In Reply to: i can see that.. posted by ray on February 12, 2005 at 09:04:14:
To be honest, it did feel somewhat offensive. I guess I have grown to hate sarcasm which I have been so good at in the past. And recognize it even when it is not what was meant.
I really did want to know what led you to leave and how you kept your faith. I still wonder what kind of support you had when leaving, or were you and your wife just on your own trying to make it?
Did you have a belief in God or Jesus before the Family or good experiences with that?
I think life experience has much to do with what forms people's impressions and beliefs.
Where you talk about incredibly difficult losses and keeping your faith during them, I think that if I had a faith that would not be the challenge for me, to doubt a God because of loss because unexplained loss happens to people regardless of belief.
I remember when David died in 88. We were not together for decades before that, except that he had a connection with the kids. I still had some of that "Family hangover" that God takes people away that get in the way and that it could happen to me. In this case it was because he was so cruel to the kids. Probably because he had gotten heavily involved with drugs which I was unaware of until his death.
I don't think Faith of any sort is about putting one's God in a balancing scale and when you are down, God is out.
I do think that when most of what one learns in God's name is how He will hurt or exploit, it is sometimes impossible to get rid of the idea that God is not Rape, Abuse and exploitation.
I know many FG experienced this in the Family and before it. The worst aspect of the Family imo was that it took what was supposed to be good and reframed it all into a monster with some good added in, at least at first.
A person's worth was what they could produce. It always was. I think that is one of the hardest things to face about the Family. And then to separate God from that.