Heaven's Harlots
by
Miriam Williams


Published by Eagle Brook An Imprint of William Morrow and Company, Inc.
1350 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 10019

Copyright 1998 by Miriam Williams All rights reserved.  No part of
this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the Publisher.  Inquiries should be addressed to Permissions
Department, William Morrow and Company, Inc 1350 Avenue of the
Americas, New York, N.Y. 10019.

ISBN 0-688-15504-9

Printed in the United States of America 800K DESIGN BY 8ERNARD KLEIN 

To the women of the cult and to the men who loved them and lost them.
May we all find inner peace.

With the exception of Jeremy Spencer, Moses David, and myself, all
the legal names and Bible names of Children of God members in this book
have been changed in the interest of confidentiality.

Acknowledgments.

I would like to thank: My five children, who helped me through the
sometimes painful process of writing this book, simply by being
themselves, especially my oldest son, with whom I share my fears and
joys, and my oldest daughter, who was often a fill-in mommy, helping
the others with homework and meals.

My mother, who has always been the prayer warrior of the family and a
caring grandmother.

My best friends, who are all former members of this cult and
contributed valuable insight: Sharon, Pope, Tracy, and Billy.  May we
continue to walk our separate journeys together.

My sisters, who helped me out.

My ex-husbands, who have been supportive during the writing of this
book.

My friends who helped me with suggestions, strength, and understanding:
Jef, Dollie, Ann, Jean, Anne, Malati, Sterling, Simon, Cindy, and the
abhyasis.

 My many contacts among former members who remain faithful in the
support network.

The scholarship donors who helped me make it through school: the local
chapters of the National Honor Society, Golden Key, American University
Women, and Beck/Kiwanis.

And my editor, Joann Davis, who asked me all the questions I would
never think to write about, since I am just beginning to see in the
light, and her lovely colleague Michelle Shinseki.


Contents

Introduction
 1.  "God Is A Pimp" 
 2.  A Curiouser and Curiouser World 
 3.  Through the Looking Glass 
 4.  Sharing "One Wife" 
 5.  "God's Whores" 
 6.  Flirty Fishing in the Kingdom 
 7.  Casting the Net 
 8.  Sacred Prostitution 
 9.  Crossroads
10.  Living in the Looking-Glass Mirror 
11.  Like a Rolling Stone
12.  Breaking the Shell 
13.  The Swan Symbol of Paramatman (Supreme Self)
Epilogue


Introduction.

Why would a mother of five healthy, well-adjusted children write a book
about her former life as a sacred prostitute?  The question torments
me.

At age forty-four, I am now on the verge of receiving a master's degree
in sociology that will allow me to work and pull my family out of
relative poverty.  I have no reason to expose myself to the publicity
this unusual autobiography could generate.  Worse still, I could be
undermining the stability that my children now enjoy.

My own life, as you will see, has never been stable.  This book relates
the story of a girl from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who fell through the
cracks into what became one of the most bizarre sex cults of our time,
the Children of God, which at its peak had eighteen thousand members.

Numerous documentaries have been made about this controversial cult by
the major networks in America, and it has been the subject of various
sociological and psychological studies.  Celebrities such as Fleetwood
Mac's original slide guitarist, Jeremy Spencer, made headlines when he
left the popular musical group to join the cult.  And River Phoenix,
the disillusioned young movie star who died from drug abuse, spent
years of his childhood in the Children of God.

The leader of the Children of God, Moses David, has been described by
cult expert Dr. Steve Dent as a "lustful prophet," who used the group
to unleash his repressed sexuality.  Kent writes that the most abused
and sexually manipulated people in all the cults he studied were the
women of the Children of God, who were instructed to demonstrate God's
love by giving sex first to the men in the group and then to the "lost"
of the world.  According to Moses David,"God was a pimp," and we were
the "loving whores of God."  I married twice in the cult and bore five
children.  Eventually, the ugly weed of child abuse was creeping
through the camp.  Fearful it might touch my own children, I snapped
out of my delusional state and we left the cult for good.  But
acknowledging previous pain, and accepting responsibility for my
actions, proved to be a long and difficult journey back to sanity.  I
reentered American culture as a fortyyear-old single mother who spoke
three languages and had been in over twenty countries, but who had
never had a checking account, credit line, car, or home of my own.  I
started work as a waitress at a truck stop to help support my family as
I went back to college.

After graduating in June of 1996, I kept a promise I made to myself
four years earlier that when I finished college I would write my
story.

Working without an agent, I photocopied two pages out of a huge
directory of publishers and sent off five query letters to editors I
chose at random from this haphazardly selected list.

A few weeks later, as I was shopping for groceries, I picked a
paperback book off the shelf.  Although I had never heard of the book
or the author before, I was interested because the cover said it was a
true story.  The next morning, while sitting on my porch finishing the
book, I received a call from one of the editors I had contacted.

"Your letter struck me," said the woman on the phone,"and I usually
don't read unsolicited material.  Exactly what kind of book do you want
to write?" I wasn't exactly sure, but I found an answer
immediately.

"Well, I was thinking of writing an honest and personal book, something
like the one I'm reading right now."

"oh, what book is that?" the woman asked.

"The Eagle and the Rose, by Rosemary Altea," I replied, checking the
cover to make sure of the name again.

"I edited that book" came the quick response.

My heart jumped into my throat.  Coincidences like this one, the
equivalent of a one-in-a-million chance, don't just happen.  I checked
the acknowledgments page.  There was her name in the book I had
randomly picked up the day before.

Had it not been for that incident of serendipity, I would have not had
the courage to continue this far.

But now all my angst and confusion have been transferred from my heart
and mind to a computer disk.  The unexplainable driving force is
gone.

I fluctuate between hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.

But I decide to keep believing in a higher purpose than I know today.

At present, I am engrossed in literature about the problems of
society.

As I read stories of bewildered, despairing young adults, I remember my
own adolescence and share in their collective pain.  Confusion about
sexuality and identity prompts many young people to look for solutions
through alcohol, drugs, promiscuity, subservience, anorexia, and even
suicide.  Deeply troubled teens come from all types of families and
socioeconomic classes, and upper-middle-class, two-parent homes are
affected as much as single-parent homes and households living below the
poverty line.  We are reminded that our society has to change.  I
believe that the first step to change is awareness.  Each individual
must take responsibility for personal actions, but the responsibility
often begins with awareness.

This book was written to shed light on one of the escape routes taken
by sensitive youth growing up in a troubled society--the path to cult
involvement.  It is probably one of the most drastic, claims the lives
of the most naive idealists, and usually requires the most help along
the road to recovery.  Unfortunately, there is little knowledgeable
help available.  While the actions of these people are worthy of
contempt, cult members realize that they were motivated by blind
idealism.

This is also a story of self-discovery written for those who have lost
their self.  My journey out of hell came through incremental steps,
which were guided by what I can only call fate.  Now that I have made
it back to reality and can finally lead a normal, fulfilling life, I
feel a responsibility, especially to the children born and raised in
the cult, to add to awareness of cult involvement.  Perhaps one day I
can provide practical assistance to ease the transition back to society
for others, but for now, I offer hope.


God Is A Pimp

I smiled at the uniformed man operating the hotel
elevator.  I usually smiled at everybody.  It had become a habit.  But
this time, when he smiled back, I thought to myself,"He must know what
I just did."  The elevator opened into one of the most elegant
establishments in Monte Carlo, the distinguished Hotel de Paris.

Walking through the plush lobby, I felt a little self-conscious in my
worn jeans.  I also wondered if the money that Salim had just stuffed
in my back pocket could be seen.  I crossed the marble floors and went
through the revolving door.

This was the first time I had received hard cash for giving God's love,
and I felt sensations of shame, confusion, and anger.

Passing the limousines and Rolls-Royces unloading in front of the
hotel, I did not pause in curiosity to identify any famous faces, but
instead I walked with my face turned in the other direction.  I
intentionally avoided eye contact with anyone for fear they might
recognize the turmoil in my soul.  Walking quickly around the
tree-lined island in the middle of the majestically landscaped
cul-de-sac, I headed for the Cafe de Paris, a popular, upscale
cafe-restaurant.  There I could sit down with a cappuccino and try to
make sense of what had happened.

The cafe was crowded, and while I hesitated at the entrance, my
thoughts reviewed the previous day's events.

I had met Salim the night before at Le Pirate, a well-known restaurant
on the Cote d'Azur.  One of the women I was living with, Sharon, had a
date with an older German gentleman, and since she had met him only
recently she asked me to come along.  Normally, we never went alone on
dates until at least one other member of our group had met the person
we were going out with.  Sharon and I were surprised to be taken to Le
Pirate, which had a reputation for being patronized by millionaire
swingers.  We had both put on our nicest clothes, hand-sewn dresses
made of a soft muslin material that we had bought at a discount store
in Nice.  The gentleman was older than I expected, surely past sixty,
and I wondered if this bothered Sharon.  Our policy was to show God's
love to everyone--rich or poor, handsome or ugly, young or old--but I
knew from experience that it was hard to physically practice such an
abstract ideal.

Sharon was a talented and dynamic singer, but she was somewhat shy on
dates.  She had been raised in a very traditional Catholic family and
had studied to become an opera singer before she joined our group.  She
was tall, blond, and constantly on a diet in order to control a
voluptuous figure.  Her large, expressive eyes often portrayed alarm or
amazement, like a little girl who had seen the roaring ocean for the
first time.

Sharon had a husband and young child at home, and I felt she would
rather be back with them.  Our tentative plan was to have an early
dinner, give him "the message," and be home on time for me to go out
again.  But as soon as we arrived at the celebrated restaurant, I
sensed that it would be a long evening.

Le Pirate was located on the striking coast of Roquebrune-CapMartin,
with a view made famous by a Monet painting.  The waiters were
attractive young men dressed in romantic pirate costumes.  They had
been trained to perform little dramas such as breaking up chairs and
throwing the pieces into the fire.  It was all part of the Le Pirate
experience.  Violin players, and the owner himself, came by our table
occasionally, entertaining us with Gypsy-style music.

Our German friend was enjoying himself in our company, and the evening
dragged on.  Only a few other guests were present when we arrived, and
soon I noticed that we were alone except for another group at the other
end of the room.  They were having some sort of party, and as the night
wore on, the noise from their table grew louder.  Just as our gentleman
friend said that he might send a message over to their table, asking
them to quiet down, a bottle of champagne arrived with a note for me.

It was from the man at the other table.

Out of courtesy, I walked over to thank him.  He was a dark-haired man
with deep, piercing eyes that smiled ambiguously, although his
expression was quite serious, almost severe.

"Who is the grandfather?" he asked me.

"Oh, just a friend of ours," I replied, caught a little off-guard by
his abruptness.

"Well, come and sit with us.  He is too boring to have beautiful girls
at his table alone."  I thought to myself,"You're right."  I was
practically falling asleep, and Sharon had already given me anxious
looks as if to say,"Let's wrap this one up."  Before I could answer,
the man moved over to make room for me next to him.  Glancing at the
lady who had been sitting beside him previously, an attractive brunette
with red-painted lips and wearing a dress that revealed an ample
cleavage, I tried to assess the situation.  With an inviting smile, she
indicated that I should sit down, and I did so while signaling to
Sharon.

"This really might not be polite to the gentleman over there," I
said.  "We hardly know him."

"Yes, I understand that you do not know him," the dark-haired man
replied in what I now recognized as a Lebanese accent.  "And do not
worry about his feelings.  He will be honored to be at this table.  But
your friend looks worried.  Tell her to come here.  No, wait, I will
send for both of them."  He called for a waiter and gave him a
message.

Within minutes we were all seated together.  The ambience at the table
was charged with fresh energy, and immediately we were integrated into
their party.  Sharon was radiant as she sang some of her original songs
for our new acquaintances, while I played my usual role as interpreter
of the spiritual message behind the words.  we were so different in our
approach, zealous, so genuinely naive and open, that everyone
immediately responded as if we were longtime friends.

The Lebanese man who had called me over was obviously the host.  His
name was Salim, and at one point the beautiful brunette told me that I
should remain beside him because he liked me.  She said this as if she
were my confidante offering her best advice.

We stayed on till nearly dawn, singing, laughing and dancing, and
although our German friend was having a great time, his strength
eventually wore out.  He was much older than we were, and he gave no
indication of desiring further intimacy.  Sharon looked relieved to be
able to go home.  As we were leaving, Salim took my number and told me
he would call.  Sure enough, when I woke up the next day, already after
noon, he had called and left a message with Sharon that he was sending
a chauffeur and car to bring me to the Hotel de Paris.

It had happened so quickly that I did not have time to discuss the
plans with anyone.  Sharon, already awake with her baby, advised me to
go.  She assured me that she "got a good witness on him," and that
everything would be all right.  Within an hour a chauffeur driving a
Mercedes-Benz arrived, and I was driven to the hotel.  Although I had
been there a few times, this was my first encounter upstairs.  As I
walked through the ornate lobby, I realized that I was socially
unprepared, I would be playing with the pros without ever having been
an amateur.

Taking the elevator to the floor Salim had indicated, I walked down the
wide hallway thinking that, in just the steps between two doors, this
corridor covered more square feet than my entire bedroom.  I admired
the fine inlaid woodwork on the walls and thought I might try to do
something like that to the room I was fixing up at that time.  My mind
definitely was not on the imminent sexual activity I would probably
soon experience.  Perhaps I had taught myself the stress-relieving
technique of not thinking about it right before you do it.  I had been
well prepped for these types of encounters.  I would show physical
evidence of love, touching his hands, stroking his back, then perhaps
kiss him gently.  He would respond by opening up and becoming more
intimate.  I would then bring in the message about God's Love, how I
was merely a form of God's immense love for each and every human being,
and that if he had never been shown the extent of God's Love for him,
he had it before him now.

That was our group's basic philosophy, and interjecting any reality
into the ethereal picture would taint it in my mind.  I kept reality
and my mission in separate rooms that had no connecting door, and as I
entered Salim's suite that early afternoon, I was still a twenty-three
year-old American girl who was more shamelessly curious than selflessly
loving.

Salim had left the door to his suite slightly ajar, and he called for
me to come in when I knocked lightly.  I did not see him in the
spacious blue sitting salon that opened out to a balcony with a view of
the casino entrance.  Then I heard him call from a darkened room to my
right.

"I am in here.  Come," he said in a tone that only partially disguised
the commandlike quality of his words.  In my mind, I imagined him to be
saying,"I am a searching soul, and I need your love."  I entered what
appeared to be the master bedroom.  The curtains were tightly drawn,
and the only light came from an adjacent bathroom.  Salim was in bed.

He lay on his stomach with his face toward the pillow.

"Can you give a good massage?" he asked.

It soon became evident that Salim wanted all I could offer, and he
wanted it now.  I have no recollections of what I thought during the
most intimate moments.  It is not as if I blacked out or put these
experiences into a subconscious holding area, simply, I do not believe
that I thought much at all during the act.  I followed Salim's
dictates.  He asked me to do nothing unusual, and it must have lasted
less than ten minutes because I didn't have time to tell him the
message.

As usual, I was concerned that he would hear our message of
salvation.

The previous night had offered no opportunity, and things heated up so
quickly once I arrived at his hotel suite that I feared the moment had
passed.  That was becoming all too typical for me as the time between
meeting a man and giving him love was becoming continually shorter.  I
don't know how other girls in our group felt, but I felt awkward
telling him about God and Jesus in the midst of intimate sexual
exchanges.  For years I never thought about getting any pleasure for
myself since I was so truly concerned to "give" God's message of
love.

"I want you to know that God loves you," I said, walking into the
pretty sunlit room,"and that is why I am here."  Salim, standing by
the balcony, was already cleaned and dressed in a suit, and I noticed
through an open door to the left that there was another bedroom suite
attached to this one.

"Yes, I am a Christian Lebanese, you know," he answered, which seemed
to settle the matter, at least for him.  "Do you have a way to get
home?" he asked, adding,"I need the chauffeur right now."

"I could take a taxi, butdid not bring money with me."

"Of course."  He walked over to a highly polished desk by the balcony
window, and pulled out some French bills.

"oh, really, I don't need that much," I protested.

"Okay, darling.  I am going to Zurich tonight.  But I will be back in a
few days and give you a call.  I gave your name and number to my
secretary, Kahlil, so he might be calling to set another date.  Now,
please, go down before me," he commanded in a businesslike manner.

As I walked to the elevator, I wanted to pull out the bills and see
what he had given me, since I thought it was too much for a short taxi
ride.  But I decided to wait until I was out of the hotel.

At the entrance to the Cafe de Paris, I finally pulled the colorful
French bills out of my pocket.  There were four 500-franc bills.  A
hundred francs would have been enough for a taxi.  Salim had given me
this money for sex!  What did he think I was--a prostitute?  I gave him
my body to show God's Love, not for money.  Maybe he did not
understand.

Maybe I should go back to his fancy suite and tell him I did not want
his money.  I decided to call home first.

"Would you like a table?" the waiter at the Cafe de Paris asked,
breaking my thoughts.

I suddenly realized that I must have been standing at the entrance way
for quite some time.

"Oh, no, I'm looking for someone," I replied.  I did not want to break
a 500-franc note to call home, since I fully intended to give it back
to Salim.  However, I did not bring even small change with me.  I would
have to borrow a few francs from someone.  I searched the cafe for
someone I knew and spotted Jean outside on the patio.

Jean had been one of the first men in Monte Carlo to whom I had given
sex.  He was about twenty years older than I and divorced.  At that time I
had been careful to explain that what I was doing was showing God's
Love, but he did not understand.  In fact, not many people did.  Jean
was no longer one of my "fish," but he had remained a friend.

