Adventures in RCIA - Communion/The Eucharist and Perpetual Adoration

Hi,
I am Mother Star, and I am joining the Catholic Church. I have been protestant most of my life, and have been involved in ministry in Protestant churches and ministries, up to and including preaching on one occasion.
Advenetures in RCIA is about finding God in Catholicism, and how Catholicism is the same or differs from protestantism of various types. Naturally, I can only go with what I have been exposed to, and I have not attended every church in the world. These comparisons are a synopsis of what I know and believe, based on my experiences in multiple churches and my own walk with God. You might have a different experience. I respect that, and appreciate your respecting mine.

Adventures in RCIA is not, I repeat in NOT  an attempt to convert more people to Catholicism. I do not like the term "convert" used in this sense anyway. I do not feel like I am converting to anything; I am moving on in my walk with God, learning more about God and the worldwide church family I have long been a part of, and approaching or experiencing God in - for me - a new and fresh way. That's what's going on with me and Catholicism, just to make that clear.

I am going to include a video with this post, but it may take sometime to finish, so I will add that when it is complete.
Thanks and God bless

~Mother Star

Making Money Online 2 - further discourse on sites that pay

It has been a very long time since I wrote about this. I spent about six months not involved in any online financial ventures whatsoever. These last few months I have learned a great deal. I have learned enough recently to make a few decisions about how to proceed, and here I will offer some insights gleaned from that learning process. Perhaps these insights will assist you in your own journey.

The most important thing I learned was, the internet is a good place to follow your passion in your work. Most of the more successful people making their livelihood online decided what they wanted to do or were interested in, money aside and began with that. In my particular case, I have several, and so utilizing them all will involve utilizing a variety of techniques creatively. Whatever your passion may be, it will likely take building.

I have come to a decision about microworker.com, I am not going to use it anymore, unless something pretty drastic were to happen and I would need to resort to that again. There is nothing really wrong with the site itself, The reason I will not use it anymore is it does not build up to anything, It offers little micro-jobs for micro-pay and no real chance for advancement. If you are new to sites like mechanical turk and are only eligible for $0.01 or $0.02 jobs, and not even that many of those, I recommend doing a little on miroworkers to have access to $0.25 and higher things, or at least $0.7 - $.10 ones. It will help keep your sanity while you literally work for pennies. Once you break 100 HITs and especially when you get close to 500, I would suggest cashing in your microworkers earnings, or work until you build up enough to withdraw and then withdraw it. Microworkers will retain about $0.06 no matter what, and that is a fact I just had to accept.

When I was working with mechanical turk frequently, I found I could make around $30.00 to $40.00 a week without having any real transcription skills when I had about 200 HITs accepted and a 98% approval rating. I got stupid though, and started experimenting with different kinds of tasks to see what all I could do. I found out the hard way not to do that. A few rejected HITs can bring your approval % down low enough you will only get penny jobs and $0.10 jobs again. I tried to do many short jobs to fix this and worked for an appalling requester called p9r. p9r does not communicate well, and if you make the wrong move, your HIT will be rejected and your rating will suffer. I knocked out several on their HITs and received enough rejections in a short time to be demoted back to penny jobs and it has taken me a long time to get my rating back over 97%. AVOID p9r unless you feel you can afford to take rating losses.

Elance.com has a complex system if you are an American. They have several forms you must fill out. Fill out your W-9, and your 1099 and a few others. If you relocate, it is difficult to change your address. In my case, I was told my W-9 info did not match what the IRS had on file. The IRS office told a different story. My information did match what they had on file, and Elance does not have access to IRS records. Nevertheless, Their finance office insisted they had discovered a discrepancy between my W-9 and IRS  files. Eventually, an exceptional customer service person talked me through every file and form Elance had, and we fixed all of the information on each file. After that, the finance team said my information "matched IRS records" which they probably never even saw. This was in addition to my adventures trying to get my address changed on my profile. Customer service had to escalate that all the way to the web programmers.After THAT was fixed I was able to change my information on the forms and expect the changes to still be there the next time I logged in or if I refreshed the page.
If I had it to do over again, I would go to the page that has all the forms on one spot and try filling them all out. Maybe I would have had less trouble, or maybe I still would have had a help request go all the way to the engineers. Either way, it would have saved me the trouble of dealing with the finance departments MISERABLE communication and service.
Here's how to do that:
In the upper right corner, click your username. A drop down menu will show up. Click on "settings."

