Have you heard of the cult next door
[Music]
there’s a buddhist teaching
that says to cultivate compassion we
should look at all beings as if they
were our mother
as if they were once somebody who cared
for and nurtured us
and when i first heard that it was so
impactful but then i thought
well wait are we talking about my mother
my mother forced me to wear a pink cast
when i broke my wrist
even though i was a tomboy and i wanted
a blue one
and when she took me to work with her
she told me to go outside and chase
lizards even though outside happened to
be a lumber yard
with acres of towering wood stacks and
machinery
and strange men she used to lay hands on
me
and try to cast out demons because she
thought my strong-willed nature
was of the devil affection
wasn’t natural for either of us and in
those moments we tried
it just felt obligatory and
uncomfortable
and so our efforts were often
i never doubted my mother’s love though
she just showed it in her own way
like when she bought me a tetherball
pole even though i was an only child
i don’t think she understood the game or
me
she came to all of my soccer matches and
no matter what was happening
i could hear her on the sidelines
yelling be there
and for some reason without question she
let me name her black cat
after the disciple simon peter
you could say we had an unorthodox
mother-daughter relationship
but it worked for us because all we had
was each other
my dad left before i was two years old
leaving my mom
heartbroken alone and divorced
by the time she was 22.
she showed her pain the same way she
showed her love
which is to say it wasn’t evident
i knew she was aching because i was
witness to her search for acceptance
first we tried a mega church hoping to
find community
and answers but it was easy to go unseen
there
in the thousands of people and then we
tried
a christian singles group and i remember
loving it as a kid because we went on
camping trips but for some reason that
didn’t work out either
and then one day we found ourselves in
someone’s
living room and in many ways my mom is
still there
sitting on that living room couch stuck
i don’t know who invited us but i wish
that i did
i wish that i did so i could scream at
them
at first it seemed like an ordinary
house church
it was a group of christians gathering
together once a week
to worship and to pray and to sing
harmless right until it wasn’t
it didn’t seem like a cult
we lived in regular houses right next to
your house
we went to public school with your kids
we sat impatiently right next to you
at that same red light only we didn’t
follow
an imam or a rabbi or even a priest
we followed an apostle who said he was
getting direct revelation from god
and god was telling him to tell us
that we were set apart from you we were
chosen
god was telling him to tell us to turn
our backs
on the sick on the poor or the gay
or anybody who argued with our beliefs
because it was too late for them they
had lost god’s favor
to my mom whose life had been shattered
by my dad
who had been thrown into single
parenthood
the apostles living room wasn’t such a
bad place to be
he promised her guidance so she wouldn’t
have to do this alone
and offered her belonging without
judgment
he seemed to see her when she felt so
unnoticed
by everybody else i remember when i was
a kid once someone asked me
what my superpower would be and of
course i said to be invisible
but my answer would be different now
because i saw what invisibility did to
my mom
it didn’t matter how much i stared up at
her
my blue eyes mirrored my father’s blue
eyes
which were reminders of rejection of
being erased
we’ve all felt this longing for
connection
to be noticed by somebody that we admire
to be cared for them
is elevating it can become the only
thing that matters
especially when reeling from abandonment
i’ve interviewed dozens of theologians
about what a cult is and i’ve received
dozens of definitions
my research has led me to define it this
way
cults are controlling the leader claims
to get a special god-given knowledge
there’s group think indoctrination
cognitive dissonance
and oftentimes isolation
someone who is raw like my mom was when
the apostle found her
was perfect bait growing up
my mom was in survival mode and so i
never thought to ask her what her dreams
were
she never thought to ask mine either but
i think
her dreams were to be married have more
kids
have a job she enjoyed and be surrounded
by friends
her journey though stopped when she
walked into that living room
there she found kinship she became
friends with the apostle
and his wife and we were assigned a
pastor to watch over our family
i suppose that was the first strange
turn our group
took family pastor
apostle today my mom is in the pastor or
the apostles inner circle
which is a very esteemed place to be
they drink expensive wine together in
cognac and to go on retreats
to wine country and on alaskan cruises
the apostle says he’s called to the rich
and so my mom pretends to be
it wasn’t always like this though the
oddities evolved over time
in elementary school i told my friends
to rid their homes of native american
art
because such symbols were evil in middle
school
i told my friends to stop going to their
christian churches
because any organized religion was
misled
in high school i told my friends that
any bad thing that was happening to them
whether it was their bad grade and math
class or their parents devoirs
or their boyfriends breaking up with
them that was god’s way of speaking to
them
punishing them my mom was remarried by
now
to someone she had met in the group and
we had outgrown the apostles living room
we had expanded to homes throughout the
city
throughout the state even and we were
gathering once a month in a large
auditorium to hear the apostle speak
and his teachings were then distributed
through pdfs and cassette tapes
and i hated it because i too wanted to
be seen
i too had been abandoned when my father
walked away
but the apostles living room offered me
no healing
and so i escaped but not in an exciting
fleeing in the middle of the night kind
of way more of a slow
painful feeling the band-aid off kind of
way
it started by going to college i was the
first to do so in my family
i was only allowed to go with the
agreement that i would meet weekly over
the phone with our pastor
and so i did so reluctantly but it
allowed me to study
religion and journalism and when i
finally got that job
first newspaper job i took a stand and i
refused to hand over my paycheck to my
stepdad
that was supposed to be a requirement
because i wasn’t married
and then i continued to inch away
further by becoming a religion reporter
you can imagine my career choice was not
looked upon with favor
journalism was grievous but religion
reporting
that was spiritually dangerous going
into mosques and temples
they said open myself up to demons
but i thought it opened myself up to
compassion and understanding
today i run my own religion news
publication it’s called spokane faves
stands for spokane faith and values
myself and a handful of reporters
cover religion news in the inland
northwest and i have 40 columnists who
write for me
atheists buddhists quakers hindus
they’re all writing from their faith
perspective
but you can imagine the tension
continued to build between my mom and i
as i forged my own path and as i began
to speak out
against the cult my hope was that we
could agree to disagree
but to her or at least to the men who
oversee her
that was impossible one day
she sent me two ups boxes filled with my
childhood things
my soccer trophies my baseball cards
even my own
baby photos and with it was a letter
that said because i continued to disobey
god’s law
we could no longer be in relationship
i’m confident she did not write that
letter she only signed it
the story of my mom and i begins with
her
wanting to be seen eventually she was
but she lost her own sight and her voice
in the process she wanted community
but she sacrificed her family
too many vulnerable people find a
safe and comfortable couch one they can
sink into and forget their wounds
but they don’t have to stay there i wish
that i could sit next to my mom and we
could be awkward together again
but i can’t be part of a faith community
that tells people to leave their
children behind
and she can’t be part of a
mother-daughter relationship
that tells people to leave the apostle
behind
i waited 19 years
before i finally met my dad
i have interviewed cult survivors people
find their way out
every single day lives can be repaired
and relationships can be restored
if i hold on to hope hard enough
i believe that one day just like i met
my dad
i can meet my mom again if i hold on to
that hope
i think that hope is powerful enough to
pull people off of the couch
and through the front doors of the colt
next door
and i believe that if i hold on to that
hope hard enough
she’ll be there one day to hit that
tetherball back to me
thank you
[Applause]
you