Plea of the afflicted January 24, 2008
The Latest , 3 comments by One, Anita, and Luca.Alone in the dark she crawls towards the castle
Her clothes are torn and shredded
Her eyes, once bright, now filled with shadows
The weight of her broken heart is almost too much to bear
No warmth, no light, just the merciless pelt of the rain
A glimmer of hope still lives however
The castle may hold one last moment of peace before death
Oh merciful death, closes in around her
Pitifully, painfully, she opens the door
What greets her within the castle is no more than shadows
The light has gone out forever
She weeps, she falls, she becomes as cold as the heartless stone beneath her
And she prays
Prays for death
Oh God, my God, deliver me from this stomach bug or take me Home!
I mean, wow! January 23, 2008
The Latest , add a commentScroll down, Robin’s answered the (get this) first question and WOW is about all I can say. Any account that includes “And we didn’t get Ebola, yay!” is worth the read. So read it!
Adios mi amigo December 21, 2007
The Latest , 8 comments by Chuck, Crystal, Dan E, Stephanie Paone, Luca, Kath, and Julie.
I’d like to ask everyone to pause for a moment, raise a (real or imagined, as the case may be) gourd of mate and salute our friend, who has joined the ranks of those lost forever to the Dark Farm.
Hasta que encontremos otra vez, Crystal!
Jubilee! December 11, 2007
The Latest , 1 comment by Angie.Watch me be the last person in the US to have found this website, but just in case I’m not:
No more maddening “Welcome to ________! To get locations and office hours, press one. To repeat your options, press two.”
Feel free to bask in my glow.
Responding to the response to my response to CNN December 9, 2007
The Latest , comments closed(Coming a few days later than I would have liked due to the Big Christmas Party having commenced last night and the necessity of me being up to my elbows in Polish sausage kabobs and Merlot-soaked cherry brownies etc. for two days to do my part to help it all come together. Pictures forthcoming. It was, as usual, a blast!)
Well, that was unexpected. Silly me for thinking otherwise but I honestly didn’t think what I said would draw in the career ex-member heavyweights who have proven themselves, in my opinion, numb to any sort of reasonable dialogue, all the while claiming, when it suits their purpose, that they are all about dialogue – you see a lot of that in the world today, don’t you? I guess I figured you all wouldn’t want to bother with the opinion of a 20 year old Family member who has never experienced or seen any form of abuse, ever. But I see that you’re just practicing good strategy of spreading your “cause” wherever you can. So that’s my bad for underestimating what it takes to get you going and I feel a little silly for assuming you wouldn’t want to bother but lesson learned and I don’t think I’m going to lose too much sleep over it.
I’m explaining this because I’ve closed the post below for further comments and the reason is because this post was directed to the public who heard about TFI for the first time the other night on CNN, not to those who have already formed a solid, albeit distorted, opinion about us. I don’t assume that I have the ability to change the minds of the Moving On crowd and I’m not interested in trying. What I am interested in is getting what I know about my life and my religious organization out the to the average CNN viewer who deserves to hear both sides. Debating these already well-debated subjects with those who are bent on seeing our missionary work destroyed is not something I have the time or see the need for. They are firm on their stance and we are firm on ours, we try to agree where we can but considering what many of them claim they are ultimately trying to do in destroying the work of The Family (more on that later) I don’t personally see how TFI would be able to satisfy them.
I will address some things that have been said in the comments that I would want to see answered if I stumbled across this blog and thread for the first time (so forgive me if I hop from subject to subject) and I will address some of those who commented directly for the sake of clarity; not because I think I can get the small hardcore group of Moving On’ers to feel any differently, but because I’m hoping that people not associated with TFI in any form will read this and realize, if they haven’t already, that there is an anti-religious agenda being played out in the media and therefore not write me and my friends off as deluded cultists.
It should be abundantly obvious that this and everything else I’ve posted on my blog unless otherwise stated is my personal opinion and should not be taken for Family policy and you cannot quote me as “speaking for The Family” but just in case it needs to be in writing, there – it’s in writing.
Regarding “Young man’s suicide blamed on mother’s cult By Randi Kaye CNN” December 5, 2007
The Latest , comments closedTo friends and family - I know I’m being Captain Obvious with this post but it was written with the public in mind. Maybe no one who saw the program will read this but that won’t weigh on my conscience as heavily as not saying anything would. As Ron Burgundy would say “I wanted to shout it from a mountain but I didn’t have a mountain - I had a newsroom”. Ron Burgundy had a newsroom and I have a blog and we use what God gives us.
Apparently there aren’t enough current events happening around the globe for CNN to report on because last night they were forced drag a very old dead horse out of the archives and start swinging away at it. You’d think that with all that’s going on in our world….. and yet, there they go and here we are - so here’s what I have to say about it! It’s tiresome to have to think of new ways to say old things but for as long as the media is going to broadcast lies I’m going to stand on my little soapbox and speak my piece ‘cuz that’s just the way I is.’
