Due to a variety of factors, including lack of a
college degree and scant evidence that I had any skills that someone would be
willing to pay me money for, meager finances was frequently a problem at our
house. Food Stamps and government cheese were familiar sights. It was less of a
problem when we recognized that we didn’t have
a lot of money and therefore couldn’t spend
a lot of money, when we shopped at thrift stores and day-old bread outlets and,
although paying the bills often required the skills of a Barnum & Bailey
center ring juggler, the outgo was always less than or equal to the income, no
matter how small. The expectations
were also less than or equal to the income. This all changed when (cue echo
effects) The Law of Believing
reared its ugly head.
The Law of
Believing as we experienced it was promulgated by a religious group that
we had associated with on and off since the mid-seventies,[6]
which taught that whatever you “believed for”, you would receive. Now this went
well beyond the normal person’s concept of praying, which usually included the
possibility that God would say “no”, the creator of the universe working in
mysterious ways and all that deep theological stuff. Most people, although they
don’t say it out loud, understand that praying is an iffy proposition at best.
When things turn out the way that they wanted to, then prayer works, when they
don’t turn out that way, well, prayer still works but…um…okay, the great silent
majority generally hasn’t worked out the theology of that just yet, although there are
theories.[7]
The difference between regular praying and believing
is that with believing, it being a law (I mean, a Law) it works all the
time, in every situation, for everyone,
as our group’s founder was fond of saying “For saint and sinner alike”. It’s
kind of like gravity, momentum and other laws of physics: they always work;
it’s woven into the fabric of the universe. So what happens when it inevitably doesn’t work? It’s the fault of the
person doing the alleged believing of course; he or she must not really be “believing”, or, like any good
glob of circular reasoning, the result would be there.[8]
This Law
was applied to finances by Pat and some of her friends. Over coffee and
cigarettes one afternoon they all agreed that they would hold their husbands to
this law. No longer could it be
stated that we couldn’t afford something, no matter how little money we
actually had. (And we always had
money for coffee and cigarettes) I was to “take believing action” and receive
that which I believed for. Now I know that I should have been thrilled to have
the opportunity to receive all that I ever wanted or needed, delivered upon
demand by a compliant deity ready to supply that pony that I asked for at
Christmas, but something happened between the believing and the receiving, and
that was reality. Our expenses
grew, our income didn’t and any attention that I drew to these facts was
derided as “lack of believing”. It’s difficult if not impossible to reason with
someone who deals in dogma rather than facts, and that was certainly the case
here. It didn’t make it any easier that in addition to our precarious financial
situation, we were giving at least 10% of our income to the aforementioned
religious organization, which was supposedly a form of believing that was to
guarantee financial abundance. Keep in mind that no one in this religious
organization was prepared for or trained in any kind of financial counseling to
show people how to have that financial abundance; they just pointed out that if
you didn’t have it you weren’t believing.
In the early nineties, with rapidly mounting expenses
on one side and the Law of Believing
on the other side, I made the fateful decision to get a credit card. The
initial reason for getting the card was related to my job. I worked as a
circulation sales rep for a statewide newspaper and often had to pay for meals,
gas and hotel rooms out of pocket and wait up to a month before being
reimbursed. The plan was to use the card to pay the expenses; then pay off the
bill with my expense check. All in all, this was a brilliant plan, except that
I followed part one (use the credit card) faithfully, but never got around to
part two (paying off the bill).
It didn’t take long for me to start using the card for
non-business expenses, and since they obviously weren’t reimbursable as the
business charges were, I never got around to paying them. At first it was
something small, a ninety dollar lawnmower that I swore that I’d pay for on the
next paycheck, then it was a $200 clothes dryer, then it was a $750 used car
from Weird Wally’s. I’d charge them, or withdraw cash and put it in the bank account
and then write a check. We appeared to be “prospering” according to the Law of Believing, but a simple look at
our bank account would have revealed that income hadn’t gone up, yet we were
spending more than ever before. It’s a miracle! Praise God!