I walked over to his table and said a few words of greeting in
French.

He responded pleasantly and asked me to sit down.  We talked casually
for a while, but I was anxious to call home before Salim left the
hotel.  Finally, I just came out and asked Jean to lend me a few
francs.

"I have only five-hundred-franc bills," I explained,"and I don't want
to break them for a phone call."  Immediately, I felt foolish for
mentioning the 500-franc bills.  I never carried that much money with
me, and Jean knew it.  He gave me a wink, which I assumed meant he knew
what was going on, and he emptied a pocketful of change into my hand.

I thanked him and went down to the ladies' room where the phones were
located.

Timothy, the only man who lived at our home, answered the phone.

Timothy was married to Sharon, and since there were three women in our
home, he became our "fisherman"--the one who would give advice on which
"fish" to give sex to and which ones were not ready.  He was only
twenty years old.  The women were all about my age, ranging from
twenty-three to twenty-five, yet this younger man was considered our
authoritative figurehead.  I was sure that Sharon had already told him
about Salim.

"Timothy, it's me," I started excitedly.  "Yeah, everything was
okay.  I'll tell you about it when I get home.  But Timothy, Salim
gave me money.  Lots of it.  He gave me two thousand francs!" 

"Why did he do that?" 

"He stuck a few bills in my pocket for taxi money.  I didn't know how
much it was until I got outside.  Listen, Tim, I want to give it
back.  I feel dirty.  I feel like he thinks I do this for money.  I
mean, I told him it was for God's Love, and I thought he understood.
Timothy, I'm angry.  It's not like when someone buys us groceries or
a gift.  This is hard cash--you know, filthy lucre."  By now I was
barely holding back tears.  It all seemed so ugly.  I wanted Timothy
to help me out of this.

"No, Jeshanah, don't give it back.  We need it, and I think God touched
his heart to give you that money.  He must have.  Salim doesn't even
know us yet, but the Lord must have shown him we needed some financial
help at this time."

"Are you sure, Timothy?  I feel really bad about this."

"Listen, I just got some letters from headquarters, and they say that
it's okay to take money.  You haven't even read the letters yet, but
they talk about getting paid for giving God's Love.  Don't worry about
it.  You are doing all right."

"I don't know," I replied.  "Are you sure you are not misinterpreting
something?" 

"No, really!  Wait until you read the letter.  It's
heavy!  Don't worry about it.  Go get a drink and take a taxi home."

"But Timothy," I protested in exasperation,"I feel like a
prostitute!" 

"Yeah, that's what you are," he replied emphatically,"a prostitute
for Jesus!  And God is our pimp!"  

Seven long years before, in 1971, I had joined a religious group
called the Children of God in upstate New York.  At that time they
were radical Christians who lived in a commune and spent most of the
day witnessing about Jesus.  Starting with the ideal of "From each
according to his ability, unto each according to his need," we
included the message of God's salvation through Jesus, and we
believed that we were living true Christian communism.  We supported
ourselves with donations as we sought to help the drug addicts in New
York City by bringing them to our commune and "turning them on to
Christ."  Sometimes it worked.

When I first joined, the group was very puritanical with strict rules
about separating boys and girls.  Now we shared sexually, not only
within our group, but also with the lost souls outside.  We witnessed
by practicing self-sacrificial love including laying down our lives and
our bodies.  Only the dedicated stayed through this transition from
Jesus People to radical "fishers of men."  I was one of those who
stayed, convinced that whatever was done for love could not be wrong.

But now, I was doing it for money.

The more I thought, the more confused I became.  There is a painful
tension in situations caused by behaving in conflict with what one
believes.  Something has to change, either how one acts, or how one
believes.  The obvious solution is to stop behaving that way, however,
such action is not always possible.  I first joined this group to
relieve the stress of living a material-centered, competitive life that
appeared meaningless to me.  For seven years, instead of working for
money, I worked for love.  I considered some several thousand fellow
idealists my spiritual family.  Now, I was poised to change again, but
instead of changing my behavior, I changed what I believed.  In a few
months I would accept the concept of "sacred prostitution" and become a
person without universally established morals.  We were supposed to be
revolutionizing the world, and the old morality would have to be
replaced.  My entire worldview had been slowly changing, and this was
the great leap.  The words of our leader came to my mind,"If you
think, think, think, you'll sink, sink, sink."  I simply could not
understand by thinking.  This was a leap of faith.  I took it!

By now the sun was setting and the sky had become a harmonious melange
of blues and pinks and purples.  I stopped rationalizing about right or
wrong and let the beauty of the evening envelop me.


A Curiouser and Curiouser World 

My father sang to me as I played on the California beach.  I remember
him singing one of his favorite songs.

"I'll have a little talk with Jesus/and I'll tell him all about my
troubles."  I guess he had a lot of problems, and so he drank and so he
sang.  And that's what I remember most about my father.

His family was from Ireland.  They were struck by tragedy when his
mother was hit by a car and killed when he was a little boy.  The story
was told to me by my father when he was drunk, and by my mother when
she tried to explain why Daddy always drank.  He had let go of his
mother's hand when crossing a busy Philadelphia street.  Whether she
was hit because she ran after him, or he saved his life by letting go
of her hand, I never understood.  I only know that my father, and
everyone in his family, were alcoholics by the time I came around, on
June 27, 1953.

My father, John, was a tall, trim, handsome fellow who had served in
World War II.  Since he was a very good Linotype machine operator, he
could always get a job wherever he went.  But he could never hold on to
it because of his drinking.  Maybe that's why we moved across the
United States and back, and I never went to one school for a whole year
until I was in ninth grade.  Sometimes we lived in nice suburban
houses, and then we would move to a tiny apartment in the inner city.

Often my mother sent my older brother, Steve, and I to the bars to look
for my dad.  If he did not come home from work, we went to remind him
that he had a family.  Since we didn't have a TV (it was too heavy to
move around), this was always an exciting adventure for us.  My
memories of that early part of my life include Planters peanuts, bright
orange soda, and dart boards, set around the many lounges my dad
frequented.  In the really bad days, they were on skid row.

My mother, on the other hand, was a fundamentalist Christian who had
been raised in a loving family.  Mother had come to America as a
sixteen-year-old escaping Nazi Germany.  Her father worked hard and
made a good living for his family, and although he had been a
prosperous carpenter in Germany, he became a gardener for wealthy
German industrialists when he moved to America.  Shrewd and frugal, he
managed to buy five homes in America and became a landlord.  My
grandmother instilled strict Christian ideals in her daughter.  She was
a sweet, caring lady, but I never had a conversation with her since she
never learned to speak English.  She was blind when I was old enough to
know her.

My mother and her family settled in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1939.

She eventually attended Temple University, but she left to work at a
newspaper office, where she met my father.  Although she had six
children with him, she was not the typical 1950s housewife.  When I was
younger, I was always embarrassed by my mother because she spoke with a
German accent, didn't perm her hair or wear makeup like other moms, and
her name was Elfriede.  Most of all, she did not know how to take care
of the house.

"Why don't you know how to cook, or keep house?" I often asked her when
I was a sassy twelve-year-old.  Since I was the oldest girl among six
children, many of these chores fell on me.  "You were raised in
Germany, and all the German women we know cook very well and keep
spotless houses."

"You see, I went to the better schools in Germany," she explained
unashamedly.  "And girls who went to those schools did not have to
learn household chores since they would have maids to do them!"

Obviously, being a housewife was beneath her since she had been given
the dream of marrying above her middle-class status in Germany.  But
this was America, Mom.  Wake up, the middle class here is huge.

Our family was a study of contrasts.  We were often poor, but we
usually lived in nice neighborhoods.  My father drank, smoked, and
cursed, whereas my mother was very religious and would not allow us to
say so much as "Oh my God," which was taking the Lord's name in
vain.

My older brother and I, who bore most of the traveling hardships,
excelled at school.  Unfortunately, my brother used his extraordinary
intelligence to obtain money through illegal methods, such as burglary
and the unauthorized withdrawal of other people's bank money.

Consequently, Steve spent most of his adult life in prison, while I
spent most of my life trying to serve the Lord.  Perhaps they are two
sides of the same coin.

I entered McCaskey High School, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in
1968.  By this time I had convinced my mother that for the sake of my
four younger sisters, she should separate from Dad.  I was fourteen
years old.  Steve was already in a reformatory, and I was beginning to
get angry with my mom for allowing us to live such a dysfunctional
life.  My mom explained sweetly that she didn't believe in divorce but
she might consider separation.  I think she talked it over with her
pastor, and since her six children were all in school now, she got a
job and eventually bought a house in the town of Lancaster.  She
separated legally from Dad, but it only meant we didn't move so much.

He still came around drunk.

Lancaster County, known as Amish country, was removed from the massive
social upheaval sweeping the nation at the time.  People in Lancaster
were content.  Many of them were Mennonites, and the ones who were not
lived rather well with the traditional lifestyle encouraged by Amish
and Mennonite philosophy, with little exposure to modern life.

However, even Lancaster would not escape the unrest that infected
American youth like a plague.

I was among the first to catch it, or perhaps my unrest was just
waiting to express itself.  I had thought it was my family's unusual
gypsy lifestyle that was preventing me from feeling like one of the
crowd among my peers.  However, now that I had lived in one place for
more than a year, and still felt like an outsider, I began to wonder.

I always made good grades, but I could not find a niche.  In addition,
*** missing text ***
it.

I was beginning to be known as a rebel.  Popular girls were wearing
miniskirts at that time, and I thought it was more practical to wear
pants.  I remember being sent to the principal's office.

"Miriam, you are a smart girl.  You will probably get some good
scholarships to college, if you don't cause any trouble.  Now you know
the rules--girls cannot wear pants."

"Why?" I asked.

"Well, that's the rule."

"I know, but why was that rule made?  I mean, don't you know that the
boys spend half their time trying to look up the girls' dresses?  And
I believe some of the teachers do, too.  With hemlines six inches
above the knee, do you think it is a good rule to require girls to
wear dresses?" The principal was a sincere man.

"No," he answered,"perhaps it is not a sensible rule anymore, but
until it changes, you must obey."

"I believe I must protest it.  If the rule is ever to change, sir,
someone has to challenge it."  I protested by wearing my
unfashionable farmer jeans to school, and the principal suspended me
for three days.  That was the rule.  But I continued to wear pants,
and he never suspended me again.

I have always suspected that the real reason I wore pants was because I
could not afford to dress fashionably.  Wearing dresses or skirts meant
having a different outfit every day.  With jeans, I only had to change
my shirts.  However, the very next year the rule was changed.  Girls
could wear pants.  By then I had discovered that thrift stores held a
wonderful variety of lovely old dresses for literally nickels and
dimes.  For five dollars I could buy a wardrobe that lasted for months
and was one-of-a-kind.  I was especially fond of the 1940s-style silk
dresses and anything with lace or bead work.  I became a hippie before
I knew what it was to be one.

Since the hippies had not yet come onto the scene in Lancaster, I had
only one good friend until my junior year.  She was a Jewish girl who
was extremely intelligent, and though we came from completely different
backgrounds, we had similar interests.  I would ride my bike over to
her upper-class neighborhood in my thrift store clothes and spend the
evenings discussing existential thought.  We remained in contact
throughout high school.

By the time I was in eleventh grade, a group of hippies started to form
at my school.  They dressed like me, or I dressed like them-- I'm not
sure which--and other people lumped me in with them.  Teachers knew that
if I did not agree with a viewpoint, I would discuss it publicly.  I
had also taken to hitchhiking around town, since my brief tenure as a
driver had resulted in the wreck of my longawaited car.  Most of all, I
began smoking dope, on my own.  I smoked it religiously, alone in my
room, with candles and incense burning and music playing.  It was a
personal ritual, almost sacred, and I was reluctant to include others
at that time.  I also had been dabbling in philosophy and Eastern
practices like yoga.  I was at the door of discovering myself, when the
hippies called at my window.  They looked colorful, exciting, and
adventurous, like I wanted to be.  I guess I wanted company after
all.

I soon met Jan, a classmate who had recently given up her role as
cheerleader and boy-with-car-chaser to experiment in the sixties
happening.  A tall, thin, pretty, and stylishly dressed girl, she
approached me one day out of the blue to ask where she could buy
marijuana.  I was surprised she thought I would know this information,
but we became friends and we spent the next two years together sampling
the culture of sex, drugs, and rock and roll that was born during the
famous decade of the 1960s, and had come to Lancaster a few years
later.  Our hippie group was small, and for a short time I was under
the illusion that we were sensitive, open, and caring.  However, I soon
discovered that these wonderful free freaks were just a new teenage
clique.  As in all cliques, it could be very alienating for anyone who
did not fit in, and after a short time, I knew I did not belong here
either.  I believe that realization came from going to the Spruce
Street house.

Someone, I never found out who, had rented a house on Spruce Street,
near Franklin and Marshall College, which we used as a winter
hangout.

A fantastic stereo system was set up where the main bedroom should have
been.  I usually went to the music area, where there were bright
pillows thrown around the wooden floor and candles pouring their
multicolored wax over empty wine bottles.  In the first months of its
short existence, the Spruce Street scene was innocently experimental,
but soon drug use and underage drinking began and decadence set in.  It
was a time of deep observation on my part.  I noticed that free-loving
hippies were never free from one high or another, and were certainly
not very loving at all.  When the music became too hard rock, I would
slip down to the kitchen to sit with the hard drug users.  In my naive
state, I never knew what drug they were taking, and they never offered
me any either.

I first went to the kitchen because it was the only room where I could
practice guitar.  I was not very good, so I did not want anyone to hear
me, and being with the dopers was like being alone.  However, after a
while, I started observing them.  Candy was a few years older than me,
but she looked like a Holocaust survivor, all skin and bones, with
stringy hair and dark bags under her eyes.  I knew she had been in and
out of the "nuthouse," a place they sent junkies before rehabilitation
homes became popular.  These were the kind of people my older brother
knew, and their lifelessness was horrifying to a budding flower
child.

For a student who had studied Timothy Leary's theory about drugs
bringing one to a higher level of consciousness, I found these people
consciousness-less.

The only person I became relatively close to at Spruce Street was
another recluse called Mick.  I was sixteen then, and Mick had already
graduated from high school, but I found out that he did not use drugs
often because they made him freak out.  He had trouble handling real
life, let alone the strange world of psychedelics.  Slightly short and
muscular, Mick hid behind a beard and long hair, rarely looking anyone
in the eye.  His primary love was music, and he was famous for his
record collection.  Ask him anything about music, bands, songs,
musicians, or songwriters of the 1960s and 70s and he came alive.

Otherwise, he hung around like a wet sock slung over a shower curtain
rod.  His vulnerability made him the object of childish pranks.  I was
unwittingly involved in one of these.

Spruce Street had lately become a place for lovers to try out their
wings.  I was still, surprisingly, a virgin, so I never made use of the
room reserved for youthful experimentation.  Neither did Mick.  It was
not long before some of the prank-playing boys thought Mick and I
should be together.  I can't remember how we got into the room, but
Mick and I found ourselves facing one another over the disreputable
bed.  Mick was much more flustered than I, and what had seemed like an
innocent joke suddenly had tragic implications.  I saw that Mick's
precarious position within this group could be at stake.  In addition,
his own bottled-up self-esteem was about to crack wide open before my
eyes.

"Mick," I said, being careful not to look directly into his eyes, "What
do you want to do?" He blubbered something unintelligible, and I felt
uncomfortable witnessing a blatant display of raw vulnerability.  I
walked over to the door and locked it from the inside.

"There, no one can come in.  Why don't we pretend that we are doing
it?  Can you pretend?" His face lit up in disbelief, but I detected a
sense of relief.

"What do you mean, Miriam?" 

"You know, we'll turn off the light and make a lot of noises as if we
were in bed, doing what they put us in here to do.  They'll believe
it, and I won't tell them anything.  Okay?" 

He was game.  He drank all the wine that was left in the bottle on
the floor, and after loosening up, we play-acted without ever touching
one another.  Now our tormentors were knocking at the door, trying to
get in.

After a while they just left, seemingly content to believe that they
had instigated a love affair.  We waited until all was quiet outside
the door, and then we swore ourselves to secrecy and exited the love
chamber.  We have remained friends ever since that uneventful night.

Soon, I tired of Spruce Street.  The sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll
scene was a dead-end street as far as I could discern.  I drifted
toward the music coming from Franklin and Marshall College.  The campus
was alive with high-bred, well-fed antiwar protestors.  After attending
evening classes at the underground "FREE" University to learn the truth
about the Vietnam War, I became a full-fledged social activist.  As a
good revolutionary, I started wearing a black armband to school and
inviting my friends to either quit smoking or steal their cigarettes,
since everyone knew that most of the tax money went to the
military-industrial complex.  My idealism had caught fire.

By the end of the spring of 1970, the protest movement at Franklin and
Marshall had degenerated into free concerts on the campus green.  Music
became the medium, but I doubt that many of the listeners understood
the message.  When it was time to go to a march, I was usually alone.

Always looking for something new, I drifted toward the blues music that
a small group of intellectuals started on campus in a place called the
"AT."  It was there that I would cross that last barrier that kept me
from being one with others.  I did the drugs, the protests, the music
scene, but I had always avoided the "free love."  Pot, I believed, was
opening my mind to new truths, and I began to feel that love would
connect me with the community of truth seekers.  Since I was fairly
smart, I practiced birth control, and then waited for the opportunity
to experience "free love."  The first time was disastrous.  It hurt--in
every sense.  Jay had been in my philosophy class and captured my
attention with his brilliant theories on thought, but I never saw him
again after the class ended.

