Cults and Such

I wrote a rendition of the following in an email to someone tonight.
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I'm gonna address your statement regarding "cults." My thoughts may come out ambivalent, because my thoughts and feelings regarding "cults" can be ambivalent. Similar to my thoughts about whether or not a creator exist or a theist god exist. I don't know what I believe currently about the god thing. Perhaps some day I will, and perhaps not.

Anyway "cults." I'm going to simply ramble here. This ain't no dissertation or nuttin'. Just thoughts interlaced with any weirdness that comes through my finger tips. I will endeavor to make it somewhat coherent.

I knew The Way was called a "cult" when I became a Way follower. The "cult" label didn't bother me...much. At the time The Way was kinder than the "church" believers that I was involved with. The Way could answer my questions. My experience at Way fellowships was good and rich, real and tangible. My heart's desire was to know God...to "know"...to "know"....to "know." I had convinced myself that Jesus Christ was THE way to the Father (god). When I found The Way, I began to convince myself that the Biblical scriptures were perfect when "originally" given. I delved deeper into "crucifying the old man." That is declaring my flesh dead and worthless and my life in Christ vibrant and righteous.

Eventually that led me to what I call a soul suicide or soul murder. Any desire that was outside the doctrine of God's Word (the "original" intent of the Bible as The Way claimed to teach) was not of God. I was to renew my mind to the Truth of the Word, to destroy my human logic from the position I had exalted it and put on the mind of the new man; ie: the mind of Christ. In so doing I would know the depth and length and breadth and height of the love of God which passes all understanding. The eyes of my understanding would be enlightened. I would be one of the telios, the initiated.

As time went on, I no longer knew who Carol was. Carol was what the Word said she was. (Interesting I don't state "who" but rather "what.")

For me, that is the essence of cultic influence and harmfulness (for some followers). When one's autonomy is stolen or allowed to be stolen. And when one's interdependence with humanity is replaced with exclusivism; that those not enlightened to the truth (that is taught within the group) are ruled by their natural senses at best, the seed of the 'devil' at worst. (I do think that a follower of any cultic group, **who ends up harmed, most(?) much(?) of the time, holds part of the responsibility in the situation in which they find themselves. **Yet stating that, I get a bit foggy and not quite sure.)

As I figure you might agree, any group can be cultic. And how much so is on a continuum. Us humans don't live in a vacuum. I like what I read from part of a book by psychiatrist, Dr. Arthur Deikman: "Some degree of cult behavior can be seen in all groups, so instead of asking 'Is this group a cult?,' a more useful inquiry is: "How much cult behavior is taking place here?' "

I've read similar in other books written by various psychologists and sociologists and such. I find it a fascinating field - group dynamics. How many of the authors I've read consider themselves part of the anti-cult movement? I don't know, but I don't think many do. Rather they study group dynamics. What is healthy? What is unhealthy? How can we determine such?

How many people join cults? Is it increasing or decreasing? I don't know if we can measure that. How many folks suffer emotional and psychological abuse in groups or in one-on-one relationships? Lots. Is either of those increasing or decreasing? I don't know.

Well, that's a few of my thoughts regarding "cults." (Hmmm...I may put those thoughts on a blog entry. :-D )
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**I struck part of my words above, because I got to thinking about them and realized I really don't agree with what I had stated. It is like blaming a person who has been abused; the victim is not responsible for the abuse. That said, when a person joins a group, depending on influences utilized in how they joined (and there are variables and degrees), I think in many(?) of the cases the person holds (at the least) some responsibility for their choice to join and continue with the group. That too is variable, because influences from the group and vulnerabilities of the person while in the group will often fluctuate. If a person is born into a group, they really have no choice until later as an adult, and then it is extremely diffi-cult to leave.

I have a lot more thoughts on the subject, and then some foggy-headedness with it.

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Foundations

non-subject: ridicule
aww ~ 11/10/10
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Mid 1990s. It had to have been either Thanksgiving or Christmas because those were typically the only times us siblings and our parents would get together. Or at funerals and weddings.

My mom was one of thirteen children, though two of the children died in childhood. One of her brothers named Craig died; it seems he lived into elementary school age. The other sibling died shortly after being born. I don't know if it was a boy or a girl. My mother referred to it as "the infant."

Mom was 2nd to the youngest in her family.

I am the youngest of three children, so that puts me near the bottom of the cousin rung as far as age. Most of my however-many cousins I have are older than I. I think there are four younger than I.

With all those cousins there have been lots of weddings. And through the years there have been some funerals. Mom was the last of her siblings to die. I wrote a poem in her honor entitled "The Final Drum." That was her maiden name, Drum.

