As I sit and listen to Stile Antico singing ancient church music I am mentally taken to a place that is akin to meditation. It calms me. Mentally it moves me into a cool stone edifice filled with light from stained glass windows. If you are standing in the beams of the royal hues of red and purple the sun warms you.
In my mental calm surrounded by an ancient hymn I let go of the world and its problems, just for now. My breathing slows and I feel real rest coming to my bones and sinews. With my thoughts clearing I can see, I can discern something that lies partially within me and partially beyond me. It is a real truth that stretches out forever and compresses into the smallest space of a heart. I cannot put this truth into words. I cannot assign it a name. It isn’t a philosophy, a theology, an ism or any method or path. It just is. Discernment, truth, relinquishment and calm these are the things needed to touch what I perceive in this sacred space and these are what this larger force offers. It is a conundrum isn’t it.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
TV Top Five-Aspergers Edition
I am not running apps on Facebook anymore. By making the choice to get low and into the background of America’s favorite anti-social addiction means that I can’t use that Social Living program anymore. You know the one I am talking about; it lets people list their five favorite foreign films or five favorite books by Latin American authors, etc. But I miss that one application. Telling people about entertainment you like is fun. The mental selection process takes you invariably to the good that you remember about the contenders in whatever category you are picking the top five in. So I decided I would jot down a list of my five favorite TV programs right now and do it as a note. The result was surprising to me.
My current favorite choices were in no particular order Bones, Parenthood, Big Bang Theory, Justified and Fringe. After I had jotted the list down I had to go over it a second time and think about what qualities these shows had that drew me to watch them. Reviewing those titles what struck me was that there were two unifying thread among the batch. The first thread and this covers all of them is that they are fluff. My time is not spent watching news wonks or shows on how to build stuff on the cheap. These are stories, mostly episodic and mostly light as air. Television for me is escape and I make no apologies for using it that way.
The second thread only covers three of the five series. The first three programs listed are shows that have prominent characters with ASD/Aspergers. My life is not defined by ASD/Aspergers but it is impacted by it. For three shows on three different networks to have an ASD character is pretty amazing. I should say to have three shows with positive (mostly) ASD characters is amazing. Shows like CSI, Criminal Minds and other police procedurals often trot out an ASD character as a soulless, conscience lacking villain. Really is that how we have to define people who are different than ourselves?
In Bones the Temperance Brennan has made optimal use of the clinical precision of her exacting mind and limited (by neurotypical standards) emotional attachments to others to prevail in her field. It is a popular myth that because a number of persons Aspergers have an inordinate (by neurotypical standards) focus on specialized areas that savant like behavior is rampant in their population. The writers of the show have imbued the Brennan character with a focused genius status. The writers take care to make the degrees she hangs off plumb from the norm seem quaint. They resolve stories without real estrangement from those around her due to her ASD. This is accomplished by surrounding her with highly educated understanding people. Real life isn’t necessary like that. Still for the odd person out dramedy the show is fun.
On the other hand Big Bang is a typical Chuck Lorre production with oversexed people mouthing double entendres left and right. Sheldon like Temperance Brennan has climbed well into the firmament of the scientific community based on the edge ASD has given him in the intellectual arena. He is however a total social buffoon. This gives Lorre’s writers the chance to play the awkwardness of ASD for all that it is worth. The lack of Sheldon’s due interpretation of social cues coupled with his obsessive tics and irrationally patterned behaviors are worth a belly laugh from time to time. Sheldon may be ASD but he is way not real. (I do have to say that the episode when Sheldon ordered Penny off of his spot on the couch is a guilty pleasure of a memory for me. While watching this episode Primus was in my home almost simultaneously ordering Secundus off his spot on our couch so he could sit down to watch Big Bang. All the while he was laughing a Sheldon’s buffoonery. It was meta-hilarious beyond words for me.)
Parenthood is just about people, pretty people (this is television), highly sexed people (this is television) of whom three or four have to deal with the realities of a clearly identified Aspergers child. God sometimes it feels like the writers have hidden camera in my home. I hadn’t checked in with the show for a couple of episodes because the plot line of having one brother sleep with the hired specially trained aid for the ASD child thus compromising her continued employment just seemed a little too icky for me. I sped the DVR through that and the subsequent episode stopping only when it was clear a major expository moment was happening.
