I have no great gift for recall. If I remember these words half correctly, it's because they moved me deeply. There is no doubt that a deep sentiment and heart is being expressed in them. They capture an essence, a spirit , that was at the core of my faith. They epitomized what the real meaning of being a follower of Sun Myung Moon was all about. There was no way to communicate sentiments like these adequately to people who just didn't understand. Songs like these were the background music to the images I had of Sun Myung Moon, the loneliest man on earth, struggling against all odds, praying with tears to comfort God, calling the world to fruition and love. This wellspring of love, divinely inspired, yet completely human, was our bedrock of comfort, our last bastion of faith. It didn't matter if we didn't understand the teaching, hated our mission, or were struggling with our central figure - just unite with Father's heart.

    I have a confession to make. Even to this day, these images, these sentiments, move me. Isn't it ironic? Even though I am sure that the teaching is a load of hooey, that the group does a number on peoples heads, that it is a threat to individual freedom, that it has no real answers or solutions - still these images pull at my strings.

    Why is that? What could be going on? It seems almost sacrilegious to ask these questions. If you need to examine these feelings, to look any closer, you must not have internalized them enough. But examine we must. We are not just emotional beings. We have two sides of our brain - the intuitive and symbolic side, and the rational, analytical side. It could even be argued that it is our "portion of responsibility", to ask the questions and use our critical thinking skills to get the answers. If I remember right, Scott Peck's definition of mental health is "dedication to reality at all costs". We can not simply ignore what our brain is saying just because our heart says "this is so special". In one way, members examining their commitment might be faced with the same dilemma, and the same dynamic, as people who "fall in love". Those who act exclusively on what they "feel in their heart" are liable to end up getting hurt.

    Are members "in love" with SMM? Is that the real emotional nature of the connection? Of course, falling in love is primarily a function of sexual attraction, so in that way there is no analogy. But it's been said that people in love are projecting onto the object of their love the qualities they want and need, and make their love an idealized image in their mind, one not connected to reality. In that way, there may be some analogy. Was it simply hero worship, some innate need to make someone bigger than life, a living god on Earth? There is a very strong inclination in the human race to submit to the dominant, "alpha" male, to raise onto a pedestal a figurehead to be adored. Was SMM just able to strike a chord that resonates with some deep part of the human psyche? Certainly there are universal themes in the heart I've described - being reunited with our love(God), going to our true home.

    Were these feelings really that different from the deepest emotions experienced by peoples of other faith? Wouldn't it be arrogant to believe that the Catholic, the Jew, the Evangelical, the Moslem, or the Hindu don't have the same depth of heart? Unfortunately, these questions involve the very nature of religious faith itself, questions that will never be fully resolved. But I do think that looking at the question of faith from a larger context is helpful. If we look at peoples around the world, at the different faiths and belief systems there are, it is obvious that there are a whole lot convictions that are mutually exclusive, held by people equally as sure as the next person that theirs is the true faith. If you were to ask these people what makes them so sure that they have the truth, and not the other guy, I would guess many would refer to some deep, intuitive feeling, some incommunicable experience, some connection of heart, with their faith. There are a whole lot of people out there with a very "personal relationship" with Jesus. Hindu's like Yogananda describe ecstatic feelings of oneness with God in their highest meditations. Many Muslims make their faith the center of their life. These convictions are rooted on personal feelings of connection and unity, something inside that just says to them "this is the way." Yet they are going in fundamentally different directions. This clearly demonstrates there is something problematic about relying on faith to answer anything but the most general questions about the nature of reality.

    We must acknowledge there may be more earthly reasons for the religious feelings and emotions present in the human race, and that our religious feelings alone may not be the most reliable guideposts to truth. I suspect that the more we understand about the wiring of the brain, and brain chemistry, the clearer the picture will be. It is not insignificant that certain hallucinogenic drugs elicit feelings of religious euphoria. I continue to be open minded and hopeful that there is more to the universe than matter in motion, and try to live my life accordingly. Intellectual honesty makes me recognize that such hopes may be so much wishful thinking. I don't know if that means I have a weak faith or a strong one. In any event, I will never know for sure in this life, and any God worth believing in will not be offended by my questions. Faith in a "larger purpose" is at worst a harmless delusion. Faith in the particulars of any religion, or the divine status of fallible humans, may not be so harmless.

    It may be that SMM prays with tears for the world. But that alone was not reason enough to give my life over to him. I had to make some very difficult choices, had to step back and try and think and feel my way through the dilemma. Unfortunately, there will never be something that gives a member a clear cut answer as to what to do, if he or she is having doubts. For me, the process of leaving began when I just couldn't take the BS anymore. All the PR I heard, all the official lines given to the media that I knew from my experience were not the truth, started to make me mad. I began to see that the "spirit of truth" did not reside in this group. I saw the way people were manipulated. I began to see the good members that ended up broken spirited. I began to look at the doctrine more closely. I began to stop shutting out that quiet inner voice that in my head that said "Trust in your own heart. Listen to your own mind. Dare to imagine life "on the outside". It's your life - you have choices. Don't let fear hold you back any more." How many times I prayed that if I was wrong in leaving, if my words against the movement were a betrayal of God, then I wished for the heavens to strike me dead and erase the memory of my life from the cosmos. But I have not been struck dead. And I have not made some Faustian bargain with the devil. I have just tried to get on with my life, and do the best I can do. I came to the conclusion that what I was connected to, what I was holding on to, was more an illusion than anything else. I realized that almost from the beginning, my life in the group was maintained by explanations and rationalizations of things that didn't seem right, and ignoring evidence that contradicted my convictions.

    I can not say that I have all the answers, a truth with a capital "T", a way to live, that will satisfy those who need absolute answers or unambiguous blueprints for living. But I do believe that most of what I lived in the group was wrong. I have never regretted my decision to leave , and every bizarre story I hear coming out of the group for the past twenty years has been a confirmation of my decision. It has been suggested that one way to evaluate past choices is to ask yourself, with the benefit of hindsight, if you would make the same choice again. Using this guidepost, I would never have joined the group knowing what I know now, and I think leaving was the best thing I could have done.

    Nevertheless, I know that for a member, deciding whether to stay or leave will always be a soul wrenching experience. I know that many members hang on, even though there is a lot about the group that they don't like. They are more or less satisfied with how things are in their personal lives, and they are able to find a way in their minds and hearts to overlook the problems. But I would remind members that their support helps to maintain the institution, and even though they are OK in their situation, they are responsible for promulgating something that continues to do a lot of harm in good people's lives. Think about the young college student whose life will be derailed by his trust and desire to help. Think about your children and ask yourselves, "Knowing what I know, do I really want to entrust their life to some 'Abel'?" There are a lot of hard choices that have to be made. The truth may make you free, but leaving will never be easy.