how i was spiritually raped and left for dead (part 14)

to read this story from the beginning click here

i knew it before she said it.
“i'm leaving you.” she spoke, but her lips didn't move.
she stood sideways, gently pressed against george's hip, hand on the small of his back. she placed her other hand on his stomach and gently kissed the side of his neck. he looked directly at me, smiling, showing pity as she kissed his neck.
she looked back at me as well, a beat, another beat, both of them expressing pity for me.

my daughter was 20 feet behind them, sitting in a motorcycle sidecar. like an overexposed picture, the sun reflected off her blond hair and face. she was smiling, excited, anxiously awaiting the motorcycle sidecar ride.
i the distance was a castle like home atop a lush, emerald-green hill. the land was rich with trees and flowers. birds and butterflies flitted about giving the castle-like home and the land around it a magical storybook appearance.

“c'mon daddy,” my daughter called out to george, showing her closed teeth in an exaggerated, fake-looking smile. her lips didn't move either.
the motorcycle and sidecar sat on a black, paved road which winded up the hillside to the castle-like home. directly behind it was long safari-style, open-sided car with a striped canvas top and several rows of passenger seats where goerge's other “wives” sat smiling, waiting anxiously.
i wanted to beg her to stay, but i knew she was right to leave me. george was better than me. he would give her and our daughter, their daughter, a better life. who was i to keep them from having what they deserved, what anyone deserved? besides, how could they ever love me? i was nothing. the pity she felt toward me made it clear that she could never love me.

she dropped her hands from george's back and stomach, took a step toward me and placed her hand on the back of my head. then, she looked into my eyes. again, she looked at me with pity and, as she gently pulled my head toward her lips, she said, “it's time.” she kissed me on the forehead and with a flash of white light they were gone. i was standing alone in an empty house.

there was no furniture, nothing on the windows, nothing on the walls except blue and gray striped wallpaper. the windows were dingy so that i could not see though them. they allowed enough light to penetrate them to give the room a greyish hue.

i felt nauseous. to my right, through the open bathroom door, i could see a lonely mirrored medicine cabinet. the mirror provided a visual gateway into george's grand candlelit bedroom, where george stood behind my wife holding her in his arms.

she was wearing a black cocktail dress which landed high on her thighs. she was barefoot. he reached his arms around her, placing them on her stomach as she tilted her neck and reached back to kiss him.

as their lips touched there was another flash of white light and i awoke. i was in bed in our pennsylvania town home. it was still dark. i looked over to see my wife asleep beside me. i went to the bathroom and vomited.

the green digits on our clock-radio indicated that it was 5:14 am. i had to be at church in a couple hours to go over a couple pieces of music before the early church service, so i went downstairs and made a pot of coffee.

as my wife slept, i sat out back in the darkness drinking coffee and reflecting.
it wasn't the first time i'd had that dream, or at least dreams built on the same theme. these dreams exposed a loss of self with which i had continued to struggle, my manhood, my essence, even my right to exist.

i thought about all of the staff purpose meetings, in which i'd witnessed the female staff members sitting by george, near his end of the oval. vying for their seats next to the power, they were gathered closer or further from him depending on their status within the program.
the girls on staff belonged to bob and those with less status to george. like whores, they were handed out and repossessed as bob and george saw fit.

this dynamic was part of a more dangerous and insidious hierarchical system which existed within bob's organization where, throughout the years, we just came to accept that some were inherently better than others. within this system, justice was nonexistent. punishment and reward were handed out arbitrarily; more accurately, they were handed out based on what was immediately most beneficial to bob and his wife.

bob used twisted pieces of evolutionary biology concepts to justify inconsistencies in the way people were treated. he referred to himself as “the alpha male.” he justified his constant belittling of one staffer, who he referred to as “the warthog,” by stating that the young staffer was deformed, fvcked-up, born wrong. he had told us that if he had been a dog, the other dogs would have killed him when he was a puppy in order to keep him from dirtying the gene-pool.

if one got close enough to bob, for a long enough period, he was likely to hear bob's ideas regarding who deserved what based on their genetic markers and even their primal spiritual makeup. for his part, bob was at the top of the food-chain, both physically and spiritually.

mostly, however, these messages were insidiously hidden within the structure and doctrine of the program, as well as the actions taken by bob.



why hadn't i killed that mother-fvcker? why hadn't i used raw power to beat him? i had decided to employ my intellect, my cunning, to outsmart him and right now, i hated myself for it. what kind of a man allows another man to beat him down, to take control of his home and his marriage without confronting him directly and beating him to a bloody mash?

my feeling of nausea was replaced with anger, rage, hatred. i imagined beating him with a bat. making him beg me to stop, making him beg for his life. i wanted to become his master. i wanted to terrorize him in front of his wife and daughter, in front of my wife and daughter. i wanted to destroy him, while everyone who had ever witnessed him making a punk out of me watched. and while he died, traumatized and suffering, he would know that he had been beaten in front of all these people. he would know that they knew that he was nothing. but most importantly, i would destroy him, utterly and painfully, proving to myself that i wasn't a punk, that i mattered.
i went to church.



