Writing a Neurodivergent Fictional Character with Luke Aylen

In this episode, Ian speaks to Luke Aylen, a PhD candidate studying theology and children's book author. In the episode, they discuss his book The Forgotten Palace, focusing on his neurodivergent lead character.

The transcript of the episode is available here: https://share.transistor.fm/s/4c1d67cc/transcript.txt

If you have any questions or just want to say hi, email us at [e-mail] or find us on social media @autismtheology.

Purchase the book here: https://spckpublishing.co.uk/the-forgotten-palace

This podcast is brought to you by The University of Aberdeen's Centre for Autism and Theology.

Website: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/cat

The artwork for this podcast uses the Centre for Autism and Theology Logo, created by Holly Russell

Creators and Guests

Host

Ian Lasch

PhD candidate at the university of Aberdeen researching autism and the Imago Dei

What is Autism and Theology Podcast?

The Autism and Theology Podcast is a space where we engage with the latest conversations in the field of autism and theology, share relevant resources, and promote ways in which both faith and non-faith communities can enable autistic people to flourish.

Our episodes are released on the first Wednesday of every month. We have a variety of guests who are related in some way to the field of autism and theology. Some are academics, others are people with life stories to share, and some are both!

We also release CATChat every third Wednesday of the month. These are shorter and more informal episodes where your hosts will share news and give you as listeners an opportunity to ask questions and share your stories.

