Krysia Hello and welcome to this episode of the Autism and Theology Podcast. I'm Krysia and it's great that you've joined us this week. The 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. If you'd like to access the transcript for this episode, it can be found in the link in the show notes. And today on the podcast, we have Leon van Ommen back with us, which is amazing. And he's going to be joining us as part of the Sacred Text series, rounding off that series, talking about the sensory Bible studies that he's done with Henna Cundill, Cody Crawshaw and Katy Unwin. So this kind of rounding off the series kind of ends really, really nicely. We spoke with Lizzie Peach regarding reading the Bible as an autistic evangelical Christian, with Mati Boulakia-Bortnick about Jewish readings of the Hebrew Bible or Torah, and Sofia Farzana on Islam and the embodied experience of experiencing what it's like to be at Hajj. So we're picking up on more of the embodied experiences through the sensory Bible studies. So welcome, Leon. L�on Thank you, Krysia. It's such a joy to be back here. Krysia Yeah, it is. It's been a while since we've had a chat, but this is going to be great fun. So I wonder if you could remind us who you are and a bit about yourself for people who are new to the podcast. L�on Yeah, sure. So my name is Leon van Ommen. I work at the University of Aberdeen and I have the great privilege of co-directing the Centre for Autism and Theology. Krysia And I wondered almost as a starting point why you decided to do a Bible study series on the census. L�on That's a really good question. Yeah, why would you do that? So maybe it's helpful if I give a little bit of background. So Katy Unwin, who is a research psychologist at the University of La Trobe in Melbourne, Katy and I have worked together on a couple of Krysia Yeah. L�on projects. And we work together particularly on the sensory experience of worship services, in our case from a Christian background, although we hope that some of our findings would resonate with other faith traditions as well. So we focused on Christianity. We went to five different churches. We did all kinds of measurements. We did focus groups with people - autistic and non-autistic people. And we compared quantitatively that there was a quantitative part to the study as well, where we compared autistic and non-autistic experiences of the worship service, of the sensory elements. So looking at sound, vision, smell, touch, but also proprioception. So the idea of where you are, where your body is in the room, kinesthesia, the kind of the movements and all of that. So we try to be as comprehensive as possible. And then, you know, you've done your research. You've got your academic outputs. This is what we do as academics. We need to write our publications, of course, in internationally, peer-reviewed journals. But this was a funded project, an externally funded project. And the funder had this requirement that we came up with some kind of a creative output. And from the beginning, we were thinking like, what if we could help churches to become more aware of the sensory aspects of worship? And then you can think about like doing a sensory audit or, you know, and you can find kind of audit things on the internet like an A4 with something. But we felt it becomes a tick box exercise and that would kind of miss the point. Because as you know, like every autistic experience is different, every experience is different from anyone in terms of the sensory profiles are very different. So someone might be sensitive to sound, another one not so much. And even then, to stay with that example, I know autistic people who love to go to hard rock concerts, which is incredibly loud, of course, and nevertheless struggle in other ways with loud sound. So just a sensory audit with a kind of a tick box form wouldn't work. So that couldn't be the creative output, we thought. And then we were thinking, OK, so So our aim is really to get people on board with the idea that the senses are important, A, for worship, and B, when you think about neurodivergence and in particular autism, that's what we focused on. So yeah, we kind of were thinking, how can we people draw into that story as it And then we were thinking, you know what? What if we create Bible study series and we aimed at small groups, whether that's your leadership board or your disability ministry team or just your Bible study group or your home group, cell group, whatever terminology you use in your faith community or your church. And so you can do that together. And through those four Bible studies, you learn about the senses, and hopefully that raised the awareness. And also you learn about like specific different sensory profiles and all of that. So we thought maybe that's just a better way of, yeah, again, drawing people into and raising that awareness around the senses. Krysia And I really, having briefly seen them and commented on before they came out, they are fantastic. They're really good. And I think for me, when we think about creative things, people always think about, we'll do some drawing or we'll do some music, but people don't necessarily think we can do something with scripture. We can make bring it to life. That's so fantastic. And I wondered if you could tell me also a little bit about the titles and the Bible passages that make up the series? L�on Yeah, sure. So there's four studies. And the first one starts with the creation story. God, and it's titled God created the senses. So we start literally at the beginning of the Bible, Genesis 1, the creation story. And there we think about why God created the senses and how we use them to learn about the world. And also, we learned in that study about the role of the senses in worship. The second study is titled, What are the senses? What do they do? And there we focus on the beginning of the first letter of John, the first chapter, which is a fascinating one, actually. And let me just read just the first verse, because that kind of sensitises you to how sensory things can be in the Bible. So that 1 John 1, first one is, we declare to you what was from the beginning, what we've heard, what we've seen with our eyes, what we have looked at, and what we touched with our hands concerning the word of life. And so immediately, like, so John wants to say something like, what