Letters to the Editor
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Beautiful
Thank you.
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Children shall lead them
I see the responses are divided into two camps: God speaks and there is no god.
Having worked with persons who are 'differently oriented' I have found many of them make more sense than the best 'educated' among us. I say this as a person with two masters degrees and an adjunct faculty member and a member of the mental health profession. The 'anti-religious' bias of the mental health field is well-documented. I am not surprised, Ann, that people wanted to medicate 'common sense' into your son. (I am aware of the benefits of medicines when appropriate - it is unclear if your son required them.) For a cogent discussion of the issues of medication, I urge you to read 'Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain' by Elio Frattaroli, MD.
I will vote with those who have responded positively to the question, Can I hear God?
I understand that many people believe only in a materialistic world. I would argue that to live in this one-dimensional worldview is to deny what many people experience in their reality.
I hope that your son finds your support in seeking where faith meets understanding.
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My nephew
One of my nephews had ADHD an 20 of the 22 signs of autism...somewhere around there according to his twin brother. There are tough times with him, but he has come out with some of the most beautiful ideas about life. We drove past an old beautifully redone frat house at the Jersey Shore. A huge place and as we past my nephew said "wow can you imagine the amount of homeless people we could let live there". He is both loving and sometimes insightful....a real handful but we're lucky in that he is a hugger who says "I love you" and gives hugs. He can connect sometimes and it is priceless to us. A beautiful boy of now 12 both inside and out.
As he enters into becoming a teenager and adult though it is frightening to ask ourselves..."what will become of him?" "What will his future hold?" But love is what matters and he is loved with all our hearts.
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P.S.
He is a child in which you see the Grace of God...with all his issues it is there.
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"God talked to me today"
Moving story - but one cannot help but feel great sadness for the little boy. His parents seem to find great difficulty in having faith in anyone or anything. They drugged their child into oblivion because the idea of him"hearing" God so terrified them. What would their friends say? My God - how could they explain a Baptist in the family!
God is real - religion is not. Your fear of one has closed you off from the other. BELIEVE IN SOMETHING - IF ONLY YOUR SON - and perhaps his sweet soul will return. Children are all close to God - until we insist they lose their faith and adopt our beliefs and grow up.
May God forgive you, truly, and repair the damage done. Now it is time for you to be still and listen.
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hearing voices
I can't say I've actually heard G-d--for most of the people I know who have, it's been a jolting voice telling them to do something they didn't want to do-something inconvenient to modern life--and I also distrust the fact that George Bush thinks G-d speaks to him--I want no part of a G-d who would counsel invasion of Iraq. But I too have sensed a undeniable presence and I take my child to church as I was taken even with all my questions, even though as an adult I had left the church until child. She can choose to believe or not, but I'm going to give her a foundation where hope, faith, and answers through prayer are possible.
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Daily Walk
Ann,
I read your story with curiosity, and certainly it seems your life has been a bumpy road. Since you are an agnostic, may I ask why you resisted the notion that your son was hearing from God? I am not judging you on this but there seems to be a predisposed animosity directed toward faith or a belief in a higher being. Usually, hatred of and disdain for comes from the interaction or persecution from another. The problems you referred to: anguish, abnormal relationships, mental sickness came from being given a difficult set of circumstances to deal with. The needed strength to deal with those circumstances does come from a belief in a higher being and also surrounding ourselves with others who also share those beliefs, that is Christian strength. I am a trained scientist and possibly the acceptance of a belief in God does not coexist in mans limited understanding or theory; however, there is more I assure you, but it does not come with just willing it and a magic flash appears. I urge you to seek more and not to discredit those things of which you do not yet have an understanding of. I wish you and yours the better in life today and in the future.
Nunnehi
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Confirmation - It's All Good
Your son simply chose, at an early age, to listen to that which most people refuse to hear. His story is very beautiful, and so is your dawning acceptance of that beauty.
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remember the elephant
My favorite parable about religion is the one about the blind men and the elephant. The one that felt the trunk declared that an elephant is like a hose, the one that felt the leg said an elephant is like a tree...(poor bugger that got the ass end, who knows what HE thought) Richard Dawkins notwithstanding, nobody can prove the absence of some sort of spiritual elephant that we are too impaired to conceptualize as a whole. Perhaps we are hardwired to find significance in coincidental odd events as some scientists suggest. I don't think it matters whether you get a feeling of presence and comfort from Something or whether it's your own endorphins--this is a harsh world and we should all be grateful for comfort when we find it. To paraphrase a wiccan saying..."an ye harm none, believe what ye will."
Blessed be.