Then, click on "Billing & Payment," in the left-side menu.

This menu will come up. You can see all the forms you have to fill out as an American. If you are not an American, it still is wise to enter here and check any boxes that tell Elance you are not an American and do not need those forms. The "Invoice and Tax," the "1099 information," the "W-9 Info" and "Currency," are all things you need to do before even messing with looking for work.

All that is if you want to do freelance work answering directly to someone else. As far as avialable jobs, at the time of this writing there were 25,313 jobs on all of Elance. 9,599 IT jobs, 5477 were Design and Multimedia jobs. 3872 were Writing & Translation jobs, 3142 were Sales & Marketing jobs, 1950 were Admin & Support jobs, 656 were Engineering & Manufacturing jobs, 408 were Finance & Management jobs, and 239 were Legal jobs. If those numbers do not add up to 25,313, it is because jobs were filled or more were posted while I went through the categories and recorded the number in each. I have found that many of the employers posting jobs here wants lave labor, by U.S. standards.
You must beware of sharks in the waters of the freelance market. I am exclusively in the writing and translation category and I have seen 500 to 2,000 words for as little as $1 USD. This is often because the employer is from a place like the Philippines, where $5 can buy a week worth of groceries or something close to that. I have seen Brits and Americans offer that little as well though, while specifically asking for native English speakers. Beware of those who are out to take advantage of you. When employers want "Price per word"or tell you how much they want to pay per word without telling how many words they want, I would not even bother. They did not read the directions. Elance does not allow less than $20 billed-to-client for fixed-rate jobs, or less than $3.00/hr billed-to-client for hourly jobs. If they are not paying attention to what they are doing, do not pay attention to them. You do not want clients who do not communicate well or consider the constraints you must bid within (or Elance will not even let you submit the bid). I have also found out the hard way not to work for clients who do not know what they want. If you submit a sample and an idea and they like it, they might change their mind later and expect you to be able to do something you never agreed to do. Also beware of people who want you to submit a sample in the form of doing a part of the job for them before they will hire you. That is either an idiot not thinking through what they are asking, or a scammer who wants to get the job done for free. Elance.com rules say that you are under no obligation to start work until a milestone payment has been submitted by the employer. That milestone is your insurance that you will be paid and they will not take the work you did and run without paying. I had a person needing 100 to 200 product descriptions written. He said, "price me per product." Of course the lowest you can bid is $20.00. After a long time, he asked me to write descriptions for about 15 products so he could decide if he wanted to hire me. I wrote two and sent them in, not willing to do up to 15% of the job for free. He probably did that to a lot of people and tried to get it all for nothing. I never heard from him again.
I worked for a lady who asked for my email address after she hired me, She gave me a 5-star rating and did indeed contact me for more work OFF of Elance. I did $50 worth of work, based on the agreed price,and was supposed to be paid in two weeks. Three weeks later I got two thirds of it, and after a month she was paid up. She is a freelance writer who farms out some of her work to others and pays them a smaller cut. This will never advance your career. Clients will know the persons who hired you are, but not you. The employer will build a reputation and grow their business, you will not. Off of Elance, you do not even have the rating or records to show you did anything. It will look like you have no experience from all that work. You will also might get less money than the person who hires you does. I did five articles for a very grumpy client that the aforementioned client outsourced to me, and I got $10 a piece. She went between us as a middle person so all the communication came to me through "the grapevine," and got very confusing at times. On their files, it looked like she was the one doing the work. On Elance, those articles would have been $20; it also was way too much work for $10 - or even $20, as those were terrible clients. If I take a job on Elance that says "there will be more work if you do a good job," I am going to let them know I do not usually do additional work if it is not on Elance, because Elance protects both of us in a lot of ways, and is worth the small percentage I must pay.