he's going to proclaim. And he does that in such a sensory way. And just once you get kind of sensitised to that, it becomes so much fun to read the Bible sensorially, if that's a word. So yeah, that's study two, and there you learn about what the sense, what senses the body has, how the senses work together, and also how the senses help us to learn about God. So that is the second study. Then the third study is about sensory profiles. I mentioned that term already. So you learn about sensory profiles, your own, but also those of other people. And there we also focus on neurodivergence particularly. And we learn about how the sensory difference can make church difficult for some people, or particularly joyful as well, right? It's both. It can be difficult, can be challenged, can also be extremely joyful. The Bible passage there is that story after Jesus and Jesus's resurrection. The disciples go out fishing back to what they were used to doing, right? And they don't catch a fish all night. And then there's this strange on the shore that later they recognises Jesus, but not at the moment. And that stranger, imagine, just says like, hey, why don't you throw your nets at the other side of the boat? It's such a kind of weird story almost. Like they're professionals. They know what they're doing, right? And so, and then eventually they catch a lot of fish and they come to the shore and there's this little fire, the charcoal fire. It's like a BBQ, right? And it's their breakfast. Imagine that, BBQ for breakfast. You know, cool. Anyways, but it's such a sensory story again. And just taking one of those gospel stories and just try to read that through the senses. That is the exercise in study 3. And then study 4, will there be senses in heaven? So we go right to the other end of the Bible, the Christian Bible, Revelations 22, the last chapter. And there we think about the hope that Christians have for eternal life, and we learn about how the senses are described in the book of Revelation. And think about how this affects what we understand about the role of our senses today. So it's not a pie in the sky kind of Bible study and, you know, not relevant. No, actually, what does that mean for us today? So that's a not very short overview of the four Bible studies. Krysia It's such a fantastic rich kind of teaser for anyone who didn't want to know more. And in fact, as part of this, Leon and I are going to do one together now and almost we'd like to invite you to join us. So it's almost like an asynchronous Bible study, focusing on our senses. So Leon's going to lead me and I'm going to respond, but we will really love it. When you listen, feel free to put in the comments or e-mail us with the e-mail we'll give at the end any kind of responses you're having as you go along. So we'd love to hear your sensory responses to this as well. So I will hand over to you, Leon, for this exercise. L�on Yeah, thank you. This is, yeah, this is exciting. I've never done this on a podcast, so I'm curious. It's just for the listeners, this is not going to be the full Bible study. It's just we are going to take two verses from that last study in the Bible study series, Revelations 22. If it's helpful for you to read along, by all means, read along. But if that's not very helpful necessarily, I would actually invite you not to read along and just listen to it. And how we start this is I'm going to read this very slowly. And that's for two reasons. First of all, it helps some people with processing, especially neurodivergent folk. They can have processing issues orprocess differently. So reading it slowly might help, maybe in that sense, but also for anyone, I think. I don't know about other people, but when I read the Bible, sometimes I just almost rush through it. And cognitively, I will pick up the main idea. That's how I read my academic articles as well, right? But actually, if we slow down, it helps us just to immerse ourselves in, in this case, that vision that John has of the heavenly city, of that. future we've got. So I'm going to read it really slowly, and just think about all the senses that you have and how this passage might be sensory and how you would respond to that. Okay, there we go. Then the angel showed me, that's John, then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, Bright as Crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the Tree of Life, with its 12 kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Right, I'm going to stop there. Krysia, I'm just curious. Think about the senses. What kind of sensory response did you have? Krysia I think the first thing for me was that of colour, like the blue from the water, very much reminded me of some of a few years ago, my partner and I went on holiday to North Wales and we saw some of the lovely waterfalls and how blue the water was there. It reminded me of that kind of rich blue, the crystal with the brightness. But then soon as you started talking about the lamp, it almost added another element in around kind of L�on Yeah. Krysia the smell of lamps, especially where we've had quite a few, not so much where I live, we've been quite fortunate with wildfires on the areas in the West Midlands. But one of our neighbours loves to BBQ and there's always a smell of BBQ. So kind of thinking about the kind of smell of the lamp and that kind of thing, also then kind of help me and the kind of the tree of life, then you obviously had the kind of the leaves from the trees. We have quite a few trees. There's a massive sycamore tree at the back of our kind of just outside our garden, at the back of our neighbour's garden. And we got all the roots in our garden, which is a completely different thing. But kind of the constant rustling of the trees, which I'm really glad people on the podcast can't hear, that I very much can hear is the wind goes past. So it's a very kind of three main elements as well. And I was also thinking with the water, that the feeling of the water, someone who loves swimming, the feel of the water, not just how blue it is. So that was kind of my initial reactions to that. And I think It was the first time I've sat with that particular, those particular verses and picked them apart really sensorily because like you, I read and then kind of move on. I don't sit and almost what Zoe and Cody have said about �dwelling in