Colorblind

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I recall back around 1999 someone said to me, "I'm beginning to think that everyone outside The Way Ministry is possessed." This was an understandable statement for anyone who had been listening to the President of The Way shout and holler and clean up "the household" for more than a decade. I thought about the statement for a few minutes and even considered it. (*gulp*sigh*)

Then I responded, "I just can't go there in my mind. I cannot witness in love to someone while I sit there in judgment of them, thinking evil of them." I recall somewhere along the way (ha!) asking God to not allow me to become so very judgmental or bitter that I forget my own inadequacies. Did I (become that judgmental or bitter)? I'm sure I did in certain areas, and probably still do.

Recently I read a mirror statement from folks who have left The Way. Statements such as every adult in The Way is an abuser, a drone, asleep. When people determine such, especially after once having been involved in a group, I find it just as arrogant....to state that followers are abusers and drones and such, or willfully ignorant (as stated elsewhere).

Perhaps when people make such statements we are simply venting and don't really believe such blanket/all-or-nothing/black-white statements and labels.

Or perhaps I'm still blind in those areas, though I don't think I am.

In some areas I'm sure I'm blind or colorblind; I think we all are. Hopefully as we educate ourselves and weigh various information we begin to see more light; not to mention the exquisite array of colors.

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(btw: I'm not saying we shouldn't make judgments, but I do think it's important to remain open to other possibilities, to empathy, and to understanding. )

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"Who Would You Be Without Your Story?"

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"Who would you be without your story?"

That's a question I've read lately in regard to The Work of Byron Katie (BK).

I have never read any of BK's book; I don't know that I ever will. So what I state below is from a somewhat cursory web-searching overview of what I have read and watched regarding BK. I've read critics against and supporters of BK. I've watched some BK videos and read at least one BK interview.

I'll admit, she has a charismatic and drawing personality on stage. The interview I read was 'interesting' and somewhat bizarre.

Some of the BK approach seems meaningless, sounds like it goes in circles, and comes across as somewhat 'crazy making,' ie: calling things that are as though they aren't and vice versa. OTOH, some of it is helpful such as the importance of our perceptions on our health and wellness and the importance of questioning our thoughts.

When I first read the question that is the title of this post, my answer was, "I'd be nobody." That is still my answer to the question. That is who a person is: their story. Without one's story life is intangible and meaningless. IMO, one's story is to be felt, to be embraced, to be fully honored. As individuals we then decide how to embrace, honor, and relate to our stories in a healthful manner. Hopefully we give that same respect to others. Our stories are what makes life rich.

Perhaps what BK means by her question is, "Who would you be without believing your every perception?" Hopefully few people fall into that category. Or perhaps she means, "Who would you be without believing your perceptions?" That makes the question a little more answerable and palatable; leaving out the word 'every' makes it less of an all-or-nothing question. (That's another thing about BK's approach that doesn't sit well with me; it comes across as all-or-nothing and absolute. )

I'm intrigued at my own self, pondering this question posed by the BK approach to 'thought-reform', in a broad sense of the word (I think?). Perhaps my interest lies in my own experiences of group think and in learning again what and who my self really is.

&~&~&~&~&~&~&~&~&~&~&

Janaki was a close associate of Byron Katie for 12 years and helped open up Europe to BK's work. Here is Janaki's story: Byron Katie & Janaki
(As of mid-January, 2010, Janaki decided to delete her story. However the link gives an email address where one can contact Janaki.)

Realization.org ~ An interview with BK

Discussions regarding BK and The Work:
Rick Ross Forum:  Byron Katie (The Work) and Eckhart Tolle Legit???
Guruphiliac Forum:  Byron Katie - Is The Work a destructive cult?
dhammaleaves: Critique of Byron Katie

Byron Katie International's official site and forum:
Official Site: The Work of Byron Katie
Discussion Forums:  The Institute for the Work
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Guru Thought: Ability

What is a "guru thought?" For me, it is something I write in my 'guru thought journal,' a place where I tap my own thoughts and be my own best guru, so to speak. That doesn't mean every thought is an absolute; in fact, few are. It does mean these are thoughts I endeavor to recall about me so as to further my journey toward wellness.
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Ability.

Each day you open your eyes. You are able to move.
Gratitude.

Each day you arise and you can breathe freely.
Gratitude.

Each Day you awaken. With ease you are able to brush your teeth, your hair. You are able to clothe yourself, tie your shoes, button buttons, zip zippers, walk, talk, stretch, write, serve.
Gratitude.

That's not so complicated now; is it?
Ability.

Guru Thought: Strength

What is a "guru thought?" For me, it is something I write in my 'guru thought journal,' a place where I tap my own thoughts and be my own best guru, so to speak. That doesn't mean every thought is an absolute; in fact, few are. It does mean these are thoughts I endeavor to recall about me so as to further my journey toward wellness.

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Strength.

Strongly opinionated and strength are not synonymous.

Strong opinions may be formed from certain strengths or the opinions may simply be rigid perspectives based on inflexible doctrine. To me the 2nd isn't genuine strength. Genuine strength involves the ability to lift, to move, to endure. It can also involve knowing how to maneuver say a relay or obstacle course. Strength involves exercise and using a muscle over and over so that it knows its job and can perform. It also involves flexibility.

Every day you practice strength by thinking, questioning, listening to inner resources. You make sound decisions which are exemplified in your life, your family, your employment, your children. That is your 'proof.' Celebrate it. Embrace it. You have earned it.

Seeking Life Along The Way [Part 3]

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1984 and onward: Loyalty ~ Exit ~ Aftermath ~ Life
~*~

Marriage, Children, Family

In September, 1984, almost one year after moving back home, I married my current husband who was involved with The Way on a local level and had been one of my spiritual partners when I was in The Way Corps. He provided a stable anchor for my life for which I am eternally grateful. (Way Corps trainees financed their training by soliciting funds. Contributors were called "spiritual partners.")

Our lives revolved around The Way as followers and as lay leaders running fellowships and classes in our home, raising our children whom we chose to home school, managing  the challenges of me living with chronic illness, and helping to care for my quadriplegic father. Our first child was born in 1988 after a very rough pregnancy due to asthma. Our second child was born in 1990. After the children were born and through our home schooling years, I earned part time income through in-home childcare and later through sales with a few different multi-level marketing companies. For a number of years I worked part time at a large science center and then as a preschool music instructor.

My husband and I did not regularly approach Way leadership for specific counsel on personal matters. Rather, for the most part, we made our personal decisions in private and informed leadership if we deemed it appropriate. One example of that decision process was our choice to home school. Most Way followers did not home school, and it was not encouraged. We did not counsel with leadership regarding that decision, but we did receive unsolicited suggestions from time to time. In that respect, and a few others, my husband and I veered from the typical Way-parenting path.

Beginning in the mid-1990s The Way had a no-debt policy for Home Fellowship Coordinators, for the Way Corps, for any believer serving in the Way Disciple outreach program which had replaced the WOW program, and for any follower who wanted to take The Way’s Advanced Class. In 1997, we sold our home on which we had a mortgage which was under $500 per month. Our first rental home was over $900 per month, but we were debt-free.

Between 1997 and 2003 we relocated our residence five different times in three different cities in North Carolina. It was exhausting. Two of the main reasons for our moves were to live geographically closer to believers in areas that were “spiritually hot” and to keep our rent payments reasonably low. My husband also had two different job changes during that time.

At our last move in 2003, after we had stepped down from running a Home Fellowship, we went against the no-debt policy and took out a mortgage. We did not counsel with leadership prior to our decision but did receive a personal visit from them afterward.

~*~

Micromanagement and the Hush

From the latter 1980s through the 1990s The Way became more and more controlling, step by step meddling deeper and deeper into followers' personal lives. This widespread progressive micromanagement - especially regarding time, commitment and obedience to the Ministry, personal finances, and shunning those who left - was due mainly to control tactics and doctrines gradually instigated during L. Craig Martindale's tenure as the second president of The Way, a position he held from 1982 until 2000.

