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TOO MUCH JESUS

December 2002

by Michael O'Connor

Faith: noun

1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.

2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.

3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance

The little boy saw me coming across the playground and called into the classroom. “Bonnie, your dad is here!” My eight year old daughter immediately went into her “hide from Dad” routine—not because she fears me, but because, I believe she loves the idea of being pursued.

As I reached the classroom door the young fellow had a sour look on his face and a problem he had decided to share. “All Bonnie wants to talk about is God.”

“Yeah . . . and JEE-sus!” another exasperated boy chimed in.

I understood their frustration but remained loyal to my daughter. “That’s because God is so precious to Bonnie that He is almost all she wants to ever talk about. Is there a basketball or a baseball player you guys like so much you’re always telling people about him?”

The look of disgust on their faces told me they had been counting on a sympathetic ear, to enlist an ally. This was not some private “War Against Jesus” they had brewing—for I don’t think they had any grudge against The Almighty or His Son. It appeared they were commissioned to fight “The War Against Bonnie Talking About Jesus.”

I had to admit, it was a cause I had seriously considered myself in recent days.

My wife and I have struck a bargain which has proven mutually beneficial over the past few years. Sally awakens about 6:30 and takes Bonnie to school each weekday morning when she is not touring. This allows me to sleep until 9:00 or so having stayed up until three or four in the morning writing. Each afternoon I reciprocate by picking Bonnie up from school around 2:30.

And except for the preparation of breakfast, the laying out of vitamins and school clothes, the changing of diapers for little Shannon who has joined the morning turmoil with her joyous vocal presence, the fixing of lunch and all the bargaining strategies this entails, the constant reminders for Bonnie to “Hurry up!” or she will be late, the epic battles between Bonnie’s long, often snarled locks and her hairbrush, one final check to verify homework is secure and backpacked—not to mention the deliberate psyching required of the conscious will before entering into the daily masochistic ritual of Los Angeles rush hour traffic—except for these trifles I feel Sally has negotiated herself a pretty sweet deal here.

On the other side of the ledger there is the one little payoff from which I receive particular joy. On days she isn’t hiding from me Bonnie rushes from the school room the moment I come into view shouting at the top of her lungs, “Papa . . . PA-PA!!!!” With the force of a lightweight cyclone she bounces into me as I am braced for the head-on impact. “Don’t huuuurrt me!” I yell in mock fear.

But Bonnie doesn’t have it in her to hurt anyone or anything. She didn’t even like it at first when Mom eradicated the crickets and ants which invade our house seasonally.

“But, Mom, those are God’s creatures you’re killing.” Imagining their tortured souls transitioning between this world and the next, Bonnie weeps for the insects in drama queen fashion for maximum effect. The feeling is real, the emotion often manufactured. Someday there will be a gold statuette on this girl’s mantle.

The thing I love most about picking up Bonnie is I get to be the first to ask how her day has gone. This has often been a time of sharing games played at recess and hearing how “Armando got into trouble today!” But lately there have been less and less of these precious details. In their place rests a litany of charges against classmates and injustices done to her throughout the day.

“How was school today?” I ask my middlest daughter.

“Not very good,” she is likely to reply angrily. “Michael teased me today and told me God is not real—only Satan is! I didn’t like that and I told him he was LYING!”

I have explained to Bonnie repeatedly that, from the beginning of time, boys have been placed on school playgrounds for the express purpose of teasing and taunting girls. It’s in their union contract. They can be fined and lose their medical benefits if they don’t execute their daily MTQ (minimum teasing quotient).

I share with Bonnie the one sure-fired method to get these boys to stop their verbal bullying. “Whenever one of the boys says something that is mean to you or a lie—you just turn the other way and ignore him.

We practice this technique several times. But Bonnie’s idea of ignoring someone is turning her head with military crispness, folding her arms with panache and grunting in anger at the perpetrator’s unkind remark.

