Cult or Culture (part 19)

According to them I was being controlled by delivish functions.

Since my practice had become so strong, by Culture Center Clutch standards, the king devil was after me to get me to stop chanting.

Wow. And I thought the Christians could be delusional. At least they only had one devil to keep at bay. The Culture Center Clutch had a variety of devils to fend off and depending on which slanderous cause you made, determined which devil would come-a-runnin’ for you!  I have to admit having the king devil after me as opposed to let’s say devil Herb, from accounting,was pretty impressive. Stupid. But impressive nonetheless, how they had weaved a whole scenario of bad stuff that would happen to people if they left.

I tried to talk to Evelyn about my experiences – but she was just Evelyn. She had been a member of the Culture Center Clutch continuously since before we had met. It had been the bulk of her life. She was certain the chanting and the meetings and the meetings and the chanting had changed, improved, upgraded, elevated, prolonged, extended her life. Maybe it had. Although I could never get her to clearly articulate how – she just knew that it had. The most definitive statement I could ever get from her about the practice was, “It just makes me feel good.”

When it got to the point that she and I began having heated debates about the Culture Center Clutch I decided I would stop speaking to her about it – as zany as she was, she had always been my friend and my Mom’s friend too. Respectfully, I did not want to say something to her that I would have wished I hadn’t said…although I probably had at some point without meaning to do so.

Clearly there was no getting her to see any of the things that I saw. Her advice to me was to just keep chanting and not to concern myself with the things going on in the Culture Center Clutch that seemed to bother me – it was just my karma, that I had to overcome…or something like that…is what she told me.

During one of my earlier attempts at embracing the Culture Center Clutch I probably would have said, OK, yeah, you’re right, but that day I did not. TO BE CONTINUED