In the writing field, I have noticed so many of the potential clients want content for a website or blog to get them more hits. Usually they want it SEO optimized. I guess some are aspiring professional bloggers who do not actually wish to blog. A high volume of these jobs on Elance led me to investigate how to generate income from a blog. In the process of learning this, I realized I would be happier writing about things I care about and helping people who have similar interests or challenges. I also realized that such things take a lot of building, so instead of working for low fees to build someone else's corner of the web, I should spend that time building my own. It could eventually pay better and will make me far happier. If you would not mind working hard to take others to the top and getting crumbs thrown your way for doing it, feel free to take those Elance blogging jobs.

Blogs need to be focused, or readers never know what tto expect from you or whether what you write will be any use. People do not get interested in literary Russian roulette. The topic of this one is actually not how to make money online, so this topic will be found at erdavis01.tumblr.com from now on. I expect to update the Tumblr blog once a week or more. CrossCastle will hereafter be about various inspirational or spiritual things. In my case, I find that I have several interests I would enjoy writing about. Therefore, I write more than one blog, with focus aimed primarily at one at a time. I advise others with multiple interests to start with one thing and progressively expand, as you are able. Working online is a journey, not a destination. It is a road, not a doorway, into a new lifestyle. Enjoy the process. :)

Godspeed.

~Mother Star

Lessons from The Hunger Games - Part 2

If somebody put real Hunger Games on tv or a webcast, would you watch it? Would you feed the monster and help it grow?

Suzanne Collins put, in my opinion, an allegory to our time in a book and on a screen. Ironically, it may only be lost in the mix of media messages for most people.I offer some thoughts on how the world of The Hunger Games is really parallel to our own. There are a lot of questions here to ask yourself, I am not really looking for people to give me their answers, some of these are quite personal. Just answer them to your God and yourself.


As, promised, we continue the topic of what serious and life-altering lessons we can learn from Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games. One challenging thing we find is their world differs from ours only in the extreme, and in some of the details. The basic problems are the often same.

How many Haymitches do we have? We no longer have a draft, but veterans from the drafts are still with us today. We have many warriors walking wounded, trying to drown their misery in substances. What did Katniss want to do after she won? To forget. Many veterans want to forget. While we honor our veterans for their service, many of us and many of them do not believe the missions our rulers send them on are necessarily in our best interests. The only thing in the world more painful than losing people you love to violence -or really any other tragedy - is to believe that there was no pupose in the tragedy, or that the purpose was worth less than it cost.
There were even people in Panem who sent their kids to special schools to make them bloodthirsty killers, brainwashed them to "bring pride to our district." Perhaps it was to avoid the pain of losing two kids every year, for no reason. Perhaps they got caught up in the lie that it was about pride, and that the kids were there to show that they really were better than the other districts. Hide from the fact that you have no power against this injustice by actively choosing what you have no choice but to choose. Make yourself feel empowered that way, raise your kids to have no respect for human life so they will have a better chance of winning. Give your community an ego-boost about something that is really quite shameful. Don't stand up to the system that makes you economically better off than most. Take your losses in your morals, not your sense of security. In this film, it backfires and none of those kids return home.




The people of Panem in The Hunger Games need to face the pain of losing their children for no reason, especially in Districts 1 and 2. They need to face reality, and call it by its true, ugly name. Turning an oppressive system meant to put you under the oppressors shoe into a source of pride and identity, and raising your kids to "win" these atrocious "games" to "bring pride to the district" is to try to get rid of the pain caused by a problem without addressing its cause. The games were there to make sure they knew their "place," by taking their children away to fight and die for no reason. The idea was to make it clear there was nothing they could do about it, to let them know who was "really in charge". They "empowered" themselves and prided themselves on "thriving" in that system, training their kids think that it elevated their district if they killed all the other kids every year. They perceived this as empowerment and pride because they accepted the lies and ideology of the corrupt system that instituted the Hunger Games in the first place.

The Lesson: Not everything that makes you feel better is healthy or helpful or good.  There are many applications for this. Calling yourself by racial or gender slurs could resemble this, because that is also surrendering while priding yourself on how well you are fighting. I see this everywhere. Women calling themselves b****es, black people calling each other n****s, and saying it means something they must know - at least deep sown inside - that it does not. Hide from the pain and call oneself courageous for doing so. Ease the misery at the cost of perpetuating the problem.

