Ownership

     I had The Talk with my 12 year old son this week.  No, not "The Bird and The Bees" talk.  This was the "You have Autism" talk and it was time.  My son is at the age where he is noticing that things are different for him than they are for other people and he has been coming up with reasons why.  My wife and I had been discussing when to have this talk with him.  He came back from the Midnight Sun street fair this weekend talking about how it was so overwhelming for him...probably because of the sin and darkness inside of him.

     So...this conversation needs to happen now.

     For those of you who do not know, Autism is primarily a sensory issue.  Some senses are heightened.  Some are dulled.  The brain has a hard time filtering and prioritizing the senses.  Just think about everything your senses are telling you at the moment.  What does your room smell like?  What taste is lingering in your mouth?  What noises are in this room?  How about the next room or down the hall?  As you are reading, what do you see in your peripheral vision?  Are you walking, sitting or standing? Are you hungry or thirsty or tired?  What if every single answer to those questions was screaming in your brain to be the top priority?  What if all that was happening while you were trying to have a conversation with someone and pick up on the subtle non-verbal cues that their eyes were giving you?  People on the autism spectrum usually have to teach themselves a lot of social skills that other people pick up on naturally so as kids they are often isolated and have a hard time maintaining relationships.  My son is brilliant and talented and has the sweetest spirit I have ever met...and he spends a lot of time alone or being reprimanded.

     Our conversation went well, but I am under no illusions that it will fix his autism.  My hope was not that he would just alter his behavior through sheer force of will.  My hope was that my son would begin taking ownership of his life and his circumstances.

     I have spent the rest of the week thinking about ownership and taking ownership of our lives.  This means having an accurate picture of what is going on both around us and within us.  We know what is happening.  We may know why or we may still need to dig for some root causes.  This is the baggage that we carry around with us.   The Ownership comes when we make conscious choices to make our lives better with our baggage in mind instead of denying those realities and hoping they do not surface again.

     For example:  I get grumpy about going new places and trying new things.  Grumpy is probably sugar coating it.  I hate "new."  Where does that come from?  I have a significant perfectionist streak that resides in my heart...perfection or failure are the two options that live in my brain.  Doing new things usually does not result in perfection so I live under the shadow of failure a lot.  Failure equals rejection.  So when I do some introspection I find that I tend to avoid new things because I am afraid of rejection.  Taking ownership of that means

• verbalizing that fear in order to dispel it
• regularly trying new things in order to grow more comfortable with the risk
• setting up a routine so that I am not in a constant state of agitation
• knowing that new ideas will make me grumpy and being mindful to not communicate "I hate it and I hate you" to the people (especially my wife) who suggest them

     Here are some of the realities of Joel's Place that I am coming to terms with in order for us to take ownership.

• We predominantly have teenage boys attend here
• We do not pay our staff well
• We are better at asking for money than making money
• We have a faith foundation but are uncertain how to implement that into our programs
• Our community really wants us to succeed and is looking for opportunities to help
• Our cash flow is heavily, heavily weighted towards the final 3 months of the year 
• We have 15 years of history here which means there are a lot of positive and negative stories circulating about us.

How do we take ownership of these?  I am still working that out.  But if I can embrace the challenge with the same bravery, faithfulness, curiosity and character that my son displayed this week...we are in for an adventure filled with discovery and joy.