Asperger Folk In The Bible

This reflection assumes the world and proves nothing. With that preface as spoiler alert, I'll move on.

I am on the Asperger's spectrum. My brother was off the deep end Asperger's (frantic hand-waving) as a child, so with that clear diagnosis of a sibling in hand (in waving hand, that is) and some obvious traits of my own, safe to say... Yeah. I'm there.

People are not always kind to me about it. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, what worries me more is how many people are being kind. I hate it when I'm being annoying and don't even know it.

Anyway. I see patterns. I see patterns that aren't there (always a problem) but I also see ones that are there. I run with details. And once I'm on a topic I'm passionate about, I just don't know when to stop.

These are strengths and weaknesses.

Where I'm going with this is to simply note with some bemusement that Asperger's folk do seem well represented in the pantheon of biblical writers. Meaning, many of those writers are celebrated for the very things that can get me in trouble. Refusing to move on, finding patterns, and deep-diving on details.

Seriously.

A few examples?

The prophets. I mean, in this day and age, you might say nothing at all. A lot of people leave their church for a real reason which they don't bother to share. Or maybe they explain their reason, and then leave. But pity the souls who don't leave, have a problem with their church, and they just won't shut up about it. Well, those folk aren't thought of as playing with a full deck. I know, I know. Where was Isaiah to go? Hitch the next ride to Assyria? Even so, as I read their rants, I have to say. These guys were kinda Asperger's-y. And we revere them today.

The Psalmists. Anybody read Psalm 119 recently? The dude is obsessed. With God's word. He finds dozens and dozens of ways to say the same thing. And we love it. (Some of us.) We study it. We sing it. ("Thy word is a lamp unto my feet...") Today someone who wrote something like this would get the askance glance.

The author of Hebrews. This guy (or, in a conspiratorial voice, perhaps gal) sees patterns everywhere. And a lot of those patterns are arguably not there. I mean, seriously. Levi offering the tithe to Melchizedek through his ancestor?? Let's be honest. Hebrews is awesome. But it's a dense read full of weird pattern-finding. If Hebrews had not been written, and your neighbor started scribbling this stuff on toilet paper. Would you accept it?

By the way, that bit about seeing connections? My mind just went to Yesterday, a movie in which Beatles songs were not written. Happily, the songs in the movie were well-received by screaming fans, even though sung poorly by a nobody, but we digress, and that's the problem with people like me. We digress. I remember this one time... oh. Sorry, again.)

Right. How about Matthew and the other gospel writers. I mention Matthew in particular because, to my unending delight, the new show The Chosen has chosen to depict him as deep OCD. Love it. I connect with Matthew big-time.

Anyway. Gospel writers. Patterns galore, laid in there, just waiting for you to find them. To say these guys were detail-oriented is to suggest that, oh, sorry. You don't want another analogy? I have several here? No? Ok. So they were detail-oriented, at any rate. Things like Matthew having Jesus be the true Israel, crossing the Jordan, re-enacting the 40 years (as 40 days), but this time not screwing up... We could go on. And on. And on. And boy, that would suit my personality to do just that. But suffice it to say. These guys were connecting the dots and finding patterns faster than John Nash in A Beautiful Mind and also like... oh, never mind.

All that to say, Asperger's folk like me? We're a bit like (wait for it, here comes another) Cassandra. Doomed to speak the truth, and, thanks to our way of delivering it, doomed also to be widely ignored or ridiculed for our fixated attention to patterns, connections, details and truth.

I'll be waiting for this lonely reflection to be ignored. In fairness, though... when that happens, in this particular case the world won't have lost out on much.

But I enjoyed writing this, all the same.

PS - did you notice the sentence that managed to use the word "chosen" twice, once in a title and once not? Did you notice I repeated the exact same feat with "mind"? This is the stuff you'll find in Bible commentaries. Some bushy-bearded guy will catch what everyone missed and y'all be like, whoa, that was cool. But mostly it gets missed. But we Asperger's folk lay it in there all the same. Just for fun.

Because we like patterns.

God Doesn't Do No-Looks

I have been tasked this week to spend five minutes a day interacting with the idea that God looks at me with joy in His eyes.