Toward the latter part of 1999 micromanaging and verbal abuse in The Way were relaxed. Yes, the reigns were loosened. But the emotional, psychological, spiritual, verbal, and financial abuses were never adequately discussed or addressed. It was as if they never occurred. I'm not alone when I say there was an air of hush making these abuses taboo to discuss. We were to heed the exhortation of Philippians 3:13 in the Bible; that is, to "forget the past, declaring it null and void." For years after leaving The Way that hush bothered me, especially that I had allowed myself to succumb to the muzzle.

Within a few months of the loosened grip, Martindale resigned as President after his public admission to Way believers that he had been involved in a "consensual affair" and due to a legal suit regarding (in part) sexual harassment. (That suit was later settled out of court.) Within a year or so of Martindale's confession and dismissal, he quietly disappeared from The Way, out of sight to the faithful. Questions were discouraged which was standard when anyone departed - an uneasy silence with a pretense that nothing had happened and all was okay. (Click here to read a memoir piece about an incident depicting one way that The Way manipulated the hush regarding Martindale.)

From 2000 onward The Way became stagnant. I have described my last few years with The Way as "a flat tortilla shell with no substance."

~*~

Clergy Sexual Abuse: Rationalization and Scapegoating

Around 2004 my husband and I read online that the "affair" Martindale had confessed to followers in 2000 was not consensual nor an affair. It was clergy sexual abuse, and there were multiple sexual encounters with different followers. After I left in 2005 we learned that other top leaders had been aware of or involved with the abuse. We later learned that it had been rampant among the inner circle of top leaders. Yet, Martindale took the full brunt of the fall while some of those other top leaders stayed or rose in their positions. (Click here to read a memoir piece recording some of my thoughts and feelings when I first began to learn about the Way's dark underbelly.)

If followers heard of sexual allegations, we dismissed them as lies or rumors or innuendo directed by the adversary - that is the devil, the accuser of the brethren - and spread by people who were influenced by or possessed with devil spirits. Beginning in the late 1990s followers were charged to stay off any sites on the internet that were critical of The Way. Fear of becoming possessed or influenced by devil spirits was one controlling factor. We had been well indoctrinated regarding the spiritual battle and the devil-spirit realm; it had been Martindale's focal subject through the years of his presidency.

As of 2005, outside of Martindale's so-called "consensual affair," most loyal followers were unaware of, or chose to rationalize, the many illicit sexual allegations involving other top leaders including the founder, Victor Paul Wierwille, who died in 1985. My husband and I had previously heard of some alleged affairs, but not the many. And we greatly doubted the some. Until after I left, we were unaware of the number of abortions women in The Way had received.

As of 2006 Way believers I had spoken with blamed solely Martindale, once highly respected and loved by followers, for The Way's 1999/2000 upheaval which led to losing more followers. From my viewpoint, top Way leaders used Martindale's fall as an opportunity to save their own faces in the eyes of followers. Martindale was their scapegoat, though he was also guilty. (Link: Why Didn't We Know About Leaders' Sexual Advances?)

Since 2000 Way leadership appears to have kept itself clean in regard to sexual abuses.

~*~

Crossroads: To Stay or Leave

Between 1987 and 2000 there were four major crossroads when my husband and I were faced with the decision of whether or not to continue with The Way. At each crossroad we considered the possibility of an ex-Way splinter group, most of which continue with basic Way doctrine. Each time we concluded that "there is nothing better out there;" that is, outside "the Household of The Way." Due to our deeply held beliefs we were blind to any other alternatives. It never occurred to us that we could walk away from all Way-related structure and doctrine.

Some other determining factors were our deeply held belief that The Way was the “true Household of God” – to desert was to walk away from our heavenly father and from God’s true family; our belief that walking away would open up ourselves and our children to harm from “the adversary;” our decades-long investment of time, life, energy, and finances into The Way; and trust in our leadership – for most of our time in The Way we had served with what we considered kind, honest leaders.

Three of our crossroads coincided with three major Way exoduses when followers left in mass around 1987, 1989, and 2000. The other was in 1995. At each crossroad, we deliberated and then chose to follow our local leadership. Each time, we chose The Way. Each time, we had to make a choice of whom to trust. That’s really what it boiled down to. (Click here to access links about some of the splinter groups and about The Way's decline.)

The 1995 crossroad was our most difficult. Our local Corps leadership, a married couple who were 1st Family Corps and well respected in The Ministry and with whom we had served for over a decade, were made “mark-and-avoid.”

"Mark-and-avoid" was The Way's practice of shunning or excommunication, though The Way would never call it that. For The Way, the practice was a "consequence" for one's unbelief and disobedience. The phrase is condensed from Romans 16:17 in the King James Version of the Bible. Mark-and-avoid was a key factor in "keeping the Household pure," which was one of Martindale's obsessions. Oftentimes a believer was put on "probation" prior to the mark-and-avoid status. During probation the believer worked with their direct overseers to address the believer's offense(s), could not attend any Way functions, and was expected to tithe. Personal contact with Way believers outside their overseers was limited, if not prohibited. After probation, leadership ruled if the believer would be allowed back into the fold or be made mark-and-avoid.

In latter 1994, prior to their mark-and-avoid sentence a year later, the couple were put on probation. For the first ten months of their probation, my husband and I oversaw the local Fellowships. During those ten months, our state leaders, a married couple who were also early Way Corps grads and well respected by believers, became our direct overseers.

Throughout the ten months, one or both of our state leaders visited our home one to two times a month. We prayed together and ate together. Our state leaders were always kind and uplifting and left me feeling good about myself. My husband and I felt they were honest with us. We trusted them, though we never knew why our local leadership had been put on probation, other than it was something personal. Furthermore, in 1994 and 1995 due to depression and chronic illness, I saw the wife regularly for professional counseling. She had her master's degree in psychology. She was whom I called in 1994 when I went through a suicidal episode. Since she lived a two-hour drive away, she immediately contacted the wife of the local Corps couple, who were later put on probation, to physically come to my aid in that moment. (Click here to read about that episode.)

In latter 1995, after about a year from when their probation began, the local couple were designated "mark-and-avoid." When my husband and I received the news via a late night phone call, I felt a sense of gloom. It was like a dark, hazy cloud descended. Up until the couple were put on probation the previous year, they had shielded the Western Piedmont area of North Carolina from Martindale's most extreme dictates. The news via the phone call felt like a cancer had finally spread its tentacles into our once-shielded, happy Way bubble. The cancer had to be eradicated.

My husband and I had been in Fellowships with the couple for twelve years. We had shared many meals and prayer together. They officiated our marriage in 1984; it was the husband's first officiation after being ordained. They had provided child care multiple times for us and us for them, and they had helped with my chronic health issues. They had provided non-judgmental support when I AWOLed the Corps, and after Dad's wreck. The wife had come to my aid during my suicidal episode.

Our state leaders and our local (now marked-and-avoided) leaders had known each other for decades, since before The Way. They were best of friends. Mark-and-avoid ended their relationship. It ended ours too, with our local ex-leadership. We chose to follow the state leaders’ and our new local Corps leaders' choices of mark-and-avoid and to continue with The Way. By that time, we had been serving with the new local Corps for a couple months.

It was a complex predicament for my husband and me. We had a bond with our past local leadership, with the state leaders, and with our new local leadership. It was a heavy decision with mixed loyalties and emotions. It was a choice we later grew to regret. A choice which caused my heart to become crusty around the edges. (Click here to read a memoir piece that shares a bit about that time in our lives.)


~*~

Leaving The Way

In October, 2005, after twenty-eight years of loyalty I exited The Way. It was a tormenting decision riddled with internal chaos. In my mind by choosing to leave I would be playing the Judas role three times (the number three Biblically representing "complete") and breaking a salt covenant ("worthy of death" according to Old Testament standards) which I had taken in 1981 at a Way Advanced Class Advance.

Throughout the previous couple years my heart had become a vast, empty hole. I felt like a shell of a person. I wanted to feel whole again. Through those previous couple years one of the main reasons I had stayed with The Way was for my family and children. I was afraid that if I left we would become splintered because we wouldn't be like-minded on the Word. It was one of my biggest fears. And then when I finally left, it was for my children. The scales had tipped, and the potential benefits outweighed any possible risks.

