At the Cusp of Forsaking - Journal entry shortly prior to "officially" proclaiming nonbelief.

What do you think was going through my mind?

Thankfully, we don't have to ask. I journaled and I journaled like a writer, with an audience in mind, even if that audience was me. I explained things as though I was an 80 year old with dementia some reason desiring to explore the pain once again of my early 20s (as all 80 year olds do?). For our sake, I defer to my journal of then, as a still-tentative believer, quickly on my way out. Hereon is my journal written then, April 30, 2014.
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Tonight I am being more emotional than normal. Partially due to a few beers. Mostly due to me playing a little game of "What was I doing on this day in previous years?"

As this journal may indicate (and others before it), I thought some experiences in college really fucked up my faith. Mostly the prophetic stuff. Stuff with [omitted] and [omitted]. Stuff with [omitted]. Stuff with [omitted] and [omitted]. Stuff with me and [omitted]. Stuff with the [omitted] crowd and us. Stuff with [omitted]. Stuff with [omitted].

I hate that I needed someone to tell me what to feel and how to believe. I sought it at every corner. I thought these two years post-college would be me rebuilding. Hell, I thought living alone that last year of college would be rebuilding. I guess I have been rebuilding myself. Honestly, with exciting results that I am happy with. And suspect my faith community would not be happy with.

But my faith? No rebuilding. Just watching more pieces fall, not knowing whether it's a facade or foundation slipping quickly to its demise.

I thought it was college that messed me up. Then I played my game. In this week of 2004, a decade ago, I expressed depression. The recognition that I had no "life". The immediate sense of being too worldly and not focusing my mind on the "eternal". I remember years ago reading these entries and desiring to be in that place again. Now? I just find it creepy.

I called [old CofC Church] "progressive" and it was in comparison to my upbringing. We sungs new songs, clapping was ok, and [progressive young youth minister] was youth minister. So it had to be progressive, right?

At this church, at least half of the teens were homeschooled. Maybe less, but those who were, may have been considered "better", "more holy". It must have been at this church that most of my foundational faith was born.

At this church I attended a group called G.E.M.S. - God Expects My Service. Creepy already, right? It was a club that used scripture to teach young women to be pure, meek homemakers. It taught me that I was to be solely responsible for my family and their well-being, even down to physical needs, teaching us stay-at-home-moms in-the-making to prepare meals and to shop for food frugally.

I read books like "Waiting for her Isaac" which was a book about a 19 year-old woman trusting God and her parents in essentially choosing her future for her. It was praised for being a book with no: television, movies, disrespect, or feminism. I'm reminded of my years . . . at home when I was on the . . . "Titus 2" boards.

Titus 2 boards were strictly moderated so that only posts agreeing with the overall goal and aim of the group were allowed to be posted. They usually posted within a day or two of submitting the posts for review. In this way, any questions people had, any challenges to the mindset or to authority, even sincere ones with good desires, never were posted. It could lead one to believe that no one doubted or questioned - that it was a sign of weakness. Only self-deprecating posts with shame attached to such "questions" were posted.

This group was traditional to the core. Women submit. Women don't wear pants in the relationship or literal pants at all. Flowing skirts were Biblical. Headcoverings were "safe". We prayed to be "broken". We knew we were in a good place when we brought ourselves to tears thinking about how selfish, worthless and helpless we were.

Oh. Titus 2. Right. There were other rules. Skirts halfway between knees and ankles, definitely not exposing the knee - even when sitting. There was a "marble test" to make sure blouses weren't too tight. A marble should be able to drop down the shirt (front or back) right out to where it didn't get caught by "tightness" anywhere along the way.

There were rules for everything.

When I was 13 I was elated to find the book "Checklist for Life for Teens". A wonderful checklist to remind you of either 1) How good of a Christian you are or 2) How fucked up you really are.

It saddens me how twisted and "brainwashed" my little 14 year old mind was in that first journal. Damn it, in THIS journal. . . . How much focusing on the "eternal" really makes a fear-based, self-exalting religion.

If everything you do, even down to the clothes you wear, determine whether someone goes to heaven or hell, every decision is wrought with potential, indescribable guilty. Or glory.

I didn't get my "Savior complex" in spite of my faith. It was largely because of my faith. At best it was exacerbated exponentially by my faith.

. . .

So much has happened in these past 2 years though. I've let down my walls more, become more assertive (I even don't think it's "sinful" most of the time), made good friends with folks that people of "my faith" typically look down on, and developed my own passions that seem to serve no one but me (much to my anxiety still when I stop and think about it).

. . .

What is extra disconcerting is that at every step my faith has felt more like its own with some guidance, even divine guidance, by the faith community I was a part of. I dissented "enough" at each point to think it was mine. I had my own quote-unquote relationship with God. I had my own thoughts and ways of being. I still have questions about who God is really, how he interacts with the world, what's up with suffering, what life's about... But what I'm going through now is totally beyond all that in that I don't even know how to seek answers for the minor details of "good living" and what faith in action looks like, how to form my identity in relation to my faith, how I perceive myself and how I perceive others.

I can't trust "God" because, quite frankly, if I say God is leading me to make decisions, I'm likely ascribing things to God that are more biopsychosocial in nature as far as identity, how to live, etc. It has more to do with my own make up and the community I surround myself with.

I can't trust myself because I don't understand the source of much of my decision-making. Even if I feel "in control", the community of faith seems to be more influential (and possibly more invasive) than I think it is.

I can't trust others to guide those things because it almost always leads to guilt, confession, shame, denial of who I really am, and it almost always is actually detrimental to my faith in the long-run.

I'll tell you what I do know. I've been learning myself differently this year. These past two years. . . I am becoming more assertive, to my own benefit and gain when I've been led to believe that assertiveness is selfish and unChristlike. Afterall, Jesus died on a cross for people, right? The least you can do is this one little thing for so-and-so.

You can't express anger because it's ungodly. If you really loved God and the person you are angry at, the anger would dissolve. Anger is the conscious choice to worship yourself and this detrimental temporary feeling rather than loving the other person. They can never know Jesus' love if you express anger and/or hurt. You need to have grace for them. It's even more godly to give them grace by not addressing these feelings and just "give them to God". Most saintly to never even let the person know there was ever a problem.

Fuck that shit.

. . .

Lots of growth. Not sure how to reconcile all of this [sic] events and the resulting growth with my faith. I finally feel good about life again, good about my self again. Funny how that seems to happen outside the realm of my faith.

I cuss more and I drink more. But overall, I feel like a healthier, more balanced person.

It's nice not to neurotically question myself and God about every little thing, not to feel guilt all the time for where I am and where I'm not. It's nice to make decisions based on what's produced in and around me by the decision rather than some arbitrary moral/spiritual imperative.

I guess I just don't know what rebuilding looks like in this context. I kinda think it looks like what I'm doing, but it scares me because it's very slow-moving. Two years and I'm only just starting to open to these thoughts on this level.
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At that point I still considered myself a Christian, even though it seemed as though the walls of faith were crumbling. And it took me two years to get to a place where I was more committed to a journey of self-authenticity than to a journey of faith. As it turned out, as you can probably tell from my tone and my using quotations around words and phrases like "God" and "my faith", those things became alien to me. Harmful to me. The only safe way I could refer to them, even while hoping to revive them, was in quotations.

I don't know the date I officially determined I didn't consider myself a "Christian" anymore. What i do know is that it took two years of fighting against the dissonance before I reached the place I described in my journal. And it's been another 2 and a half years since.

Still a lot more discovery to do. Still a lot more to know. Still a lot more worth to learn to ascribe to things worth emulating. But it's a journey. And it's finally *MY* journey rather than a journey I am on, so I better identify with it. No, this one is of my own forging, for better or worse.

Amazed to see how far I've come and encouraged to imagine how far I may be in another 2.5 years.

A Letter to My Friend - Ex-Pastor, Ex-Mentor, and Murderer.