Ian Luke Presadia
Zoe: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Autism and Theology Podcast, brought to you by the Center for Autism and Theology at the University of Aberdeen.
Ian: Hello and welcome to this episode of the Autism and Theology podcast. I'm Ian, and I'm so happy that you've joined us this week. This podcast is a space where we engage with the latest conversations in the field of autism and theology, sharing relevant resources and promoting ways that help faith and non-faith communities enable autistic people to flourish.
This podcast is run from the University of Aberdeen Centre for Autism and Theology, which we've shortened to CAT. [00:01:00] If you would like to access the transcript for this episode, it can be found via the link in the show notes. Today we have with us Luke Aylen, author of the Presadia Children's Fantasy Series and PhD student.
Luke, welcome.
Luke: Hi. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast.
Ian: We're thrilled to have you. Do you wanna say a little bit about your PhD research?
Luke: Uh, yes. So, um, so I'm doing mine, uh, through Aberdeen and Trinity College in Bristol. Um, and I'm looking at the, the sort of area and understanding of vocation and calling and what do we mean by that when we use that term in the church?
'cause it's a very popular term to make it slightly more specific because that's the broadest PhD you could ever do. I'm particularly interested in how the Church of England as an institution sort of has that within its strategy and sort of vocabulary.
Ian: Sure. A bit of a loaded term.
Luke: Yeah, yeah. Quite often.
Uh, but it's a joy 'cause it's, um, you know, as a writer I'm always interested in narratives and stories and it's involved doing [00:02:00] interviews of listening to lots of people's stories as they understand their vocation. So a real, a real privilege of a topic to do. Awesome.
Ian: Well, we are here to talk about, uh, book two in the Presadia series, the Forgotten Palace.
But before we get to the book itself, in the theology world, they say all theology is autobiography. And I suspect that's somewhat the case for writing as well, even when it's writing fiction. And I don't, I don't necessarily want to endorse the idea that people can only write their own experience or that authors or creatives can only ever inhabit their own life world and never imagine another.
But part of your. Experiences as a neurodivergent person yourself, do you mind telling us a little bit about your experience of Neurodivergence?
Luke: Yeah, absolutely. No, I think, I think you're totally right that, um, you know, I always think writing is a bit of a mix of. Personal expression and also sort of empathetically trying to imagine yourself in the shoes of others.
But, um, I think the neurodiversity angle within, uh, my books has, has, has its roots in my [00:03:00] personal experience. I think the Forgotten Palace was in some ways my sort of space for really processing. Journey of understanding my own dyslexia. I'm quite, quite heavily dyslexic. I'm mildly dyspraxic. There's probably other traits from other sort of neurodiversity that are in there.
'cause I think as with all neurodivergent sort of situations, it's, it's a unique blend. But, uh, the, for me, like growing up, I have always struggled with aspects of the reading and writing process. So it's a kind of a great irony to me that I've ended up in, uh, doing a PhD and being a children's author, but in the same way that I think the dyslexia turns some aspects of the writing process into a more challenging journey for me.
And certain things just seem to almost be invisible to me or just take a lot longer when it comes to, to writing in particular and even some of the thought process. I think it simultaneously, my, my dyslexia unlocks a different capacity within [00:04:00] my mind when it comes to creativity, to imagination and, and that sort of love of, of stories.
And, and I think particularly that being able to, like I said earlier, that kind of empathy dimension. I think actually it's, um, it potentially helps me to enter into other people's experiences and to, to spend time because that imagination is so vivid and you know, you can never truly understand what it's like to walk in other shoes, but.
But that, I think it seems like that's one of the aspects that my dyslexia seems to, to, to offer as a bit of a strength is. To, to enjoy the curiosity of trying to, trying to enter into those experiences a bit. And, and that second book came really after I'd kind of almost accidentally stumbled into my, uh, publishing life and the first book and this sort of extreme sense of, uh, imposter syndrome that I had doing that first book, thinking, oh my word, when am I gonna be found out that I'm, you know, not neurotypical, that I'm not, I'm, I'm a dyslexic and, and.
And so the book kind of [00:05:00] emerged in some ways, uh, as a way for me to process that. And Antimony, the main character of the Forgotten Palace appeared really as a very brief cameo style fringe character in the first book, unplanned. He must've sort of just popped into existence outta my subconscious, but he, he was.
He, he was so, he just so enamored me. I think I loved about this character who thought differently, who was just a bit different to the world around him and the community he lived within that I really resonated with him. And when it came to coming up with a proposal for the second book, yeah, essentially I was.