An incident with my son earlier that October of 2005 is what really catalyzed my decision to leave. My then fifteen-year old son, his eyes damp with tears, said to me, "Mom, I feel empty inside." That was it. The vast void in my soul was not only affecting me, it was affecting my children. Or maybe my son was growing his own vast hole. At that point, I had to leave. Not to say that there weren't other reasons, but that incident was the deal breaker.

I already had a quasi-exit plan. For six months, since April, 2005, I had been seriously researching how to exit, in case the time would come. I didn't want to give up on the Word or become bitter. I just wanted to feel whole and connected again. I had to figure out whom I could trust; that's what it boiled down to. I left via one of the ex-Way splinter groups which was vital in helping me with my exit and later with my husband's. Though we only continued with the group for about one year, we will always be thankful for their help. (Click here to read a memoir piece about a letter I received in  in May, 2005, that was the linchpin in my exit strategy.)

My departure this time was not in AWOL fashion as I had attempted two times before in previous decades. Rather, while trembling, I informed our husband-and-wife Limb/Region Leaders via phone about my decision. My husband joined the conversation via a second phone extension in our house. I wanted a witness.

The leaders' responses were that perhaps I needed to be going to more functions and wasn't giving enough; that I should have counseled with Way leadership before making my decision; that if I had "sincerely prayed" and contemplated, I would have chosen to stay with The Way; that The Way had experienced some problems through the years not unlike the first-century church; that most followers who leave never return; and that I was welcome back at anytime. Rather than motivating me to stay, their statements served to further validate my decision.

Over the following eight months after I left in October, 2005, my husband and our children cut allegiances with The Way, each in their own time. Our then fifteen-year-old son drifted away within a couple months after my official exit. My husband officially left at the end of March, 2006. And our then eighteen-year-old daughter quit going to Fellowships around May, 2006. (Click here to read a letter my husband sent Rosalie Rivenbark, President of The Way at the time, shortly before his departure.)

~*~

Impact of Journaling

In hindsight, my exit in 2005 had begun at least seven years prior. In October, 1998, I began journaling, and I didn't stop. Since 1982 I had beaten my self up with shame and berated my self over being unable to believe God for healing of my chronic health issues. The Way taught a health-and-wealth gospel, though The Way would never call it that. (Click here to read about that doctrine helping to drive me to the brink of suicide.)

I was no longer able to stuff my inside turmoil into oblivion.  The only thing I knew to do was, to write and write and write. Darkness, emptiness, pain, grief, self-loathing. It poured onto the page, which led to writing about hopes and dreams. For seven years I wrote until, quite literally, I wrote my way out of The Way.

~*~

After The Way: Cult Activism and Therapist Abuse

Within a couple months after leaving The Way I got deeply involved for over a year with an ex-Way online forum which provided much needed support and connections. However, as months went by, I found myself in a web of unhealthy relationships with some of the key participants and, later, in a maze of suspicion with false or mistaken allegations toward others and myself. The experience got under my skin, and at times I was filled with rage over (what appeared to me at the time as) hypocrisy. I felt like I was witnessing aspects of The Way but on the other side. I later realized that the us-them mentality exists on a continuum in social groups. And I began to more clearly understand human nature and behavior, regardless of the group one may be involved with.

Despite my unpleasant experiences at the forum, I still think it provides good information for people seeking help in leaving The Way. And I would handle my circumstances and relationships differently now, in 2017, than I did when I was still fresh out of The Way.

In July, 2008, I hired a licensed mental health therapist who specialized in cult recovery. The main reason I hired him was because of what had happened at the ex-Way online forum. Two years later, in September, 2010, due to boundary violations (none were sexual), I filed an official complaint with the therapist's state licensing board. The state opened an investigation in December, 2010.

Filing that complaint was one of the hardest decisions of my life, and I had no idea the can of worms I had opened. Almost a year after I filed the complaint, the therapist tried to smear my character with vicious verbal assaults filled with false accusations in twelve different online rants and articles. A few months after that, I learned that I wasn't the only client he had harmed. (Click here to access an overview of events regarding my experience with the therapist.)

In certain respects the therapist abuse caused more extensive trauma than The Way. It was like the wounds from The Way developed from the top side of my soul as an erosion over time. Whereas the wounds from the therapist were thrust deeply from the underside with a steel dagger. A seeping wound from the top and a gaping wound from the bottom. At times it felt as if the wounds joined causing a chasm with two open ends, exposed and vulnerable to infection.

One of my friends, who also experienced therapist abuse (but not with the same therapist), calls it "sanctuary abuse." An apropos term in my opinion. Such abuse of power is not limited to only mental health therapists, but applies to any person in a trusted, authoritative position. It is a trauma that penetrates to one's very core.

Fortunately, my ex-therapist can no longer prey in the guise of a professional offering "healing for spiritual and cultic abuse." In January, 2014, his license was revoked. He was found guilty of professional misconduct along with negligence, incompetence on more than one occasion, and unprofessional conduct.

Not surprisingly, due to my experiences in the ex-cult and anti-cult and cult-recovery circles, I no longer participate in those type groups. My only involvement with cult-awareness involves a few contacts, sharing on my blogs, and a small amount of social media. (Click here for cult recovery and education resource links and book list.)

~*~

After The Way: Endeavoring to Understand

For years after leaving The Way, I struggled with the question, How could something I thought was so good turn out to be so evil? The good and evil dichotomy was difficult to wrap my mind around as I'd try to reconcile it.

I have since learned the good and evil can't be reconciled. That may seem obvious to most people. But it was a harsh reality for me to recognize and accept that certain top leaders whom I deeply trusted were concerned primarily with their own appearance, advancement, and power.

Yet, despite that reality, I had many good experiences in The Way filled with rich learning and "God moments." I received exposure to some excellent teachings and teachers. I developed relationships with some wonderful people, one of those still being my husband of over three decades. The good times and people were part of the reason my husband and I continued for as long as we did and part of the reason it was difficult to see and accept that the top leaders were abusive, power-hungry, hypocritical, and self-serving.

For the most part I don't begrudge any inappropriate counsel I received while in The Way. We, lay leaders and followers, were doing as we had been taught. That said, people are still responsible for their decisions and actions. I regret any harms I exacted and any ill counsel I doled out.

After The Way: Freedom to Choose and In Hindsight

Within seven months of leaving The Way, I got a job working as the manager of an art studio. That job was one of my best therapies as I communicated with artists of all stripes from all over the country. As of 2017 I still work as a studio assistant, but I stepped down from being the manager in 2012. In 2011 I established a pet-sitting business which has proven to be another therapeutic pathway.

By the end of 2009, my physical health had improved to the point that I was able to take up my teenage dream of long-distance hiking and backpacking. But, in 2011, that dream was indefinitely suspended when I developed widespread nerve damage bringing on losses I have deeply grieved and am still coming to terms with. As of 2017, managing the nerve damage is my biggest life challenge.

Since exiting I've cycled, and recycled, through a myriad of emotions including periods of bitterness and rage, a deep sense of overwhelming loss and grief and loneliness, identity issues, the feeling of being shattered, and feelings of shame and self-blame regarding certain personal decisions and my blindness to manipulations. There have been times when I've felt very lost. There have been times I've doubted my departure and have missed the camaraderie with Way believers; there are good people who still remain loyal to The Way.

On the flip side, I've discovered freedom to think for myself and to consider ideas outside Way doctrine. My relationship with my husband has been restored; we were on the brink of divorce our final years in The Way. Our family has grown closer, instead of farther apart. Our children, now adults, are able to pursue life without the constraints of Way practices and doctrine. Some personal friendships that were shunned from decades past due to The Way's "mark-and-avoid" practice have been renewed. I've probably received more answers to "prayer" since leaving The Way than during my whole twenty-eight years of loyalty. I've learned to reasonably trust my self again. Music and poetry, writing and art, nature and animals have become integral parts of my life. I continue to discover what my opinions are, my likes and dislikes, and how to express those. Over time, I began to experience a groundedness and quietness in my soul that perhaps comes with age. In hindsight, I felt stuck in adolescence while in The Way.

