Strong City

I am writing in response to things I have often heard that have been mocking to our little group here. I have wondered at the hardness and insensitivity people sometimes show to the lives of others. It is one thing to look upon something that is unfamiliar, or not understood, and judge it simply as that. But it is quite another thing to project one’s own motives onto people, and then make judgments of good or evil.

I know my words will not convince anyone; I honestly don’t know why I am writing this. The mockers will only shake their heads and continue to mock. Anything I can say would only be more evidence in their minds that their stories about us are true. I know they cannot hear my heart. But who knows, there may be an honest soul who has a heart to hear.

We are commonly perceived as a bunch of hypnotized and deluded followers of a self-interested cult leader. This leader is then branded as an evil master-mind with charismatic influence over his followers, who uses his power over them to gratify his own lusts. You cannot know how much this hurts my heart. This conclusion seems to be partly drawn from our devotion to Michael, but why can’t they understand that we might just genuinely love him? Have those who hold these judgments never loved someone so dearly that they were devoted to them? Have they never known anyone who has sacrificed himself so completely for them, that they just could not help but want to give themselves over to that same Spirit in return? Is real love so totally unknown in this world?

During Michael’s trial I was called upon to be a witness. While I was on the stand, the prosecuting attorney asked me about something Michael had done. I don’t recall what it was now, but he asked me a question about it, and when I answered, he asked me how did I know? I told him I knew because Michael told me so. He seemed to want to make a strong point out of how I would simply believe what Michael told me, as if it proved that Michael had some unusual power over his followers. A phrase I often heard in the news about us during that time was “unquestioning followers.” What people don’t understand is how we live in our community, and that I would not question anyone else in our community either. I believe everything anyone tells me here. Why is this? Because everyone in Strong City always tells the truth, all of the time. Is that so strange? Is a person not able to tell the truth all the time, no matter what? Well, maybe those who mock us can’t. But if you are a liar, do you have to insist that everyone else must be one too?

We have done some things here that are not the custom in American society today. These things have brought much, much healing to the people here. Most could not even conceive of the healing that has taken place in souls here unless they had experienced it for themselves. This is why we stay. This is why we love it here. This is why we are free and transparent and don’t have to lie, ever. Yet the mockers and haters, the cynical and disbelieving, have judged our events as evil, even though there is nothing intrinsically evil about them. They would only be evil if they were done out of self interest. Why are you so quick to judge and attack that which you don’t understand? Is it because your own motives are self interested? Is it because your own motives would be lustful or perverted? Why must you take something so beautiful, and turn it into something disgusting, just because you don’t understand?

Why have you perverted in your mind something so genuine and rare? Why have you made it into something filthy? Wisdom would just keep its hands off that which it doesn’t understand. You have taken a man whose entire life has been devoted to the healing and welfare of others, at the sacrifice of his own, and sentenced him to prison for ten years for a crime he did not commit, even according to your own laws. You sit in your armchair judging from afar, and have no idea what has gone on in our land. You have no idea the amount of devotion and sacrifice and love that Michael has had for each one of us here. Hour after hour, day after day, year after year of intense emotional investment, all only for the healing of others than himself. This is the unequivocal report of those who have known him the most, and have loved him. How is it that you know better?

It is true, it has not been easy to live in Strong City. It has even been excruciating at times. It is never easy to confront the forces of darkness and evil, especially in one’s own soul. It is much easier to watch a movie, go shopping, or go play at the beach. It is much easier to turn on the TV, or dive into your work and forget about the battle and the still, small Voice. It is much easier to “go get a life”. But for the lover of truth, this is impossible. That one just cannot let himself be a slave to selfishness and vanity. That one would rather die. There have been many who were once with us who could not take the heat of the battle. They ended up leaving us sooner or later, and some of their lives have become wretched. It is very much okay that they could not stay here, or did not want to, but why can’t they just go on with their lives? Why must they now attack us, and accuse us of things they know nothing about?

Now the world is coming against us. Why does it hate us so? Can it not stand to see someone get free of its pain and heartaches? Is the world so void of genuine love that it can’t stand for someone to have it? We have a family here that has bonds far closer than natural human ties. But the world cannot stand such closeness. It is too close, too vulnerable, too transparent for those who have anything to hide.

Is there anyone who understands? Is there anyone with a heart to see the beauty of what God has done here in Strong City? Is there anyone who has a heart?

It is so grievous to me to have witnessed and experienced such pure and holy love, and watch it be turned into something disgusting and perverted. Can those who have done this, not even consider that something real and pure exists, in a world outside the one they live in? Is it even possible for them to put their hand over their mouth for just a moment, and consider that maybe they don’t know what they are talking about? Is it even possible for those who have lied and spread stories about us to consider the consequences of very real and unjustifiable cruelty, pain and sorrow caused by their prejudice and hatred? Are people really that hard?

I have sometimes been told, “No, you are the one who is deceived.” Ah, I grew up in your world, and so did most of us here. I am 51 years old now, and for the first 35 years of my life I was raised in your schools, starting from grade school where the very first thing we learned is that you must compete and compare, and beat down your fellow in order to lift yourself up. I grew up and worked in your “rat-race” society. My dad always said, “It’s a dog-eat-dog world,” and he was certainly right. Everyone seems to know what words to use to describe it, while they keep living there, feeling stuck. Well, I have lived on both sides of the fence. But have you, who make your uninformed assumptions about us? It is perfectly okay for you to love and choose your world, and not want to live as we do, but do you have to make us wrong? Do you hate that we say we are free?

I have a hope in the promise of final deliverance from this earth. There is nothing else that I want, and there is nothing else I am living for. I believe in the promise, and not just “sorta.” I have invested my life in it. I cannot live in the world as it has become, and it won’t be much longer before I will not be able to live on this “prison planet.” I am not talking suicide, I am talking physics. It is something I feel in my heart. A dragonfly cannot survive as a nymph in the mud for very long, before he has to fly. If he does not break free, he dies. I began walking down a path 17 years ago, and I must keep going, live or die. I just can’t live in a world without love. Is there anyone who understands this?

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