Juvenile Atheism, and Bunny Studies. (a profound update)

Nathan is my little bunny

I have been observing the spiritual journey of my autistic son, Nathan, quite closely for the last three or four weeks. If you haven’t been following the posts about it, here, this is the short version of the backstory:

Nathan, as of a few months ago, professed to not believing in God. This is a  change from his former beliefs. He now claims that God, the Bible, and the stories of Christianity are “unbelievable stories,” as he says. It’s fake. A fraud.

The undertaking
To me, it seemed like the perfect time to more closely explore spiritual formation (a.k.a. discipleship) and theology as it pertains to disability. Besides encouraging Nathan in his spiritual formation (no matter how messy or personally unsettling or uncomfortable), I’ve hoped to learn from him, and share my findings. This includes studying on the theology of disability, and documenting Nathan’s time of exploration, with respect for my son’s unique spiritual growth process and experience of the world. For my readers, I’ve hoped to encourage deeper thought and consideration about spiritual growth, and the nature of God.

Where things are now
My attention to Nathan’s beliefs and journey, and the recording of them have reached a blockade. Nathan has expressed that he does not want to be filmed, and wants to not speak about the subject. He’s not ready to go about things this way. I will respect this. His basic sentiment is emotional, and preferential, not logical or given to dialogue. So, I will to put this closer study (at least of him, in a personal way) on hold, until a time comes when it seems productive to pick up with it again. I’ll post about it, occasionally, as insights, changes, or advancements occur. This story is far from over.

Bunny Studies
I got up early this morning and went out on the porch with my coffee to enjoy the unseasonably mild morning weather and take in the sights of the creatures that are neighbors with us. We have a few nests, some very vocal birds, several rabbit families, and a very clever chipmunk who has constructed an elaborate series of tunnels that I suspect could be a secret lair. This morning I saw him enter and leave two different homes, scale a brick chimney, shoot into the roof gutter, and out of sight, maybe to the attic of my neighbor’s home. Clearly, he’s up to something.

I saw a mother rabbit and her bunny nibbling at the dewy clover. They were relaxed in their surroundings, and quite hungry. It made me think of one of my favorite children’s stories: The classic called  The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown. The bunny hopes to be free from his mother, and tells her all the ways he plans to runaway. The mother rabbit does not tell him stay, but rather shows her steadfast love for him. She accepts his wild heart. She comforts him. For every idea he shares about leaving, she has a plan to love him faithfully and reunite with him. This story was refered to in a theological way profoundly in a  film I saw called Wit starring Emma Thompson. It’s a movie that changed me, and help me see God, better.

Wit was adapted from the play W;t, by Margaret Edson. ( In the context of the play, the semicolon refers to the recurring theme of the use of a semicolon versus a comma in one of John Donne’s Holy Sonnets.) Wit won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The main character, Vivan, a college English professor, is dying of ovarian cancer. At the end, Vivan’s admired, former-professor and mentor comes to visit while she is in town for her great-grandson’s birthday. She comforts her and offers to read to her a Donne sonnet. Vivian, scarcely conscious, declines. So instead, Dr Ashford reads from Margaret Wise Brown‘s The Runaway Bunny, which she had bought for her great-grandson. She remarks that it offers a lovely “allegory of the soul”: Wherever the soul tries to hide, God, comfortingly, will find it. (This section was taken from Wikipedia. Read it in full, here.)

God is our Mother Rabbit. For my son, I am a flesh and blood representation of God to him. I am his mother rabbit, and his is my beloved bunny.

I realize, even more thoroughly than I had realized before, that part of growing up includes the professions of and steps toward independence. Perhaps consistent love faithfulness are the most helpful things we can offer children who are not yet mature enough to make their own way in the world.

Thank you for coming along for this leg of the journey. Your thoughts or comments are quite welcome here.

Death of Pet (Nathan encounters mortality/separation, video)

PlayPlay
Engaging mortality (pet dies) 47 sec video.

Here is another (short) installment in exploring the theology of disability and the spiritual growth/development of my autistic son, Nathan (age 11) who has recently claimed that he doesn’t not believe in God (see previous posts).