I see this frequently in the feminist movement. To some people, any time a woman does something conforming to male gender roles, it is seen as liberating. Self-identified (though not necessarily qualifying for the label) "feminists" do not consider whether the things being imitated are negative, or even oppressive and unproductive to men as well as to women. Taking on males' shackles is not going to free us, it only adds additional or different chains.

In the same vein, an abused woman who prostitutes herself to try and turn an abusive system into cash and calls herself "empowered" is lying to herself. She is never treated with any respect, so she declares war on the idea of respect and spurns her humanity by volunteering to be an object rather than declaring was on the objectification of women and confronting the source of the problem. She is not empowered, she is too weak, or weakened, to even face reality. Not a good candidate for a "Mockingjay" for herself or anyone else. She is not elevating or empowering herself or anyone. These decisions are founded on conformity to the mindset of the perpetrators who think they exert power over others by sleeping with them, it's built on never solving the problem.

Calling yourself a b**** and acting like a stereotypical, pig-headed male by pushing your way to the top and not caring about anyone else, or being rude,or being odious and vulgar, or making hateful words into "good words" and reversing hateful imagery is very unhelpful and hypocritical. The key to destroying oppressive systems is not to imitate anything said or done by the oppressor. Do not allow people that hate you to name you, keep their hateful words out of your vocabulary - all of them. Keep their actions not worthy of being called human, and that make the world an unhappy place, out of your behaviour. Women who prostitute other human beings,women who emotionally manipulate men, women who are physically and verbally violent, are not "empowered." They do no more to elevate womanhood than the tributes of Districts 1 and 2 in The Hunger Games elevated their districts.

Godspeed.

~ M.S.

Sometimes I Worry About Losing My Faith

"To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— 25 to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen."
Jude 1:24

Since it'sChristmas season, I thought now would be a good time to write about how the Christmas story and the whole story of Christ turns our deeply held concepts about "power" upside down. In the process, I am also working out an issue that a struggle with in my spiritual life.

I have been exposed to evolution teaching and many other kinds of teaching. It doesn't bother me one way or another.  If I accept the part of what they say that were convincing - not all of it was - and even if accept thestuffthat wasn't, it does not change anything of substance. I don't worship God because God made the world in six days by a certain method. I worship God because I have litarally seen miracles, because I have obeyed and seen it work, and disobeyed and seen it not work. I worship God because I have experienced God's grace and God's love first-hand. If I think the creation story is metaphoric, the important parts that alter how I live my life and believe the universe works are still there. My soul-realm (mind, emotions and will) does not cause me problems because of "science". My weakness is not found there. My weakness is found in the area of gender, and cross-cultural study. Satan always uses our gifts to try to destroy us.

I have been deeply blessed by exposure to matriarchal and matrilineal societies,indirectly. In a way, it feels like I have been cursed by it. Trying to present God to a culture like that, and in some ways to my own mind as I have changed through this education, becomes a challenge. I think part of it is that the biblical scholars on whom I rely for information have the same problem as traditional anthropologists - they are raised with patriarchy and it blinds them.

What constitutes "power"? What image comestoyour mind when you hear that word? Do you have an image
of something violent? Something or someone that you want on your side for physical reasons? Fear-based reasons? What do you believe "power" is?

The Minagkabau, a matrilieal culture in Indonesia, have a very different image of power than Wessterners and other traditionally patriarchal cultures do. Their name means "Victorious Buffalo" in their langage. The story behind it goes as follows:

The Javanese and the Minang had a battle of sorts overwho would control what is now Minang territory. The Javanese are patriarchal and more warlike than the Minang. The Javanese combatantwas a great Bull Buffalo,but theMinang had a very hungry baby Buffalo,withknoves affixed to its head. When the Minag's Baby Buffalo entered the combat zone, he or she darted under the Javanese Bull in search of nipples for nursing, which of course the Bull did not have. Because of the knives on it's head, itgored the Bull to death and won the battle without even understanding battle or intending to trying to win one.