I was drawn to think I'd love to, I'd love to explore this person's story. And in the process, I think it was really an exploration of my own story, although Antimony's Neurodivergence looks probably a bit different from my neurodivergence .
Ian: i, I love that. I, I, you know, a lot of storytellers or writers say that the, that the, um, the story sort of takes hold of you and takes you places that you didn't [00:06:00] necessarily imagine going.
Antimony is a really great character. Before we start talking about the book, there's an excerpt that gives a little, I think, gives a pretty good introduction to part of Antimony and his, his neurodivergent experience in the, in the, in the book itself. Are you, do you wanna read that?
Luke: Yeah. No, I'd love to. So...
Ian: Awesome.
Luke: Uh, yeah, this, this is from quite far through, uh, the Forgotten Palace, and we cut out any spoilers if anybody does want to go on to read it. So this is about Antimony's experience. "Too many thoughts battled inside his head. Too many memories, replaying and rewritten, too many emotions swirling around in the tornado of his heart.
Too much noise, too much shouting. Why couldn't everyone stop shouting? Without a word, Antimony turned and climbed down from his platform. The too muchness was turning to numbness within him. He walked quickly across the ash and hot embers of the destroyed camp [00:07:00] towards the gap in the wall, away from everything he needed to be alone.
He needed to escape this, all of this. He wished he could escape his own head. Nobody wanted him here. He was different. Not a dwarf, not a human, not wanted. "Antimony!" a voice called across the burned camp. "Antimony, my son, come back!" He didn't look back. He walked faster. The numbness solidifying into an overwhelming sensation that went deeper than thoughts or words.
It crushed his heart. Tears streamed down his face. "Antimony!" the cry echoed again inside the loud palace, inside the low palace wall. Clear and piercing of the cacophony of the angry crowd and his own inner turmoil. He ran. He didn't know where he was running to or why, but Antimony ran faster than he'd ever run before. Down the Palace Hill and into the dark forest.
He took no notice of tree roots, bumps, bushes or rabbit holes. [00:08:00] Though he stumbled, he kept running. Low branches slapped at his face. They clawed at his body, wanting to drag him back, but he kept going. In the deep dark forest, the palace disappeared. The dense silence was broken only by the crashing of his own frenzied dash through the ancient trees.
He tripped, and for a moment he flew weightless in the air. The next moment he was sprawled in the leaf mulch, teeth jarring, pain shuddering through his body. Physical hurt did not compete with the wrenching agony he felt inside. He lay as he had fallen sprawled in the detritus of the forest floor. He tasted leaf mold.
It was cold under his fingernails. He lay in the muck in his whirlpool of emotions for a long time. Eventually, the shaking sob subsided, numbness settled over him once more. Tears continued to stream. Running down [00:09:00] his cheeks and nose, they dripped onto the forest floor, creating a musky damp pool of muck."
I'll stop there, but, uh, so quite an intense scene.
Ian: It is, it is. And I didn't want, you know, I didn't want to, you asked me if I, if there was a scene that jumped out at me and I didn't want to spoil anything for anyone, but this is, this is a really good and approachable. Not overly complicated description of sensory, overwhelm of, of meltdown or shut down.
Right. That it, that a lot of neurotypical, or I'm sorry, a lot of neurodivergent people have some experience of mm-hmm. Um, and I think could give language to kids who don't know how to describe it, right? Mm-hmm. But also for neurotypicals reading this, they might. They might gain some insight. So I just thought it was a really good description without being overly complicated knowing your target demographic.
It just, uh, it just struck me as, as a really good sort of intro to, to a fairly [00:10:00] common experience.
Luke: There's a, there's a common phrase in writing about showing, not telling. So to be able to kind of. Show a character going through that process can, can still communicate quite a lot than just telling someone what sensory overload looks like.
Ian: Sure. Uh, and while this isn't the point of the excerpt, I think that if you, that was wonderfully read and if you end up doing an audio book, you are certainly qualified to do the reading yourself. Before we start talking more about the Forgotten Palace, I want to back up just a minute, because the first book of the Presadia series, The Mirror and the Mountain, was inspired by what I like to think is every Protestant least favorite book of scripture, the book of James, right? Um, kidding aside, I thought it did a really good job of introducing the themes of that letter. And it's interesting, it sort of lives in between analogy and allegory, right? It's this, it's this long illustration of the, the sort of overarching principles of letter of James, [00:11:00] did you have a similar inspiration for the Forgotten Palace when you set out to write it?
Luke: There were slightly different writing processes. The first book, The Mirror and the Mountain was really written a little bit on brief in some ways, connected to a big Christian festival here in the UK called Spring Harvest, where I was in charge of the script writing for a, a sort of an all age holiday club on steroids with, you know, professional actors and dancers and all sorts.