Then I met him in the "AT."  With sounds from a blues group called the
Black Cat encircling the dark, smoky room, marijuana joints were shared
and Boone's Farm wine flowed freely.  I danced solo to the music,
oblivious to anything but the movements of my body, and, finally
exhausted, I sat down on the wooden floor with a group of boys passing
around a pipe, surprised to find Jay among them.  We talked until
closing time about the ideas we had learned in our class, and, turned
on more by his mind than his body, I walked home with him to listen to
music in the privacy of his bedroom.  I was seventeen years old, but
since sex had never been a top priority for me, I really didn't know
much about how to do it.  I was surprised by the pain.

"Shit, I didn't know you were a virgin," Jay said almost
contemptuously.

"This isn't free love," I thought,"it's free sex."  I remember
standing by the window in his attic room, and looking out on the
darkened road.

I suddenly recognized it as the same street where my sister had been
born years ago--Ruby Street.  Wiping the tears from my eyes, I left him
silent on the bed and walked home alone through the empty,
rain-drenched streets.  As usual, my mom and sisters were in bed.  It
didn't matter.  I couldn't talk to them anyway.  Sex was a taboo
subject in my house.  I could picture my mom screaming and calling the
pastor if I told her.  I had no curfew and my mother thought I was
mature enough to do what I wanted, so I walked the streets all night
with a mixture of happiness to have had the experience and sadness to
be alone again.

Feeling alienated from the drug and music scene, I looked around for
something to feel close to and thought I would return to the familiar
pews of the churches.  I remember riding my bike one day to a church
that advertised a special youth meeting with an internationally known
missionary speaker.  I was hopeful that perhaps my old love for
religion would be reignited.  After all, I wanted to be a missionary
when I was a child, and I had asked Jesus into my heart when I was a
twelve-year-old at a Bible camp.  As I held hands with a dozen other
campers around a campfire, a feeling of euphoria came over me.  I felt
I had been chosen by God for "His Ministry," but I was not sure what
that meant.  Having gone to Sunday school and church camps until I was
a teen, I'm sure it was a Christian concept I had internalized.  I
never thought it would be easy to be a Christian, in fact, I felt that
perhaps I had left the church because it was too hard to obey all their
rules.  Maybe now I would be like the prodigal son/daughter.  I
imagined the missionary welcoming me with open arms.  Ah, how wonderful
it would be if someone pure hugged me.  "What a friend we have in
Jesus."  In my state of hopeful anticipation, it never occurred to me
to dress up for church.  I wore my jeans, the ones I had carefully
embroidered to fill up the holes, and a lacy, old-fashioned blouse
covered with a tapestry vest.  My long blond hair was hanging free,
barely brushed, and I wore no makeup or jewelry.  My unkempt appearance
became brutally obvious the minute I walked into the church, which was
only a few blocks from where I lived.

Once inside, I walked hesitantly up to one of the front rows and took a
vacant seat beside a group of girls about my age.  They were all
dressed nicely, with nylons on their legs and shiny shoes.  I looked
not only ragged next to these polished specimens of American youth, I
looked dirty.  My beautiful embroidery, which I had always admired for
its colorful appearance, now looked dull and shabby.

A young boy with buzz cut turned around to whisper something to the
girl next to me.  She giggled and inched away from me.  Was she making
more room for me, or was my presence repulsive?  I realized that most
of these young people went to my high school, but I did not recognize
anyone.  Did anyone know me?

I focused my attention on the missionary.  He was regaling us with his
stories about his work in Africa.  He launched into a diatribe about
the sins of the youth in America, and how we were so lucky to have good
parents who raised us differently.  I kept my eyes on him the entire
time, hoping he would look my way and notice the deep desire I had to
serve the Lord.  He glanced at me once briefly and never looked my way
again.  In fact, I felt that he avoided turning his eyes to the section
I was sitting in altogether.

The missionary finished his talk.  An extra collection was made, but I
had no money to drop in the basket.  The young people got up to sing
some songs led by a young man playing guitar.  The service would soon
be over.  I felt my heart beating excitedly.  After all the wonderful
songs about helping others and loving the world, surely someone would
come over and talk to me.  I had so much to ask, so much to convey, and
so much I wanted to learn.

People started leaving.  The girls next to me got up and went out the
other way so they would not have to pass by me.  The boys in the front
row walked by without looking my way.  Still, I remained in the pew.  I
would not leave until the church shut down.  I wanted someone to talk
to me.  I wanted to feel like I belonged.

Finally, an older man came over to me.  He handed me a paper that
seemed to be the program for the evening.

"Young lady, you can go downstairs if you want to, but I am going to
close up here, so you will have to leave the pew."  Tears had come to
my eyes without my noticing it and I could hardly read the program.

Did it say that there were refreshments being served downstairs?  Is
that where everyone went?

"No, thank you," I said, now visibly crying.  "I want only food for
the soul.  Do you happen to know where to get that?" He looked at me
curiously, and I suddenly felt sorry for him.  He did not have a clue
what I meant.

I continued my quixotic quest after that church experience, but with
less hope.  Definitely, there was something different about me.  I did
not seem to fit in anywhere.  I was an outcast like my poor brother,
only I had not chosen the crime track.  Fortunately, all my younger
sisters were "normal."  They were content with the typical little-town
life that Lancaster offered.  Maybe being in one place had helped them,
or being raised without an alcoholic father always around.  I didn't
ask why then, only what--what do I do now?

Meanwhile, back at the hippie scene, Jan had a steady boyfriend, and we
took different paths.  She wanted to live a love-and-peace lifestyle
with her "old man," and I was headed for college.  Since I would have
to get some scholarship money, I started staying home in the evenings
to study.

"Miriam, we got a new history teacher at school today," my younger
sister, Karen, told me one afternoon.  "You would really like him.  He
talks like you, and he has long hair."

"What do you mean he talks like me?" I asked Karen, who was in junior
high.

"oh, he talks about ideas, and tells us to think about things and
discuss the subject with each other.  You know, like you tell us to do
about the Vietnam War and all that stuff.  I think he is against the
war too."

"Surely he did not say anything against the war in school?" 

"No, but he brought in some newspaper articles that said things about
America that were not too good.  In fact, some of the kids said they
were going to tell their parents."

"No way!" 

"Well, he lives right down the street from us--about three houses
down.  I thought you might like him."  

When I finished my homework, I walked outside our town house and
looked down the street.  All the houses were exactly the same in the
group of ten.  The only difference was what the residents put on
their porch.

Three houses down, the porch was empty, but what gave him away was the
VW bug parked in front.  I knew that it would appear odd for me to
introduce myself uninvited, but if this man was anything like me, as my
sister said, he would not mind.  I walked up to the door and knocked.

"Yeah?" said a young man of about twenty who answered the door.

"Hi, I live a couple houses down."

"Yeah?" he said again.

"Well, my sister said that her teacher lived here and..." 

"Come on in," he said to me as he called up the stairs.  "Sonny, some
hippie chick's here to see you."  I walked into a living room similar
to ours.

There were two other older boys sitting on the couch watching
television.  One motioned for me to sit next to him.  He was a big
fellow with curly black hair, and he smiled as he put his hand on my
shoulder.

"My, you are a young one, aren't you?" he said, sardonically sizing
up what appeared to be jailbait.

"I'm a senior," I said, not sure what he meant.  I was beginning to
feel very uncomfortable around these boys, who obviously were more
sophisticated than I was, and I hadn't been prepared for a roomful of
older males.

A man with shoulder-length, brown wavy hair was coming down the
steps.

He had a slight build and wore a full mustache.  I remember thinking he
had a nice smile.

"I'm Sonny," he said to me as he extended his hand to welcome me,"but
I guess you heard of me as Mr. Economopoulus."  I was glad to stand up
and move away from the bear grinning at my side.

I introduced myself and then sat on another chair, feeling tension
inside me caused by indecision on whether to stay or run away.

However, Sonny looked safe.

"So...you're Karen's sister.  You don't look like her."  It was
evident he was trying to make small talk, but he seemed interested.

"I look like me," I retorted, knowing immediately it was a stupid
thing to say.

The other boys howled with laughter at my less than brilliant comment,
which made me feel a slight desire to crawl into a hole.  I was
beginning to think it was not such a good idea to be here, but Sonny
smiled in a way that made me feel comfortable.

"Well, let's go up in my room and we can talk there," he said
casually.

That drew a round of catcalls.

"Remember, she's a minor."

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do.  Or maybe I should say, don't do
anything I would want to do."  I followed Sonny upstairs to the front
bedroom.  He had music playing and a few albums Lying out on the
floor.

I looked at his collection.

"Who do you like?" he asked.

"Dylan, Crosby, Stills and Nash..." 

"Do you like Carole King?" 

"I never heard her."

"Well, you'll have to listen."  I sat down on the floor while he put on
an album called Tapestry.  He sat behind me on the bed with his knees
touching my back while he told me about his musical tastes, his
graduation from elite Franklin and Marshall, his work as a teacher, and
his desire to go back to graduate school.  He was twenty-four years old
and from Massachusetts, and I remember feeling special to have a
handsome college graduate interested in talking with me.  It was my
first intimate experience with someone so educated to whom I could
relate.  Up to this point, I had always felt a chasm between myself and
the radical intellectual.  But then, I was still relatively new in this
counterculture predicted by contemporary visionaries, such as Paul
Goodman, Allen Ginsberg, and Charles Reich.

My own vision included a major societal shift from war to peace, from
hate to love, from bondage to liberation.  I don't know if Sonny felt
the same way, but I saw him as a fellow freedom fighter.  When he
offered me a pipe of marijuana, I took a hit.  I still wanted to
believe that smoking pot was a ritual between the enlightened, and
maybe love would secure the connection.  I let him take me to bed
without any resistance.

Since I was no longer a virgin, it didn't hurt anymore.  With
relatively little experience under my belt, I knew that it should feel
good, but I had no idea what an orgasm should be like.  Therefore, I
never knew if I had one or not.

"I guess it is getting late for you," he said, as he rose to change
the album.

"No, I don't have a curfew," I replied.  "And my homework is
finished." 

"So, you are conscientious about your homework.  Tomorrow you can bring
it over here if you like."  I spent many evenings at Sonny's house
after that.  I told my mother I was at a friend's house, which was not
a lie, he had become my best friend.  Associating with Sonny, I was
introduced to many of the Franklin and Marshall graduates, mostly rich
kids from New York and New England states, and I met the members of the
same blues band that I used to listen to in the "AT."  Although it was
nice to be accepted by this group, who were not only "cool" but wealthy
also, I knew it wasn't due to my merit as an individual but only
because of my close friendship with Sonny.  That troubled me, whereas I
should have been basking in my newfound fellowship with the
privileged.

I admired Sonny's intelligence, but more than anything I appreciated
his gentleness.  He never pushed me to do anything, and never belittled
any of my viewpoints.  Instead, he told me his own views without
getting patronizing or offensive.  He challenged me to think about what
I was saying, but he did not criticize my youthful nonsense.  And at
seventeen, one can be very stupid.

Even though I came to Sonny's every time I was free, I did not consider
him my boyfriend.  I did not tell anyone at school that I was seeing
him, and he never gave me a ring or necklace, or anything that
signified we were "going out."  I was too inhibited to ask why this
was, but I eventually assumed that he realized I was too young to make
our relationship public, or perhaps he thought that since I was seven
years younger than he, I still had a lot to experience.  I thought I
did too.

"I want to go to the Moratorium against the war in Washington," I told
him one spring day.

"You know I can't come," he said.

"I know, but I thought I would ask."

"Even if I did not teach, I would not go to the Moratorium.  I have
different ways to express my discontent with government policy."

"And so do I. But I want to go for the experience.  I want to be part
of the movement to stop the war." 

"You are part of it right here.  Go if you want to, of course.  But
how will you get there?  Who is going with you?" 

"I'm taking my sister, and we'll hitchhike."

"I can't tell you what to do," he said with a sigh.

I knew he did not approve of me hitchhiking, but he would never say
it.

The Moratorium, held in April 1971, was a huge peace march against the
war in Vietnam.  I went to Washington to participate, slept on the
Quaker church floor with hundreds of other dreamers, and was detained
in a park by the National Guard.  While there, I met an intense boy who
read Chairman Mao religiously.  I never saw him smile.  Of the
thousands of young people who came to Washington for those days, I met
no one else.

I was too busy observing this profoundly concentrated boy.  He left for
California when the Moratorium was over, and I don't even remember his
name.  But I remember the determined look on his face.  I admired his
dedication to a cause, and I thought to myself that I wanted to be as
serious about an ideal as he was.  Now, with a standard to measure up
to, I just had to find the right ideal for me.

Sonny was there for me when I returned, but he didn't press for
conversation.  He just held me in his arms like an ever-present
father.

Sex was nothing for me to give in exchange for his masculine
kindness.

After graduation from high school in June 1971, I went to Wildwood, a
New Jersey beach town frequented mainly by young people, to look for a
job in order to earn money for college.  I found work in a restaurant
as a waitress, all of the waitresses had to wear hot pants and I hated
the idea.  While in Wildwood, I met a boy from Pittsburgh who told me
he had been born again.  He witnessed to me about being a good
Christian, saying that I should not give love freely, drink or smoke,
or even listen to rock music.  I should read my Bible every day and
that would give me strength to resist evil.  My roots were still in
Christianity, however, Christians were always so close-minded and
usually boring.  But this boy was exciting, and he hung around with me,
an obvious hippie.  Why?  Maybe there was still hope in this Jesus
stuff he talked about.  Since he did not say anything about going to
church, I decided to follow his counsel.  It wasn't hard for me to give
up drugs, sex, and music, and soon I felt I was on the path to
dedication--a higher ideal.  Why I was such an idealist, I will never
know.

Returning to Lancaster before summer was over, and before Sonny came
back, I called Mick, my only friend left over from the Spruce Street
gang.  Mick had started hanging out with the Jesus People, a traveling
group of ex-hippies who preached about Christ.  Following their lead,
Mick had destroyed all his "worldly" albums and listened only to
Christian music.

When Sonny returned to Lancaster, I related the story of the Christian
boy and the Jesus People.  He was not impressed, but he respected my
decision to start living a more "godly" lifestyle of no drugs or sex.

We didn't sleep together after that.

A few weeks later, Sonny dropped me off at the Penn State campus in
Schuylkill Haven where I would spend my freshman year.  In a few days,
he would be leaving for Europe, where he planned to stay for an
extended period of time, while I was feeling safe at a small campus, with
a renewed faith and two part-time jobs.  We made no promises about the
future, and it was an uneventful parting.

Dorm life was terrible.  The girls who lived there were frivolous and
uninteresting, and I did not make friends until I met Daisy.  Living
off campus, she supported herself by singing folk songs at a local
coffeehouse and took classes at the college.  She was a short, quiet
girl who hid her bright blue eyes and rounded face behind long blond
hair.

Her whispery voice never held a hint of aggression.  And her
independent spirit was in complete contrast to her seemingly submissive
attitude.

Daisy and I became good friends.  I told her about my renewed belief in
Jesus, and she confided that as a Catholic, she had always believed in
God.  Since she had such fantastic memories of a visit to the Greenwich
Village hippie scene, we decided to go to New York during our winter
break.

A little while before the semester ended, I saw a sign on a church
saying that a film about a Christian commune would be playing that
night.  I rode over on my bike to watch it.

The documentary film, called The Ultimate Trip, was an episode from the
weekly television news program First Tuesday.  It documented the
lifestyle of a group of Christians in Texas called the Children of
God.

I watched in awe as ex-hippies gave their testimonies about being lost
and finding peace with God and one another in this commune.  They sang
songs and danced.  They read their ever-present Bibles and quoted
scriptures by memory.  They ate together, watched each other's
children, cooked, cleaned, worked, and farmed collectively.  They said
that no one had need of anything because everyone shared all they
had--and it was enough.  Here was pure communism, but these people were
happy, not severe, like that boy at the Moratorium in Washington.

These people were Christians, yet they looked like hippies in long
skirts and flowing hair.  And they had a vision--to change the world!

Leaving the church as soon as the film was over, I tried to hide the
tears in my eyes.  I felt I had just seen the living purity of Jesus'
words.  I wanted to be like these people--to love everyone, to give my
life for others, to be part of a true community.  Maybe, during the
summer break, Daisy and I could go out to Texas.  The thought of
meeting the Children of God gave me a new vision.  Life had always
seemed so strange to me and somehow I had become addicted to the
unusual, the extraordinary, the mysterious.  I felt like I was
searching for meaning constantly, and for the first time, I thought the
search would soon be over.


Through the Looking Glass

Daisy and I took the bus to my house
in Lancaster on the way up to New York.  We hitchhiked the rest of the
way with about twenty dollars between us in our pockets.  I had a
change of clothes in my backpack, and Daisy carried a guitar and an old
army bag with a few things in it.

After spending the first day looking for fellow bohemians in Greenwich
Village, all we had found were drug users, drug pushers, prostitutes,
busy people going back and forth without glancing at anyone, and
college students on their way back home.  No one offered the peace and
brotherhood that Daisy remembered from a few years ago.  I spent the
little money we had that first day buying food.

Soon it was getting dark, and we still had no place to go.  As we
walked aimlessly along a street, a burly man with coarse features asked
us if we were lost.  He was the only friendly person we had met all
day.

"No, but we really don't have a place to go to," I said.

"Well, I have a place, if you want to come with me," he said with a
sly smile.  Something in his manner made me feel uneasy.

