Disturbed

Well, I returned to the little church I have been attending off and on, and at first it started pretty encouraging. I was talking to one of the members about my conflict between faith and science and how it relates to my Aspergers. It turns out he is a teacher and has several Asperger students in his class. Instead of giving me standard canned answers, he seemed to genuinely listen and was not shocked at what I was saying.

Then came time for the pastor's sermon. Now I have heard variants on this theme before and each time I find it disturbing. If I understood him correctly, we should make Christianity such a priority in our lives that we need to look for ways to inject it in all our conversations with others. If people are talking about sports, for example, find ways to change the subject.

Now I find this offensive, and especially because I have Aspergers. This is bad enough advice to give to neurotypicals; to give it to someone on the spectrum is even worse. Because it violates all the rules of good communication and listening! How can you be listening, truly listening to someone else if all you are thinking about is I gotta get Jesus in here somewhere? And we on the spectrum know how constantly talking about our obsessions can end up leaving us even more isolated and lonely. Sometimes people want to talk about deeper, spiritual things; sometimes (most of the time) if they are talking about sports, that is what they want to talk about. Trying to change the subject around to your pet subject doesn't go over. I don't care what it is.

I wanted to ask him, but didn't get the chance, does he really mean what I think he is saying? And how does that fit in with being a well-rounded individual? All too often I have seen people find Jesus and turn into caricatures of themselves; I myself went through that, where I literally lost myself. Oh, I'm sure Pastor would have been pleased at the person I was then, but it came at a huge price, one I am not willing to pay again.