Praying With Our Feet -- and Our Magic Markers

"Budgets are moral documents."
-- Jim Wallis, Sojourners

In my Saturday morning post, I spoke of taking a Sabbath and not posting on the 20th.

My congregation was holding a weekend retreat at a center about an hour's drive away, and the JoyFamily drove there Saturday morning for a 24-hour getaway.

We needed the break, from the news and the protests and the computers. The week had been exhausting, days on end with insufficient sleep and way too much adrenaline.

However, the retreat also provided a safe space to go in deeper. With our friends, we were able to explore the moral dimensions of the budget proposal and the protests, in thoughtful conversation and in prayer.

I also brought a bunch of posterboard and a fistful of markers to offer an additional option for a craft project activity: making signs to highlight the Medicaid issue, to be conveyed to the press event on Sunday afternoon.

Several of the signs alluded to the moral implications of the budget-repair bill. I particularly liked the ones that said, "Don't deny a voice for the vulnerable." Two of those signs wound up on the wall right behind the heads of the speakers at the press event, in direct camera view.

But even more touching to me was a sign colored by a little fellow of the age of six, just two days older than Joy. For the first two years of Joy's life, our family did a daycare swap with this little guy's family, so he and she were daycare buddies up to the age of two. They've not been close lately, as he is on a typical developmental path and she is on a path all her own; but he really wanted to create a sign, and his mom traced the words "Protect Medicaid" for him to color and explained just a little bit that this was to help Joy and others like her.

His was the sign I chose to hold at the front of the room at the press event (held here by JoyDad on the bus on the way home.)

If you follow the online debate about Wisconsin's budget, or listen to certain newscasts, you will hear the protesters described as greedy, as rioters, possibly even as un-American.

I'd offer the personal view of protesters as people of peace and conscience and deep conviction, many of us as people of faith. I'm reminded of the children's book that was inspired by our congregation in 2005, Praying with our Feet, about taking peaceful, prayerful action for a peaceful world in the face of an unjust war. (The book is out-of-print but can still be acquired through various vendors at the link.)

We're praying in many ways this week. With our feet at the Capitol building. With our magic markers. With our letters to the editor and our calls and e-mails to our legislators.

Please add your prayers / thoughts / positive energies to ours, in any way you feel so moved.

Twirling the Stem

When I was young, I remember my father, Joy's GrandpaJ, eating apples in their entirety. Core and all, nothing left but the stem. Then he'd take that stem and twirl it thoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger. This ritual, he told me, was a token of membership in the Stem Twirlers Club -- those who consume the apple core (whether in hunger or in solidarity with the hungry) and then twirl the stem while thinking on one's brethren worldwide in the Stem Twirlers Club.

Joy twirls stems -- of fall leaves. And she eats the entire apple, core and all. (Her school staff recently asked us if that was OK, and we have no objections!) It wouldn't be that big a step to twirling the apple stem. The Stem Twirlers Club strikes me as a delightfully stimmy meditation!

So-called neurotypical folk use other sensory-intense aids to meditation/prayer and remembrance as well...

• lighting the Advent candles
  
• walking the labyrinth
  
• footwashing
  
• praying the rosary
  
• communion
  
• and many more, in many traditions

I got an extra nudge to contemplate these things from a post at Both Hands and a Flashlight this week, called Autism Beatitudes. It's a thought-provoking and lovely piece. Several of my favorites in the list:

Blessed are those who do not speak, for they shall teach us what lies beyond the limits of words.

Blessed are the spinners, for they shall experience life from every angle.

Blessed are the stimmers, for they shall grow their wings and fly.

Blessed are those who are faithful to their rituals, for to them all the world can be a holy liturgy.

The author acknowledged in his post that he is not on the spectrum himself, and solicited feedback from readers who are. I feel a little hesitant myself, as I stand on the outside of Joy's twirling and stimming, at the prospect of assigning meaning to it. What is happening in her mind as she spins the stems or spins herself? Is there a fundamental difference between her quiet leaf-stem twirling, and her teeth-gritting intensity as she stims on a set of car keys? Is it over-romanticizing to think of these things as a potential meditation or liturgy? How similar, and how far apart, are the intense stim-experiencing of a set of Mardi Gras beads and the deliberate, specific prayer experience mediated by the counted beads on the rosary? What level of intentionality does it take for an experience to belong in the realm of prayer/meditation?

I'll likely contemplate these things further next time I find myself with an apple or a leaf in my hands. Meanwhile, I'd love to hear any responses from you!

UPDATE re: responses -- In addition to the thoughtful discussion in the comments, Professor Mother has posted an insightful reflection on stimming and meditation from her own experience. Well worth checking out. See also (don't know why I didn't link this before) the piece I co-wrote earlier this year with Barbara of TherExtras -- not addressing meditation specifically, but lots of thoughts on stimming. And, a detailed insider-perspective on stimming at Reports from a Resident Alien from last month.