"Both of us?" I asked, thinking that I was being prudent.

"Sure, it's right around the corner."  We followed him to a doorway
that opened onto a dilapidated and trash-littered hallway.  He led us
up three flights of stairs, each landing became darker and more
dismal.

On the third floor he stopped to talk to a girl who reminded me of the
grotesque groupies I had seen at big rock concerts in Philadelphia.  A
feeling of despair swept over me, since those heavily made-up groupies
exposing their bodies had shattered my idealism of rock stars.  She
passed him something, and he turned and opened a door to the right.

"Here we are," he said, showing us the way into a room full of smoke
and old dumpy chairs.  There was a roll-away bed pushed up against one
wall where another girl was slouched like a rag doll someone had
discarded long ago.  As she looked at us with mascara-laden, glazed
eyes, I realized that we were not among hippies.

"Where did you pick these fresh apples?" she murmured, coming out of
her drug-induced nod.

"Get off the bed, Mona.  What are you doing all f'd up in here?" he
barked at her like a dog.

"I brought your bag.  It's over there under the chair," she said, too
spaced out to break the gaze she had fixed upon us.  She seemed quite
transfixed with our presence, but after a few minutes of indiscreet
staring, she got up and slithered out the door like a snake who had
decided we were not worth her time or energy.

Our host sat on the bed and took a bag of white powder out from under
the chair.

"Sit down," he said, patting the bed beside him.

Daisy and I took the chairs that were nearest the door.  He noticed our
move to safety.

"You aren't afraid of me, are you?" he asked as he walked past us and
locked the door.  "I just want to be sure no one comes barging in
here." 

He looked more like a bear than anyone I'd ever seen, but a dirty
one.

Plumping himself down again on the bed, he put the bag under the
mattress.  Looking us over with a mischievous grin, he pulled out a
joint and lit it up, passing it to us after taking a long drag.  "I
pretended to take some and passed it to Daisy, who I knew never took
any drugs.  She did the same and passed it back.

"Hey, you girls aren't taking any.  Come on, you can't be like that.
You want Uncle Charlie to get angry?" For the first time, I began to
be really afraid.  I didn't know what Uncle Charlie did when he got
angry, but I did not want to find out.

"Well, we're just very hungry, and this gives you the munchies, you
know."

"oh, you want some food?  I'll find out what we have.  Food is not our
line of merchandise, you know, but I'll see what I can scrounge up."

Charlie swaggered to the hallway and summoned Mona.

"Hey, get these girls something to eat.  What do we have here
anyway?" 

"What are you talking about?  There ain't no food here," she
replied.

"Well, go the hell out on the street and find something."  Charlie came
back in and was puffing away until Mona returned with some hot dogs.

By now, Charlie was so stoned he forgot to lock the door after she
left.  We ate our hot dogs and kept an eye on Charlie, who was talking
about the great stuff he could get for us-- anything we wanted.

Now he was drinking from a bottle, and he lit up another joint as he
lay back on the bed, totally wasted.  I nudged Daisy, and we grabbed
our stuff and bolted out the door, down the steps, and out onto the
street without looking back.  We couldn't hear Charlie or anyone else
behind us, but we still ran through the street in the direction of any
light.

Finally, we found ourselves in front of a well-lit college dormitory.

By this time we were so desperate, we did not care what anyone
thought.

We started banging on all the doors until someone answered.

"Please, let us in," I asked.  "Some man is chasing us, and we don't
know where we are."  The boy who answered the door didn't seem to
believe us, but he reluctantly agreed to let us stay.  We bedded down
for the night on the floor.

The next day we were back on the street.  I suggested that Daisy sing
in the cafes so we could make some money to get a train out of there.

After searching in vain all morning for places to sing, we decided to
give up on that idea and just bum money instead by panhandling on the
street.

By nightfall, we had only collected about ten dollars.  We decided to
go to the train station, spend the night there, and start panhandling
again in the morning.  On our way we passed an art gallery, and I
stopped to look at the paintings.

"Hi, do you believe in Jesus?" someone asked.

It was a boy about my age carrying a guitar.  He had a short, smiling
girl with him.

"Yes.  In fact, I carry a Bible with me all the time," I responded
gaily, happy to hear a kind voice.

"You do!  Wow!  What version is it?" 

"New Revised."

"Oh," he said, looking disappointed, but his face quickly lit up
again.

"I have a King James Version with me.  Do you want to compare
verses?" 

I looked to Daisy, who was engrossed in conversation with the girl.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Here, I'll show you a verse in my Bible, and you look for it in your
Bible, and we can see how they're different."  I thought he had some
point that he really wanted to make, so I joined in.  We sat on the
edge of the curb and he took out a three-by five-inch King James
Bible.

I took out my paperbound New Testament.

For the next half hour, we looked up scriptures, which he was much
better at than I. He explained the beauty and purity of the King James
version, which is written in Shakespearean English, and I felt my puny
New Revised Version was totally inadequate.

Daisy and the girl she was talking to came over to participate in the
impromptu Bible study.  The girl's name was Praise.

"Should we go get some coffee?" said the boy.  "It is cold out
here." 

Daisy and I agreed, and we walked together to a diner, where we spent
the next hour listening to their explanations of Bible verses over cups
of hot coffee.

"Why don't you girls come home with us?" Praise said.  "We have a big
campground upstate, and there is plenty of room."

"Who are we?" asked Daisy with a commandlike quality to her voice.

"Oh, we're a group of people trying to serve the Lord.  Maybe you heard
about us.  The papers call us the Children of God."

"You are with the Children of God?" I asked.  "The ones I saw in a
documentary?" 

"Yes, that was our camp in Texas.  We have a camp here in New York
now.  Do you want to come up with us tonight?" 

"How far is it from here?" asked Daisy.

"oh, not far," said Praise.  "We have a bus taking us up in about an
hour."  Daisy seemed okay about it, so we followed them to an old
yellow school bus surrounded by a large group of noisy young people.

One boy from the crowd came over to us.

"Praise the Lord," he said, giving Praise and the boy a quick hug.
"You found some sheep!" 

"Yes.  This is Miriam, and this is Daisy,"
piped up Praise, pushing her long brown hair out of her eyes with tiny
cold fingers.  "They want to come home with us."

"Hallelujah!  Are they saved yet?" 

"Yes," I said, thinking that this seemed to be the criterion for
visiting them.  I was thrilled to be going to a real Children of God
commune.

"Great," said the boy.  "Well, take them on the bus and get them
filled with the Spirit.  Oh, and give them some food if they are
hungry."  He seemed genuinely happy and concerned for us.  This was a
pleasant change from the treatment we had received since coming to New
York.

I entered the bus with excited apprehension.  All the seats had been
taken out, and there were blankets and pillows all over the floor.

Someone was handing out sandwiches from a cardboard box at the front.

I took a sandwich and followed Praise to the back.  Daisy had been
taken by a girl to another part of the bus.

Once we sat on the floor of the bus, Praise quickly took control of the
conversation.  She was a totally spaced-out girl who punctuated every
sentence with "Praise the Lord," or "Hallelujah."  She talked to me
nonstop about the Bible, the Holy Spirit, Jesus' message of telling the
world about salvation, loving others like yourself, and every other
spiritual lesson I had ever heard about in connection with the Bible.

Only she said it with such sincerity and belief that it came alive.

The bus began to fill up, and after a while we were packed.  The young
man who had greeted us stood up at the front.

"Okay.  Hallelujah!  Praise the Lord.  Is everyone here?" Most of the
crowd became quiet and looked at him with respect.  He was obviously
some kind of group leader.

"All right.  Well, we are going to pull out of New York City now.  So
everyone who wants to stay in hell better get off, because we are going
to heaven."  Half of the people on the bus started screaming,
"Hallelujah-- praise the Lord--we love you, Jesus," in a confused type
of unison.

A few people left.  Daisy and I stayed on.

"Praise the Lord," said the man again.  "I see we have some new
people coming up with us.  I hope you are all saved and filled with
the Spirit.  If you have any questions, please ask the people sitting
next to you.  I want you to be sure you know where you are going."  I
wasn't sure if he meant where we are going when we die, or right now.

But since I knew both of these answers, I didn't ask anyone.

After a few minutes, some more people got off the bus.

"Okay.  Let's say a prayer for this old bus and get going.  I don't
know if we have gas or not.  The gauge doesn't work.  But God is not
bound by a gas gauge, is He?" The bus gave an uproar of "Hallelujahs"
again.

The man led us in a spirited prayer, which was interspersed with more
"Praise the Lords" and emphatic "Amens" from the crowd.

I wrapped myself in a blanket I found next to me since it was getting
cold and the prayer was long.  Finally, the bus started up.  Another
round of praises!

Praise brought the other boy back to our corner.  I found out that his
name was Ezra.  Evidently, he had been in the Children of God (COG)
less time than Praise, indicated by the way he kept looking to her for
approval of what he said.

"I think Miriam might want to ask the Holy Spirit in," said Praise,
"and I thought you might like to be here, since she is your sheep.  "
Ezra and Praise quoted all the verses they knew on the Holy Spirit,
what it meant to be filled with the Spirit, and what would happen to me
afterward.  They protested when I told them I had already been
baptized, saying that was not really enough.  I looked out the window
at the dirty city going by, so happy to be leaving it.  Why should I
not ask the Spirit in again?  It seemed to mean so much to them,
and it certainly would not hurt.

"Okay," I said,"I'll ask the Spirit to fill me."  Praise gave a
squeaky sound of delight, and she called over a few more people to pray
with me.  Suddenly there were about a dozen pair of hands on my head,
shoulders, and back.  While Ezra led a prayer asking the Holy Spirit to
fill me, the people holding me captive began a praise session of
"Hallelujah--praise the Lord--we love you, Jesus" that lasted at least
twenty minutes.  I had my eyes closed the entire time, and when I
opened them, I looked out the window.  It was snowing.

The event seemed so symbolic.  I had closed my eyes when we were in the
filth of the city, and now, after asking to be filled with the Spirit,
we were driving by a clean, snow-white field.  Maybe I really did get
filled with God's Spirit after all.  It reminded me of the Bible verse
I had memorized recently,"Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall
become white as snow."  

The bus stopped frequently on the way up.  Each time this happened,
everyone would start praising the Lord while the leader and some boys
got out to tinker with the motor.  The story I heard was that the bus
was really out of gas, but the Lord just made it start anyway,
contingent on the amount of praising we would give Him.

Eventually, I fell asleep, but not before I had concluded that this was
my fate.  Had I not been searching for something to dedicate my life
to, having found nothing for me in all the usual places?  Had I not
seen a film on this very group just weeks before, and even then decided
I would like to live in such a place?  Had I not gone through one of
the most hellish and depressing experiences of my life and been rescued
by these people--perhaps my spiritual family?

It was the middle of the night when we arrived at the campsite in
Ellenville, New York.  Awakened from a deep sleep, I followed Praise in
a daze to a bunkhouse and crashed.  I woke the next morning to a group
of girls crying,"Hallelujah--praise the Lord--we love you, Jesus.  "
This was a frequent event throughout the day, and soon I would
participate in the praise sessions myself.

The camp was a beautiful nature retreat that would have been
comfortable in the summer.  Unfortunately, it was not built for winter
use, and every room was freezing except in the main building.  There
were two bunkhouses, a large one that held the girls and a smaller one
for the boys.  There were also a few cabins down by the wooded area and
a bungalow set off by itself.  On that cold December morning, I was
grateful to leave the freezing bunkhouse and go into the warmth of the
main building.

The main building contained a large meeting hall, a huge industrial
kitchen, some rooms reserved for special classes, one bathroom, and a
second floor.  I would not even see the second floor for months.  I
stayed in the meeting room or kitchen those first few days.

In the morning we had a collective breakfast in the meeting hall
converted into a dining room.  There were close to a hundred bedraggled
young people forming a line.  Ezra came in and took me through the food
line, quoting verses to me that I later learned he was memorizing.

"Wow, we got some doughnuts this morning, praise the Lord," he
exclaimed, referring to a big cardboard drum filled with squished
pastries.  "Don't you want any?" 

I declined.  Instead, I took a bowl of watery oatmeal and some very
weak coffee.  I was soon to learn that choice of food was limited,
but in those early days, food was the last thing I was concerned
about.

Ezra ate with an enthusiasm that struck me as rather exaggerated.  He
always came with me when we went through the food line, and when I
realized he was hungry, I took everything allotted me and offered him
what I could not eat.  He seemed to really appreciate this, although he
never said anything but "Thank you, Jesus!" 

Someone talked with me every minute of the day.  Either Praise or
Ezra or one of the two hundred or more other people who lived there. 
By design, I was never alone, and I hardly ever saw Daisy alone
either.

However, when Praise came with me to the bathroom, I protested.

"Okay, praise the Lord!  I'll be right out here," she said sweetly.

It was quite interesting.  I had no idea what commune life would be
like, but this seemed to be a prime example.  We ate together, worked
together, sang together, and (separated into boys, girls, and married
couple dorms) slept together.  The main purpose seemed to be training
new disciples, like me, to become full-time witnessers for the Lord.  I
learned that the Children of God had set up witnessing homes in many
big cities across the nation, and would soon be setting one up in
Manhattan.

In addition, they made weekly trips to New York City and came back with
dozens of new recruits.  Most of them were drugged-out hippies.  Many
stayed on for days, weeks, or months, and during this time no one
touched any dope.  Thorough searches for drugs were conducted
frequently, and no smoking or alcohol was allowed.

A few days after I had arrived--I lost count of the exact number of days
that had gone by--a "sister" suggested that I go to the "Forsake All"
and get new clothes.  She explained that like the early disciples in
the Bible, we shared everything here, including our worldly
possessions.

When I told her that I had brought enough clothes with me, she informed
me that I would have to forsake those, or give them up.  "Old things
are passed away, all things become new," she said, quoting II
Corinthians 5, 17.

The Forsake All held the discarded clothes of all the people who had
joined at this particular commune, or "colony," as they called it.

The Forsake All room was large and orderly.  Boys' clothes were neatly
folded in one area and girls' in another.  The sister who took me
suggested I get a few skirts.

"We believe that girls should dress feminine and modestly," she said
with authority, as if she were my fashion coordinator.

She chose two long, shapeless skirts that were similar to the ones that
most of the other girls were wearing.  She allowed me to pick two
blouses and a sweater.  Those five items, along with a few pairs of
underwear, would be my clothes for the next couple of months.  I was
also allotted a long warm coat.  My army jacket, along with my beloved
embroidered jeans, were taken away.  I later saw the army jacket on a
boy, but I never saw my jeans again.

It seemed that the members who had been with the Children for a while
"had the faith" and that I was a disciple.  Being a college student and
having some definite goals in life, I was quite different from the
regular recruit they picked up in New York.  They informed me that I
was a "chosen one" of God, like the rest of them there.  I felt a surge
of pride and recognition.  I knew I was different--no wonder they had
found me!  Then I brushed it aside out of ingrained humility, probably
learned in Sunday school as a little girl.  Instead, I should be
thankful that He had chosen little, insignificant me.  I would have to
prove I was worthy.

The Bible did say,"Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you" (John
15, 16).

I eventually could have taken these thoughts further and come to the
logical conclusion that God doesn't go around "choosing people" in this
way, but I was never left alone to think for myself.  As a new
disciple, I constantly had a big brother or sister at my side, usually
quoting scriptures that reinforced the Children of God lifestyle and
beliefs.  "All that believed were together and had all things in
common, and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all
men" (Acts 2, 44).  "And be not conformed to this world, but be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12, 2).  I learned
that new disciples should never be left alone with their thoughts, and
that I should not think like a "flatlander," who could only see in a
flat dimension.  I tried to discipline my mind to not think of anything
but biblical, spiritual, higher thoughts.

Although I don't remember making any verbal decision to join or signing
anything, I handed over to the group all my belongings, including my
driver's license, which was never returned.  In my purse, I'd had only
the few dollars we had panhandled in New York, which was also handed
over, and I never held money again for years.  It would also be years
before I went to a store to buy anything, read a book, listened to
radio, or watched TV.  How I spent every minute of my life was decided
for me, or rather, I let them decide it for me.  Many nights as I lay
in bed--the only time I was alone--I would review my past life, which now
seemed so very distant.  At first I was saddened that I would never
finish college, but soon these thoughts receded further and further
away, and finally they never appeared again.  I missed my family, but I
believed I had met God's True Family.  After all, that was what I had
been praying for, and didn't God answer prayers?  I read a passage from
a booklet that was given me, which said, we belong to the greatest
Family in the world, the Family of God's Love.  Surely God must think
you worthy to give you such a priceless privilege to be a member of His
Family!  we're the mighty army of Christian soldiers, fighting a
relentless war for the truth and love of God, against the confusion of
Babylon, the anti-God, Antichrist systems of the world...we are
the hard-core, the spearhead, the avant garde of this last spiritual
revolution.  We are the Cadre, the leadership of it, that requires one
hundred percent dedication...

We called ourselves "revolutionaries" in a spiritual and material sense
combined.  I knew it would be hard.  It was like joining an army,
giving up my personal desires for a greater cause.  But I felt like I
was meant to do this--it was my purpose in life.  And as I was told, I
was still young enough to change, In another few years I would have
become so ingrained with "system" thoughts, I could never be a
"revolutionary."  My life in those days as a new disciple meant waking
up early to pray alone for one hour and then together with a group of
girls led by our "tribe leader."  After a breakfast of powdered milk,
doughnuts, and oatmeal, I helped to clean the camp, which, considering
that it sometimes housed up to three hundred people, was kept fairly
clean.  Then began a long day of Bible classes, broken only by a small
lunch of a sandwich or sometimes a fruit salad.  At the end of the day,
we were given time to memorize verses, always with an older brother or
sister to guide us, and then to read the Bible silently, but not
alone.

