Heartbreak and Rage by K. Gordon Neufeld

Author:K. Gordon Neufeld [Neufeld, K. Gordon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Virtualbookworm.com Publishing
Published: 2014-05-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven:

Home Church

My family in Calgary received me back with surprise, but when I made it clear that I intended to return to the church as soon as possible, they did not try to stop me. Being still immersed in the M.F.T. mindset, which insisted that there was never a moment to waste, I felt I was only allowed a short stay in which to visit with family and friends. Furthermore, I believed I was in danger of being “invaded by Satan” if I didn’t immediately contact a Unification Church central figure, and I knew I would have to phone Toronto to find one. I called them the very next day after my arrival, even offering to immediately go fund-raising in Calgary if they wanted me to. The baffled subordinate leader in Toronto, evidently unfamiliar with the fanatical M.F.T. mindset, gave me a surprising order: he said I should go ahead and take time to visit with my family and friends before returning to the church. Because he said this, I felt free to take a few weeks for this purpose. Without these directions from an authority figure, I would have been wracked with guilt.

With the methodicalness I had learned on M.F.T., then, I began to mentally catalogue all my family and friends, and worked out a plan to visit as many of them as possible. I did not expect to convert anyone; I merely hoped to “represent” Father to them, so that they would be “prepared” to receive him when the time came for everyone to convert. My idea of righteousness was still heavily tied up with observing church routines, so I awakened myself on Sundays at 5:00 a.m. (in my old basement bedroom) and bowed down before a picture of True Father and True Mother, while quietly reciting My Pledge. I also was determined to impress my family with what a good person I had become, so I made a lot of effort to be helpful around the house, even preparing a few meals for them.

I also began methodically calling all my friends from high school and university, including my former girlfriend, Sandy. Sandy and I had once been cycling enthusiasts, so we arranged to cycle together out to a park on the west side of the city, and then back. I was a totally different man from the one who had once been her friend; no longer was I straggly-haired, with a peach-fuzz beard, obsessed with Sartre and Thomas Mann and European novelists. No longer was I the shy, depressive man who dreamed of being a writer, and who had taken six months just to get up the nerve to ask her out. Now, I was a short-haired, close-shaven zealot for an unusual religion, and I talked about little else, showing few signs of my former love for literature. Yet I probably seemed more assured in my new guise—less visibly unhappy—and Sandy was gracious enough to accept this new outlook.

Sandy told me about her apparent recovery from her psychological distress; she seemed to be back on track.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.