It can be very easy to think back to the way times were and think very negatively about the situation we all were in. This is now my 5th year in deprogramming therapy - and have learned mountains and mountains of information - not only about cults, how they work, and how they try to program you and take over your life - but life in general - and loads, and loads of information that are more valuable than anything - and I do mean ANYTHING the Church ever lied to me about - and that was a lot. But the biggest things I have learned in regards to my experiences in a fundamentalist conservative family in the Worldwide Church of God in relation to my childhood is that first off, it was not my fault. second off, change is a part of life. And thirdly, I must find the positive because there is - and sorry if this is cliche - power in positive thinking. Even when we remember. And tonight, I remember the Feast of Tabernacles - in my early childhood.
I can remember the smells of the motels – the clean smell of disinfectant. I can hear the ice machine unloading its newest ice cubes into the dispenser trays at 3 AM. And I can still remember the treats we'd only eat at the Feast – trail mix, health bars (I think they were Heath bars, actually), and the cool plastic cups wrapped in plastic next to the little bitty soaps we'd collect from the hotel. These memories are ingrained in my head deeper than the Grand Canyon, so it seems.
I remember sitting there, watching the minister speaking, absorbed in every detail of my surroundings. The lights – the ceiling fans whirling about. I would sometimes look down when they quoted scripture at all the heads dropping to take note of the exact chapter and verse. I would watch the Ushers ushering, or just standing around like they always seemed to do by every entryway.
I can remember the crying of scared babies when Herbert Armstrong went on a sudden crescendo about the Kingdom, or about how badly we need to wake up, or the “TRUTH”. I remember how his voice would echo around the hall on such a high note. And how quiet the audience was, so deathly quiet. I remember the voice of Art Gilmore with those films – the ones with the giant Statue, the beasts, or the Young Ambassadors. I distinctly remember Herbert Armstrong talking about Roast Porcupine in a very expensive silver serving tray.
I remember wearing that name badge – so proud of wearing an actual Festival badge. I can remember those proud moments of placing a Green Sticker on the car – verifying we were the True Church going to the True Feast. And I can remember when I would get those special Feast Edition magazines – yes, it's that time of year again – Feast Fever, the chill in the air, you can see your breath – and that special moon the night before we took off. These are things you can't forget.
Are these things me? No, they are not me. These are not my worst memories. These aren't my horror stories - But they are a part of my vivid childhood experiences, and they always will be. Pretending they didn't happen doesn't help anything, or change anything. The truth is, I thoroughly enjoyed some of these experiences. Was it - the whole thing - wrong? Absolutely, a lot of it was. Was it incorrect? Certainly. Was this version of the Feast of Tabernacles even done “right”, or “biblically”, if we even could? No, not at all. Yet, this was my experience. This was my life. And I have learned that while everything in life changes, and those days and times and seasons – and the very church itself – is gone, I have learned to take the good out of it and reflect on what was positive, what was decent, and good – because in everything you will find goodness if you look for it and focus on the positive.
Yes, it was a vacation. We were away from home for eight days. We ate good – real good. The hotel was far better than the house we lived in at the time. The people were friendly and like-minded, the enthusiasm and energy was palpable. The choir music was sometimes quite beautiful. We were all dressed beautifully and smelled... as best as we could smell! We went to museums, riverboat cruises, amusement parks, met great people, and made friendships that lasted decades. Even though in retrospect I am fully aware now that the entire thing was a fraudulent, lie-filled, financial convention that benefited the top, I also am fully aware that I was a kid – a child – and despite how much I believed the lies and went all in with it, I could be a kid, and there were moments – like ski-ball, roller-skating, and mall-walks that were a whole lot better than the day to day drab life at home.