James and Tanya,

I've been thinking about writing for a while. I have no idea what I'll do with this letter. I haven't planned any of it. It's just a stream of consciousness to work through my feelings and to share them with the idea of you. Just like I have over and over these past few years, in my head at work, at home in tears over a six-pack, whatever.

I'll start with your confession. I had just returned to the internet after a month-long hiatus as I crammed for the GRE. I had literally been talking about you and the whole situation with a friend two weeks prior, drunkenly crying about how I believed I would never get the closure I needed from the situation. I didn't believe you would ever confess. The problem was, by that point I firmly believed I knew you did it. I knew you killed Marie. The first I'd heard of it was when I was home from college at Christmas break. The church had a Christmas pageant that was super epic and funny, with Christian/Christmas spoofs on all kinds of popular rock music. It was a riot.

It was also two months after Marie disappeared. I guess it was that summer, Tanya, when you told me that you were having a baby from a surrogate. Your telling of it was a bit odd - you overshared a bit, but I didn't think much of it. I was confused why you didn't tell anyone/the church until the baby was almost born that you were having a baby. It didn't make sense to me to keep that excitement silent. But I figured it was your business and gave you the benefit of the doubt.

Anyway, by that Christmas, Sweet Grace Rain was Baby Jesus in the pageant. Marie was gone. I hadn't heard much of it. But I went to Starbucks with a friend, as I always did with my ol' youth group pals. And that's when they told me the theories. Theories, James, about you wearing two weddings rings. I dismissed it, but in the back of my mind paused to question if it was possible. Then Marie's disappearance, and the theory that you killed her. I think I laughed out loud. There was No. Way.

I don't know whether it was months or just days later that my mom told me that she'd heard the foul play theory from one of her own friends, one who was not even part of the church and didn't know you. That kinda took me outside of myself for a minute. Maybe the story had more traction because people outside the community also put stock into it. Or... maybe they only could believe it because they didn't know you and couldn't possibly know that you were incapable of killing someone. Yes! I thought, Of course that's it.

And I went along merrily, not believing you were capable of it. I was still disturbed by the story, but I felt personally wounded that people doubted you. The way your whole congregation instantly distrusted you hurt me deeply. You had built this congregation from nothing. And they turned their backs on you. You helped them through so much and they instantly called you murderers, polygamists, and liars. Charlatans and cheaters. James and Tanya: Narcissistic and domineering, respectively.

I was disgusted by the whole show. But the years passed. And Marie never turned up. I closely followed her Missing Person's page on facebook, where I was exposed to a lot of things I'd never heard. Things I never would hear from you. And once again, two camps formed. James, I'm sure you're familiar with the two camps. I'll come back to that later.

It was always confusing to see which church folk believed you and which turned against you. Who thought you were guilty and who thought you were innocent. I guess before then I thought the claim of murder was a conspiracist fringe sort of belief.

Then there was the facebook page. And it became so real. I saw more of the accusations, more of the evidence. Eventually Marie's family took the page down because the police told them they were releasing too many details from the case that could compromise the case and the potential jury if an arrest was ever made.

By that point, I was thoroughly confused.

You'd already moved to Arizona. I no longer believed that Marie was a surrogate. By that point, I believed that you had an affair that led to a baby, and that the surrogacy story was to cover it up. I started wondering about murder and believing it was possible. I felt guilty for doubting you. I felt like Judas. I felt like I betrayed you by even considering that was possible. It felt sinful to even wonder. So I was on the fence for a few years, straddling both sides. To those who professed your guilt and to those who professed your innocence, I was Devil's Advocate. Honestly, I wasn't "in conversation" with anyone about it. I say that, but really, all of that occurred in my own mind.

I didn't have anyone to talk to about it with. It was the biggest struggle in my life for a while and I had no outlet. I was Devil's Advocate for my own self. Like the ball of Squash being thrown at the same fucking wall, never getting anywhere. I was jostled, banged up, and disoriented and never came out for "winning" on either side because there was still a wall. You both claimed innocence to all of it. I felt crazy for thinking you were guilty. I felt crazy for thinking you were innocent. I wanted to not need answers, but I felt at unrest without them. This unrest only grew with the years.

Then: Cold Justice. I bet it felt pretty shitty to be called out on national television. I bet it felt humiliating to have your dirty laundry aired to the world. It felt pretty humiliating to me too. By that point I'd already believed it all: polygamy, murder. I believed it. My only unrest by that point came from not hearing a goddamn bit of fucking truth from your mouths. Not about any of it. Not even the polygamy. I don't give a shit what you believe about polygamy or polyamory or whatever. But don't fucking lie about it.


What was humiliating for me about Cold Justice was not "discovering shocking new information". It was receiving confirmation. James, all those texts you sent Marie while in church. Wow. Sure, we were never meant to see that. But it was humiliating seeing that and thinking, "Damn, I'm glad I kinda already knew this, but I can't believe I defended James and Tanya for so long in this. I can't believe they lied about this and I bought it for years."


It was humiliating to me to see members from my church giving testimony because they knew about it. It was humiliating to see them being questioned, their faces blurred, and me hearing their voices and seeing their stances and knowing exactly who was fucking talking. It was embarrassing feeling like they were all in on something and that everyone kept everyone in the dark. It was all a lie. A sham. And all these people knew something. And I struggled with it silently, in isolation for years. Finally I felt less alone.

I felt relief watching the show. Ok. Now we're getting some truth. Too bad I couldn't get it from my pastors/mentors/friends. Too bad I couldn't hear any of it from you. Just two months before you killed Marie, I sent you both a message on facebook. Do you remember what it said?

Among other things:
"[You] have been so faithful as mentors and as friends"
"Thank you for being honest, real people"
"Thank you for taking me seriously enough to share with me even the most controversial of your beliefs!"
"I love and appreciate you both."

I bet you felt so guilty. I didn't know your most controversial beliefs. I knew about your Christian universalism. I didn't know about the polygamy. Because you weren't "honest" or "real". Did you feel like frauds? Because you damn sure looked like it. You told me that you felt you could be more honest with me than most people in the church. And you weren't. You shared with me things that you didn't share with the congregation. But just enough to be "safe".

Anyway. Cold Justice reopened that itch. Like when you mindlessly scratch a mosquito bite, and it swells massively in response and itches like hell. I'd been through stages of obsession about the theories about Marie's disappearance in the past. But nothing like when you were on national television.

I was so conflicted. I felt so hurt. I still thought there was a shadow of a chance you didn't kill her. I still hoped that maybe she would show up somehow. But I didn't think she would. Yet I kept hitting that wall of your proclaimed innocence. Even after you were arrested. Which I found out at work, by the way. I saw you in cuffs with that look of resignation on your face. I burst into tears, went out to my car and cried until my face was numb from hyperventilation. Then I got my shit back together, put some cold cloths on my eyes to cover the redness. And I went back to work to finish my day. I can't tell you how many times I cried at work thinking about the case. And this was just the beginning of the next stage.

I obsessed. I watched every youtube video I could. I googled your names. I found a lot of stuff. I remembered a lot of details. I found the Martin Zender conference you both went to. I saw you had a group of "followers" on the Martin Zender facebook group. You basically have groupies, by the way, who are condemning other believers for feeling hurt and pain.

Fuck them. And fuck you if you taught them that grace means you can't feel. I remember your teaching of grace. James, you didn't make followers of Jesus. You made followers of you. And they will crucify themselves while condemning those who dare to express anger, hurt, or a sense of betrayal.

Like everything else, as I discovered on my google searches, you were a polarizing unit. I googled you and I first found your preaching website.

You know, the one you started after you were kicked out of your church for polygamy. The one you started after you killed Marie. The one where you preached grace because you needed to believe that God could forgive someone who committed vile acts. Or maybe the one where you needed to believe that somewhere, somehow you still had a following. I'm confused by your motivation. And, you did still have a following, by the way.

Two other search results popped up. A blog called "What Is James Flanders Teaching", and an equal and opposite blog called "James Flanders Is A Heretic". Polarizing.

