The Son-Rise Program

So I was watching the Discovery Health Channel this morning, and they had this show on about these parents of a severely autistic child. The kid was in his own world. He couldn't make any sort of emotional connection with any other human being. All he did was play under blankets, jump up and down, wander the room in a haze babbling to himself... He seemed unreachable.

The Parents felt like they had only one choice- give up. Send him away to some treatment center or home for Autistic Kids, where he could be controlled and contained for the rest of his life.

But then they found out about a program called the Son-Rise Program .http://www.autismtreatmentcenter.org/ So they thought they would give that a whirl.

Here's the basic theory behind the Son-Rise Program: The human brain is plastic and malleable, and can be reshaped. What you have to do first is relate to the autistic child on his own level.

So here's what the parents did. They set up a special playroom for their child, filled with all of the things their child could relate to, and that he enjoyed. There were blankets everywhere for him to play under. Plenty of room for him to wander around and babble. It was his own little world.

Then, they entered this world and interacted with their son on his level, doing his activities. If he played under a blanket, they played under a blanket right next to him, doing what he did. If he wandered around babbling, they wandered around next to him, babbling. But throughout it all, the first thing they tried to do was make eye contact with him. Whenever they could break into the middle of the play and make eye contact, they did. In this way, they created a human connection between him and them, under his terms, in the world he could understand.

As time went on, they introduced more and more interaction into his playworld. The kid loved it, and responded incredibly well. He spent every waking hour in this room. Eight to ten hours a day, the parents and volunteers would be in there with him, interacting with him, communicating with him, and little by little, drawing him out of his shell, until he was finally able to connect with them, and interact with them, and communicate with them.

The father said that throughout all of this, he had grown accustomed to saying "I love you!" to his son, and receiving no response. It had been that way for years. But one day, he said "I love you" to his son, and his son responded back with "I love you, too, Daddy!" To the father, this was the most meaningful moment of the entire program, the moment that made his years of play with his son in this tiny little playroom all worth it.

The son was interviewed at the end of the program, and he said that his life prior to the Son-Rise Program was like living on an island that had broken away from the mainland and drifted off. Now he felt connected to humanity again, as if his island had drifted back and reconnected, and he could now walk freely off of it and into the rest of the world.

As I watched this show this Easter Morning, I couldn't help but relate the program to another Son. But not one who needed to be reached; rather, one who was sent down to interact with all of his brothers and sisters who needed to be reached. They needed to be taught how to interact with their Father, on his terms, in his world.

So this Son volunteered to descend into their little "playroom". He spent an entire lifetime walking amongst them in their lands, talking to them in their language, relating to them in terms they could relate to, trying to teach them a higher, better way of living. Trying to draw them out of the tiny little island they lived in, and into a larger, brighter, happier world, one that was all around them all along, but that they were unable to see, reach, or understand.

This Son willingly submitted himself to the abusive behavior that some of his brothers and sisters leveled against him, pleading at the height of it for his Father to forgive them for the cruel, violent behavior they were engaging in, because they simply didn't understand. They didn't really understand what, exactly, they were doing.

In the end, after living amongst them, teaching them, guiding them by example in their world, and teaching them the principles they needed to learn to enter his world, after voluntarily suffering death and humiliation at their hands- after all of this, rather than declaring this "program" a failure, this Son rose again.

He completed the "program" by loving them enough to come back to them again, to take up his mortal body once again and show them, in terms they truly couldn't yet understand, the limitless possibilities that were open to them if they followed his teachings and example. After telling them countless times, and showing them countless times, how much he and his Father loved them, this Son came back to them once again after death to show them the limitlessness of this love.

Prior to leaving them once again after this resurrection, this Son had a meaningful moment of his own with one of the "volunteers" he had found to work amongst these children. Sitting on the shores of the sea of Tiberias, he turned to Simon Peter, and asked him, "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?" Three times he asked him this question, and three times, Simon Peter answered him by saying, "Yes, you know I do!" Then Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep."

In other words, love them, teach them, guide them, the same way Jesus did when he was here. Just as the Son rose, help them, too, to rise. What a great program. I can't think of any better.