hello anyone here that has aspergers and is a christian?

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Bachlover

I just noticed that you said you are a priest. That must make things get difficult at times for you and make for a lonely life l am guessing. Anyway good to meet another Bach fan.

Repeated

Last edited by beemared on 30 Apr 2014, 12:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hi Beemared

Have about 5 mins so writing in haste as have to go to church agm
Can't beleive it that you are also female and also mature like myself and in UK too.
but am so so sorry about your experiences with church - guess I have been blessed
Job is a wonderful book - I remember writing essays about it when I was doing a theology degree as part of training to be a Reader (lay preacher type thing) in the the Cof E

Must go - don't find meetings like tonight's easy and often end up sitting on floor at back because can't sit still in a chair. They think I'm a bit weird, but are nice to me anyway.
Also starts with bring and share supper which I find really stressful as food matters far too much to me - wonder if that's an Aspie thing?

Actually, I'm not lonely at all. I have God, I have my friend priests (a handful), and I have nice parishioners. I've learned to be social. I use scripts a lot, and I've learned to make eye contact. Usually I need a period of about two hours alone in my room with the shades drawn to recover; and some Mondays I spend the day sleeping to recover. But it's a great fit for me. I have structure and freedom.

It's actually harder to be an Aspie in the pew. There are always cliques in churches, and it's difficult to break into the group. I found this to be a problem before I became a priest. I would just go to Mass and leave. My faith was entirely private. (I didn't know I was an Aspie then). Also, lots of older people go to church with very few young adults, so I didn't exactly want to hang out with them to become their adopted son.

BWV 140 is Wachet Auf. I like the opening chorus best of all. The St. Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor are easily the greatest religious works ever written. Nothing can compare to them. I know them both by heart. I mentioned the St. Matthew Passion (specifically the opening and also "Ebarme dich") in my Palm Sunday homily. But I don't think many people in the pews took a listen. One who did told me that she took a listen but it didn't really appeal to her, and that she likes Christian praise music better. That's disgusting.

The people I serve think I'm amazing. I don't know if my fellow priests think so. They know I'm intelligent (ok, brilliant), but I don't have a reputation for great holiness, though I certainly don't have a reputation for being unholy. Amongst the clergy no one wears their prayer life on their sleeve, and we are suspicious of fellow priests who come off as overly pious, since it's often just a show. The priests I respect are the ones who are not interested in climbing the ladder to become monsignors and bishops. I admire the ones who are there for the people and who never say a bad word about brother priests and avoid gossip. I have preached - an I heartily believe - that the quickest way to sanctity is to never say anything bad about anyone. The mouth which pours forth praise to God should not be defiled by evil speech. God hears the prayers of one with a clean tongue.

I'm impressed that you went to Cambridge for your Ph.D. Without doubt, you must be brilliant yourself. Cambridge is obviously known for its long tradition of great physicists. I'm certain you have been asked if you studied under Hawking. He certainly is one of our great physicists. (I find it consoling that black holes can evaporate.) Are you doing anything with that degree now?

Bachlover

I am going by a conversation with a minister who told me he had no-one to bear his soul to, apart from his wife l pressume due he said to competitiveness between ministers and his congregants vying for attention although l daresay things are different in Catholic circles.

My own life is of course very different to yours, being just about totally alienated as a very sick, socially handicapped, single aging woman in a mans world with just about no contact with any family, living in a tiny social housing flat so all l have is my relationship with Jesus Christ and have unfortunately been going through a dark night of the soul but l decided to use my suffering to advocate for Christ against the accusations from the enemy which have nearly pulled me under, añd am hanging on with my fingertips to get through the battle and come out victorious in being restored again to the Lord.

I agree about St Matthew's Passion which has been also instrumental in the emotional healing l have been receiving during the past year, having listened to it many times, but am not as familiar with the Mass in b minor.so l took out my recording of it by Gardiner and gave it a spin but found the celebratory brass too harsh for my delicate neurological state, but enjoyed some of it.

Is it all in Latin? I know some of it is . l did study Latin at school but not enough to follow the Mass.

I very much admire both of you for your achievements and for adapting to the 'normal' world. Being long term sick has opened up for me a 'career' in the spiritual realm, with studies on mystical writers like St John of the Cross and a deep appreciation for their writings so l have not been as aware of my social impairments as you no doubt have been faced with day to day so it is interesting to hear of your lives.

Yes l agree about the dreadful modern music. Imagine a church choir performing a cantata every week! Mind you, when l was in Germany l heard a school concert of junior children and the standard was incredible. They were all excellent musicians but they start them off early with classical music for babies and a whole section of it in the libraries.

I don't think my experience of church is unusual. There are loads of believers with CFS who are stuck at home and have little/no fellowship that I know of. The church does not make itself available to those with chronic illness but is better accomodating the physically disabled. The pews are too hard to start with though there is a church nearby that has very comfortable seats which they ordered from the US. Still too noisy though.

