help me understand 05.09.2022

You love them until they openly reject your rhetoric. 

You love them until it’s hard for you to listen to their opinion because it’s not the same as yours. 

You follow closely until it requires you to pull the plank from your eye. 

You love them with a clause. 

You love them “even though they….” 

You love her “we just can’t…”

You love her “but…”

You love her “…despite”

What you’re saying is “we love them even though they aren’t worthy of love…” and some of you think this was the message of Jesus. 

That we are to love everyone even though they aren’t worthy of it. So we use this to help us justify our hatred for people. Listen to me. I’ve heard this at dinner tables I’ve sat at:

“Well. You know. She has a girlfriend now. But. You know. We are still called to love her even though she’s gay. Ellen is gay, and we love Ellen.”

But, Jesus’ message was not this message. It wasn’t the message of “love others even though they are sinners because some sinners are cool and do good things”. 

He said…no one here on earth is worthy of love in the way that our faith has traditionally defined it (with rules and sins and hatred for defiance to the rules and laws of sin) 

And the message was that all our “sins” are weighed equally. So, we love everyone because everyone here is worth it. PERIOD. There weren’t exceptions to this love. Do you understand? The Jesus I learned about said…fuck your religion. Fuck your theology. Love one another without reservation. 

WE should LOVE People WITHout CONDITIONS. 

Unconditional. Agape love. Isn’t this the good news?

I’m so confused. Where is Jesus? Where is this Jesus you talk about? Where is the Jesus that surrounded himself with the filth of society? With people like me? 

Where is this Jesus? He’s not in your church. 

Are we supposed to isolate ourselves from the problems of this world???? 

Are we only to be friends with people who align with our own thinking? Are we only to love people who look like us? 

Where is your God? Who is all powerful and all knowing? If he is all powerful how is he contained in that book written by a man in a world we didn’t live in? How can you dare to know YOUR truth is the only truth?

How can you reject a world where the people were fully cared for?

Where is this god you spoke of to me who loves us all and befriended the unloved who bucked society’s rules? Where is this Jesus here? 

He’s not in your church. He’s not in your heart. What good are you doing by setting yourself apart from a world that’s growing and learning to love people better than you? 

Where is your Jesus? Where is your growth? Where is your heart? Why are you complicit in this bullshit? What are you fighting for? Love???

Where is your compassion and love and where are your eyes at? Where is your resistance to this….idolatry? 

Lay it down. Like really lay it down. What legacy are you leaving with compliance to this system of “love” on the basis of attendance and your tithe??? What good was ever done by following the status quo??? 

This is the idolatry he spoke of. This is the madness Jesus spoke of. Jesus was not a Christian. He was a man. A Jewish man. Who was sick of rules deciding who was taken care of and who was loved. Who was sick of a system profiting off of a perceived salvation. 

It feels like the current systems of Christian love have bastardized a man’s legacy in the name of their own comfort and salvation. If we take away your church, if we take away your idea of sin and salvation…what do you have left now? Can you still love people without this and could you go out into the world and love people like Jesus from the Bible? Because it seems like everyone else is doing it better than you. It seems like everyone else is fighting harder than you for the oppressed to be heard. For the broken and sick to be healed. For the hungry to be fed. For the lost to be found. Not the white woman to buy a new house and car in a nice neighborhood and good schools. We shouldn’t thank God for that. We should thank God our circumstances allowed for that and do our best to make sure we fill the cups of others whenever possible. Because we have the means to. 

JESUS FOUGHT FOR THE OPPRESSED. JESUS DIDNT FIGHT FOR THOSE WHO WERE REPRESENTED. He was popular because he went against the churches. The organized. The regulators. 

Lay it fucking down. This is your power. This is the power of the Pharisees. The power to control the uncontrolled. 

You feel good attending on sundays because it rids you of the guilt you feel for clinging to your possessions and your nice way of living while the underprivileged people that can’t even afford to drive to your church on Sunday suffer because they can’t find something to eat and they aren’t in a different country—THEY ARE ON YOUR CITY STREETS. 

