“…(Jesus) said to Simon, “Push out into deep water and let your nets out for a catch.” Simon said, “Master, we’ve been fishing hard all night and haven’t caught even a minnow. But if you say so, I’ll let out the nets.” It was no sooner said than done—a huge haul of fish, straining the nets past capacity. They waved to their partners in the other boat to come help them. They filled both boats, nearly swamping them with the catch. Simon Peter, when he saw it, fell to his knees before Jesus. “Master, leave. I’m a sinner and can’t handle this holiness. Leave me to myself.” When they pulled in that catch of fish, awe overwhelmed Simon and everyone with him. It was the same with James and John, Zebedee’s sons, coworkers with Simon. Jesus said to Simon, “There is nothing to fear. From now on you’ll be fishing for men and women.” They pulled their boats up on the beach, left them, nets and all, and followed him.” Luke 5:4-11, The Message.

Last week, as I meditated on this Scripture, I received a valuable piece of advice from a friend: “Name what you don’t want,” she said, “and once you’ve done so, move on to name what you do want. Then, feel the energy move from what you’re afraid of to what is possible.”

Since the main issue of anxiety cluttering my mind right now is Joel’s move to Safe Haven Farms, I decided to spend my meditation time practicing possibility:

I don’t want to be consumed with fears and anxieties about moving Joel into Safe Haven Farms.

I don’t want to worry that this isn’t going to work.

I want to walk forward in trust, trusting that God is at the heart of this plan; that He led us here, and that He will continue to lead us.

I want to be in on the ground floor of building something grand.

I want to play a part in making it happen.

I want to be 100% involved, not hanging out on the periphery.

I want to get to know the other Safe Haven parents and begin building community with them.

I want to believe that Joel is going to love his new home.

I want to believe that Joel has gifts that have not yet been discovered, and that Safe Haven Farms will bring them to the surface.

I want to foster independence in Joel

I want to foster new friendships for Joel.

I want to believe that his new housemates will be the exact right match.

I want Joel to live in an atmosphere of fresh air, physical labor, plenty of exercise, and healthy food choices.

I want to remember, when I start feeling lonely, that Joel can come home for overnights or for dinner anytime—that we can take him on vacations with us as often as we desire.

I want to remember that Safe Haven Farms will be a place where we can volunteer our time and treasure, knowing that those gifts will be multiplied many times over in the lives of its residents.

***********************************************************************

As I meditate on the Scripture above, I realize that Simon was afraid of the abundance that Jesus offered to him. “Get away from me Lord!” he says in fear. It’s always easier to stay with what is familiar. Why venture into deep water with our nets when we’re tired—when we feel like we’ve been fishing all day to no avail. Pull in the nets and go home, get a good night’s sleep, and do the same old same old tomorrow. Isn’t that what I’m doing when I hold onto my fear of letting Joel go? Gee, Lord, it’s taken 25 years to get comfortable with this autism stuff - to understand exactly what makes Joel happy, what sets him off - to get our routines down, to know what’s going to happen tomorrow. And you’re asking me to risk it all on something unfamiliar?

“Yes, Kathy,” He answers. “That’s what I’m asking of you. Throw in your nets. Throw your nets into this venture called Safe Haven Farms. Trust the abundance of the catch that is waiting there for Joel, that’s waiting there for you and Wally—abundance beyond your wildest imaginings. And know that as you live into that abundance, you will become contagious with joy, with trust, with love.

“Then, when you’ve done that, drop everything and follow me.”

“The most frequent commandment given in scripture is so simple, so plain: ‘do not be afraid.’ And it is so hard to practice, so hard to model, so hard to live.”
Thom Shuman, Occasional Sightings of the Gospel

I am most likely to shed my well-worn cloak of fear over Joel’s future when I take time to sit down and come into God’s presence. I take several deep breaths and repeat my centering words: maranatha, come Lord Jesus. Maranatha, come Lord Jesus. My racing heart decelerates, my breath slows, my scattered thoughts coalesce. I hear the furnace click on, the refrigerator whirr, a car drive by, the phone ring—but still I sit, attending to my breath. I repeat my centering words, maranatha, come Lord Jesus, until the outer sounds fall away and I find myself centered in a circle of quiet. A circle of peace. A circle of love.

