ALONE IN CHURCH

My impression of poetry from high school literature was one of intentionally obscured images, creating a coded language that I was meant to tease out at great length. Midway through life’s journey, I spent years trying to write down my experiences of Church, but struggled to find the right form. Much as I aspired to a sweeping historical genre, my own efforts in that direction never came together. Something in the nature of the sacred eluded my grasp, and resisted my efforts to write in such an affirmative manner. With the encouragement of several friends and guides, I allowed interior practices, like centering prayer and dreamwork, to influence my writing. These practices help us to gently set aside the voice of the ego, to access inner sources of symbol, meaning, and connectedness. Not far along this path, I began to describe spiritual experience in a language appropriate to its mystery. To no one’s surprise more than my own, that language is poetry! Many of these poems deal with themes of misunderstanding and alienation, especially on the part of those coping with physical or neurological difference. Reflection on the interconnected framework of spectrum traits – both strengths and challenges – has helped me to make sense of my journey, and also of the historical witness given by certain extraordinary people of faith. It may be that some autistic-seeming traits are hard to distinguish from attributes of persons who feel not-at-home between the seen and unseen worlds. Andrea Messineo Houston, August 2019