A late dinner was followed by "inspiration," which included a few
hours of singing and then a message from our leader.  it was after a
few weeks of those messages that I understood that our top leader and
founder was a man who called himself Moses David.

Moses, called Mo for short, based his philosophy of a Christian
communal life--which he preached, taught, and enforced through writings
called Mo letters--on the biblical scriptures.  Just as the Russian
Communists were inspired by the Communist Manifesto, and the Nazi
movement by Mein Kampf, the Mo letters told us what to believe in, and
how to live this belief.  Like those other revolutionary works, the Mo
letters gave us the hope that we would change the world.  However, the
big difference was--our leader heard straight from God, and God was
still speaking!

Mo wrote that "ninety percent of our ministry here is condemning the
church and the church people and the damn system" ("A Sample, Not a
Sermon" J, 55).  When he began preaching that to the hippies gathering
in a coffeehouse in Huntington Beach, California, they listened to this
strange man in his late forties wearing a beard and sunglasses.  He
looked like one of them, only older and wiser, and he had a plan taken
from one of the greatest plans ever written for humanity--the New
Testament.

But Mo wasn't always a bohemian prophet.  He started his adult life in
the shadow of his famous evangelist mother, Virginia Brandt Berg, whom
he claimed had been paralyzed by a car accident and miraculously
healed.

She became a relatively successful Christian evangelist and eventually
had her own radio program called Meditation Moments.  Her third child
(second son), David Brandt Berg, was born after the accident and
healing on February 18, 1919, in Oakland, California.

His father, Hjalmer Emmanuel Berg, was a handsome Swedish singer who
met Virginia before he was converted to Christianity by her father, a
wealthy preacher.  Virginia and Hjalmer both dedicated their lives to
Christian work.  He became a pastor, but according to Mo's testimony,
he played second fiddle to his more successful wife.

David Berg eventually became a pastor himself, ordained by the
British-American Ministerial Federation in 1941.  Berg details his
personal history in a publication he wrote dated January 1976, titled
"Our Shepherd, Moses David."  In it he claims that he graduated from
Monterey Union High School in California with the highest scholastic
record in the school's eighty-year history, and was offered numerous
scholarships for college.  He was drafted into the Army a few days
after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but since he did not believe in
killing, he claims, he served as a conscientious objector with the U. S
Army Corps of Engineers at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, until he received a
complete-disability discharge due to heart trouble.  According to his
story, the Army thought he was dying of double pneumonia, but when he
promised God he would serve Him faithfully, he was instantly healed.

After a few years of evangelistic work, he returned to college on the
GI Bill, studying philosophy, psychology, and political science, and
became seriously involved in the study of socialism and communism.  He
later wrote,"I soon saw that the purportedly unselfish goals of these
political systems could never be achieved without the love of God in
the hearts of men, as in the pure Christian communism of the Early
Church" ("Our Shepherd, Moses David" 351, 18).  After attending various
colleges, with no record of ever obtaining a degree, he took a private
teaching job for a few years and then several positions with television
and radio evangelists.

Finally, at forty-nine years of age, without a ministry or job, he
brought his wife and four children to live with his retired mother in
Huntington Beach, California, in 1968.  There he began to preach in
the small coffeehouse run by a church group called Teen Challenge. He
once wrote of this event,"I'll never forget the first time I walked
into the club and lay down on the floor with you [the hippies] in my
broken sandals, ragged old jacket, lengthening hair and graying
beard, and one of you lying next to me spoke up with the cheery
greeting of welcome, Hi, Dad!  What's your trip?" ("Our Shepherd,
Moses David" 351, 29).

His trip was the supposed revolution for Jesus, and within months a
handful of the searching young people who had become disillusioned with
the world began following his teachings.  Known as "Uncle David" then,
he opened his home, or rather his mother's home, to them, and so began
the model of communal living that he believed the Bible taught.

From a pragmatic point of view, Berg just happened to be in the right
place at the right time.  The California flower-power scene had
attracted not only drug users and freedom seekers, but also the
dropouts from staid academic institutions, including some of the cream
of America's upper society crop.  When the adult children of wealthy
families joined, these rich kids gave all their possessions and money
to the group, and Mo had the financial means to live incognito for the
rest of his life.

He started to go underground, and his whereabouts were known only to a
faithful few.

Knowing none of this when I joined the Children of God, I was told that
Mo was the end-time prophet spoken about in the Bible, which said
"Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their
God and David their king, and shall fear the Lord and His goodness in
the latter days" (Hosea 3, 5).  Mo was a charismatic leader, but most
of his followers, including me, never even saw him in person.  Whenever
doubts entered my mind about following a "personality," I reminded
myself that it was the ideal I was following, not the person who
expressed it.  I never met Mo and did not desire to meet him, but I
thought the ideals he preached could change the world.

Our so-called prophet wrote hundreds of letters to us over the years,
which were eventually published in eight volumes.  Mo's control over
our minds and bodies developed through a gradual process.  In the
beginning, I was allowed to hear only certain letters, which taught me
his "revolutionary rules" such as, attend all classes, study the Bible,
go witnessing, do not leave to go anywhere without permission, absence
without leave will be considered desertion, no dating, no smoking, no
smooching, obey leadership absolutely!

It was very difficult living in such a suppressive environment, but for
idealistic reasons, I accepted it.  By the end of my first week,
however, I was looking forward to going out on a witnessing trip to New
York City.  But when the weekend arrived, Praise informed me I should
stay at the camp and "get into the Word."  Getting into the Word meant
reading my Bible and memorizing scriptures.

I was given an old King James Bible, and my New Testament was now in
the Forsake All room.  Classes on the Bible were held every day.  A
"set card," which contained over one hundred verses that should be
memorized by every new disciple, was given to me with instructions that
I should learn at least two verses a day.

One morning, as I sat memorizing, a sister whom I had been told was my
"tribe leader" came and gave me a piece of paper.  She was the only
girl in the camp whom I did not like.  A few years older than I, she
was always rushing around like she had more important things to do than
the rest of us.

"This is your new name," she said curtly.  "I got it for you in prayer
this morning."  Quoting the now familiar verse "old things are passed
away and all things are become new," she explained that each of the
disciples took a new name from the Bible when they joined.  I was
thinking of a pretty name, like Crystal, from the Book of Revelations,
or Joy, mentioned throughout the Bible, not realizing that my name
would be picked for me.

I opened the folded paper she had given me and read,"Jeshanah.  "
"Where is Jeshanah in the Bible?" I asked.

She told me some chapter in Chronicles, but I did not write it down,
and I was too intimidated by her to ever ask again.  So I was called
Jeshanah for years without ever knowing where it came from.  Much later
I found out it was the name of a town.

Daisy was given a name from the New Testament, Berea, which I thought
was much prettier.  However, she did not like the fact that she could
not choose her own name, nor did she like not being able to sing and
play guitar at the nightly inspiration.  According to people whom we
found out were the "leaders," new disciples must "prove" themselves
before they played at inspiration.  The songs of the group were
inspired by God, and they didn't want any "worldly music" around.

"Music is the language of this generation, and we speak it" ("London"
58, 33), Mo wrote.  "Our music is the miracle that attracts so many to
our message about the Man.  It's the magic that heals their souls and
wounded spirits and proves our messiahship, that we are their saviors"
("Thanks and Comment" 157, 6).  For idealists who were disillusioned
with the sex, drugs, and rock and roll that hippiedom offered, the
fresh and hopeful sounds of the group's music was a definite
attraction.  Mo's early disciples each played a musical instrument,
usually guitar, and many were accomplished musicians and songwriters
before they became his disciples.  Hard-beating contemporary melodies
were accompanied by catchy, meaningful verses such as the following,
written by a young man who joined when he was fourteen years old, Life
is a lonely highway with no reason to travel on, And you don't know
where you're headed, but you know you've got to go on, And you don't
want to walk alone, but you're seeking a better home, Oh, Lord, how
long will their search go on?

Since I had already been initiated to the dangers of worldly music by
the Jesus People, I did not find this so difficult to accept.  Daisy,
however, missed playing her songs, which she claimed were not
worldly.

Inspiration time started after dinner and lasted late into the night.

Since I did not have a watch, and there were few clocks around, I never
knew what time it was, but I suspect that we stayed up in inspiration
until past midnight, and sometimes until two or three in the morning.

Inspiration started with a prayer, like everything else we did.  The
room seemed to shake, with two to three hundred people gathered tightly
and praising the Lord for up to an hour, depending on who was leading
the inspiration.  When the praises slowed down, someone started a
prayer, then another and another.  Finally, one of the leaders plucked
a tune on a guitar, which was a sign to start the music, and everyone
who was allowed to be an "inspirationalist" would grab a guitar and
join in the singing.  Most of the songs told tales of being lost, or
lonely, or searching for the truth, finding it in Jesus, and now
happily serving the Lord.  Some songs were apocalyptic, about an
endtime that was fast approaching, and warned people to turn to the
Lord.  Many of the songs had lively Gypsy tunes, and we danced holding
hands, going around in a circle, and kicking up our feet in what we
thought was a traditional Jewish dance.  When this lively activity
became too hectic, we divided into groups of two and danced with
partners, always holding hands and swinging around in a circle.

There was no slow dancing and no touching body-to-body.  It was very
innocent and extremely exhilarating.

Often these meetings were led by a visitor, whom I later learned was a
traveling leader.  That person, male or female, eventually took over
the inspiration by giving a talk, leading a Bible class, or reading a
letter from Moses David.

I was not interested in who Moses was at that time.  I was more
interested in how to contact my mother.  I had lost track of time, but
it must have been a week since I had left Lancaster.  My mother knew
that Berea and I had gone to New York City, but I told her I would call
collect in a few days.  I knew she would be worried by now.  In
addition, our family, like most, were always together for Christmas,
but for reasons explained emphatically to me, the COG leaders did not
want me to go home for Christmas.  They explained that Christmas was a
"systemite" (meaning worldly) idea, and that to partake of the
Christmas holiday spirit was almost like worshiping the devil.

Actually, I could not find any verses in the Bible encouraging
believers to celebrate Christmas, so there was little I could say to
counter their argument.  However, I did want to call my mother and tell
her where I was.  It was difficult to find someone among all those
people who knew how I could make a phone call, even though there was a
phone booth in the hallway of the main building.  Since I was never
alone, and had no money, I could not simply make a call.

The day I decided to confront one of the leaders with my request I
became violently sick.  After vomiting all morning, I went to the
bathroom every five minutes with diarrhea.  At mealtime I could not
even look at food, but since the bunkrooms were so cold, I came over to
the dining room anyway, went through the food line, and gave my food to
some boys.  Every one was very concerned about me, which they showed by
constantly laying hands on me and praying that I would be shown why I
was sick and "get the victory."  Praise suspected that I was sick
because I wanted to call my mother, and she frequently showed me Bible
verses that said I should forsake my family.

"And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.  He that loveth
father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he that loveth
son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me" (Matthew 10,
36--37).

"And everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or
father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake,
shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life"
(Matthew 19, 29).

By now I had decided that I wanted to serve the Lord, and it was
becoming clear that included giving up my past life and starting
anew.

I could hardly believe it meant leaving my family, but there it was--
written in the Bible.  I cried for days, and I remembered when I was
younger and had told my mother that I wanted to be a missionary when I
grew up, she had cried and said,"Don't do that, I'll never see you
again."  Although it made me very sad, this seemed to be my fate.

Everywhere I went, I was crying, and my new brothers and sisters prayed
for me.  This was normal, they explained.  "No victory without a
battle."  One evening, as I was sitting in the hallway with my full
plate of food beside me on the floor untouched, a young man came and
sat next to me.

I knew he was an "older brother," meaning he had been in the group for
at least a few months, but he looked to be not much older than
twenty.

I was considered a "babe," a new disciple.  I had also noticed him
because I thought he was cute, but those thoughts were supposed to be
prayed out of my mind.

"What's the matter?" he said in a kind voice, noticing I did not have
a smile on my face like everyone else in the camp.

Like a volcano erupting, I blurted out all my complaints.  "I can't
stand this anymore," I whined.  "I have no time to myself.  I can't
read anything but the Bible.  I don't wear clothes I want, or talk
about things I like, or even to the people I want to talk to.  And
this food.  It's horrible.  I can't eat.  I probably got food
poisoning from it.  " I felt terrible for being so ungrateful after
all they had done for me, and I stopped as mixed emotions of shame
and anger filled my eyes with tears.

He put his arm around me, which even in my emotional state I knew was
not allowed.  He was unusually tender and caring.

"Hey, I didn't like this food either, but you get used to it.  And it
isn't always like this.  We're just in a big colony here, but when I
was up in the home in Boston, we ate some real nice food.  You know,
when I first came here, I used to steal yogurt from the refrigerator 
when no one was looking."

"There's yogurt in the refrigerator?" I asked, surprised, since
yogurt was my favorite treat and I had not seen any since I'd been
here.

"Yeah, sometimes.  They buy it for the pregnant mothers upstairs.  So,
it really is a sin to take it.  But hey, I know Jesus loves me, and
he's forgiven me for more than that."  He went on to tell me that he
used to be part of the Mafia in New York City and had committed
terrible crimes.  He used to take drugs and sell drugs and worse.  But
now, with this Family and God's help, he was a changed person.  And so
what if he could not eat everything he wanted?  He could help people
like me find a new life.

I found it humorous that he talked about food.  Maybe he was always
hungry like most of the boys here.

"Do you want my food?" I said.  "I'm not hungry."  He took it and ate
while telling me more of his past life as a sinner.

"Do you have a mother?" I asked, tears again forming in my eyes.

"Sure I do."

"Do you ever get to talk to her?" 

"Yeah.  I write to her, and I call when I go to New York."

"Well, I haven't talked to my mother since I came here," I cried.
"And I don't even know what day it is.  Has Christmas passed yet?"

"You mean you haven't called your mother for Christmas and you're a
babe?  Babes are supposed to call their parents.  Who is your tribe
leader anyway?  She's supposed to take care of that."  He got up and
walked down the hall and up those forbidden steps to the second
floor.  In about ten minutes a leader whom I knew as Hosea came down
and talked with me.  He and his wife were about my age, but they
dressed and looked like corporate managers.  I learned later that
they did our public relations work.  He told me that his wife was
coming down so I could call my mother, and if I wanted to, we could
go visit her.  It turned out that Christmas had passed two days
earlier.

This calculated act of apparent kindness probably kept me in the
Children of God.  I was ready to leave and forget about serving the
Lord, even if I was a "chosen one," as they said.  At that time, I did
not realize they were allowing me to do something that was my right to
do all along, and pathe ically, I was touched by their love and concern
for me.  In addition, I ashamedly felt that this longing to return to
my "flesh family," as they called it, was really a selfish desire
for clean sheets, healthy food, and more sleep.  The lessons they had
been teaching me, such as to beware of natural inclinations, to rebuke
the devil, and to seek godly counsel, became clearer.

Hosea and his wife drove me home the next day as promised.  My mother
had been terribly worried about me, but fortunately, Daisy had called
her mother, so she knew that I was living somewhere in upstate New
York.

My whole family was amazed that I was quitting college to join a
commune, since I had been talking about school as long as they could
remember.  However, as usual, my mother let me do what I wanted, even
though she tried to discourage me.  She really didn't know what this
group was about, but she seemed relieved that they were at least
"Christian."  My father was not around at that time, and I never knew
what he thought since I had absolutely no communication with him.

My older brother, Steve, was home when we arrived in Lancaster.  Hosea
witnessed to him about Jesus, and when we left the next day, Steve
decided to come with us.  I also packed up everything from my personal
possessions that Hosea thought the Family could use.

When we stopped for gas on the way up, Steve got out of the car to
smoke a cigarette.  Hosea stopped him.

"If you want to come with us, Steve, you need to stop smoking,
drinking, and drugs, right now."  I watched the interaction
intensely.

I knew Steve had been smoking for years, and he probably was hooked on
a few drugs.

"Okay," he said, and threw the pack of cigarettes into the trash.

Steve was separated into the boys' area when we got to the camp, and I
hardly spoke with him after that.  I heard that he was "growing in the
Spirit" and had already memorized about half of the set card.  By New
Year's Eve, he was chosen, along with me, to go on a trip to New York
City to witness and recruit new disciples.

We were taught witnessing tips on the way down by one of the leaders at
the camp.  James looked to be in his late twenties, a handsome man who
was originally from New York.  While he instructed us on the best
places to witness and what areas to stay away from, he opened a gallon
bottle of wine, and we all received about half a cup to warm us up.  I
learned that there is nothing wrong with drinking wine, as long as you
don't drink too much.  After all, Jesus' first miracle was to turn
water into wine.  I didn't have to worry about getting too much.  This
was my first and last half-cup until I got married, six months later.

I liked James.  He was not as strict as the other leaders, and he did
not praise the Lord as long as everyone else did, going on and on
indefinitely.  When we said our prayers before leaving the bus, he said
a short prayer and let us out.

I was paired with an older sister while Steve went with an older
brother.  This was my first time outside the camp other than the
trip home.  My older sister was relatively lenient, and she did not
want to stand out in the cold as much as I did not want to, so we spent a
lot of time walking in the hotels.  I went to the bathroom once and
stuffed a half-used roll of tissue into my bag.  It would be used later
to supplement the three sheets of toilet paper we were allowed to have
when we went to the bathroom at the colony.  All the time I was out, I
wondered if my brother would come back to the bus.

