sorry

tap, tap, tap

taptaptaptap, tap

I hear it, a sound like progress, the sound of getting-it-done.

I follow the sound into the kitchen, driven to the table where Adam works his way through his daily list, the list I made to keep him found and present, to keep him using his mind.

Adam leans over a game board–Sorry, with its primary-colored quadrants, with its safety zones like bulbous thermometers at ever corner. Sorry is a game entirely about progress, about finishing, and as such, it’s Adam’s favorite. His glossy hair hangs over his nose, dangles over the board. He grips a yellow pawn in one hand and flips a card with the other to determine the number of spaces he can move.

taptaptap tap tap taptap

His list says, ask Riley to play a game, because more than the game, the point had been a relational connection with his sister. I pause next to him, touching that line item with my finger. “It says, ‘ask Riley to play,’ I say, watching as Adam, reading the stipulation on the Sorry card in his hand, lifts a cardboard disk meant to temporarily freeze succession and places it on his pawn.

He glances up at me. “No,” he says quietly, but not defiantly. His tone says, “Please just let me do it this way.” His gaze begs me not to interfere. Without Riley, Adam faces no unexpected barriers to his forward progress. He can ignore even the rules that interfere, which he does, turning away from me to move the pawn with the frozen ring around its neck.

tap tap tap tap tap

Without Riley, Adam wins every time, and quickly. He can check off play a game, even if without a partner the game becomes only an exercise, only doing. I shake my head, laughing over how much I see my own reflection in his choices. Autism makes it difficult for Adam to prioritize relational work over the satisfaction of checking off the boxes. He doesn’t understand the greater purposes in my plans. I get it. I stumble over the point of things all the time myself.

On my office wall hangs a canvas to remind me:

People are not an interruption. People are the entire point.

Especially on days when I feel overtired and overwhelmed, it feels easier to turn life into a race I run alone, powering my way to the finish. I become a pawn and not a person, tap tap tap-ping my way toward safety. It feels easier to win on my own, without other people around to frustrate and slow my forward progress, but of course, God’s purposes in my work always stretch beyond the task at hand to the hearts of people.

In his book Life Without Lack, Dallas Willard defines work as, “the sum total of lasting good we can accomplish in a lifetime,” and differentiates our work from our jobs or positions. We can do lasting good as a part of a career, but our masterwork, the work that outlasts our earthly lives, could be raising kind and loving children. I can cook a meal faster on my own, but it becomes about more than the meal when I include one of my kids. Finishing the tasks of my day unimpeded by sacrificial love can feel like winning, but is it really a victory to gain the world and lose my soul?

It always astounds me that God chooses to accomplish His work on this earth in relationships with humans. We surely slow things down with our broken-down detours and gasping lack of faith, with our constant need for reinforcement and refinement, but not only does God choose to work through us, He wills that we should work with each other. He calls not one but many to the table, and, often in fear, we constantly force each other to start over, wailing our apologies as we grind collective progress to a halt.

I watch Adam futily marching his pawns around the Sorry board–taptaptap, thinking how misguided I am when I miss that for God, relationships have always been the point of and reason for all my work–love for Him, love for others. The most profound way to sum up God’s will for us also happens to be the simplest in articulation: Love God with all your being. Love your neighbor as yourself. Christ called these the greatest commands.

So, I slide into a chair beside Adam and begin to pull another set of pawns from the box. He glances at me, pauses mid-tap. His eyes ask me why, as plaintively as pray when I’ve lost track of my reasons for doing.

I think of all the ways God still repetitively teaches me this lesson. Often now, in the late afternoon, drawn into reflection by the Holy Spirit, I consider how I loved God and others through the rhythms of my day, sometimes scrawling confessions in the open pages of my journal. But of course, such practices–so many words–would not work for my son. I drag my chair closer to the table, answering his questioning eyes with a smile.

“Hey, good job,” I say, as he brings another pawn safely home.

He shrieks with joy; He likes to be encouraged. I reach out and lay my hand gently on his back as I reach across the board for a card. Knowing me maybe is the only way he’ll ever understand.

“I love you, Adam,” I say, and I let him see the smile reach all the way to my eyes as I begin to play.