From my heart

‘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...