Today, into the circle of quiet six words fall. Six concentric circles widen around the words which have fallen like pebbles into my pond of peace. The circles overlap one another, gently lap up against one another.

“I could get used to this.”

I sit with the words, letting my initial question—I could get used to what?—go. I’ve found that sitting and waiting is much more effective than thrashing around in my mind for the answer. The answer is there, waiting for me, coming from the same source as the initial statement. That place where my spirit and God’s Spirit meet in the silence.

It doesn’t take long. The answer floods up, overflows, surprises me with the sound of laughter:

I could get used to knowing that Joel loves his new home at Safe Haven Farms. I could get used to knowing that he’s making new friends at the farm. I could get used to knowing that gifts we never knew he possessed are being discovered every day. I could get used to being able to take off on mission trips or vacations without worrying about Joel’s schedule. I could get used to pursuing new dreams with Wally. I could get used to waking up in the morning with my Bible and journal and Barbara Brown Taylor instead of dispensing meds and searching for batteries for Joel’s tape player. I could get used to watching the seasons change through the windows of my new study at Cloudland. I could get used to churning out a chapter a day—one YA novel after another—while gazing out that window. I could get used to teaching college kids to meditate in the sun-filled meditation room Wally has been working so hard to complete. I could get used to being a spiritual director, taking others to this circle of quiet that holds such surprising and wonderful insights. I could get used to a lifestyle of prayer.

I could get used to not being afraid.

I can’t believe it—the sun is shining! Have you ever taken sunlight for granted until it disappeared for weeks on end? I have, but no more. Today I’m praising God for Monday morning sunlight in the middle of January!

This weekend we had dinner with two other Safe Haven families. How I needed the intimacy of that dinner! The larger parent group has been meeting monthly for the past couple of years, which has been good, with some relationships beginning to flower within the meetings. But they’re business meetings, with the prerequisite (lengthy) agenda to tackle—all the minutiae that comes with taking a vision out of the clouds into the realm of reality. Big stuff! I often come home from those meetings feeling overwhelmed. I’m a global thinker. Breaking the big picture down into all the details makes me squirm—makes me feel as if there’s no possible way all those puzzle pieces will ever come together to make up that perfect picture we have envisioned. Thank God for engineers and sensory types and left-brained people who, unlike me, have a gift for patiently working with those little pieces until the picture emerges!

Getting back to our dinner date with two other Safe Haven couples. This was more familiar territory for me—the territory of relationships. We talked, for two hours, about our sons and daughters. We shared memories of their childhoods. Nothing bonds like swapping stories of years of sleepless nights, dads sleeping on the floor of their son or daughter’s bedroom to keep them from midnight wanderings through the house. Of having felt, during those early years, as if you and your child were always out of step with the rest of the world. We talked about the difficulties of letting go—how do we take away all that is familiar to these adult children to whom change is so very difficult? How do we tell loyal and loving support staff that we’re leaving their agency? Are we “stealing” them if we ask them to switch over to the agency that Safe Haven has chosen? How do we plan the upcoming transition to best suit our child’s unique personality?

As dinner progressed, the conversation gently veered away from the past and the present toward future possibilities. Talking about our own experiences of leaving home, and the experiences of our other children, we reminded ourselves that change always brings possibility. What doors might this move open up for our children? What gifts, hidden deep within themselves, might they uncover? What new friend will introduce an activity that they’ve never tried before, and in the trying, find they enjoy? What formerly yucky food—now grown in their very own garden—will suddenly be pronounced yummy? What new signs of maturity are in store, once those apron strings are untied?

And what possibilities are in store for us, as couples? As individuals? So much time and energy has been given to these very special children. What new endeavors will that time and energy be turned toward?