The Baby Bull only did what nature programed it to do, it had no thought of battles or power or "glory." This story demonstrates a major underpinning of Minang worldview: out of weakness comes strength.
Naming themselves for the Victorious Baby Buffalo in this story keeps this philosophy tied to who they are,howthey identify themselves. Jesus,our saviour, did not come to save us swinging 5 ft. claymores, screaming battle cries, and dropping carcasses left and right. That is what many expected him to do. He came as a helpless baby. He was born into peril, and into a kind of slavery. He was born to an oppressed and subjugated minority teenager, in circumstances that could have easily been misconstrued and led to a lot more trouble.

Did Jesus saves by "kicking butt"? No. He saved us by giving his life for seemingly nothing. The tyrants did not fall, prisons didn't burst open and free everyone in them. The economic situation remained the same. No unjust laws were repealed. On the cross, He shouted, "I thirst," he was not too proud to make His needs known. The veil of the temple was torn, making it clear that something big was done. Saints who had died rose and spoke to many during that time. Yes, crazy things happened, but not the kind of things we are prone to worry about. The obvious miracles that day were not what we equate with success and power. If there is one thing our God is not, it is a chest-thumping, pig-headed, patriarchal-enculturated male on a power-trip. That is not the YHVH Jesus reveals to us.

When I measure power by the production and violence-based, patriarchal, Western way, Jesus is not very impressive. If I measure it the "matriarchal" (that word is kinda inaccurate about everybody it is applied to due the "arch" in it. They are not so hierarchical as we are) way, Jesus becomes incredibly awesome. This time of year, we celebrate a woman who accepted profound shame among her people though an "unplanned" pregnancy. We celebrate a relatively poor man who swallowed his pride and married her anyway, accepting the financial responsibility (because it was a patriarchy) for a baby that wasn't his. We mainly celebrate a baby born into terrible circumstances, who lived a hard, short earthly life, and died for us by torture and injustice. On the third day, He rose again. They all were willing to suffer whatever for God's will, which was to save us. This is the example we're supposed to follow, and and the priorities we are supposed to measure our lives by.

In being directly opposed to our image of power and how it functions or can be measured, the Minang worldview is actually probably one step closer to the God we at least say that we serve. The problem arises when I read Scripture about how this society runs its home and how their different worldview leads them to organize their society. It actually works well and has provided them mellinia  of stability, but flies in the face of the way I am told God wants family life ordered. The image of abig umbrella with Jesus' name on it,followedby a smaller umbrella that says husband/father, and another smaller one below it that says "Wife/mother" and etc. Is where I have problems. I really don't believe it. Most of the scripture people use to support that, I can see how it could mean something else, but I don'tseehowIcoudserve a God who institutes an less functional and senseless system

I sometimes worry that,through studying these things I will become so alienated from the patriarchal-thinking church leaders, freinds and elders I know and end up unable to recieve encouragement from anybody's messages, unable to minister to anyone around me, and and end up losing my faith.

How to save the world - or at least get it started

Well, I think I have a game plan for saving the world, at least with regard to peak oil.
It will cause less need for oil fuel in several ways, as well as reducing dependance on coal and multi-national power companies.



Alcohol can be a gas, portable gas stations, Hammond IN and St. Louis, and all around periphery of IL, especially near Chicago land.  Fight fake biofuel producers through undercutting. Let people know about permaculture, the laws, and the difference between ADM and real biofuel.
Prob do same thing in and around NYC as much as possible, and also L.A. which has already been impacted by homemade alcohol movements.



Get into real estate investment and make houses as ecological as possible,
Put solar,wind, etc on them and rent them until solar pays for itself before selling houses and going on to next ones. Put food forests on as many as possible. Passive solar sunspaces or greenhouses attached to as many as possible, especially in cold climates. Try to focus on section 8 type neighborhoods and get houses cleared for section 8.

Advertise on craigslist in the headlines that there is renewable energy generation on it. Focus on one city or neighborhood at a time. Go until other investors start doing same thing in area, or until run out of suitable houses, then go on to other town/neighborhood.
Other investors may (hopefully will) eventually have to start adding renewables in order to stay competitive, because renters will want the advantages of the lower power bills. This will either lead to being able to start working in different area,or to more local investors selling their properties for a song because they cannot compete in the market.

