Blessed Minds: Breaking the Silence about Neurodiversity

Foreword

The concept of neurodiversity is not new, but it is increasingly receiving greater attention as people come to view their own experiences from this perspective. On social media, for example, you’re bound to find people reflecting on their experiences or diagnoses in light of neurodiversity. While the idea of neurodiversity has gained more recognition in recent years, few resources explore the insights of the neurodiversity paradigm for the purpose of faith formation and ministry. What can the church learn from the neurodiversity movement, and how can the vision of neurodiversity in God’s good creation deepen our relationship with God and strengthen our care for others?

I’m excited to say that the book you’re holding helps us answer these important questions.

Emerging from the Autism rights movement, the concept of neurodiversity has traditionally been focused on the lived experiences of Autistic people. It sprang up as a rallying cry, asserting Autism is not a condition that needs to be cured but instead a way of being in the world that should be accepted and celebrated. In short, neurodiversity emphasizes the natural variation in the way people think, learn, and live in the world. Since the beginning of the movement, the term neurodiversity has been a bit of a moving target. People use the term in different ways in different areas of life. Ultimately, the gift of the neurodiversity paradigm is that it expands our understanding and imagination of the world.

In recent years, the conversation around the neurodiversity paradigm has expanded to include a broader range of mental, emotional, and behavioral differences. The concept of neurodivergence has become a kind of umbrella term, under which many conditions and diagnoses fall. To be neurodivergent simply means having a mind that functions in ways which diverge significantly from the dominant societal standards of ‘normal.’¹ While the neurodiversity paradigm vehemently rejects the pathologizing of forms of neurodivergence that are innate aspects of a person’s being in the world, such as Autism, it also recognizes there are some forms of neurodivergence that are undesirable for individuals, such as certain mental health challenges. While many people with conditions like bipolar disorder or depression see themselves as neurodivergent, they do not celebrate their diagnoses. What is important here is that we listen to how people understand and reflect on their own experiences. Sarah Griffith Lund’s expansive vision of neurodiversity, one that can include both desirable and undesirable experiences of neurodivergence, helps us do just that.

What Lund shows throughout this book is how people of faith can take up the perspective of neurodiversity and the concept of neurodivergence to understand the body of Christ in new and exciting ways. Lund is well positioned to write this book. She has firsthand experience, pastoral sensitivity, and a practical theological vision. It’s important to note Lund’s work is aimed at a particular problem: what scholars in the emerging field of neurodiversity studies call neuronormativity. This has to do with the barriers established when perspectives and experiences of neurotypical people—those traditionally regarded as normal—are placed at the center of the community. This is why Blessed Minds is so vital. Lund does not just teach the church about the neurodiversity paradigm or the history of the neurodiversity movement. She is teaching for faith formation within the context of congregational ministry and in light of the fact of neurodiversity. Lund’s vision is expansive. And what she’s focused on is a particular posture that the church can take—a posture oriented toward justice.

Don’t just read this book. Put it into practice. As you read, ask how you might create worship experiences that honor different sensory needs and processing styles. How might you adapt education programs to serve learners of all neurotypes? How might you transform your understanding of spiritual gifts and calling to recognize the unique contributions of all people? Use the resources in each chapter to consider what the neurodiversity paradigm might teach us about prayer, worship, and community. But before you continue reading, pause and ask God to bring to life for you this vision of God’s neurodiverse creation.

Michael Paul Cartledge

Princeton, New Jersey

¹ Nick Walker, Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities (Fort Worth: Autonomous Press, 2021), 38.

Welcome and Announcements

Welcome to Blessed Minds: Breaking the Silence About Neurodiversity. Please make yourself comfortable as we engage in this exploration of neurodiversity and spirituality together. No matter who you are or where you are on the neurodivergent journey, I am glad you are here. This book is written from my perspective as a person of faith who strives for justice for all, including folks who experience oppression and discrimination of any kind. My views reflect my beliefs and values of equality for LGBTQ+, Black, Indigenous, Hispanic, Asian, and other people of color, disabled folks, and anyone who feels their life is not valued or celebrated by the church and society.