This conversation was exactly what I needed. Like this beam of sunlight, slanting in through my living room window as I write, it buoyed my mood, illuminated hope, brought to the surface the inner knowledge that anything is possible for those who love God and are called according to His purposes.

“I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29: 11

Truly, anything is possible! So, bring it on, Safe Haven Farms! We’re ready!

In my prayer group last week, we spent time in Lectio Divina on Isaiah 43:1-7. The verses that spoke to my life circumstances were these: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.” Another translation (The Message) reads, “When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you. When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down.”

I definitely feel like I’m in over my head these days. Too many changes. Too many transitions. All of them good. All of them exciting. Most of them, I’m sure, in God’s plan. And yet, it feels like the waters are rising and I’m not sure how long I can keep treading water.

The biggest river to cross? Joel moves from our home to Safe Haven Farms, “a community of choice for adults with autism,” in a few months. We’ve dreamed of a place like this since Joel was a little boy. We’ve talked about it, prayed about it, planned toward it. Finally, the dream is becoming a reality.

And I am totally freaking out.

Who can love Joel as well and totally as his father and I? Who will make sure he eats the right foods, gets enough exercise, says his prayers at bedtime? Who will cover him up when he kicks his blankets off at night, make sure his socks are on straight before he puts on his shoes, monitor the volume on his tape player as he listens through his headset? Who will laugh at his silly jokes? How often will he get out into the community? Will they find a church he likes, where the worship is vibrant and he can fling his arms into the air? Will he like living in a house with peers instead of Mom and Dad? How about Mohamed, his caregiver for the past seven years? Will he stay with Joel as he says he will? Will it break Joel’s heart if he leaves?

And how about us? Me and Wally? Our lives have revolved around Joel and his needs for so long. Granted, Mohamed has done the lion’s share of the work for the last seven years, but still…what will mornings be like, with just the two of us? I can’t imagine not hearing the toilet lid crashing down in the early morning; or opening my eyes to see a sleepy guy standing in a darkened doorway, staring at me in the middle of the night; or that same guy, wide-awake at daybreak, climbing into bed and making funny noises in my ear.

I dreamed the other night that Wally and I dropped Joel off at a mental hospital. The kind you read about in Charles Dickens. Horrific. A woman sat on the curb, sobbing. I asked her what was wrong. She said she’d dropped her sister off at the hospital 30 years before, hoping they’d get her medications straight so that she could come home in a month or two. Instead, the hospital quit giving her meds, and never released her. Suddenly, Joel streaked across the road in front of us, buck naked, screaming.

A nightmare that left me toss and turning, twisting the sheets.

So what does this have to do with Isaiah? The waters and rivers referred to in the scripture would have been easily recognized by the Israelites as the Red Sea or the Jordan River. Both metaphors of transition for our spiritual ancestors - The Red Sea, as the transition from slavery to freedom; the Jordan River as the transition from the desert into the promised land. Even in transitions as huge and life-changing and freeing as these, people fear for their lives. They have nightmares. They thrash about, afraid of drowning. They attempt to go back to the lives they knew before. They’re afraid to cross over into the unknown future, even if that future has been promised to them as a land of milk and honey.

As I came out of meditation on this scripture, I caught a fleeting glimpse of a memory of me and my dad. I was a little girl, and we were swimming together at the beach (really, a sand pit) in the town where I grew up. The water was over my head, and I was bobbing up and down like a cork. I felt weightless, joyful, secure, free, totally without fear.

This is what God promises me in the midst of this choppy sea of change. This is what God holds out to me when I feel like I’m drowning - a life vest of security and freedom in His presence; His presence right there in the sea right next to me.

The day of Joel’s move to Safe Haven inexorably approaches. I know I will continue to grieve the changes that will bring about in his life and in ours. That’s okay. Change is hard. But I also know that God is with us in the midst of all the change. That on the other side of that river - the other side of this transition - awaits a land of milk and honey. A promised land that holds more than we could ever dream or imagine.

A future and a hope, planned by Him from the beginning of time.

Recuperating from the chaos that was Christmas 2009, I can’t help but smile as I look back at what ended up being the calm at the eye of the storm.

