Why did I put a “God” Before Love?
A Mother’s Plea and a Son’s Betrayal: A Tale of Cult Indoctrination
The story from inside and outside a cult
The following is an exerpt from the first chapter of “My Brother’s Eyes”, the book my older brother John wrote with me just 10 years after I had closed the cult which had taken so much of my life. I hate what follows in this exerpt because of its reality. I will never forgive myself for allowing another human being to control me so much that I would deny the love of my own gentle mother. I was 35 when mum died and hours off 31 when my dear father died, and I was estranged from them both. I am now 69 and am still living a full and active life, but the memories remain.
Denying my mother — book excerpt
“A phone is ringing and I am not in the house to answer it. Nobody is permitted to do so, except me.
I know its occurrence will have put the fear of Pastor Pryor into my wife and as I leap to my feet like the man possessed I have become I am sweating instantly. Our backyard is steep and I am out of breath before I reach the house and frantically climb the 14 steps before bursting through the back door. A fit man would have done it in a heart-beat but I am no exercise-freak, in fact I loathe sports of all descriptions. Anyway, the demands of our leader, who we know as “God”, give me little time for anything but “Zion” business these days and because we are kept continually poor I need the few hours I do get to attend to matters I expect other people to pay have done. When the phone rang I was changing the oil in our 15 year old Ford. I am not a pretty picture, covered in grease and sweat.
The phone is only to be answered by me
But the phone must be answered and only by me. I wish it could be otherwise. Margaret is only a few feet from the insistent ringing but she knows the phone is out of bounds to her. She is ironing. Momentarily something else to concentrate on, it takes her mind off it and perhaps the feeling of repression she must feel. I wish that were different too. Ever since Violet brought me close to her by making me one of her Pillars, I have been afraid to say anything that might be taken as criticism. If only.
I wish that our 6-year-old daughter Grace could answer it or 4-year-old Nahum, or two-year-old Ruth. Surely Violet would suffer the children. Jesus was angry with the disciples for preventing children from coming to him and said that we must become just like a child to enter the kingdom of heaven. But just as these thoughts race through my head I remember how angry Violet would be if anyone else answered the phone but me. The children would not be spared her wrath.
If not “God” on the phone — Hang up
The truth be known, I am scared. Some months ago Violet ruled the telephone is only to be used among us, the members of Zion Full Salvation Ministry. She introduced a code that required everyone to make three calls: two rings, hang up; two rings, hang up; the third call, answer. “Protection,” Violet has called it. We must keep to ourselves lest we be muddied by worldly outsiders. Our wider families, for instance, oh yes, especially them (“A man’s foes shall be they of his own household,” we are told Jesus said”. Of course, this afternoon the phone has been sounding for some time, I have counted 9 rings before I answer it. I make no greeting in accordance with Violet’s rule (thus ensuring no outsider will ever hear my voice). “I will speak and you will know it is me. If it is not, you are to hang up immediately.” All I can do is listen. There is silence at first. Then I hear a voice from what seems long ago.
Silence breaks a mother’s heart
“Hello. Is anyone there? Hello.” The voice of a woman that is so familiar it is bitter-sweet to my hardened soul.
Violet, it isn’t, not “God’s” unforgiving harshness. The gentle, pleading voice I am hearing belongs to the woman who bore me, nurtured me, lost me. It is she who always sacrificed for the three of us, John and Janet and me, her off-spring, the woman who always wanted the best for each of us and was always there for us. Part of me loves to hear her voice and my heart pounds, races, spills over into tears so terrible I rub my eyes and look at my hands, lest they be blood.
Ever obedient I remain silent.
“Hello. David?” My mother says once more and, my hand over the mouth-piece by now, again I say nothing. Yet, this is she who loved me forever because I was her child. So help me, we were best of friends. Mum and I. My dear mother, my dear, dear mother. It could be strained with Dad, but Mum was different. We would laugh, oh how we loved to laugh at every silly little thing that happened, me with my jokiness and making fun of her “back-draught” as her mirth got caught up in her throat. We’d laugh heartily, before she would hound me about my studies, being late for school or in “dream-world”. But not once did I feel unloved by my mother.
“Hello, Hello. Is anyone there?”
I remember her as a veritable Mrs Malaprop, getting words wrong, mixing up our names.
“Hello. Hello?”
There is anxiety in her voice now. I can see her face, I can feel her pain. And yet, knowing all this I say nothing and hang up the phone.
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Guilt grips hard
My lips are quivering. I catch my breath and want to say: “I’m sorry.” But — is it fear that stops me, stops me in my guilt? How could I? My own mother! Remorse takes hold of me. I am feeling sorry for myself, for my mother, for my family and at the same time I am so angry. Yet I feel powerless to do anything. I have chosen to serve
God and have committed to do this to the very end.
When Margaret asks me who was on the phone I don’t want to tell her and though I have turned away she will have seen my tears, she will have heard my crying. At least she will think it was the woman we call “God.”
Faithful to my calling, I feel so ashamed. It seems that what God calls right is wrong to us, and what is right to us is wrong to God. But I am trapped. I have commenced a journey that requires me to deny my soul, my kin, my heart.
There is no way that I will discuss these things with Margaret. I am forbidden to do so by Violet, for one thing, but more than this I don’t want her to know how evil I am becoming, so righteous serving Pastor Pryor. Yet she knows and suffers too. We communicate our thoughts in silence.
Silence has become our conversation more and more these days.
I wish I’d never met “God”.”
One thing I’ve learnt from this experience of so many years ago is that fundamentalist belief of any kind steals your heart, your soul, and your mind. When a faith demands of you more than you are comfortable to give you should never let fear control you, move on.
Audio copies of the book “My Brother’s Eyes” are available on most apps (but not yet Audible). Some print copies may be available through online retailers. I have some copies left — if you would like to purchase one for $15 plus postage please leave a message in the comments.
Best Selling author the late Bryce Courtenay, said of our book at the time: “True insight into the psychology of a sect, both from the inside and the out is very rare. The account by two brothers is illuminating, fascinating and intelligent.”
