Re: The Family?

I am just curious as to why you left something you honor and love so much?
And could you futher explain what you mean when you say "The family is still family"?

answer to Jason's questions...
Hi Jason,
In reply to your questions.
1) I left for the basic reason that at the time, if one had doubts about anything, basically, if you couldn't overcome them, you had to leave.
At the time, there were a lot of things I was doubting and thus , the inner conflict was just too much to bear and i left rather than pretend I believe everything that we, at the time were expected to believe. Was also having many issues with my spouse which I will not go into. Things change. Nothing stays the same, thus TF also changed rapidly over time. The world changed, everything changed. Things didn't turn out exactly as we had thought. The life of living solely by faith was a very hard physically and emotionally. Yet, many gave their heart and soul for the cause of God's Love in TF.
2) Many formed very strong bonds out of a common experience in TF and such bonds endure a long long time. I still feel very close to many ex-members whom I knew and shared such an intense life with. Real Love doesn't just disapear, and there was real love between many in TF. That is why there are reunions...because of the deep bonds that were formed. TF was first and foremost a spiritual movement made up of young people who were fed up with the world and who had found answers to lifes deepest questions in Jesus Christ and wanted to live 100% for Jesus/ God...It was a very bonding experience.

to friendlyx
Thank you guest for answering my questions.

I agree wholeheartedly with what you have said about the bonds between members back in the early days. I joined in Cincy in 1972. Back in those days, the Mo letters were for leadership only so the rest of us learned primarily from each other in classes, from the enormous amount of Bible reading and memorization we did (what was that card called we wore around our necks???) and in conversation during witnessing trips or on Saturday nights when we always went downtown on the bus singing and dancing and witnessing. It was for me an absolutely magical time of freedom from the evil system, and bonding with others who were of like mind! Absolutely a life changing experience!

Thanks Mary Jane,

For sharing your experience....I was just thinking this morning, after having recently viewed some decidedly anti-family tv interviews. What was my gut response? Then the words came to me...Trying to understand spiritual experiences with a worldly mind is like trying to look out side through the wall. All you see is wall. You just can't see outside...Impossible. So, renouncing all and living together in such a tight unity. One cannot describe it, it must just be experienced. And, in order to experience it, one must Renounce ALL, as Jesus said, 'Renounce ALL or you can not be my disciple.'
For me, having grown up in the church and even being a youth minister, I never knew what the Kingdom might be like 'till joining TF. Then, it was a living experience. I experienced it, and Wow, as you say, it was magical. Yet, who can stay on the mountain top forever. Very difficult. And so many things and problems crop up. Either in one's own mind/life or in other peoples minds who's opinions you value, or in the opinions of the world about you that is dead set on, " Bringing you down!". Yet, let us not deny the Whole truth about it.

Set cards.

Don't tell anyone, but I never got much past the second set. Good idea about the card-around-the-neck. I'm finding it harder to leard the words to new songs. Maybe that is "the answer"!

I enjoyed the communal life, the singing, the committment, the travel, the constant change etc. but found it more and more difficult to push the basic beliefs of the organisation: The Bible and Jesus. I just din't think we were really helping folks that needed it. I hated "litnessing" and witnessing, but always felt compelled to do it.

So I felt horribly guilty about leaving, but I couldn't stay.

Now my feelings are mixed: I feel embarressed about being "duped" into taking on such a fundamentalist belief system, and spending 6 years in promoting it, but I also find myself cherishing a lot of the friendships and experiences.

Greg

Re: The Family
I remember you from L.A. I first encountered Jesse H on the sts there and then I fled to the God Squad for a few days where I got "saved" and a few days later you were on Hollywood BLVd with your banjo across your back and that great big smile. Then the older Christian Danni came to with the GS crew and gathered around and bibles in hand chanted "blood of jesus, blood of jesus" and that freaked me out enough to walk off with you to the bus that went to fifth and towne. That is mostly how I remember you though I might have crossed your path in Switzerland- not sure.
I left a few yrs after you when I finally was able to get my kids all together and get out after the pain just got to be too much. I was a teen when I joined. Back in the day when everything was censored and controlled and buddies shadowed newbies everywhere. Verses and scriptures were something I had not heard of before..
I am not religious now, have a good relationship with my significant other and life is quite different from that long ago past. But just wanted to say that I remember you. Also, glad that you got out when you did. For that matter, glad I got out when I did, too.

Re: The Family
i think most of us who left are too. i know i am. i wouldn't have what i do or be who i am today if i hadn't. and i love my life right now.