******



the bible.
i've read a lot of books, but the bible is, without any doubt, the greatest book i've ever read. it beats moby dick hands down.

within it's text one will find every conceivable form and measure of human evil. murder, kidnapping, adultery, theft, betrayal, rape, incest, it's all there. the bible doesn't shy away from exposing the darkness that often lives within the hearts of men. i have seen this darkness first hand.

2nd samuel tells the story of david, king of the hebrews, and bathsheba, the wife of one of his his trusted soldiers. while uriah, bathsheba's husband, was on the battlefield, david saw bathsheba and wanted her for himself. he sent an agent to fetch her and he slept with her, taking the only wife of his trusted soldier...because he desired her.

bathsheba later sent a message to king david, informing him that she was pregnant with his child. this is where things get really interesting.

in order to cover up his his betrayal of his trusted soldier, david sent someone to call him off the battlefield. he gave him a gift and sent him home so he could spend the night with his wife, bathsheba, before he returned to the battlefield. not only had he impregnated uriah's wife, now he sent him to sleep with her so that he would believe the child to be his own, causing uriah to raise another man's child believing the child to be his own.

but uriah refused to sleep in his bed and lie with his wife while the other soldiers slept on the ground. so he slept with the servants at the palace's entrance. king david's cover up was foiled. so he tried again. he asked uriah to stay one more night and got him drunk. still, uriah went to sleep at the palace's entrance.

king david continued to scheme. he ordered the general to put uriah on the front lines and to instruct all the other soldiers to retreat once the battle got underway. uriah was killed. david was in the clear.

then, david took in bathsheba and made her his wife.

david had many wives. he could have had any woman he wanted. yet, he took the wife of his trusted soldier and killed him to cover his tracks. now, that's evil.

but that's not the stuff that makes the bible great. many believe that the bible is a book filled with violence, vengeance, and death. sure, it has all of those things. those things exist in the world in which we live. evil has been alive in hearts of some men since the beginning of recorded history and almost certainly before recorded history.

the bible's real poetry is not in its record of evil, but in its message of love. deliverance, repentance, forgiveness, absolution, redemption, these are the primary themes of the bible. even david, when he was shown the magnitude of his evil, found redemption

i think that one's view of the bible, as either a message of vengeance or a message of love, depends upon one's perspective. and i don't mean to say that those who go to church or are raised in the church are more likely to see the bible as a message of love. i've spent way too much time around way too many “religious” people, who claim to have love in their hearts, but clearly demonstrate righteous indignation, legalism and bigotry. i should add, however, that the vast majority of christians that i've known have been loving people. christians have visited me and my children in the hospital when we've been sick. they've prepared meals for my family during times of grief. they've provided us with groceries and money. they've prayed for us and grieved with us.

but i've also seen evil in the church. i won't deny that.

still i don't know why, given similar experiences and circumstances, one individual would come out with a perspective that would cause him to see the bible as a book of vengeance, while another would see it as a book of love. i only know how i see it. i don't even know why i have the perspective i have.

bob was like king david...without the redemption part. taking away the wives of his trusted servants is among the many evil acts i have seen him perform. still, though i could rightly blame bob for a lot of things, i knew i couldn't blame him for the harmful acts that i had committed, even while under his watch.

as an agent of the program i had betrayed my faith, betrayed myself and my family and lied to the community. i had also committed other acts which directly harmed others and had done so in the name of love.

for the next few years i continued to attend church. i read the bible, attended sunday school and bible studies, prayed and took counsel with ministers. but i wasn't seeking redemption. repentance was my goal.



lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon:
where there is doubt, faith ;
where there is despair, hope
where there is darkness, light
where there is sadness, joy


o divine master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life ~st. francis of assisi

i had to get a grip, find myself. my nightmares had nothing to do with bob. they had everything to do with how i saw myself. he played his role in formulating my self image. he had aligned his pulse with mine, exploited my deepest fears and desires. he had used me and so many others as a means to his own ends. but it was up to me to take back my soul.

