WHAT HARM COULD A PEACE SYMBOL DO?

When I look back at all the crap I learned at Thee Church, it's a wonder I can think at all. Its elders kept me on a spiritual treadmill for 15 years, all the while severely abusing my trusting nature.

From my upcoming How I Was Razed memoir, here's just one example of how my seemingly innocuous activities were grounds for rebukes by that superstitious cult's members.

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Because nobody discipled me until I joined Thee Church, the Christian faith seemed to consist of many peculiar prohibitions. Apparently, somebody somewhere forbad the drawing of certain symbols. A few years previously, a cereal company offered free booklets containing photos of famous N.H.L. hockey goals in each box. When flipped, the figures seemed to move. Though I hated sports, I became enamoured with the concept of still pictures being made to look like a short film clip.

During my first month at Jay and Linda's home, I realized that I too could make my own animated booklets. Whenever I had an evening with no homework to do, I sat at the kitchen table and drew each frame of my short animations. One displayed a peace symbol rolling like a wheel.

"Look at this, Jay. Isn't it cool?" I said after showing him how to animate the pictures.

He frowned at the booklet and then at me. "You shouldn't draw this. Peace symbols are evil."

"Evil? How come?"

"It's an ancient pagan fertility sign. Christians should have nothing to do with it because it's of the Devil." Not knowing any better, I reluctantly tossed out my creation and refrained from drawing peace symbols.

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How I Was Razed is the testimony of the way I was mislead by a cult church, how I turned my back on God after I felt he perennially failed to heal my eyes, and how he graciously brought me to my senses. It should be in print sometime in 2011.

My previous books, When a Man Loves a Rabbit (Learning and Living With Bunnies) and Deliverance From Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School), are now available online by clicking here or by clicking here to e-mail me directly.