Due to the extreme confusion caused by the celebrating crowds around
Times Square that night, it was ridiculous to try to witness, which
consisted of talking to isolated people about Jesus.  Returning to the
bus early, I waited anxiously for Steve to come back.  Finally, he got
on the bus, wearing a Cheshire cat grin.

"Hey, man, this stuff is real."  he said.  "Man, I was tempted at every
corner to split.  I mean, I know plenty of places in New York to score
drugs, but, man, I couldn't do it."  I was so happy.  Seeing my brother
free of drugs was worth any sacrifice on my part.

Living in the COG during those early days was like learning a whole new
way of life.  I was eventually told the story of how Moses David formed
the group from a band of Jesus People in California in 1968.  By the
time I joined in 1971, there were COG communities all over the United
States, the largest ones being the Texas Soul Clinic, which I had seen
on the documentary film, and the one in Ellenville where I was now
living.  A few months before, Moses' natural children had taken over a
large Jesus People commune in Georgia, called the House of Judah.  Most
of the people who joined with that community were now leaders at
different colonies.

We had a few of them in New York, but most of our leaders were the
original members, who had now been with the Family, as it was called
by initiates, for three or four years.  Therefore, I was able to meet
many of the top leaders when I was still a babe, although the value
of this privilege escaped me at that time.

Sometime in January 1972 a group of the most dedicated babes were
chosen to go to a special training camp in Montreal.  My brother,
Steve, Berea (old Daisy), and I were among those chosen.  Steve had
already memorized the whole set card of about a hundred verses, which
took most babes at least six months, therefore, the leaders thought he
was destined to be a great teacher.  We crossed the Canadian border by
pretending we were a church group on a day visit to a Canadian youth
meeting.  One of our leaders even dressed in the traditional
Episcopalian black with white collar.  This ruse enabled us to slip
across the border without everyone on the bus being checked.

Steve felt obliged to inform the leader that he was actually on
probation in the state of Pennsylvania, having just come out of
prison.

Fearing any legal repercussions, they promptly sent him back.  I
learned months later that he had returned to Lancaster to start a new
colony, but he eventually slipped back to his old ways with his
criminal friends.  It would be ten years before I saw him again.

Meanwhile, Berea, my only other contact from the outside world, was
having problems.  She thought she might be pregnant from her old
boyfriend back home, and whether it was an excuse or not, she slipped
away one night into the cold Canadian winter, and never returned.  I
stayed through babes' training camp, during an intensely cold winter in
Montreal, and then returned to Ellenville in the spring.

By now I was an older sister, having been in the group for six
months.

Since I had no inclination or desire to be a tribe leader, or to do
anything in a leadership capacity, I volunteered to work in the
nursery.

Ellenville now had a population of nearly three hundred disciples and
had become the home for quite a few mothers and children, now that
spring had warmed the old camp to a tolerable degree.  The camp now
made use of all five buildings, the main house where meetings were
held, food was served, and leaders lived, the boys' dorm, the girls'
dorm, and a couple of small bungalows for married couples.  A nursery
was established in the main building and soon expanded out into the
girls' dorm.

Regardless of how crowded or uncomfortable the other rooms were, the
nursery was always clean and well furnished.  I liked being in a place
that felt more like a "home."  Leaders and their wives were coming
through on their way to Europe, following Moses David's directives to
go into all the world and witness.  With all these leaders and wannabe
leaders around, I felt nice and safe in the nursery where I knew what
to expect--doo-doofilled diapers and babies burping and drooling.  Since
I had helped to raise four younger sisters, I seemed to have more
experience and general know-how concerning babies than most of the
newer sisters.  Leaders did not work in the nursery.  In fact, I was
not sure what work they did, other than read the Bible and lead
inspiration.  By now I was aware that not everyone in this group was
idealistic or self-sacrificial, but I wasn't going to let this affect
my own spiritual condition.  I remained faithful to the ideal of
community as set down in the Bible.

Working in the nursery, I became friends with another Family misfit
named Salome, a young woman of Jewish heritage.  Salome, who was witty
and bright, revealed her secret rebelliousness to me as we would sit in
the nursery and make fun of the leaders, which was almost blasphemous
for mere disciples.

Other than Salome, only Ben, who did night guard duty at the camp,
talked with me on a regular basis.  Also of Jewish descent, Ben was a
tall, dark, and intelligent person who had been in the Family a short
enough time to still know how to indulge in interesting conversation.

Since I had to bring babies to nurse with their mothers in the middle
of the night, I would often stop and talk with Ben while waiting for
the mothers to finish nursing.  I liked Ben quite a lot, and I
entertained the idea of one day marrying him.  I had heard that
marriages in the group were usually arranged by leaders, and I thought
I could jump the gun by picking a husband first.  It was a futile idea,
since Ben was soon moved to another colony.

Marriage was a big concern for everyone, since no physical contact was
allowed between boys and girls unless they were married to each
other.

As far as I knew, no one was allowed to even kiss before marriage.

What made this situation even worse was that, after the leader, your
husband was the unquestioned head of the union, and he usually spoke on
your behalf to the leaders, who I guess spoke to God.  I couldn't
imagine having to spend the rest of my life with someone who acted like
a lord over me, so I didn't think about it.  I trusted in the Lord, as
I had learned to do in response to every other fear that had arisen
since I had joined this group.  Surely if I was making all this
sacrifice for God, He would not lead me astray.

Courtship was a quick affair.  Many of the couples who had been married
recently had been told the night before whom they would be marrying the
next day.  Ruth was one of them.  She had joined at the Jesus People
house in Georgia, and she was a typical southern belle.

Soft-spoken, petite, and beautiful, Ruth seemed terribly mismatched
with a loud and boisterous Italian American.  Sometimes when I used to
go into the kitchen for baby supplies, I would find them arguing in a
corner of the kitchen where they thought no one could see or hear
them.

Ruth appeared to be very unhappy, and I hoped that my marriage would
not be so badly arranged.

There was never a dull moment in the camp, although sometimes I wished
there would be.  Whenever a new leader came through, we would have
all-night inspiration.  Now we had a whole band playing every night,
and often the best teachers in the Family would lead us through amazing
interpretations of the end-time prophecies in Daniel, Ezekiel, and
Revelations.  We thought we were privy to information no one else in
the whole world knew.  The most direct revelations from God, however,
came through our own end-time prophet, the leader himself, Moses
David.

His words, through the Mo letters, were distributed to all the colonies
and were soon on equal authority to the Bible.

By now, reading Mo letters was a daily requirement, along with reading
the Bible and memorizing verses.  The letters contained mainly simple,
sermonlike platitudes, but sometimes they were more radical.  According
to the letters, the United States was headed for an Armageddon,
therefore, all the Children of God were told to gather funds from
various sources and go overseas.  The Family spoke often of the
end-time prophecy, and whether you believed it or not, speaking about
the soon-to-be end of the world became a habit.  It seemed to me that
we might have only a few years left, and actually, I was rather
relieved.

I did not know how long I could last with this sacrificial lifestyle.

Although we did not work at "system" jobs, most of us worked very hard
just to keep the camp going.  We had what we called "provisioners,"
who were teams of beggars going out every day to grocery stores, food
markets, and fast-food chains to scrounge for any food that they would
give us.  We had witnessers taking weekly trips to New York and
surrounding cities, telling about Jesus and trying to recruit new
disciples.  As far as I knew, our only income came from the "forsake
all" of the new disciples, and since most of them were like me, poor
college students or travelers, I did not think we had much money.

Personally, I never saw any money for years, since regular disciples
never handled finances.

Toward the summer of 1972, the Family band led by Jeremy Spencer had
come to Ellenville.  Jeremy had been the slide guitar player for
Fleetwood Mac, the popular rock band from England, and when he joined
our group, it made the national papers.  Now he had started his own
band in the COG, and they had received a contract from a major
recording company to make an album.  The band enjoyed more privacy and
freedom within the Family than even the big leaders did.  They all
lived in one of the bungalows that was set off by itself.  All of the
band members except for the drummer were already married.  Word had
spread that the band would be renting an apartment in Boston in order
to work at a professional studio there.  With the Spartan conditions we
were living in at the camp, an apartment away from the constant
surveillance of leaders and older brothers seemed like a mansion in
heaven to me.

Due to the number of babies that had recently come into the nursery, I
did not have much time to go to inspiration and listen to the band
play.

We had between six and ten babies ranging from newborns to age two
being watched in the two nursery rooms.  Mothers were encouraged to
leave babies at the nursery all day and night, since we were supposed
to be one big family and their children were everybody's children.

Only the nursery workers cared for them, however, and since there were
few nursery workers, I was often up day and night.  Therefore, it took
me by surprise when Jeremy came into the nursery to see me.  I had only
seen him before from a distance, and I was surprised at how short and
frail he was.  He had brown curly hair that hung lightly on his neck
and friendly-looking eyes that were almost merry.  I had not seen such
a cheery look for a long time, since humor was discouraged at the
camp.

"Hi.  You're Jeshanah, right?" he asked in his strong English
accent.

"Yes.  That's me."

"Would you like to help us in a skit tonight?  We have this little play
planned, and we need a sister.  You seem to be right for the part."

"Oh, I never acted in a skit before," I protested.  Surely there were
dozens of girls better suited for acting than myself, I thought.

"No, no.  You are just right for the part."

"Well, do I have to come and rehearse?" 

"Just ad-lib as the skit goes along.  You'll pick it up, I'm sure." 
Jeremy left me wondering what I was to do, but a crying baby
interrupted my thoughts.

That evening, my tribe leader made sure I went to inspiration.  She
personally found another girl to stay in the nursery.  I felt honored
to be able to participate in a skit with the band.  They were always
treated as special, and I was somewhat in awe of their talent and
fame.

Now here I was in front of the entire colony, acting in a skit in which
I did not even know the story line.  However, it soon became apparent
that the skit was about the drummer, Cal, marrying me.  It depicted his
life history, from a lost hippie to a drug addict in New York, then
hitching out to California and meeting the COG, and finally becoming
part of Jeremy's band and marrying a sister in Ellenville.  My face
turned bright red, and I could hardly look Caleb in the eyes.  Did he
know about this, or was he in the dark too?

Later in the evening we had some time to ourselves, and he informed me
that he had requested me to be his mate.  How did I feel about that?

A new letter had just come out from Mo saying that couples were being
married too quickly, and they should be given three to six months
courtship time.  I asked if that would apply to us.

"I don't know," he said hesitantly, his blue eyes shining like
sapphires on his handsome face.  "You see, we have to go to Boston
soon, an I would really like you to come with me."  I thought about
living in Boston, in an apartment away from the colony.

No more babies.  No more big leaders.  It seemed too good to be true.

Serving the Lord would be so easy, I might start feeling guilty.

"Yes, I would like that."  I said, thinking more of the apartment and
freedom than getting married.

Caleb and I were allowed to spend some time together every day for the
next couple of weeks.  He was the first boy I had come to know
emotionally since I had joined six months ago.  Cal, as most of us
called Caleb, was only twenty, a year older than myself, but he had
already been in the Family for over a year, so he was definitely an
older brother to me.  It took awhile not to relate to him with the
shyness and deference reserved for older brothers, but Cal was very
easygoing, and he did not demand respect.  I grew to like him very
much.

His long blond hair hung loosely to his shoulders, which reinforced the
impression that he was an independent and unrestrained musician.  Most
of the boys who joined the group had to have their long hair cut, but
musicians were usually exempt from this outward proof of commitment.

Cal not only represented freedom, but he was also a basically nice
guy.

Before the required three months of courtship were finished, we were
married in a Family ceremony performed by a leader before the entire
colony.  Because of lack of space, most married couples, except for the
leaders, had to share bedrooms, however we were allowed use of a
couples' cabin alone for three nights.  On the first night, Cal was
euphoric.  I was scared.  This was marriage!  What the hell did
marriage mean in this group?  We lived communally.  Nothing belonged to
us privately.  Marriage usually entailed making a home and family--
starting a life together.  However, when I joined the Children of God,
I relinquished my right to have my own home, and my family included
anyone else who gave up worldly goals and possessions to follow God in
this group.  Even though I had been living this life for a relatively
short time, I knew that everything was temporary.  Perhaps marriage was
also.

Cal seemed to understand the significance of marriage--having access to
sex.  I guess that was explanation enough for him, but not for me.

That night, after we had made love a few times, I could not sleep.

There was enough light from the moon shining through the curtainless
lone window for me to see my honeymoon environment.  The cabin was
empty except for a mattress on the floor and a wooden box next to the
bed, which held a small lamp and the two wineglasses, now empty.  Cal's
and my small suitcases, holding all of our personal belongings, were
Lying open on the floor in a corner.  It was a sparse room, and the
moonlight only accentuated the fact that my wedding night was far from
dyllic.  I lay awake most of the night wondering what I had done and
why.  Cal was a very nice person, much better looking and better
groomed than most of the boys at the camp, but I did not think I loved
him.  Romantic love was one of the lies of the devil, I had been told
by an older sister.  God will give you love for him.  Well, I didn't
feel it yet, and I didn't feel like making love again.  I got up early
in the morning and dressed in my nursery work-clothes quietly, trying
not to wake Cal.

"Where are you going?" asked Cal, waking up as I opened the door.

"To the nursery.  That's where I work."

"No you don't.  You don't have to work for three days.  We have them off,
and I'm going to use those three days to stay in bed with you," he
said with a sleepy smile.

He pulled me back into bed.  My new husband might be kind, gentle, and
loving, but he did not understand me.  I felt as if I had just wounded
my inner emotional being past repair.  I had married someone without
first consulting myself.

Having been indoctrinated by Mo's teaching that whatever is within us
is evil and should be rejected, and that the truth is out there
somewhere--always beyond my reach--in a perfect unity with a transcendent
God, I did not even try to understand my feelings.  Not being able to
explore this terrible emptiness that I felt inside me, how could I
explain it to Cal or anyone else?  I knew only one thing-- there was no
turning back.


Sharing One Wife

I had been cutting vegetables for the chef salad
all afternoon, but at least it gave me relief from watching the
children.  In the kitchen I could have time to think, which was
something we were not supposed to do.  Mo wrote in one of his letters
that if you thought too much, it was like inviting little devils in for
tea in your mind.  "You pull up a chair and invite them over and start
agreeing with them...it's cause you get your eyes on yourself
instead of the Lord--introspection instead of heaven-spection" ("Dumps"
33, 3).  Therefore, I felt like I had to be involved in some sort of
action constantly, or I might be accused of thinking.

"You're not supposed to cut the vegetables so small," yelled Martha
from behind, startling me.  I dropped my thoughts and imagined they had
broken into pieces as if they were precious china.  Looking up into the
cherublike face of Martha, I wondered if she could see the pieces of my
thoughts scattered on the floor as well as I could.

"I told you that when I gave you the instructions for chef salad.  Stay
in tune with the Spirit, Jeshanah." 

Martha was the wife of the lead guitar player in the band, and she
liked to consider herself the lead singer also.  However, like all the
wives, she also must have a house duty, and she chose to be in charge
of the kitchen.  She planned the meals, went shopping, and made sure
someone else cooked and cleaned.  Our band colony, in the suburbs of
Boston, had only a dozen members.  We each took turns with these
chores, however, Jeremy and most of the band were usually relieved of
their duties because of practice.  They also began playing at local
clubs,"to keep in with the music scene" we were told.

The band members looked and acted like the stereotypical musicians of
the time.  Any Fleetwood Mac fan would recognize Jeremy on stage, with
his short stature and curly brown hair, delighting the audience with
his Elvis Presley impersonations.  The bass player, Sam, a tall
nineteen-year-old Californian with dark, ethnic coloring, was
distinguished by a gap in his smile where his front tooth had been
knocked out.  The rhythm guitar player, Enoch, was a tall young man in
his early twenties whom we jokingly called "the Pope," since he
encouraged everyone to be religious.  Martha was a chubby girl with an
angelic face, however, she was as tough as the devil on me.  I had
become the gofer of the home, since everyone else was busy in their
calling.

Jeremy's wife, Emma, often could not work in the kitchen because she
was caring for her newborn, and Bart, our leader, and his wife, Tirzah,
would only cook or clean when they felt like it.  That left only the
wife of the bass player, who had a baby to care for, our single
brother, Abashai, the roadie who did most of the driving, and me.  My
main job was to help Emma with her children, but I often helped Abashai
do all the practical and dirty work of keeping a home running.  Abashai
was also our provisioner, the person who visited stores and factories
asking for free stuff.

Even though Jeremy and the band had received a lot of money to make the
album, Bart, who held the highest position in our band colony and was
manager of the band, thought we should live as much as possible like
other COG homes.  I was never informed where the money went at that
time, but I was aware that we were living relatively better than other
homes in the group.

From what I heard from my husband, the drummer of the band, they had
signed a contract with Columbia Records for $50,000.  Most of the
advance went into buying new instruments and equipment for the band and
paying for the recording at a studio in Marlborough, Massachusetts.

The rest of the money was used for living expenses for the band
families while they were recording, but the upgrade in our living
conditions was relative to normal COG standards.  No one had personal
bank accounts, and I never even bought any clothes but continued to
wear hand-me-downs.

We had rented two attached apartments in Sudbury, a suburb of Boston.

There were a total of five rooms, two kitchens, and two bathrooms for
the twelve adults and six children.  Bart and his wife and child took
the whole apartment upstairs, Jeremy and his family of five lived in
the master bedroom downstairs, Martha and her husband, Obadiah, and
their baby were in the other bedroom, and Cal and I shared the living
room with Sam, his wife, and their baby.  Abashai and Enoch, the rhythm
guitarist, whose wife was in England, stayed in the garage, where the
band also practiced.  In our room we divided the space with a sheet.

