last spring i went to taizé, france with some people from my congregation.
for those of you who have never heard of this place, let me try to give you some idea about what it is:

after ww 2, brother roger started a monestary (never mind the spelling on that one!;-) in the small village of taizé. he wanted people to come and live together, and to discover that deep down, we're all the same - a very ecumenical (?) thought!

it soon became a place of "pilgrimage" - especially for young people (who maybe are much more open to new takes on old ideas?) - and today, there are about 100 brothers living in taizé, and people come from all over the world to stay for a few days, a week, a month or even a year (as volonteers).
the life in taizé is very simple, and it's filled with a lot of interacting with other people, but there is also space and time for introspection.

i went to taizé after having been through the ordeal of being diagnosed with a rare congenital brain defect called acc
(which stands for agenesis of the corpus callosum [which means that the part of the brain that connects the two cerebral hemispheres, and makes it possible for them to "communicate" is missing/didn't develop in utero]. i have p-acc, which means the corpus callosum started to develop in my brain, but then suddenly, it just sort of...stopped developping.), and then later i was also diagnosed with adhd and add with asperger syndrome traits.

i had managed to cry my way through the shock phase, and i was just entering the grief phase when i came to taizé.

before, i had been my mother's comforter (because she had this enormous guilt - she felt *she* had caused me to have acc), and so i hadn't had any time to really "realise" that i was "different" from most other people.
in taizé i finally was able to face this reality, and i cried *a lot*, and i talked to God about this.
i kept asking "why?", and when i was done asking, and the crying had stopped, i *knew* i was meant to be "this way"...
this is who God wants me to be, and He wants me to use *all* that i am to make a difference in this world!

i came to taizé with a feeling of being "different" and "wrong", but when i left (a week later), i was "whole", or at least well on my way towards being "whole"!:yin-yang:

:cool:

Good for you Gabriela! You're right. God has something special
in mind for you. Have you read a book called "A Purpose Driven
Life". I started it, but haven't finished it yet.
I wasn't familiar with ACC. What kind of problems does it cause
for you? What are the symptoms?

Originally posted by lucy2
Have you read a book called "A Purpose Driven
Life".
hi lucy2,
no i've never heard of that book - who's the author?


I wasn't familiar with ACC. What kind of problems does it cause for you? What are the symptoms?
well, the doctors over here in sweden (or, indeed, in the world...)aren't too familiar with this condition either, so they aren't actually sure if the adhd/add with asperger syndrome traits that i have are due to the fact that i have p-acc, or if i would've had the adhd/add with asperger syndrome traits diagnosis even without the p-acc...
:dizzy:
i consider myself very lucky that i don't have any symptoms from the p-acc per se - some (most?) of the acc patients can't walk, talk or feed themselves, and are sometimes severely retarded...
:sad:
i "got away" with "just" adhd/add with asperger syndrome traits...
:confused: :D :yin-yang:

Gabriella,
The author is Rick Ward. It's a very popular book here in the
U.S.
Yes, you are indeed lucky. Although it may not seem that way
at times.

My mom gave me a copy of "Purpose Driven Life", but It's with my stack of yet to read books!!! LOL Too many to get to!