I tell Bonnie this is not ignoring a boy. This is letting him know “You have wounded me deeply and I may never recover from this grievous injury.” At that point she may as well place a target on her back that says, “Open season—take your best shot,” because the boy got exactly what he was looking for—a reaction. Any reaction. I know this is true. I was once a boy and teasing girls was what made life worth living my first twelve years. I feasted on reactions and only left a girl alone once it was apparent my taunting was merely wasted energy.

Bonnie has an acute sense of injustice I have rarely seen in one so young. It helps her to understand right from wrong and, obviously, this is beneficial to her moral and ethical development. But this strong sense also makes her vulnerable. She is aware taunting is not a good thing and has a difficult time letting go of the event. Like a chihuahua clinging doggedly to a man’s pant leg, so Bonnie is able to freshly recount the individual wrongs done her throughout the day with little effort.

Part of this may be explained by her autism. The issues she grasps most readily are those which are black and white. It is in the gray areas where Bonnie often has trouble coming to grips.

There have been other reports. Her teacher, no religious bigot, was concerned how Bonnie brought Jesus into more conversations than, perhaps, He belongs in a school setting.

“Who can tell me how to spell “river”? Mrs. Olson might ask. “Bonnie?”

In this situation Bonnie might very well answer, “Jesus spells it r-i-v-e-r because He is the river of life.”

Certainly the answer was correct, but the application dubious as it was not imperative to draw Jesus into this equation. Strictly speaking, although the metaphor was excellent, Jesus was an inappropriate insertion into the dialogue. He was out of context, in this setting, in a manner which would have most church and state separatists salivating.

And yet, how could we get Bonnie to find balance in her conversations without squashing her bright, young spirit? Sally and Mrs. Olson agreed that, rather than shut Bonnie down when the mention of Jesus was poorly timed, we would all simply try to redirect her focus back to the appropriate topic.

Most mornings the first question out of Bonnie’s mouth before “What’s for breakfast?”, “Is it cold outside?” or “Did the Lakers win last night—and did they beat the spread?” is generally something to do with an all-pervasive Messiah.

“Why does Jesus turn over the table in the temple?”

“Does Jesus know if I’m naughty or nice?”

“What does Jesus call His Father?”

Perseveration: noun

1. The tendency to continue or repeat an act or activity after the cessation of the original stimulus.

Some autistic children rock back and forth or spin themselves incessantly to find their place of warmth, security, and comfort. Some hit their heads repeatedly against a wall or similar solid object. When Bonnie is uncomfortable and lacks a conversational gambit to open the door of communication, she retreats in her mind to the safety of the familiar. Seven times out of ten this means she’ll be invoking the name of her Savior.

Is there a tape playing in her head on some endless loop? I wish I knew. I believe her love and faith for Jesus is real, but—God help me—like the kids in Bonnie’s class there are days I get tired of her Jesus talk too and shut her down rather unkindly. “I’m not going to answer your Jesus questions right now,” I tell her. “Maybe later.”

Is He live in her heart—or is He Memorex? The actual answer—and it’s probably both—is painful enough to make a parent want to avoid the question altogether.

Recently I had a conversation with Sally. I was wondering out loud whether we should forbid Bonnie to talk about Jesus in school. Maybe, just for a while, I reasoned—until she learns more about appropriate time and place.

I worry the invocation of Jesus at every lunchtime, every lesson, and every recess keeps her separate among her peers. I don’t know an adult who has anything but love for Bonnie. But, when I see her interacting on the playground, most kids look at her like she’s from Neptune. Even her mates from the special ed class.

Sally was adamant in her opposition to my suggestion. She reminded me of the many times God has ministered powerfully through a simple Scripture verse placed in the mouth of this young innocent. Deep down, I knew Sally was right. Who am I to stop the Lord from using her gifts? God sees the greater picture down the road. He knows the tributes and trials awaiting her footsteps through life.

Last week I was in the kitchen preparing lunch. My oldest daughter Dusty was watching a classic movie I had recently introduced her to on video. It was Jimmy Stewart’s Harvey. This film has a magnetic pull I can’t explain. I must have seen it at least twenty times.