Tell me why there are 2 MEGA CHURCHES in Kalamazoo, MI where the head pastors live in absolute luxury but there are still people LINING up for free food at the organizations that try to provide for the hungry and homeless in Kalamazoo. WHERE IS YOUR JESUS. WHERE IS HE. 

WHY is it that these churches in Kalamazoo can open multiple locations. Million dollar facilities on the same streets where I was asked for cash on Saturday night? They can endorse beautiful establishments in the most sought after real estate in the city and staff them but there are still homeless, there are still hungry, there is still gun violence, there is still racism…..HELP ME UNDERSTAND WHERE IS YOUR JESUS. 

I want your Jesus here. I want His Kingdom to come here. I want that Jesus. I want him deeply. I require that Jesus in this world. But I do not see him in the faces of you. I do not see him at your church. I do not feel him in your hearts when I hear you sit around the dinner tables and express your disgust for queer people, and your disgust for a young black mother relying on WIC for her similac, express your disgust for a pregnant woman who is pregnant with her 5th child by a different man because she was the victim of sexual abuse and neglect for most of her life and was never able to understand the meaning of love and the right to choose who touched her body. 

You want to protect your ability to feel better about your life because the current laws and systems support the safety and preservation of the life you enjoy. And heaven forbid you make sacrifices to that life. Because you earned it, damnit. You worked hard for it. And you shouldn’t have to give anything up for the lives of others! What’s that, Jesus? Oh yeah, I LOVE JESUS. He’s my hero. Long live my savior. He saved my life and I am called to be more like him! 

Where is your Jesus. Tell me. Where is your heart for more than the people in your life that look like you. That live like you. That live near you. That talk like you. Where is your love for the people in your city living in filth and poverty and hardship and your version of sin …they’re not at your church. Would Jesus be at your church? God. No. He wouldn’t. Ok?

forever scarlet 04.23.2022

 blog/

I was having a lovely evening with friends. I didn’t have a corkscrew. So I offered to go drive down the road to buy one. So I did. I went in and bought Chex mix. And I left and got in my car and realized I forgot the corkscrew. I went back in. They don’t have corkscrews. I drove further up the road to a different store. I went in and picked up a bottle of champagne. They didn’t have corkscrews. But the store owner gave me his and told me to bring it back tomorrow. I went to pay for my champagne. I had the wrong card. I went out to my car and got the right one. Drove back to the studio. Walked inside. Realized I forgot the corkscrew in my car. Walked outside and searched my car and realized that it wasn’t in my car. It was in my purse. I went back inside. Sobbing and exhausted because I know that I struggle. I know that. 

I also know that I have to actively combat the negativity of actually experiencing these things. I will realize the mistake and shame and scold myself for being forgetful and time blind and irresponsible and disrespectful and…bad. 

It’s frustrating because it feels like I’m actively making choices to move in a forward direction…but then there are days like today that are filled with the constant irritation that I have fucked up…again. 

The eye rolls. The laughs I get with the stories I tell. The way I cope with humor by telling people about my adventures and they laugh because it’s cute and pathetic and quirky (it’s perceived as my personality and not my ASD/ADHD) and while it’s funny because it’s abnormal and outrageous, I’m actually just exhausted from having to explain why things just take me longer. And why I’m terrible at sarcasm. Why I can only wear a certain kind of sock, why I can’t touch paper, why I have said the word cockroach but meant cactus and McDonald’s when I meant Disneyland, why I sometimes start singing my feelings instead of feeling them, why I hate being touched if I don’t know you well enough, why I get anxious if I see a person in my peripherals, why I can’t understand you unless I’m either closing my eyes, doodling, or watching your mouth move. I hear you but I can’t understand you. This is why anything microfiber makes me want to rip my skin off, why static cling in my hair provokes a wildly uncontrollable urge to rip all of my hair out, why I listen to one song on repeat for up to months at a time, why I can effortlessly memorize raps and lyrics and site accurate statistics concerning topics that I’m passionate about. And why I sometimes have perfect and specific recall about a history subject that I took 6 hours to sit on my couch and learn everything about because I was hyper fixated. It’s also why I cannot memorize my route to work, why unless you are not being absolutely clear, I will not understand what you need. I can sense social cues but I will often adjust my behavior to see if it fixes things because I’m generally in fear of being scolded for being reactive or blunt. But now that I don’t do that, people get offended that I’m so direct when I say “what is it that you need because it feels like you’re trying to communicate something to me?” 

