It’s been brought to my attention, both privately and publicly, that there are some things I ‘need’ to take care of here at my blog. I don’t think I ‘need’ to … but I’m going to, in order to point out the magnitude of how ridiculous this is to those who have attempted to make the point.

I have left my my former faith community. I did so several months ago. I did so when it became very clear to me that there were irreconcilable differences between members of the leadership and I and my husband. We are now gone. There are no links or any other connections here between me and my former faith community (or CLB). I have many, many reasons for that. If members of my CLB read this blog, they are certain to read things about their leadership which will make them very uncomfortable. The leadership of my CLB caused me quite a bit of pain and this is the place where I write about that. I make no apologies for that. I have always written about the things that bring me both joy and pain on this blog. Now is no different. It is a source of enormous grief to me that a place that was once a place of great joy and sustenance is now a place of great pain and, yes, I write and process that here.

I invite conversation in my comments section. However, that conversation is limited to the content of my writing. I welcome agreement and disagreement philosophically, theologically, etc. In the future, I will summarily delete comments which are meant to chastise the imagined “intent” of my writing. No one … but God and I … knows what I intend when I write a piece. Any of you who imagine that you also “know” my intent are engaging in hubris of the worst sort. If you should then decide to chastise me for that imagined intent, I will delete the comment. No one has editorial privileges here but me. I own this site, I pay for the web hosting fees and for the domain name. Therefore, I decide the content.

Reading this blog does not make you my friend. It does not engage you in a relationship with me. Most of my readers understand that. Some, unfortunately, need to be reminded of this. I no longer have “peeps” … anywhere. I had to give that up … see paragraph 2. The few people I do engage in relationship with, I talk to outside of the blog forum (e.g. e-mails and phone). Reading this blog engages you in a very one-sided view of my life. The view that I decide to let you in on.

Last, I considered adding category called RAYOR (Read At Your Own Risk). I could categorize any posts which may offend those of you with overly sensitive eyes as RAYOR. Then you could shield yourselves from offensive content while enabling yourselves to continue your voyeuristic peek into my life. How utterly ludicrous. I will no more do that than I will fly to the moon. You must decide for yourself, just like all the other adults on the internet, what is appropriate to read and what isn’t. And how you will process it and live with what you’ve read. That is your responsibility … not mine. It is an unfortunate truth that my experience is not unique. So if you are reading Emerging Grace or Brother Maynard or similar blogs as they write about their CLBs and finding a grain of truth there, unfortunately, I have discovered the same ugly beast alive and well in my former faith community. To deny that is to deny the truth of my experience. I tried that … it didn’t work for me.

If I sound angry, that might be because … I am. I am angry because I was forced to leave a community and friends I loved more than any place and people I ever loved. I loved those people, all of them even the bully almost more than my family and I had to leave in order to preserve the community and my family. So, I am angry that leaving was somehow not enough. For some reason it is expected that I maintain utter silence, virtue and fidelity to that community which betrayed me. I won’t do that. I am not going to keep those secrets anymore … I won’t buy anyone’s salvation with my silence. In the words of Anne Lamott: “If people don’t want you to write about them, they ought to behave a lot better.” Make no mistake about it … this is a line in the sand and I intend it to be such. If you choose to cross it, you do so at your own risk. If members of my CLB continue to read my blog after this point, you will read things that will make you uncomfortable. You may or may not speculate as to my intent, but you may not engage in that speculation on this blog. Get your own blog for that and I won’t read it. You have no business delving into my affairs at that level.