After Cold Justice, two fundraisers popped up. One from Marie's family, wherein they were seeking funds to afford lawyers that would allow custody to Marie's family of Marie's baby, who was still in your care. Simultaneously, another fundraiser cropped up to pay for your legal fees, James. And oh boy, did this one sing your praises. If you didn't commit the murder, I still would have been peeved. This one made you out to be a pure victim and did not say a damn thing about the polygamy, which was now a confirmed public fact. Actually, it made you out to be a victim of legal rigamarole, and all it said of Marie was that she was essentially some poor, troubled woman that you and Tanya were trying to "help". Seriously? The polygamy was confirmed and you both *allowed* this person to frame it in this way? Even if you wanted to cover the murder, you could have been a little more human about Marie and how she was cast in that. And how you were. You could have covered for the murder and still been a bit *more* honest, but no one would give. Maybe you just got off on having followers. Sure seemed like. And trust me, I saw the facebook posts - they got off on *being* your followers.

At your sentencing, James, one of them said something about you being a "celebrity preacher". No one believes it. You had your sermons streamed on a crappy local TV program, which is how I found you and why I started going to your church. You don't think you're a celebrity, right? I hope you are shocked by his phrasing. But I swear to you, that is how your "followers" see you. To them you are a Unicorn, glitter and all. They've never seen someone so Christlike. And they needed to believe someone could be so full of grace. That's why they ran to your support. A lot of us love you. I still do. But it wasn't love for you that contributed to this "celebrity preacher" fandom following that you acquired. It was love for the image you created for them. Tanya, that image is why you felt you couldn't share your life with the congregation openly as you said you did with me. That image is why you lied. They said they needed it. You thought they needed it. And you all worked together to make sure that Golden Calf image was there, because if it wasn't, then what? And now we are all being forced to drink that molten gold. How fucking poetic.

While googling, I found all sorts of stuff. I forgot about all your previous enterprising ventures, James. All the silver-selling, weapon-selling (knives, wasn't it?), article selling, exercise DVD-selling (which I bought from some random ebayer who was selling it), musical album selling... You've always peddled your stuff. After seeing all of it, it was hard not to see your website as a self-aggrandizing site to peddle more of your stuff. Yet I related. I always have projects going which could be seen as self-aggrandizing: a board game, an art exhibit, a book, a CD... Ok. Maybe we aren't that different. It scared me. I wanted so badly to call you a narcissist. And trust me, I could have made a solid case for it and had all my friends thinking you were. But I couldn't. Maybe you were a lot like me. Maybe I was a lot like you. Maybe we were a lot human. Or maybe you are a narcissist?

But. You killed someone. So you had to be less, right? There had to be something that made you different from me. There had to be. And I searched for it.

And still there was no proof you killed Marie.

So I obsessed more.

I found your daughter's arrest history. I found your legal run-ins. I posted about the case and Cold Justice to various groups and I found someone who was a part of your polygamist retreat group. Turns out that even the group where you were honest about that part of your life felt that something was off. Marie was unhappy. You seemed to have a temper and control issues. You were almost reported to the police. This whole thing was almost prevented. I hope you wish it was. I wonder if the person I spoke with wishes that they did report you to the police. Yet their relationship with their partners prevented them from doing so.

I researched the group you were all a part of. I read the articles about why deception about polygamy is justified in the eyes of God. I read about how to live a double-life and why it's ok. I read a bunch of shit. It's funny how the one quality that I think you previously identified with and the one quality I admired you for above my other pastors was your transparency. Funny how it all became opaque. And yet you retained the image of transparency? You made a CD about your bipolar disorder. You talked about depression and suicidal tendencies. All these things that are so vulnerable, you revealed. But when it came down to it, you revealed only what benefited you. I can't blame you for that, per se. We all do so. But you claimed to do more. The opacity was dishonest, but it was abhorrent the way you claimed transparency as you were opaque. Like Jim Carrey desperately trying to write, "The pen is red" when it was blue. But you succeeded. For a while.

I learned more and more about you. More than you ever would have thought. Kinda ironic that your life became more transparent when you were no longer in control of it.

I found your band, Boondock Gypsies. I watched probably all the videos. You both looked too happy for murder to be in your past. I actually almost doubted again. Then I found "Devil's Whore". On all the sites it was uploaded on. Some of your sites and pages had descriptions of the song, some had verses, some had both, some had neither. All of it taken together and with the album art... I knew it was your confession.

I am utterly baffled. I wish you could explain to me who the "Devil's Whore" was. Because it sure sounds a hell of a lot like you were tempted and drawn into a lifestyle that you don't actually believe in, but justified because you liked Marie. Then it sounds like you blamed her for your temptation, wherein you paint yourself as a "weak man" in the face of "the Sirens" almost. If I'm reading that right, How Fucking Dare You. I don't believe your confession at your sentencing. You say you are taking responsibility, but I don't think you are. More on that later.

I continued to struggle silently with this. I drank a lot. I cried a lot. I remember distinctly one night where I was drinking and lighting sparklers. I don't remember why sparklers. But I remember distinctly mourning. Mourning the situation. All of it.

I had nightmares about you. Before you confessed to killing, I'm sorry, "bear-hugging" Marie, I had a nightmare that you had me alone in a room. You knew that I knew you killed Marie. I can't remember whether I was confronting you about it or playing dumb, but whatever the case was, you knew I knew. And you told me that you couldn't wait to add my bones to your collection.

Obviously, I don't think you would kill me. But in my dream, it clearly represented my fear of how much you could let my trust fall. If I trusted you both as much as I did, and you both let me fall as much as I did for as many years as I did, why would I trust you not to kill me? You killed a part of me. A part that would have died anyway, I admit. But my trust isn't the same. And I'm just one person. I wish you could understand the reach of the pain you caused.

Finally, you confessed. And I missed it, because I was taking a damn 5-hour-long test and studying my ass off. As it turns out, all of this stuff was coming to a head. Everything with your case, and one of my friends passed away unexpectedly and grotesquely in the same month. I decided to apply for grad school because my life was happening and moving on while I was stationary in a place I hated. There was so much darkness. At my job, with my friend's death, with your case. I was tired of passivity. So I decided to apply for grad school and had less than a month's time to take the GRE.

When I came back from that hiatus, my Mom told me the news. Meanwhile, my Dad had sent me an email about it. Both of them graciously waited until my test was over, but both of them knew how monumental your confession would be for me.

Do you know what my reaction was?

Well, first I called my friend to let her know. The friend I was ranting and crying to just two weeks prior about how I thought you'd never confess and that my whole life there would always be a shadow of a doubt and that I'd always feel guilty for thinking you killed Marie... That friend. I called her and let her know.

I drove home. And then what happened? I danced in my driveway. I *danced*. It was the worst news I could possibly receive after receiving the good news that I did well on the GRE. And I danced. Relief felt so good. It felt so good. I wouldn't have that weight and cognitive dissonance on me for my whole life, I thought. It was over.

Then I went to the bar for a celebratory drink for my GRE scores, wherein I drank too much. One of the locals who I've talked to a few times talked to me about the GRE and my plans for "what's next". They asked me what I would do as a psychologist if I ended up with a "twisted fuck" in my office. You know, like someone who killed their spouse or something. I didn't spill. But I drank more before I went to my gym appointment, where I got into an argument with my trainer about religion and politics. Then I went home crying, embarrassed that I'd had a religious debate with my trainer, that I drank too much, that one of the happiest days of my successes with the GRE was tainted with your fucking bullshit and that maybe I wasn't going to be okay afterall. Maybe the relief I felt was passing and there would only be more fucking pain.

Oh, I tried to make the pain useful. After you were arrested and before your confession, I painted a painting of you. It was so physical and interactive. It was a black canvas. The first thing I did was dip my hands into red paint, and put red "bloody" handprints in the background. They are barely recognizable as handprints, unless someone is looking for them. I painted your face to the left side of the canvas, in the same style as your most recent CD cover: sunglasses and all. I painted a downward-facing dove (the emblem for the Calvary Chapel Church which you started/pastored) with a rose dripping blood in its mouth, along with three interlocked wedding rings.

