The Sword of the Lord and Bagpipes

(March, 2012: Working on indexing/categorizing pieces I've blogged. Transferring this piece from my once-public blog, versions.)
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July, 2006: 47 years old. Winston-Salem, NC. I had prayed to God for exposure of what lay deep within my soul. A certain reunion with an ex-Way follower brought a journey into depths that I never expected.
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Here I was again. Sitting at the computer. Reading on GreasespotCafe. It had become such a part of my life after I'd left The Way eight months earlier. I had exited The Way without my husband and children; they had continued until recently. In that eight-month time frame the anti-Way forum, GreasepostCafe, had become my church. It was life consuming at times, engrossing.

It was so odd. Prior to getting involved with Greasespot, I didn't like computers; I didn't even like email. I'd written a funny Dr. Suess-like poem about that entitled "Ode to Email." Yet here I was with an umbilical cord to this damn electronic screen. Yet so much of my life had changed via the internet air waves.

I had just finished reading a post on GSC about "Do You Ever Think of Past Loves." Now I was about three lines into another post, where a person had shared about the influence of unresolved trauma as a cause for Bipolar Disorder. I had been diagnosed with Bipolar II five years ago.

As I was reading the 3rd sentence of the 2nd post, up popped an Instant Message in the middle of the computer screen. It was like one of those announcements: We interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin.

The computer instant message pop-up stated: "Hi Carol. It's Luke. I had to register to send this to you. I check on here every once in awhile, the Corps thread to see if there is any news about old friends from that time. I saw someone was looking for me. I had to read through a bunch of posts.  I figured out it was you.  It'd be great to reconnect sometime."

I was stunned. Luke was my ex-lover from over two decades ago. He had been the father of the life I had sucked from womb by a cold plastic or stainless steel medical vacuum. Luke and I had loved and laughed and cried, lived and moved the Word together. After around two years, our passionate bond was severed. Like that life in my womb, our relationship was aborted for me when I AWOLed from The Way Corps, the Way International's elite leadership training program. After my shameful act of AWOLing, I had felt unworthy of Luke, who was still Way Corps at that time.  Now he was no longer with The Way; he'd left close to two decades ago along with other faithful followers.

I immediately responded to the Instant Message. Luke was still online. We met in the GreasespotCafe chat room and chatted for a few minutes. We exchanged phone numbers.

I sat there after we finished staring at my computer screen.  Stunned.

My god. I had prayed for full exposure of my soul, but never did I imagine this would appear.

I called my psychologist. "Luke got in touch with me." My psychologist knew some of the history and significance of this event and whatever may follow.

He replied, "When do you want to come in?"
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