In time, having more homes producing their own energy will cause the energy costs in the region to go down, because demand will decrease. Programs to help people pay their power bills, or "flat rate"programs may become unnecessary for more people in area. If people get small checks in the mail instead of bills, they may start trying to conserve power in order to get paid more,causing even more reduction in demand for power plant energy.

As more low income people see the benefits of permuculture and food forests,it could spark interest,leading to demand for classes and workshops. If they are allowed to sell the produce from the food forests if they live on the property,they could be more capable of paying their part of the rent (assuming section 8). This could then lead to legal and beneficial product (healthy food) being sold on street increasing access to healthy food in these communities. Fruit and nut trees could be especially valuable in this.

When giving workshops,make people aware of laws that stand in way of permaculture takeover (E.G.gray water systems), and explain how to lobby for change (give contact info for state and local officials).

When community has fuel issues being addressed through community lobbying or better, when investors are adding renewable energy sources to rentals, and prepared groups are working on food forests, relocate to other region or shift focus to other neighborhood.


In case someone if totally confused, here is a link to a free online intro class on permaculture
https://www.openpermaculture.com

Lessons from The Hunger Games Part 1

If somebody put real Hunger Games on tv or a webcast, would you watch it? Would you feed the monster and help it grow?

Suzanne Collins put, in my opinion, an allegory to our time in a book and on a screen. Ironically, it may only be lost in the mix of media messages for most people.I offer some thoughts on how the world of The Hunger Games is really parallel to our own. There are a lot of questions here to ask yourself, I am not really looking for people to give me their answers, some of these are quite personal. Just answer them to your God and yourself.



In the beginning, the game master, who has presumably climbed the ladder to that position over years, expresses how he rationalizes what he does. "It knits us all together," So the Hunger Games knit the people on Panem together, At what cost?
Whatever psychological positives Panem experienced with the games, the negatives were by far worse. They were "knit together" by the loss of their children, They were bound together by the fear it could be them, or a sibling, or a friend next. time. "Knit together" by the nagging possibility that it could be one of their children next year, When theyhad achild, theylived with the possibility tht child could be ripped from them and sent to the Hunger Games to - more than likely - die in pain and terror on live TV. Yes, strong bonds can form through tragedy, but that is no reason to deliberately put people, or oneself through tragedy.
The Lesson: What are you part of that you shouldn't be? What do you have to justify and rationalize in order to be a part of, perhaps to keep your job, a relationship or an identity? In what areas do you need to revolt?

Ellie was much the same as the game master. She stood before a crowd of people, mostly children, two of whom were about to be basically sentenced to death, at random, when she pulled their name out of a bowl. She lied to herself, and to all who saw her, by putting on a grand show, smiling and speaking as if it was a drawing for a grand prize. She saw a little girl screaming for her sister and a tearful sacrificing of one life for another. She smiled, looked on, made up a way to save face, and continued on with her act.
The Lesson: Is there anything in your environment you are intentionally ignoring? Is there anyone whose pain you justify by not looking at it? What about your own?

"May the odds be ever in your favor," Catchphrase. A tradition, "Culture," Something familiar. A joke, but powerful because of the emotions attached. It binds people together in the worst way, It binds people together on denial, in oppression, and in a type of willful, active complacency. They know the odds are never in anyone's favor. They know this show is an atrocity, they know there are victims living in the very same town.
The Lesson: What traditions do you need to question? What cliches do you need to stop being attached to and begin to move on from?

"They just want a good show."
The Lesson: What are we complicit with, in the name of receiving a "good show?"
Anorexia, emotional abuse, ravages on our own and others self-esteem, Brainwashing, sucked into a world of material obsession, and shallow standards passed off to us as "what we really need," by advertisers. Are you waiting for pop culture to change,and complaining about it,while continuing to consume it? Are you looking in the mirror hating what you see, reading all the magazines,wishing you were rich so you could buy all the junk to"fix" your perceived flaws off the shelves? Are you sizing up people around you by those standards? If so, Panem's not as mythical as you think - you live there.
Another Lesson: Who knows what kind of undue pressure we help place on the of entertainers who are far to young to be able to process it? How many child stars need to have breakdowns, before we realize the price they pay for our amusement? I want to see the day we can get used to having the children in shows be played by animation, like a lot of animals are now. No more Miley, Cyruses or Jonathan Brandises (he committed suicide) please.

