Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Courage



Here is a comment that was left recently.

I think it takes a tremendous amount of courage to write this comment.  The commenter spells out what went on behind the curtain we suspected for years now.  He or she seems to have strong knowledge of the inner workings of the cult

I wonder if this commenter would have the courage to say hello to me privately and talk about their comment?  Or anyone they may trust.  There are several.  We look forward to speaking with you.


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I remember how the office where Sherry worked as the bookkeeper would always be locked while she was doing her work. You were not allowed to go in there and see anything that was going on. The curtains would be drawn over the sliding glass door as well. And there was an aura of not going near that room because if you did, it meant you were some kind of spy with evil intent. Talk about funky energy on their money. It was like the psychic version of Fort Knox. What was going on in there that needed hiding?

I remember Rev. Bill often saying, "Don't fuck with me when it comes to money." And how he always instructed Ang, Robin and Debi to put collecting the money first. If someone couldn't pay, often they wouldn't receive services. If someone was being too difficult, they usually used the fact that they owed money to kick them out. And everyone owed money there because it was impossible not to. How can you support yourself and support "the church", meaning their lazy entitled selves, and have enough money to do so?

 Rev. Bill and the Board of Directors thought nothing of taking money from single mothers, the sick, the elderly, anyone really. People who went there worked very hard to survive and then gave a good portion of their income to SRF. People lived like paupers even when they were making a decent living because of the amount of money they were expected to give. And not giving meant you had deep spiritual problems.

To see the most vulnerable people who had very real needs being taken advantage of sickens me. But it doesn't bother the leaders one iota. I remember Debi not feeding her children because the church came first. And then she also had the attitude that others should feed her children because she was doing such important work in the church. Myself and so many others paid to raise her children because it was the right and decent thing to do. And I would add that these same people who kept a roof over her head and her children's heads worked far harder at the church than she did in addition to having full-time jobs. Funny how nobody else except the leaders have an attitude of entitlement.

Here is the irony of their attitude. They thought nothing of putting children last because of the unreasonable time and financial demands they put on the parents. But then they would swoop down and take the children out to lunch or the movies and do all kinds of fun things with them and put out this attitude that they were helping the parents out because the parents were too poor or busy to do these things for their children. But they were the ones who created the parents' stress and financial problems in the first place. Insanity.

I remember when Sherry had breast cancer and had a mastectomy. She was on medication for a year afterwards to continue treating this cancer, a low dose of chemo. This treatment is known to make you tired. So here is Sherry, a woman in her 60s, who had to work full-time because nobody was helping her, who is on chemo, who went through the trauma of breast cancer, and they never helped her or had a kind word to say about her. They only complained about her working for them less and commented on how lazy she had become. They constantly bitched about how she was slacking off on her bookkeeping duties. And they would take her aside to have talks with her about her "attitude." What soulless fucks.

And here is the truth about what Sherry was doing in her locked bookkeeping office. She was instructed to keep two sets of books for the church. One was the official set of books for the IRS and the other was what was actually going on, mainly all of the personal expenses of the leaders that were being paid for by the non-profit. How is that for the integrity of the spiritual leaders?

If this commenter actually saw what was happening there, it explains quite a bit.  I confirms all the things we thought was happening.