Elwood P. Dowd is one of the kindest, most pleasant men you could ever hope to meet. There is one distinguishing characteristic which sets him apart from everyone around him. He is accompanied almost everywhere he goes by an invisible six foot, three inch rabbit who answers to the name “Harvey”. When people witness Dowd interact with Harvey they generally think he’s a lunatic.

I picked up the dialogue from the next room as the movie reached its home stretch. Elwood’s sister,Veta, has called in a psychiatrist who diagnoses Dowd as suffering from third degree hallucinations. He believes they can be cured by receiving an injection of a recently developed special serum—Formula 977.

Elwood declines the invitation to receive a dose of Formula 977 until Veta’s tears finally convince him to take it—for her sake if not his. She is tired of the shame her beloved brother’s antics rain down upon the family. While Dowd is in the doctor’s office, the cab driver, who conveyed Veta and several in her party to the sanitarium, enters to collect his fare.

Veta can’t find her change purse and asks the cabbie to wait until her brother Elwood receives his shot and is able to pay her. But the cabbie has his reasons for not waiting:

“Oh, no, listen lady,” the cabbie begins. “I’ve been driving this route for fifteen years. I’ve brought ‘em out here to get that stuff and I drove ‘em home after they had it. It changes them. On the way out here they sit back and enjoy the ride. They talk to me. Sometimes we stop and watch the sunset and look at the birds flying. And I always get a big tip.

“But afterward? They crab, crab, crab. They yell at me ‘Watch the lights! Watch the brakes! Watch the intersection!’ They got no faith in me or my buggy. Yet, it’s the same cab, the same driver, and we’re going back over the very same road. It’s no fun. And no tips.”

As I finished making my sandwich and the scene was reaching its dramatic climax I believe the Lord tapped me on the shoulder—as if to say, “Pay attention; this one’s for you.” Even though I knew this movie almost by heart, had favorite lines of Dowd’s I quoted with reverence (“Miss Kelly, when you wear my flower, you make it beautiful.”), I knew enough to put down my food and listen with new ears.

Veta picks up the last point and defends Elwood’s honor. “My brother would have tipped you anyway. He’s very generous.”

“Not after this,” warns the cabbie. “After this he’ll be a perfectly normal human being. And you know what stinkers they are!”

Ah, how often have I wished this beautiful, special daughter of mine to be perfectly normal?

Not long after, Bonnie was outside playing and Sally was talking with a neighbor over the fence. Without notice Bonnie climbed to the top of the slide which brought her near eye lever with the adults and spoke to the neighbor with unusual authority: “I want you to dream about Jesus tonight. He’s the Son of God. He died for our sins. He turned water into wine.”

With that said, Bonnie went about her routine of playing. But the neighbor appeared both moved and shaken. “Thank you,” she uttered quietly and then withdrew to her house. It is said that God comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. Seems like he took care of two birds with one stone through one otherworldly exchange.

Sally says Bonnie is like God’s wind chimes. Out of nowhere God blows through Bonnie to make the most beautiful sound. And I know she is right.

Metaphorically speaking, Jesus is Bonnie’s six foot, three inch invisible rabbit. Like Elwood P. Dowd’s best friend Harvey, Bonnie’s Savior is her constant companion in word and deed. Little wonder, like Elwood, she is only too ready to sing the praises of her unseen friend.

I will not be broaching the subject of toning down my daughter’s heavenly rhetoric anytime soon. Bonnie will have to find her own way in the world. I believe her road to personal relationship will eventually be graced with more flowers than potholes.

Until then, I will pray to the God who made us both to protect the beauty, innocence, and integrity He placed inside my little evangelistic whirlwind. Because she is the Christmas gift whose operationing instructions were never included in the box, extraordinary love and patience are required to unravel her mysteries.

But that’s OK. She is worth the time.

There are far too many of us in creation living under the influence of Formula 977 . . . and all too few willing to share their invisible friend with the world.

—Michael O’Connor

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