The Forgotten Mission Land of Prime Numbers: What Autistic Children May Teach Us

The Forgotten Mission Land

 of Prime Numbers

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Autism. The word did not carry much meaning in my mind. Previous to my placement in Setanta school for children with autistic difficulties, I hardly knew what the handicap was all about. I reached the school on Monday morning, ready for a two weeks every day discovery. I was not to be disappointed.

    The school welcomes about 30 children, aged between 12 and 19 who have been diagnosed as "autistic". It is a school in the ordinary sense of the term. There is a set up of 6 classes of about 5 children in each, divided according to their learning skills. There is a precise timetable, an appointed main teacher for each class, a number of academic tasks to perform and usually an amount of homework given to each child every evening. Additional to the main teacher, 2, and sometimes 3 other adults attend to the class. This is to offer as much personal attention to each child as it is possible.

    The experience went on smoothly for me. Thanks to the gradual exposure and the permanent help and presence from initiated adults, I did not suffer any stress or anxiety about my activities in the school. Probably this has greatly helped me to feel at ease, to take my share of the tasks to be performed and to make effort at grasping what it is as to be a child with autistic difficulties.

    Surprisingly enough, there is no easy definition on the handicap. Experts have a list of at least 16 diagnostic symptoms such as difficulty to remain seated when required to do so, difficulty playing quietly, poor eye contact, echolalism etc. But no child would have the 16 diagnostic symptoms, and no two persons with autism experience the world or behave in the same way. It is agreed that "autism severely affects the communication center of the brain. People with autism find it very difficult to understand the meaning of words and gestures. They cannot express their thoughts and desires and everything around them appears chaotic. This is why they often behave in bizarre and unpredictable way. Autism can affect all degrees of mental ability, from those with severe learning difficulties to those of above average intelligence" (according to a hand-out provided by the school). It requires the assessment of at least three doctors to identify a child as to be autistic. There is no known source of autism, and there is no cure neither. However, social, linguistic and relational skills can be developed, and that is what the school is aiming at: to be polite, responding to orders, to behave in an acceptable way, to perform realistic tasks...

    I understand my role in the school as the one of "accompanying". Accompanying the children within their difficulties, accompanying the staff within its efforts... It comes to "being with", getting to know the people and trying to become part of the group and of the process. It is by no means easy. However, the easy relationships between the school staff and the recreational nature of the activities helped me greatly. At first, the children did not appear to me to as be handicapped, but the more I got exposed to them and to their learning or relational difficulties, the more I got the astonishing painful realization as to what it means to be autistic, and the amount of suffering it represents for the person him/herself and also for their close relatives. I see myself in the process as a kind of an elder brother, somebody the child can rely on, giving a sense of security and safety. For me, it expresses well the responsibility I have to get to understand the child intimately and individually, with its unique difference, strength and limitation. To protect him or her against his/her odd behaviors, but also to unconditionally welcome and accept, without expecting to change a handicap so much at the core of the understanding of his/her personality.

    As an example, let's consider Peter, a 13 years old child with autistic difficulties whose compulsion is to activate the fire alarm in toilet places. There is no malignity in this behavior, it is just stronger than him and he suffers about it as well. There is no use of harshly reprimanding or punishing, my role is rather to foresee the risk, (and this is possible only insofar I got to know him personally), and then to remind him to be careful while gently and discreetly checking with some other adults on what is going on when exposed. The adult/child ratio as 1/1 in such a school is justified when the nature of the handicap is fully understood. The feelings of helplessness in front of so much odd behaviors can only be met by personal and individual commitments of care and love to the handicapped person.

    In the book "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time", the writer Mark Haddon struggles to write from the perspective of Christopher, a 15 years old child with autistic difficulties. By the beginning of the book, Christopher tells us his love for prime numbers. Prime numbers is a group of very odd numbers indeed. First of all, they cannot possibly be described by a simple mathematical formula. One has just to choose a number and to take pains to divide it by all the possible inferior numbers to assess whether or not this particular number is or is not a prime number. Moreover, the very definition of a prime number is strickingly interesting to our topic: prime numbers are to be divided by nothing except themselves and the number one. In other word, no other inferior number can possibly be a defining characteristic of a prime number. In similar ways, children with autistic difficulties can not be defined by defining generalisations. They are to be understood as themselves, and not through comparing, identifying of distinguishing. What an autistic child carries in himself or herself, at the core of his or her handicap, can very hardly be found in another child.

    Let's take Charles, he is 15 years old. Very strickingly, Charles is found of washing machines. Each time he is left to himself, he either draws them or make imitations of them with paper boxes. He owns a full collection. One day, we had an outing with him and the children of his classroom. We went to the zoo and we had a great time and fun watching and commenting about the animals of so many different shapes and sounds and colours. Back in the classroom, we asked the children to draw some of the animals they saw in the zoo. Charles could not but draw some washing machines... Very unlikely would you meet another child like Charles...

