devalue the power and significance of words to public life. There is something lost, he feels, in the temptation to silence all serious speech and to elevate calculation and technique.

I am persuaded that he is saying something important here, but its full importance seems just out of reach for me. I share his words here with an invitation for others to use the comments section to flesh out the significance, or irrelevance, of his reflections.

Interpretive words cannot catch the power, anguish, and pathos present in the poem of verses 19-27 [of 2 Samuel 1]. We may however identify three guides to its interpretation. First, words matter. Sound religion is so often a matter of finding the right words, words that will let us genuinely experience, process, and embrace the edges of our life. The cruciality of words needs to be at the center of the church’s life, for we live in a culture that grows mute by our commitment to technique. The dominant ideology of our culture wants to silence all serious speech, cover over all serious loss, and deny all real grief. Such a silencing is accomplished through the reduction of life to technique that promises satiation. But such a muteness will leave us numb, unable to hope or to care. Against such an ideological urging, speech like this poem is a bold, daring, subversive alternative. It is an assertion and enactment of the conviction that our humanness may not and must not be silenced. When there are no longer real words, but only cliches and slogans, life is that much more diminished. (Walter Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel, page 217)

Hope is an unstable element.

In the accelerator of life, Experience is smashed into Promise and Truth. In the collision, Experience shatters and what remains is Hope.

Exposed by these infinitely more hard and stable elements, Hope’s existence is observed and confirmed.

But it is unstable and fleeting. Soon, experience re-forms obscuring Hope until Promise and Truth shatter it again.

Hope exists for a short while, sometimes longer. Research has shown, however, that under certain future conditions, it will achieve stability and never more be obscured.

❦