The day before Christmas Eve I had worked myself into a tizzy (aka panic mode) because I had waited until the last minute to make Joel a photo scrapbook - his very favorite gift the past two years running.

Blinking back tears I told my husband, “There’s no way I can do this scrapbook. There’s no time left. It will have to wait ’til his birthday in February.”

“C’mon. You can do it. You know how much he loves those scrapbooks,” Wally protested.

Suddenly the tears were gone. “Don’t pressure me!” I shouted.

“Geesh! Take it easy! I’ll help you.”

“Really?! You’d do that?!” I stared at him in disbelief.

“Sure. We’ll get it done tonight.”

And so, the eve before Christmas Eve found us hunched over the kitchen table, cutting, pasting, and arranging photos and stickers on multi-colored paper. Once we got going I found myself relaxing, enjoying the creative process, picking out photos I knew Joel would love - his brother, Justin, imitating the wide-mouthed trout in his hands; his dad making a goofy face; Joel, dressed in a tux with his arm around a pretty young woman at the prom; his friend Peter, dancing a jig at the birthday party he throws for himself every year; Joel’s cousins lined up on the couch; Joel modeling the cool leather jacket he got for Christmas last year; Joel giving his horse a hug.

What a great life this guy lives, I thought as I cut and pasted. After all those years of behavioral issues on his part and worrying on mine, our youngest son - the one with autism - is a very happy young man. We haven’t done such a bad job after all (in case you can’t tell, I still grapple with the not-good-enoughs).

As Joel opened his gifts Christmas morning, he was more subdued than usual. His new Cincinnati Bengals jacket barely prompted a smile. The cool new shoes got stuck under the table. New sweatshirt, ditto. “Where’s the funny present?” he asked. Oops. No one made him a funny tape this year. Wally dug under the tree to find the scrapbook and handed the package to Joel.

Joel tore off the wrapping paper and opened the book to the first page - pictures of himself at the prom. His face lit up, rivaling the light of the Christmas tree in the corner. He paged through the entire book, grinning, pointing at the picture of Justin making a fish face - laughing at the goofy picture of his dad - naming his cousins one by one.

Joel sat on the couch for the better part of Christmas day, paging through his new brand new scrapbook. Thank goodness Wally “pressured” me to get the scrapbook done, not to mention spending several hours helping me put it together! What made the day all the sweeter was that all three of our sons were with us this year, our oldest having just moved back to Cincinnati from Oregon. Wally, Matt, Justin, daughter-in-law Elizabeth and I had time for several cups of coffee and tea and plenty of conversation before the storm returned with the deluge of extended family later that afternoon.

In the middle of the chaos that was Christmas 2009, my entire family was together, and a home-made gift had made our youngest son supremely happy.

I couldn’t ask for anything more.

“And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, “Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2: 8-11

It is the Saturday before the first Sunday in Advent, and fellowship hall has been transformed with festive tables dressed in red, each one a showcase for a different nativity set. A life-size manger scene, front and center, graces the stage, and the rich smell of pancakes, maple syrup, and sausage fills the air. It’s Breakfast in Bethlehem, an Advent program our church puts on every year for young children and their families.

At age 18, it is Joel’s acting debut. He is to be a shepherd in the nativity play. The lights dim and a storyteller begins telling the familiar tale. Mary and Joseph and a cardboard donkey slowly make their way to the front of the room. As the story unfolds, they knock at a door next to the stage. No one answers. They knock again. No answer. The third time proves to be a charm. An innkeeper greets the couple, then slowly shakes his head back and forth. No room in the inn. He points to the stable, giving them a lantern to light their way.

Mary and Joseph arrange themselves in a tableau in front of an empty manger. Where’s the baby? I wonder, just as a door behind the stable opens and a girl runs out with a swaddled doll, which she hastily hands off to Mary like a football. The audience giggles, only to be hushed by the solemn announcement of shepherds abiding in the fields behind us.

