{"id":943,"date":"2011-06-29T05:00:08","date_gmt":"2011-06-29T09:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/simplelife\/?p=943"},"modified":"2011-06-22T07:47:03","modified_gmt":"2011-06-22T11:47:03","slug":"different-strokesdifferent-folks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2011\/06\/different-strokesdifferent-folks.html","title":{"rendered":"Different strokes\/Different folks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Shelly is a young woman in her early 30\u2019s.\u00a0 She is an avid writer.\u00a0 Some of her articles appear in our monthly newsletter,\u00a0Connecting Point, <\/em>her own webpage and as a guest writer for this blog. \u00a0Terry\u2019s passion is kitchen duty.\u00a0 Anything that involves dirty dishes or grimy pots and pans presents a welcome contest for her.\u00a0 Steve is stingy to a fault but he loves unconditionally.\u00a0 When his girlfriend became sick, rather than dropping her, he became even more devoted to her and her growing needs.\u00a0 Larry\u2019s girlfriend has been faithful for almost 20 year.\u00a0 Larry can muster up faithfulness for about 20 minutes, if she is in the room. <\/span><\/p>\n

People within the mentally challenged community are sometimes lumped together as though they have one personality.\u00a0 But they are individuals with individual needs and desires.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are actually three personality types usually designated to our population.\u00a0 The first is the congenial \u201cDowns Forever Child.\u201d\u00a0 She is petite and wears an eternal smile.\u00a0 Our Downs Forever Child (DFC)\u00a0is compliant to a fault and loved by everyone.\u00a0 She never gives anyone any trouble and is the perfect little person.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The second personality is similar to the DFC.\u00a0 He is Forrest Gump (FG).\u00a0\u00a0FG is tall and strong but shy and unable to effectively communicate with people but he is a sage with wisdom beyond his IQ.\u00a0 He can be greatly misunderstood but things seem to happen for him that are\u00a0wonderful because he is such a good, wise\u00a0and kind person.\u00a0 He is as gentle as a kitty cat and though people don\u2019t understand him, in the end, everyone loves and admires\u00a0him from afar.<\/p>\n

The third personality is the Mice Killer.\u00a0 He was\u00a0made famous by the book,\u00a0Of Mice and Men. <\/em> MK is similar to Forrest Gump except he cannot control his emotions and therefore you never know when he might snap off the head of his pet mice or a pretty young woman he greatly admires.<\/p>\n

Like all stereotypes, none of them are real.\u00a0 People with Downs can be cranky and stubborn.\u00a0 Forrest Gump isn\u2019t a great\u00a0fountain of wisdom\u00a0hidden in the body of a mentally challenged individual.\u00a0 And our population is seldom involved in crime, mass murder\u00a0or mayhem.<\/p>\n

The wonder of this population is that they are not phonies.\u00a0 They don\u2019t wear masks to hide their imperfections.\u00a0 Henri Nouwen wrote about his experiences within the developmentally disabled community and in doing so, dared the church to become authentic in our relationship with the Lord.\u00a0 We love to quote and read Henri Nouwen and his famous book,\u00a0In the Name of Jesus. <\/em>However, there are a few people I know who dare to live the Nouwen experience.\u00a0 There is a family in our community\u00a0who opened a group home in their house.\u00a0 As their corporation grew, young couples moved into the\u00a0different group homes and became a part of the mentally challenged community 24 hours a day.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Henri Nouwen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And there are others.\u00a0 We have many faithful volunteers who come and live four days out of the year within this exciting cloistered, sub-culture at our Camp\/Retreat held once a year.\u00a0 Usually they come from curiosity or concern.\u00a0 Some teenagers\u00a0come, dragged there by their parents.\u00a0 But they almost always come back year after year.\u00a0 They work and play and clean messes\u00a0and receive abundant love.\u00a0 They learn the rich variety of personalities within the mentally challenged community and they come back for more.<\/p>\n

Who are some of the most interesting people you have met?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shelly is a young woman in her early 30\u2019s.\u00a0 She is an avid writer.\u00a0 Some of her articles appear in our monthly newsletter,\u00a0Connecting Point, her own webpage and as a guest writer for this blog. \u00a0Terry\u2019s passion is kitchen duty.\u00a0 Anything that involves dirty dishes or grimy pots and pans presents a welcome contest for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":387,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5,20,3,40,49,16,8,4,41],"tags":[690,21,688,696,7,699,701,13,694,19,689,57,692,6,700],"class_list":["post-943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autism-spectrum","category-christianity","category-church","category-developmental-disabilities","category-faith","category-inspiration","category-intellectual-disability","category-mentally-challenged-community","category-simple-truths","category-spirituality","tag-autism-spectrum","tag-christian","tag-christianity","tag-church","tag-developmental-disabilities-2","tag-faith","tag-inspiration","tag-intellectual-disabilities","tag-intellectual-disability","tag-mental-retardation","tag-mentally-challenged-community","tag-prayer","tag-religion","tag-simple-scriptural-truths","tag-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\nDifferent strokes\/Different folks - A Simple Life, a Childlike Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2011\/06\/different-strokesdifferent-folks.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Different strokes\/Different folks - A Simple Life, a Childlike Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Shelly is a young woman in her early 30\u2019s.\u00a0 She is an avid writer.\u00a0 Some of her articles appear in our monthly newsletter,\u00a0Connecting Point, her own webpage and as a guest writer for this blog. \u00a0Terry\u2019s passion is kitchen duty.\u00a0 Anything that involves dirty dishes or grimy pots and pans presents a welcome contest for…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2011\/06\/different-strokesdifferent-folks.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"A Simple Life, a Childlike Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-29T09:00:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-06-22T11:47:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/simplelife\/files\/2011\/06\/Camp-Agape-2011-051_11-300x200.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Linda G. 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