After spending my first months of marriage with other married couples
in the crowded couples' dorm back at Ellenville, I was grateful to have
this private area.  Always self-conscious of noises made while engaged
in sex, I had learned to muffle any sounds.

Having lived with two to three hundred people for the past six months,
I felt like this living situation was luxury.  In addition, the food
was much better, since we actually bought most of it, and I could leave
the home on trips to the stores with Abashai to shop and provision,
which I really enjoyed.  I should have been very happy about my
fortunate position, however, my marriage with Cal was terrible.  Even
worse, it was my fault.  Cal loved me.  He was proud to be my
husband.

He treated me nicely, and even tried to make sure I was not overworked,
a common dilemma for those on the bottom of the COG hierarchy, such as
I was in that colony.

But I knew it was all so wrong.  Nothing had changed since the first
night I spent with my husband.  At that time, I thought that Cal and I
were just not meant for each other, but in retrospect, I believe I was
not capable of loving a man as a husband.  In the Family, love for your
"mate" was supposed to be a gift from God, however, there was no
special loving feeling in my heart for Cal.  Jesus said we should love
everyone.

Loving "everyone" was easy for me, it was loving my husband that was so
hard.  Having no clue as to why I could not love the man I had agreed
to marry, I thought that maybe that happened to everyone.  Maybe love
would eventually grow.  I did not take this situation lightly, and
every day I would invent new causes, reasons, and excuses for not
loving Cal as I should.

Mo wrote that he wanted all the complaints about marriage to stop.  In
a letter called "Get It Together," he told husbands to be nice to
their wives (which Cal was), but he also wrote, The next time I hear of
a wife that is not willing to submit to her husband--after being
admonished in the presence of a few witnesses-- we'll take her in front
of the whole congregation and make her submit to her husband...if
you won't do it in the privacy of your own bedroom, you will do it in
front of us!  ...Do you believe in the Bible?
Then why don't you do it?  You're breaking the commandment of God every
time you refuse!  You don't have to feel like it...How are we
going to have a Revolution for Jesus if you can't even love your
husband or wife, your brothers or sisters, whom you have seen?
[123, 17-20] 

In other words, how could I be a missionary--my one single
goal in *** missing text ***
Mo often denied that he had ever encouraged anyone to marry,
and for many years I believed it was only a few of the top leaders, who
were eventually demoted, who indiscriminately practiced pairing
couples.

However, years later I heard the tearful story of Rose, a sister who
was present at a mass marriage performed by Mo and his personal
secretary, Maria.  After Mo had just betrothed a couple, he asked if
anyone else wanted to get married.  A brother, who liked Rose, stood up
and tapped her on the shoulder.  Rose knew Mo and Maria personally, and
she looked to them for help.  Instead, she was told by Maria that Mo
thought it was the Lord's Will she marry this brother.  They were
betrothed in a few weeks, at which time, she later told me, she felt
like her life had ended.  Not all couples were so badly mismatched, but
the majority of us were told that God's Love can extend to anyone.  In
reality, couples that actually did love each other romantically were
usually separated by leaders.

I was still young enough in the Family to believe that my feelings
about my marriage might be taken into account by my leaders.  I went to
Bart and Tirzah to ask for a separation from Cal.  I thought that four
months of trying was enough.  My caring leaders were absorbed in their
own private matters.  Bart was checking out the latest electronic toy
he had bought, some recording device, and Tirzah was fashioning a new
dress for Martha, which, I noticed nostalgically, included a lace
bodice from one of the dresses I had forsaken when I joined the
Family.

I stammered out my feelings, hopes, and disappointments about marriage
and my request for a separation.  They would not even discuss the
matter with me, and basically I was told to get into the Word more.

However, they did talk to Cal.

"Maybe we need to have a baby," suggested my husband.  "You have
always been caring for other people's babies, don't you want one for
yourself?" I thought this was an odd statement, considering the fact
that the children were supposed to belong to us all, but Cal always had
a way of remaining personal in a very impersonal environment.

"Well, yes, but we have been together for four months already, and I
didn't get pregnant yet," I replied, somewhat surprised by his
statement.  Actually, we had not been legally married yet, since most
of us did not obtain a marriage certificate unless a child was
expected.  So what Cal was really saying was that if we had a baby, we
would become legally married.  I did not consider the added incentive
Cal might have had at the time for me to get pregnant, and I think Cal
was only repeating what the leaders had told him to say.  He probably
thought it would be good for both of us, but having a baby made it
almost impossible to break a marriage.  In those early days, Mo taught
that a baby was God's stamp of approval on a marriage.

Cal's question, however, did prompt me to consider having a baby as a
solution to my marriage problem.  Before I joined the Family, I would
have laughed at such a simplistic idea, but after living in a closed
society for such a long time, with traditional, and often oppressive,
perspectives reinforced constantly by everyone around me, my critical
thinking capabilities were extremely weakened.  The Bible did say,"Be
fruitful and multiply."  If God was the one who gave babies, it made
sense to ask Him for one.  The more I prayed for a child, the more I
felt that a baby was what I really wanted in my life.

Ironically, I was still aware enough to know that a child in the Family
ideally belonged to everyone.  It wouldn't necessarily be "mine.  "
Sitting in the bathroom, the only room that gave me complete privacy
with my thoughts since our bedroom was converted back into the living
room every morning, I pondered the imagined happiness of holding my own
baby in my arms and the very real threat of having that baby taken away
from me and cared for by others.  In order to prevent that from
happening, I reasoned, I would make sure that I was always in the
"child-care ministry."  I even justified my thought processes, which
were definitely selfish according to Family ideals.  My mother had
given me the name "Miriam."  In the Bible story, Miriam was the sister
of Moses who watched her baby-brother in the river and suggested to the
Egyptian queen who found Moses that she would get a nursemaid--her own
mother.  In this way, Moses, although destined by God to live in the
royal Egyptian palace, was actually raised by his own Hebrew mother.  I
reasoned that I could be like Miriam and cunningly make sure I would
always care for my own child.  Few sisters desired to stay in
child-care work for long, so I did not foresee a problem keeping a
spot.  Curiously, I never noticed at that time how I had to work my way
around Family policy.  The thought of leaving the Family rarely
occurred to me in those early years.

Cal and I tried harder to conceive, and as nature would have it, I
became pregnant the next month.  The nine months of carrying a child
was one of the most joyful times of my life.  In my idealistic and
naive state, I thought that now I would be fulfilled.  Being a mother
in the COG carried a certain amount of respect at that time, and extra
attention was paid to both mothers' and children's needs.  I was given
a quart of milk a day, as well as extra fruit and vegetables.  I could
have time to take a nap and could go to bed early.  Life was full of
comforts now, and I enjoyed it to the fullest, knowing this would not
last.

It was planned that I should have the baby in Troy, New York.  All COG
girls were encouraged to have their babies at home, and midwives were
trained among our group to perform the delivery.  There were no
midwives among us in the Boston area, but Troy had one sister, Sheriah,
who had assisted at a birth.  That was good enough training for us.

We calculated the birth date, and I was sent to the Troy home about two
weeks ahead of time.  Cal was supposed to come down when labor started,
and before leaving, I married Cal in front of a justice of the peace.

In Troy, I practiced the Lamaze breathing method, as outlined in 
advice we received from our child-care leaders, to help during labor.

The Troy home was kept very clean, and since I had been assigned to
work in the kitchen, I needed to mop the floor every night.  After
mopping one night on my hands and knees, I felt the labor pains start
around nine o'clock.  I went to bed, knowing that the first labor
usually takes awhile, and some labor pains could be a false alarm.  At
midnight, I was sure this was the real thing, so I woke up Sheriah.

She began preparing the labor room, while I called Cal and started my
Lamaze exercises.  They put me on the table about three in the
morning.

Sheriah began prepping me by stretching the skin around the opening,
but the labor pains were so strong I had to push her away frequently.

"I don't think that Cal will make it," she said.  "Your contractions
are coming pretty fast and regular.  How do they feel?" 

"Hard, very hard," I said between puffing.

Another sister who was pregnant came to see my delivery.  She was at my
side stuffing my mouth with crushed ice in between my contractions.  I
chewed on the ice and savored the cool, fresh liquid quickly before
returning to heavy breathing.

Cal arrived about 6 A. M. By this time, I could tell that Sheriah was
worried.  Cal's first sight when he came in the door of the delivery
room was the view of my legs wide open, a gaping, bloody birth canal,
and me huffing and puffing in between contractions that were less than
a minute apart.

Sheriah called him outside.

"I think something is wrong," she said.  "I want you to pray about it,
but I am going to call for Mary.  She is in New York, and she has had
more experience than me with complications."  Mary arrived a few hours
later and took over for flustered and exhausted Sheriah.  Twelve hours
had passed since I had first told Sheriah I was in labor, and she had
missed a whole night's sleep.  Mary continued the job of stretching me
with a renewed vigor, but I was so tired, and the pain was so intense
that I could not feel the stretching.

After each contraction, which now came only a minute apart while I was
breathing hard and heavily, I asked for crushed ice.  No one told me
what time it was, but I noticed the light coming in through the window,
so I knew it had been a long time.  I also knew that we were not
supposed to scream.  Childbirth, we were told, was a natural function
of the body and should not cause excess pain.  If.  I screamed, it
would be a sign of lack of faith in the Word.  The Bible, I had
learned, said that it is God who delivers babies, so what was I worried
about?

But I could not bear the pain any longer.  I took my last rhythmic
breath and screamed for as loud and long as I wanted.  I no longer
cared what Mary or Sheriah or Cal, or anyone, would think.

"The head--it's here.  Push!  Push," cried Mary!

I took a breath and screamed through another push.

"It's a redhead!  Push again!" Were they crazy?  I didn't have any
strength left to push.  I could not do it.

"Push!  Push!" The undeniable urge to push came again, and I pushed
while a full body plopped out covered in mucus and blood.  Mary held up
a baby boy for me to see, and then she cut the umbilical cord and gave
him to Sheriah to wash.

I was ecstatic, but the work was not finished.  Mary, who was very
knowledgeable about childbirth, told me to stand up and squat so the
afterbirth could come out.  Then she washed me and helped me onto a
clean, soft bed that had been prepared.  Finally, they brought in the
baby.

He was a beautiful nine-pound infant.  His perfectly rounded head was
covered with bright red hair.  Cal had been given a dream in which the
baby had red hair and he wanted to name him after the Norse god of
thunder.  The day he had the dream, he had read a verse in the Bible
about James and John being the "sons of thunder."  Although only Bible
names were the rule in the Family, we named him Thor.  As I adored him
lying in the softness of my rounded arm and sucking firmly at my
nipple, I thought that never again in my life would I be sad.  The
moment should have been eternal, but it was snatched away all too soon
by Sheriah.

"You have to get up and get dressed," she barked.  "You ripped pretty
badly, and you will have to go to a doctor."  As she said the word
"doctor," I shuddered.  We all knew that one went to a doctor only
because of lack of faith.  We had read about the sister who was in
labor for three days, and when she finally went to the doctor, Mo said,
she developed a spiritual problem.  What was my problem?

Oh, who cared?  My baby was fine and healthy.  That was all that
mattered.

Cal helped me to get dressed, and one of the brothers drove us to the
nearest hospital.  I sat in the emergency room for over an hour while
Cal talked to the nurse.

"They won't take you," he reported when he finally came back.  "They
said you are too much of a risk since you did not have the baby here in
the hospital."  I felt weak and was shivering.  I was continuing to
lose blood, and I had no idea how big was this rip that needed to be
sewn.

The brother suggested we try another hospital, which was farther
away.

By the time we arrived, I was holding on to both of them for support.

Cal went to talk to the nurse again, but no one would believe that I
had just had a baby until they came and saw me.

"Bring her in here," they said.  Within an hour I had been sewn by a
kind young intern who later advised us to go to an obstetrician, but I
never went to one.

I went back to the Troy home and spent the rest of the night admiring
my sleeping baby who lay snuggled in my arms.  Early the next morning,
I had a message to see Sheriah.  She was the colony leader's wife in
addition to being midwife.

"My husband has already talked to Cal," she said sharply.  "We have
prayed about this, and we believe that you two must seek the Lord for
an answer."

"An answer to what?" I asked.

"Well, as to why the delivery went so badly," she retorted, looking
surprised that I would not know.  "I want you to pray about this and
write me a report today."  I was left speechless.  The absolutely most
beautiful memory that a woman can have in her lifetime, that of giving
birth to her firstborn, had been splattered with this acid of someone
else's cruel reality.  Now every time I recalled that wonderful
experience, I would remember that I had somehow failed.

Returning to Boston in a week, I was grateful to be back.  The Family
life in a "regular" home was so disciplined, and the leaders seemed to
be very harsh.  After my experience in Troy, I appreciated the colony
in Boston where musicians could still joke and laugh about the
idiosyncrasies of life.  Jeremy was always a great one for seeing humor
in everything, and he was an inspiration to me because he had given up
fame and riches to follow the Lord.  Although he was respected by most
leaders with a kind of man-worship attitude, which placed the "great
Jeremy Spencer from Fleetwood Mac" slightly above others, he still
lived pretty much like the rest of us, with one memorable exception.

One day, some FBI agents showed up at our apartment looking for the
English rock musician who probably had visa problems and found Jeremy
in the backyard on "kitchen duty" splitting beans for dinner.  Every
one acted completely calm, and the FBI seemed perturbed by our lack of
anxiety.  Little did they realize that we "knew" everything was in
God's hands, so we had nothing to fear from man's laws and
activities.

I was not aware of the details of this incident.  In fact, it was only
years later that my husband told me it was the FBI who had come to our
home.  However, my husband said that this visit from the FBI was why
Jeremy and his family left our home to go to a COG colony in Europe.

Jeremy, behaving in his typical ingenuous manner toward these men who
seemed to be important in the world, made me laugh, and I realized
after my first day back that I had not laughed during my entire
four-week stay in Troy.  I decided to work harder and never complain
again about being in the band home.

However, life in the Boston home had changed since I had been gone.

There had been some trouble at Columbia Records involving scandals in
their business, which had nothing to do with us, but for some reason,
the band took all of the money that was owed them and left Columbia
Records.  In any case, the album did not become the big hit we expected
it to be.  We heard that Mo was not happy with the hard rock album that
Jeremy and the band recorded.  In a letter titled "Conferences,
Colonies, Bands, and Buses," dated July 15, 1973, after the album
Jeremy and the Children had been released, Mo wrote, Those poor band
groups have been in pretty bad shape for a long time ever since they
got this big-band spirit when the system took them over!  But they
disobeyed and didn't do what we told them to do...I 
think these band people have got what they wanted, They wanted a band
and they wanted a record--But they failed to be a success or hit because
they didn't do it God's way...Maybe we should make such folks an
associate colony, if they're not interested in following our authority
and obeying only us.  [253, 10-11] Since Mo did not mention the name of
the band he was talking about, although we were the only ones in the
group who made a record at that time, we never were sure whether he
meant us.  Mo was often vague in naming offenders in his specific
judgments, but the result was that none of us wanted to be considered
an "associate," which in COG terminology meant a second-rate
disciple.

We decided to split up and go to homes in Europe--the new mission
field.

That would be a big change for everyone, but for me it did not matter,
since I believed that the life of a revolutionary was always changing,
always growing, and always moving forward.  The money we had was used
for plane tickets, and anything left over was given to other families
who wanted to leave for Europe.  Most of the band members decided to go
to Italy or France.  Because I had a German mother, Cal and I decided
to go to Germany with our son Thor.

We planned to fly out of New York in the fall of 1973, when Thor was
barely three months old.  Again, I never saw any money or even
documents, unless I had to sign something.  Cal and the leaders took
care of the paperwork, and I just followed the instructions like a good
soldier.  We were asked to obtain as much money and goods as we could
from our relatives before leaving.  I had stayed in contact with my
mother through frequent letters and less frequent phone calls, such
communication was being encouraged by our leaders now because Mo had
recently advised disciples to write their parents and relatives.  I
believe it was suggested because of the persecution and investigation
that had followed when irate parents and relatives went to the
authorities seeking to learn the whereabouts of their children.  In my
case, until I lived in the band colony, I never opened a letter from my
mother without a leader looking over my shoulder.  If she sent any
money, I was urged to give it to the leader right away, to be put to
use in God's work.  What good would money do for me anyway--I could not
go out and spend it.  I soon learned that most disciples asked their
parents for things, like clothes and pens and paper.  Cal had learned
to increase his few personal belongings with help from his parents, and
before we had our baby, they had supplied us with all the baby clothes
we needed and a beautiful handmade cradle.  Since Cal's parents lived
relatively close by, in upstate New York, we visited them before we
left for Europe.  Having an upper-middleclass income, they could afford
to buy us new clothes and camping gear.  They also paid for our visits
to a dentist, it was my first visit since I had joined the COG.  While
we were at Cal's parents' house, one of my sisters, Marlene, and her
husband and new baby brought my mother to see me before I left.  I had
not seen my mother since I had "forsaken all" in 1971.  It was now
1973, but I was not nostalgic.  By now my natural feelings had been
buried so deep, I could think only about witnessing to them.  My sister
asked Jesus into her heart and told me about the difficulties of
parenthood and work.  I told her,"That's life in the system.  "
Unfortunately, I showed barely any affection to the sister closest to
me, less than two years younger in age, and the one who had gone to the
peace march in Washington with me.  She was only eighteen, and before
she reached her twenty-first birthday, she died in a car accident.  I
never saw her after this day in New York.

