Dear Sentinel:
I do want to say that while some of my experiences in the SDA church have been terrible, as I will relate when my head shuts up and aligns itself as all properly working heads eventually do, I learned more then I can say within the church. While the organization itself was cruel and wrong to me, alot of people have stood by me through it all. Some have not, granted. But I love the people in my church. They raised me in many ways. I respect them more then words can express. They were wrong to me. But I have been wrong also sometimes. We all have "wrong" in us. As well as good.
I have no intention of returning to the church. Yet I respect the people in the church. I love them and would give my life for any one of them, including the people who raped me and accused me of things I did not do.
I think, rather then religion cancelling out love, it is the fear of truth, and love. Both Jehovah's Witness's and Seventh-day Adventist's live in a carefully constructed comfort zone with a deep fear of what it is like "out there". And their fear has merit. It BLOODY HURTS OUT HERE!
I cannot judge their hearts, although I can say I believe living in a lie when faculties belong to us to know better, is wrong.
It is not what is done to us that affects so adversely in this life, but rather, how we react to what is done to us.
And in saying this I am not trying to malign the healing "process" (As C.S. Lewis in his "A Grief Observed" notes is needed in death, and change always brings death.) What we feel will not always be pretty and we will make mistakes.
I am very confused. It might be a couple days before the ending comes back to me. In the first post of this string I had it all in my head but went out to be with friends in the middle of the writing, and it never came back to me. It will come back, I just need to think on it.
