"You were in a CULT?" asks another teacher at work.
"No, no. Cult is a very strong word, and we weren’t all that different from other churches. We did have our own language though." The response to this? Much laughter. I may as well have been Tom Cruise explaining how Scientology was founded by an alien forefather named Xenu.
We had our own language… sigh. And it took me 17 years to realise how remarkably messed up and ridiculous that is. Star Trekkian nerds who spoke in our own form of Klingon. To be honest, the act of glossolalia (speaking in tongues) isn’t unusual in pentecostal christian circles, but our particular life sucking church, the Revival Fellowship (and Centres ‘International’) played on this ability to verbalise double dutch gibberish.
I’ve cut and pasted that 17 years from my life and am trying to delete it from my clipboard. As a result, I sometimes feel I started my actual 18 year of life at the age of 32, but then I may have actually never matured past teenage-hood if my Batman obsession since then is anything to go by. I was young and impressionable and I thought I knew all the secrets to the universe and am too embarrassed to list our creed of beliefs.
Happily agnostic now and still interested in religion, but not as a lifestyle anymore, I enjoy studying a myriad of beliefs and am interested in exploring why people believe in the various superstitions and religions they fall into. From astrology to Ufology to organised religion, we seem to certaiinly want to believe things we cannot see or prove. I understand and remember this sort of ‘faith’ but won’t be falling for anymore bull crap myself (respectfully appreciating that everyone is entitled to pursue what they consider to be their ‘truth’ - more power to ya).
Someone told me today I was stupid to be caught up in that cult, and maybe I was. Thousands, millions, continue to delude themselves into thinking they are privy to a higher truth, and that the world needs saving. If I was stupid, I grew out of it.
This year I turn 22 (that’s 37 in your ‘earth’ years).
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A woman awakes during the night to find that her husband was not in their
bed. She puts on her robe and goes downstairs to look for him. She finds him sitting at the kitchen table with a hot cup of coffee in front of him. He appears to be in deep thought, just staring at the wall.
She watches as he wipes a tear from his eye and takes a sip of his coffee. "What's the matter, dear?" she whispers as she steps into the room, "Why are you down here at this time of night?"
The husband looks up from his coffee, "I am just remembering when we first met 20 years ago and started dating. You were only 15. Do you remember back then?" he asks solemnly.
The wife is almost reduced to tears herself, just thinking how caring and sensitive her husband is. "Yes, I do" she replies.
The husband pauses. The words were not coming easily. "Do you remember when your father caught us in the back seat of my car?"
"Yes, I remember," said the wife, lowering herself into a chair beside him.
The husband continues. "Do you remember when he shoved that shotgun in my face and said, "Either you marry my daughter, or I will send you to jail for 20 years?"
"I remember that, too" she replies softly.
He wipes another tear from his cheek and says...."I would have gotten out today."
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