The events of my life as a Way believer and my responses since leaving The Way are not atypical from others who have been devotees of any cult-like movement. In discussing The Way with ex-members of other authoritarian groups and from reading accounts from various books and articles and comparing those with my and others' experiences in The Way, I've learned that The Way was not unique in its approach to group think, control tactics, and practices resulting in emotional, spiritual, and other abuses. Neither were the so-called high times and God moments unique to The Way. All are common factors, on a continuum, in various groups.

Way followers' experiences can differ (sometimes widely) depending on their local leadership, their depth of involvement, and the years they were involved. Cults are like an onion with outer and inner layers. The closer to the center, the firmer the grip. Cults also morph endeavoring to fit in with various aspects of culture and changing times in order to appear legitimate, to gain new followers, and to keep devotees loyal. The Way embodies those characteristics. (Click here for resource links and book lists about The Way.)

*~*

After The Way: Evolving Beliefs

As far as my evolving beliefs, when I left The Way in 2005 I visited a few churches, but nothing resonated. For about a year I was involved with an ex-Way splinter group which holds to basic Way doctrine. For a few years thereafter I leaned toward Christian Universalism. Throughout that time I read about various schools of thought regarding different beliefs, including atheism.

Eventually I began to see the Bible as other written works; that is, as historical literature instead of the "God-breathed Word." I had landed in the agnostic camp.

It took me until around 2010 to really accept that I no longer believed the scriptures to be infallible nor to be the inerrant Word of God. It took another five years to become comfortable with my agnosticism. For now, in 2017, I'm happy with that.

I'm happy that I can reasonably trust my self again, that I'm continuing to learn who I am and what I like, that I'm able to live without constantly battling shame and guilt, and that I'm becoming my own best friend.

But I'm most happy that my family remained intact after leaving The Way and that our children are not living under the constraints of Way doctrine and practices.

For the most part, life is good and certainly much larger than when I was a Way believer.

(Last revised June, 2018)

~*~

For any who read this narrative, thank you. I hope it gives a glimpse of a loyal cult devotee, an ex-cult recoveree, and a human who continues to explore and discover and grow, living life along the way...

~*~

Click Addendum to continue.

• Seeking Life Along The Way: Part 1
• Seeking Life Along The Way: Part 2
• Seeking Life Along The Way: Part 3
• Seeking Life Along The Way: Addendum

Seeking Life Along The Way [Part 2]

1978 - 1983: Word Over the World

Early 1978 through July 1978

After dropping out of college in December 1977, I moved back to Hickory, North Carolina, my hometown, where I had just finished my first Power for Abundant Living class. Also called "PFAL" and "The Class."

I, my friends Janet and Gretta (and Gretta's toddler) who had taken The Class for their first time along with me, and Belinda, who was serving her apprentice year for the ninth Way Corps, moved in together to form a "Way Home." We would do our part helping to "move the Word over the world" by running Way classes and home fellowships (called Twigs), witnessing to unbelievers, daily praying together, reading the Bible and Way publications, memorizing scripture verses, and having "believers meetings." That's what you did in a Way Home.

(A "believers meeting" is a gathering of at least three "fully-instructed" believers to "hear from God." To be "fully instructed" means that a believer knows how to "properly operate the inspiration manifestations of speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues, and prophecy." One Way believer leads the meeting and calls on three or four believers, one at a time, to bring forth a message from God via tongues with interpretation or prophecy. The Way draws its instructions from various scriptures in I Corinthians 14.)

By January, I'd landed a job at a local hospital in the laundry department folding human wraps, hot and staticky fresh out of the large industrial driers. Linens, blankets, gowns, towels, washcloths. One of my fellow folders, Michael, was my first Way recruit. Michael was a year or so older than I.

I spoke the Word everywhere I went, talking the Bible and The Class, inviting people to Twig, sometimes going "door-to-door witnessing" solo. One of my Twig leaders, when introducing me to Way state leadership, said "Carol witnesses to everything that moves."

I was 18 years old.

~*~*~

I first met Victor Paul Wierwille in February 1978, at a large Way gathering called a Heartbeat Festival held at the Omni Hotel in Virginia Beach.

[Wierwille was The Way's founder and first president. He received his Bachelor of Theology degree in 1940 from Mission House College and Seminary (now Lakeland University) in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He received his Masters of Theology in 1941 from Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey. That same year he was ordained into the Evangelical and Reformed Church, which he continued with until 1957. In 1948, he received his Doctorate of Theology through correspondence work from Pikes Peak Seminary (now defunct) in Manitou Springs, Colorado.

Pikes Peak Seminary was located in a 4500 square-foot house, had no resident instruction, no list of faculty and no accreditation. The legitimacy of Wierwille's doctorate is questionable. But, at the time, that didn't matter to me. Jesus had few, if any, worldly credentials. And Jesus was the Son of God.]

At that Omni Hotel in 1978, I waited alone, sitting in an upholstered chair in a dimly lit alcove outside a conference room where Wierwille was meeting with the Word Over the World Ambassadors. At midnight, he walked out of the room. I stood up, walked over to him, introduced myself, and said, "I want to go WOW this year." (WOW, an acronym for Word Over the World, was The Way's main lay outreach program, volunteers serving for one year, from August to August, wherever assigned by The Way.)

The next morning, I sat on the front row in the large meeting of hundreds, if not a thousand or more, people. At the end of his teaching from the stage, Doctor pointed at me and said, "You're going WOW next year; aren't you honey?" I nodded my head yes. And then he asked, "Have you signed up yet?" I shook my head no. He responded with a bellow, "Well come on up here!" He motioned his arm for me to join him on the elevated stage, which I did, and he personally signed me up to go WOW.

As I stood with him on the stage in front of the sea of onlookers, he again enthusiastically bellowed, this time to the whole audience, "Who else wants to go W.O.W!?!" As people came up to the stage, I helped hand out the blue WOW sign-up cards.

Little eighteen-year-old me, on stage with the "man of God of the world," our "father in the Word." "Doctor," as followers affectionately referred to him. I felt large and small at the same time. Privileged. Awed. Humbled. I was doing God's will for my life.

It was intoxicating, but not in a scary or uncontrollable way. I was high on the "love of God." I thought there was nowhere else on earth where one could experience this unique oneness, unity of purpose, synchronicity. I later came to call it "the chewy, caramel center of God's heart." It was almost tangible and was a feeling that would be duplicated at Way functions multiple times in the following decades.

Before going WOW in August, I jumped on board with The Way's statewide summer outreach program, WONC - Word Over North Carolina. I was assigned with three other young ladies to Fayetteville, North Carolina, the home of Fort Bragg Military Base. We witnessed to a lot of soldiers and ran one Power For Abundant Living Foundational class. I got a job driving a taxicab. My second Way recruit was one of my passengers, Velton, a teenager about a year younger than I.

Sometime between February and May, I had made the commitment to enter The Way's leadership program, The Way Corps. My upcoming WOW year would serve as my first year of Corps training known as the apprenticeship year. WOW was a one-year commitment; Way Corps was a lifetime commitment. (Ministry years ran from August to August.)

I was now nineteen years old.

~*~*~

August 1978 through September 1979

In August 1978, I was commissioned, with around a thousand others, as a WOW Ambassador at the Way's yearly festival, the Rock of Ages, held at Headquarters in New Knoxville, Ohio.  (In 1995, after twenty-five years since the Rock of Ages' inception, it was discontinued.)

I was sent to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was designated a WOW Family Coordinator. There were four WOWs in my family, all of us barely adults - myself, another young woman, and two young men. Along with overseeing the WOW family, I oversaw our Twig Fellowship. Our WOW family was assigned with six other WOW families to Milwaukee and made up a WOW Branch, which was overseen by an 8th Way Corps trainee on his interim year assignment.

