Prompt: An experiment...or whatever bubbles up
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How can I even describe The Way Corps?
I've been saying for years now that I want to print out my story narrative. I bought the three-ring binders, a set of 15 (I think), maroon in color. I own plenty of page protectors. In my mind I know what I want to do.
But still, the binders and page protectors sit empty.
In November 2021, I again picked up the project. I published each section on an online forum that is not viewable to the general public.
I entitled Part 1: Why would anyone join a cult?
Part 1 is divided into 5 parts:1: Back to the Garden...2: Latchkey kid...3: Speaking in tongues & filled with questions...4: If Ruth Graham doesn't know, who does?...5: Demonically tainted...
I entitled Part 2: The structure of The Way
Part 2 is divided into three parts:1: The Way Tree & Rock of Ages2: Word Over the World Ambassador Program3: Way Corps Program
I entitled Part 3: Word Over the World
Part 3 is divided into five parts1: Way Home number one...2: I meet "the man of God..."3: By revelation from God, under the giant blue-and-white-striped big top boasted as the largest in the world...4: Keep it in the family...5: Splinter extraction...
I posted my last entry on 12/22/21 - Part 3:5, Splinter Extraction...
It's about the abortion.
It's about the abortion.
And I have been stuck since then. This stuckness has happened in this same place of my story each time I've attempted this project.
I get stuck when I am 20 years old, in September 1979, and entering the in-residence 10th Way Corps training at The Way College in Emporia, Kansas. When I get to that point in my story, I become dumbstruck, in a sense. I cannot find adequate words to describe whatever it is I'm trying to describe. Perhaps part of it is that my memory is more slippery about that year, and I no longer have any journal pages I wrote from that year that I can refer back to.
Though my other Way Corps years are difficult to write about, I'm not as dumbstruck beginning in 1980 when I AWOLed from the Way Corps, abandoning my post and the WOW Ambassadors under my so-called leadership. I left them high and dry, like a Judas betrayal.
Though my other Way Corps years are difficult to write about, I'm not as dumbstruck beginning in 1980 when I AWOLed from the Way Corps, abandoning my post and the WOW Ambassadors under my so-called leadership. I left them high and dry, like a Judas betrayal.
And then the year after that, when I decided to re-up my Way Corps commitment and start the program all over. That's when I got asthma. And then the following year when I again enter in-residence at Emporia, KS. And the year after that when I AWOLed again, deja vu...again abandoning my post leaving folks high and dry.
For decades I carried that shame, even after I left The Way International some 24 years later.
I felt...What kind of person with any integrity would do such a thing? Especially when it comes to overseeing people's spiritual lives, especially with a commitment as serious as The Way Corps?
Perhaps those years are just too hard for me to write about? Perhaps I can't find the words because there aren't any? Perhaps I get frustrated with my lack of memory around some of the events, circumstances, relationships? Yet other memories seem so crystal clear.
The Way Corps wasn't like simply going to college.
And The Way wasn't just another denomination.
5 comments:
I found I just had to forgive not only myself for my shortcomings in the Way Corps, but perhaps even more the folks therein who put such unreasonable, unGodly standards on us, not just in the Corps itself, but the Way Ministry as a whole. They put burdens on us such onerous and yet would not so much as touch them themselves. They were all about climbing up the corporate ladder of the way, with no love for those they scrambled up the top over. I decided, with help from the late Terri B, not to let them steal my joy any longer.
SP
"...not to let them steal my joy..."
Amen, SP.
Right there with you. :)
(Well...I'm having technical trouble commenting on my own blog. This is my third attempt. Ha.)
No matter what any well-meaning Christian or any random person might say, no one can undo what God accomplished in Christ Jesus when He raised him from the dead. We are always His beloved children because of the incorruptible seed that lives within us. God always loves us, even when we do not think so.
SP
Well, I remain an ambivalent agnostic. ;)
But, if the Bible scriptures do pan out to be absolutely true, yay!
That said, as I've expressed before (on the days I'm not so ambivalently agnostic), I lean toward Christian Universalism. That if JC paid that price and undid what Adam wrought on all mankind and the earth, JC did it all the way. I've thought, maybe even to the redemption of Lucifer.
There's a longish story about my thoughts on this and discovering Christian Universalism, and it all began one day back in late summer of 2006 when I was reading Romans 5 (which I'd probably read 100s of times, Romans being one of my favorite books) in the Amplified and verse 15 stopped me in my tracks. A few months later, through serendipitous events and connections, I discovered another take on the scriptures that I'd never heard of, which was Christian Universalism.
Not trying to convince you or anyone of it; just stating my thoughts. :)
As always, thanks for reading and commenting SP.
I hope you have a wonderful day on this your very special 2022 Easter. :)
Correction...
It was Romans 5:18 that stopped in my tracks.
Of course, 5:15 is part of that context. :)
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