Not a joke. Watch this.

It might make you feel better. Don't believe me? How about NFL Defensive Lineman Rosey Grier.



FYI - Grier played with the Giants from 1955 to 1962, during which he led the team to a NFL Championship in 1956 and the Eastern Conference Championship in 1958, 1959, 1961 and 1962. Grier was selected for the Pro Bowl in 1956 and 1960, and was named All-Pro at the defensive tackle position in 1956 and 1958–1962. Grier was traded in 1963 to the Los Angeles Rams. He was part of the "Fearsome Foursome", along with Deacon Jones, Merlin Olsen, and Lamar Lundy,often considered one of the best defensive lines in football history.
(Oh, and he also tackled Robert F. Kennedy's assassin. Now if that don't qualify you for the man card, I don't know what does.)


Still don't believe me AND Rosey Grier? Read the post below. If that won't convince you, nothing will. :gcryingsmiley:

Woman shows incredible mercy as her son's killer moves in next door

She's a believer. I think only the love of Jesus can bring this kind of forgiveness. An excerpt:

Mrs Johnson and Israel are now close friends, a situation that she puts down to her strong religious beliefs but says she also has a selfish motive.

She said: 'Unforgiveness is like cancer. It will eat you from the inside out.

'It's not about that other person, me forgiving him does not diminish what he's done. Yes, he murdered my son - but the forgiveness is for me.'

Mary Johnson even wears a necklace with a two-sided locket - on one side are photos of herself and her son; the other has a picture of Israel.

Israel admits he still struggles with the extraordinary situation he finds himself in.

[H/T Althouse]

A few years ago we discovered that my son, Nathan, has Asperger Syndrome. I say "discovered" because we have never received a formal diagnosis, and we probably never will. (We're simply not sure that a diagnosis is something that is going to help him.) I think he was around five years old when we discovered his condition. My wife Brandi was a special education major in college, and she was trained in a specific type of therapy geared toward autistic children, so that certainly helped us pick up on certain clues in Nathan's behavior. As far as earlier detection, part of the problem for us was he was our first child and we simply expected him to be neurotypical. We didn't anticipate any roadblocks or challenges in his life.

Of course, as we all know roadblocks have a way of magically appearing, and there's no such thing as a smooth-sailing life of parenthood. During the past five years or so we've tried a handful of interventions, prayed for him like crazy, had the elders in our church pray for him, lamented his condition, and so on. He's now 10 years old and he's starting to mature, take on more responsibility, and figure out how to express his feelings and interact with other people (those things are often big challenges for Asperger kids). I'm not sure how much our interventions have helped, but I do know that he's made great strides in the way he relates to his younger brother and sisters, but the deficits are still apparent when he relates to people outside our family. I think most kids consider him strange, and most adults probably consider him quirky.

Building meaningful relationships is a challenge for Asperger kids, and autistic people in general (that's why one of the up-and-coming interventions is called Relationship Development Intervention). We've still got some challenges with Nathan in that area. He can sometimes not listen to what other people are saying, and he doesn't pick up on context clues (like rolling eyes or yawns) that might indicate that a person isn't interested in what he's vocalizing. And often times what he's saying sounds silly and meaningless (even though he typically knows what he means, even if we don't).

Of course, his silliness is what I so often love about him. Check out this email he sent me last week:

Subject: Outrangeous Bomb

I was thinking about making one that it is like this:

If it is a mile away from you,you will die.
If it is 25 miles away from you you will die.
If it is 50 miles away from you you will die.
If it is 75 miles away from you you usually will die.
If it is 100 miles away from you you usually won't die.
If it is 125 miles away from you you will feel some heat but not die.
If it is 150 miles away from you you will feel some heat.
If it is 175 miles away from you you usually will feel some heat.
If it is 200 miles away from you you usually won' feel some heat.
If it is 225 miles away from you,it will be fine.

That email is typical Nathan. He's preoccupied with bombs right now, and he's a fiend for numbers in any shape or form. (He first became obsessed with bombs when he saw The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. That opening scene where the bombs are dropping simply mesmerized him. He'd love to watch that scene over and over, ad nauseam.)

I've heard parents of Asperger/autistic children say that if they could wave a wand and make their kids neurotypical, they would not do it. Even Temple Grandin supposedly said that her autism is part of who she is, therefore she wouldn't change it. I'm torn between wanting a life for Nathan that's "typical," versus celebrating the fact that he's atypical and gifted in so many ways. Like many Asperger/autistic people, he's got an incredible mind -- a mind that can change the world. His mind wouldn't be that way if he were typical. Furthermore, he's probably the happiest person I've ever known; the kid is always happy and smiling. He loves everyone right down to his infant little sister, Evangeline. (I'll often times see Evangeline crying like crazy, screaming her head off, while Nathan is joyfully holding her in his lap, smiling like he can't even hear her earsplitting cries. It's very cool to witness him be that way, so happy and content with his little sister, despite her current mood.)

In the end I want him to understand JESUS' love for him. I want him truly, in the depths of his soul, as much as possible, to comprehend the breadth of God's love. The same God who holds Nathan in his lap, smiling the whole time. For my part I'll keep loving him, one day at a time.

He's easy to love.
Read the rest of this entry . . .

Crown of Thorns galaxy photographed.



[H/T Brandywine Books]

From Philip Yancey's Prayer, Does It Make Any Difference?, which I am reading slowly and gratefully.

During our trip to Nepal, a physical therapist gave my wife and me a tour of the Green Pastures Hospital, which specializes in leprosy rehabilitation. As we walked along an outdoor corridor, I noticed in a courtyard one of the ugliest human beings I have ever seen. Her hands were bandaged in gauze, she had deformed stumps where most people have feet, and her face showed the worst ravages of that cruel disease. Her nose had shrunken away so that, looking at her, I could see into her sinus cavity. Her eyes, mottled and covered with callus, let in no light; she was totally blind. Scars covered patches of skin on her arms.

We toured a unit of the hospital and returned along the same corridor. In the meantime, this creature had crawled across the courtyard to the very edge of the walkway, pulling herself along the ground by planting her elbows and dragging her body like a wounded animal. I'm ashamed to say my first thought was, She's a beggar and she wants money. My wife, who has worked among the down-and-out, had a much more holy reaction. Without hesitation she bent down to the woman and put her arm around her. The old woman rested her head against Janet's shoulder and began singing a song in Nepali, a tune that we all instantly recognized: "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so."

"Dahnmaya is one of our most devoted church members," the physical therapist later told us.

. . .

A few months later we heard that Danmaya had died. Close to my desk I keep a photo that I snapped just as she was singing to Janet. Whenever I feel polluted by the beauty-obsessed celebrity culture I live in - a culture in which people pay exorbitant sums to shorten their noses or plump up their breasts to achieve some impossible ideal of beauty while nine thousand people die each day from AIDS for lack of treatment and hospitals like Green Pastures scrape by on charity crumbs - I pull out that photo. I see two beautiful women: my wife, smiling sweetly . . . holding in her arms an old crone who would flunk any beauty test ever devised except the one that matters most. Out of that deformed, hollow shell of a body, the light of God's presence shines out. The Holy Spirit found a home.