I hate that painting. It's the most realistic looking face I've painted yet and I fucking hate it. But it's so visceral. It's not a "good" painting. The face has some realistic qualities, but it doesn't look real. The bird and rose and rings don't look real. The bloody handprints aren't discernible. It looks atrocious, especially to me knowing what it means. But even to an average viewer, it is visceral. And it was visceral making it too.

And just a few days ago finding the video of your sentencing. I watched your statement first, then I went backwards and watched Marie's family's statements. Then I watched your character defense. Or started to. My boyfriend got home and I stopped for the night and haven't felt emotionally up to continuing it yet.

So we're up to date in my experience of this whole thing.

Now that we're "up to date" on how it "went down" for me, can we talk about this candidly?

James and Tanya, I am utterly baffled at your dishonesty. Especially towards me. I am confused because the way you set up our friendship. I know I am young, but the way you both interacted with me and the things the three of us shared made me think that you both considered me closer than you apparently did. Source: the message I sent you two months before you killed Marie which I quoted above. You don't have access to it since you both deleted your facebooks (I would have done the same), but those are direct quotes.

I don't think this is the case, but in the back of my mind, I've wondered, "Could I have been Marie?" I remember times, James, that you made sexually slanted jokes when the three of us hung out. Not directed towards me in any way, but you made them and I was caught off guard. Were you testing the waters? Tanya, were you testing me out as a sister-wife? James, me as a second (or third) wife? Or was I just a young confidante who you both appreciated but didn't want to burden with the troubles of your life? What was I to you? Was I a friend? Was I a troubled young adult? Was I "just another church member"? Was I a potential "something more"? What was I? Do you have any idea what you were to me? I told you all the time. Probably everyone else did too.

Maybe I elevated you too highly. Maybe I was just like the rest of them, your followers, who couldn't let you be human. I don't think I was though. I think I *did* let you be human. I think that's why you trusted more in me than you did with others, even if you couldn't tell me about your alternative lifestyle. I think I elevated you enough to find it originally unthinkable that you would have killed Marie, yet not so much that I blindly sung your praises like Flanders-hymns as though you could do no wrong even after the murder.

The older I've gotten, the more I have come to realize that you can never really know another person. That terrifies me. I still feel an urge to look for what's wrong - to find that piece that makes the murder make sense. I know people that think it was all planned because you both wanted a baby. I don't believe that yet. I dunno, I didn't used to think you killed Marie either. Let's give it 5 more fucking years and see what I think about it then.

But for now, I don't think it was because of Grace. I actually have suspicions that you started to feel unrest in your lifestyle. Probably unrest due to the secrecy it involved. I'll stop here. I don't give a fuck what people do in the bedroom as long as all involved are consenting adults and that manipulation is not a tool to confuse consent. I can't attest to the last bit, but definitely all were consenting adults in your situation. And if you weren't a pastor representing the Bible and supporting the belief that most of your congregation believed you supported modern interpretations of the Bible, I wouldn't think it's anyone else's business. But you presumed to speak not just for God (I guess by a certain point your belief of God supported a polygamist view), but for the congregation.

You misrepresented the congregation you spoke to and were not up front about the dissenting views you had. If you had dissenting views and believed they were of God, you should have stood up for them. Where, precisely, in the Bible did you find support for covering up lies within the Body? There's support for lying to government, lying to non-believers, etc. I don't find support for lying within the Body. I think you went wrong there, especially when you claimed to speak for the uplifting and benefit of the Body. This is where Paul is like, "Hey, fuck you all. Bacon's awesome. Even if you won't partake, hey, some people maybe should feel that freedom." That's where you should have done the same if you believed polygamy was ok. Of course that's risky and you probably could have gone to jail. But guess what? So did Paul. And if you did, Marie would probably be alive and better off now than she was with you. So... yeah. Especially since others in your polygamist convention thought that *your particular* setup was somehow off and dangerous.

I still struggle with how to view you, James. I can't help but think you are a narcissist. Your confession didn't help you. I have never heard someone admit to killing someone in a way that made them seen tender. Who the actual fuck says that they "bear hugged" someone to death? Someone who is fucking hell-bent on looking like a good guy or a victim. You were not the victim, James. I don't think you were in a good place mentally, emotionally, spiritually. In those senses you were a victim. But you do *not* bear hug someone to death. It's not a bear hug when you have scratch marks and self-defense wounds on your body.

It was your fight or flight response kicking in and trying to stop the impending threat. I'm not fighting semantics. The prosecutor made the argument that you said "bear hug" to officials and "choke hold" to your psychologist. It doesn't matter when whatever you call what you did caused the actual death of a human being. The reason I care about the wording is because "bear hug" still implies that you consider yourself to be the good-guy/victim in this. A point supported by your song. Oh my goodness, the devil comes as an angel of light, and the devil's whore does the same, if only she didn't tempt you.

That's how I see that song. That's how I see your admission at court. You took responsibility. But I still don't know for what. Did you take responsibility for all of it? You seemed resistant at different statements that you didn't make. Does it bother you that you no longer have the ability to control the narrative? That maybe, God forbid, someone says you strangled Marie rather than bear-hugging her?

You know the real reason I am absolutely wrecked about this? Because not only did you kill someone and cover it up. You (and Tanya, I include you in this):
1) Lied to your congregation - your friends - about WHO you are and the lifestyle you support
2) Continued to lie and brought a thinking/FEELING human being into your lie who viewed you as somehow superior
3) Killed her
4) Didn't call the authorities to report accidental slaying (which is manslaughter; your non-report of it and covering it up makes it murder to me regardless of intent, which I damn well think you knew what you were doing, but adrenaline kicked in)
4) Lied to the whole church and your friends again
5) Buried her body in your goddamn shitty back-fucking-yard
6) Moved away and continued to lie
7) Evaded police
8) Continued to preach and create a new website where you'd still have a following even if you lost your church
9) Wrote a song blaming Marie for all of YOUR fucking problems
10) Had the fucking audacity to ask for affidavits and character support "in support" of your innocence
11) Allowed someone/a bunch of someones to raise legal funds to support you while LYING to them
12) Tanya, you never admitted that you knew about this and that is total bullshit
13) Still admitted guilt only after they reduced the charges to manslaughter

That's insane. Just the killing of Marie would throw me for a loop about who you are, what you believe, and what you stand for. It would make me wonder whether you were ever "mentor" worthy. it would make me wonder whether you ever really believed in or knew God. It would make me questions whether anything you said was worth believing in or could be trusted. But 2-13? To lie, cover it up, lie, cover it up... You truly only thought of yourselves.

I can't think of anything more selfish a person could do than to desire that which was "forbidden". Take it, manipulate it, cause it to beget them more joy, kill it, cover it up, and pretend it never happened. IT is a SHE. She had a life. She had a family. You had followers. You had a family. Now you have nothing. Nothing but the reality you caused by your selfishness.

More than anything, how could you let Marie's family go on questioning like that? I felt insane. I cried a lot, I drank a lot, I prayed a lot, I suffered alone a lot. And I never even MET Marie. I mourned over my ideas of both of you. I mourned for her family. I mourned for how hated you were. I mourned for the love I still feel for you. I mourned for the answers I thought I'd never have. I mourned for the answers I still will never have. I mourned for you. I mourned for Grace. I mourned that she would never know her mother. I mourned that she would only know you as her father. I mourned that she would know you as her mother, Tanya. I mourned that your other daughter didn't seem happy or that she grew up in an unhappy environment. I mourned for Grace before I knew that you killed her mother. I mourned for Grace's name - that the concept of grace is tainted for her.

Do you feel noble? Truly, you are following in the example of some of the greatest historical characters in the Bible.

Moses killed a man and covered it up. And God used him to free his Nation.
David had Bethsheba's husband killed. He was a man after God's own heart.
Abram lied about Sarai claiming she was his wife. You made the first Covenant with him.
Paul, the "worst of all sinners" is responsible for modern Christianity.