So it's, it's sort of quite, quite a serious production. And, um, each year we, we, we normally have a narrative. Passage from scripture that then we turn into some sort of production that unpacks the story for families. But the event was looking at the book of James, which is wonderful wisdom, but isn't a narrative.
And so what we also do with that, like many good holiday Bible clubs, is we rip off some area of pop culture and we'd never done fantasy before. So I ended up writing the scripts around a, you know, a made up fantasy adventure that unpacked the wisdom of James. And then I ended up suggesting to my boss, why don't we do a book to go with [00:12:00] it?
And she said, well, you write it and if it's terrible we'll get someone to rewrite it. And I dunno whether we ran out of time or it met the grade. But that was how the first book came around. The second book, I actually had a lot more freedom 'cause it was, it was, you know, after that first book had had done well enough that the publisher invited me to expand it into a series.
So I had a little bit of a blank slate in that I hadn't expected necessarily to carry on the series. And so the stories kinda came from two places. One, one, as I said, was this draw to the character Antimony, who I'm sure we'll chat a bit more about in a minute. But then as I was also reflecting around scripture, the, it's not really a direct allegory.
It's probably not as direct as the, the wisdom of James, but I was drawn to the story of Nehemiah and the building of the wall and the sort of the, the community gathering together and sort of against all the odds. Doing a, a construction project. So at the heart of the Forgotten Palace is this kind of an almost Nehemiah esque story, which if you read it, you probably wouldn't be surprised to hear that, that [00:13:00] link.
So there was kind of that narrative, uh, inspiration. And then I'd also been doing a lot of thinking. Around sort of difference and belonging and, and sort of particularly the role of, of where, where we soften are aware of areas of brokenness in ourselves or areas of sort of difficulty or struggle and how it's kind of precisely in those places that we encounter the grace of God.
So that was the sort of the, I guess the more theological theme that was, was particularly in, in in mind as I was approaching the book and seeing where the story took me.
Ian: And I think that comes through wonderfully. And we'll talk a a bit more about those themes in just a minute. I did want to ask, talking about Anini and talking about him as a neurodivergent character, which he, he very clearly is, if you read the book, when you set out to write this book, did, were you intentionally trying, uh, or, or thinking that you wanted to write a neurodivergent character, or did it just sort of end up playing out [00:14:00] that way?
Luke: So he, as I said, he appears in the first book, and honestly, I had not really. Set out, you know, intentionally to write him the way he ended up. But he ended up being, as I said, my, my favorite character in the first book, even though he is only in it for a scene or two. Uh, really it all begun with a bit of a gag about him basically being way taller than all the other dwarfs in his community.
And so I, I think from that sort of. Idea of the initial sort of, you know, physical sense that he felt different from the other dwarfs around him as I then sort of introduced him as a character and started writing him. I, I, I, I guess maybe I, I started channeling some of that, my own sense of where I sometimes feel quite different to the world around me, which is in the way that my brain works compared to how other people's brains work.
And, and so in the first book, there's. You know, really it's just, it's just the enjoyment of his personality kinda comes out and the way that he's, he just loves numbers and [00:15:00] connections, the two things he is really interested in. So he's, he's fascinated with all the very complex family relationships that go on between the dwarves and their sort of second and third cousins in different directions.
So, so then when I was writing the second book and I was, I was thinking, you know, where, where do I want to go with this? I decided rather than having sort of sequential stories that pick up where the other one left on and, and sort of carry on into the future, I found myself wondering, oh, well Antimony was only in it for a scene or two at the beginning.
What happened to him after the main characters from the first book went on there at Venture? What, what were the other stories that were going on at the same time as, as Book one in a different place? 'cause the books altogether kind of narrate a sort of, a bit of a seismic change in the, the Kingdom of Presadia.
So because I was then drawn to Antimony as a character, uh, it gave me the space and time to really explore and, and sort of flesh out more of what, well, who, who is he and how does he think, and how would [00:16:00] he be reacting and, and engaging in these situations, and how would he be interacting with his family and friends in the community that are around him in that experience of his difference?
And yeah, and as I said, I, I think maybe it's cheaper than sort of, um, you know, sort of getting an educational psychologist or a therapist to work through my own sense of, um, these things. So being able to explore with antimony what it, what it is to be neurodivergent became sort of a bit, bit of my own sort of personal journey as well, I think.