What's the point of all of this? The best thing we can do is find the positive out of our experiences. The past is gone. The future will always be the future – but now – NOW is our present. Now is the only time we have. When we reminisce – either in nostalgia or in horror about our past – and though we all have been hurt and pained in life, and many of us by the WCG experience – thinking positively will be as an ointment soothing on the skin and calming to the nerves. Taking just a half an hour to write down the positive things – the positive aspects of our collective experience – might be far more beneficial than you might possibly imagine – and might even bring a smile and a laugh or two. Let's be thankful for those moments in time that brought smiles in unfortunate situations, because to everything there is a season, and to every season of sorrow there's laughter in the rain. We just sometimes have to go deep to find it.
submitted by SHT
Well said, after all, one day we will have to give account for the things we did and do. With age and hindsight comes wisdom, doesn't it.? And, yes, we can change and also make good.😌
ReplyDeleteMe? I just dismiss it all and say, "Hey! I grew up in a cult!" I've written HWA off as if he were David Koresh, or Charlie Manson. The brethren were like Tex Watson or Squeaky Fromme. That was then, this is now. Thank God for somehow seeing that against all odds, we were led to freedom!
ReplyDeleteSHT,
ReplyDeleteWhat a well written summary of the positive of our Worldwide Church of God Herbert W. Armstrong experience! Well done, sir!
I could relate to so much of what you wrote.
SHT wrote, "It's been a long, long time since I was among 14,000 people in a metal warehouse wearing a suit and tie, anticipating the Wonderful World Tomorrow among the only people in that area that God had called on the face of the Earth"
MY COMMENT - You immediately flood my memory of 14,000 brethren gathered at Mt. Pocono for the feast during the years I attended.
SHT wrote, "I can still hear the “Why are We Here” booming out of the PA System".
MY COMMENT - I remember hearing Raymond Cole at Mt. Pocono asking this as well as others at various FOT, and Richard Plache who answered at Jekyll Island, "Why We ARE HERE".
SHT wrote, "can still remember sitting in the back seat of my parents' vehicle, driving to a Family Day Horseback Riding Event.."
MY COMMENT - Makes me wonder if we are talking about the same horse back riding event that I remember sitting in the backseat of our family car on route to in the Poconos?
SHT wrote, "I can remember the crying of scared babies when Herbert Armstrong went on a sudden crescendo about the Kingdom, or about how badly we need to wake up, or the “TRUTH”. I remember how his voice would echo around the hall on such a high note. And how quiet the audience was, so deathly quiet".
MY COMMENT - This captures in a nutshell of what it was like to hear Herbert Armstrong in person at the Feast of Tabernacles. You could hear a pin drop it was so quiet.
SHT wrote, "These are not my worst memories. These aren't my horror stories - But they are a part of my vivid childhood experiences, and they always will be."
MY COMMENT - Mine too! It is an experience I cannot even relate to anymore it was so long ago. We weren't suppose to be here today in this present age of 2019. The Wonderful World of Tomorrow was suppose to be here in 3- 5 years back in 1968. Time was short! The wonderful world of tomorrow never came as promised. I only started dating in my late 30s after believing time was short! I missed the most productive years of my life as a male species to find "the wife of my youth" - one of my biggest regrets from the WCG experience.
SHT wrote, "I have learned to take the good out of it and reflect on what was positive, what was decent, and good – because in everything you will find goodness if you look for it and focus on the positive."
MY COMMENT - Great perspective which is why your article is one of the best I've seen written on the WCG/HWA experience. My older brother who stayed in the Church as an Elder long after I left, essentially told me the same thing once.
SHT wrote, " Yes, it was a vacation. We were away from home for eight days. We ate good – real good. The hotel was far better than the house we lived in at the time. The people were friendly and like-minded, the enthusiasm and energy was palpable. The choir music was sometimes quite beautiful. We were all dressed beautifully and smelled.."
MY COMMENT - This was my experience as well. It was a vacation! Fast forward to today, I commute back and forth between Maryland and Florida where I have a second home. On I-95 in Georgia, I have stopped occasionally at Jekyll Island to relive in my memory the childhood vacations FOT at Jekyll Island. I close my eyes and I can see the memory of the gigantic world's largest tent; the night Garner Ted Armstrong spoke with the hurricane approaching and the lights shattering and the winds blowing the tent flaps and the rain so loud hitting the tent that it was hard to hear Mr. Armstrong speak. The power of Satan was pounding the tent that night, or so we believed.