Good job. You lied about your "wife" Marie. You killed someone's prized lamb, as the prophet Nathan said. You killed Marie and covered it up. You were the "worst of all sinners" and continued to preach, because hell - Saul (I mean Paul) did it, and people were saved - Christianity was expanded!

Do you justify it? Do you see all this and think, "I am just like them. I am a man after God's own heart and I messed up"? If so, the Bible and the faith did you a disservice. And you did it a disservice.

You talked about Christian universalism. It was the last major theological shift I had before deconverting. *gasp* Which would have huge ramifications except your beliefs would still allow room for me in heaven as a non-believer. And if I were still a believer, I would still subscribe to Christian universalism and I would still want there to be a place for you at God's table. I don't believe in the afterlife, but as a non-believer, I now think that Christian universalism is perhaps the least harmful of belief styles Christians can have and I wish more had it.

Unfortunately you did it a disservice and have caused me to question the belief's benefits. As an atheist (for now), I know that morality and a lack of morality does not have to come from a belief in heaven and hell. But for those who grew up in the Church, those you preached to and led? Now they think that a belief in "heaven no matter what" leads to the most egregious sins - murder, sexual misconduct (how they view your arrangement).

I say that because I don't think you're that moved by Marie's loss of life or her family or friends' loss. I think somehow you think you get it because you were in love with her and lost her, so you are still the victim. Maybe that's my anger. Maybe it's my fear that you are so narcissistic you don't get it. And surely you can understand why your actions after her death would lead me to believe so. So if you truly aren't moved by the loss you caused to Marie's people, maybe you'll think of the loss you caused "your" people.

A lot of them turned their backs on a more inclusive gospel. A lot of them turned their backs on you. Some have probably and yet will still probably turn their backs on religion or God altogether. Most have turned their backs on you, and the few folks you have garnered through your webpage and who've defended you this whole time (who never bother mentioning Marie, by the way), are followers of you. I don't know whether they follow Jesus or not.

What you're reading here is my anger. Now follows my actual head right now, if you're ready for it.

I have no idea who you are. I never have. I never will. Humanity is frail. Any of us have the capacity to become that which we most detest in an instant. Very few people are immune to the effects of their biology and environment (heyyy, atheism has its points too). Those who are immune are very rarely immune by simple willpower or even the "power of Jesus". They are immune because of biological and environmental factors they didn't choose. I absolutely don't think that you were powerless. You had the choice and you made the wrong one. Multiple times. Consistently. And then justified it multiple times. Consistently. Dishonestly.

Do I think you "got what you deserve"? Well, no. I think you should have been tried and convicted of 2nd degree murder. I think Grace should not be raised in your home. But it's an imperfect world. I don't believe our justice system is whole. I don't believe most murderers are at risk of killing again and I don't think they should spend their days rotting in prison when most of them would never be repeat offenders and could offer society something if allowed them the chance rather than just making them leech off the system for life.

Whatever the case is, as far as our legal system is concerned, James, you should have been convicted of 2nd degree murder. Manslaughter would have been fine, a lower charge, if you had called police or an ambulance when you realized she was dead. But you prolonged the suffering of an unfathomable number of people. You may regret it, but you knew something was "off enough" about what happened to cover it up rather than to call and get help. So no, manslaughter is not enough. And Tanya, I think it's bullshit that you weren't arrested. As though you didn't know that there was a body in your fucking back yard. If you were a victim and were afraid to confess because you thought James would kill you, then you could potentially be exempt of charges. It's insane that you aren't charged with anything.

I can't believe the harm you both have done. And it's worse that you did it in God's name. I know you both had it hard. You were put in an unfair position. Pastorship will fuck you up fast. People exalt you and you become addicted to adulation. People harp about facebook and how people portray an image for "likes". Pastors portray an image for the sake of the spread of their religion, for approval, for fear, and at the end of the day for a paycheck. I understand that you couldn't be your authentic selves.

I mourn this whole thing. People are saying that you used religion to cause harm. I think your religious system used you and you sought well-being elsewhere. The cognitive dissonance was too much, things escalated, and you made a shitty decision in the heat of a moment. You were afraid. Nothing was healthy about your relationship with Marie. And this isn't about polygamy. Again, folks from your group said the same. What was off had to do with where things were with you *before* Marie.

Maybe that's why you had your "inner circle". Maybe they let you down. I seem upset that you didn't tell me about Marie. And in some ways, I am. I am pissed that you said you were honest with me when you weren't. I'm hurt that you portrayed our friendship in a particular way.

But I am so, so glad I didn't know. I can't imagine the guilt and regret I'd feel if I were one of them in the Inner Circle. Who is a perpetrator? Who is a victim? It's not so black and white.

I wish you would sincerely BOTH own what happened and take responsibility for the fullness of it. But by no stretch of the imagination do I think either of you would choose this if you grasped its fullness in that instant. It's easy to paint you as a narcissist, James. And maybe you are one. I don't know. It's just as easy to say that you have varied interests and that your family was probably struggling financially for a while so you tried entrepreneurial work. Tanya, Cold Justice chose to state that you were "domineering" and that you had control of James. But at the same time, they painted your situation with Marie as though you didn't choose it completely - that you succumbed to James' sexual desires.

We may never know. And with how much each of us lies to ourselves you may never know your own intentions fully either.

What I do know is that life isn't black and white. I don't forgive you really yet, but I know that life is confusing and that you probably don't feel like you chose to do what you did. I don't agree with your decisions and I am baffled by the mental gymnastics you performed to achieve the justification for those decisions, but I know that propensity in each and every human being.

I don't hate you. I still love you. I'm afraid of you. I don't trust you. Every human is capable of what you did. I hope I have cultivated the character that will lead me to have integrity to tell the truth when it hurts, to implicate myself when I've done something wrong, and to represent to people who I truly am. Essentially, I hope I've cultivated the character to not be like you. But I know that we all have that propensity.

The wall I keep hitting now has shifted from "they never confessed" to "so what? they confessed, but this horrible thing still happened; how is this possible?"

And it leaves me with more questions about humanity and about what the hell we are all doing and why.

I don't have the answers. I don't think your God does either. If he does, you didn't portray them well. Actually, you illustrated the profundity of our condition better than I could have. I don't know what else to say. There is no happy note. People suck. Hopefully we learn to suck less. I don't know what moving forward from this means, except accepting that no one is fully good and few folks are fully bad.

I don't know what good that does us since we can't trust one another's goodness to last. But hopefully we can love each other more fully somehow when we realize we can't know anyone fully. It's scary. Maybe it's worth the risk. Maybe it's not. Maybe life is trial and error. Maybe we'll figure it out. Maybe it's not too late for any of us. 

I don't know. I'm rambling hoping for a happy end. But there truly is just more sadness and pain to be had. The sting isn't as bad as it was before the first onset of answers. But some answers we'll never have, and that's the pain of the human condition which I am altogether more painfully aware of because of everything that has happened.

I wish healing for all involved.

I guess I'll wrap this up with three quotes that helped me in the midst of some of the worst parts of this pain.

"There is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us that it's rather hard to tell which of us ought to reform the rest of us." - Unknown (many variations attributed to many people)

"I choose to believe in the basic goodness of people. I choose to believe that not all crimes are committed by bad people, and I try to understand that some very, very good people do some very bad things." - Primal Fear (movie)

“We always look for the signs we missed when something goes wrong. We become like detectives trying to solve a murder, because maybe if we uncover the clues, it gives us some control. Sure, we can’t change what happened, but if we can string together enough clues, we can prove that whatever nightmare has befallen us, we could have stopped it, if only we had been smart enough. I suppose it’s better to believe in our own stupidity than it is to believe that all the clues in the world wouldn’t have changed a thing.” - Neal Shusterman, Challenger Deep

Sorry, Not Sorry. Except maybe I am? I don't mean to be - my bad!

I'm going to unspool a thread that is composed of many micro-fibers. I'm not unraveling it, not examining every single micro-fibers. I will examine a few of the main ones, but mostly I'm just unspooling the thread. For what purpose? To see it standing on its own. To see what it looks like without the structure of the spool giving it shape. I want to see it shapeless on the floor, tired and powerless. Join me?

