Re: faith or non. lets help :)

[Guest guest]

You know, I wanted to say thanks to for saying the note bellow.

 

Thank you to Sondra for always being so passive and such a peacemaker, always

being so quick to say she's sorry and let people think and feel what and how

they want to, but also standing up for herself.

 

I want to say thank you to Kassi for being so passionate about so many things

and for taking the time to really research and study up on things that many of

us have not taken the time to do, and that people like me can't always

understand, but appreciate when others can.

 

I want to say thanks to Greg for letting us know that all the " Christian " things

we post a lot of the time are " pushy " to him. We did not know before and I must

admit that many of us simply " assumed " that everyone on here was religious in

some way or another. We should not have assumed that or pushed our feelings on

others.

 

I want to thank for always being willing to impart her scientific and

medical background so freely and for always taking the time to explain things to

us, whenever we need her.

 

I wanted to say thankyou to Lynne for always reading or scimming all the e-mails

and not throwing them away without giving them a notice, that helps me to know

that somebody out there is always willing to listen and be there when I need.

 

I want to thank Debi, for being so open and bold and able to stand up for

herself and help me and others to know how to do the same. For being willing to

share ideas and things on what to tell the teachers and Special Ed people when

they won't listen to us.

 

I have something good I can think of in every one of the members here. I would

love to keep going, but this e-mail post would be longer than my usually LONG

e-mails. What I am trying to say, is that without all of these different types

of personalities, talents, thoughts and opinions - we would all be a lot more

shallow minded. Without being brought together for one cause, the cause of

Autism and helping our daughters and sons too who are affected by autism, and

Kassi and Sondra and Tara and others who are affected by it... we would not be

given the common ground that we need to bring us all together and help us to

learn patience, humility, tollerance, respect and gratitude for oneanother.

 

I am grateful for that oppertunity. While I am a Christian and am not ashamed of

that, I have many friends and family who come from many various walks of life. I

have an uncle who has a boyfriend, I have a dad who has been very heavy handed

and caused me severe problems in my life, I have a mom who is into herbal

remedies and a best friend who preaches Herbal medicine and could drive me crazy

at times with her pushiness regarding it. I have a cousin who is rich and

" uppety " and sleeps with every girl he can get his hands on, I have a sister

whos a vegan and parents who love meat and nearly despise her for being vegan. I

have two sisters that for reasons not needed to be gotten into on here refuse to

speak to oneanother. I have friends from nearly every culture. I have friends

from nearly every religion and at least 3 friends who do not have any religion.

I have friends who believe in science vs god and friends who believe in god vs

science.

 

I have come to realize that regardless of what we feel or believe, there is one

thing we have in common, we are all born, we all have a genetic mom and dad,

whether we wish to accept them or not for their actions or ours is up to us. We

all have a need for food, water, shelter, and air. This is refered to as the

" Human Condition " regardles of whether you believe that we will remain human,

disapear after death, or live on in Heaven... those are not reasons to ruin the

world that we are a part of now.

 

While we all have the right to share our feelings, we all also have the right to

disagree with others opinions. The things I really think that we all need to

work on and I mean every one of us, myself included, is trying to stop getting

on the defensive.

 

We should all be able to feel safe to share our feelings and know that as a

group there truly are many things we share in common. We certainly all have our

differences, that is part of the beauty in getting to meet oneanother. If we

were all the same, there would be nothing new to learn. Instead of fighting over

our differences and trying to convince others to see things our way - we should

attempt to see things their way.

 

The reason I say this, is because through the counceling that I have gone to

over the years, when I have had fights within my marriage or troubles with my

folks or whatever - whenever I have let it all out to my councelor, she has

asked, " So what are you going to do about it? "

 

I have in the past said... " I can't do anything about it, he is the one

doing this or that. He is the one at fault " . She has then informed me, that

while He or She or whoever I am talking about, may be the one at fault that I

can NOT change him or her. Even if I were to get the person put away into prison

for wrong things... I could not CHANGE their heart. No one can do that! Even

those who do believe in God know that even God, can not Force a person to change

their mind or their will or belief.

 

So, she has helped me to learn, that I am the one, who either has to start

learning to see things through others eyes and accept them with their

differences, or else I have to make a choice to leave. For example, I can say,

" If you do not stop doing this thing that really hurts me, then I will

leave " . Then that gives the other individual a chance to change something that I

feel I can not tollerate. However, she helped me understand too, that while I

can give that threat. I truly only have two choices... to accept the thing and

deal with it or to leave if the person refuses. The only other choice, belongs

to the other person - not me.

 

On this chat site, truly we only have a few real choices.

 

1.  To try and accept one another and tolerate and understand things from

their point of view graciously.

 

2. To " stamp our feet " so to speak, and say rude things to defend our opinion

and hope that others will let us have the last word, because we hold out the

longest and are the rudest.

 

3. We can delete the e-mails we do not like and ignore them.

 

4. Or we can leave the group and miss out on all the learning and growing that

we can get from the many individuals on this list.   

 

I know that this is just an opinion just as all words and ideas and such are

opinions, and yes many of the things I have said, could be debated and argued

and taken to another level. But I hope that all who take the time to read this

and any other postings from now on, will try to realize that I do not know of

one amongst us, who is not here for a good reason. There is none among us, that

I can see who would purposely try to hurt others feelings. Every man or woman in

this group, so far as I can tell is just tired of being misunderstood and living

a challenging life that many can not understand, and so we have united together

to find strength, courage, friendship, and that extra umph that we need to move

forward. To get out of bed the next morning and to take care of ourselves and

our children and the responsibilities that we have in this Earthly, Imperfect

world that we all live in.

 

I hope that we can all try harder to remember that we are here to help and

inspire oneanother to be better people and know how to better support those we

love who have Autism or not, who are religious or not, with whatever sexual

preference, political preference, racial or cultural background, male or female

and so on. I know that is what I am here for and I know we can show eachother

more respect than we have been.

 

Sincerely, Esther 

From :

we all cope in different ways whatever works for each is good. maybe we can

say to those that believe pray for me to what ever god you worship. and

those who dont just wish me well.... just a thought. no need to be mad that

others are different in thinking or faith or no chose no faith

eric abbys dad