Since my sister has been ill, I have been getting to know more lay people in my congregation, and I am realizing how different I really am. Last year I was officially diagnosed with PDD-NOS a condition in the autism spectrum. Very little is known about Autism. However those who have it are characterised according to certain criteria established in the DSM Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Manual_of_Mental_Disorders, in the book mental disorders include things like mental illnesses, neurological illness, developmental disorders, learning disorders and more.

It is due to be revised this year. To remove some BS and likely add some more.

I also have been infected with HIV since my teens, found out in my twenties, and was on palliative care in my early thirties, (almost daily radiation weekly with occasional, pain medications, a half dozen anti-biotics and other drugs) when I started a drug trial that lowered the amount of HIV anti-bodies to undetectable levels. This allowed my immune system to recover, and fight off my cancer, and other infections. Today I still have some health problems but they are more like those of someone in their 60s rather than their 40s. I am proof HIV does not kill but lack of basic health care does. 

I am also a widower, having lost my partner 16 years ago. We were together 8 years. I was lucky to have met him; he saved my life in many ways.

Most of the people I knew in my twenties and thirties are dead.

I have had trouble with meeting people since, because as I have just discovered I have an inability to tell when people like me by their body language. I also have problems with understanding how people use language. I am learning a lot of ways I can accommodate for these differences, but that it takes time. In the past I got to know a lot of people by belonging to groups, churches until 1988, and political organizations fight for change. I suspect I was can at that because the things I was to do, and how to act were clearly laid out. (Mission statements, Rules of orders, Board Member Kits)

I spend a lot of times today with people who have expressed needs to me. All of my friends or people I spend time with (with the only exceptions being church people) are among the most marginalized or suffer from greater impairments than I do. Most are poor in Canadian standards. I am grateful for this because one of my impairments is being able to focus, and when someone has an expressed needs, it keeps me focus, and thus I am able to do things and learn.

I am also an activists speaking to groups about the global pandemic, and working for disability interests at school.

I read the Gay Liberation Manifesto, of 1970 when I was 17 and it stated that if we were all honest and open then homophobia would cease to exists, because it was only allowed to continue to people either stayed silent or lied. This Kantian, Boy Scout “duty” ethic was some I was also taught in church.  While the world said that “truth hurts” I was told that the truth shall set you free.

  I like to talk about philosophy or theology. Most of the people I help are bored by philosophy and despise theology or anything that hints of religion), and most of the church people I know are bored by philosophy but have an existence so different from mine, I think they have difficulty conceiving who I am.

We recent did a Church survey where the lowest income one could check off was under $40,000, (three times what I make) and  few members were in that level. However I am about the average of the churches members, and hold many of the same values.

However, what I believe about having AIDS and other people with AIDS is different then what many of them see and say. They see people who has suffered and lost, while I see people who have endured great ordeals and triumphed and I see strength and character. Church and other people see poor people, and I see people who have great wealth.

I see people who call themselves atheists or agnostics, yet who I see have great faith and righteous lives. I some Christians (particularly those who are the loudest about it) who call themselves believers, but have no God at all, or at least act like it.

I believe in the Christian God, and I know because of my differences I need to be in a community to help me grow as a person and be closer to God (or the truth, or right action)

I don’t accept many common truths, I am not sure if metaphysical reasoning is what counts, but I love to read it.

But what I believe is not something I can proof to you or anyone else, or even myself. But what I believe is the center of my life. I believe is that Jesus is my God (And like most people please don’t confuse a metaphysical God with a different kind). The example of his life and the message of his resurrection is that we all count. That no matter what others say to me (and believe me many have told me to let go and die) I matter. And because I matter, that means that all other people matter and are as deserving of the same basic treatment that I do ( like health care clean food and water).

Where other people see HIV as only a problem, I see it as a reason to do Gods work; I see it as a justification of my faith. I see that millions dies when we follow Gods like fee market ideologies, rigid fundamentalist religious beliefs, and instrumental reasoning.

So how strange or different does this make me? Or is it just all too much at the same time,and not just one thing?