If you know nothing about The Family International you probably watched that show and are walking away with the opinion that we’re a bunch of fanatic freaks with a pedophile for a leader and that you can’t leave our sex cult except by way of “escape”. If you don’t believe what you heard on CNN, I salute you - you know how to watch the news critically. If you do believe it, I don’t blame you - you were just sitting there watching CNN and CNN told you there’s a dangerous sex cult out there and CNN is one of the largest broadcasting stations in the US so heck, they must have gotten it right.
There are facts that have been said better than I can say it so I’m providing a number of links to them below. But this is what I believe; (I’m speaking specifically about World Services in this case as that is what was covered in CNN’s segment) I have heard the accounts of quite a number of people who grew up in World Services - the same World Services that Davida Kelley and Ricky Rodriguez grew up in, and have very positive accounts of their childhood. Having read their accounts of a happy, safe, abuse free environment in the same place and time that she lived in casts a very reasonable doubt in my mind about what she claims on TV. To imagine that she and Ricky (who himself never accused his mother of sexually abusing him) were subject to regular sexual abuse while their friends and Ricky’s own sister grew up right next to them and had nothing remotely similar happen to them - well, that’s a bit too far for my imagination to stretch. But that’s just me.
Of course, there’s always “Well of course no one the group says they were abused, they’re deluded, they’re browbeaten into denying it ever happened, there’s so much pressure in the group that people are afraid to ever admit that they suffered abuse - duh! It’s only once you leave the group that you can start looking at your upbringing objectively and recognize the abuse.” Puh leeze. If anyone currently in TFI had been sexually abused, especially the horrific abuse that we keep hearing about in the media, it is my firm opinion that they would have said something by now. Contrary to how we’re portrayed, TFI is not afraid of confronting abuse, we’ve been aggressively confronting it for two decades - see the links below. We can hardly get a breather from the whole issue. To think that after all the abuse-confronting and Family-defending we’ve done over the years, there are people currently in The Family who grew up in World Services who experienced horrific, CNN broadcast-worthy abuse and are hiding/denying/afraid to confront it, well, I’m not going to believe that one either until I see it.
There is so, so much more to say on this subject but the bottom line is that The Family is an insanely safe place for children, not to mention a fantastic place for thousands of missionaries to serve God and fellow man, but thanks to biased reporting, 800,000 viewers have just been giving a horrifying picture of a perfectly decent Christian missionary organization. Blessedly in this case, news is quickly and easily forgotten and we in The Family International will go on being the best counselors, missionaries, humanitarian aid workers, teachers etc. etc. that we can respectively be until someone decides the dead horse needs another thrashing, fishes out that god-awful Ricky video, and tries to make old news sound new again. At that point, we (well, we as in me. I can’t speak for everyone) will roll our eyes, drag out the old soapbox, and repeat this all over again.
Sheesh.
What’s this world coming to? November 29, 2007
The Latest, Stuff from Steph , 3 comments by Daniel Roselle, Jules, and Kami][kaze.I was researching something for something and I stumbled upon this
Yep, Chicken Soup for the American Idols soul.
What will they think up next?
I’m waiting for Chicken Soup for the ex-Buddhist soul to fill me with warm and fuzzy feelings as I sit in front of my fire screen saver and sip ice water.
My site got spammed November 28, 2007
The Latest , add a commentoh dear oh dear oh dear….
WeEEP!!!
(The Real Jules Speaking: I figure if someone went through all the hard work of painstakingly hacking into my site they at least deserve to have their work stay put. I just wish they hadn’t have deleted my planet post, that was some of my finest work. I didn’t think I was cool enough to have someone want to hack into my blog but apparently I am so yay me! And whoever you are who did it, don’t tell me it was easy, let me keep thinking it took you hours of heartbreaking work because it meant that much to you. Don’t rain on my parade!)
Stars and farms in Florida November 18, 2007
The Latest , 7 comments by Claire, Sonialee, Jamie, Angel, and Chuck.It’s possible that only the original Harem will understand this post.
Remember when “five star” was the thing to say?
As in, “those Miami boys from the Dark Farm are so five star! (followed by a contrastingly bitter tirade about how they stole all our people)”
I recall us having that conversation a lot, back in the day. That was totally the conversation to have. Yup, we used to talk about that one a lot.
I’m thinking to revive “five star”. I’ll need help though, because none of my projected trends ever take off. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t frustrating.
Hints November 15, 2007
The Latest , 8 comments by Mike, Rosita, Charlock, Florecita, Steph, and Loxy.One knows one’s style needs to be taken back to the drawing board when in the space of one day, one gets called “sir” three times while and overhears a voice saying “Mommy, that man is so tall”.
I guess my feminine carriage and womanly allure isn’t as feminine or womanly as I perceived it to be.
Dang.