I had the rare opportunity to enjoy the loud silence of a movie theatre for 10 whole minutes today, and after a day filled with shuttling kids around, the silence was indeed deafening. My first reaction was to check my text messages, of which I knew I had no new ones. Then I thought I would text a friend. Then my over analytical mind began musing over why my first response in quiet was to reach for my cell phone. Why couldn't I just sit there, and stare off into space? After all, I was completely alone. I could talk to as many imaginary friends as I wanted, break into song with the movie, snort laugh as much as possible, and belch like a trucker. By the time I had created a list of 15 things to do in an empty theatre, people had trickled in and my musing was interrupted by 30 minutes of adrenaline pumping previews. Once musing starts, it's difficult to put it on pause, and I found myself composing a blog throughout the entire film. It was a great movie (Ghostown with Ricky Gervais). Deadpan British humor is the best, and I snort laughed under my breath several times in deep appreciation. Anyways, British humor, as entertaining as it was, did not seem to be enough to put the musing to an end. Since I've been spending most of my time with masses of hurling tornadoes called children, I've learned the art of deep philosophical meditation while attempting to simultaneously drive and prevent Noah from opening the car door to rescue the french fries that fell between the seat and the door.
Back to the film, Ricky Gervaise was playing this uptight, cold dentist who warms to the world by the combination of finding the love of his life while helping ghosts carry out their unfinished business. You have to see it to understand the appeal. Honestly, Ricky Gervais is one of the few who can pull something like that off. He undergoes this transformation, gets the girl yada, yada yada.... All that somehow triggered meditation on experiences in Uganda this past summer. For a good six months, I seemed incapable of love. Well realistically, I found I was a sorry mess incapable of love because I had gotten myself there and it was part of the human condition. I honestly despised being in Uganda most of the 2 1/2 weeks we were there, and was grieving over a love I thought I had lost forever. I was supposed to love Uganda and its people, and 23 hours of the day, I didn't. I feared I had never loved anyone or anything to begin with. There were moments of listening to some one's story where I would be thinking, "If I have to hear another story, pretend to care, and pretend to try to fix it, I'm going to march off into the bush and disappear." God was gracious and merciful to give despair over sin and over helplessness. He hurts to heal, and Meghan, my dear cousin, walked through the muck with me. There were several times I wanted to dunk her under and hold her there (I'm sure she felt the same), but God carried us through on each other's arms. When we got back from Uganda, I spent the next week being a hermit, alternating between watching reality television and bawling my eyes out. There's nothing to help you feel better than watching other people self destruct on national television. The self needs to be destroyed for Christ and His otherness to be built up in us. Fortunately, we have to despair of the ability to love before we are free to enjoy the mercy of His love and the love of His others. There's been no great climax in all this, but the steady walking and crawling and resting in the refuge.
Today, I spent the day with one child with autism and one "typical" child. You would think there would be a great difference between the two, but there was hardly any in the things that make them both wonderfully human. They both alternated between beautiful selflessness and complete selfishness and disregard for others. It was hilarious to watch. Noah melted down in the frozen foods section of the grocery store and Bizzie demanded constant entertainment and pleasure. Noah fished the ball out of the pool for us during an animated lacrosse game, gave us kisses, and selflessly bounced us on the trampoline. And he worked through his anxiety in a new situation and let us finish having lunch at the park. Bizzie, on her end, carried all my stuff while I had my hands full with Noah, shared her dreams and desires to be an autism therapist with me and Noah, let Noah take my full attention, bossed him around when he was being stubborn, and sweetly offered him gummies as he sweated it out during soccer practice. And this is the complex reality we present to God every single day of our lives, and He loves us so perfectly and completely. I enjoy the sentimentality of love, but there is nothing like the love that is learned, that endures when someone is walking through the muck, that wipes the snot off of your face, or cleans your toe ring while it's still on your toe. I will never forget the day that I had today with Bizzie and Noah, or three weeks ago with Noah. We were having an altercation in the bathroom. Noah was in the middle of a huge tantrum, and I lost it and yelled at him and a little too forcefully grabbed his hands to prevent him from biting them. He continued to scream, and I just sat on the toilet seat, put my head in my hands, and just began to cry. Noah didn't quite know what to make of this anomaly. One of the affects of autism is the inability to read social cues which is why I was completely floored by what happened next. Noah put his hands on my wrists, looked at me, put his head down, and said "ov oo" which is his way of saying "love you." I certainly didn't deserve that, and I cried even harder which set him off again, but God had used all those times of us telling him we loved him during his meltdowns to now minister to me in a huge moment of sin and helplessness. This is love, not that we loved him, but that he loved us, and became man with and for us. We have nothing to prove in our love or our lack of love. We have simply to trust and follow and enjoy mercy. Thank you God for teaching us from the mouth of babes.