Ian: Yeah, that's, I, I mean, that's great. I, there's jokes online right? About men will do anything rather than go to therapy, but like, this is, this is I think a healthy way of channeling that. This the I idea of sort of exploring this story because it is. I, I think it can benefit other people, you know? Um, and, and particularly through the exploration of themes that are related to what it means to be neurodivergent and to feel sort of outta place and to feel, feel like you don't belong.
So I, I want to talk about a couple of those that have [00:17:00] come up. The first is brokenness, right? And, and what it means to. Hold brokenness together or to mend brokenness, mend something that's broken. I mean, you've talked a little bit about what, what inspired that, but can you say more about sort of how that became the theme and, and how you wanted to explore it?
Luke: Yeah, I think, I mean there's, it is become sort of a very popular image over the years. Sort of the idea of sort of kintsugi pottery, of sort of the broken pottery that as the cracks are restored and, and repaired with gold in the seams, sort of the, the very journey of the, of the piece of pottery. Is shown through the cracks and this sort of new beauty emerges, but also in the process of the time and energy that's been put into that process of sort of restoring and repairing, rather than really throwing away that that itself declares something about the value of... of the item. I mean, ironically now you get lots of sort of kintsugi kits where people sort of [00:18:00] deliberately smash the pot and repair it. But the original, the original journey of it is that actually know this is the, the journey of an item that wasn't intentionally broken but is, is so loved that it is restored in that way.
And so, you know, there's, there's, there's some similar imagery within the book that explores that. But, but it sort of emerged really out of, uh, a lot of my own theological work and development and, and, and reflections on, you know, what it means to be. Humanity. Uh, it means to be a sort of, you know, fallen humanity.
Who, who, who struggle, who are, who are wounded, who are, are, are often broken in, in lots of ways and are broken by things around us. And yet the. The way in which God is not in any way daunted or disgusted by that, but God's response to that brokenness is to red declare the value of his creatures through, through that graceful work of, of loving redemption and sort of restoring [00:19:00] us back into the fullness of, of what he has, has sort of lovingly created us to be. And I think that the whole sort of journey within the book was really to sort of declare that, you know, that journey of restoration doesn't just obliterate and ignore the, the journey that we've been on. It's actually, it's within the, it's within the experiences of brokenness, within the journeys of brokenness that God's grace is revealed.
God's grace is sort of shown most fully. And so where sometimes. Often it feels like there's a lot of shame or it can be very distressing to like reflect on those broken parts of ourselves. I think what I wanted to bring out for the book is the way in which, when we, when we consider those in the light of God's love, uh, you know, hopefully I do this not too on the nose, and it's a bit more subtlely within story, but when we consider those things in the light of God's love, they, they are beautiful affirmations of value. And I, I think all of my books really in this series, all stem a little bit outta a, a, a comment that [00:20:00] one of my theology lecturers used to say in my undergrad, which was, if you can't explain your theology to a 5-year-old, do you really understand it? Uh, and so I think I've just taken in very literally, and, and so the children's books have been a way to kind of explore big themes like doctrines of grace and fallenness, but in a way which is is lighthearted enough and, and, and simply enough communicated and engaging enough, communicated that, that a child can, can kind of grasp what I'm wanting to say about it. So yeah, it, my theology and my creative writing are kind of quite woven together and, and, and a lot of people who read the books aren't coming from a Christian background.
Most of the books that I sell, I sell often when I'm going to like, sort of normal schools and doing talks on dyslexia. But it's amazing how, particularly that second book. I've had quite a lot of comments back of people who sort of said, oh, this, this spoke very deeply. And, and a lot of adults too. This has spoken very deeply to an experience of either brokenness or, or feeling on the outside or, or [00:21:00] shame or things like that.
So that's, that's been a big encouragement to me really.
Ian: I think, I think our approach so often, I, I, I love the way that the book conveys this because our approach so often is to say, you know, to say disability is not brokenness. And I agree with that wholeheartedly, but the way that the book treats it is, is gentle enough that I think the message you can come away with is even if you find yourself feeling as though you're broken, who cares, right? Not, I mean, not that it doesn't matter at all, but it doesn't matter to God and, and you are still a beautiful creature of God, right? A beloved child of God. Yeah.
Luke: I think for all of my characters, really, one of the things I kind of want to say often is that difference isn't brokenness. Like we are just different.
And that's, that can be a very beautiful thing. But regardless of what our unique blended differences is, there will be things which are, you know, which are painful or broken or where we feel wounded. And so it's kind of, and actually sometimes we look at the things which are really different in ourselves, and [00:22:00] we think it's brokenness because of what we've heard or experienced from the world around us, or the way that that's maybe.