Re: The Family
Hello was Sharon!
Great to hear from you! I remember you and the incident you described. I often thought of you as the only person that I ever "converted", and worried about how things turned out for you. Now I find out it was more of a case of you jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

I've always been a lousy sales person.

I deeply apologize for my part in getting you involved and I am thrilled that you were able to get away with your family. I'm also glad you were able get away from the trap of closed, fundamentalist thinking that plagues so many ex-members.

I often think back at those six years with amazement. I carried a pretty healthy skeptisism before my involvement and returned to it after leaving. What happened during those six years?

Anyway, I am glad to hear you are doing well, and with your continued happy life!

Greg (was Gabriel)

Re: The Family
Well, I sure don't look at that as your "fault". We were all young and drawn to the ideals and enthusiasm of youth at the time and no idea what was behind the curtain at OZ, an old perverted wizard wannabe.
Anyway, I was still quite young when I left and so my kids had very little of the family experience for which I am profoundly grateful. I wasn't "religious" before, either. You have no need whatsoever to apologize. you were never anything but kind and more the spacey musician sort. I had jumped from the frying pan (my family of origin- left as a teen) into the fire (COG after three days of God Squad) and then back into the frying pan (leaving without support.) Heck, PC's weren't invented yet when I left. My sons and I went thru some very hard times but they all made it and are doing good now. Two in the arts (professionals) and one an RN/businessman.
If you remember Silas (dark hair, eyes- Italian/Spain-Spanish descent) who joined with the Houston crowd of youth, he left some yrs before me and he died about five yrs after I left- he was only 35. That's who was the dad to my kids.
Yes, I definitely was losing my religion before I even got out the door fully. Anyway- very glad to see you made it out of there. Glad we both did. Do you still play the banjo?

Re: The Family

Glad things are good for you, "Cookie". :wink: Things were real hard for awhile for me, but I've been out a very long time and they are much better now. I always wanted to travel around the world. That is a very attractive thing to Youth and not many people get to do that but I do wish that traveling in my youth was not part of being on a mission from (not)God. I particularly thought Switzerland was a beautiful country. Loved the "old town" parts of towns. One of my faves to visit was Solothurn.
I'd love to have been a part of the real world and not litnessing or singing s)))y fam songs or juke box folkies, but sitting at an outdoor cafe and sketching the amazing architecture of the old town there. OMG, the drudgery in the midst of such a beautiful place in the world. Didn't even get the photos. Lost them in my many many moves.
But I do have my family now and that is something I treasure greatly!
Not the fake family where my experience was that people couldn't get too close without risk of separation, bonds broken, and family of origin was scattered or secondary to the false profit. I really didn't get too close to people while in. That was my situation before joining and while in. I found life after leaving. I do have people I liked while in and a few are in my life via e-mail. Those few were people I met while in and remembered from those days. GT I remembered of course! It was quite the scene. Don't worry Gabriel, I think God Squad or the sts of L.A. could have been as bad! So like a person in pain finds heroin and it's a relief at first and then sucks the last breath out of you, I found the family and then got off of it.

Re: The Family

i was just saying the same thing 2 my guy the other day. he was asking what this and that country were like and i really couldn't tell him. the family was the same wherever you were and the only times you got out were to go witnessing or if you were lucky on parent day you got to go to the zoo. for example i spent a great deal of my life in various countries in asia, but i couldn't tell you what the temples were like or monks, or the national days and festivals, or what their religions are about, or any of that because those things were "ungodly". i couldn't really tell you about their food first hand (except i've learned since i left), because when i was in family homes that were "on track" all we had was powderd milk and provisioned brown rice or whatever the market's cast off veggies and meat were.

just saw that doc about children growing up in brothels in india and i feel lucky compared with some of those kids (altho the lack of education was the same for me and i saw the women with their fish in the ff days doing the nasty and so much more within the homes with the "brothers" till the day i left AND not to forget all that was expected of me in the "sharing with the needy" dept. (UGH, will those memories ever fade???!!!!), but what erks me is that all around us were treasure mines and all our parents and sheperds could think about was if we had won enuf souls to put us on the shiner charts or sold enuf videos to beat the other home in the area. or if we had a really cool testimony that berg and zerby would congratulate our home personally on. We youngins were the ones out in the rain, heat, snow, etc.... they used us just like those parents in india used their kids to support them. it was just the same. just under false pretenses.

you're right. "...the drudgery in the midst of such a beautiful place in the world".

Re: The Family
was Sharon--
Were you ever in Daytona Beach or New Orleans in your "family" days?
Hal (was Exodus)