[The Way was structured like a tree known as The Way Tree. The roots of the tree represented the research of God's Word stemming from Dr. Wierwille and the research department at the Ohio Way Headquarters. Research is what "fed the tree." Later The Way purchased other training locations, which were collectively called "root locales." The Trunk represented a geographical country, such as the Trunk of the USA or the Trunk of Canada. Limbs were states, such as the Limb of New York. Branches were areas within a state and were typically composed of about seven Twigs. Twigs were the household fellowships held in Way believers' homes. An individual believer was sometimes referred to as a Leaf. The Twig is where believers spent most of their time as far as Way meetings. A common phrase at that time was, "Life is in the Twig." In the mid-1990's, the term "Twig" was replaced with "Household Fellowship." Two geographical terms not related to parts of a tree were a Region which was composed of several states and an Area which was smaller than a Branch. (Click here and open all the songs to access and listen to the song, I Am A Leaf, by one of the popular Way bands of the 1970s.)]

My WOW family lived in a small, run-down apartment on the East Side near Lake Michigan and the University of Wisconsin. We spent a lot of time witnessing on the university campus. Through the year I worked part-time jobs as an office assistant, a bus girl at a restaurant, and an ice cream cart driver selling frozen treats on the East Side.

One of my WOW brothers was my boyfriend. We had met at the end of Summer Outreach in North Carolina and had sat together through the teachings and the WOW commission at the Rock, never imagining that we would be assigned to the same WOW family. We were both stunned when we opened our assignment envelopes. He was kind of pissed because, since he was the man, he thought he should be the Family Coordinator. I was concerned because we both had raging teenage hormones. He was 18. I was 19.

Shortly after opening our assignment envelopes, our WOW Branch gathered so we could all meet one another. At that time, I privately told our Branch Leader that my WOW brother and I couldn't be together; we were in love. There was no way we could concentrate on our commitment to God if we lived together in the same house. Our Branch Leader took my concern and request up the Way Tree to higher leadership. The verdict came back. We were to stay together; the assignments were "inspired by God."

I got pregnant within a couple months and got an abortion. 

I traveled to Madison, Wisconsin, where our Limb Leaders lived, to get the abortion. My mom paid for it. I stayed in the Limb Home for a few days after the procedure. The Limb Leaders were kind, but to my recollection, we didn't discuss the abortion. I recall feeling very alone, crying alone, and bleeding a lot. Other than my boyfriend and my Branch Leader back in Milwaukee, no one else in the Branch knew, at least that I was aware of. I returned to my WOW family like nothing had happened and went back to "moving the Word." At that time in The Way, abortion was pretty much treated like getting a splinter removed.

Within two months after the abortion, my WOW brother was moved to a different WOW family in the Branch. But we continued as lovers, growing fonder of one other as the year went on. (Click here to access a two-part series about my WOW commission and abortion.)

In September 1979, after the end of my 1978-'79 WOW year, I entered in-residence training with the 10th Way Corps at The Way College of Emporia in Kansas.

~*~*~

[Word Over the World Ambassador Program

(Click here for a deeper dive into the structure of The Way and the WOW program.)

The WOW Ambassador and other outreach programs with The Way were on a volunteer basis with participants supporting themselves financially while doing the work of the Ministry; there was no monetary compensation from The Way. Volunteers were expected to continue to tithe from income received through their part-time secular jobs during their full-time volunteer service with The Way. As WOWs, we were to work our secular jobs twenty to thirty hours per week and do the work of the Ministry forty hours per week. (Click here & scroll down to view pages from one of my WOW Handbooks.)

Way Corps Program

(Click here for a deeper dive into The Way Corps.)

When I was in Corps training, the program consisted of a first-year apprenticeship when a trainee served closely with Way Corps, a second year in-residence at Way root locales, a third year as an interim or practicum year when the trainee served wherever assigned by The Way, and a fourth year back in-residence at Way root locales. The in-residence years were work/study programs and were financed via funds solicited by the Way Corps trainee. Those who funded the trainee were called "Spiritual Partners" and agreed to a monthly or other non-tax-deductible financial donation. The Way Corps trainee was to pray for and to write to each Spiritual Partner once a month during that in-residence year.

The Way Corps training program was not an outreach program, per se, though outreach and teaching were some of the final goals as part of the "lifetime commitment to Christian service." A Way Corps trainee could be assigned to an outreach program during the apprentice or interim years or after graduation.

The in-residence years included an outreach exercise called Lightbearers. Trainees would live on the field with Way believers for two weeks and help recruit enough people for the area to be able to run The Way's Foundational Class. As another outreach exercise, Corps trainees would sometimes have "witnessing" days in their local root locale communities.

The Corps program also included hitchhiking requirements where trainees were to witness to those who gave them rides and were to "believe God" to arrive at assigned destinations within given time frames. I hitchhiked over four thousand miles while in The Way Corps. On one of my hitchhiking assignments, from Kansas to New Mexico, my partner and I did not arrive at our destination in the allotted time frame. We had missed it by four minutes. We had to turn right around and hitchhike back to Kansas from New Mexico. (Click here to read a transcript from my 13th Way Corps personal journal detailing that excursion.)

Through my Corps years I spent time at three of The Way's root locales in Kansas, Indiana, and Ohio. I spent a couple weeks in New Mexico at The Way's L.E.A.D. Outdoor Academy. L.E.A.D. stood for Leadership, Education, Adventure, Direction and was The Way's wilderness, rock climbing program, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I did not spend any Corps time at The Way's root locale in Gunnison, Colorado. (The Way sold its Kansas and Indiana properties in the 1990s after losing followers in mass. At some point, The Way also sold the L.E.A.D. property in New Mexico. The Way kept its Headquarters in Ohio and The Way Family Ranch in Colorado.)

Though I spent over four years in Way Corps training I never graduated. I left the program, not once, but twice, both times in my interim/practicum year of training.

Yet, for the most part, I loved my in-residence years at the "school of the prophets" and was successful through that part of the training. In-residence our lives were scheduled for us. We seldom had "free time." I believed that I was in the center of God's will and heart. I felt I was in a cocoon where I was learning how to do things right in order to better serve God's people. I believed, and still believe, that is why most followers went into The Way Corps - to serve.

The proving years (interim/practicum) were my death of confidence. The pressure of overseeing people's spiritual lives, of receiving revelation from God, and of bearing good spiritual fruit overwhelmed me. Externally I appeared capable and confident. But internally, I felt an incredible urge to flee. I sought escape from an internal dissonance which was brought on by trying to run in shoes not designed to carry me, but that I believed were my duty to make fit. Or perhaps, I was trying to run from manipulation that I didn't recognize as such.

Not only did I break my Corps commitment, but I did so in an AWOL fashion which only added to the shame of my broken integrity. I think one reason I chose an AWOL approach was because I felt that if I counseled with leadership and then disobeyed, in my confused perception, that was a more direct act of disobedience than if I just disappeared. Plus, I felt any counsel would try to talk me into staying.

For decades after breaking my Corps commitment, a dark shadow of shame followed me. I would try to understand the whys of my betrayal.

Immaturity? Insecurity? Low self-image? Lack of confidence? Unrelenting standards? Fear of failure or perhaps success? Devil spirits? Character flaws?

It took me until 2017, over eleven years after leaving The Way, to realize that by fleeing the Way Corps I didn't break my integrity. I was probably trying to keep my integrity by trying to be true to my core, to my self. But I didn't know how. Still, I wish I hadn't left in an AWOL fashion.

To me, The Way Corps was a huge commitment.

To break one's Corps commitment was akin to a Judas betrayal.

And I broke that commitment twice.

The ensuing shadow-of-shame haunted me for decades.

Yet, all that while as I was treading the waters of life trying to keep my head above my shame, unknown to me and other followers, top Way leaders were abusing their authority engaging in covert and rampant illicit sex with followers.]

~*~*~

August 1980 through August 1981

I'd been living in northern Connecticut since mid-August right after the 1980 Rock of Ages festival. At the Rock I had been commissioned for my 10th Way Corps interim-year assignment - a volunteer Word Over the World Ambassador Team Coordinator overseeing two WOW families. I had landed a job working part time for a Way-believer dentist one town over, ten miles away. I didn't have a car, so I'd often hitchhike to and from work.