Thanksgiving. Christmas. Weddings. Funerals. Those have been our main family gatherings in my adult years, like so many in our transient culture.

Mid 1990s. Either Thanksgiving or Christmas. My brother and I stood on the porch of our parent's home. The porch of the house where we had grown up. My husband was standing with us. My brother was smoking a cigarette.

The porch. It wasn't a large porch, but neither was it as small as a stoop. The porch floor was a brick red and was some sort of stone tile, but not square tiles. Rather a medley of shapes with off white grout outlining each contour. In one corner of the porch was a beige-painted brick column with a beige-painted pole on it connecting to the roof. A beige-painted gutter ran down the front of the pole and column.

A green wooden bench with a slat back, and big enough for two people, sat in front of the downstairs bedroom window against the beige-painted outside brick wall. An old-timey milk can painted black stood beside the bench. That's where mom hid the key, under the milk can. A ramp covered with green outdoor carpet made its way from the sidewalk, up the one-step porch and to the front door. Mom had the ramp installed after Dad's wreck.

My brother and I stood over by the brick column, the top of which we used for a table for our beverage glasses or cans or whatever we happened to be drinking.

My bother was a liberal. I considered myself a conservative, though I didn't keep up too much with politics. I usually just asked my husband who I should vote for. He too was conservative.

I don't know how the subject of homosexuality came up, probably because of some political conversation.

"Homosexuality is wrong," I confidently stated.

"So you think someone would choose that lifestyle knowing the prejudice they would face?" My brother responded.

"God didn't make a man's penis to go into another man's rectum. It's not natural. God made man for woman and woman for man. Queers choose to be queers. Sure there might be something in their upbringing that caused them to be that way. But it is a disorder. It is wrong. Bottom line is it is devil spirit possession."

My voice was forceful. I knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that I was right. My brother didn't have spiritual eyes to see. I didn't know if he was born again or not. We didn't discuss spiritual matters. Well, once we did, over a decade before, after he'd had enough to drink.

My husband made a gesture to try to calm me down. But I wasn't going to back down. I was going to stand for the truth whether or not my husband spoke up. Do I really believe the Word or don't I? If I do, then I speak. That's what Paul stated in Corinthians: "I believed, therefore have a spoken." I was typically bolder than my husband anyway, when it came to this kind of stuff.

"Can someone who is gay go to Heaven?" My brother asked, not so much for an answer, but to try to trap me in my words.

"Yes," I responded. "Works don't matter as far as getting into Heaven. A person can get born again and never walk the Word and they'll still get into Heaven. But if the queer doesn't confess Jesus as Lord and believe God raised him from the dead, he won't go to heaven."

"Can a murderer go to Heaven?" he asked.

"Yes." I answered. "The same way the queer can go. It's not based on works but on whether they accept Jesus Christ as Lord and believe God raised him from the dead."

"So," he responded. "A murderer can go to Heaven even if he tortures and murders, as long as he accepts Christ. And a person can live a good life and be benevolent, but because he has consensual sex with someone of the same sex, if he doesn't accept Christ, he will burn in Hell?"

"I didn't say they'd burn in Hell. I said they won't go to Heaven. There is no such thing as an eternal burning Hell. I don't know all the ends and outs of how God will judge good works but God is just and all love. He'll figure it out."

I was still heated, more so at my husband for not saying anything. Didn't my husband really believe this stuff!? Why didn't he speak up?!

"I rest my case," my brother responded.

We probably then went inside for fruit cake.

Or pecan pie.

Charlotte & Wilbur's "Ordinary Miracle" ~ Sarah McLachlan

I found the following YouTube this past week and have watched it a few times over.

To life and all its ordinary miracles.

Forests

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Blogging. What an odd activity. At least it seems that way to me; yet, I indulge.

There was a time I thought I would never have a *weblog* ~ a *we blog* ~ an *I blog.*

I don't know the history of blogging, so I just searched it and found an article in Wikipedia: History of blogging. From there I ended up at Wikipedia's article entitled Online diary.

From there I ended up at a site entitled "the online diary history project," which states:

We asked people who began keeping online journals before January 1998 to reflect on how and why they began journaling, and how they felt journals and the journaling community had changed over the years. Here they tell the story of the first years of online journals in their own words. The entries are arranged according to when the contributor first started keeping an online journal.

Fascinating.

I've so often asked myself, "Why? Why do I blog?"

I've yet to come up with a definitive answer.