That's not an easy one for me, as I tend to assume, in my heart of hearts, that God is either not watching me at all (because He doesn't care) or that He's watching me with a critical eye (because He's disappointed).

That sounds stupid when I put in writing. That's what happens when feelings derived from flawed beliefs of the heart. In my head, I know God looks at me with love. But my heart has other opinions.

So as I sat down to engage with my five-minute task, the Bible fell open to Psalm 139, and that was serendipitous enough for my tastes and my task.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

It struck me while contemplating this that, while the soccer no-look pass can be a beautiful thing, God doesn't use that trick where we are concerned.

I was disappointed to not find a good Messi picture to place here, as I prefer his magic over Ronaldo's style of play. But while I found plenty of Ronaldo no-look footage, I didn't see any examples of Messi doing it.

I was disappointed--until I realized that this can be spun to put Messi in a good light. <grin>

Ronaldo may be a master of the no-look pass--and, to be fair, there's no arguing that he creates very beautiful plays that way.

But when God and Messi create, they keep their eyes engaged. (Smile.)

Well, if you don't have much to say, make sure to say it quickly. I'm simply enjoying the thought this morning... the reminder... that God was watching me intently when he knit me together in my mother's womb.

There was joy in his eyes.

He's still watching me intently. Ceaselessly.

You know when I sit and when I rise;

    you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;

    you are familiar with all my ways.

I am not a no-look creation.

Thank God I Lost My Phone

Well, in today's world you knew the title was the hook, and the truth was something else. Yes, I did lose my phone, but I also thanked God when I drove back to church and found it safe and sound.

But I do thank God for losing it yesterday, and for two reasons.

First, our church is going through a mini-hell right now. There are (or were) about 7 full-time staff there, but yesterday at 4pm we as a church gathered late in the afternoon to hear five (5) of them explain why they had resigned and would be moving on within a week or two.

This blog post isn't about that situation, but here's the thing. I drove to church in a panic (would I find my phone?) and returned in great peace (I found it!). That whole cycle of stress was 10 times higher than the concern I had about the sermon being given to a church in turmoil.

In short, my body, through elevated stress and adrenaline, informed me yesterday that my phone is a hell of a lot more important to me than my church.

Let that one sink in.

I reflected on that reality as I drove home. Well, frankly, I've been through a few church hells before, and I keep my heart from entanglements in that arena. So kudos to me for "holding on loosely" to church, but clinging tightly to Jesus.

But Jesus loves his church, and ours is hurting. Losing my phone was a blessing--a reminder for me to rethink my commitment to the body of Christ I am a member of.

The second blessing struck me as I was nearing the end of my drive home, my phone safely on the seat next to me. Another car performed a perfectly legal and fine move. They slowed down in front of me so as to turn into a strip mall.

Now I know perfectly well that on some days I might have cursed my choice to end up by accident in the slow lane, and maybe I'd have been a little miffed at no one in particular. All over a slowed vehicle that cost me five seconds. On this day, however, I was too busy being blissful to have my phone back to let that slowing car get in the way of my joy.

What a helpful reminder of how I should handle all of life. As so many sermons and books (and, hmmmm, I think a parable or two from Jesus himself?) repeat ad nauseum, I have been forgiven infinitely much. I should therefore in turn be ever so eager to forgive others. But most of the time that's not how I operate. I'm just that gracious when I'm thankful to have my phone back.

Ouch.

So thank you, Lord, for helping me to lose that phone for 30 minutes. And for returning it to me. And for the two heart checks the entire exercise brought to my attention.

I need to care about my church more, while it suffers. And while our pastor and elders should face consequences for all the grievous mistakes made, I myself need to work on forgiving them from a state of bliss.

Because I am forgiven, too.

God Sightings

I came to my PC just now while thinking about a broken relationship and the lies and emnity that are part and parcel of the other party's strategy in this broken situation.

I want to reconcile. But I also want to maintain boundaries until we meet. To meet? That's my open offer. It is refused. And yet I am "the problem"--because I maintain some boundaries pending a meeting in person.

Enough said. I came to the PC and thought to play some music. I was tempted to play some rousing Pink Floyd or, no... wait. Better yet. Maybe I'll look up and play "Shout" by Tears For Fears. That sounds about right for the moment.