A couple of brief announcements about this book. The neurodiversity movement is indebted to the Autism community, Autism self-advocates, and neurodiversity activists, without whom the idea for Blessed Minds would not have been possible. It has taken decades of advocacy for neurological differences to be included within the broader categories of human diversity. For centuries neurodiversity was associated with deviance, disorder, and, in religious communities, theological concepts of sin. It’s time for the church to stop traumatizing and spiritually harming people’s bodyminds in the name of God.

This book expands the boundaries and understanding of neurodiversity based on theological concepts of God’s unlimited, borderless, and unconditional love. Some readers may be uncomfortable with how expansively and inclusively this book explores neurodiversity as a spiritual movement. For undoubtedly this book challenges past and even current ways of thinking about mental health experiences, disability, and neurodiversity. It ponders where mental health realities might belong within the neurodiversity spiritual movement.

Moreover, this book shares stories about the origin of the neurodiversity movement, and not everyone agrees about how it all got started. The neurodiversity community is not stagnant nor monolithic. It is dynamic, ever-changing, and constantly evolving: movements move. Not everyone thinks the same way, believes the same thing, or has the same faith or beliefs or values. What a boring world it would be if we did! This is especially true in the neurodiversity movement. The information I have collected for this book contains stories about people whose views I do not always agree with, but I include their stories here because they are part of the larger unfolding, sometimes messy story. Important questions to keep in mind as you read this book: How does the story of neurodiversity get told? Whose voices are amplified, and whose voices are silenced? Part of breaking the silence means listening to the stories that have been forced underground.

I invite you to be open to this ongoing, expansive exploration of neurodiversity and what it means for people of faith. If something is uncomfortable for you, take a break, journal about your thoughts and feelings, and do something that feels good for your bodymind. Engage with this material in a way that is a blessing for you. Thank you for believing in our collective power to create a more loving, inclusive world for all blessed minds.

As a person of faith, I believe the neurodiversity movement is necessary to combat the stigma and shame that undermines the well-being of neurodivergent folks. Thanks to collective hard work in the secular fields of disability and neurodiversity studies, we in spiritual and religious communities can continue creating a neurodiversity movement that includes faith communities. This book invites us all to consider how the expansiveness of God’s love removes barriers to inclusion and calls us to make space for people with diverse mental health realities and disabilities within the neurodiversity movement.

Each of the following chapters begins with a haiku written by a neurodivergent person, followed by a faith-inspired parable created to help to honor the power of blessed minds throughout this book. These parables are inspired by stories of Jesus in the Bible. In writing these neurodivergent parables, I wondered what it would look like for us to have sacred stories explicitly about neurodiversity in the Bible. I also wondered what might have happened behind the scenes in the biblical stories, things that were not written down. I hope these imaginative parables help open your mind to ways our own sacred stories might give witness and testify to the power of spirituality in the neurodiversity movement.

At the beginning of each chapter you will find a highlighted listing of key words from the chapter that I hope will assist in understanding. Besides that, most of the chapters end with a story illustration and a reflection question. Engage the parts of this book that are helpful to you, and be open to God’s creative and playful Spirit as we imagine how faith can shape our understanding of the neurodiversity movement that includes mental health realities.

There are symbols to help mark sections of the book: haiku (heart), key word (key), prayer (dove), story illustration (infinity), and reflection question(question mark). There is a glossary in the back that collects all the key words from the book.

This is a book you can read quietly or out loud, alone or with your dog or cat or bird or turtle, with a friend or a group. Adapt this book! You are invited to dream and expand, to take up space and to be more fully who God is calling you to be and become. I hope this book helps you feel less alone. I hope this book helps you feel loved.

Creating this book helped me accept my own mind as blessed, and this comforts me, especially when I feel worried something is wrong with the way my brain works. Rather than self-stigma and shame, I am coming to a place of acceptance and even joy. I smile in my spirit and say that’s just how my brain works. I ask for the support and accommodations I need, such as different overhead lighting or further conversation to help me better understand something that confuses me. The neurodiversity paradigm has positively transformed the way I think about myself and how I interact with others. I hope this book inspires you to embrace your bodymind as blessed: God loves all of you, right now, just as you are. I hope this book helps us all love one another and honor the beautiful array of diversity we each bring into the world.