One of the most frustrating walls I've continuously run up against in my deconversion is one of the same walls I ran into continuously while still in the faith. Strange, because I don't think the wall is inherent to faithlessness, but is essential to the faith. I guess I still run into it out of habit. It's less obvious now, but subtly walking into a wall is only less painful, not less frustrating and limiting.

I mixing metaphors. The wall is better. And Mexico didn't even have to pay for it.

The wall is a reality I live in and is coupled with a feeling that continues to reinforce the wall.

The wall is: I live as though I am apologetic for my very existence. Sometimes it's blatantly apologetic, while other times it's a toned-down version of the same quality - meekness, humility, and timidity to name a few.

The accompanying feeling which is often (but not always) paired with the wall is the feeling of "I am not ___________ enough" or "doing __________ enough", reduced in its simplest terms to "I am not enough."

My faith instilled this in me, laying the foundation for this to be my basest self-concept, then further added on a layer in which this belief and behaviors enacted in this belief were required.

The Foundation
To illustrate exactly how foundational this belief is, I will share the "Daily Verse" I found on Bible Gateway on the way to find the verse I was looking for. The daily verse is Isaiah 55:8-9, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

Your thoughts aren't enough. Your ways aren't enough. You can't trust your ways. You can't trust your thoughts. This first impacts one's understanding of oneself as being inherently "less than" or "lacking" - setting you up to always feel like a disappointment or a letdown. Further, it impacts one's ability to trust themself. If God's ways and thoughts are higher than yours, yours are untrustworthy in comparison. If God's ways are accessible to us through prayer, worship, etc., then if we trust our ways without seeking his, we are being foolish and lazy. We must immediately distrust ourselves and seek Him, who we can trust.

The verse I was looking for - Isaiah 64:6a, "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags"

The best you can offer is trash. Your proudest achievements, the moments which many build a life and identity on - garbage. Worse - disgraceful garbage which cannot be touched without a wade through the mikvah. 

When my relationship with God was the most important one in my life - one I'd lose everything, even myself (which I did) for - how could this mindset and behavior not transfer to my relationship with others? Even more, it seemed it was supposed to, in order to "be a witness" or "be the Bible which non-believers would never physically read" or to "be Jesus to the world". 

The Requirements
I admit: grovelling was not a requirement of the text. It was just socially-approved and expected within the church. One of the big ex-Christian jokes is how many times the word "just" is used in prayer, and I don't mean the just that means "justice". I mean the just that means "only" - "just 5 more minutes, Dad", is usually how it sounded in prayer. Except the prayers were in earnest, for things that we deeply believed mattered. 

"Just come into our hearts." "Just fill this place." "Just show So-and-So your love." "Just be a comfort to _____." "Just heal." "Just forgive me." "Just speak to us." "Just reveal yourself." 

Just do this one thing for us, "I know we're not worthy" - another common refrain. We were literally begging a deity who was bragged upon by His own Son-Self for moving mountains if we command it. But we begged and pleaded to be loved, while apologizing for asking God to do what He was supposedly eager to do. Why? We either didn't believe He really wanted to, or we felt unworthy to ask Him to do what we believed He wanted to do, simply because we were so much "less than". Probably both and other factors I can't even begin to touch on. 

Every week (in my denomination as a kid) we took communion. It was a time of remembering what you did that week that made God kill Jesus 2000 years prior. Sure, sometimes the preacher came in with a different message, "It's a celebratory wafer in anticipation of his return!" Then we sung "Lamb of God" and remembered what it was really about. "I was so lost I should have died, but you have brought me to your side." Or we sung "How Deep the Father's Love" - "It was my sin that held Him there until it was accomplished", "Ashamed I hear my mocking voice call out among the scoffers." 

The little "unleavened bread" wafer - Jesus' body, crushed violently between our teeth, and crumbled into mouths that were dry from guilt - talk about tough to swallow. You killed him then, and were metaphysically killing him now. Wine would have made the experience more bitter, but all we got was basically a thimble of Welch's grape juice to wash down our guilt. 

We were told to "turn the other cheek" and to "walk an extra mile with an enemy when he forced us to walk one". We were taught not to be proud. We were taught not to accept compliments but to deflect them. We were taught to walk "in the light", but to eschew recognition for our good deeds. In fact, we were supposed to hide our good deeds. Walking in the light felt a lot like walking in the shadows. Walking in the light felt a lot like fearing I'd be seen. 

The Effects Now
I often find myself attempting to minimize my impact on others and on the earth. I've fought hard to stop apologizing before sharing my opinion. I've fought hard to learn to make my voice heard. I've fought hard to be my own representative, 'cause guess what? Not a lot of people ask God for His opinion about me. And He's the only one who was "allowed" to see my good acts and allowed to praise me for being a "good and faithful servant" without my deflecting it. 

There was recently a story circulating about a pastor's daughter who got married, then publicly presented a certificate of her virginity to her father on her wedding day. A lot of people didn't get it. Besides the fact that I grew up in the heart of purity culture and always desired to be able to "tell my father I was a virgin until my wedding day" (I swear to you - that was encouraged in my circle), this applies to self-recognition too. Why did she feel the need to present her father with it? Because in her view, he owned her sexuality until she was her husband's. 

What about when it goes beyond your virginity? What about when you recognize that your very self belongs to God and only He can boast in you. "...present yourself to God as one approved" - as in, present yourself to God for His approval. 


It becomes quite a burden of guilt to feel that nothing you do is "enough". If our righteous acts are "filthy rags" and "unclean", that you can never be "enough" is absolutely true. Certainly if you believe that nothing you can do is enough to please God - whose love for you is supposedly incomprehensible, of course nothing you can do is enough for mere humans you interact with. 

Every interaction is viewed through the lens of "How can I be better for this person? How could I do more for them? How could I please God better in my interactions with this person?" 

And because it's tied to your self-identity and evaluation of worth, it extends beyond other people. Nothing you do is enough for you. You aren't "enough" for you to accept you. 

The only safe place is with God, Oh Silent One. 

And everything you do feels tainted. 

If you are Me last week, this means that although you don't say the actual word "Sorry" as much (as in maybe only twice today), you are given roles of higher leadership, then when you take allowances with that leadership feel you are overstepping bounds and ask if you are being "annoying" to a higher up - who assures you that you are just fine (although they probably think less of your ability to lead). It means that when you see your personal trainer after 3 weeks of not working out, you expect them to shame you and are surprised they don't. Then realize that the reason you haven't been going was largely due to shame, which grew exponentially each day you didn't go. It means that when you go to your violin lesson and ask why things sound so screechy, your teacher says, "You hesitate a bit much." and "You try too hard to get everything perfect before you let yourself move forward. You'd be better served by getting through the piece and continually practicing the full piece." 

It's realizing that you hesitate at every decision. You pause, thinking you are making your presence too known if you act rashly or speak directly. You feel like less of a noble [Christian] person if you are commanding, yet you feel like a loss when others don't view you as "leadership material". You are not enough or you are too much. You feel out of touch with who you are because you have reduced your presence so much that you aren't even sure what your unadulterated thoughts or feelings are. 

I love the phrase "Sorry, not sorry." It's so hilarious. Even when I think I feel it and feel empowered by actually speaking what I consider to be boldly (which is still timid, if not apologetic), I still question my role after. 

I don't usually dwell on these things. But I wanted to expound today. These feelings and self-judgements occur so rapidly and subconsciously that I'm usually unaware of them happening. These days it takes running into the same wall over and over for me to even realize that this is still an issue. I'm so pleased with my progress in being less actually apologetic. But the past two weeks have been an insane reminder that timidity, oftentimes humility, and any number of other traits are really just apologetic-ness incognito. And I still find myself running into a wall I thought I broke down a long time ago. 

Hell, maybe the wall is broken and I keep stubbing my toes on the damn brick debris. It still stings. 