i knew it wouldn't happen overnight. and exactly where is the point of deliverance anyway? when does it happen? the jews escaped egypt, but then ended up wandering around the desert for 40 years. i had escaped bob's fold, but was i wandering around the desert...again?

the message of the bible was a part of me and to the degree i allowed it, it became evident in my mental and emotional state. i changed. the nightmares stopped. the “sightings” of bob and george went away. i no longer experienced bouts of dissociation. most importantly, my desire for vengeance, my desire to hurt bob was gone completely. i'm not exactly sure how this happened; it just did. it was a like a miracle. if there is a god, he did it. if there is a god, then he took away my burning rage and replaced it with the message of the gospel.

that's pretty cool if you think about it. i didn't necessarily deserve grace, but i really needed it. and though, according to evangelical christian theology, i'm lost, i've been delivered...and possibly redeemed. i don't mean to say that i was no longer angry at bob. he continued to harm people, unrepentant, and i continued to be angry. i see that as a healthy position.

when i speak of the message of the gospel, i'm not talking about the idea that only people who believe in jesus go to heaven and non-believers get sent to hell. in fact, from where i sit, the idea of a powerful god sending a bunch of people to eternal torment runs completely counter to the message of the gospel.

i've been to hell and the hell i was in was created by men, myself included. the message contained within the gospel, on the other hand, delivered me from hell.

there were things that happened in the church that i ultimately couldn't live with. at the top of the list was listening to the preacher stand in the pulpit and condemn gays. one couldn't be gay and also be born again, regardless of the state of his heart. even if one accepts the idea that it is a “sin” to be gay, which in itself is hard to accept since there wasn't even a word for “homosexual” in greek, hebrew or aramaic, why set this so-called “sin” apart from all others.*(see note)

i also had a bit of a problem with the idea that anyone who was a born-again christian could join the church, but first you had to go through an interview process with a group of church elders, presumably so they could determine whether or not you were really “born again.” that seemed a bit too similar to the early days of the christian church when the pharisees called for the gentile converts to show that they'd been circumcised in order to prove they'd been saved.

still, it wasn't my place to advocate within the church. i was there to take what i could, to focus on the message contained within the gospel.

in time, i reconnected with others who'd left bob's organization. i listened to some of the horror stories people told. bob and his programs were becoming even more brutal, more dangerous. i feared that people i loved, people who were still in, would be physically harmed or even killed. i began to think more about those i'd recruited into bob's group. i was also deeply troubled by the fact that there was no information about bob or his programs on the internet.

it had now been over 5 years since i'd left. i was healthy. my family was well. my rage was gone. i knew that i no longer had a desire for vengeance. i didn't want to hurt bob. however, i did have a desire to warn his potential victims. i also wanted to provide something for people who'd been harmed by bob and his programs. when i had left, there were no former members to talk to. there was no place to get information. i hadn't had an avenue to connect with others who'd been in the program and had left. there was nothing out there.

i thought about how great it would be to provide a resource to catch people after they left or were excommunicated, a support network where people could talk through things, reconnect with friends that had left at a different time, a place to get their stories out, to be validated. i also thought there should be a truthful resource for young people and family members who were considering joining bob's programs. the use of the internet for consumer research was becoming more common; yet, there was nothing about bob and his groups, other than their own propaganda, anywhere on the net.

then i heard 2 stories that brought me to the realization that it was time to act. the first was that of a young man i'd known since he was just a kid. his mother had been a friend of ours and had still been working for bob when we left the program. she left several years after us and visited our home. she recounted for us the story of how she nearly lost her son. we'll call him sam.

sam's parents and his older brother had entered the program when sam was just a boy. in time, sam's mother, who was active in the parent program, was brought on as the parent coordinator. his brother, though resistant at first, became indoctrinated as well and became a counselor for the program.

during this time, sam became victim to a form of inequity that existed among indoctrinated families where one child was involved in the program and another wasn't. sam's brother, because he was “with the group,” was granted the freedom to stay out all night, quit going to school and smoke cigarettes. the program's stance was this: since he was an addict, the only thing that mattered was “sticking with winners.” the staff and kids in the program were “winners.” kids outside the program (even those at school) were not. sam's mom and dad, like the rest of the parent converts, believed that, as long as their addicted child avoided drugs and drug users, everything would be okay. smoking, school, language, structure were unimportant in comparison.