I turn to see my son in full shepherd gear, headpiece and all, looking properly serious and even a little bit afraid as an angel appears and announces good news for all mankind. Holding a large stuffed lamb in his arms, Joel looks like a shepherd who would take good care of his sheep. He and his dad and three other shepherds weave their way through the assembled audience to the stable, where three of them fall to their knees. Joel and Wally stand off to the side behind Mary and Joseph. I shift my chair to get a better view.

I have eyes only for him—my son—this one labeled autistic and mentally challenged. And Joel? Joel has eyes only for the baby Jesus. His face shines with wonder and his body speaks yearning as he stretches forward to see this gift the angel has foretold. As we sing Silent Night, his right hand rises in worship, pointing heavenward, then slowly lowers to point to the babe in the manger. He looks out at the audience for the first time, his entire body a question mark.

“Look! Do you see what I see?”

Lord, today I was able to imagine for just one moment what it might be like to hear the good news of Jesus’ birth with unstopped ears. To witness Jesus’ birth with unveiled eyes. To be so amazed and awed by all I’ve heard and seen that I have absolutely no choice but to share the story with all who will listen. My son has led me to see your Son with brand new eyes. Thank you for the gift of sons. Amen.

Excerpted from Autism and Alleluias, Kathleen Deyer Bolduc, Judson Press, 2010 (www.judsonpress.com 800-458-3766)

O Lord,
prepare my heart
for the advent
of your presence!
May your light pierce
December’s darkness
and illuminate my life.
Despite winter’s chill
may my home glow
with the warmth
of your love.
In a season of giving
teach me to receive.
In a month of over-indulgence
show me how to simplify.
In the midst of shopping and baking
guide me to times of solitude
and prayer. In the reflection
of tinsel & twinkling lights
let me see the one true Light!
In a season of starry nights
help me to contemplate
the star over the manger,
and in the cadences of carols
and choirs let me hear your angels sing.
O Lord, let me see the face of Christ
in each and every person
I greet this Christmas season!

For my Advent devotionals, I am reading Wendy Wright’s The Vigil: Keeping Watch in the Season of Christ’s Coming. I like the way she intertwines her personal story with a deep study of the Scriptures. She writes, “Promise is at the heart of the season of Coming. Opening our hearts to the radical nature of the promise is the initial invitation of the liturgical moment in which we find ourselves. The further invitation is to believe. By belief I do not mean primarily intellectual assent, nor do I mean a sort of blind faith in something we are told we should assent to. To believe something (in a religious sense) is not simply to hold an opinion; it is to let that something sink down into the marrow of your bones and form the structure of your life. To believe something is to let its affirmation become the inhalation and exhalation of your life’s breath. Belief does not exclude doubt or incredulity or intellectual curiosity, but belief is not exhausted in doubting or incredulity or curiosity. To believe something is to let it transform your life” (p. 25-26).

Sitting in meditation, letting these words echo in my mind and heart, I hear a voice ask: “What is the promise you hold on to in your desert? What do you believe, at a bone-marrow-level, that Christ’s advent can transform in your life?” I sit with these questions, quietly paying attention to my breath, until a golden light dawns in my field of vision. The light slowly moves downward throughout my body, warming and relaxing muscles tight with tension. I hear myself answer, “That I can find the courage to open my hands – to loosen my grip on the way life has been, and move into the future, arms open wide.”

Suddenly, I am surrounded by a host of people, each of them eager to claim the promise held out in this Advent season. “Freedom,” an alcoholic says. “Freedom from addiction.”
“Words,” cries an writer struggling with writer’s block. “Something to eat,” whispers a little boy with a bulging belly. A man with life-long anxiety issues speaks up. “Peace,” he says. “A child,” cries a woman in the midst of fertility treatment. “A job,” mutters a man who has been out of work for over a year. A husband and wife on the verge of divorce agree for a change – “An end to the arguing,” they say in one voice. “Restored health,” shouts a man, after living for years with chronic pain.

Advent is the season of waiting. We wait in the dark as we approach the shortest day of the year. We wait for the light of the long-expected promise – the promise that all of creation will be restored, that all things will be made new, that weeping shall be no more. Come, O come, Emmanuel. God with us. Fulfillment of the Promise.