the problem�. I don't do that very well with scripture because I just get distracted, but actually focusing on the census gives a really, it's given me a really kind of rich appreciation. L�on Yeah. No, that's great. And I just, see, this is why I love doing this. And because I hear all the stories, right? Immediately you're relating this to all kinds of experience that you've had. And the great thing is when you do this in group, you get to know each other in very different ways as well. Krysia Mm. L�on And also, it immediately shows how different people experience a passage like this when you read sensorially. For example, like, you love swimming, I don't like swimming at all. I honestly, whenever I can avoid it, I will avoid it. And so that Krysia Yeah. L�on that little stream or the river, well maybe it's not a little stream, that's how I imagine it, but it's a river of the water of life, so maybe it's much bigger, you know, it's bright as crystal. And I'm just wondering, like on a very hot day and you have that kind of river and you put your hands into the water and like, what, how does it feel? Is it a bit chilly? Is it Krysia Yeah. L�on really refreshing? Or is it warm and comfortable? You know, those are the kind of associations that I get with that. Or I love fruit trees. I love fruit trees. And just imagine either side of the river is the tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit. Twelve kinds of fruit. Wow. Krysia Yeah. L�on You know, wow, that's a dream for me, right? And what kind of fruits would there be? And I'm imagining peaches with the kind of velvety skin and they smell very nicely and they might be apples and they're very, you know, they're not that velvety skin. There's different, different colours. And so it's Krysia Yeah. L�on Very sensorily, and then the taste, just imagine the taste of those fruits, and then... The tree gives fruit 12 times a year each month. It's like, have you ever seen the blossoms of fruit trees? They're just so beautiful. Imagine that. So there's so much beauty and such a rich sensory experience. That's for me, that stands out for me, for example, right? Krysia Yeah. L�on And there's much more to discuss, but, you know, I know time is limited on the podcast, but you can discuss much more here. For example, the leaves of the tree are the healing for the nations. Well, healing. Okay, so there's wounds. How do wounds feel? You know, if you have a wound on your skin, for example, or those kind of things. So you can draw out a lot of things. And I'm, yeah, like you, I'm really curious if Krysia Yeah. L�on if there's any listeners who want to share their experiences, just of this little exercise. But yeah, so in the Bible studies, this is the kind of reading that we do, but then there's also more to kind of, well, what you imagine with a Bible study, all kinds of questions to kind of deepen the text and deepen our understanding of it. But yeah, this is the kind of way of reading. Krysia Yeah, and it's so great to be able to... have a go on the podcast as well. So I guess that's part of the essence of the Autism and Theology podcast is we have a go at new things and see if they work. And I wondered if you could let people know a bit about why they can find them, if they'd like to follow up on any bits or do a bit more of what we did today. L�on Yeah, well, the good news is these Bible studies are for free and you can download them from the internet. There's 2 places where you can download them from. You can go to our CAT website, Centre for Autism and Theology website. If you go to resources and then to downloadable resources, there's the Bible Study Series, they are called Faith and Our Senses. That's the title of the Bible study series. You can also find them at autismchurch.com. That's a website that Katy and I have where we put our, where we've put more of our sensory research. And soon, I don't know how soon, but soon we will post some more of other research projects we've done. So yeah, that website is a place where we, yeah, where you can find more about our own research as it were. So those are two places where you can find the Faith and Our Senses Bible Study series. Download them for free and maybe helpful to know, it's like, Yeah, it's like the layout's done nicely. I think Henna did that. And I think she's done a really amazing job. If you want to print that, that's quite a lot. But there is an appendix at the back for group leaders who want to share just the questions. And it's kind of condensed version. And so you don't need to print that many pages if you want to share that with your group. So that could be a useful thing. I don't know. But anyways, maybe good to know. Krysia Yeah. And I wondered if there was anything extra you wanted to share and how listeners, if they have any questions, could get in touch with you. L�on Yeah, well, you can get in touch with me by e-mail, leon.vanommen@abdn.ac.uk, or just by the CAT's e-mail address. I'm sure in the outro you will hear the address and it will be in the show notes. So that's how you can get in touch with the centre or with myself. Any extra events, any extra things? Well, maybe good to mention that we at the University of Aberdeen, we have an online part-time master's programme in theology and disability. One of the courses, and that course runs next term, so that's spring next year. That course specifically focuses on reading the Bible and from a neurodivergent or disability perspective. So if people have enjoyed these series on sacred texts and reading that from a neurodivergent perspective, that might be a course that they might be interested in. If you want to enrol in the programme, you can do that before the 6th of September for this year, or you can also start in January. So that's a little shout out for that master's programme. So it's the MTh in Theology and Disability. Krysia Super. And thank you, Leon, for joining us today. It was really great to hear more about sensory Bible studies and also to have a go at them as well. And thank you, listeners, for joining us as well. If you have any questions, you can message us at @AutismTheology on Blue Sky or Instagram, or you can send us an e-mail with the e-mail that Leon and I mentioned. kind of it would be in the show notes and also now at cat@abdn.ac.uk. Even if it's just to say hi, we'd love to hear from you.