    Autistic people, like prime numbers, are unique in their own uniqueness. They are marginalised and left out often because one can not think about any use of them. But prime numbers are bought by the CIA for the creation of secret codes, could it be that more often than not have we not yet discovered the talents of autistic people?

    The Church and Prime Numbers

    I am not aware about any biblical or Church official document on prime numbers, nor on autistic people. Yet, there is a longstanding tradition towards the sick, the marginalised, the handicapped.

    The reference point, never surpassed, is Jesus' attitude towards the sick. Let's consider some healing stories as presented by Mark the evangelist. At the difference of his disciples or surrounding people, Jesus seems to be attentive to the unique personality and need of the concerned sick and cares accordingly. He clearly distinguishes himself in this process from the expectations of the environment itself.

    In Mark 5:9, Jesus asks the demon-possessed man "What is your name?", that is "Who are you?" touching by this simple question the core identity of one's being, that what is shared by nobody else. We are at the opposite end of a healing "factory-delivery", whereby the rite would be the same for all the sick.

    More often than once, Jesus is nagging the expectations of his friends and his disciples. In Mark 5:23, Jesus is asked to go to "lay hands" on Jairus daughter. However, once he has reached the child, he does not lay hands, but he "took her by the hands" (Mark 5:41). The same thing happens in Mark 7:32 versus Mark 7:33. When required to "place his hand on the man [deaf and mute]", he simply "put his fingers in the man's ears (...) and tongue". A special care is provided by Jesus according to the special needs of those he meets. In Mark 8:23, Jesus touches the eyes of the blind man. Jesus does not welcom some of the attitudes to the sick as provided by his companions. They tried indeed to rebuke Bartimeus, the blind beggar, but to no avail. Bartimaeus, a marginalised prime number, is looked for and asked "What do you want?" (Mark 10,43). A quick browsing of Jesus' healing in Mark points at an astonishing fact: Jesus probably did not care and healed two sick people in the same way. Indeed, he provides the needed care very personally and intimately.

     But what is the present day church's tradition and practice on the care to the marginalised and handicapped people? There is certainly a great amount of commitment, probably unequally spread according to times and places, aiming at caring for the handicapped in general. Chaplaincies in hospitals, house visiting, sharing and prayer groups, institutions lead by the Church such as hospitals, NGO's etc. What is important for our purpose here is: are Church services providing an intimate and personal care to the sick people? The case of the sacrament to the sick is particularly alarming. It is not uncommon to attend special service whereby the sick people would be invited to take part in the ceremony as a group up to several hundreds. These can be tremendous gatherings of suffering, whereby terminally ill and sick people from cancer are placed along side aged patients and so on. All the different patients receive the same anointing, with the same words. I cannot help but think that this is a poor representation of God's care and love for his people, especially if it is the only place whereby patients may meet a Church's representative, as it seems to be quite often the case. There is a great urgency to (re)discover the unique place of personal and intimate care for the handicapped and suffering people.

    For one thing, Church' ritualisation and sacramentalisation could be more flexible, more attentive to the sick parts of the body or of the personality. Why not for instance imagine an anointing of the mouth for somebody having communication difficulties?

    Besides, could not the Church seek to provide something of this one-to-one attention as needed by children with autistic difficulties, at the image of services provided by the school? House visiting by pastors and appointed people is crucial indeed. But more than that, a special Christian or ecclesial guardianship could be looked for to benefit those who most badly need it. This is in no way new in the Church, but some old practices have sometimes to be taken more seriously. This is the case of God-parenthood, often a nominal function that everybody forgets about after the baptism event. A God-parent could be more understood as this elder brother or elder sister providing guidance and safety in ecclesial contexts. The Irish tradition has the notion of "soul-mate", an intimate guide or spiritual referent in the human and Christian journey. How much of this traditional pearl is still alive nowadays? The bottom line of this kind of companionship is the feeling it provides for being unconditionally loved and accepted by somebody else, in return enabling the person to access self-acceptance. One way of translating the notion of salvation to the modern person, is to articulate it around the notion of acceptance and self-acceptance. Our modern world is in great need of signs and people towards this aim. One-to-one guidance is in this respect a very precious tool.

    Sometimes, we have moments of prayer with the children. One day, Joseph asked me before he could pronounce any prayer who was my own guardian angel. I failed the exam by failing to produce any name. That was serious. How could I live without a guardian angel? that is without a specific, personal, unique guardianship within my Christian journey? The best responses to Christian needs may well be provided by the autistic children after all. A teacher saved the situation by asking Joseph to christen a guardian angel for me. So I received on that day the name of my guardian angel. I guess there is a number attached to it.

    But I will not tell you whether it is a prime number.