Answer to a Letter From A Loved One

To my surprised, I've just received a short email from a person whom I knew in the Family over 25 years ago. This person is still in the Family and has some sort of "position" but I don't understand exactly what that is. It is a little ambiguous in the way my "freedom of expression and thinking" is accepted and praised, almost encouraged but at the same time, in a very Family-like manner it is put down as not "coming to me directly through the right channels". I may receive something from God, I am told, but it must be incomplete because I am not that pure (in heart, I suppose).

Well, I'm touched but feel puzzled. I have lived the good of the Family as well as the bad and decided to leave when things were getting too weird for me. I considered people in the Family as my own family and closer to me than anybody else in the world, even as I was leaving the Family but I was declared "persona non-grata". It was not because I had done anything against them but as a result of my decision. It was a pre-emptive blow to put me and keep me down. How can their proclaimed love turn that way and at the same time they are unable to turn from their evil teachings, it's uncomprehensible for me. I know that some of the people involved in that decision were simply merchants and hirelings enjoying the power of their position but how could I have been so wrong about others. Well, I guess we all are suckers for some things and have a weak spot.

I am in turmoil today but I know I made the right decision for myself, for my wife and for my children. When I left the Family, I did it because I could no more even hear, much less accept quietly the perverted teachings that were being passed on. Some were subtle but others were very openly stupid and perverse. I had tried to overlook most of it but my conscience would not allow me to accept abuse of weak people - those who were in the field while we enjoyed such level of abundance.

I had already seen the falsehood of the self-proclaimed end-time prophet but tried to see the good in what else he wrote. I also stayed in the Family because of the many people I learned to love and trust - even with my life. When the time came to leave that was one more reason that made it a hard and difficult decision but "forsaking all" had been my everyday call and whose faith will the righteous live by? His, hers, or some one else's? That is why I left.

The evil teachings that insinuated fundamental sins of pedophilia, child abuse and slavery were too much for me. I hope those who stayed were simply because they had no place to go and not because they were blind, because idiots they were not. I prayed for them many times. I hope that even if they are still in the Family they do not share belief in those teachings and have repented for their part in teaching them - but how could that be possible? I pray they realize it and repent so their collar won't become the proverbial big stone in the judgement day.

Those who have left the Family following their own calling, those who have stepped out on the water, have been blessed. I pray that many more see the evil teachings embedded in the Family doctrines and are able to also step out on the water to walk out by faith and move on into the light of the the truth. This includes those I knew whom I loved and trusted and are still in as well as those I may have never met but who are contemplating leaving the indoctrination camps of mindless daydreaming.

Like Jonas used to sing, step out on the water...
Like Aaron used to sing, start living today...