after singing
Beside me, Adam’s voice breaks, shattering into silence. I glance over to read his face, careful not to linger lest he feel my gaze; he doesn’t like me to watch him worship. My son could care less if I walk in on him in the bathroom when he’s wearing no clothes and stepping into the shower, but if he feels my eyes on him during worship he shrinks, covering his face with two flat hands, as though I’ve caught him naked. Faintly, his voice begins to rise again, and my own words drown, lost. I want to snap a picture of him, something to keep with these memories I treasure up, but that would be an unforgivable intrusion.
Adam closes his eyes when he sings. He only sings in worship, his voice high and ragged, and to see him, you might think him in pain. His brow furrows; his lips tighten; he pulls his head back against the chair. He seems afraid to look, as though shielding himself from something he can’t quite handle. And really, who can handle the presence of God? Carefully, he holds his open hands palm up and empty, drawn up close at the waist. He must; that much I can see plainly. Adam doesn’t know how to be anything other than authentic, and he is never more open than when he sings to God. Sometimes we tell new friends eager to know our son that the best way is to worship beside him. And right now, I want to scoop Adam up in my mama arms, all 6 feet of him, until his arms and legs–all that long, lean bone–dangle absurdly over me. His tenderness in worship, that naked vulnerability, makes me want to cover him. I’ll be your shelter, I want to say, even though I know that’s what God is to him.
In scripture, when God reveals himself, human beings respond with fear. Not the kind of fear that makes a person run away screaming, but the kind that makes us plant our faces into the ground, the kind that makes us say things like, “Go away from me, Lord; I’m a sinful man (Luke 5:8),” or,
Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.
Isaiah 6:5
To see God is to see ourselves by comparison. That kind of fear, that holy awe, that’s my impression as I look on Adam’s face now–the humble tilt of his head, the hard wrinkle between his eyes, the way he draws his body back. You are holy, Lord, and I most certainly am not. But sometimes I wonder if I interpret my son correctly; I wonder what Adam would say about God if he could put his understanding into words. I handed him an index card on Monday, and knowing I meant him to write a prayer, he quickly wrote this:
Thank you so much for this day. Thank you for grace and mercy.
So simple, but so complete.
I draw my eyes away from him now, careful not to interrupt. And then, just as I turn my full attention to praise, alarms sound. Adam’s glucose monitor blares, the sound loud and jarring. Oh, the many urgent things that compete for our attention: so much importance, busyness, need. Easily, I lose track of the ability to prioritize. They say that people with Autism have no ability to prioritize sensory information, that too much perception rather than too little lies at the heart of their many challenges. Hearing the alarm, which seems to come from everywhere—Adam’s device and all our phones, I glance toward my son again. We know this sound. It is the sound of temporary trouble interrupting the rhythm of life. A low blood sugar. Kevin picks up his phone to look and Adam squints at me, offers me a tiny acknowledging smile, and then he closes his eyes again to worship.
Adam’s hands tremble I notice now, but not, I think, from the low blood sugar, which, while trending down, has yet to become dire. “He’ll need a fast sugar,” I say unnecessarily, more to myself than anyone else, surprised because I expected Adam to jump up. He loves an excuse to eat–especially something sweet, and when that alarm sounds, he usually sprints–grinning—to the kitchen. But today, Adam stays in the chair, his eyes tightly closed, still singing in that high, ragged voice.
Kevin stands, moving first, heading to the cabinet where we keep our supplies, and feeling the movement, Adam turns to me. He reaches down into his chair and lifts two small bags of fruit snacks toward me. He had anticipated the low, had maybe seen the numbers on his CGM even before worship began. “You should eat those,” I say, softly now because I see Adam has lost himself again in worship, has dropped the fruit snacks back in the chair.
Hearing me, he opens his eyes yet again, not cross, but somehow patient, even indulgent. He leans toward me and whispers, making eye contact. “After singing,” he says slowly. After singing, I’ll eat. Just that, clear and careful and true, and then he presses back against the chair, returning to worship. No amount of sugar could ever compare to the sweetness of Christ.
I think of something I read just this morning, a story Jesus told about a man who prepares a banquet, inviting many guests, but they all alike began to make excuses (Luke 14: 18). What does it take, really, for us to turn away from the invitation to spend time with God? What does it take for something else to set itself up against the knowledge of God, for us to stop seeking his kingdom and his righteousness first? The guests he had invited ignored them and went their own way, one to his farm, another to his business (Matthew 22:5). So the man sends his servants to invite the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. The ones like Adam. The ones society values least. Indeed, the truly hungry. God invites to his feast the ones who, without so much to attach them to this world, hold on harder still to God, and he makes a promise: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled (Matthew 5:6).
I sit back–we have time, and begin again to sing, breathing God in giant gulps and swallowing hard against the witness of my son, whose whole body now seems to say: There’s not much at all that can’t wait a moment on this. Simple, but complete.