It was a clear crisp day in early October, around the time of The Way's yearly anniversary celebration. My mind was reeling, as it had done other times.

How can I ever fulfill the Way Corps calling? I'm not good enough. I don't have the believing. I'm a sorry excuse for Way Corps. I can't live up to "It Is Written." My WOW team would do better without me. Maybe I shouldn't even be with The Way. Is this really what I want to be doing with my life?

I felt spiritually small. I short circuited. With my mind racing and fearful (of what I am not sure), I hitchhiked alone from Connecticut to my parent's home in North Carolina.

In the aftermath I was overcome with shame.
I had broken my word, a despicable act.
I had let down my WOW team.
I had let down The Way Corps.
I had let down my Spiritual Partners.
I had let down God.
I had let down the Ministry.
I had let down myself.

After I arrived in North Carolina I was filled with remorse and confusion. I wrote letters of apology to Dr. Wierwille, the founder and still president of The Way; to L. Craig Martindale, the Corps director who later became the second president of The Way; and to the Connecticut leadership where I had abandoned my post. At some point, I wrote my Spiritual Partners. As far as I remember, I received kind and encouraging responses from everyone I wrote.

Over the following few months, Martindale and I communicated via letters back and forth multiple times. I felt it was my duty to fulfill my Way Corps training and commitment. I wanted to finish what I had begun, but every fiber within me did not want to start over. I asked Martindale three different times to please let me begin anew starting with my interim year. But each time his answer was, "No." I was denied the option of picking up where I had left off probably because I dropped my assignment in an AWOL fashion.

I was required to start the program over. So be it.

In December 1980, I moved into a Way Home to move the Word and to run Way Classes. That's what you did in a "Way Home." For income, I worked selling Encyclopedia Britannica for my mom and worked as a waitress at a pub.

I had to wait about nine months to begin The Corps process anew. During that time, I plummeted into self-destructive behavior with alcohol and secret promiscuity. Though I had been sexually active from an early age, I had never before engaged in promiscuity.

I have no doubt that this self-numbing behavior was a response to my deep shame and self-loathing which I continued to bury, part of which was a result from my broken 1980 Way Corps and WOW commitments, from the abortion I received during my first WOW year in 1978, from the recent broken relationship with the father who was still in Way Corps training in the 11th Corps, and from feeling unable to live up to the "It Is Written" standard of Corps.

Yet throughout those months of illicit activities, I helped run Fellowships and Classes, possibly as an endeavor to prove my worth to myself.

~*~*~

September 1981 through September 1983

In September 1981, I moved to Cleveland, Ohio, into a different Way Home with five other believers, to begin my apprenticeship year for the 13th Way Corps, embarking upon my second attempt. I had been invited to Cleveland by my 1978-'79 WOW Branch Coordinator who had recently graduated from the 8th Way Corps. He was like a brother to me. Surely, he could help me succeed with my Corps calling.

Mom hooked me up with Britannica in Cleveland, and I tried selling books for about six weeks. I also tried selling Cutco knives. Then I got jobs through a temporary agency as a deburrer in a steel mill and later as a billing clerk for a wallpaper company. I oversaw The Way bookstore for northern Ohio, carting it around in my Toyota Corolla to various meetings, but that was volunteer work, not paid.

I gave up alcohol (for the most part) and put an end to the undisclosed promiscuity. But still, every fiber in my being continued silently screaming in rebellion against starting the Corps process over. I interpreted my internal turmoil as temptation to not perform my duty of carrying out my calling. I expressed this in counsel with Way leadership who confirmed that it was my duty to "pay my vows" of my Corps pledge regardless of my internal misgivings. At that time, I believed that to disobey leadership was to disobey God. And I had to obey God. 

(Ecclesiastes 5:4: "When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed." 

Romans 13:1-2: "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." 

The Way taught that the "higher powers" and "rulers' refer not  to government officials, but to leaders in the Household. "The sword" they bear is the rightly-divided Word of God as it is referred to in Hebrews 4:11: "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.")

Within one month of that counsel and my decision to obey, I became physically ill. At age twenty-two, for the first time in my life, I suffered with asthma and symptoms of an over-responsive immune system. I had buried, and continued to bury, what I deemed as inappropriate emotions and thoughts. I now know that that emotional tomb gave rise to physical illness.

The asthma and other symptoms worsened through the year culminating in a weeklong hospitalization in July 1982. Yet, I had a successful apprenticeship year and entered in-residence training with the 13th Way Corps in September 1982.

But thirteen months later, again I broke my Way Corps commitment.

It was like a horrid deja vu.

[Click here to access a transcript of my personal journal from when I was in the 13th Way Corps.]

~*~*~

October 1983 through December 1983

Deja vu.

Except, I was in the 13th Corps, not the 10th.
Except, it was 1983, not 1980.
Except, I was on staff at Ohio Way Headquarters, instead of being on the field.
Except, I had the added weight of the chronic physical illnesses, which had worsened through the year.
Except, I escaped in my car, instead of hitchhiking.

But all else was reminiscent of my 1980 broken commitment when I was in the 10th Corps.

Again, my mind reeled back and forth, side to side.
Again, I left in early October around the time of The Way's anniversary celebration.
Again, I abandoned my commitment in my interim year.
Again, I felt spiritually small.
Again, I short circuited.
Again, I left in an AWOL fashion.

I called and left a message at HQ Food Services (my interim year Way Corps assignment) that I would be in late. I never showed. Instead, I left a note on my bunk in the dorm, packed a few items in my old Toyota Corolla, and drove from Ohio to my parent's home in North Carolina.

Surely this wasn't real.
It was just a bad dream.

But it wasn't a bad dream.
I had again failed my calling.

I was physically and emotionally ill and drained.
I was overcome with shame.

I was 24 years old.
My integrity was compromised.
At my core, I felt defective.

In addition to my confusion and anxiety regarding my sold-out Corps commitment, three months prior in July 1983, my father had been in a head-on automobile collision, leaving him to live his remaining twelve-and-a-half years as a quadriplegic. Though his accident was not the reason I dropped (the second time) from The Way Corps, it was the reason I moved back home - to help care for Dad. While in high school, I had worked as a nursing assistant in a nursing home. I had experience as a caregiver.

The last time I had seen Dad with body and limbs intact was around May 1983. He had come to The Way College of Emporia in Kansas to visit me on a Parent's Weekend. He stayed on grounds in the Uncle Harry Dorm. He and I went dancing one night at a local pub. During his visit, he signed up for The Way's Power For Abundant Living Foundational Class. (Mom had taken the Foundational and Intermediate Classes back in 1978. Neither Mom nor Dad regularly attended Way Fellowships.)

Dad's Class was to run in July back in our hometown in North Carolina. He didn't make it to that Class, but did listen to it later at home, on cassette tapes as he lay in bed on his back. I was believing for Dad to be healed; he never was. (Click here to read about my first receiving the news of Dad's wreck. Click here to access more memoir posts about Dad and life with quadriplegia.)

When I arrived home, Dad was still in the hospital going through rehab learning to live life as a quad. Mom and I received training on how to care for Dad. I lived at home until September 1984 and helped with Dad's daily care. My brother lived about twenty minutes away and also helped. My sister lived seven hours away and helped when she was able to visit. It was an overwhelming time for the family.

Within a month or so of returning home, I got a job as a glazer for a local pottery artist. A few months later, I got a job as a shipping clerk and secretary at a manufacturer of buffing compound.

I did not immediately go to the local Way Fellowship when I arrived home in October 1983. I waited about one month and only went back after meeting a man who was "hungry for the Word." The only place I knew that had "the truth" was The Way, so I accompanied him to Twig Fellowship. When I returned to Fellowship, the local Corps leadership welcomed me with open arms and forgiveness. The man I took to Twig ended up in The Way Corps a few years later.

