Watch and read to learn and grow

I am watching the Prime Video series, “Patience.” Patience is a young autistic woman who works in the criminal records department for the police. She excels at solving crimes because she sees a situation from different angles and has amazing recall. Her father was a policeman and she learned to review cases from the work he brought home. Her mother abandoned the family when she was very young.

Everyday life is what challenges her. The situations we “neuro-typicals” experience as a matter of course are stressors and stumbling blocks for an autistic adult. She follows a strict routine to feel secure. She does not pick up on social cues. She prefers animals to people. She does not like to touch or be touched. Others are often rude and lacking in empathy because they do not understand her. Patience was bullied in school and misdiagnosed as schizophrenic by the medical community earlier in her life.

The series provides a window into her world through the meetings she attends for a group for autistic adults. They compare fears, challenges and successes. They discuss how to handle situations together. They befriend each other, since they are often shunned.

In my last parish, I was pastor to a number of families with differently abled and neurologically diverse children and youth. I had an up-close view of the joys and challenges they faced day to day. Asking for help and getting the proper help was always an issue. The parents shared resources and offered each other support. Families face heartbreaking situations day in and day out. They go through a range of denial and acceptance, as does the general public. Helping to educate the other children and families in the church presented challenges too. It became part of our mission to try to foster an accepting and nurturing community for everyone.

A friend of mine is going through a tragic example of this situation right now. She just attended the funeral of her 25-year-old niece. Her niece was Navajo and was adopted by her brother’s white family as a baby, along with her half brother. In addition to being given up for adoption, she faced other physical and emotional challenges from birth. This young woman struggled mightily with addiction. She found the bullying she experienced in predominantly white schools unbearable. She was lively, creative and artistic, but her sensitivities and demons were many. She was in and out of various rehabs in an effort to be well. Her alcoholism destroyed her liver and kidneys at a tender age.

In memoriam to Michelle, 1999-2025

I wonder if there could be different outcomes for people like Patience and my friend’s niece if their peers learned more about noticing and understanding people who are both the same and different. Isn’t reading stories and discussing them in a safer environment like school a good vehicle for that kind of understanding? What if someone is facing similar problems in their families? Talking about it in a third-person context can make looking at hard problems less daunting. Maybe someone would be inspired to ask for help who was previously too embarrassed or afraid.

No one is suggesting that children or youth be exposed to materials not suitable for their age or grade. Outrageous claims about young children being forced to read sexually explicit materials are simply not true. Despite what some say or think, public school educators are not callous to these issues.

The Freedom to Learn Working Group’s banned book club just read “Eleanor and Park,” by Rainbow Rowell, a coming-of-age young adult novel published in 2013. It won many awards but was put on banned book lists soon after publication for profanity usage and other issues. It follows the relationship between two misfit teens over the course of one school year. It deals with very serious topics in their lives and the difficulties they experienced. The book group thought the book helped readers understand the power of language and the difficult world of being a teen. My friend messaged this to the book group while on the way to her niece’s funeral. I have included it with her permission.

“I thought the book was lovely. It is helpful for any teen trying too hard to fit in. It is also helpful for understanding and accepting and appreciating differences. Our family situation is extreme but our ‘soon to be’ adults can learn resilience. When they can accept others, the better we all are.”

I hope we can be adult enough to grow beyond attitudes that disable future generations with our fears, hang-ups, and prejudices. The world they are inheriting from us needs their fortitude and resilience.