From my heart

This week I am thinking a lot about family. All of us are born to a biological family, but not all of us belong to our biological families. Some of us grew up with our biological families, but never became friends, some of us grew up with adopted families, some of us never had families to call our own. Families are also not always a safe place, look at Cain killed Abel, Jacob stole from Esau.   But it is not always blood and DNA that makes us family.  Family are those that accepts you, that want you in their lives, that love you, that support you. Take care of your family!

You know you are stressed and need to switch off when you have nightmares about work on your second night of leave!!!

a bit of a jumbled post. I read the blog post  Dangerous Assumptions  this morning. This is exactly what is bothering me with society and the Aspie community. Because we do not talk as much, or do not talk at all we are deemed disabled or retarded. See  John Elder Robinson 's post. All of us do not communicate verbally, but not all of us are mentally challenged. Sadly, it is a fact that some of us do not have the mental capability to live on our own. But it is wrong to make assumptions, to place a person in a box and to label them. When we read  Autism Daddy  the non-Autistics and Aspies get an insight into the struggle of a non-verbal Autist. The fact that his son does not respond to instruction and learning can make us assume that he is of low intelligence, but are we right in our assumption? Can it be that there is a communication method on a different level? I truly do not know? But I do know that Autism daddy is trying his best to s...

Some time ago I wrote a post about   Being Real  and this is sort of a continuation of that. Recently I wrote a post about why we should not celebrate Christmas.. And along the same lines there are arguments about having Sabbath on Saturday or Sunday, and keeping the Jewish feasts, and only eating certain foods or discounting certain parts of the Bible, or having scientific proof that God exists. But does all of this really matter? Really? Why should we care about celebrating Christmas of not? Or on what day we rest? Or what we eat? Is it that important that we start fights about it, even wars! No wonder that non-Christians look at us with skepticism. Christians are the most flaky, hypocritical and indecisive people I have come across. We judge each other, we kill each other, we steal and slander. And all that because we have forgotten what is important! We have forgotten why we call ourselves Christian (recently I choose not to call myself Christian ...

Just as we had dinner this evening, the power went out ... load shedding! So we lit the candles, and switched on the emergency light in the kitchen. Before long the laptop batteries ran out, and a while later the cellphone batteries. So there we were, just like when I was a kid, on the farm, no power, no lights and only ourselves to keep us busy. The kids got bored quickly, there were no tech to keep them busy. I was fine, because no phone and no internet meant that I could not respond to support calls. (blessing in disguise). It is fine, but this was the second night in a row, last night we had an impromptu braai, with friends of my wife and the kids had friends to keep them busy. So what brought us to this?  When I was a kid, in the rural areas, any flicker of lightning would cause a black-out. But it was not an issue then. We were prepared for it. And we were not so utterly dependent on technology to keep ourselves busy. Our electricity provider, in the las...

I love trees, even since I was small. They provide shade to rest under, branches to climb and explore. Trees at old homesteads contain a treasure trove of captured items, like the bike below (not my photo). Trees provide rest for the soul, trees provide life, trees are life! : Trees BY JOYCE KILMER I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in Summer wear A nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree . But sometimes, trees are subject to the elements of nature, to floods, to fire, and they get burnt, and hurt and broken.  Sometimes the trees survive, sometimes not. But those that survive recover slowly, shedding dea...

‘When He’s Older and Doesn’t Have Autism Anymore…’ T he tagline came up in my Facebook feed and i could immediately feel my blood pressure ri s ing! This must be another ignorant family member or organization trying to sell BS to the public. Autism cannot be outgrown! But then I read the post! (you can read it above) " Keegan recently got his first yearbook, and he’s very proud of it. He takes it to school every day because he and his friends like to look through it together. I mentioned to him how much fun it will be to look through as he gets older. He told me, “Maybe I can show it to some of my relatives, like Grandma and Grandpa and my cousins.” And then he said, “ And when Easton is older and doesn’t have autism anymore, I can show it to him.” " But the fact is, Autism is forever, it is not something we grow out of. The way we handle it may change over time, or stay the same all the way through. Or we may realize who we are and drop the act to try ...

I sometimes feel like screaming, being frustrated with myself, frustrated with the world, frustrated with the constant sensory input. I am sometimes frustrated because I am on the Autism spectrum and Wehan is on the Spectrum. But frustration does not make me love my son less, in fact, I love him more because of it. But then Autism Speaks come around and say that it is an emergency, that Autism is a disaster, and must be cured. Sure, Autism makes is difficult for us, but I do not consider it a disaster, I do not consider anyone in my family less as a result of Autism. I do realize that there are families with severe Autistic children and they are struggling to cope, for whatever reason. But I am alive, I have gone through my whole live with Autism and only defined it a couple of years ago. I am me. And them sometimes a post like   This is Autism ... crosses my monitor, and I understand. Read it, it is good.