But then I thought better and simply clicked play on what was already my morning's playlist. Fernando Ortega's song continued mid-stream from where I had previously clicked pause. As if timed by a recording studio, the lyric below poured out.

But they poured out from the point which I have in bold below.

Lord of Eternity
Blessed is the man
Who walks in Your favor
Who loves all Your words
And hides them like treasure
In the darkest place
Of his desperate heart,
They are a light
A strong, sure light.

Sometimes I call out Your name
But I cannot find You.
I look for Your face,
But You are not there.
By my sorrows, Lord,
Lift me to You,
Lift me to Your side.

Lord of Eternity,
Father of mercy,
Look on my fainting soul.
Keeper of all the stars,
Friend of the poorest heart
Touch me and make me whole.

If You are my defender,
Who is against me?
No one can trouble or harm me
If You are my strength.
All I ask, all I desire
Is to live in Your house all my days.
[repeat chorus]

What a wonderful reminder from my Lord. I need not fear the slander of my enemies. I need only take care to remain in the house of the Lord.

Cloud Computing And The Sovereignty Of God

     One theme I have picked up in my own life as a programmer and in watching the posts other programmers put on Twitter is this: we can swing from hero to swamp-thing in minutes flat. One minute we are Superman. Able to do anything. Not troubled by the lowly failures of other mortal programmers. And a minute later we can be frail mud-dwellers, scrabbling to avoid getting sucked under the sludge.

    The thing that can tip the balance between these two extremes is very small. All that is needed is for our programs to crash. And they do. Sometimes we fix them like superheroes. And sometimes we're at a loss. And dead in the water.

    In the days of office computing, this was not quite so insane. PC crashed? Well, you do usually have another sitting around. Keep backups. Network down? Check the cables. The number of moving parts was not quite so insane, and all the parts could be visited by you in your sneakers.

    But in today's world, your database is frequently not in your office closet or computer room. It's in some Google data center. And the networking involved between end-user and your database? It traverses possibly the entire globe. How many miles of cable would you like to examine if users cannot connect? Login rejected? Well, in the past, the login info was stored in plain text in your user table. Go check it out. But what if the login is some 128-char token that an outside provider manages in a data center. What if the provider says the login is bad, and you cannot figure out why your users cannot connect?

    On and on it goes. When all is well? We're Mr. Incredible. Or Elastagirl. And when things break? We stare into the abyss and consider alternative forms of employment.

    Which brings me to my point. The more complicated the working system is, the more proud we are of our accomplishments... and also the more we realize how delicate it all is--and how much is beyond our control--when things don't work.

    Which means that cloud computing starts to look a bit like the rest of our life. Our bodies are miraculous things when they work. And they're still miraculous things when parts of them do not. But our feelings about 100% functional vs 99% functional are remarkably different. We are miserable when 1% of our function is lost.

    How about the world around us? Same thing. Perfect health is awesome, but if a family disaster hits? One phone call can take us to the lows plumbed by Job himself.

    This brings me to my personal reminder to self. God is sovereign, Pilgrim. You are not. You are desperately weak and in need of God. When things aren't working, and also when they are. When you doff your work hat and tackle OAuth2 login protocols. And when you sit down at the dinner table. And when you vote. And...

    Pilgrim. Listen. You are not in control. You never were. Rest in the trust that God is. Let God be God. And you? Get used to being a mortal who trusts in a very big God.

    PS -- It wasn't more than three days before I had a "My life is mud" day at work. (CI/CD pipeline hell, for the record.) God was good, but this blog post rattled in my brain all that day while I struggled with things I couldn't control and didn't understand.

Evangelicals Love Romans. And Ignore It.

     A short reflection regurgitating stuff written by better scholars than myself, but I just feel the desire to get these thoughts down for myself.

    Evangelicals gorge on the book of Romans. The Protestant love affair with Romans began with Luther and the affection for this book has not diminished with the passing of time. I'll say no more here about that because I'm not a scholar. Less is more. People can finish this paragraph imagining all the great stuff I'm thinking about right now. It's probably better that we leave it at the imagination stage.

    Moving on, I just want to throw down some things I've noted that Evangelicals, in particular, love to not notice (or love) about this book. Now it must be noted that I'm being a bit harsh. My most recent source of choice information is from the latest edition of Christianity Today (CT), a bastion of evangelical thought. So it's with a broad brush (more like a crop duster) that I lay down this criticism. And that's not fair.

