Deceived by kindness and love

I was thinking about an experience I had shortly before I left the Family. I had lots of questions and doubts and had basically decided that Berg was not the Prophet and Family leadership was out to lunch, but I was still hanging on to the lifestyle and sense of community and "serving God" -- plus the fear of God killing me if I left his will. So my eyes were mostly open but I was vascillating back and forth.

I was talking to a shepherdess and she could be such a kind, caring person. She was smiling as she was talking to me and her personality was so caring that she gave off powerful "love vibes." I was thinking of the verse, "the greatest of these is love" because as I looked at her and the love vibes radiating from her, I thought, "THIS is the truth! LOVE is the truth."

In other words, though I realized that the truth actually was the Berg was not a prophet, leadership was wrong and many things about the Family were abusive and wrong, I was almost wooed to think that even tho those things true, that the REAL truth was the "spiritual" experience of the love radiating from this leader.

But the Moonies call it love-bombing, and it's deliberately deceitful. Used car salesmen call it conning a sucker to buy a bad bill of goods. I'm not saying this sister didn't have a loving personality by nature and that it was all a put-on. She was loving. But she also was a leader who could turn around and be very hard and enforce harmful policies. So was "love THE truth" in this case? No.

It reminds me also of what my wife told me. When she wanted to leave the Family and the threats and fear and brow-beating no longer worked, then they pleaded with her and told her how much they loved her and needed her and loved her some more. They touched her heart so much that she stayed.

Sure they "needed" her. She was a young, single sister and they needed her for their fucking schedule. Sure they "needed" her. They wanted a few more years of slave labor out of her, stuck in childcare, watching a roomful of their kids.

I don't think that tender, sweet love they showed me or my wife was real love. It was love bombing and deception.