p.s. i'm one of your former colleagues at the mother church. the place may have been odd when you were there, but it's become an insane asylum since you left.
Don't know who this is but I appreciate the visit. I haven't been very active on this "column" for a long time, a victim of the "social networks." I can only imagine how insane Christian Science headquarters is these days. It's the insanity of senility.
When I was fired, it was part of an implosion that had been building for several years. A desperate attempt to "modernize" this odd and insane belief system by a small group of rebels taunted and terrorized the old guard, who with a kind of ancient wisdom knew that it would never work, and in 2004 staged a successful coup. They knew, better than the innovators, that all the lipstick applied with a 4-inch brush could never disguise this antiquarian pig. I had been getting glimpses of the underlying insanity of Christian Science ever since I was an accomplice in a young child's death from medical neglect. I spent the ten years after that tragedy trying to rationalize it, defending through speeches and writing the myopia of the underlying beliefs that led to it, and letting myself become a symbol of its new modernity.
Still, it took a complete revelation of the insanity of any religion to set me free from this odd little "movement." I never hear from anyone who still works there but I can readily imagine what is going on five years since I left. Like a dying star, during my tenure there, this church and its "movement" issued a nova flash of vitality as the last expendable energy gave out. Now, as it collapses, it is becoming even smaller and denser and cold and dark, with the brittleness of old age and imbued with the stink of death. And yet, as my commenter suggests, the zombies are still wearing their sweet smiles and making wonderful predictions about a resurgence.
3 comments:
you need to keep writing. your perspective is unique. your knowledge from the "inside" (and I know cuz I was there with you) is "the pearl beyond price" (lol). LIVES DEPEND ON IT.
also, please correct the link to your blog from your web page. the current link is broken (leads to your music page) so your blog is next-to-impossible to find (to the relief of the committee on publication).
anyway, just keep going. don't fall into silence. THAT is death.
sincerely,
one of your former colleagues at tmc
I'm interested in what you write about a 2004 "coup" in the Christian Science church organization. Who were the principal players in this drama? Practically speaking, how does one stage a coup in such a tightly-held organization?
Wow...since you yourself admit you committed a crime acting irresponsibly in a religion you really did not understand or practice correctly by killing a child having diabetes in Minnesota--then perhaps you should volunteer to go to jail and serve a prison sentence? Particularly since you've had a change of heart about Christian Science. Or perhaps pay big time $ for a civil offense you committed...oh, I'm sorry, I heard you successful hid your assets from lawsuits. You want to bite the hand that fed you. No, you'd rather write poetry and music in San Francisco like a misplaced, unfocused Haight-Ashbury hippy. You remind me of a contemporary Judas;his fate? He committed suicide. Let's see you post comments to your blog from all points of view. While I may not study Science currently, I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to try to tear apart someone else's value system when it has positively served so many for so long Mario
Post a Comment