Yes Job is my favourite because it is so deep and you can spend a lifetime studying it. I have a different take on the friends as being voices in Job's head and his experience being the dark night of mysticism which I am sure is in line with St John's understanding.

On chairs, I attended a healing service once run by a ministry team and they had folding beds at the back for the sick, which was very good for me as I was extremely bad at the time. I have a directors chair which I can take with me if I have to attend anything.

Food is very important for me too. I get upset if it is badly cooked etc. But anyway I cant eat out due to my strict organic low carb sugar free GFDF diet. Hope the meeting was bearable!

Gooday guys. And a big hello to Bachlover /wave

Me = Christian Aspie.
Became a spirit filled Christian when I was 11. Was diagnosed with Aspergers at 46.

Born again Christian describes me best; simply because the Born Agains accept that God said what he meant, and meant what he said. We accept the litteral interpretation of the bible. But I'm quite happy spending time with any God fearing Christian. God isn't that pedantic

Yes, Beemared, I am sure you are right about the barriers churches inadvertently make for CFS sufferers. And for Aspies. And for others. But I am angry that it is so. And I am sure God is too.

After reading your posts I spent the first bit of our AGM helping a member of our congregation with cerebal palsy eat his bring and share supper. I find their speech really hard to understand, but then I find lots of people hard to understand and I wasn't finding feeding them easy, but was filled with the sense of having to try to make this meeting a positive experience for them, even though it was hard doing it, especially as we had to sit down and I seemed to be in everyone's way. Incidently this lovely person is on our PCC, does readings in church occasionally (after all we can always follow in the pew bibles if we can't understand, but with practice we can mostly) and moderates our church facebook group. It is good to be in a church that welcomes such people, but all churches should because Jesus would have done so.

On Easter day I had my mum next to me in church. She has dementia. I had someone else's mum with dementia the other side of me. In front of me 2 elderly ladies who can't stand for the hymns. Across the aisle a dear friend with breast cancer. Helping lead the worship on the drums a very troubled teenager. And so on. And looking round the church I saw so many people with so many heartbreaks and problems. Having been in the same church for a considerable number of years you get to know things.... And it made me sad. But also so hopeful that the Kingdom of Heaven is for the broken imperfect people who want to be there. That there is a resurrection.

I'm not sure where I'm going in my journey at the moment, but if it leads to me being able to publicly declare my AS (assuming I'm right in my self-diagnosis) then have a strong hunch that God may be calling me to speak out on behalf of other sufferers and to try to do my little bit to get the church to be a more welcoming place for those of us with invisible disabilities. It is not the healthy that need a doctor but the sick.

Beemared, I hope you can find some fellowship and encouragement through the internet and through your studies, because you are just as much part of the body of Christ as those who can physically get to church.

mrshennypenny


Thank you for that. It is lovely to hear that your church welcomes disabled people and assists them when they are there. It's a pity more were not like that. With cfs, many people look okay, but their neurological and energy problems are severe, and many are housebound including many believers, and like me, unable to receive social services help because they have a non politically correct illness. One section of the church just thinks that they would be healed if they had enough faith which is devastating to hear for those who do believe that Christ can heal them, but it does not happen. I just accept that He will guide me to answers as I follow research and especially epigenetics. The answer for many illnesses is not in the doctors surgery which is unfortunately where a lot of Christians seek for it - either God or the doctor, and discount other methods of healing (not covering up symptoms) and many people are healing their cancers and other serious illnesses using these means, while Christians sit waiting for God and continue to eat the lousy diets which contributed to their illnesses (mine is through environmental and medical toxins) or are making whatever other conditions they have a lot worse.

I have had huge success in treating infections and symptoms with natural means and have preserved my brain, I do believe, by being able to stay away from medications for the last 15 years. Among the things I use, are garlic and vitamin C. People are so brain washed though that they run to the doctor to treat them instead, when the medications they get just add to the body burden. Sorry! I will stop there!

I hope you get some guidance about revealing your AS.

I agree! Few things are worse than Christians telling other Christians than that they aren't healed because of their lack of faith. And GOd gave us our bodies to look after so obviously we should try to treat them right. I'm interested in the whole idea of the development of children with Aspergers. I suspect that given the right environment as they grow up they can learn to integrate much better than often happens. Not that it can be cured, but that we can learn the tools to live in or at least alongside society.

Got to take my mum to the doctors - she needs her blood pressure medication checked and, no, she probably wouldn't need it at all if she looked after herself better. But she doesn't take much notice of me, so we're off for more pills....

Yes, I'm a Christian and have been for almost a year. I attend an Anglican church.

When my mother was alive, she was taking 30 meds a day . I tried to advise her on diet and natural ways to treat her many conditions, most of them probably side effects, but she was like many of that generation and would not step outside of what her doctor told her nor would she contemplate changing her atrocious diet. There was nothing I could do and being an aspie it was hard to watch as she went downhill as time went on but what can you do? It's hard to change when you get set in your ways. So I sympathise with you.

Hi Val! Do you like Bach as well