Even though I didn't immediately return to Way Fellowship after returning home, I did immediately write Martindale, who was the Way Corps director and now the second president of The Way. He responded with, what appeared to me, compassion. In hindsight, perhaps his compassionate tone was due to Dad's quadriplegia. He encouraged me to stay faithful in the Household and to put my Corps training to good use; there were "too few of us for any to sit on the sidelines."

[After leaving The Way in 2005, I learned that in 1983 after I AWOLed from the 13th Corps, one of the Corps Coordinators (not Martindale, who was the director) announced at mealtime to The Way Corps at HQ that I was not worth the cost of a dime for a phone call. That was not Martindale's tone to me at all.]

I heeded Martindale's charge within the following month and then stayed faithful to The Way for the following twenty-two years.

But my Corps years were over. And I paid consequences for decades - physically with chronic health issues; and mentally, battling feelings of deep shame and reproach for breaking my commitment and never fulfilling my Way Corps calling.

Meanwhile, as I lived battling my shame, unknown to me and other followers, top Way leaders were abusing their power engaging in rampant illicit sex with followers. That abuse continued for the next seventeen years.

(Last revised June, 2018)

*~*

Click Part 3 below to continue.

• Seeking Life Along The Way: Part 1
• Seeking Life Along The Way: Part 2
• Seeking Life Along The Way: Part 3
• Seeking Life Along The Way: Addendum

Seeking Life Along The Way [Part 1]

Introduction

(Click here to read about The Way)

In 2007 and 2008, two to three years after leaving The Way, I wrote a narrative about my spiritual journey which is the foundation for my following story. (I have since expanded it and added links within the body to various memoir pieces, taking a deeper dive into the context of select sections of the narrative.) 

It's a long read. But, in another sense, not. It covers over forty years.

I use the past tense when describing The Way even though some of what I describe is still currently applicable to The Way.

I hope the narrative gives a glimpse (1) of some of the reasons folks join 'cults' or similar groups, (2) of consequences that can result from following authoritarian and elitist groups, and (3) that even decades-long true-believers can change.

I got involved with The Way International in September 1977, at the age of eighteen and exited 28 years later in October 2005, at the age of forty-six.

The journey continues...

______

Seeking: Life Along The Way [Part 1]

1960s - 1977: Why would anyone join a cult?

I wasn't raised with a specific church doctrine, but my family attended a Methodist Church and camp-meetings with some regularity in my younger years. From the age of eight and through my teen years I was fascinated with the supernatural reading books on UFOs, playing with Ouija boards, intrigued by witchcraft, and dabbling with astrology. I attended a Baptist revival with a friend when I was around ten; I remember going up for the altar call. Around eleven years old, I saw a movie about Nicky Cruz, The Cross and the Switchblade, which led me to read Cruz's book, Run Baby Run. Cruz's story made an impression on me; it seemed authentic as opposed to a religious facade. At twelve years old I attended a Methodist confirmation, but to my recollection never completed the requirements.

At thirteen years old I read the four gospels and concluded that Jesus Christ was the biggest egomaniac that ever walked. However, I did like the poetic flow of the Gospel of John. I continued to read parts of the Bible during my early teens; my opinion didn't change. In the Old Testament I read about a vengeful God who annihilated people. Of the folks I talked with about the Bible, no one could satisfactorily explain the contradictions to me. I could argue most Bible believers into a corner, and for some reason I enjoyed it. Understandably I rejected the Bible as an ultimate authority but thought it contained some truth alongside other religions.

Also, at thirteen years of age I fell in love for the first time and gave my whole self, body and soul, to my young teenage lover. I craved attention and touch, to be wanted, and to please. I was involved with four such all-encompassing relationships between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. In the second of these relationships, I was a victim of physical abuse. I ended that relationship right at a year which coincided with the ninth and final hitting session; that time I fought back. At the time I did not reveal the physical abuse to anyone; I was embarrassed and didn't want people to think badly of him or me. He was a "jock" four years older than I; I was a cheerleader. I decided then to switch peer groups and to become friends with the "freaks."

In late spring, 1974, at fifteen years of age, I began experimenting with drugs. Three months later, I became romantically involved with one of the main high school drug dealers. We were never in short supply of mind-altering substances. In October 1974, we ate seeds from datura stramonium (Jimson weed). I lived a four-day sleepless nightmare filled with hellish hallucinations while strapped to a bed in ICU. My boyfriend was restrained with a straight jacket. Yet, even after the stramonium nightmare we continued experimentation with various kinds of hallucinogens -- LSD, windowpane, blotter acid, mescaline, MDA, and a few others. (Click here to read about datura stramonium. Click here to read a two-part series about my experience.)

But most of my psychedelic experiences caused me to feel at one with the universe, in harmony with all creation. However, as the months passed, the trips began to turn bad. The feeling of tripping lingered even without having dropped any acid. I became paranoid and withdrawn.

Needless to say, I had many thoughts of insanity. My saving thought was, If I was insane, I wouldn't know it. At that point, in desperation for my sanity after spending over a year in my chemically induced spiritual search, I quit experimenting with drugs and turned to Transcendental Meditation (TM).

In late summer, 1975, at sixteen years old, I got 100% involved with TM volunteering at the TM Center, assisting with classes and initiations, and planning to attend the Maharishi Mahesh University in Iowa after high school graduation. Within eight months of starting TM I broke the relationship with my dealer boyfriend. He got busted within a few months after our breakup.

A little over one year into TM, I met (my next) boyfriend (four years older than I) and moved in with him the summer before my senior year of high school. He was faithfully involved with a small Baptist Church. Yet, he smoked pot on an almost daily basis, and we cohabitated "living in sin" for ten months. Because I wanted to please him I dropped my involvement with TM and decided I'd try to believe the Baptist doctrine, which was difficult for me, especially the hell-fire teachings. Almost every Sunday, I found myself at the altar in tears of shame wondering if I was "saved."

We had wedding plans for June 1977, a few weeks after I graduated from high school. But in May I broke the engagement; I couldn't come to terms with belief in a God of damnation. I felt that for our marriage to work I had to believe. I was also struggling with mood swings, depression, and feelings of low self-worth.

I was eighteen years old. I felt driven to find "the truth," to discover God, to find my way "back to the garden."

~*~*~

Some may wonder about parental guidance through these years. For whatever reasons, I had few disciplinary boundaries while growing up. (Plus, it was the 1960s and '70s.) I also apparently developed some issues with abandonment. In the 1960's, Mom spent extended time as an in-patient for manic depression (now known as bipolar disorder). Dad was challenged with anger issues, possibly as a result from a brain injury due to a serious car wreck prior to starting the family. Like most of humanity, my parents were good people who went through some hard times handling life as best they could.

In 1961, when I was around two years old, our family moved from Daytona Beach, Florida, to the foothills of North Carolina. My parents lived in that NC home until their deaths, Dad in 1996 and Mom in 2009.

Looking back, I see that the familial and parental circumstances influenced choices I made in seeking elsewhere to fill certain unmet physical, emotional, and familial needs. Yet there were also rich times spent freely exploring nature and life. From the age of four and into my teen years, I spent most of my free time playing outside. From my mid-elementary years and up I was a latchkey kid. I am the youngest of three children.

Our neighborhood was full of kids. We rode bikes all over the place and played pick-up football, softball, and rollie-bat. I loved to run and played lots of tag, relays, and Sardines (a hide-and-seek game). We regularly camped outside in our yards or select places in the surrounding woods. We directed our own play; adults were seldom involved.

Our neighbor owned and boarded horses. The large pasture stretched behind our house. I fell in love with horses and rode almost daily until I was around thirteen years old. Sometimes I'd even go for a ride before school. I loved grooming horses and caring for them. My parents bought me my first pony when I was six years old. His name was Dynamite. I later owned Princess and then Black Eagle. I liked riding bareback and pretending I was a Navajo or Cherokee. Other times my horse-riding friend, Marie, and I would pack saddle bags and pretend we were explorers.

~*~*~

Shortly after the split from my fiancé in May 1977, I moved onto a farm with a hippy family who had moved to the North Carolina foothills from New York. I dabbled with Transcendental Meditation (again), the teachings of Ram Dass, yoga, and a group that followed The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ.