Soon I got a second credit card to help cover dental
expenses since the kids were starting to require expensive dental work,
including orthodontics not covered by insurance for every one of my children
and possibly a few neighborhood kids who just stayed overnight, and maybe even
a stray cat. The first credit card initially had a credit limit of $1000, which
was soon raised to $1500, to $2000 and eventually to over $3000. The second
card started at $3500 and eventually was raised to $12,000. I maxed out both of
them. A third card was quickly maxed out and then a fourth. By the time all was
said and done I had racked up approximately $21,000 of credit card debt with
little to show for it except an abundance of straight, white teeth (none of
them in my mouth). Now at this point
you might be saying to yourself: “Dumbass, get a second job, cut back on your
spending, tell your wife to get a job (she was home schooling the kids and
didn’t work outside the home) – do
something”. That, I would answer, is easier said than done. (Since you
brought it up)
Part of the problem that I got myself into was that I
was afraid of two things: the wrath of God and the wrath of my wife. If you’ve
ever met Pat, now my ex-wife, you might be scratching your head in puzzlement.
First of all, she was tiny, with the upper body strength of a parakeet, and a
pack-a-day smoker to boot. Her lung capacity on her best day couldn’t support a
good sustained yell. Although she had (and still has) many good qualities, she
was just one of those people who never compromise on anything; everything was black and white; everything could be
boiled down to either (cue echo chamber again) the Will of God or the Lies
of The Adversary[9].
A lot of my waking hours were spent trying to avoid conflict and confrontation,
without any success worth mentioning. I was between a rock and a hard place.
Speaking up and saying that we didn’t have the funds to buy an item that the
appearance of “abundance” demanded, meant being harangued incessantly for not
trusting God. So more and more I took the coward’s way out and used the credit
card with no real plan for paying it off. For a while I was able to use the
mileage reimbursement checks that I received from my employer to pay off the
minimum balances each month. I made sure that I drove enough miles each month
so that I would have enough extra to make the payments. But as the balances
continued to rise and the interest charges drove them up even higher, I
despaired of ever even beginning to
pay the cards off, let alone totally eliminate the debt. I stopped pretending
to limit the use of the card to things that I was pressured by Pat to buy and
started using it to get cash advances which I used to hit the bars late at
night when I was supposed to be working, and for eating well at various
restaurants.
The wrath of God comes in to play with a relatively new teaching by the
leader of our organization that debt in any form was a sin. Pressure was being
put on members to eliminate all debt: house loans, car loans, credit cards and
any other agreement where you owed anyone anything. Sermons were preached
constantly how those who were in debt were cutting themselves off from God,
were contaminating the “household”. [10]No
surprise that I was hesitant in the early days to admit to anyone that I had
started accumulating debt, and when it got as huge as it did, I was terrified
of being found out. Eventually, my master plan to pretend that we didn’t have
financial problems, that I was getting along with my wife and that everything
would somehow fix itself, came crashing down with a call Pat received from one
of my creditors.
The minimum payments on the four cards had gotten so
large that I was no longer able to cover them using the mileage reimbursement checks
and had started using our family checking account to make payments, faking the
account balance in the checkbook to make it look like there was more money in
the account than there actually was. At no time during this crisis did Pat ever
ask to look at a credit card statement (I had them sent to a post office box)
or attempt to balance the checkbook. She was totally in the dark when finally
one of the credit card companies called the house to inquire about an overdue
payment. Immediately following that call, Pat called the local “leadership” of
our little group. Three of them confronted me in my living room about lying to
my wife, being in debt, and, most importantly in their eyes, lying to the
leaders of this group about being in debt (and lying about lying too). The fact
that my hidden debt was now out in the open was a great relief to me, a great
burden was lifted from my back. I had gotten myself in so deep that I was
afraid to ask for help, help from my wife, my co-religionists, or anyone. I was
afraid of the reaction that my wife would have and the action that my church
would take against me. But now what I had been afraid of had come to pass, and
as bad as it was, it didn’t seem that it was the end of the world. When I was
keeping it to myself, when I was lying to those around me, I couldn’t do
anything to reduce the debt, because that would make everyone aware that there was a problem. Now I had the opportunity
to pay off the debt and repair the damage that had been done to my marriage (Or
so I thought). I admitted to the $21,000 in debt that I was in (Pat had only
found out about approximately $3500 from the creditor who had called) and to
lying to Pat and to my religious leaders. The local leadership then contacted
the next higher level in the hierarchy and convened another meeting. They
considered my actions to be bringing the Devil’s influence into their
fellowship. Like many biblical literalists, our church leaders practiced a form
of “shunning” that they called “mark and avoid”, based on a bible verse that
said “mark them that cause divisions
among you and avoid them”. They used
this verse to justify cutting off all contact with people who didn’t adhere to
the group’s standards or even with people who questioned them. Those who had been marked & avoided were
considered by those who stayed loyal to be as good as dead. Active participants
were not allowed to have any contact with those who had been marked &
avoided. [11]An
intermediate step, called “spiritual probation”, also cut off the offenders from
contact with the faithful, but had a time limit, usually six months, after
which the probationer would be evaluated as to their fitness to return to full
participation. During this time the probationer was required to write a monthly
letter to the state leader, outlining what was being done to correct whatever
the problem was that got them put on probation and to continue to tithe, i.e. pay 10% of total income to the
organization. This was the action that our group’s leaders took against me.