When I stated to an ex-therapist of mine that I write for myself, he pointed out that isn't completely true. And rightly so, because I blog; that is I choose to make certain pieces public. Some of these pieces are very personal. Other pieces never make it to the public blogosphere.

All that said, I still mainly write for myself...even when I blog. Yes, it is a selfish act; I confess. It is for me first.

I think what most humans tend toward is for "me first." That is, we choose things because of self interest or self desire. Even if that desire is to help others; it is still a desire of the self.

A tree grows. If it is deep in a forest, it may never be seen by public eyes - at least as an individual tree. Yet it continues to grow and is always 'public.'

The tree weathers. It grows. The tree suffers. It grows. The tree provides shade. It grows. The tree provides a home. It grows. The tree's bark may bear scars of onslaughts from its environment. It grows. If the tree is deciduous, it's leaves will change colors each year, and it will bring forth new leaves each year. It grows.

The tree is always on display. Always. Yet only those who seek the forest will ever see that individual tree. Even then, that tree may not be noticed. Yet it is still there, in the open, on display.

Isn't that kind of like a blog these days. How many blogs are out here? Millions? Hmm...time for a net search. Be right back.

O.K. I'm a limited researcher, and in my brief perusal after my search, I found this post on the Blog Herald. The article and comments pose some of the same thoughts I had; especially what makes a blog meaningful? And, I'd add, how much does that really matter?

I think of visual art. What makes it meaningful? Who is to say? The old phrase "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" comes to mind. "Usefulness" and "meaningful" are in the eye of the moment, in the soul of the artist, and in the heart's interpretation of the partaker.

There are millions of blogs. There are billions of trees. There are billions of people.

Why do I blog? I think the answer is probably multifaceted. One facet, currently, and perhaps the main facet, is to give voice and (dare I add) to find my voice...whatever that exactly means at any given moment.

Perhaps that is a good enough reason.

And perhaps the reason isn't all that important, but rather the need or maybe the desire.

Reasons. Needs. Desires. All are part of being human, along with a million(?) other attributes.

Why do I like the color purple? Why do I like chocolate?

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Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

I should be asleep now, but I'm not. As I laid my head on the pillow and stretched my body upon the mattress, relaxation 'ahhed' through my sinews.

It feels good to lie on my back and stretch.

Yet, I felt an urge to write, even to blog. So here I am.

I attended the phone memoir workshop tonight as I do on other Wednesday nights. The piece I penned tonight will not make it to public eyes, at least not now.

This afternoon prior to the workshop I was thinking about writing, as often I do. These days I write pieces in the workshops that I never post on my blogs. I like that. I am writing for me more than for others.

It is a difficult boundary sometimes when I write something that I plan to blog, to not write for others. I think it is somewhat impossible almost, at least for me. That is, impossible to not 'hold back' in pieces that I know I am going to publish on my blog.

I thought of Emily Dickinson today. She wrote for Emily and apparently for a few friends. I've never studied her life or her writings. I've only heard and read tidbits of information hither and yon. Funny that I was thinking of her this morning and then Dr. McColloch brought her up this afternoon when I met with him. I hadn't revealed to him that I'd just been thinking about that same poet.

I've heard that Robert Frost said something like true publishing is when a writer reads their own work to others. That is what we do in the memoir workshops.

I have compared the memoir workshops to a drum circle; we each drum our rhythm singularly but not alone.

I want to not premeditate too much in regard to what I write in the workshops.

Today, as I thought of that desire, the one about not premeditating before I write, I thought of The Way and what it teaches regarding how interpretation of tongues and the manifestation of prophecy are to be conducted.

One unique thing (at least to my knowledge) about The Way and many of the splinter groups that have originated from Way teachings, is in regard to their teachings about I Corinthians 12 and the so-called gifts of the spirit. The Way teaches they are not gifts, but rather manifestations. Two of those are the manifestations of interpretation of tongues and of prophecy. In The Way we were taught when you speak in tongues aloud in a believer's meeting, you immediately give the interpretation. Don't allow your thoughts to get in the way. Same with the manifestation of prophecy. There is to be no prethought as to what the believer will say in the interpretation or prophecy. A believer just speaks forth the first word that comes to him and lets the other words then flow.

I like when I am able to write with flow. One thing that helps me is to not write for others, to write first for me. Writing for me can include details that I recall from events. Often, the details help me remember more details.

Every one who is a loyal Way follower speaks in tongues, and most interpret and bring forth words of prophecy. The words do flow, but all must be proper and decent and in order and in line with the true doctrine.

Intriguing how a doctrine regarding non-premeditation can end up so pre-determined.