My eyes are finally open, and I can see that the coercion I experienced was a violation of my body and mind, all excused by the lie of obeying “God’s will.” The Law of Love was an excuse for a great deal of abuse.
I feel like I’m falling into a black hole and watching everything I thought I knew turn into wispy nothingness. When I left the Family, it wasn’t because I believed the Family was wrong; it was because I longed for independence and my mind thirsted for knowledge like water in a sun-parched desert.
Now, I’m trying to make sense of a world view flipped on its head and reprocess my memories through a new perspective.
I turn to Rob for advice. He tells me I can find the answers I’m looking for with the Seventh-Day Adventists. His family are strict practitioners, and he, too, is a true believer. I listen as he explains the tenets, but the more he lectures me, the more I notice a familiar militant attitude, though very different from the Family in many ways: his doctrine prohibits jewelry and makeup as well as the consumption of meat and alcohol—not to mention no sex before marriage.
He tells me he’d like to introduce me to his parents, as a good example of a healthy, loving, long-term relationship. Yet despite his devotion, Rob explains that he’s strayed from the path, and so out of respect or intimidation, he asks me to lie to his parents about everything we are doing—eating meat, drinking alcohol, and having sex before marriage, none of which I consider morally wrong.
At first, I go along with him, hiding when his parents show up, running around the house to conceal wine bottles and hotdog buns. But while part of me has been trained to be compliant, another part of me is learning to rebel. I don’t want to fall into another trap. I love Rob, but isn’t he just one more person trying to impose his beliefs? I didn’t fight for independence to go back into hiding or ask permission from someone else. I’m in a struggle between my mind and my heart. But I’m starting to listen to my inner voice, to question things that don’t feel right, to fight back.
I slowly realize that I’ve made the classic move of dating someone like my father: a teacher, preacher, youth prodigy, hard worker, someone who is dynamic, good with people, grew up with horses, confident, and controlling with a trigger temper. Even the pain is familiar and comfortable. As I grow more confident, Rob can’t seem to release the role of teacher. The very security and intellectual authority that attracted me to him starts to feel like rough ropes on raw skin. Neither fear nor love is incentive enough to stay bound. Eventually, I end our romantic relationship, choosing to remain friends.
29
Never Give Up
I travel back to Monterey for Christmas break. Just six months after I left for Georgetown, Aunt Madeline moved Grandma into a nursing home there. Mom, Ivan, and Jondy also moved there for my mother’s new job and to be near Grandma in her declining years, so it’s a little epicenter of family that makes visiting easier. My sister Nina is not with them. She has chosen to remain in the Family and moved into a Home in Portland, Oregon. My mom says that at sixteen, she’s old enough to make her own decisions.
Since I’ve come back to the US, I’ve made a point of getting to know my blood relatives. I need roots, and I want to make up for missing out on those years. I spend Thanksgivings with Grandad and Barbara and Christmases in Monterey at Aunt Madeline’s house.
Over a glass of wine, I tell my mom that I’ve studied the scriptures in their original context, and I no longer believe Grandpa’s teachings that “God’s only law is love” means that we were supposed to give men sex or that Flirty Fishing was condoned by the Bible. I watch for a reaction, but her expression does not change.
“Yes. Well, that was the revelation, the new wine,” she replies. “Strong meat is for adults, and milk is for babes.”
It’s a classic Family line meaning that the interpretations of the Bible that are easy to accept are like milk for babies, and the shocking new revelations are only for adults who are strong enough not to doubt God’s word.
I describe what I’ve learned, the reality of what happened to me in the Family, that submitting to sex when I didn’t want to was rape. She grows visibly uncomfortable, wide-eyed and fidgety. She may have left the Family nearly five years before, but she is not ready to let go of the dream that “Love is everything. Anything done in love is clean and good with God.”
“The message was right; it was just executed poorly,” she argues.
Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and smother the scream inside me. Once I’ve mastered myself, I clearly and calmly share my reasoning. The longer I speak, the more my anger changes to pity. I think, If I lived my entire adult life and gave everything for something that turned out to be a lie, would I want to face it? Or would it be easier to live in the illusion as long as I could?
I don’t attack her or even ask for an apology.
I explain my reasoning and leave it at that.
When I return to Georgetown for my senior year, I decide to live with six other students on the Jewish dorm floor. On my trip to Monterey, I learned that my mother’s family has Jewish ancestors going back to Rabbi Koppel in Poland in 1789. My great-great-grandfather Louis Smadbeck was written about in a book called Jews of the West for inventing a copper smelting technique to help the Arizona miners. I want to get in touch with my ancestral roots and begin attending Shabbat and observe Yom Kippur services. But once again, I’m an outsider. I know all the Bible stories, but none of the heritage songs and traditions.
And I still wrestle with unresolved questions from my own religious upbringing. After all my research and conversations with Mom and Rob, I’m still on my own, reeling with information and yet at a loss for answers. What was real, and what was a lie?
Even after all I’m discovering, my mind resists taking that last step. I can’t disavow Grandpa. Okay, I rationalize. So maybe Grandpa got it wrong. Lots of people and churches have misinterpreted the Bible from the beginning of Christianity. It doesn’t make them bad people, just incorrect.
Since leaving the Family, I have purposely avoided communicating with current and ex-members, aside from my blood relatives. I don’t go on the ex-member website or join online groups or even try to find old friends. I don’t want to be trapped into religious arguments or sucked into a whirlpool of anger and bitterness. I just want to make something good of my life, and it takes all my energy to focus on the positive and move forward. The occasional contact I have with my older siblings who are still in the Family allows some news to filter through.