On this week’s episode Adam the father of Max the kid with Aspergers gets into a fight at a grocery store. The start of the fight was Max reacting poorly to the person ahead of them in the quick check out lanes being 7 items over limit the 10 item limit. Eventually Max is sent on an errand elsewhere in the store to defuse the situation. Know that strategy well. The aggrieved cheater mutters about Max being a retard and Max’s father belts him. (I did hold back from cheering out loud others in the house were asleep). When Adam finally discloses to his wife what has happened he is ashamed and he admits he is angry. His anger is about not being able to do more for his son. For being stressed at work. For being lost in life.
Watching the episode was cathartic for me. I get it 100%. I will never punch anyone but I can get my hackles up verbally and have in meetings with teachers and others who don’t want to factor in the Aspergers when dealing with my son. I know I can’t be sure that I will protect my child from the fate of Sheldon and I know Temperance Brennan is a fantasy. She really seems to turn her ASD on and off or dial it down or up in different episodes and it just isn’t that way for Primus. All I can do is work with my son to try and teach him ways to meet the neurotypical world in a manner that he won’t threaten its peoples and in a way they won’t take advantage of him.
Yeah that is why I watch Parenthood. It is a good story for me and for my family. It is well written and it gets how the issues of Aspergers impact on a family. Bones I watch because I am drawn to seeing how many gross ways the special effects guy can make a corpse fall apart. Big Bang I watch because everyone including me likes to watch geeks screw up. And as to Fringe I watch it because I like good science fiction with characters that are not just two dimensional. Did you know that the guy who came up with the theory of an infinite series of universes arising from every decision point we act on was the father of the lead singer of the Eels? True fact.
I guess I watch Justified because it is an emotional release. I like seeing angry rednecks from Kentucky talk in rapid word play crafted in the style of Elmore Leonard. When they shoot people and brawl my angst and anger dissipates. Plus I wish I had Timothy Oliphant’s accent.
Anyway these are my current picks for good television.
My current favorite choices were in no particular order Bones, Parenthood, Big Bang Theory, Justified and Fringe. After I had jotted the list down I had to go over it a second time and think about what qualities these shows had that drew me to watch them. Reviewing those titles what struck me was that there were two unifying thread among the batch. The first thread and this covers all of them is that they are fluff. My time is not spent watching news wonks or shows on how to build stuff on the cheap. These are stories, mostly episodic and mostly light as air. Television for me is escape and I make no apologies for using it that way.
The second thread only covers three of the five series. The first three programs listed are shows that have prominent characters with ASD/Aspergers. My life is not defined by ASD/Aspergers but it is impacted by it. For three shows on three different networks to have an ASD character is pretty amazing. I should say to have three shows with positive (mostly) ASD characters is amazing. Shows like CSI, Criminal Minds and other police procedurals often trot out an ASD character as a soulless, conscience lacking villain. Really is that how we have to define people who are different than ourselves?
In Bones the Temperance Brennan has made optimal use of the clinical precision of her exacting mind and limited (by neurotypical standards) emotional attachments to others to prevail in her field. It is a popular myth that because a number of persons Aspergers have an inordinate (by neurotypical standards) focus on specialized areas that savant like behavior is rampant in their population. The writers of the show have imbued the Brennan character with a focused genius status. The writers take care to make the degrees she hangs off plumb from the norm seem quaint. They resolve stories without real estrangement from those around her due to her ASD. This is accomplished by surrounding her with highly educated understanding people. Real life isn’t necessary like that. Still for the odd person out dramedy the show is fun.
On the other hand Big Bang is a typical Chuck Lorre production with oversexed people mouthing double entendres left and right. Sheldon like Temperance Brennan has climbed well into the firmament of the scientific community based on the edge ASD has given him in the intellectual arena. He is however a total social buffoon. This gives Lorre’s writers the chance to play the awkwardness of ASD for all that it is worth. The lack of Sheldon’s due interpretation of social cues coupled with his obsessive tics and irrationally patterned behaviors are worth a belly laugh from time to time. Sheldon may be ASD but he is way not real. (I do have to say that the episode when Sheldon ordered Penny off of his spot on the couch is a guilty pleasure of a memory for me. While watching this episode Primus was in my home almost simultaneously ordering Secundus off his spot on our couch so he could sit down to watch Big Bang. All the while he was laughing a Sheldon’s buffoonery. It was meta-hilarious beyond words for me.)