What is the promise you hold on to in your desert? What do you believe, at a bone-marrow-level, that Christ’s advent can transform in your life?

“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy. Waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water…” Isaiah 35: 5-7

“Faithfulness opens the door to the spiritual insight that it is not the amount of darkness in the world or in us that is crucial. In the end, it is how we stand in that darkness that really matters. Moreover, sometimes it is paradoxically during faithfulness in the darkness, not in the light, that we may see what is true and dear at a deeper level.” (Robert J. Wicks, Everyday Simplicity: A Practical Guide to Spiritual Growth)

Here we go again. Dark thoughts, anxious thoughts, circle like vultures every time I sit down to relax. They plague me when I try to fall asleep, wake me in the early hours of the morning, keep me tossing and turning.

In five short months, Joel will move from our home to Safe Haven Farms. How the house will echo, empty, when he goes! All of our little routines – puff! Gone! No more creak of bed springs in the early morning. No more bedroom doors opening in the middle of the night, a sleepy voice declaring, “I’m tired!” No more toilet lid crashing in the bathroom overhead as I drink my morning tea. No more breakfast together, lunch preparations, bedtime oatmeal, Mr. Bean.

The vultures widen their circle. Who will cover him up when he kicks off his covers at night? Who will make sure he gets his socks on right, so they don’t bunch up at the toes? Who will laugh at his silly jokes? Who will help him say his prayers at night?

The circle of darkness widens and grows. Joel’s kyphosis is getting worse. Should we pursue surgery, even though we know how devastating it will be to his emotional state? What about Joel’s big brother Matt? Why hasn’t he moved home yet? How can we help him? What about Justin and Elizabeth? Will they choose to have children? And how about my health? Why do I keep getting sick? Am I doing too much? Not enough? Should I follow through on this book proposal? Why haven’t I found an agent yet? Will my first novel, Starcatcher, ever get published?

The vultures spiral wider and wider, threatening to carry me away on their updraft. I cry out to God. “Lord, I can’t do this any longer. Take it – take my fear and worry and anxiety before they suck my life away.”

Open your eyes, God answers. Look – really look – at all that surrounds you. Enjoy Joel’s presence, right now. Watch the steam rise up from your cup of tea. Savor the sunrise. Stay awake to my presence – I am always here, waiting to meet you. Even in the darkness. Especially in the darkness.

Suddenly I am reminded of a moment last week when Joel and I stood in line at Hollywood Video, waiting to pay for a DVD. I was aware of the man and woman behind us. Staring openly at Joel, they whispered to one another. My face reddened and my hands clenched. How rude, I thought. I turned my back on them, staring out the front window instead, considering what I’d say to them if I had enough nerve. Joel interrupted my dark thoughts by putting both hands on my shoulders. He turned my face toward his and stared into my eyes. Look at me, his eyes insisted. I love you.

Look at me, God says. I love you. I am waiting, even in your darkness, to meet you. Open your eyes.

October - Trees, glorious trees!

November - Leafless silhouettes stand guard at wood’s edge.

December - The dark, dank days of winter to come.

I hate to see autumn go, but looking out my back window I realize I have a much clearer view of the sky now. My binoculars capture more birds. Ten squirrels play acrobat and trapeze artist in the trees - when the trees were in full leaf, I only saw two.

As I begin letting go of Joel to reach towards the future, I realize that God is doing the same thing to me - changing the landscape of my heart so that I might have a clearer view. Of God. Of what God has in store for me. Of what God has in store for Joel. For Wally. For Matt, Justin and Elizabeth.

What is it about this season - so bittersweet - that makes us reach upwards and dig deep at the same time?

This poem came to me as I drove Joel to school early one autumn morning:

Autumn Communion

Wafer thin moon
cradled as host
above burning bushes
Body of Christ
broken for me
Taste!
Eat!
Drink!
Dawn’s mist,
sauvignon with subtle
overtones of oak,
fortifies
against the chill
of winter