Back to the whole "thread" metaphor. I thought I would unravel one other component - being a woman. Then combine them - being a woman in the faith. I think these pieces together make this much stronger. I think most of anyone in the faith (or particularly ex-faith who aren't afraid to be somewhat defiant in expressing this frustration rather than glorifying it as holy) relates to this. I think most women (faith or no) probably relate to this. I think women in the faith are especially vulnerable to this. 

Another post for another time. This is too long already. 

Damn, that was almost an apology. Now's as good a time as any...

Sorry, not sorry.

Catching this Train.

To preface this blog, you really should read about this incredible experiential board game called Train. I am in awe of the creative mind behind it. Once you read about it, you will never be able to truly play it. But there's only one copy in existence in the world - your chances of ever even hearing of it outside of my recommendation are slim.

So, I guess I should let you know, reading this article is a massive spoiler alert, if for some chance you did come across it and decide to play it publicly. If you never get that chance or wouldn't take it, this article will enrich your life. It's a calculated risk, but you should go for it. Here's a link to one of the articles about it - there are a few others that are also very well-written and explore different facets of this game.
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Preface over. I decided a few years ago, while still deeply in the faith, to make a board game about people using their religion to shut others out. I know this sounds like an exChristian project - and sure enough, it became one. But it's actually deeply New Testament too.

The game instructions were written a few years ago, while I still identified as Christian. The idea was to get people in the church to play it, and for me to sneakily write out their reactions as they are playing it. And to film or otherwise record their reactions when someone won. The game could end many ways, but the best way to end the game is to get all of your players into the final space - the "Locked Chamber". You collect keys along the way, and can use them against others or choose to collect them for extra points. You can form alliances to benefit yourself or break them. You are assigned a "sworn enemy" from the beginning an may use specific tactics against them, or refrain and collect more points.

There are a number of strategies a player can employ. Competitive players can manipulate others or use cut-throat keys to completely demolish their enemies success. Non-competitive players can collect keys, hope their enemies don't take advantage of them, and could choose to treat their enemies well by not using any tactics. Their idea is self-preservation rather than competition. Most players will fall in some range between the two.

The Keys are a limited commodity, meaning that some will want to "store them up" and others will use them to benefit the short game and hopefully get all of their players in the Locked Chamber as quickly as possible.

This game is painstaking because there is a bunch of forward and backward movement. You may have to sacrifice one of your own players to get another one into the Locked Chamber at all. There is a dungeon which is difficult to retrieve players from. It can be done, but it is costly. However, leaving them in the dungeon also detracts from your final score. Players must decide the strategy to take.
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When a player won, the idea was that the Locked Chamber would open, and in it, they would find the verses Matthew 23:13, Luke 11:52:

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to."

And:

"Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering."
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It would be a great discourse for discussion. This game could be played in the Church and different strategies examined for their merits.

It turns out that writing rules for a game is not the difficult part. Don't get me wrong - it is a difficult part, but there's much more to it. I found a website that will produce a board game of my creation (The Game Crafter), but the technical aspects are time consuming.

I stopped the design of this game while still in the faith. I have begun resuming it now as an exChristian. Why?
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On a metaphoric level, I think the "lessons" from this game are useful. I think lessons aside, it could be an interesting cut-throat game. It is involved and painstaking, though, so I don't foresee it being a "staple" game, so-called, that people return to time and again. But the thought behind it is valuable. Gameplay is still very telling.

And honestly? I still want to attempt to market it to churches.

As an exChristian, I am not a bastion for tearing down religion. But I absolutely want to bring to light the misuse and abuse that religion can inflict on the world - and their own followers especially. I want to discourage that.
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I'm making the game this year. Instructions are remaining about how they were before. But graphic design and the technical components of submitting it to the Game Crafter will happen this year. I am passionate to finish this in 2016.

What are your thoughts on such a project? Would you like an update once it is completed and available for purchase?

...Until you no longer exist.

I feel weird as an ex-Christian saying this, but I had a "revelation" of sorts today. It all started with beer, as it well should. I went to a local beer and wine outlet to pick up some new brews and wound up with two really good ones and a 6-pack of a beer-like alcoholic beverage. I brought them up to the counter and the cashier said, "We have cold ones of these, if you want" as she pointed to the 6-pack.

I hedged. Cold was better as I was planning on having some that night. However, I was already out the counter with two items rung in. Within seconds my mind flickered the following thoughts:

1. Cold would be better.
2. If I decide to switch them out, my time at the counter will be extended, meaning other customers have to wait for me.
3. There are no other customers.
4. It will take up more of the cashier's time and she will probably grab the cold pack herself, making extra work for her.

I started to say no. Afterall, I could throw the beers in the fridge. Why should she be inconvenienced because I am not patient enough to let my relaxation beverage chill for a few hours? "You know what? I-"

Don't need it cold. Don't need it cold. The words echoed in my head. But for some reason I had a realization of the fact that I could have better. She even offered it to me.

"Actually, sure. That'd be great!"
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Ok. I'm indecisive. Big deal. This has nothing to do with leaving my religion.

False.

I actually knew instantly that cold beer would be better. I decided it would be better as soon as she suggested it. Why did I hesitate?

As a result of my Christian faith my whole life I have certain messages drilled into my head which make it extremely difficult for me to recognize my desires, much less state them. I have deferred my desires, even recognizing that I had them, without recognizing my deference because it is out of sheer habit. For instance, at work just last night, my boss asked me and a coworker who would rather go home first. I immediately said, "I have no preference."
Without a pause, he looked at me, said, "You're lying." And then asked my coworker what he preferred.

He was right. I was lying without realizing I was really lying. Deference is a habit when it comes to desires. Why?
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Some of the most important elements of my faith that have stuck with me and defined me are my beliefs about how we are to be. We regard others more highly than ourselves. We die to ourselves daily. We pave the road for others. We give up our desires for others to have theirs and we try to take joy in others' joy - the joy that they could have because we gave up our preference.

The beer? To me, in the moment I hesitated, I was thinking about the frustration that my wanting cold beer would cause. To her it was virtually nothing. It was a suggestion she made to feel helpful and because it's her job and probably she was bored because it was slow at the store. To me, it was this huge moral, ethical, and identity-related issue that it never should have had to have been. And to me, that was my norm. I went through that thought process in milliseconds and I still do for every decision I make that actively affects others and for some that only affect them marginally.

This really simply results in avid attempts to minimize the impact/inconvenience of your existence to others, since YOU are not supposed to exist anyway.

I've been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.
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There is only so much you can attempt to minimize the impact of your existence until you no longer exist at all.

Don't let them know it hurts.

I've touched on this in probably every entry I've written here so far, but I will reiterate: One of the biggest themes in the life of my faith was bearing the pain caused by others silently, in order that they may be built up. Most of the ways this was enacted was more emotional than physical in nature, but there were times it was physical too. This theme has been enacted in many relationships in my life.

Sometimes it meant letting others "use" me as an emotional landfill. Taking on their emotional burdens (while never having that reciprocated), offering them advice (which they inevitably didn't take), and being harassed and guilted when I wasn't there filling that role for them. It happened in close relationships, online relationships - folks threatening self-injury and suicide, asking me to give them a reason not to die. I'd spend hours typing away to them, trying to show them that they were not alone, that I "get" it, that there's something to live for. In return, I received photos they sent me of their most recent self-injurious exploits, descriptions of their most recent suicide attempt. Their wishes for their funeral, what they wanted me to tell their family members after they'd gone.

Sometimes I was manipulated by them. I don't blame them fully - they weren't mentally well. That takes on a nasty manipulative streak and a sense of non-self-awareness. Manipulation or not, in all cases I felt bound to them, tied up in their well-being, responsible for their sense of worth and responsible for showing them a reason to live.

W.W.J.D.

The question that kept me in toxic relationships for years, that kept me from bettering ones that actually could have been improved by boundaries. I wasn't supposed to have boundaries. I was supposed to walk the extra mile, give my tunic and cloak, carry my cross, die to myself daily, bear the burdens of others, tell them about Jesus, be Jesus to them, and lift them up at all costs to myself. Jesus was crucified. He was betrayed and manipulated by Judas and he allowed it. Obviously it was just part and parcel of following Jesus. At church I'd been told, "You see what Jesus endured - why do you expect any less suffering for yourself?" I felt guilty for not being martyred. I felt guilty for every boundary I tried to set. I rarely tried, but when I did, it always backfired.

