In Reply to: the bad side .. posted by ray on August 08, 2003 at 04:38:36:
Ray, I think some of these questions are like the famous Gordian Knot, a piece of rope so hopelessly entangled that for most people it's easier to simply walk away from rather than attempt to unravel it. Yet it's our lot as exmembers to try to do just that to make sense of our lives, whether privately or on these boards. I agree that so many issues are not either/or but that the individual strands of good, evil and neutal are tangled together. I very much appreciate your particular insights and viewpoints and I think it's a case of "iron sharpening iron". At least I hope it's that. I hope it's not "tin banging against tin."
You mentioned, "i'm not sure how my testifying to God's working in my life while in the fam someway makes you think i don't care about the plight of sg's." Well, me mentioning the stories at MovingOn was to explain my reasons for my feelings in this regards, to let you know why I feel as I do. I wanted to sound you out on your reactions as well, and like you said, "the question of the suffering of the sg's is one i really don't have words for." I understand that. I am sometimes beyond words, or at least beyond words that I would want my children to hear.
This whole issue is extremely painful to consider and to try to reconcile Christianity to, and like PD said, that's why so many SGAs simply throw the existence of God completely out of the mix, as it's then easier to see Berg as a manipulative, sleezy figure who took advantage of people. It's much harder to believe that a God of Love was there but didn't help the kids.
I do sense that you feel the pain others have suffered, which to me is almost the litmus test, and you have said you stand against the Family's policies and leadership. I guess it's a tightrope walk sometimes not getting so angry at Family leaders/policies that one is no longer relating to the poor folks (FGs and SGs) still trapped inside, just like we once were, and on the other hand, being so reconciliatory to current members in efforts to be kind to them, that one ignores the daily mental anguish and suffering of exmembers who are trying to recover from their cult experience. Some of us naturally fall closer to one side of the issue or the other, even though we realize it's a "both" and not an "either/or" issue.
I identify with what a poster said recently: "Some of us who are negative need to be a little more positive, and some who are positive need to be a little more negative." I see myself as somewhere in the middle, leaning to the negative side.