The fact that I managed to tally up $21,000 in unsecured debt confirmed
Pat’s long-held suspicion that I was the cause of all evil in the western
hemisphere. She had been critical of my fitness as a father and as a Christian
for several years and had been regularly been complaining about me to our
leaders; now she had something solid. She fully expected that these leaders
would come down hard on me or perhaps put me in stocks before the village gate or at least entertain the possibility of
burning me at the stake; when they meted out the same punishment to her that it had to me; she was shocked.
Looking back, her inclusion in my punishment was as
much to blame for our future problems as was my own transgressions. It made her
bitter, angry and that much more determined to blame me for any and all
problems. But I didn’t see that at the time. I was so relieved that I had shed
the burden of living a lie and having been given the opportunity to make things
right that I didn’t perceive how bad things really were, how irreparable the
situation actually was. Things seemed
to be looking up. The problem with looking up
is that you don’t notice the big steaming pile of shit in front of you until
you step in it.
During the next six months I got a part-time job to
begin paying off the debt, wrote my letter every month to the state leader,
paid my tithes and attempted to heal the rift between me and Pat, who was
adamant that I was doing nothing to change and was convinced that at the end of
the six months the leadership would clearly see how depraved I was and permanently mark and avoid me, welcoming
her back with open arms and
vindicating her judgment that I was The Antichrist. Imagine her surprise when
we both were released from probation with no conditions, convincing her that
either the leadership of our organization was blind and stupid or that I had
diabolically pulled the wool over everyone’s
eyes.
Our church preached the point of view that good things
happened because you were “doing God’s Word” and that bad things happened because
you were “off God’s Word”[12]-[13]-[14]. Those who fully believed this doctrine
therefore had to assign blame somewhere when things went wrong, you could
either blame yourself, or blame someone close to you who was “a conduit” for
the Devil to cause problems in your life. Pat seldom if ever looked to herself
as the source of problems and was extremely good at was identifying
shortcomings in others; she had very definite ideas regarding what constituted
“doing the Word”, i.e. following the dictates of the Bible, and wasn’t shy
about pointing fingers at those whom she felt were falling short. For years she
had bullied and bad-mouthed the local leadership of our group regarding their
failings as Christian ministers, and was very vocal about correcting those in
the congregation who she felt didn’t measure up. In the mid-nineties she gained
any ally in Fred, the newly appointed “Branch Coordinator”.[15]
Fred was a graduate of the group’s leadership training program and was assigned
to our city as the coordinator of all their home churches in Lincoln. Fred’s
graduating class had received specific instructions to “weed out weakness”, to
“clean up the household” and essentially to purge those who were not meeting
the standards that the head of the organization had set down. Interference in
people’s private lives became the norm, and one by one, those who weren’t
toeing the line were marked & avoided and thrown out of the organization.
Pat happily went along with all of this; that is until they started coming
after us. We were being accused of being “spiritually weak”, of being a
“conduit for the adversary” and poor housekeepers, maybe even poor spellers. It
was at this point that Pat, unable to bully this particular leader, unable to
believe that she could possibly be
responsible for any of her own problems, and convinced that somebody had to be the scapegoat,
decided, since all her other targets had been driven away, that I must be the reason that we were being
harassed and constantly reproved. It was into this atmosphere that my secret of
the $21,000 debt was dropped. Her belief that I was a source of spiritual
contamination for our family was finally confirmed.
