I have been a long time follower of “The Religious Society of Friends”, otherwise known as Quakers. They just seem to have it right in so many respects. But I have always been reluctant to even try to attend a meeting, even though Philip Gulley, who is one of my favorite religious authors, is a pastor at a Quaker Meeting twenty miles from where I live. I would love to actually meet him, but never considered that a possibility.

Up till now I had convinced myself that deafness and/or Aspie traits, just aren’t conducive to silent worship, either programmed or unprogrammed. But then I just got an email telling me a Quaker Meeting (otherwise known as worship services to some) is a place of unmasking. In case you are a newbie here or just forgot what “Masking” is, I will explain that to you.

Aspies, and other types of people associated with Autism, just think differently than most people around them. So, to fit in, we mask, that is, hide some of our natural characteristics so to appear “normal” to most of the world around us. I want to tell you that masking is very tiring. Almost as tiring as trying to lipread if you are deaf.

To “unmask” as mentioned in the Quaker email, means that you can simply be you as your fellow meeting-goers will understand. (I want to apologize to my Quaker friends for using absolutely the wrong phrase here).

I will need to look into this further as I am not totally convinced that Quakers know what they are getting into. 😎 But, it would be nice to go where everybody knows my name, and they are always glad I came.