Continued....
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ReplyDeleteSHT's last paragraph begins " What's the point of all of this? The best thing we can do is find the positive out of our experiences. The past is gone. The future will always be the future – but now – NOW is our present. Now is the only time we have."
MY COMMENT - Well written conclusion of all these matters relating to the WCG and HWA experience. Wisdom! The last paragraph reminds me of another statement of wisdom found in Ecclesiastes 12:13 "Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind".
Richard
As a person who has eeen family members as alcholics, I distinctly remember the Feast of Tabernacles being (apropriately called) "THE FEAST OF BOOZE".
ReplyDeleteThe amount of alcohol abuse, along with fornication and adultery that I witnessed at the FOT are stains on the event that still vividly remain in my memory.
The bible says choose life or choose death. Death is death, no matter how deep one digs. Care should be taken to not use positive thinking to rewrite or whitewash the past.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeleteThe bible says choose life or choose death.
The Bible not real good for alternative and more balanced ways of being or thinking. It's all or nothing. Chosen, unchosen, called, uncalled, righteous, unrighteous, saints, sinners, all God all the time, No God any of the time. It's BS
"The Bible says" is not the true test of how life actually works.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteThe bible says choose life or choose death
Yeah, the either or of the Bible has brought nothing but peace on earth.
Let’s face it, folks. We’re never going to know all of the origins and the totality of our spiritual rape. At this point, all we cando is to deal with the damage and attempt to recover as best we can. Even if HWA was not the author, he was certainly the salesman.
ReplyDeleteIn my early years of keeping the FOT back in the late sixties, I was a young teenager seduced by my father to start attending with him. Later, my grandmother, also a baptized member, would join us. Those years at the feast were hard and I have very few good memories.
ReplyDeleteBut one incident really sticks out. We were staying in a cabin for the feast in Canadensis at the Mt. Pocono site. It was the morning after the last great day and we were getting ready to leave. My father had put a paper grocery bag of items on the table overnight, to take with us on the trip home. We three heard some skittering going on in the bag so, one by one my father took each item out of the bag until all that was left was a lonely little mouse looking up at us.
My father then took an empty orange juice bottle, took off the lid, had me hold the jar with both hands while he picked up the bag and “poured” the mouse into the jar. Of course the mouse had other ideas. He decided to run up my arm, down my back and jump to the floor where he scurried away.
My grandmother stood there and laughed so hard and long I thought she was going to wet her pants because of the look on my face while the mouse took his journey. It was funny to them, but I was scared shitless, thinking that mouse was going to bite me. I remember that like yesterday.
12.33 AM and 12.35 AM
ReplyDeleteChoose life or choose death are two different mindsets, each having their own dynamics such as self reinforcing virtuous or vicious circles. Nature itself forces people to be in either one camp or the other.
Have a look around you, it's the way the world works.
12:33, there are a lot of false dichotomies we can point to. But, to chose life over death is not one of them. It was the choice from the very beginning and, passing over all the burden of the Law (a painful concept to many due to a lifetime of believing otherwise), Christ came and again gave us this simple choice. It is one we can truly choose,though our actions will not always be consistent with that. Yet, there it is, life. Life is born of love. This is no false dichotomy. Choose life (and love/goodness). What else would we choose? Death? You can’t live long that way, and why would you want to.
ReplyDeleteIn South Africa (swaziland), Herman Hoeh sermoned at one of the feastsites for people of color (mandated by law).
ReplyDeleteThe sermon was named: "Why are WE gentiles here?"
In can relate to 7:56 "mouse story". Aa a kid I had to slip over many dead frogs next to the pool route short cut to morning services. I lived at least one of the Egyptian plagues in order to escape them.
Nck