Confessions of a Recovering Cultist

“Father” and I were surrounded by pastors. “Promise Keepers” congregating at the Georgia Dome. I don’t remember the year. He was fulfilling what he believed to be his calling; I was sitting on the sidelines ready to bring him water. I couldn’t participate; I didn’t believe in what he was doing; but I was there. His purpose – warn the pastors that God was not pleased and was going to implode the Georgia Dome on them. That’s some nerve… or something. Thinking back on this, the memory is still pregnant with all the numb feelings and lack of feeling. One pastor asked me if that was my dad. Yes. He told me it takes alot of courage to do what my dad was doing, but if it didn’t happen, here was his card… I think he said he was going to contact me. Didn’t; but he seemed to be a nice guy.

Rewind back several years. I had been told that we weren’t going back to church. Felt terribly adrift and vulnerable. Started copying things my sister did and following a creepy voice that told me to do humiliating things like eat crumbs off the carpet. I got so sunk that I eventually was incapacitated in bed and wouldn’t talk to any of my family. I say “wouldn’t” – it was more like the voice had so taken hold that I was stuck. My dad got some advice from a friend and told me that if I didn’t talk to him, he was going to break any vow I had made. Of course, I didn’t respond. And so he said something like, “By the authority I have as your father, I break in Jesus’ Name any vow you’ve made.” I’m not sure about the father part, but the Jesus part broke it immediately. I was so exhausted from all the spiritual torment that I went right to sleep and woke up completely normal the next morning.

These are just two of many stories I could tell that are otherworldly to me – dark otherworldly. I was in a life pulled away from God’s people, out in the big wide open where wolf-howls sound close and mirages are many.

I don’t talk about these things usually. They’re too complicated. They don’t fit into what seems to be the American church dream: get your theology or at least you’re personal ideas about God straight so you can be happy and safe. My stories fit into neither happy nor safe. So I have put myself through learning the “safe” ropes. Problem is, the ropes are ultimately boring. They don’t hold enough weight. They can end up tying you up instead of setting captives free.  

Reverse several years more. Our simple home smelled of casserole and lit candles. Low accent lights warmed the piano and stereo that spun vinyls alive with Scripture and beautiful praise. My parents had company once again, and we sat for an hour after dinner soaking in the fun of each other’s company, jokes, and deep spiritual conversation. It was gloriously human, alive with faith.

Pause and contrast. Spiritual, yes. Weird, no. Joy-full.

The conversations weren’t merely theological ones, opinions of observers. They were living, probing, exhilarating. I imagine kinda like the nights when Jesus’ disciples sat around a fire and chatted after He had dozed off. Human ideas, maybe, but charged with seeing Him at work.

Zoom forward to the present. I find myself looking out over the years since I left “the farm”. You could expect I was a disaster. That’s right. Perhaps you’d guess I now think – Wow, I was so rescued and delivered! And I do. But right now I feel so very frustrated. After coming back from a spiritual war zone, I feel like what is expected of me by the mainstream is to join the American church dream. I imagine these words – You just need to do everything necessary to be happy and safe; you need accurate theology; you need structure. And, seriously, there is so much relief in some good ol’ happy and safe.

I just watched “Stranger Things.” Whatever your opinion of it, what it did for me was put in my face the reality that the spiritual world IS way more active than we think. I feel like most church people are like the townspeople, just going on with their “normal” lives, unaware of any other brewings. Explaining away missing people. Those experiencing “stranger” realities are all of a sudden torn from the norm. They are trust into a drama impossible to comprehend. I could SO relate to the place in-between discovery and involvement. A willingness, a commitment, kicks in when those you care for are in danger, or disappear. You’ll go places and into realities you never dreamed of going. And good thing you didn’t dream, because it might have scared you stiff. The step-unfolding of the unknown is a mercy since grace can cover moment by moment what would freeze us in our tracks otherwise.

So, maybe you’re thinking – Ah, now she’s really going coo-coo. She’s been rescued from all that crazy stuff, and now she’s getting way close to the edge again. But give this a thought…

Jesus is Victor, yes? Yes! He holds the keys. I know that a major part of my inheritance was snitched for an enemy recreation site. That land is still mine. My childhood inheritance of faith and spirituality was hijacked. But the promise is still mine. I’m beginning to think it remains the exact parcel of land I’ve been so afraid to visit. I’ve ducked low and played it safe on purpose. What if, just what if, Jesus wants to hand me the key? What if I used it? What if I unlocked that gate and took a look at the untended, bramble covered ruins? What if I saw a demon picking his teeth at a little fire? What if there were cobwebs hanging from all the curtains in the foggy windows? In other words, WHAT IF I DISCOVERED WHAT MY GIANT-FILLED INHERITANCE ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE? Am I willing to observe some things in there I’m really not equipped yet to face? Will I see only the impossibilities, or will I see the fruit that still weighs the vines to the ground? And what if, just what if, I decide that fruit is worth me moving back in and kicking all the impostors out? What will my cushy spiritual relatives think of such a very, very messy inheritance? They may not come visit for a LONG time. I’m pretty sure they think giants aren’t alive anymore and demons don’t hang out on a saint’s inheritance. But, like the little red hen’s friends, I think down the road they’d be glad for the wine (unless they’re offended that giants interim-tended the vines).

All these complications! I guess people who have simple churchy lives don’t have to deal with these kinds of realities. Or do they? Do they know whether they have an inheritance or not? Is demon-ousting not really their cup of tea?

Forgive me. I told you I was frustrated. And I am. I really think we are SO unaware of the spiritual world and the authority we’ve been given to overcome. I’m angry that we aren’t more equipped to engage what we’ve had to flee from. We shut down and fit in… or not. Maybe we practice fencing, but can’t lift a sword. Where are the champions? In hiding like Luke Skywalker? We can sip lemonade in Eden. And pray for those out in the midst of the wolves. But we’re way too fast to let them go – like lamb #100, the outsider, the “stranger” one perhaps.

For myself, I am realizing IN ME is that lamb #100. In me is that one SO loved by the Shepherd. In me is that one He is willing to leave the safe fold for. Perhaps several or many of my lambs #1-99 were #100 at some point. Perhaps their wanderings have been remedied by broken legs and Shepherd shoulders. What if Jesus only tended in me all that stayed within the confines of the fold? What if He was more concerned about safety than curios wanderers and rebels?

Seems in the gospels Jesus is especially fond of sheep #100s. Maybe He has a whole fold of them somewhere! Away from #’s 1-99 that would ram them. Reminds me of a line I LOVE by Rich Mullins, “…The whores all seem to love Him, and the drunks propose a toast, and they say, ‘Surely God is with us.’” He turns the tables so beautifully.

But back to recovering cultist. I am just realizing that it is wrong of me to abandon the beauty of my true spiritual inheritance by trading it for a sterile safe. Safety is warm and cozy. I want warm and cozy. But I don’t want to be warm, cozy, and unengaged. I don’t want numb – cult numb OR religion numb. I want Truth, alive and active inside of me. I want to learn and grow. I want to see things redeemed that I have seen destroyed. I want to be able to face what has made me run in fear. I want to see the deserted cult-caverns in my heart turned into living streams. I want to see My King reigning over the devastated landscape, breathing release, and re-creating Life.

God, let me see You move. Move me.

Psalm 44:5 (NIV) Through You we push back our enemies; through Your name we trample our foes.”

Habakkuk 3:2 (NIV) “Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known…”