Caused us some, some separation or trouble, um, from our, from our communities. And so it's sort of saying, you know, whether it's a actual brokenness or whether it's even just that sort of perceived brokenness of things like actually God, you know, grace can meet us in all of that. And, and the kind of antidote to all of it, I think is, is that kind of the affirmation of.
Of love and, and belonging. Which, which, which speaks into those places.
Ian: Yeah. And when you, when you introduce that idea of brokenness and just a, a couple minutes ago you said the, those places where we feel broken or, or we are, we've been broken by the world, or something along those lines. And so it's even consistent with like a social model of disability where yes, maybe we are broken in the sense that we are, we are treated as less than we are, we are isolated or exiled or pushed to the margins by virtue of being, being different or being [00:23:00] disabled. So it's just, it, it, I, I think it's. This is a hard, this is a hard topic to deal with simply and in a way that that kids can understand. And I think that comes across really well in the book.
We, we've also talked about belonging and inclusion on this podcast. Uh, it's a, it's a big's sort of one of the overarching issues around autism and theology around neurodivergence and disability and theology. Um, and there's a quote from the book that I really appreciated. Particularly because we talk so frequently about it.
At one point you have a character who says, "if belonging is being the same as everyone else, then none of us belongs." And I think it hit me because I've just never heard it explained so quite so straightforwardly. But it was like immediately I was like, "yeah. Well, obviously." So you've obviously put some thought into that idea of belonging.
Do you mind talking a little bit more about that?
Luke: I mean, I think in the, you know, [00:24:00] considering sort of neurodivergence, uh, I, I think for me this just sort of spells the, almost the, the myth of neurotypical ness. Uh, like I, I just don't think there is this sort of. Standard of which everyone is, is this way, or most people are this way.
'cause even when you look at sort of, um, you know, so-called neurotypical people, the, the diversity of the way that their minds work and the strengths and weaknesses is still vast. And I think there, you know, it's, there's still helpful, very helpful reasons for being able to talk about neurodivergence and disability and, and these things which recognize maybe where those differences from the way that the social systems are set up.
Sort of significant that it introduces particular challenges, which we need to, to be aware of and to seek to kind of help around. But yeah, I think for me, the, both in terms of the brokenness and in terms of just the, the uniqueness of each person, I, part of what I think I want my book to sort of say is like, we're all in this together.
We are all, we're all unique. And that's a, that's a [00:25:00] part of the beauty of, of us and of our stories. And um, you know, sort of, I guess. Theologically, my, my thinking very much is in, is rooted in that understanding of God, God's decision to create. A diverse community of human beings, not sort of a, a single sort of type that is just replicated and cloned.
Like God creates each person uniquely with different gifts and different, um, abilities and, and, and, you know, and we're all in different contexts within the world, within society. So that sort of, I guess that affirmation of the, the uniqueness of each person for me is. Is, is really important when it then comes to understanding what it is to kind of exist in community and, and to be belonging in community.
And to be belonging in, in community is, is equally important as it goes back the other way. I think that's sort of the relationship between each unique individual and their place within the, the community of humanity and the particular [00:26:00] communities that they're a part of within that sort of more locally is, um, is really significant.
And, and I guess, um. Yeah, I, I think one of the things which, which. Distresses me in which I've, I've felt, as I mentioned, you know, my imposter syndrome, uh, that I experienced in writing. The, the previous book that I want to, to call out culturally and that I want to seek to, to, to, to offer a, you know, a challenge to culturally is that idea of sort of, uh, forcing a conformity, which actually doesn't fit anyone. Uh, so it's not even a one size fits all. It's a one size fits none. But for some that becomes, it's so, it's such a challenge to try and conform to that, that it becomes really difficult. So I, I guess I, yeah. Part of my hope is to challenge those, those ideas of sort of conformity that that can become very oppressive and which often aren't really rooted in mindsets, which are about the flourishing of people.
But, uh, [00:27:00] I, I think sort of educationally, you know, the, the, the way in which our literacy and our math and things are taught is often to try and, you know, create good, good little economic units out of our children who'll be contributing to society. And, you know, that's an important aspect of education to contribute to society and to create people who will be able to do that.