In recent years I have been becoming alarmed at the increasing commercialization of Christmas and the exploitation of the event. I have known for years that 25th December is not the day on which Jesus was born. So why are we celebrating it? For me as a child and somewhat through my adult life, Christmas was a day of expectation, presents, feasting on special food and family. I accepted presents as part of the feast, and the decorated tree, and Christmas carols, and festive decorations in the house. But the Jews do not have a feast for birthdays, neither the Romans of the time. However, around December 17-25 (Julian calendar) there was a feast of  Saturnalia  in honor of the deity Saturn. The feast included the leveling of social custom and hierarchy, feasting, gift giving and sacrifice. Around the 4th century CE the Christians of the time incorporated the feast and especially 25th December  into the calendar hoping to attract 'pagans' to Christianity if they...

Bearing false witness, lies, slander and gossiping .... In South Africa we are having our fair share of high profile court cases, in fact the Oscar Pretorius media circus just ended, and there are a couple more on the way. And in a couple of them the judge questioned the integrity of some of the witnesses, meaning that he thinks they are lying.  And who does not like a juicy story, right from the source who  heard it from a friend's cousin, twice removed on her mother's side that works close to the source's secretary. And the embellishment when we spread that story as the truth! Or we are telling the truth, as we see it, to someone not entitled to the information. Our viewpoint, our interpretation told to eager ears. False witness started wars (the Gulf War?), got people killed, burned at the stake, caused people to loose their jobs, loose their integrity, loose their trust, or cause family break-ups. And why is it happening? Because you want to satisfy your...

Gauteng is one of the most populous and industrious provinces in South Africa, and I suppose it also has the highest incidence of industrial water pollution and wastage. It is therefore not surprising that parts of Johannesburg are without water for two (2) weeks or more now. Because of ...? drought, wastage, mismanagement of infrastructure, lack of maintenance, who knows? And the people are struggling! Those with swimming pools and bore-holes can still manage somewhat, but what about those that do not have the resources like swimming pools, boreholes, money to buy water, what are they to do? Steal water from the church? Yes, with all the wastage and pollution it might as well be a Finger-pointing from God!  But really Pastor, turning wine into water? I have no doubt that Jesus performed miracles, and that miracles are still being performed today ... but only to the glory of God.  But to have people arrested because they were making tea with 'holy water...

A couple of weekends ago I spent almost the whole weekend at J akaranda Childrens Home  in Pretoria, South Africa. Friday evening I watched my family members participate at the TTA Development Tournament that was hosted there, and Saturday I cooked about 17kgs of boerewors for boerewors rolls (hot-dogs).  There is a development program for the Children's Home kids called  Defend with Integrity . On Friday evening I watched the kids participate, and on Saturday I saw them outside the hall. Some were participating in the Taekwondo tournament, some were playing rugby in the open area and there was one or two that was hanging around the braai and pancake area. It took a lot of self control not to give in to the emotional manipulation, to dish out boerewors rolls. But it was not easy, these are children, that do not have much. These are children that probably envy those that have a family and a stable house to live in. These are children that are put to...

Well, it looks like someone started noticing the neuro diversity of people on the autism spectrum. And they are providing interesting, gainful employment as well. In the UK ( GCHQ ) for some it may mean government pensions and perks. (I surely would like to work there as a continuation of my previous career) However, being an analyst is not the only job in the market for those with Autism. Look at Specialisterne  from Denmark. They are dedicated to employ people with Autism. They are part of the Specialist People Foundation. Here is a quote from their website The Specialist People Foundation works to enable  one million jobs  for people with autism and similar challenges through social entrepreneurship, corporate sector engagement and a global change in mind-set. We work with stakeholders around the world to bring about our vision of a world where people are given equal opportunities in the labor market The company I work for have at least 4 people...

Being real! I just love this video! It is real on so many levels! The world expects of us as Christians to act like monks and nuns. Cloistered away, no use to the world. But this nun surprised the judges (world)! As Christians we should be the salt of the earth, not hidden away, living among the people, showing them that we are real, that we are not holier-than-thou, that we are still human. However, we have one difference, we know God.

The company I work for has a policy of Stand-Up meetings that every employee has to do once a month. We can talk about anything, a product we are working on, something inspirational, but nothing controversial like politics or religion. The duration of the presentations must be between 5 min and 30 min. I decided to do Autism in the Workplace as I noticed one of our clients exhibiting typical stimming behavior during a dinner we were having. I was pretty scared before the time as I used myself and my son as examples during the presentation. (In a household of four, 3 of us are confirmed Asperger). Al lot of famous people are autistic (Asperger or High Functioning). Some of those that acknowledged it are: Susan Boyle, the guy who created Pokemon, Angelina Joly,  What Is Autism? Autism is a spectrum of neuro-developmental conditions, characterized by difficulties in the development of social relationships and communication skills, in the presence...

67 South Africans killed at T.B. Joshua's building collapse First of all my condolences to all the families that lost family members in the building collapse. But like the rest of the world, I would like to ask what happened there? TB Joshua under pressure over fatal church collapse Just what happened there whilst people were praying? Is there any truth in the claims of a plane crashing into the building? Or is the most likely explanation the collapse of the building due to unauthorized building alterations? Image from http://www.sundayworld.co.za/ So let us look at what happened and what is the impact. On a material level the building collapsed, it is a fact. Apparently it was the multi-story hostel that collapsed. This can be due to structural weakening (plane crash of unauthorized extensions to the building or inferior materials used by the builder) On a spiritual level this is fuzzy/confusing. Why would God allow this? Why ...