soulfeet

“Where is the Love” November 8, 2009

After twenty-five plus years, I still battle shame regarding my actions of leaving The Way Corps, though I battle it much less these days. Perhaps more “proof” of the indoctrination process and how deeply it goes.

It isn’t so much that I left The Corps, but rather the manner in which I left.  I broke my word.

When I got to the end of transcribing this journal, I was thrilled that the young woman who had written the entries got out of that environment, an environment she took very literally and continually strove to live up to. But then there is that damn gremlin voice that says, “Yea…but…,” in regard to my breaking my word.

Over the years I used to say to my husband, “Some day I have to fulfill my Corps commitment.”  His response was, “I’m never going in the Corps and I will never live at New Knoxville, Ohio.”  He did consider Way Disciple, the outreach program that, sometime in the mid-nineties, replaced the Word Over the World Ambassador program.  In one sense my illness was a blessing in that regard; I was too sick to go Way Disciple.

At some point in the nineties, Craig Martindale changed the purpose of the Corps from training Home Fellowship (at one time called Twig) Coordinators to Branch Coordinators.  At the time I wrote him a thank you letter in regard to his decision. I finally felt some relief from fulfilling my Corps commitment; I always wanted to be just a Home Fellowship Coordinator (which I had been fulfilling even though I’d never finished my Corps training), not a Branch Coordinator.  Craig wrote me back that he hadn’t thought of that angle and was glad the decision blessed me.  I still have the written correspondence.

A week or so before I split from Headquarters back in ’83, I met personally with Cindy F. I told her I was struggling with thoughts about leaving, again breaking my Corps commitment. We discussed my health; I was drained, literally drained. Not only did I have my regular job in the kitchen and the High Country Caravan T.V. production set-up, but I also oversaw the OSC West(?) Lobby display set-ups for Sunday Teaching Services and meetings. The result of that meeting with Cindy was that I was going to continue to push; we were taught that when the pressure is on, to give. But, if it got to be too much I should speak up; my health was important. Apparently, I had a difficult time knowing where the line of “too much” started and “give to ease the presssure” ended.

The Wednesday, September 28, planning meeting must have sent me over the edge. I couldn’t do it all, and apparently I didn’t know how or have the gumption to speak up for myself. On the other hand, there is the indoctrination of fulfilling my calling and duty. Not to mention that decades later I learned that, at the time I left, things at Headquarters were messed up with behind-the-scene shenanigans of top leadership all the while they ‘encouraged’ (coerced) the regular Corps and Staff to give and ‘grow.’

The chorus I found myself singing in 1983 as I walked to work across that big field between the Executive Office Building and the Outreach Services Center?   “Where is the love…” first recorded by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway.  Maybe that seems silly; it’s a song about a romance.  But it is what went through my mind in regard to how I felt as I struggled to perform my calling and duties those couple months at The Way International Headquarters.