"Temple Grandin"...Must see!

You need to see the HBO biography titled "Temple Grandin".

The other night I watched this movie by myself. I watched it again with Eric and Jodie yesterday. I will probably watch it again and again.

Autism is something we all know something about. This movie allows you to actually experience autism through the eyes of Temple Grandin, a very high functioning autistic woman.

Movies about the disabled follow a pretty standard mold. Begin with the hopeless diagnosis of whatever disability, show the trials and the efforts to overcome...more hopelessness. In the end, meaning is found, hope is realized.

For some of us disabled persons who are less accomplished, these “perspirational” movies can be a downer sometimes. We know the hopelessness, the trials to overcome, but we have not all found the meaning and realized the hope.

This movie mostly fits this model, but the greatness of this story is the blurriness in the line between Temple's greatest hopelessness and hope. The women whose great image-driven mind designed a more humane way to handle cattle (over half the slaughterhouses in the country use Temple's design) is the same women who freezes at the sight of automatic doors at the grocery store, and who cannot deal with human touch.

Eric commented that Temple's greatest ability came from her disability. That is what struck me as well.

I don't want to give away much of the movie to you because I want you to see it.

I feel that Temple Grandin and this wonderful movie about her shows how our biggest disability, our most glaring foible, our deepest hopelessness might be the doorway to realizing our greatest achievement.

If we can realize this about ourselves, and if we can, with the help of God, begin to realize the potential of other people around us, maybe this world will be a better place.

Perhaps this is part of what Jesus was getting at when He said to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.