since sam wasn't an addict, he had to comply with a curfew, go to school, etc. in addition, i imagine that he felt left out, at times. the rest of the family shared the “program experience.” he was not fully a part of that. i know his parents and i'm sure they did everything they could to insure that sam was not left out. but, truth is, this is one of the dynamics that exists with siblings of program members.

though he didn't have a drug problem, sam eventually convinced the counselors, his parents and probably himself, that he was an addict and needed the program. he went through outpatient treatment and became a full-fledged member, able to hang out all night, smoke cigarettes and attend the extravagant dances and parties hosted by the program.

i got to know him and couldn't help but love him. he was a vulnerable kid with a tender heart. he also had a sharp wit and a snarky sense of humor. the more he tried to defend his heart with his wit, the more his vulnerability became apparent. i knew he was the kind of guy you could count on if you were down and out.

the entire family was highly talented. so, bob exploited them. mom became a part of the national leadership elite, brother, a sr. counselor and dad, a seasoned detective with the city's police force, was drawn in by bob. bob personally took him on and became his sponsor. bob always kept “friends” in high places.

sam went through counselor training. in time, he was sent to another city and became the city's executive director. but sam had a secret; he was gay.

years earlier, struggling with sexuality issues, sam had tried to talk to his counselor about it. the counselor explained the program's stance. homosexuality is an aspect of the disease of addiction—the highest form of self hatred. it was unacceptable. he needed to stop entertaining any homosexual thoughts, stay sober, work his program. if he was on solid spiritual ground, he would be straight.

bob was more blunt. he claimed, “faggots are people who suck their own sh!t off other people's c0cks. being a fag is the ultimate form of self-hatred.”

sam buried the issue. to pursue it would surely lead to expulsion from the program and possibly the loss of his family. further, since he was compelled to break ties with the rest of the world, since seeking counsel outside the program was forbidden, he had nowhere to turn. he soldiered on.

as the director of a city, sam was perceived as the spiritual leader. serving in such a position with that kind of a secret must have been excruciating. sam was no hypocrite. he was a straight-shooter, a 'what-you-see' kind of person. so functioning in this manner must have been more than he could bear.

ultimately it was. and so sam, who was never an addict prior to joining the program, began smoking crack. it was the proverbial cry for help. as director of a militant, totalitarian, black-and-white, no questions asked drug treatment program he was using one of the most devastating, dynamic drugs available—a drug that no one could hide using for long.

his mother told us that sam would smoke crack in his car minutes before picking up bob at the airport. wasted, with glassy eyes and dialated pupils, he would drive bob from place to place, the car reeking with the stringent odor of crack-cocaine. bob had to know.

moreover, sam was calling rachael, who controlled the money, and made desperate demands for more and more money. instead of inquiring, she sent him blank checks. by all appearances it seems as though bob was allowing sam to continue to deteriorate until he could find a suitable replacement.

when he did, he took sam's checkbook and put him on the street. he convinced sam's family that they should not take his calls or help him in any way. they were convinced that this course was best for sam and for their family. in reality, bob was angry at sam. this was what bob wanted.

sam was left to die on the streets of a violent, unforgiving city 1600 miles away from home and family.

eventually, sam wandered through the doors of one of the city's charitable organizations. they did what bob couldn't...wouldn't. they helped him detox, nursed him back to health and allowed him to begin the process of embracing his sexuality. he was able to overcome bob's atrocious message regarding homosexuality which had been implanted within him since, as a kid, he first tried to discuss the issue with his counselor.

he became a man. but he almost hadn't.

the second story was told to me by someone who'd been one of my closest friends, until the time i had left the program. we'll call him ty. five years after i'd left, i received word from a mutual friend that ty was out too. i asked my friend to see if ty would give me a call. within an hour, my phone rang. it was ty.

it was great to talk to him and we made arrangements for both of us, along with our families, to meet up in new york city. we stayed at the embassy suites hotel in lower manhattan. our rooms overlooked ground zero. below, we could see the tremendous hole where the twin towers had stood just a few years earlier.

i had first met my friend in 1989 when he became a counselor in dallas. i had known his wife since 1987. i remembered when they'd gotten married, when their son was born. our children played together even before they were a year old. we believed that they would grow up together, that when they went to high school together he would be my daughter's “big brother,” watching over her.

ty was a devoted husband and father. his wife was his true love and best friend. years earlier, while working for the program, his family was evicted from their apartment because the program didn't have any money to pay him and he couldn't pay rent. with baby boy in tow, they found themselves sharing a hot dog they'd purchased, from 7-11, with the last of their pocket change. they didn't know where they would stay or where they would find their next meal.