Part of the spiritual formation process involves engagement with mortality; and so it does for Nathan too. The two fish Nathan caught at the lake recently died in captivity yesterday. He found this very sad. His approach to their passing was very simplistic. They stopped moving, so they are dead. As expected, he wasn’t able to delve into abstract thoughts on this, or death and life, but yet he still understood something profound had happened (see video). Something sort of normal, yet broken about the world seemed real to him. This world is a place were we can be separated from things we care about, in this case, creatures/pets.

On his own, Nathan expressed that he wanted to bury them. This seemed proper to him. The “burial at sea” choice, a.k.a. flushing his two fish friends, seemed unseemly, when I mentioned that some people bury their fish this way.

He took the jar to the garden and added the remains there himself. It was his own idea. Today he said, “[It would] provide nutrients [to the garden]”. He got a bit of a chance to learn that everything dies. I refrained from singing Elton John’s The Circle of Life song from the Lion King. But, it was a “circle of life moment” for sure. Sort of strange and sad and bewildering, yet part of regular life.

A little bit after he buried them, I told him that in heaven we can be with people who have died; people that we miss, and we won’t be separated from them forever. That’s our hope and it can help us to not be as sad. He didn’t seem to be interested, and I didn’t go into it any further. This event may soon open doors for fuller dialogue about life/existence, and the ways of life and death. And I hope redemption!

His sentiment, in general, seemed properly child-like as well as very pragmatic. It will be interesting to hear how he describes the fish, and their death to his sister after we pick her up from camp soon.

Please share your comments or ideas about this.
Question for reflection or comment. How has the death of pets shaped your spiritual formation, or those of your children?

What are your suggestions for guiding others into greater spiritual maturity with this topic at hand?

OH! one more thing. Don’t miss that really interesting look at grief through the primary lens of separation anxiety, here

Sudden Onset Juvenile Atheism -Part I

In a strange turn of events over the last few months, my 11 year old son, Nathan has turned into an avowed atheist. I’ll be exploring his spiritual journey, his thoughts, and the theology of disability (Nathan is autistic) for a little while.

I’d love to have your input. Any thoughts, experiences, or stories you’d like to share are encouraged.

-Lisa

Thoughtful Thursday: An Almighty, Good God Allows an Evil World?

Human Brutality, one of the World's worst evils.

Here is a response to a difficult subject: Evil and human suffering. Your comments are valuable here. Thanks for reading.

The following are comments from a former classmate Marty Schoffstall as placed within the comment section on blog site of Theology Professor Ken Miller.

From Marty:

Dr. Dorsey [professor of Old Testament Studies] says that the story of the prophets (a rather large portion of the canon) looks like this:

(1) God Is Allowing Wickedness…
For a season…. and the wicked to succeed in their opposition to Him to temporarily triumph over Him (and over those loyal to Him). He may allow them to spurn Him, mock Him, humiliate him, or persecute those who remain loyal to Him.

(2) God is redirecting their evil….
to accomplish his own good purposes. The deeds of the wicked play into God’s hands and are used by God to further his own semi-secret agenda. [During this time when evil appears to prevail], God’s children are encouraged to: (a) Trust God, (b) Wait patiently for the time when God will intervene and right all wrongs, (c) Remain loyal and obedient to him.

(3) Finally, God dramatically intervenes…
to defeat his enemies. God is vindicated the wicked are punished; and those loyal to God are rewarded.

Now as my old friend friend Dr. Cunningham from UVA who was a very competent Roman Catholic Theologian on the side used to say:

“…mercy and justice are always in tension. We want mercy for ourselves, and justice for the other…”

Eventually we grow a little wiser and want some mercy for the other as well; however, we can never give up the concept of justice completely. Some decisions are so revolting (like genocide) that they must rigorously opposed, some people are so broken (like serial killers, serial kidnappers, etc) that we invest enormous time and money in the criminal justice system to stop them, they are horribly corrosive to society, they must be stopped.

How do you respond?