[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

Wakey, Wakey

A friend recently got the diagnosis of a particular disability that 
he's had all his life; it's not a visible physical disability -- that 
would have been obvious long since -- but a behavioural disability, 
quite subtle and apparently mild. He has attention deficit disorder, 
without hyperactivity.

Okay. This explains much.

Thing about ADD (which I also have) is that you simply don't operate 
like other people. When you're focused, you're *focused*. I remember 
when I was a child, I could take a messed-up skein of wool -- one of 
those total tangles -- and spend over an hour patiently untangling 
and winding it into a neat ball. I was absolutely focused, and being 
absolutely focused was pure bliss. The same happened if I got 
seriously into a book or stared off into the woods.

On the other hand, in algebra class, if I didn't get something right 
away -- and my capacity for abstraction is not great -- my brain (and 
my attention) went elsewhere, somewhere up in a corner of the 
classroom, perhaps. I turned space cadet, and it was not something I 
had any choice about. Some types of reading give me the same problem; 
my eyes slide off the page and I have to will them back to the words, 
sentence by painful sentence. Retention is murder.

Especially when I'm under stress: there is stuff I literally cannot 
do because I cannot stay focused on it for more than a few 
seconds.  I need to ask for help with these things, or to find coping 
mechanisms. Mostly I muddle through pretty well, but it does help if 
I'm aware of the patterns -- if I'm awake to them.

My friend has just been awakened to his own ADD. It helps him 
understand why he is as he is. He knows that ADD isn't something he 
asked for. His, like mine, is likely inherited. It is, on the other 
hand, something he has to manage, because unmanaged ADD can get one 
in real trouble with the world.

It's that awakening that's so crucial. He can't manage the ADD if he 
doesn't know about it or if he pretends it isn't there -- if he isn't 
woken up to it or rolls over and tries to go back to sleep.

Problem is, sleep is far more comfy than being awake -- more restful, 
more peaceful -- and sometimes our awakenings are rude indeed, as 
when the boss calls us into the office or the spouse packs a bag and 
leaves. And it's not just one awakening but a whole series of them.

We have, for example, been asleep to our addiction to fossil fuels 
and what they're doing to this planet, and some of us are still 
asleep while others have their heads under the pillow, refusing to 
hear the alarm. We don't have any choice, on the other hand, of 
wakening to the effects our short-term greed for profit have had on 
the economy; the subprime crisis isn't a mere alarm clock but a 
honkin' big train whistle.

Of course the biggest bell of all -- and the one that we're most 
frightened of -- is the Gospel. It wakes us up to stuff that we 
really, really don't want to deal with. Our own sinfulness, for 
example; the degree that we turn away from God and heed the other 
side, the side that leads us into behaviour that harms ourselves and 
others, sometimes quite horribly.

The Gospel calls on us to be awake to the possibility that we really 
are sinners, and that God knows how and why we sin, and that God's 
love encompasses us around so thoroughly that we can afford to know 
it too. We can begin to realize that likely we never asked to be this 
way, that it's often old coping mechanisms gone stale and sick, but 
it's still something we have to manage.

And the only way to manage it is to be awake to it. Rolling over and 
going back to sleep -- the even deeper sin of denial -- is not an 
option for a Christian. Unless, of course, the Christian is sleepwalking.

We can, of course, be awake to a destructive pattern and have no 
intention whatsoever of putting an end to it -- awake, but refusing 
to get out of bed. I know a woman who actively dislikes her young 
stepdaughter; she's aware that this is causing major friction in the 
household and is harming both the child and her marriage, but she has 
no intention of making any changes. I don't hold up much hope for 
that marriage. And I think she will ultimately have to answer to God 
for her refusal to change.

Or we can be awake to a pattern but unable to take any significant 
action, a very painful state of affairs. The rest of us are watching 
the suffering in places like Myanmar and the Sudan, in Zimbabwe, Iraq 
and Afghanistan; we do what we can, including prayer and not shutting 
our eyes and ears, but it's hard to watch the suffering from a 
position of helplessness. So the wake-up call may be awaking from our 
helplessness itself, including learning to trust in the power of prayer.

Of course it's not just one wake-up call; it's dozens and dozens over 
a lifetime, and likely some of the wake-up calls never get through to 
us, at least not on this side of the River. Only when we stand in 
front of our Creator will we be really, truly, finally, and 
completely awake. And that reality will be pure glory.

I've lent my friend a couple of good books on ADD and explained my 
own understanding of it. He's fascinated; this really does explain an 
awful lot. It's a bit of a blow, in that he's got a disability, but 
it's a breakthrough, in that there are ways of understanding and 
managing better. Awake is better than asleep.  Or so I believe.

(for Jane)



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A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in 
no other way. -- Mark Twain