About eight months after we were reinstated into full
participation with our fellowship, a bombshell was dropped. The top leader of
our group, who we viewed as the “Man of God”, who taught and interpreted the
bible for us, was accused by a former member of sexual abuse and in short order
resigned his position as President of the organization. Shortly after that he
was put on “spiritual probation” like so many others had been and expelled from
the organization. This started for me a careful examination of all that I had
been taught, leading to doubt in the correctness of the group’s teachings. I
began to communicate with people who had left the organization and had been
marked & avoided and participated in an internet forum where the group’s
teachings and practices were questioned. Eventually I was told by the leader of
the multi-state region that included Nebraska that I was no longer welcome at
any of the group’s functions. I was being permanently marked & avoided.
This was the opportunity that Pat had been looking for. Before my expulsion, if
we had a serious disagreement, we would ask one of our leaders to mediate and help
us come to an agreement[16].
Despite my many problems with this organization, I believed that occasionally
they had good advice, and mainly just urged us to see the other’s point of view
and to find common ground on our disagreements. Now, since no one in the group
was allowed to have any contact with me, Pat took the position that in any
disagreement, she was right by default, since she was the one who was “standing with the household of God”, her
interpretation of events, her take on what the bible said and how it applied to
a given situation was by definition
the correct one; anything that I said, was by
definition wrong due to my expulsion from “The Household of God”. She began
openly telling the children to not listen to what I said and eventually to not
even talk to me, reasoning that she and the children were to “have no
fellowship with darkness”. The smallest things became evidence that I was
bringing evil into the house and the pretext for “confrontations”, where she
would bring in one or more of the children as “witnesses” to the “reproof and
correction”. In order to avoid this constant confrontation I withdrew more and
more, working extra hours at my first job and putting in as many shifts as I
could at my second, and not coming home until I absolutely had to after work;
even saying I was at work and just walking around town. When I had a day off I
would stay up late watching videos and drinking beer so I would be tired and
hung over the next day so as to not have to interact with her.
Finally, after coming home from work on a Thursday
evening I found the whole family sitting in a semicircle waiting to “confront”
me. As usual the charges were non-specific and vague, the justifications
quasi-biblical, but it boiled down to me being thrown out of my own house and
most of my children having nothing to do with me.
Well, at least the credit card companies still wanted
to talk to me.
[1] Surely
you remember the Monty Python sketch
[2] For Christmas Story fans, this was the
daydreaming scene where Ralphie comes home to his parents and they realize he
is blind from eating soap as a child. He fantasizes that they blame his “lowly
state” on their parental shortcomings.
[3] Mitzi
had the coloring and long hair of a Sheltie, but the long body and short legs
of a dachshund.
[4] We would
not have called the dog Mitzi, but
she had been called that for a number of years and didn’t want to confuse her.
[5] A
non-profit community radio station where I worked as an unpaid deejay for about
eight years
[6] More
details about those bastards later.
[7] One of
the theories is that God knows better and overrides your prayer – in which
case, why bother praying? Just let God sort it all out.
[8] In some
ways, this was more logical than regular praying, in that it posited an answer
to “why didn’t I get the result that I wanted?” that didn’t involve an
arbitrary, capricious deity who wasn’t all that clear about the rules.
[9] Our
religious group to be named later referred to The Devil, as “The Adversary”,
based on an Old Testament reference.
[10] One of
my sons, after filling out his tax return, found that he would owe a few
hundred dollars, rather than receive a refund. He was chastised for “being in
debt” to the government.
[11]
Ironically, in the years leading up to this event, I had been called upon to
sit in on many “confrontation” sessions that ended with people being marked and
avoided. Not a period of my life of which I am proud.
[12]
Although if something bad happened to one of the leaders, it was proof that
they were so godly that the Devil was after them in a special way, targeting
them for an extra helping of devilishness.
[13] If good
things happened to bad people that
showed only that the Devil was rewarding them for being his faithful minion.
[14] You
just can’t win with this kind of logic, can you?
[15] A
“branch” at one time signified a cluster of seven or more local home
fellowships, while a “limb” was all the fellowships and branches in a state.
Although by the time of these events, the Lincoln branch consisted of only two
small home fellowships.
[16]
Although looking back, even though she was often the one to initiate mediation,
if the answer did not conform to what she already had decided, the advice was
ignored.
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