Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Goin' to the country...to go to church

My darling Aspie is not of the church going variety.
Neither am I of the strict religious type, either, but by the time we got him beyond the scream-the-roof-down-on-any-strange-building stage, he'd discovered Darwin and there was no way we were getting him inside a church.
Darwin, he informed me, perfectly explained the whole catastrophe of us galumphing all over this rock in space.
He waxes lyrical on the Big Bang theory (yes, the theory and the tv series) and thinks Stephan Hawking is the bees knees.
I thought Sunday school might broaden his social experiences, give him more information on what a large majority of our, and other, culture was based.
Nope.
Wasn't having any of it.
Did.Not.Believe.
Did.Not.Want.
Get it away now, thank you.
So, I was staggered to hear him ask to attend Christmas Eve service last year, almost fell off my seat if I remember rightly (it was a blur, the shock, you know?) but after that experience he didn't want to repeat it.
Could almost hear him saying "Been there, done that, have observed the bizarre freakazoids in their habitat and what ritual customs they do at this time of year".
Up at Dunolly, pottering about, visiting the massive humongous Sunday Market and all that we wandered up near the churches for some more photos when I realised there was a service on.
Did I dare?
"C'mon, let's go in" I suggested, waiting to hear the usual emphatic  "No!"
Instead what I heard was "Ok."
Grabbed that moment and we almost leapt up the stairs into the middle of the service (oops) and joined in.
The morning tea with the (small but friendly) congregation afterwards helped cement a fabulous experience for him.
To the point he's asking 'when can we go back to Dunolly and can we go to church?' !!!

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3 comments:

Cheryl D. said...

Wow! Is he channeling Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory? He sounds like a hoot! I'm glad he's doing so well!

Debby said...

My dear friend Dixie has Matthew, who also has autism. She's also married to Robert who is a religious man, having completed the training to be a priest before deciding that he was not cut out for celibacy. So they go to church every Sunday with a young man who sits beside them repeating in a sotto voice: 'This is BULLSHIT' as they hiss back, "Stop being a pain in the ass..." I said once, "You know, Dix, maybe the boy just has no religious tendencies." She responded w/ "I enjoy having that special time in church every damn Sunday..."

Really. You'd love her. She's the funniest person I know, next to you, of course.

Ro said...

Cheryl, Aspie teen is a younger version of Sheldon.
At least I know what he'll be like as an adult lol.

LOL Debby, I can picture it so clearly ;)
She sounds great :)