Table of Contents
Prelude: You Always Hurt the Ones You Love 9
Foundations
Why You Should Read This Book (and How) 35
Diversity and Dignity 46
Speaking the Words 49
A Portrait of the Autist as a Young Man 55
The Neurodiversity Paradigm 63
Place
Living Maps 77
Autistic Culture Making 90
Riding while Autistic 101
Community, Worship, and Service
Autism and Church 109
Shining like the Sun 114
Service and the Spectrum 121
Dancing in Fields of Wheat and Tares 131
Writing, Teaching, and Learning
Autism and Poetry 139
The Insidious Nature of Bad Christian Stories 143
Beautiful Loser 149
Meaning and Estrangement 153
The Tracks of My Tears 160
Family and Identity
A True Name 165
Loving the Expanse 181
Peace in Terabithia 184
Spectrum Interviews
Interview by Molly 191
Interview by Jenna 203
Interview by Brian 209
New Directions
Falling and Autistic Representation 219
Therefore Let Us Keep the Feast 225
SEND and the Future of Neurodiversity 233
Acknowledgments 243
Notes 245