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Stealing Wings from an Angel: Excerpt Page 10
Until it changed. I lived there first. It was my home first and they invaded and I could not stop them as I was a frog in a pot set to boil slowly. I watched men on little seats dangle from ropes and transform the peeling silver water tower into a shimmering sky blue. I watched the men paint over the heavy and ornate black gothic script, Kneipp Springs, with the black block lettering, THE WAY. I skateboarded the halls before the fire doors and rules made skateboarding a crime. I watched the walls fall down and the dining room grow and the white linoleum floor spread before enough people could fill it to capacity. I watched the chapel floor grow a red carpet fur and sprout hundreds of folding chairs and devoted followers. I watched Saturday morning cartoons in the family room fade away to work and meetings. I watched the kitchen install locks on the food and keep me hungry all night long. I watched the barren pond I stocked with fish with the help of my second-grade friends, and the moat we found the fish in, become off limits to our fishing passion. I watched the dark spooky attic I loved to explore so much get posted “No Trespassing” and the basement segmented by doors and locks. I watched the statues in the basement supposedly possessed with devil spirits divided by value, destroyed as false idols if they weren’t worth much, and sold off if they were of a high resale value. I watched the lazy days change to Twig Fellowship at the bus stop before school and report to work immediately after school with dinner at five and evening fellowship at 7:30 and no visiting in other kid’s rooms in the little time off. I watched a ban fall on secular music from September to January every year. I watched the apple trees fall to by way of the chain saw to make room for low-quality pre-fab dwellings to accommodate the attendance greed. I watched the sweet little Children’s Activity coordinator marry a man who stepped into her role and wasted no time introducing us to his Jekyll-and-Hyde personality laughing one minute and screaming and beating us the next not to mention what happened behind closed doors that I did not experience but dare not say what I’ve heard. I watched the slowly evolving corporate ladder of spirituality turn my step-dad against me and take my mom away from me and leave my dog behind to die and I was not allowed to mourn. I watched the seeds of fear and paranoia sink deep into the subconscious, sprout roots and grow and only now do I know this is where the blackness was sown. I watched Christmas and Easter and music and friends and trinkets strange people on the bus give you because they are crazy and words and movies and my beloved Van Halen and artwork and books and thoughts and dreams and love and lust and passion and curiosity fill with dangerous devil spirits that could only be touched with the gloves of spirituality to observe but not allow near your heart lest the spirits enter your soul and possess your will but my heart was too curious and too passionate and too creative and yet too loyal to the teachings and there is where the dissonance began and the first skirmishes were fought in distant regions of my psyche.
About Stealing Wings from an Angel
Stealing Wings is the story of my life written from 1993 to 1996 as I broke away from my less-than-ordinary upbringing in the religious cult, The Way International, and stepped into a frightening new world no longer protected by the people and ideas of the cult. The tale is not for the faint at heart as it a story of suicide, destruction, and rebirth told both factually and from the fantasies created by my imagination and dreams as I attempted to navigate this dangerous change. Purchase a copy for your collection. You won’t be let down. - Christian
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