"Crystal Chandeliers" Ellie seems to shift her focus to the pampering the kids get while they are awaiting their nearly certain death. What's pampering you to death? An abusive boyfriend? A drug dealer? How about a boss who is never actually going to promote you for the sacrifices you make? A lifestyle you know is wrong but are not repenting of anyway? Maybe a job that gives you tons of money and "stuff" while keeping you from your children or your life purpose? A credit card you can't put down, and soon will not be able to payoff? Panem's deception comes in many forms in modern life. Be honest and check your own.

"I understand what you're saying, I just can't afford to think like that."
What are you complicit with? What do you need to reevaluate. Anything? How certain are you about that answer, if you thought of one? Turning from some of these things is not to be taken lightly, any more than facing down the juggernaut of Panem's ruling elite was for Katniss, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.


More to come.
Godspeed

Living with and Overcoming Disability - Matthew's Story

A feature article I wrote for a class. :)

Living With and Overcoming Disability – Matthew's Story

“Eye-contact was dramatically bigger than all the other adaptations I have had to learn, combined.”

Matthew is 33 years old and has Asberger's syndrome. We sat in his basement apartment in Decatur IL, one of us on each end of a long, low table. It consisted of a long piece of plywood with short stacks of full filing boxes situated at either end. Scattered across the table were the various components of a computer he had dismantled and was working on.
One of the earliest warning signs of any kind of autism is avoiding eye-contact. Other things that frequently happen with Asberger's syndrome include becoming fixated on something and finding it impossible to distract from it. In Matthew's case, this can happen to the point that he does not absorb stimuli that are not related to, or that detract from, whatever he is fixated on. Also, he says there are certain thongs he has trouble absorbing and processing information about – such as modifying his behavior in social situations. He said eye-contact was never distressing, he merely saw no point in it. He only made eye-contact periodically, to read expressions. He realized eye contact was important some time in High School. He does not recall how he realized this, it could have been something he read online about job interviews, or perhaps he had been told about it enough times to internalize it. It may have been a combination of those factors.
He began attempting to make more eye-contact. However, he did not understand the important nuances associated with it. Therefore, over time, “I turned every conversation into a staring contest.” He interpreted negative reactions to mean “insufficient eye-contact” because he had so much trouble taking in that type of information. So he would work harder to make more eye-contact. He told me, as I wrote notes, that the excess became so extreme “I would be right next to your chair now, with my head practically between you and your notebook, trying to maintain eye-contact.” Over time, he thinks at least a year or two, he was rebuked enough times that “it sank in.” The negative feedback eventually overwhelmed enough that he processed the message.
Next, Matthew sat in cafes and other public places to watch conversations, trying to be inconspicuous and learn the rules of eye-contact. “Looking back, I think I probably creeped a lot of people out very badly... I used to 'be inconspicuous' very conspicuously.” He says it took three months before he saw any pattern at all, noting that identifying patterns is usually his strong suit. As soon as he could perceive any sort of pattern, he began using it. By this time,he knew that that eye-contact requirements vary between conversations and throughout conversations, but had no idea how these variations worked. After several years, he learned multiple patterns to use in different conversational situations.



For Matthew, social interaction was always exhausting. Splitting attention between his new eye-contact patterns and the normal demands of socializing multiplied this burden. He became even less inclined to interact. Nevertheless, Matthew stopped consciously using eye-contact patterns in his mid-twenties; they had become ingrained.
He has paid closer attention to his eye-contact recently, and found that he no longer uses the same patterns. During the interview, I saw nothing unusual in his eye-contact behavior, and I assured him of this. He likens the situation to people gifted to learn languages by immersion, versus the average person who must study the language first and later become fluent through immersion. Most people learn eye contact by immersion, but he had to learn some rules first, then finish off with immersion.
Whether this is typical of all or even some Asberger's patients, is unknown. One thing is clear: Matthew's hard work has certainly paid off. Most people may never invest themselves as much in overcoming their challenges, and stories such as this one are an inspiration to us all.