Friday, October 19, 2007

Cults

I have to write this. I have to say it. I can't find too many people on campus these days who know of my experience. Everyone has moved on, and I have too for the most part, but I'll never fully recover.

Betrayal, lies and deceit -- that's the reality of cults on campus.

When university officials sat with me in their offices and admitted in private and confidentiality that there are cults on campus, but they permit them to add to the religious freedoms of students, that is troubling.

When these same officials write to the student newspaper and say that cults do not exist on campus, that is a very dangerous message.

The omittance of the presence of cults on campus is dangerous because students are made vulnerable, they are not educated about what a cult is, what to do if they or a friend is involved in one.

Perhaps more dangerously it tells me and other former cult members that our experiences in the various cults were for naught. In essence, never existed.

What does that translate to? Very tearful prayer, despair, anger, and I want to beat Satan with my bare hands. If satan were a tangible person before me right now, I'd beat him up, then let God send him to Hell -- no, something worse than Hell -- if that were possible.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Divine Mercy

I have been thinking about the Divine Mercy recently. Others have been writing about it in their posts and I was so enamored with it when I was first directed towards it last year. While I found it easy to adapt to the Rosary beads and the new prayers, I have since found the simplicity of the of the decade bead prayers to be full of depth.

A long while has passed since the last time I found prayer painful. In fact, when I did used to find prayer painful it was because I despised God, so this kind of pain is not related.

Perhaps pain is not the right word to use, but I also cannot say that the pain dwells only in my soul. Maybe it's the closest we can get to begging God without actually begging, although I certainly have done that!

But I really need to go, I have a paper due on Thursday and I am merely procrastinating here while I conjucture what it is that I feel each time I pray the Divine Mercy. All I know is that I avoid it. Prayed the DM yesterday with a group before the Blessed Sacrament and before the first 'decade' I was so close to tears that I could hardly finish the decade. If it hadn't been for the recitation of the group I do not think I would have finished praying it on my own.

have you ever encountered similar problems in prayer?