Click here to read about an introduction to memoir: Journey through Memoir: Introduction .
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I sat, cross-legged, on our king-sized tube water bed. The bed that has ten 80-pound tubes filled with water that lie lengthwise within a mattress typed boxed enclosure. The bed we bought in 1988 when we lived in Hickory in that small townhouse near Lenoir-Rhyne College. The bed we bought when our daughter was a baby and we had decided to incorporate what is known as "the family bed" into our child-rearing; an approach we didn't advertise as it, like homeschooling, wouldn't have been looked upon with approval in The Way.
But now it was 2009. My daughter was 21 years old; no longer an infant. The bed was no longer in the small townhouse near Lenoir Rhyne in Hickory, but had been moved a total of six times to three different cities in North Carolina. It now resided in our tri-level home in Winston-Salem. It moved to the tri-level in July of 2003.
Now, in 2009, I sat, endeavoring as I had for the past three years, to recall what year it was when I first searched for The Way International on the internet and found the website with a clever name that attracted my attention - Greasespot Cafe or GSC. Greasespot Cafe, the anti-Way/ex-Way online site that discusses 'the other side of the story' of The Way International. Greasespot, mockingly named after a phrase the second President of The Way used to herald forth with God's ordained authority. Something like, "If a believer leaves the Household of The Way, that man or woman walks out from under God's umbrella of protection. God won't spit in their direction. Their lives will be a greasespot by midnight." He certainly had swallowed his own words. I feel for the the man; a perpetrator and a victim used by the org and then, apparently, tossed aside.
If I could recall what house we were living in when I first came across Greasespot on the web; if I could just recall that, I could place the year I found GSC. I've thought it was 2002 or 2003, but was it earlier? What house were we living in? Between 1997 and 2003, our family of four moved five different times; five times within seven years. By the fifth move I was burnt out; it was hard for me to remember where things were placed and stored in the various houses.
Did I first come upon GSC at our first residence in Winston, in the condo at Forest Oaks? We moved into that condo December 31, 1999, bringing in the millenium with all our Y-2K survival boxes packed separately.
At the Forest Oaks condo, the computer was located in my son's room upstairs. I liked his room. I could sit on the top bunk and look out over rooftops. The townhouse condo was located on an incline toward the front section of the community behind which were more condominiums and to the right a fairly new development of brick homes with roofs sloping at various angles, treetops meandering between the rooftops. I could see both the condo community and the housing development out my son's window, from his top bunk. It brought me comfort, a peaceful feeling. In my mind's eye I could see Dick Van Dyke as Bert, the chimney sweep, singing and dancing across British rooftops to Chim-Chiminey in the musical Mary Poppins, though these southern US rooftops were geographically far from Britain.
Was it in that upstairs bedroom where I first searched the web for The Way International, knowing that as believers we had been instructed to stay away from critical sites on the internet? Since the first split in the Way in the latter 80s, splinter groups had sprung up led by jealous, egotistical, deluded, or power-hungry men who were once faithful to the Household. In the late 80s and early 90s I'd heard the home fellowships run by these false leaders referred to as "Sticks." Home fellowships in The Way at that time were known as "Twigs." Twigs were alive and bared fruit; sticks were dead, good only for firewood. By 2003 there had been more splinter groups pop up, but I knew very little about them. Sometime in the mid-90s, The Way dropped the term "Twig" replacing it with "Household Fellowship" or simply "Fellowship."
In my son's room at Forest Oaks, the computer screen and keyboard sat on a 6-foot by 3-foot 1960's school table with three cubbies each on the long sides of the table. Six child-size, sturdy, slatted wooden chairs matched the table; one chair for each cubby. What a great table that was. Someone had given it to us while we lived in Hickory; at a time when public elementary schools was ridding themselves of real wood to spend money for plastic and metal.
But I really didn't think it was there, in that condo at Forest Oaks, that I first searched the web for The Way International.
The next house we lived in was the Westbrook house; it had been built in the 1920s. We moved there in the spring of 2001. In my mind I've walked through that house time and time and time again trying to recall where we kept the computer. Was it in my son's room again, like at the Forest Oaks condo in 2000 and part of 2001? Prior to Forest Oaks, we had set up the computer also in his room at the Lawndale condo when we lived in Greensboro. Did we do the same thing again at the Westbrook house?
For the life of me I couldn't recall.
My 19 year old son walked into my bedroom as I sat on my king-sized tube water bed pondering. "Joshua, did we have the computer in your room when we lived at Westbrook?"
He responded quickly and carelessly, "Yea, I think so. What are you doing today?" I responded with whatever was on my list for the day. He exited my room.
In about 30 seconds he popped his head back in. "No. It was in the office upstairs. Remember? The office space."
By golly! He was right. I'd totally forgotten about that space at the top of the stairs at Westbrook!
I could see it. We had one big conference table in front of the two big windows that looked out into the top of one of the giant oaks. Through the branches one looked down upon the rooftop of the house across the street. Another conference table faced the wall to the left of the windows. On that table sat the computer monitor and keyboard. Both tables were left at the house by Rick when he had moved out and we had moved in. He and his wife moved into a furnished place, so we got some of their furniture which we needed seeing as it was a bigger house than our previous condos. Plus, the tables are big and bulky and hard to move.
I sat at the keyboard upstairs in that old house and typed in The Way International. I did it secretly with a bit of trepidation in my heart; I didn't even tell John at the time. I knew I was disobeying. But I felt I must look it up. The guy at Borders that I had just witnessed the Word to and told about Fellowships was going home to search The Way International on the internet. What if he called me and asked questions and I didn't know what he was referring to?
It must have been 2002; for it was after the phone calls from Elsie and Lee.
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Click here to view the memoir index: Journey through Memoir (an index).
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