Ironically, after leaving the Accessible Kingdom Conference on Saturday (a conference designed to help us make the church more accessible for those living with disability) we found ourselves facing the harsh and painful reality of just how inaccessible the church can be on Sunday. (Not an intentional reality, but a reality nonetheless.) Our family visited a church that we DEARLY love in a town where we once lived. Its a great church full of fantastic people. However, as we entered the sanctuary, Josh crumpled under the sensory weight of the room. Almost immediately he began to stim (both verbally and physically) and just as immediately he put his book bag over his head - as if to find a way to escape into it and avoid the bombardment that was crashing down on him from every corner of that place. Strange people. Strange sounds. Heavy air. Heavy echo. A recipe for autistic disaster. Phillip and I surveyed the sanctuary and worked to find the safest sitting spot for him (and for me), but there just wasnt a good place where the auditory issues were reduced enough to allow any of us to really relax. As we often do, wed just have to make the best of it and pray for grace to abound to our son (as well as to his mom). We grabbed the best spot we could find and sat down on the pew (Josh with his book bag still worn on his head like the bearskin shako of the Buckingham Palace guard). Josh crawled under the pew to hide. We gave him a few moments to settle in to the land down under and then coaxed him out from his coping cave, encouraging him to snuggle safely between mom and dad. We would do what we could to protect him from all that was killing him. Obediently, but hesitantly, he crawled out, burrowed in between us, and we were hopeful that hed make it through the service. (Hes made it through the past 7 weeks at our home church - the longest in worship run of his life.) But it was not to be - not this week. The organ undid him. The public greeting time sent him into utter angst. (Over the course of that morning a LOT of people kindly patted my son on the head, ruffling up his coif with the best of intentions, but understandably not having any clue how much that hurts him, particularly when hes already on autistic overload.) The sound from the pulpit mic during the first hymn sent him fetal - hands covering his ears and knees to nose. The bouncing echo of the many voices in that room bounced upon every square milli-meter of his neurological frame and he looked up at me and begged to leave because it hurt. Ive learned my son well enough to know that there are times to help him cope and times to help him bolt. It was a bolt kind of morning. At first he wanted to try to sit up in the balcony, and we climbed the stairs to see if things were better there. (I was encouraged that he didnt simply want to get out of worship, but wanted to try and make it through week number 8 - thats been a BIG deal to him recently, and is an answer to over a decades worth of prayers.) But the sounds there, though coming at him from a different angle, were cutting through him nonetheless and we needed to evacuate for his physical well-being. We slinked down the stairs, slipped into the foyer, and walked out the front doors (as we have had to do so many times over the course of his life) and found a safe, quiet spot where he could begin to release all of the autistic angst that was holding him hostage. He rolled on the carpet. He rocked against the wall. He finally settled, we found a swing in the playground area and we began to talk through what hed just experienced. (A blessing that I have with my verbal son - a blessing I do not take for granted.) He said the air felt heavy - and I understood. During the two years that we worshipped there I battled fiercely each week to survive worship because of the way the air in that room touched my skin. (We thought I was having panic attacks, but didnt understand why as the struggles were prior to my autism diagnosis.) He said the sounds in the room felt like hammers inside his skull - and I got it. My own brain had felt bludgeoned in years past in that place, and as each Thursday rolled around I would find myself dreading, not the worship of my God but, the place I would have to endure in order to worship my God in just a few days. Every Sunday that I was able to play piano there I was ecstatic because I knew that I could worship behind the speakers and not hurt during the service. All of the other pianists would come down and sit in the sanctuary after the final hymn - but not me - I was going to stay where it was safe!! Friends, sometimes, church just really hurts - physically hurts - and in ways that many folks would never even fathom. The sensory storm that often accompanies autism just brings on a beating of epic proportions in certain environments. For myself, and for my son, this place was one of those. As weve traveled about, Ive begun to give a lot of thought as to why some sanctuaries hurt so much and others not as much. (Any service is going to have issues for the person living with autism - there are so many factors involved, and some that simply cannot be escaped.) However, one of the biggest differences that we seem to be finding as we visit various auditoriums comes from the use and proper placement of acoustic tiles in a sanctuary (along with proper speaker placement and a good mix). The tiles are a little thing that can make a BIG difference to those within a congregation who struggle with the sensory storms that come from autism. I share this post, to hopefully get folks thinking about even the simplest of ways to begin to make the church more accessible for those who live with disability. As my friend Stephanie Hubach reminded us this past weekend - the Kingdom of God is by design an accessible kingdom, its the church that provides the roadblocks. Im praying this day, that we will all begin to notice the roadblocks in our congregations that need to be moved in order to pave the way for all people to find the way to partake of and participate in the glorious means of gospel grace. Thanks for taking the time to read and to ponder! :)
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 14:28:13 +0000
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