    But... in a lot of churches I attended and from my more conservative friends... I still see the "women in leadership" question being answered too often with either (a) the "that's a good question" dodge, or (b) a bad answer: "women shouldn't be there".

    Which I find awfully surprising, given the following from the first few verses of Romans 16. Here we go.

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. 2 I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me.

3 Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus. 4 They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them.

5 Greet also the church that meets at their house.

Greet my dear friend Epenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia.

6 Greet Mary, who worked very hard for you.

7 Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

    I'm just going to point out some stuff and be done. For openers, the opener is a reference to Phoebe, who (I credit CT for drawing my eyes to her) is a deacon, most likely the person who delivered Paul's letter, and therefore very likely the person who would answer any questions the church members might have about what Paul wrote.

    Let that sink in. No. Seriously. Let that sink in. We consider Romans to be a blockbuster theological treatise worthy of doctoral dissertations by the dozens. A woman was tasked with explaining it to the first people to ever hear it read aloud.

    Second, our old friends Priscilla and Aquila pop up. Again. And in this husband-wife team, Priscilla is mentioned first.

    Let that sink in.

    It also must be noted that half the awesome people noted by Paul here are women. I counted. If I can be forgiven for extrapolation (and we're in November, with election fever still running high), according to this exit poll, women held up half of the early church. If an awful communist regime figured out that much (Chairman Mao had women holding up half the sky), it doesn't seem too much to ask that the modern church to pile on to what St. Paul already knew.

    Finally, Paul refers to Junia as an apostle.

    Let that sink in.

    But give evangelicals a bit of credit for sheer head-in-the-sand obstinancy. Because too often it's not new thoughts sinking into heads, but rather heads sinking deeper into the sand. Examples? Two.

    First, even in my Bible before me, a footnote suggests that Phoebe might be a deaconess. Crediting CT again, I'd point out that there is no such word in the Greek. That word got invented so that women who were deaconesses could be given less authority than men bearing the same title. That's not in the Greek, folks. It's just a convenience invention for evangelicals of a different persuasion regarding the proper place of a woman in the church.

    Second, let's talk about this Junia, counted as outstanding among the apostles. If you can imagine people 2,000 years from now arguing that Tiffany "was sometimes a boy's name back then", you can guess where evangelicals have gone in their attempt to prevent a woman from being considered an apostle. Nuff said.

    In closing, I doff my cap to St. Paul, who in no way deserves the shade getting thrown on him by feminists who hate the Bible for its misogyny. Their frustrations should be directed toward some modern church movements. Jesus and Paul didn't get us into trouble with women. We did.

He's Right: The Election Was Stolen From Him

     I can understand his anger and frustration. It's not right that illegal tactics and other underhanded tricks were used to steal the election from him.

    He sought aid from the courts, and he had every right and reason to do so. People attacked his character because he didn't concede. They called him a sore loser, but this was so unfair. History will show that he really did win the highest office in the land, despite what everyone in the media said. And, as he claimed, when the illegal votes aren't counted, he won the popular vote, too!

   However, I speak here of Al Gore, a democrat in the year 2000. Gore graciously offered a concession speech and gave the presidency to George W. Bush--despite the fact that, had Gore held out, it would have been shown in due time that he actually and truly did in fact win the election, to say nothing of the popular vote Gore won by about a half million votes.

    As for that shell of a man holed up in the White House today? History will show that in the year 2020 democracy in the US stood on a precipice, looking into an abyss as dark as his soul.

    By God's grace it is he, rather than democracy, that will be thrown into outer darkness.

    But what then should happen to his enablers still ensconced in Washington, D.C.? Let us hope that history will record their ignominious departures too, and their evil intentions with them.

PS -- Lest this pilgrim be mistaken for having political leanings... For the record, in 2000 this pilgrim was pretty thankful that Bush won. Elated. Jubilant! In hindsight, this pilgrim is more transfixed by the fact that Gore placed the country's needs ahead of his own ambitions. Time passes and hopefully our priorities and values get refined. A good sign that this has happened is when political affiliations wane in influence and affection for Jesus grows stronger. This pilgrim wants no association with any party whatsoever.