I told you there were some physical aspects of this as well. It's almost laughable as a story until the realization of its implications sets in.

Story 1. The time I got my head shaved.
I'm not going into the why on this blog. But let's just say, I decided I was going to shave my head. A buzz cut wasn't "enough". No, I was going to shave it all with a razor. Thing was, I couldn't very well do it myself. My dear friend and roommate offered to help me. So, she started shaving my head - eagerly raking over the same spots over and over again without additional moisturizer or what have you. At some point, I started realizing a burning/stinging sensation.

I couldn't tell her it was hurting! It would make her feel bad! So rather than cause her to feel any guilt or to ruin her good time or self-perception (she was having fun and felt so helpful - a way I wanted everyone to feel), I sucked it up. Until...
"Oh my gosh!" She exclaimed.
"What?" I asked.
"Does your head hurt? There's blood coming out of the pores!"
"Oh, uhh, I was wondering - something felt a little off. It's all good! The hair's probably gone now, right?"
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Story 2. The time I got my hair cut.
This probably happened before story one, come to think of it (logic at work). Anyway, ironically, this story involves the sister of my dear friend/roommate from story one. So in this story, the sister (also a friend) was helping me to trim my hair. I've cut my hair many times before without incident, but she was really excited to help me with it (and I love when other people play with my hair).

The thing is, she didn't have much experience with it. Rather than clip the hair with the scissors held horizontally to my hair/neck and her own body, she held them vertically toward my neck - like a little dagger. She snipped over and over again, tiny pieces of hair in rapid succession, many times catching a small piece of skin from my neck and snipping it.

Again: Can't tell her! She would feel bad! She just wants to be helpful. I don't want her to feel bad about herself or feel guilty for hurting me!

"Did I cut your neck?!"
"What? Why do you ask?
"There's a lot of little cuts bleeding!"
"Huh! That's weird!"
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The moral? The take-home?

Don't let them know it hurts. Don't tell them. Don't show them. Don't wince. Consider their needs above yours.

If your best friend and the guy you were in love with (both of whom knew of that dynamic and fostered it for a long time) end up getting married, be their Maid of Honor. They requested you. They didn't mean to hurt you, even though they did long before they started dating. It won't always hurt. One day you'll be happy for them, so live into it now because that is the "Truth in Christ". The pain is because of selfishness and pride. Because you expected too much. You actually caused your own pain, so it's your fault. They should not suffer the loss of their best friend (in the wedding party even, much less actual friendship) because of your own faults for not seeing the bigger picture.

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Don't let them know it hurts. Your own perception and imperfection is the reason it hurts. Or, alternately, it's supposed to hurt. Jesus suffered - who are you to think you deserve better than Him?

All of these things will be to His glory and will enact his Kingdom on this earth.

Praise God.

"It's God at work IN you!" and other ways to make yourself both *nothing* and *something*.

Ripped from a journal entry in 2014, deconstructing some stuff from a few years before. It jumps right in, but should be easy to follow context if you stick with it past the first few sentences. Minor edits have been made to clarify some of the sticky context and to maintain anonymity.
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I remember feeling like Joseph [of the Old Testament] on a few occasions when I had these "dreams from God". I felt so special when [the others] heard my dreams and were blown away. When they said they wished for such dreams, I blushed, but inwardly I beamed. I'm sure [my closest friend and spiritual "leader"] did too.

It didn't feel like pride. We knew we were given "gifts". We told people that these gifts were undeserved and on some level we believed it. We also wanted everyone to be able to experience what we did (that's good, right?), so we taught them in our ways of being. That's how I lost myself and contributed to others losing themselves.

I contacted an old guy friend this week - one that was close to us, who, of course, fell for the "leader" (Oh! Lust, I mean! It was lust and it was demonic and predatory!). He was confronted by us, castigated by us (until he repented, of course), and he eventually distanced himself from us. It turns out, he didn't think they/we were wrong in our treatment of him.

When I contacted him and asked him about it, he said that the group was "frustrating" because of "personal drama", and that the church he was attending at the time was simply "too prosperity gospel". Read: All the other stuff was cool????

What'd I expect from a seminary student? We, in the Church, eat up things that beat us down.We just love conviction. Why? Is it just masochism? That may be part of it, but I think we love it too because it gives us things to "work on", which gives us a sense of purpose and control. When we incrementally improve in those areas, it affirms our beliefs in our faith, our identity, and in either/both self-efficacy and God-efficacy.

It's funny. One of the things they emphasized in my group was that you don't do anything to change yourself. God does the work, yay! In theory it sounds great. But... God can't just do work against your will! You have to let God work. Or, invite him to work. Well, you can't just say the words. You have to open your heart. Well, you have to let go of your idols, otherwise there is no room for God! Oh, you don't know what your idols are? You have to be vigilant. Be a little suspicious of all you do during this period of discernment. Always question your motives. Ask your friends who have the gift of prophecy about your motives! They can probably see behind the veil that you can't. You are too close to yourself to know your true motives.

Unless you can hear from God yourself. It can be hard to hear God due to distractions and sins, demons and that sort of thing. You should create a "sacred place" to pray. And don't just pray, you have to listen! And you can't just listen; you won't hear anything unless you have faith. You have to "press in" and listen "expectantly".

This type of prayer usually often involves tears, worship songs, rocking back and forth, lying prostrate on the floor, etc. If you still hear nothing, or if you need God to "make real in your heart" what your head believes (maybe what your prophetic friends told you), you need to spend time in focused prayer.

Isolate yourself in a sacred space or within a shared sacred space. Think of and pray for a revelation of anything that could possibly stand in your way of understanding the "truth" your head knows but your heart won't believe.

This is tough and painful. It probably means rooting out forgotten and untouched recollections of your broken family, how you were raised, past experiences with any form of possible abuse, patterns that the past has created in your life, how you live into it now... Then, once you see where the problem is (which God revealed to you), you need to pray about it. Think about it and look vigilantly (again) at how those patterns are still played out in your daily life, as they inevitably are. Recognize your brokenness and its implications, and pray for healing. Pour yourself out in the presence of God for healing. Share with others who will pray for and affirm you. Seek visions and images in prayer so that God may use them to tweak your understanding of who you are in Him and the truth, which is not what your experiences have been. They truly happened, but they only enacted lies that have twisted your perception of God, yourself, and others.

Through prayer, worship, prophesies, visions, and "pressing into the presence", you receive healing. Sometimes it is immediate, but it's usually an ongoing process. it may take years, but now all of you is open to it. Until you hit a place where you can't seem to receive any more healing or if it isn't happening quite quickly enough, in which case, you simply repeat and submit to the same process for deeper, greater, and faster healing.

It's an exhausting process. And really, this should be happening to some degree on a daily basis if you are in true communion with Jesus so that you can fall into a place where God can use you in power to affect others and bring them life and healing too.

And when you see these changes - a new openness, a new perspective, a closer relationship with the community, a sense of brokenness, a recognition of who you really are in Him, then PRAISE GOD that He did all this work in you.



So... Forget that you spent multiple mentally and emotionally unstable hours daily putting yourself there, either in isolation or in a group encouraging you to do so in order that they could fill you up (and so build their ego)... Oh yes. God did the work, praise Him. And without hurting you. All pain you felt was the result of your past where love was not properly shown to you. All healing has come from God.

In the most mentally unstable parts of my life, I was simultaneously stripped naked (metaphorically) and mentally exhausted, often as my friends stood by, both encouraging and evaluating me, so that GOD could take the credit for any healing that may occur? And, by the way, none of the credit if no healing occurred?

All while my friends looked on, bolstered in their faiths and growing more certain of this unshakeable truth, while I kneeled, wasting away and shrinking in order to please God and the community he surrounded me with. And I praised him through it - just as I "ought".