When I saw that my local public library had the book Neurodiversity for Dummies,¹ I took it as a sign from the universe confirming the time has come to create a new book—one I might have titled Neurodiversity for the Church. This book is also a movement of God’s Spirit, who is doing something new. Do you perceive it, too? God is inviting us to cast out the evil spirits of stigma and shame by breaking the silence and creating communities of belonging for people with neurological differences and mental health realities so that all minds shall be blessed.

¹ John Marble, Khushboo Chabria, and Ranga Jayaraman, Neurodiversity for Dummies (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2024).

Introduction

There is always light, if only we are brave enough to see it—if only we are brave enough to be it. I love these words by Amanda Gorman, the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, because they represent the hope I carry within me as a person of faith. Psalm 23:4 declares, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil. My hope comes from the light of God’s love that guides me through and out of the valley of the shadows. When we are brave, we can see God’s light. When we are brave, we can be a spark of God’s light.

While researching at my local library for this project, I came across the young adult book Rebel Girls Celebrate Neurodiversity: 25 Tales of Creative Thinkers.¹ And guess who is the first celebrated neurodivergent rebel girl? Amanda Gorman. I had no idea she was neurodivergent. Rebel Girls Celebrate Neurodiversity tells the story of when Amanda was a little girl and diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder. Amanda could hear, but her brain had to work hard to make sense of sounds. Certain words and letters of the alphabet were hard for her to say. As a child, Amanda found solace in writing poems.

Like Amanda Gorman, as a child I also found comfort in writing poems because it enabled me to create an alternative world where I felt safe to share my thoughts and express my feelings. Later, I found ways to express my emotions through painting. The canvas became a mirror for my mind, colors and shapes expressing the feelings I did not have the words to describe. This is what I mean by the phrase blessed minds.

Art, paintings, poetry—all come through blessed minds: minds blessed with abilities to create beauty, meaning, and human connections with the divine spark. Amanda Gorman’s neurodivergence blessed the world when she recited her poem The Hill We Climb at the 2021 inauguration of President Joe Biden. I also appreciate the openness of President Biden about his own neurodivergence, his speech condition of stuttering.

Thanks to pioneers like Amanda Gorman, people today are more comfortable than ever before discussing matters of diversity and difference, mental health, and personal challenges. Too often, however, there is still stigma and shame when one’s brain works in ways deemed too far outside of an arbitrary norm or when one’s struggles make others uncomfortable. Sadly, while the church should be a place of unconditional acceptance, differences and symptoms originating in the brain sometimes prove particularly challenging for Christians to understand. The teenager who can’t stay quiet and still in worship. The man whose comments in Bible study leave others scratching their heads. The woman who remains depressed, despite everything for which she can be grateful. Many faith communities count these folks among their members and friends yet keep them on the margins. People with brain differences experience discrimination even in the church. As people of faith, we can work together to help make faith communities places of belonging for all people, including people with mental health experiences, disabilities, and neurodiversity.

This book explores what it might mean for the church to honor the incredible diversity of our minds—neurodiversity. Our minds are part of our body, connected to our whole selves. Our mind and body are one. For the purpose of this conversation about neurodiversity, emphasis is placed on the brain or the mind because of its unique role in shaping our identities. Our bodyminds are united and diverse; this is to be celebrated. This book explores how the church can convey that our diversity is sacred, not shameful. It suggests how the church can bless the diversity of our minds as gifts from God. This book also claims that God’s creation of neurodiversity is vast and, well, diverse! From a faith perspective, neurodiversity includes all forms of brain differences, including mental health realities.

In my professional role as a local church pastor serving in ordained ministry for over twenty years, and in my roles as family member and friend, I use the following affirmations often because I know they are true. I place them here as a resource for you to use as a blessing. If you experience stigma and shame related to the way your brain works, know that:

You are holy and whole.

Your mind is sacred.

Your body is sacred.

Your spirit is sacred.

There is nothing shameful about your brain and how it works.

Your mind is blessed.

Your bodymind is blessed.

We all have blessed minds!

If you do not