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In Reply to: an new Jules article from MovingOn posted by MG on March 06, 2003 at 01:36:00:
Brutally honest self-disclosure. It was very moving and I thought the insight of moving from a "magical society" where we believed we could pray to change the weather, politics, etc. (ie have total control over the world around or or at least know God was in total control) to a place where we had to forego control was very true.
But in a very real sense, control was not lost but gained. In making the break with the group we were asserting our identity, establishing our will and conscience, and not so much losing control as gaining it over every aspect of our daily lives. In the womb of the Family's "magical dreamworld" we only thought we had control, yet allowed someone to tell us how and when and why to masturbate, what to think, how to brush our teeth, how to shave, what was the proper way to greet someone, exactly what to eat and what movies to watch, what expressions to have on our faces, etc.
We thought we had control in the group by some magical power. But the poor kids who read Heaven's Girl and then tried to walk across the swimming pool themselves to test it out found out that the power wasn't there. And as often as enemies were cursed in the name of God and David, they didn't seem to die of cancer or have a crippling traffic accident. And tho we prayed faithfully for the weather to change, most of the time it changed when a new weather front moved in of its own accord.
In the big picture, life itself sometimes seems out of control. The universe seems chaotic. We can't mutter an incantation, wave a wand and make someone fall in love with us. We can't pray and claim a verse and be guaranteed we'll get a well-paying job we don't have the skill for. And as the news rolls on around us, we can't package life into a neat package and assign all bad things in the world to a Jewish conspiracy. Crap happens.
But in the most important things, we have seized control over the basic things in our life that matter the most. What we believe, what we'll eat, what we'll do for work, how our kids will be raised, what our values are. And though life itself sometimes seems out of control, like the fish fighting upstream, we can assert quite a bit of control. We can choose our friends and have honest relationships.