In July I visited a cousin with the intent purpose to accompany him to a Wicca gathering; Wiccans believe in witchery used for the good of humanity. My cousin ended up having to work. So, I spent the day with my aunt and accompanied her to a ladies' morning prayer group at a Charismatic Lutheran church. 

(The term Charismatic refers not to a denomination, but rather a movement within Christianity which teaches that the nine so-called "gifts of the spirit" listed in I Corinthians, Chapter 12 of the Bible, are still in use in the modern Church, and that these so-called gifts are separately given by God to individual believers as God so chooses. The English word for "gifts" in I Corinthians 12 is translated from the Greek word charismata. Speaking in tongues, also called "praying in the spirit," is the dominant "gift," but not all Charismatics speak in tongues. The other eight "gifts" are interpretation of tongues, prophecy, word of knowledge, word of wisdom, discerning of spirits, faith, miracles, and healings. In some Charismatic gatherings, believers also dance and laugh and "get slain" in the spirit. The term "spirit-filled," indicates that a believer has received the "gift of tongues" and is open to God controlling her/his life.)

At that meeting, I heard speaking in tongues for the first time. But instead of speaking, ladies were singing in tongues. Others with "the gift of interpretation" followed in kind - singing in English the interpretation of a tongue. The Baptist Church had taught me that speaking in tongues had ceased after the early years of the first-century Church and that any speaking in tongues since then was devilish.

But this didn't sound devilish at all. It was beautiful, angelic.

That day I was led into tongues and began to see a different side to the scriptures. Instead of a vengeful Bible God whose love I had to work for, I felt the presence of a loving God who had freed me, a spiritual Father who accepted me because His son had sacrificed his all for the whole world, and for me personally.

I returned to the farm and told my yoga-hippie friends that they didn't have to do all that meditation to be one with God, "Just believe on Jesus Christ and speak in tongues!"

I became engrossed in the scriptures, trying to understand and craving to comprehend the "breadth and length and depth and height," "to know the love of Christ," and to be "filled with all the fullness of God." I began reading and rereading Acts and the Pauline epistles, mainly Ephesians through Colossians.

Each Sunday, through the rest of the summer, I drove a three-hour round trip to attend services at the Charismatic church where I had been led into tongues - Resurrection Lutheran. The message at Resurrection was different from the message at Victory Baptist, the little church I'd attended just months earlier. Instead of hell-fire and judgement, the theme was love, grace, mercy, compassion, freedom. Not to mention, they had good music!

I was full of questions. I wanted to be able to reconcile at least a majority of the contradictions in the Bible. I thought, If I can learn Greek and get back to the original texts, then I can know what the Bible really says. I decided to attend college focusing on biblical studies with an interest in counseling. I also had interest in service work with either Volunteers in Service to America or The Peace Corps.

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I chose a college that had "spirit-filled" connections, Montreat Anderson near Black Mountain, North Carolina, in the heart of Billy Graham country.

Montreat would invite well-known Christian leaders to speak with the students. It was a small school, so students were able to personally meet and interact with the guests. Jackie Buckingham was one of those guests. She and her husband, Jamie, were personal friends with Nicky Cruz. Jamie was Nicky's co-author of Run Baby Run. As Jackie shared some of the miracle stories, my heart burned within me to know God and his power like she described.

On one occasion Ruth Graham visited the college campus. I attended a small gathering with about twenty young ladies and Mrs. Graham. We met in an informal living room setting attired with a few upholstered chairs for seating and the rest of us on the floor. It was very comfortable. I asked Mrs. Graham questions regarding speaking in tongues and the holy spirit field. Her answer was that she simply didn't know the answers. I thought to myself, If Ruth Graham doesn't know, who does?

During my few months at Montreat I attended Montreat's Presbyterian Church services along with various flavors of Charismatic meetings in the local vicinity. However, the same insecurity and shame that I had experienced in the Baptist Church again haunted me. I couldn't seem to find satisfactory answers to my questions nor a remedy for my shame.

Around this time is when I found The Way.

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Fellowship meetings with The Way were tender and welcoming and didn't involve the frenzied, spirit-filled confusion I was experiencing at some of the Charismatic gatherings. At Way Fellowships I witnessed what I had read in sections of Acts and the Pauline epistles: all things common, decent and in order, fruit of the spirit, greeting with a holy kiss.

I enrolled and took The Way's Power for Abundant Living Foundational and Intermediate Classes, which were combined the first time I sat through "The Class." I drove a three-hour round trip, from Montreat to Hickory, for almost each of the fifteen sessions, though some sessions were combined over a few weekends.

For once I was getting answers to many of the questions that plagued me. Apparent contradictions in the Bible were explained. I learned that I was righteous before God and that I had "sonship rights." I began to "retemorize" King James scriptures repeating them over and over in my mind convincing my self of "the truth." I was finally learning God's will for my life. Jesus promised, "Seek and ye shall find." I had found it. Or so I thought.

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While attending Montreat, I became friends with some students who were considered to be spiritually mature. We met regularly for prayer meetings. Talk went on qualifying who was spiritual enough to be allowed at these assemblies. Looking back, our gatherings mainly served to achieve an emotional high with some participants being slain in the spirit and speaking in tongues out loud and uncontrollably. During one of these sessions, I had to leave because I felt like I was tripping; I felt paranoid and dirty. I don't think I went to any more prayer sessions after that one.

Friends from the prayer group warned me that The Way was a cult. I considered their words and read about The Way in cult literature. It appeared to me that those who claimed The Way was a cult based that conclusion mainly on the fact that The Way did not believe Jesus is God. Until shortly after starting college I never realized that Christians believed that Jesus is God. At the time I was stunned that anyone would think such a thing, that a man could be God. Therefore, the main thrust of The Way being a cult because it was non-trinitarian didn't concern me, much.

In my college Old Testament History Class I wrote an answer in response to an essay question on a test asking to compare Old Testament faith with New Testament faith. My essay was based on research from The Way. I received an A+ on that essay with a note from my professor, "Excellent research. I have questions about some of your findings." Having been warned The Way was a cult I felt too uncomfortable to ever approach the professor on the matter.

The prayer-group friends subjected me to a type of interrogation with an emphasis on the Trinity. We met in a small classroom. There were five of them and one of me. Four of them were standing with one at the chalkboard writing. I was seated. Their examination included questions, authoritarian proclamations, and accusations regarding The Way and its "devilish doctrines." I recall a couple of them raising their voices at me, I think in an attempt to wake me from what they considered my delusion and to save me from the "cult." I felt attacked, cross-examined, and scared.

Not long after that incident my college roommate, who suffered with mental illness, was found in the parking lot trying to pick sparkling diamonds out of the glitter in the pavement. She had also recently begun using the window instead of the door to exit and enter our college dorm room. The prayer-group friends, who had interrogated me, blamed me for tainting my roommate and causing her to get "possessed with demons," all because I was attending a Way Class and Fellowships. I was the only student at Montreat involved with The Way.

These were the people warning me that The Way was a cult? I guess it takes one to know one. Jesting aside, I believe these friends' intentions were good. But their approach, for obvious reasons, sent me running in the other direction.

I mailed a handwritten letter to *Dr. Wierwille, the founder and president of The Way, whom I had listened to for forty-five hours on audio tape as he taught the combined Foundational and Intermediate Classes. I shared with him what had happened with my prayer-group friends. I never expected to hear back. But I did. I received a typed letter in an envelope with a return address from "The Teacher" in New Knoxville, Ohio. He commended me for my stand and wrote, "When people throw dirt at God's Word, all they do is get their hands dirty."

I finished my first semester at Montreat College and then dropped out to study and serve with The Way.


[*Wierwille received his "doctorate" in 1948 from an unaccredited "seminary," Pikes Peak Bible Seminary, which was located in a house in Manitou Springs, CO. (Link)]

(Last revised June, 2018)

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Click Part 2 below to continue.

• Seeking Life Along The Way: Part 1
• Seeking Life Along The Way: Part 2
• Seeking Life Along The Way: Part 3
• Seeking Life Along The Way: Addendum