Autism: The Musical

You can file this post under the category of "Things Happening Around Me That I Didn't Even Notice."

HBO has been running an amazing documentary over the past few weeks and you definitely need to seek it out. "Autism: The Musical," admittedly a title that might be a product of the National Lampoon, is the amazing story of Los Angeles acting coach Elaine Hall and her efforts to start a theater company comprised of children with autism. It's not as maudlin as it sounds. Many of these kids behave very much like normal children with usually one major handicap. One kid named Wyatt talks incessantly about the bullies in his school. Henry, who is the son of rocker Stephen Stills, can't get his mind off the dinosaur world. Adam throws tantrums and makes the life of his stage mother a living Hell. Neil is Elaine's adopted son and he never speaks more than one word. There are a bunch of other kids and parents that you get to know intimately.

You get to watch Elaine craft these children into the Miracle Project, a little theater company that writes, produces, and performs their own show by the end of the documentary. And it is quite good. This is most assuredly a captivating watch and I literally stumbled over it on the program guide with the title bringing me in for all the wrong reasons.

As I was watching the documentary, there was this brain-nagging everytime Elaine was on camera. The woman was vaguely familiar to me and I couldn't figure out why. Perhaps we had a brief conversation about plastic vs. paper at Ralph's. Or her blouse had gotten mixed in with my dry cleaning. And then it hit me!

She had rented space at my church for this theater company. And I had met with her numerous times regarding rent adjustments, etc.. Two years ago, when my pastor went on a three month sabbatical, another congregation member and I effectively ran the business of the church. And we met weekly on Wednesday afternoons at the very hour that Elaine and her kids were using the fellowship hall for rehearsals. So, we saw them every single week. And the only thought I gave to this group was that it was probably some afternoon babysitting program for slow kids.

Now that I have seen the miracles that were going on in there, I am angry. Angry that I dismissed it as something inconsequential. Angry that I could not see beyond the surface. Angry that I didn't take Elaine up on her invitation to see the final production. I simply took the rent check and cashed it every week. Without so much as a single thought about the wonders of this talented bunch of kids.

For their next year, the Miracle Project moved to bigger quarters. But, in the documentary, there is a scene or two that was filmed in our facilities. And we are nicely thanked in the scrawl at the end.

But I should have looked beyond that. A missed opportunity to share in some magic.

Dinner last night: Chinese chicken salad at Hugo's.