Parenthood is just about people, pretty people (this is television), highly sexed people (this is television) of whom three or four have to deal with the realities of a clearly identified Aspergers child. God sometimes it feels like the writers have hidden camera in my home. I hadn’t checked in with the show for a couple of episodes because the plot line of having one brother sleep with the hired specially trained aid for the ASD child thus compromising her continued employment just seemed a little too icky for me. I sped the DVR through that and the subsequent episode stopping only when it was clear a major expository moment was happening.
On this week’s episode Adam the father of Max the kid with Aspergers gets into a fight at a grocery store. The start of the fight was Max reacting poorly to the person ahead of them in the quick check out lanes being 7 items over limit the 10 item limit. Eventually Max is sent on an errand elsewhere in the store to defuse the situation. Know that strategy well. The aggrieved cheater mutters about Max being a retard and Max’s father belts him. (I did hold back from cheering out loud others in the house were asleep). When Adam finally discloses to his wife what has happened he is ashamed and he admits he is angry. His anger is about not being able to do more for his son. For being stressed at work. For being lost in life.
Watching the episode was cathartic for me. I get it 100%. I will never punch anyone but I can get my hackles up verbally and have in meetings with teachers and others who don’t want to factor in the Aspergers when dealing with my son. I know I can’t be sure that I will protect my child from the fate of Sheldon and I know Temperance Brennan is a fantasy. She really seems to turn her ASD on and off or dial it down or up in different episodes and it just isn’t that way for Primus. All I can do is work with my son to try and teach him ways to meet the neurotypical world in a manner that he won’t threaten its peoples and in a way they won’t take advantage of him.
Yeah that is why I watch Parenthood. It is a good story for me and for my family. It is well written and it gets how the issues of Aspergers impact on a family. Bones I watch because I am drawn to seeing how many gross ways the special effects guy can make a corpse fall apart. Big Bang I watch because everyone including me likes to watch geeks screw up. And as to Fringe I watch it because I like good science fiction with characters that are not just two dimensional. Did you know that the guy who came up with the theory of an infinite series of universes arising from every decision point we act on was the father of the lead singer of the Eels? True fact.
I guess I watch Justified because it is an emotional release. I like seeing angry rednecks from Kentucky talk in rapid word play crafted in the style of Elmore Leonard. When they shoot people and brawl my angst and anger dissipates. Plus I wish I had Timothy Oliphant’s accent.
Anyway these are my current picks for good television.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Bite Me Earl
Last night I left the office early. Departing before 5:30 I left so as to avoid having to be the person to activate the alarm. Going out early meant I had to walk about 10 minutes to the nearest Panera Bread Company, a chain sandwich, coffee and pastry shop. My wife was going to meet me there.
On the way to our meeting point I had to walk through a park. As I took the paved but cleared path from one side of the park to the other I saw a small Kroger shopping cart. Wheels up it sat in a snow drift. I pulled the cart out and decided to be a good doobie. My thought was that I would take over to the front of Panera. Panera and Kroger are three doors apart with a World Market in between. My hope was that the Kroger cart kids would round it up at the end of the business day.
I have no vested interest in Kroger. Moving the cart closer to the store from whence it came just seemed like a nice thing to do. Like Earl and his list of wrongs maybe I needed to work out some karma. I mean thirty years ago I took a Kroger cart from this self-same Kroger and loaded my very loaded wife in it and pushed her back to the dorm. It was after an evening at the long gone, often lamented Boom Boom Room. The name of the bar should tell you what kind of place it was.
Whatever the reason I took the cart back. Ah, but I am sure now there will be consequences and not the ones I intended. As I pushed the cart back I took my briefcase off my shoulder and put it in the basket. From the point I picked the cart up I had to traverse the park, several store front facades and then a large parking lot. It didn’t click to me until I was almost to Panera that some passing cars were giving me the once over as they went by. Limping with my bag in the cart I looked well odd. The looks were beyond glances but didn’t really reach the level of glares.
How long will it be before my wife gets that first call about whether I have gone insane or become homeless? I can hear the call, “Mrs. T. I saw your husband shuffling through the mall parking lot with his belongings in a grocery cart. Is everything okay?”