as they ate the hot dog, ty told his wife that he felt ashamed that he was unable to provide her a home. without hesitation she responded, “my home is wherever you are.”

ty was able to find a place for his family to live. he purchased a no-money-down, take-over-payments town home and spent the next several years building a profitable program. the program put a lot of money in bob's pocket. he and i worked side-by-side as our children played together.

when i left, our friendship was over. in the program, that was the way

his wife, who had been considered a leader among the women, began to fall out of favor with bob's wife. she had asked some questions that weren't supposed to be asked. bob's wife saw to it that she was ostracized. she also began trying to drive ty away from his wife and child.

with no support, no friends and knowing the leadership was pushing her husband to leave her, ty's wife became increasingly more depressed. she needed help. but bob and his wife weren't in the business of helping people. those in need were cast aside, lest they become a burden.

ty got sick once and passed out. his wife was terrified and called an ambulance. the doctors didn't find anything wrong, but bob's wife did. she explained that ty's marriage was making him miserable. because of his devotion, he was unwilling to leave his family, she said. she convinced him that since he refused to divorce his wife, he was trying to die instead. she told him, “you don't have die to get out of your marriage.”

she convinced him that, by staying with her, he was doing a great disservice to both his wife and son. she said he was preventing his wife from getting her act together—that for her to get well, he needed to leave. his son was suffering too. how could she meet his needs when she was spiritually sick? and ty, because of his selfish need to be dutiful, was standing in the way.

they sent ty to st. louis to spend some time with another director who'd been divorced at bob's and his wife's direction. that's how they sealed the deal.

broken-hearted and ashamed, ty returned to his home town and told his wife he was divorcing her and that there was no hope of reconciliation. then, he sat down and told his son he was leaving. it broke his son's heart. he left his family and rented a townhome 45 minutes away.

his wife and child were devastated.

ty was the director of bob's biggest and most profitable program. he was responsible for most of bob's personal income. he had faithfully served bob for years. bob repaid his efforts by destroying the thing he loved the most, his family. and why? because bob's wife didn't like his wife.

ty, continued to serve bob, but he was miserable...every minute of every day. he missed his family, but continued to do the “right thing” day after day, month after month.

ultimately, he couldn't stand it any longer. he believed that he had done what was necessary in leaving his family, an idea that was continuously reinforced by bob, his wife and their minions, but the pain was more than he could endure. so, admitting that he was a spiritual failure, he resigned his position, turned over the program (his business and sole source of income) to one of bob's minions and returned to his wife and child.

this is the story he told me in the hotel overlooking ground zero.

i hung my head. first sam's story and now ty's. again, my thoughts returned to my friends who were still under bob's control. something had to be done.

i was happy. my family was doing well and intact. i had put my life with bob's cult behind me. i had found peace, deliverance. but how could i rest knowing that people i loved were still being torn apart. they believed that they were by choice, but i knew they were captive. brainwashed and manipulated, they were being led down the road to hell which was paved with their good intentions and railed on both sides with bob's insatiable manipulative powers. standing on the side of the road, looking the other way, while others were driving unknowingly toward the cliff, wasn't an option.

is there a road to redemption? in his letter to the ephesians (eph.2:8-9), the apostle paul says, for it is by grace you have been saved through faith; and not of yourselves; not as a result of works, so that no one should boast.”

i believe what paul says. forgiveness is never earned. redemption is never earned. it is given not because we deserve it, but because we need it. whatever peace i had gained came as the result of a gift that i could never have deserved. though i hadn't spoken to my parents and siblings in years, when i left the cult, they never asked me to earn their forgiveness. they welcomed me and my wife and children back into the fold, no questions asked. even my old friends, which i'd abandoned when i entered the program, accepted me without reservation.

the issue of redemption is really beside the point anyway. as i stated previously, i wasn't seeking redemption, but repentance. i had learned ephesians 2:8-9 as a child, but i had just recently read what james had written in james 2;15-17:

if a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? so faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

taken together, the message seems clear. forgiveness, deliverance or redemption, whatever the case, is a gift, but it is useless without repentance. the greek word for repentance is metanoia, which means a change of one's conduct following a change of heart.

i don't claim to know many things (actually that may not be an accurate statement, but stay with me here), but i do know one thing for sure. a person can be wealthy and successful, a great athlete, writer, thinker, scientist, artist or academician, but if he turns his back on his brothers and sisters, if he neglects them when they need help, he is nothing. his life means nothing.

