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In Reply to: Re: Importance of our experience in The Family posted by MV on May 20, 2003 at 22:36:48:
Your question is forcing me to look back and see if I followed a process to accept my Family experience. I honestly don't know but there is a chronological evolution that started when I joined. The most critical issue and question to deal with is: why did you join? The "I joined serve the Lord" as a bulk answer is not right because it makes the family an obvious work's trip. Either people believed that we were saved by faith and not by works or they believe they had to "serve" God. I still don't see how these two are not opposite.
So, to me, dealing with those two issues were important. I haven’t completely understood but I can make intelligent conversation as to why I joined and why I stayed. It had something to do with the message of equality (which turned out to be a lie) and it had something to do with the peaceful atmosphere in the colony (which could only work through oppressive suppression of one's self). It may have had something to do with not being alone and the feeling to "belong" somewhere. There are many possible reasons related to each other in complex patterns. I remember a few people telling me how they had problems with their own family or in growing up. I did too, so joining the family may have had more to do with that distant past while growing up than I readily accept. I don't know.
Staying in is a little more complicated. I think there were very important parts of the message that I agreed with. I liked the structure because I needed structure in my life. I liked the distribution of responsibilities and we survived well. There were many things I liked and I stayed for all of them, I think. In the long run, some of these "good" things and perks became too much for my conscience to deal with. The opulence (I had been in a WS home for about 50% of my time in the Family and I knew how front line families lived to send the money demanded from them), inward politics and jealousy the social structure fostered by padding stats and power games, the interest of some people in power and comfort than in "saving the world" or "doing missionary work", the lies to misrepresent the Family's real doctrines, the new letters coming out suggesting incest and pedophilia, the leadership's insensitivity to the needs in the field, etc. etc. were all together fighting my own conscience and natural repulsion to submit my own freewill.
But leaving was just the beginning. When I talked to the overseer of that home about one month later to finish some business, I remember shacking while on the phone, such was the level of intimidation they still had over me. But at the very same time it helped me to decide that I should not have anything to do with family or Family members from then on. That didn't mean that I was going to be ugly to them but only try to avoid them.
The funny thing is that they did the same thing because I was deemed an "enemy" and family members were told not to associate with me. The good part is that it showed me what they had in their hearts. I have to say that in spite of that order, some actually came up to me later and thank me for my part in their lives, etc. I remember them with a warm heart for their sincerity in trying to do the right thing as opposed to those who were just blind "followers".
At this point, another critical point appears when I walked out through their gates: I forsook all. I didn’t leave in the group anything I wanted back, which is different from those who still had relatives in when they left or were kicked out. Family members might be able and willing to see as a great strength the fact that a person can walk away from father, mother, children, friends, etc. but a normal person does not. The Gospel does ask us to go to such limits but only as a result of God or Jesus calling. They are not God nor Jesus but a cult of false teachings and practices.
So a clean break from that past was first necessary to restore my own state of mind and life. Once I was able to make my own decisions, I discovered how hard life can be but I remembered how much harder it was when I surrendered my soul, responsibilities and life to some random person placed over me for political or economical reasons, not even spiritual. Christians know that free will is the only thing we are going to be judged upon and giving up on it must be the worse thing to do. It is like burying our talents and only using them the way we are told not the way we know better, including our mistakes.
I don’t know if this answers your question, or even really address it. When I look at my life I see 3 distinct phases: pre-Family, in-Family and post-Family. I am introverted enough to think about them and try to find patterns and explanations. I was able to see some psychological needs that may have led me to joining. A normal person does not leave all behind without a promise of great reward, and even so it is done in most cases as a temporary matter and not as a lifestyle. That is great idealism but people are different and not everybody in the Family was or is an idealist. Normal people come in all types so why did others join? In my case, I don’t have all the answers but I have decided it is an ongoing discovery and learning all those reason can still protect me from making similar mistakes now. Likewise, it may help others too, those I may be able to reach with what I learn, if I had the chance to share with them.
This is way too long now but I think you for asking me and forcing me to organize my thoughts. Hopefully they are helpful to others as well.
