[UPDATE:  Both of these posts, Part 1 and Part 2, are now closed to comments.  For some bizarre reason that I am at a complete loss to comprehend, the comment spammers have fixated upon these two posts as the primary target of their attack.  I just got tired of dealing with this, so I figured it would be best for me to just shut the whole thing down.  Besides, I figure that by now, anyone who has anything worth saying about these two posts has probably already said it.  Sorry for the inconvenience.]

Today we have guest blogger Billy Phenix with us once again.  Billy Phenix is a longtime friend of mine who wanted to stop by and ask some questions related to a post on autism I did a while back.  Last time we did not get through all of those questions, so now we will pick up where we left off.

BP:  You write so well.  What is the difference, in ease, between writing your thoughts and speaking them?
 
JD:  The big difference is preparation.  I feel most comfortable when I am able to prepare my thoughts and responses in advance and express them the way I want to, instead of having to come up with something on the fly.  I can do well in a public speaking setting, where I have a speech that I have had time to prepare in advance, but in a standard social setting, where I would have to come up with responses to people on the fly in the course of one-on-one conversation, I don’t do so well.  For those situations, I have a set of standard responses in my head that I have prepared in advance.  But if anyone takes me outside of those prepared responses, I don’t do very well.
 
BP:  How has being autistic affected your relationship with God (for better or worse)?
 
JD:  The biggest challenge that I have had to face in my relationship with God is this deep-seated, nagging feeling that God does not want me as a part of His family, and that He is using the circumstances of my life to try to push me away from Him.  (I wrote rather extensively about this in the “Dear God” posts on my blog.  But before you go looking at those posts, be warned:  Those posts are extremely unfiltered rants which express some very intense doubts and fears, so read ONLY at your own risk!!!!!)

The one thing which has kept me around despite my doubts and fears is the community of believers that I am involved with here at North Point/Buckhead.  This community has allowed me the opportunity to engage and to serve in various roles over the years.  Within that community, as well as other Christian involvements going all the way back to my college days, there have been a few key relationships that developed when people were willing to come alongside me and accept me in spite of whatever aversion they may have felt.  These have included friends from college and people in the small groups that I have been involved with.  (If you want to use this as a plug for community groups, go right ahead.)  These people have modeled for me the love of God that I read about in the Bible, and allowed me to believe that such a love truly exists despite whatever I may be experiencing in my own life.
 
BP:  I know you are a University of Georgia graduate and a die-hard Bulldog fan.  How was the college experience for you academically?  Socially?  Spiritually?
 
JD:  Overall, the college experience was the best time in my life.  If I could set a videotape to start at the fall of my sophomore year, run all the way through the time I graduated, and loop back, and then just live my entire life within that tape loop, I would be very happy.  During my college days I was able to make something of myself through my academic performance and my extracurricular involvements.  During my college days I had margin within my soul–an abiding feeling that I was loved and blessed by God and that I was free to come and go as I pleased and to dream whatever dreams I wanted for myself.  (I talk about this as well in the “Dear God” posts.  But once again, beware:  If you read those posts, you do so only at your own risk.)
 
BP:  What are your goals/dreams for being a teacher?  Why are you so drawn toward teaching?
 
JD:  Part of it is that I just like being around people who haven’t been with us for very long.  This is something which has developed over time–or rather, my awareness of it in my own life has developed over time.  When I am out riding my bike and I see a campaign sign in someone’s yard which says “Accountability you can count on” and my first thought is how I would explain this to a child who asks me what it means, that is a pretty good clue that perhaps I need to think about pursuing teaching.  It also helps that I have people in my life–family members and close friends–who have seen the way that I interact with children and encouraged me that teaching would be a good thing for me to pursue.

Another part of it is that I just like to have decisions made.  I do not like being in the position of having several options to choose from.  When I am in such a position, usually the pressure of having to make a choice causes me to just shut down and make no choice at all.  I knew that teaching would be a good possibility for me to pursue, because of the encouragements of others in my life.  So when I reached a position where I could pursue it, I wanted to just lock in and move in that direction.
 
BP:  What role has music / reading played in your life?
 
JD:  Music has been a lifelong passion of mine.  For most of my life I have loved to play or listen to it.  As for reading, this is something which has developed in recent years.  I read a lot of classical literature in my college English classes, but I never really had an interest in it until recently.  A lot of people in my family, especially my mother’s side, were strongly interested in classical literature, and I guess that DNA was bound to show through at some point in my life.

Well, that’s all we have in the way of questions.  Billy, thanks for stopping by.  It has been a pleasure having you with us the last couple of days.  Feel free to drop in anytime.