i knew there was nothing about me even approaching greatness. the love i had been granted was a gift. the peace i'd found was not of my own doing. any happiness i had was the result of being blessed with a loving wife, great kids and a loving family. to simply resign any humanitarian efforts to enjoy my newly found peace would be a waste of a human life, my life.



the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing ~edmund burke



my family didn't want me to do it. they were afraid for my safety. my mother warned me to always check my car before i started it...to make sure no one had tampered with it. they were worried that it might destroy my career as a drug abuse counselor—that my reputation would be attacked—that i would slip back into ptsd. there was a risk of losing myself completely.

i knew that people would come after me. those i'd harmed while i was in the program wouldn't care that i had believed i was acting in accordance with a higher purpose. they wouldn't care that i'd been manipulated. they would want their pound of flesh, and rightly so. i knew this. those who were loyal to the program would spread vile rumors about me. they would try to discredit me. secrets i'd shared with my program peers would be exposed. they would hurt me in any way they could. maybe bob would send one of his goons to rough me up. maybe he'd dig a hole in the desert.

i didn't know it at the time, but this simple step, that of speaking the truth, would lead to a national movement. it would result, for the first time ever, in an environment where thousands would be allowed an opportunity to tell what happened to them--where victims would receive validation. i also didn't realize that these people would come together and provide a loose network in which virtually anyone who had been harmed by bob and his organization could find someone to talk to.

it never crossed my mind that these people, these program castaways, would draw national media attention. that the media would inquire and they would respond, telling their stories to newspapers and tv reporters.

in the children's fable, “stone soup,” three of soldiers, returning home, came upon a village. they were carrying nothing but an empty pot. the villagers, who were poor themselves, closed their doors and windows. they knew the soldiers would be hungry and they didn't want to be asked to share their scarce supplies.

the soldiers built a fire, placed the pot atop the flames, filled it with water, and dropped a large stone in it. as the soldiers sat before the boiling pot of water, a few of the villagers became curious and came out to inquire as to what the soldiers were doing.

“we're making stone soup,” they replied. they invited the villagers to have some soup once it was done. then, as the villagers stood watching, one of the soldiers dipped a ladle into the soup, and tasting it, he said, “it's a bit bland, i wish we had some carrots to give the soup flavor.” one of the villagers spoke up, “ i have some carrots, let me run and get them.” the villager returned with the carrots and placed them in the boiling water.

after a bit, the soldier tasted the soup again. “it's almost ready,” he said. “if only we had some onions. another villager went to fetch some onions. and so it continued, parsely, beans, potatos, etc. when the soup was finished all of the villagers along with the soldiers feasted.” everyone was nourished and satisfied.

late one night, in 2004, i sat down before my computer and began writing the text for a website which i would launch. the website would provide a spark for a movement that would provide healing for thousands, expose bob and his entire organization, warn would be victims, and ultimately drive bob to his knees, destroying his credibility and forcing him into retirement.

i can't state emphatically enough that i am not the one who achieved these things. they were achieved by the people he'd harmed, the children he'd abused, the junkies he'd cast aside, the brokenhearted who'd been crushed by lies, the parents who continued to look toward the horizon hoping for the return of they're children whom they'd lost to the program, the castaways.

all i did was drop a rock in the soup.

and when the broken hearted people living in the world agree
there will be an answer,
let it be ~the beatles

(to be continued)

*note: please do not send me bible verses in an attempt to demonstrate to me that the bible condemns homosexuals. i am surely familiar with most of these verses, namely genesis 18-19, leviticus 18:22, leviticus 20:13, dueteronomy 23:17, romans 1;26-27, 1 corinthians 6:9, 1 timothy 9:10. if you just can't help yourself, you might want to review the original greek and hebrew words used to write these and other biblical passages that have been translated by english biblical translators in a variety of different ways. a good starting point? in hebrew: qadesh, quadeshaw, to'ebah.  in greek: akatharsia and arenokoitai. there are others, as well. in the original languages, verses which seem to be a wholesale condemnation of homosexuality, when read in most english translations, generally refer to male and female prostitution within the temple, pagan sex rituals, anal rape, sex with pagan idols, and same-sex relations between heterosexuals during mystical orgies.


in any event, it's just not a debate i'm interested in taking on.


thanks for understanding (or at least for shaking your head and biting your tongue).
oh...and, don't tell my mom what i wrote. i'll never hear the end of it.