This morning I’ll be the keynote speaker for the annual communion breakfast at Saint Francis of Assisi Parish in Mount Kisco, New York. I was asked by the pastor, Fr. Steven Clark, to deliver a few appropriate remarks concerning where we are in the mushrooming autism epidemic.
This isn’t a clinical seminar, it’s a communion breakfast, and so I plan to share our story of Joseph’s autism and its impact on our lives in every dimension: family, marriage, sibling, professional, etc.
Autism occurs within the context of family life and radically alters every single aspect of that life. It exposes the strengths and weaknesses of the marriage and family dynamic. It calls for a different dimension of parental love, and full-time involvement. I’ve thought much over these past seven years of Joseph’s autism and what it has done for us, for me.
It has taught me depths of love and devotion, of ferocious advocacy that I never would have thought that I had a capacity for. It has slowed me down as I was on a rapidly rising professional escalator, and taught me how to encounter Joseph in the inner sanctum of his fragile existence. He can’t just fall into line with the plans I had so neatly mapped out. This has been a derivative benefit for my wife and daughters.
Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov writes:
“Brothers, love is a teacher, but a hard one to obtain: learning to love is hard and we pay dearly for it. It takes hard work and a long apprenticeship, for it is not just for a moment that we must learn to love, but forever.”
No words so completely capture the challenge of parenting an autistic child. Loving behavior doesn’t come to an autistic child the way it comes to ‘normal’ children. It needs to be handwired bit by bit. In teaching love, we learn love. In suffering with and for our children, we learn depths of love unfathomable but for the experience.
So why so many autistic children?
I believe that in His infinite Love and Mercy God is permitting this to happen as a means of rescuing us from ourselves. We are aborting 93% of all Down Syndrome babies, engaging in sex selection, experimenting with cloning, etc. We need to stop this, and soon.
Autistic children are Love’s answer to our designer approach for offspring, especially as there are no clear genetic markers or physical attributes to pick up in pre-natal testing. We are being given one last chance as a civilization to get it right, to learn the meaning of sacrificial love through a condition that strikes at the very heart of social communication, to walk ourselves back from the precipice of the abyss of narcissistic annihilation. We are being given the chance to learn the true meaning of human dignity and marital love, a love that creates new life and is large enough to swallow any imperfection that comes with that new life.
Such capacity results from being at peace with our own imperfections and having allowed ourselves to be the recipients of God the Father’s healing love. If we haven’t, we must begin there. Our hearts certainly have that capacity. We need to empty them first of the clutter that we amass when we turn from God, seeking instead fulfillment with things and egocentrism.
This may be our last chance.
Coming Home 
This is so true and so beautifully written. I shed a few tears while reading this and thinking of my own autistic boy. Love IS big enough to swallow imperfection.
[…] More: Autism: Love's Lesson « Coming Home […]
Whoa! As the father of two autistic boys (aged 6 & 5) I appreciate your post and will be linking back to it from my own blog.
“… back from the precipice of the abyss of narcissistic annihilation. ”
And I’ll bet you can’t say THAT ten times really fast!
Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov writes:
“Brothers, love is a teacher, but a hard one to obtain: learning to love is hard and we pay dearly for it. It takes hard work and a long apprenticeship, for it is not just for a moment that we must learn to love, but forever.”
I love that quote. It sums up what I am learning and trying to convey on my blog. God often uses things that we think are tragic to slow us down and make us take notice of His plans for our life. Beautiful post.
I’m Subvet’s wife. As he said we have 2 boys with Autism. I am also going to link to your post here. Very well written, thank you so much.
I never thought of autism in that aspect and so appreciate a view such as yours, explains a lot to me…
Thank you so much for writing this. It made me sob because it’s just so true.
Once I was able to see a picture of what you described in your post. Several years ago God was good enough to allow my path to cross with a couple whose son had autism. One day while they were at my home I was able to see the clearest picture of love I believe I’ve ever witnessed. Both of the parents were good to him and the Dad actually done his part. To me it was a picture of what family is suppose to be both parents involved in the care of their loved one working togethor for the benefit of their child. It just made an impression on me because so often you don’t see that. My own son has Down’s but I’ve often thought about the challenges that parents of children with autism have. I hope all of you that have children with challenges are also taking good care of yourselves. That means taking your vitamins getting the rest you need and also making time for yourselves. If your child is non-verbal a communication board is also a good idea. My prayer for each of you that has a child with special needs is that the month of June will be a month of expected and unexpected first’s. Little things that only a parent with a special needs child can truly appreciate. Something else that helps is vitamin b12 and vitamin b6. Clear it first though with your physicians. Be blessed. 🙂
[…] markers that can explain what’s at the root of this dilemma. Having written on this before (see here), I stated that God is giving us a second chance at getting it right after what we have done with […]