But where it goes to such an extent that it actually becomes sort of excluding of people who, who don't. Don't conform to that, or it's unable to be flexible enough to, to acknowledge the diversity of the way that that minds are made and to help the individual gifts and nature of those different minds to be, to be nurtured and encouraged then, then I think we have a problematic system.
So, so yeah. So I guess that, yeah, that sort of sense of belonging taps into that slight sort of logging within me to, you know, challenge the system a little bit. So, um, maybe this is my rage against the machine.
Ian: And it's necessary, right? Because you're, you're talking, you know, a lot from an educational perspective.
I think the [00:28:00] same thing bears out in the church, right? Mm-hmm. But the problem is the church is voluntary, right? You have to go to school in some capacity. So even if you're miserable, you're forced to go through it. If you, if you, if the message that we send to people who don't fit, our idea of the norm is you don't belong here.
You are not beloved. You need to be different. Then why would we be surprised when neuro-- neurodivergent folks are so much less likely to be in church, right? It's just, it's, you know, I always think if there's one lesson that that kids should come away with in church, it's that they are beloved children of God.
Mm-hmm. And like they, that's the one lesson I need them to know. Before they graduate and before they leave and go out on their own, that's the one. If, if the church only teaches them one thing, it should be that right?
Luke: Um, amen.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think randomly that's part of his journey. Is it a big, big part of his arc really is around that [00:29:00] sense of.
Belonging that he finds in his community. And actually he, he becomes a, a, a, a significant leader. Precisely because as, as people come to recognize his, his, his particular uniqueness that's ends up being something very important to contribute to the world. And there's a line and. Within the forgotten palace, which, um, is rightly the start where I guess I, I slightly try and foreshadow it.
There's sort of a fun poem in the opening chapters, but there's a line which I often write if I'm doing, um, if I'm doing signings, which is shine out your light without fear, and that sort of affirmation that actually you. You have an important pass play. Every, every person has their unique, important part to play.
Uh, and if we are desperately trying to perform somebody else's part, it's probably gonna make us miserable. We probably won't be as effective at it, but also the church and the world is gonna be deprived of that unique gift that. That you had, and that will look so different for each person, and they're not, you know, you can't compare the value of each of those against each other.
I think we need the full [00:30:00] diversity of the body of Christ, which has made up of hands and feet and hearts and eyes and bits of hair and all sorts of stuff, like all those parts of the body are, are, are kind of equally valuable even in their difference.
Ian: Yeah. And you mentioned that poem. I love that, that that was one of the moments, you know, and maybe I meant to say this earlier, when I was reading the first book and knowing that the first book was based off the book of James, when it came time to read the second book, I was looking for scriptural echoes.
Right? So, um, knowing it's Nehemiah. That served as part of the inspiration. Totally makes sense. That was one of the things I was wondering, but there, it was almost like a fun seek and find game, right? Like there's all sorts of other scriptural themes or motifs or, or images that get woven in that I loved sort of playing.
Find those images and that's one of 'em, right? Shine out your light without fear was like, don't hide your light under a bus bushel basket, right? Um, which I'm not saying was necessarily the inspiration, but I'm flipping through and reading and thinking. [00:31:00] Maybe pulled this from somewhere else in scripture.
Maybe this is, and it's just, it's just soaked throughout. It's just, um, I just really, really enjoyed it. We are just about out of time, Luke, but this has been a great conversation. Is there anything, any last thoughts that you want to add before we finish up?
Luke: Uh, no, I've just really appreciated being on to talk about it.
I think I, I said to Ian before the, um, recording how, uh, I, I end up going into lots of schools to talk about things like di uh, dyslexia and, but it's generally often folk in the literacy, so it's a real joy to be able to come and sort of reflect a bit around some of those broader themes of neurodiversity.
So, um, uh, thank you for having me.
Ian: Thank you so much, Luke. It's been a pleasure. Reading. It was a pleasure and talking with you about It was a pleasure. The book is The Forgotten Palace book, two of the Persia series. It is a standalone. You can read it without reading the first book. I think I enjoyed it more having read the first book, although I'll confess I liked it more than the first book just because of the themes [00:32:00] involved.
Thank you so much. And, um, I, I think it's a, a real gift. For our listeners, if you have any questions, you can mess message us @autismtheology on Instagram, or you can send us an email at [e-mail]. Even if it's just to say hi. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks so much for listening.
Zoe: Thank you for listening to the Autism and Theology podcast. If you have any questions for us or just want to say hi. Please email us at [e-mail] or find us on Twitter [00:33:00] @autismtheology.