Last week, I realized that my book needed a chapter dedicated to non-verbal prayer. After I reviews some talks I’ve had with Orthodox people and families living with disabilities, it became clear to me that this is a resource that’s desperately needed. I’ve already offered a non-verbal prayer card kit on this site, which you can find HERE and a tutorial on praying with a prayer silk HERE. But those are only two of dozens of ways to pray without words. Because some of my children have spent years being non-verbal or are still emerging in their verbal abilities, and because I also prefer to pray in silence when my heart is full, I have a lot of experience with non-verbal prayer. Even so,…
writing, autism, & theology as a mother of joy
Posts from the “advice” Category
The most effective and lasting way to teach is through how we arrange and prioritize spaces. The ancients knew this well, and they learned vast amounts of story, scriptures, and sermons by associating ideas with places that were familiar to them. In daily life, our movements around our homes, classrooms, work spaces, and churches teach us just as much as the lessons we might study in those places. This human way of learning in three dimensions is a wonderful asset for sharing the faith with children with disabilities, impairments, and neurodivergences. Unlike the speech or reading or heavily language-based ways of teaching that fail to engage the attention or enable the interaction of children with disabilities, this prayer corner is a meaningful way to…
Spring is here! In my household, we’ve spent the past few weeks working hard to set up a garden. We’ve planted fruit trees and shade trees and dug beds for herbs and vegetables. Read to the end of the post for a free printable Garden Time vocabulary aid. When I was a girl growing up with undiagnosed autism, the garden was my refuge. I learned a lot of life and relationship skills because of my desire to grow things. I would find old women in their garden beds and ask them to help me figure out the difference between miracles and weeds. My friend Stepheny Houghtlin introduced me to the idea of “the long conversation that is English gardening.” While I garden in a…
Categories: advice, autism, concrete thinking, conversation, curriculum, family, food, garden, interview, Uncategorized
Feed The Parents: Lent for Families With Special Needs
Feature article
Summer Kinard
Posted on March 7, 2019
There’s no shortage of advice for how to give things up for Lent, how to read extra books for Lent, and how to eat simpler foods for Lent. But parents of children with special needs can’t use much of that advice. Instead, we have to resist these opportunities to overcommit by seeing them for what they are to us: opportunities to overextend our resources. This Lent, resist the temptation to overfunction. You’re a person who probably spends most of his or her time caring for your children or fretting over how to meet their needs. For you, overdoing it a bit is normal and often necessary. Don’t add anything to your to-do list unless it feeds you. How can you tell what will feed…
Categories: advice, christian, concrete thinking, encouragement, faith, Liturgical Season, Orthodox Faith, special needs child, spiritual formation, Uncategorized
Tagged: autism, Lent, parents, special needs
You’ve read about my experiences praying with PTSD in other posts, such as “The Discipline of Weeping” and “Return to Your First Love: On Heart Prayer.” If you’ve spoken with me in person, I probably talked about the way God heals us sidealong. It’s time that I start talking more about the hands-on ways that God has helped me heal from extensive childhood trauma. For that I’ve created a new series in my just-launched video podcast, Some Myrrh. It’s called, “The P is for Prayer,” and you can watch or listen to the first episode now. This one is for anyone who has ever felt “Shattered.”
If you pick up an ancient Christian text on disability, you will probably encounter the metaphor of gold being refined. Suffering is given to refine us, the same way that fire purifies gold. That’s true. We all have to be purged of anything in us that does not tend toward the love of God and our neighbor, and that purgation can feel like fire. For someone suffering, though, there’s not much consolation in being held up as an example. There’s a phenomenon these days of sharing feel good videos of people with disabilities doing normal things in the world, with community support. The videos are paired with captions that suggest that these persons with disabilities have meaningful lives, as you can see from the…
A few weeks ago, I traveled to Antiochian Village to attend the Ancient Faith Women’s Retreat. On the first morning, I went to the first talk with that morning’s Gospel repeating through my heart: Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” The gospel had stuck in my craw that morning, stirring up the long weariness I had carried over my feelings of inadequacy in parenting. I sat myself down gingerly in front of the icon of the Theotokos, my failure smarting like a splinter I held out to the Holy Mother. The icon was screen-printed and matte. There was no gold to catch my eye. Yet, the curve of the Theotokos’ fingers did catch my eye. She was supporting…