I guess that is the thing about large scale spiritual forces. Trying to do the right thing isn’t like putting your money in a soda pop machine and pressing a selection. In the case of the drink machine you hit Diet Coke and you get Diet Coke. On the spiritual side when you try to do the right thing, when you try and address the deficits of the divine in your life what comes to you in return is not an automatic pass for something you did wrong that day (or thirty years earlier). Often the response is enigmatic or more likely it is a sideways response.
A simple act is like a stone thrown in a pond. The ripples move out and touch things you never contemplated. I hear you thinking but nobody has called yet.
I have been at this long enough to know they will. It may not be a call but someone will bring it up, I promise.
Last night I left the office early. Departing before 5:30 I left so as to avoid having to be the person to activate the alarm. Going out early meant I had to walk about 10 minutes to the nearest Panera Bread Company, a chain sandwich, coffee and pastry shop. My wife was going to meet me there.
On the way to our meeting point I had to walk through a park. As I took the paved but cleared path from one side of the park to the other I saw a small Kroger shopping cart. Wheels up it sat in a snow drift. I pulled the cart out and decided to be a good doobie. My thought was that I would take over to the front of Panera. Panera and Kroger are three doors apart with a World Market in between. My hope was that the Kroger cart kids would round it up at the end of the business day.
I have no vested interest in Kroger. Moving the cart closer to the store from whence it came just seemed like a nice thing to do. Like Earl and his list of wrongs maybe I needed to work out some karma. I mean thirty years ago I took a Kroger cart from this self-same Kroger and loaded my very loaded wife in it and pushed her back to the dorm. It was after an evening at the long gone, often lamented Boom Boom Room. The name of the bar should tell you what kind of place it was.
Whatever the reason I took the cart back. Ah, but I am sure now there will be consequences and not the ones I intended. As I pushed the cart back I took my briefcase off my shoulder and put it in the basket. From the point I picked the cart up I had to traverse the park, several store front facades and then a large parking lot. It didn’t click to me until I was almost to Panera that some passing cars were giving me the once over as they went by. Limping with my bag in the cart I looked well odd. The looks were beyond glances but didn’t really reach the level of glares.
How long will it be before my wife gets that first call about whether I have gone insane or become homeless? I can hear the call, “Mrs. T. I saw your husband shuffling through the mall parking lot with his belongings in a grocery cart. Is everything okay?”
I guess that is the thing about large scale spiritual forces. Trying to do the right thing isn’t like putting your money in a soda pop machine and pressing a selection. In the case of the drink machine you hit Diet Coke and you get Diet Coke. On the spiritual side when you try to do the right thing, when you try and address the deficits of the divine in your life what comes to you in return is not an automatic pass for something you did wrong that day (or thirty years earlier). Often the response is enigmatic or more likely it is a sideways response.
A simple act is like a stone thrown in a pond. The ripples move out and touch things you never contemplated. I hear you thinking but nobody has called yet.
I have been at this long enough to know they will. It may not be a call but someone will bring it up, I promise. Really I just wanted to get to Panera to read a little more from Tricycle the Buddhist monthly.
On the way to our meeting point I had to walk through a park. As I took the paved but cleared path from one side of the park to the other I saw a small Kroger shopping cart. Wheels up it sat in a snow drift. I pulled the cart out and decided to be a good doobie. My thought was that I would take over to the front of Panera. Panera and Kroger are three doors apart with a World Market in between. My hope was that the Kroger cart kids would round it up at the end of the business day.
I have no vested interest in Kroger. Moving the cart closer to the store from whence it came just seemed like a nice thing to do. Like Earl and his list of wrongs maybe I needed to work out some karma. I mean thirty years ago I took a Kroger cart from this self-same Kroger and loaded my very loaded wife in it and pushed her back to the dorm. It was after an evening at the long gone, often lamented Boom Boom Room. The name of the bar should tell you what kind of place it was.
Whatever the reason I took the cart back. Ah, but I am sure now there will be consequences and not the ones I intended. As I pushed the cart back I took my briefcase off my shoulder and put it in the basket. From the point I picked the cart up I had to traverse the park, several store front facades and then a large parking lot. It didn’t click to me until I was almost to Panera that some passing cars were giving me the once over as they went by. Limping with my bag in the cart I looked well odd. The looks were beyond glances but didn’t really reach the level of glares.