Remember this: for a person with autism especially, anything other than clear and overt communication is either…you manipulating us into realizing your need because if you aren’t saying it—we don’t know. We just feel insecure because you’re acting strangely. I am HIGHLY and HYPER aware of my environment and sense shifts almost immediately. I just can’t always interpret what that shift means. 

The moment you assume anything about anyone who you simply are not, you are wrong. The world I live in was designed for the neurotypical (white man) and for those of you out here existing and navigating this space with a brain that runs on overdrive…I salute you. 

I’m Shelby. I’m 31. I like to lovingly refer to myself as the dumpster fire princess. I do very difficult things and I’ve accomplished things that many people who are neurotypical have. I’m compassionate and quick-witted and empathetic and I’ve heard that I often present as stupid, overwhelming or lost. But I’m just a human with ASD. This means that there are sensory areas in my brain that show more random activity and that my brain has a surplus of synapses between brain cells. Supah mega speedy. 

I have ADHD. I am not self-diagnosed and, most probably aren’t wondering, but the “squirrel” joke got old 20 years ago. 

Concretely and exactly, I have a neurodevelopment disorder—that’s a fancy way of saying that there are differences in my brain structure and function that affect my cognition and that it developed during my childhood. 

It also means that my frontal lobe is smaller than a neurotypical person. That is: memory, planning, motivation, and time perception…in my brain, these things don’t operate in a consistent or predictable way. I have low levels of tonic dopamine, so it is incredibly difficult to maintain motivation and resist distraction. 

Would you expect a person with no legs to complete a marathon without support or allowances? 

Would you expect a person with a broken brain to just act like a person with a typical one? Just because our differences and challenges aren’t visibly obvious (and I’m not mentally prepared to discuss autism in adult women and the concept of masking symptoms and how exhausting that is and how it also perpetuates my adhd symptoms), our brains are still exhibiting very tangible and observable differences that affect the overall functionality. Our brains aren’t bleeding or bandaged but you still see the symptoms of a brain different than yours. That’s facts. It’s not a brain that is morally inferior to yours. 

and I’m just out here practicing patience with myself every day. I know it’s frustrating to be around me sometimes. Imagine how it feels being the one doing the things that we know the world perceives as frustrating. It’s embarrassing and difficult and tiring. We know. We know. We know. We know you’re frustrated. We are too.

It’s just time to level with you and maybe we stop talking so much about my symptoms and start talking about the “why” in a morally neutral way. The opposite of your perceived order is not bad. It’s different. I want us all to live without fear or shame. 

Understand that we do our best to assimilate with amphetamines and iced coffee. But it’s a double edged sword and a constant battle for your normal. 

Spreading awareness and speaking the truth. Let people live. Be patient. Ask questions. Don’t assume. 

The world we live in might not be super conducive to prospering in life with ASD/ADHD…but there’s enough space for us. You just have to make room (a little extra room actually because we come with a lot of…just…things and bags and emergency grapefruits and something I like to call “purse advil” and the occasional box of cereal I will eat all week and the items in my pockets and hands that I forgot were there until just now and the shoes I’m carrying because I forgot to put them on and the hairbrush in my purse because I always forget to look in the mirror and the deodorants in every important location I frequent and…just the literal and actual weight of it all). We come with a lot. Just more to love.