I have noticed a phenomenon which I find quite amusing, and also a bit unsettling, if I’m honest.

When Christians meet other Christians that they don’t know, there immediately follows a period of religious butt-sniffing, like dogs do when they meet.

The idea for each person is to categorise the other people into the person’s self-designed pigeonholes, so that they know where they stand. Are you a Protestant, are you a Baptist, are you Like Me, and for some, sadly, there’s even the attitude of ‘are there things that you disagree with me on, so that I must settle those differences by telling you how wrong you are, before we can ever get along?’ In short, they are generating ‘labels’.

But I’m not having any of that.

This is where listening more than talking comes in. I don’t declare my own definitions openly; they are mine and mine alone. In any case, I am Autistic and the standard pigeonholes do not apply to me anyway, because I am wired differently. And no, I am not using Autism as a label in its own right, because it has been my experience that even amongst Autistic people, they are all wired differently from each other. There is no ‘standard definition’ of an Autistic person and as such we are all different; all equally unpredictable.

It’s funny; I met a Christian man about 24 years ago who, when we did the religious butt-sniffing thing on him (I was different then!), he just stayed silent.

He ‘went’ to a particular church but it seemed like he was only loosely attached.

But a more Christlike man I have never met. He never declared himself; never showed any affiliation other than to Jesus.

Chad was his name.

I want to be like Chad.