How long will it be before my wife gets that first call about whether I have gone insane or become homeless? I can hear the call, “Mrs. T. I saw your husband shuffling through the mall parking lot with his belongings in a grocery cart. Is everything okay?”
I guess that is the thing about large scale spiritual forces. Trying to do the right thing isn’t like putting your money in a soda pop machine and pressing a selection. In the case of the drink machine you hit Diet Coke and you get Diet Coke. On the spiritual side when you try to do the right thing, when you try and address the deficits of the divine in your life what comes to you in return is not an automatic pass for something you did wrong that day (or thirty years earlier). Often the response is enigmatic or more likely it is a sideways response.
A simple act is like a stone thrown in a pond. The ripples move out and touch things you never contemplated. I hear you thinking but nobody has called yet.
I have been at this long enough to know they will. It may not be a call but someone will bring it up, I promise.
Last night I left the office early. Departing before 5:30 I left so as to avoid having to be the person to activate the alarm. Going out early meant I had to walk about 10 minutes to the nearest Panera Bread Company, a chain sandwich, coffee and pastry shop. My wife was going to meet me there.
On the way to our meeting point I had to walk through a park. As I took the paved but cleared path from one side of the park to the other I saw a small Kroger shopping cart. Wheels up it sat in a snow drift. I pulled the cart out and decided to be a good doobie. My thought was that I would take over to the front of Panera. Panera and Kroger are three doors apart with a World Market in between. My hope was that the Kroger cart kids would round it up at the end of the business day.
I have no vested interest in Kroger. Moving the cart closer to the store from whence it came just seemed like a nice thing to do. Like Earl and his list of wrongs maybe I needed to work out some karma. I mean thirty years ago I took a Kroger cart from this self-same Kroger and loaded my very loaded wife in it and pushed her back to the dorm. It was after an evening at the long gone, often lamented Boom Boom Room. The name of the bar should tell you what kind of place it was.
Whatever the reason I took the cart back. Ah, but I am sure now there will be consequences and not the ones I intended. As I pushed the cart back I took my briefcase off my shoulder and put it in the basket. From the point I picked the cart up I had to traverse the park, several store front facades and then a large parking lot. It didn’t click to me until I was almost to Panera that some passing cars were giving me the once over as they went by. Limping with my bag in the cart I looked well odd. The looks were beyond glances but didn’t really reach the level of glares.
How long will it be before my wife gets that first call about whether I have gone insane or become homeless? I can hear the call, “Mrs. T. I saw your husband shuffling through the mall parking lot with his belongings in a grocery cart. Is everything okay?”
I guess that is the thing about large scale spiritual forces. Trying to do the right thing isn’t like putting your money in a soda pop machine and pressing a selection. In the case of the drink machine you hit Diet Coke and you get Diet Coke. On the spiritual side when you try to do the right thing, when you try and address the deficits of the divine in your life what comes to you in return is not an automatic pass for something you did wrong that day (or thirty years earlier). Often the response is enigmatic or more likely it is a sideways response.
A simple act is like a stone thrown in a pond. The ripples move out and touch things you never contemplated. I hear you thinking but nobody has called yet.
I have been at this long enough to know they will. It may not be a call but someone will bring it up, I promise. Really I just wanted to get to Panera to read a little more from Tricycle the Buddhist monthly.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Midwinter Joy
A few days back mid-winter’s oppression broke for a day or so. Snow melted. Birds sang. Hearing a bird singing and trilling a song carried across warm air had a way of lifting even my darkest thoughts.
Clear high notes aflutter in the heavens, at least for me, cleansed all corners of my soul from winter depression. The break did not last long. Snow has returned and chill air remains. Still, I am holding that memory of that aural joy close to get me through the waning weeks of this season away from the sun.
In a bird’s song I became part of creation, I was a thread in the divine world. Joy lived if only for a moment.
Clear high notes aflutter in the heavens, at least for me, cleansed all corners of my soul from winter depression. The break did not last long. Snow has returned and chill air remains. Still, I am holding that memory of that aural joy close to get me through the waning weeks of this season away from the sun.
In a bird’s song I became part of creation, I was a thread in the divine world. Joy lived if only for a moment.
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