Cal told me that we had been given enough money to get through the
borders in Europe and three-month visas.  We landed in Amsterdam and
had to race for a train to Germany, arriving in Essen on a wet, cold
evening.  No one had come to pick us up as planned, and after hours of
waiting and many phone calls, we finally arrived at the Essen colony.

Essen, a large industrial city in northern Germany, is not known for
its scenic beauty.  It is a factory-fueled city, and in the middle of
the winter, the gray from the smokestacks was lost in the gray of the
skies.

What I remember most about the German houses is the stark white lace
curtains in every window.  I thought there must have been a law in
Essen that everyone must have lace curtains, but I later saw them all
over Germany.  They looked pretty, and for some reason the curtains
made the gloomy feeling I felt, living the winter in Essen, a little
more bearable.

Our new home turned out to be an old three-story schoolhouse inhabited
by over a hundred disciples.  Mo had written a letter about letting the
nationals take over the leadership of the homes in Europe, since they
knew the culture and language of the land.  Therefore, power-hungry
older brothers were quickly marrying national sisters, usually barely
three months in the Family, so they could keep their leadership
positions.

That seemed to be the case in Germany anyway.

The colony leaders were Samson and Naomi, who together ruled the home
with Gestapo-like authority.  Naomi was a pretty German girl whose
father had helped the Family when the group first arrived in Essen.

Wealthy or influential friends of the Family were called "kings," and
Naomi's father, a respected Christian businessman, saw our group as
dedicated young Christians.  He later changed his attitude about us, as
most of our kings did.  Samson, a suave, clean-cut looking young man,
was one of the early pioneers from America, and he savored his
leadership power.  Everything ran like clockwork in the large home, the
disciples were kept constantly busy cleaning it, begging for food and
supplies, or going out onto the streets witnessing.

The nursery was located in one of the larger classrooms on the second
floor, near the girls' bathroom, and I was immediately put to work.

There were already a dozen small babies in the house and a dozen more
on the way.  Since we were forbidden to use any form of birth control,
and babies were considered God's blessing, they kept coming.  Any one
who knew about child care could be sure of a twenty four-hour job.

Naomi had never been trained properly in child care, in fact she was
not trained in anything, which left her with a huge complex to
overcome.

Most leaders' wives had been in the Family longer than Naomi, and had
received some form of training from elder sisters in areas of office
work, kitchen supervision, housecleaning, or child care.  However,
Naomi had joined the home as a sort of "princess," her father being a
king of course, and she had received the typical pampered treatment
allotted those who were somehow special.  That really rubbed my
communistic ideals the wrong way, but as always, I knew there was a
lesson for me to learn here.  Maybe I needed to be more humble.  Maybe
I would learn to love Cal here in Essen.

Naomi suggested that Cal and I sleep in the nursery, which meant being
awakened all through the night.  Furthermore, she did not relieve Cal
of any work or witnessing responsibilities, and I had to participate in
other work duties as well, which contributed to a chronic feeling of
tiredness.

The Germall home existed mainly from the donations it collected on the
street and by "litnessing," now the most popular method of raising
money in the Family.  It involved "selling" our Family News and Mo
letters on the streets.  I had been out litnessing a few times in the
United States, but since we had kept some of the money the band earned
playing at clubs, I was never pressured to bring in a certain amount.

Here in Germany, I learned that everyone had a quota of literature to
hand out, and of donation money they were expected to bring in.  The
literature was translated into the language of the land, and in this
way, these pieces of paper became the witness.  Mo had been writing a
series of letters on how to witness with his "wonder-working words" and
recently he suggested that all the disciples "sell" them to people on
the streets, in airports, shopping centers, or wherever else they could
get people to stop for a minute.  Ideally, the method included
witnessing about Jesus to anyone who looked interested, but many times
we were so busy trying to get money, we did not have time.

The German leadership had set quotas for literature that had to be sold
by each disciple every day.  The quotas were determined by the amount
of time that the leaders thought a disciple could devote to this method
of witnessing.  For example, the lowly disciple who worked in the
kitchen early morning and late evening supposedly had all day to spend
on the streets litnessing, so his quota would be high, maybe a hundred
letters a day.  However, the leaders, who had to spend many hours
reading the Word, praying, and making important decisions about colony
life, would usually have a low quota, or no quota at all.  Cal and I
fell somewhere in the middle.

Since Cal was a musician, he thought he could use his talent in the
colony band, but music was not highly valued in the German home, so Cal
was given no practice time and a pretty high quota.  Since I was a
nursing mother, and spent many hours day and night in the nursery, my
quota was lower.  Still, it was never easy to make.

"What do I say?" I asked a sister as I stepped out the door on my
first day carrying a pack of lit, Thor tucked snugly into a Cadillac of
a baby buggy, bundled in everything I could find to keep out the cold
north German winter.

"Just hand them a pamphlet and say, 'Konnen she itte eine spende
geben?'" answered the American girl, who had been here for three
months.

"It means, Can you give a donation, please?" 

"Won't they ask what this is, and why I want a donation?" 

"It's better if you don't know
what to say.  These German businesspeople will just argue with you
anyway.  So just say, 'lul, icht Perstehe,' and move on if they don't
reach for their pocket.  Believe me, it's not worth trying to talk with
them."

"What if I find someone sheepy?  Do you know enough German to
witness?" 

"No, I never learned much more than to ask for a donation.
You don't have to.  If they are sheepy, they'll probably know
English.
All the young people here know English."  She was right in her
assessment.  Businessmen either gave a donation right away, or started
yelling something like "Hrbeite, arbeite!" which meant "Go work!"
The young people knew English very well, and they were the only ones
who were interested in talking with me.  I never learned more German
than how to ask for a donation.

Even though it was cold and very difficult to make a quota in that
tough and dreary city, I loved to go out litnessing.  It meant being
away from the nursery, away from the colony, and most of all, away from
Naomi.  I had the distinct impression that she did not like me, but
perhaps everyone felt that way about her.  She always had some command
for me whenever she abruptly entered the nursery.

"Don't you think the babies should be patted to sleep?" she snapped
one day when she found me sitting down reading the Bible while a few
babies were stirring before taking their naps.

From then on, we had to pat babies to sleep, which was not a good habit
to encourage when there are twelve babies and only two adult patters.

"Why don't you write verses on this big chalkboard," she questioned on
another day.  "Then you can memorize out loud while you are working
with the babies.  I am sure it will help them in the Spirit to hear the
Word."  After that, we always had verses written across the huge
blackboards, which had to be changed daily, of course.

Still, I felt fortunate to be working in the nursery instead of in the
kitchen or office, where Naomi made many more demands on the poor
workers.  Cal would often come up from the kitchen in a rage over the
stupid suggestions made by Naomi.

"And it's not like you can talk to her about anything," he
complained.
"She won't allow anyone to question her suggestions."  It was evident
that Cal wanted to leave the country, but it was hard to get out.  In
the band colony in Boston, Cal always was allowed to keep a little
spending money, maybe twenty dollars or so, but here in Germany, every
mark was handed in, and if it looked like you did not make enough, you
might be accused of holding some money back.  The story in the Bible of
Ananias and Sapphira, found in Acts, Chapter 5, was constantly held
over our heads in the typical Big Brother fashion.  I heard this story
when I had my first "forsake all" doubts.  It seems two of the early
disciples did not hand in to Peter all the money they had earned from
land they had sold, and they were immediately struck down dead by God
as a warning to all.  I really doubted that God would do that for a
few bucks, but even so, where could we go if we had money to get
there?

To live at another home anywhere in the world, one needed clearance
first, which involved a series of letters to the colony leaders and
recommendations from your present colony leader.  It was like getting a
job.  And I suspected that Naomi would not want me going anywhere since
I had become her only stable nursery worker.  She thought I was
dedicated to the work, but actually, I just wanted to stay near my son
as much as possible, and my plan worked.  As a musician, Cal had no
talent to offer the litnessing colony in Germany.  To make matters
worse, he was used to the musician's life with a less disciplined
structure.  The tension of hating where he was and being incapable of
changing his situation weighed heavily on his mind, body, and spirit.

Our bedroom area in the nursery was situated in a loft overlooking the
cribs full of babies.  We had a mattress on the floor, but, being in
the nursery, it was one of the warmest spots in the cold, drafty
building.  Interrupted often by the babies' cries, Cal never could
sleep very well, and his lack of sleep, combined with the stress he was
experiencing, caused him to become physically weak.  One day he could
not get out of bed.  He had developed a terrible case of dysentery, and
I began to take care of him, as well as the babies.  Some time *** make it
to the bathroom, which was located far down the hall.  Caring for Cal
brought me closer to him in an emotional way, but I don't think he
recognized this at the time.  His single-minded intention was to get
out of that colony in any way he could.  Hardships are said to often
bring a family closer, and the unhappiness we both felt living in Essen
made me feel a sense of camaraderie with Cal.  It was short lived.

The chance for Cal to escape from his less than joyful situation came
when he heard that Jeremy was in Paris starting up another band.  Cal
sent him a letter, and our leaders received word from Hopie, who was
Mo's daughter, that Cal should be sent to Paris immediately.

Although there was not room for me and our baby, Cal accepted the
invitation and was gone within days.  He was told that he might be
staying in Paris for a short time only, but that if he stayed longer,
he would do what he could to get us there quickly.  I was truly happy
for Cal, and I did not think much about our separation.  Also, I knew
that he had a better chance of getting me out of here from Paris than
he did in Essen.

Weeks passed, and there seemed to be little he could do to bring his
family to France.  I received a few letters from Cal saying that Paris
was a wonderful place, the home was totally different from any he had
been in, and the band was probably going to go into the recording
studio soon.  I'm sure he missed us, but I think he was so excited
about his new start in Paris, he did not spend much time thinking about
how his wife and child would get there.  We were trained to trust the
Lord.  Cal wrote that the home in Paris was made up mostly of
musicians, singers, and their wives.  They lived in a converted stable,
and there was no room for children.

It seemed that Cal was incapable of arranging for me to get to Paris,
for whatever the reasons, and there was little for me to do but pray.

Naomi would be of no help, and without the leader's permission, I would
not be accepted in any colony, let alone have the money to get there.

A few months after Cal left Germany, a visiting leader came by our
colony who gave me a ray of hope.

Bithia, a tall, lanky young woman, was the wife of a top leader from
London.  She and her husband were not only nationals, they were from
high society, which appeared to have status value even in the COG.

Having had an elitist upbringing, Bithia was used to doing just what
she wanted, and she could not be told by any leader, let alone a
domineering Naomi, what to do.  Bithia had three small children, who
were born before she joined the COG.  She was used to buying whatever
she wanted for them, and although she was trying to live communally,
like others in the Family, she often wrote her parents for extra money
to buy the kids something, which she did not turn over to the
leaders.

Since her youngest child slept in the nursery, Bithia hung around and
talked with me.  We recognized our kindred rebellious spirits.

"This is really a rigid colony here, isn't it?" she commented one
day.

She had just set her baby on the rug and lounged back in a way that
suggested she had always lived a life of ease.

"What do you mean?" I responded, carefully watching that her baby
would not poke my son with the pencil that he had grabbed from Bithia's
open bag.

"I mean, Naomi, and her husband, they run this place like a prison.
It isn't like this in England.  And, boy, you should see Paris!" she
said with a smile on her face.

"Were you in the Paris colony?" 

"Yeah, I just came from there.  It's pretty...You know Hopie is
there, and being Mo's daughter, she gets all Mo's letters before they
come to us.  The Paris home is practicing what we haven't even heard
about yet."

"Like what?" Bithia studied me for a moment, and decided she could be
open.

"Well, have you heard about sharing?" 

"In what way?" 

She divulged what she knew about "sharing," a new outlook on communal
sexuality, but she did not completely reveal what was going on in
Paris.

Bithia often took me with her on shopping excursions in Essen, even
though Naomi would insist that Bithia take a sister who could speak
German.

"No, I want someone who can help me with the kids," she said, and, as
always, she did what she wanted.

One day while shopping, she asked about my husband.

"So, are you and Cal breaking up?" 

"No, I don't think so.  He said he was trying to get me to Paris."

"He did?" she laughed.  "Well, I would say he probably is too busy in
Paris to worry about a wife and son."

"What do you mean?" 

"Well, Paris has a lot of men away from their wives, and single girls
are ready and willing to serve them."

"Are you saying that Cal shares sexually?" 

"I am not saying anything.  I don't know what anyone does in the
bedroom.  I am saying that I would not leave a husband alone in Paris
very long."

"Well, what can I do about it?  Naomi will never give me permission to
go to Paris."  Actually, I was more concerned about getting out of
Germany than about what my husband might be doing.

"I'll see what I can do for you," said Bithia.  "I have a direct
contact with Hopie."  The next day, Bithia came excitedly into the
nursery.

"I talked to Hopie last night," she exclaimed.  "She's such an angel.
It seems that they want to start a nursery in Paris, and they need
workers, so she is going to send a letter to Naomi about you coming
there."

"Oh, Bithia, you are wonderful!" I cried, giving her a hug.

"But, look, Jeshanah, you have to keep on top of this.  I will be
leaving in a few days, and I will do what I can from London.  However,
Hopie is a bit spacy, you know, and she might forget."  Bithia did
leave in a few days, and she left the Family before our paths ever
crossed again.  Since I did not have any kind of communication with
Hopie, there was little to do but pray.  A couple of days later Naomi
said that Hopie would be calling me on the phone that night, at eight
o'clock sharp.

I waited by the phone anxiously.  The call came in around
nine-thirty.

"Hello.  Is this Jeshanah?" piped a sweet, high voice on the other
end of the line.

"Yes, this is me."

"Praise the Lord.  It is wonderful to hear you, sweetie.  Your husband
is such a dear, and he talks of you all the time."

"Well, thank you.  I hear so many wonderful things about you too."

"Well, it is only the Lord, sweetie.  Anything good about us is only
the Lord.  Isn't He so loving?" 

"Yes, praise the Lord!"

"Hallelujah!  So, Bithia tells me you are great with kids.  Bithia is a
dear, you know, and so discerning.  I trust her completely."

"I have been working with babies since Ellenville."

"Well, honey, we don't have a nursery set up here, you know.  It is
very primitive.  The conditions are extremely crowded, and we have only
one bathroom for everyone.  Sometimes we have over a hundred people
here, but we are trying to keep that down now."

"Oh, I could set up a nursery.  That would not be a problem."

"Well, we can see about that later.  But I want you to know, this is no
place for a baby.  You might have to sleep on the floor.  And we all
eat the same food.  We don't have a special fridge for moms and babies
here."

"Oh, that is fine.  I will take care of the food.  My son is strong and
healthy."  By now, I had been living by faith for so long, I believed
the Lord would protect me from anything, especially if I was in the
presence of Hopie.  Mo's youngest daughter was like a role model for
me.  Youthful, energetic, and spontaneous, she often got in trouble
with the more organizational-type leaders, but that just made her seem
more saintlike in my eyes.  Hopie was only a few years older than I,
yet I knew she had already pioneered most of the European homes.  Mo
sent his singing daughter and a team of musicians into every country
first, and after she made a few contacts with established nationals,
setting up a base to start with, more of our disciples would stream
into the country.

I was proud to be part of her team.

"Well, praise the Lord, dear.  It seems you have a lot of faith.
Okay.  I'm going to tell Naomi to send you over.  Hallelujah!  Does
that make you happy, sweetie?" 

"Oh, yes," I exclaimed, not knowing how much
enthusiasm I should express to leave Essen, with Naomi standing right
next to me.  I decided to show my true feelings.  "Hopie, I want to be
there with you and the band and my husband.  Bithia told me that the
Spirit is really moving in Paris, and I want to be part of it and help
in any way I can."

"Praise the Lord, honey, you will.  Now give me Naomi and I will talk
to her."  Naomi took the phone in her normal stern manner and motioned
for me to leave.  I walked away on a cloud and went back up to the
dirty diapers, warm milk bottles, and crying babies.  They were like
heaven to me now.

It took about two weeks to arrange for me to leave, and to find a
replacement for me in the nursery, then, carrying Thor, and all my
possessions in two bags, I took the train to France.  The leadership
provided me with the necessary paperwork to make the journey.

Paris was another world for me.  Not only did what was happening in
Paris represent a turning point in COG history, but Paris was the
prototype of things to come.  Bithia and Hopie had been truthful about
the conditions, they were primitive and physically difficult.  We lived
in what had been an actual stable, when horses were still used in
Paris, in a part of the city called Port de Pantin.  The stables had
been converted quickly and shabbily to provide the basic necessities of
living, such as running water and gas for cooking.  There was a large
all-purpose room where we ate and had our meetings and inspiration.

In the back was a small kitchen, and there were a few rooms that had
been hastily constructed in various corners so that some of the married
couples could have privacy.  Cal and I were given one of those rooms,
which was large enough for a twin mattress and our suitcases on the
side.  The mattress covered most of the cement floor, so each morning I
arranged our suitcases in such a way that Thor could crawl about
without scraping his knees on the rough cement.  Actually, he never
crawled much, he started to walk at ten months.  I have always wondered
if it was due to his having had so little crawling space.

Upstairs was a communal bathroom with only a curtain hung up for
privacy.  Next door was the girls' dorm.  The boys all slept downstairs
in the main room.  Leaders had two rooms built on the side of the
girls' dorm.  The population of the colony varied daily, as visiting
leaders and disciples came and went, the permanent population was
around fifty.  A married couple who acted as "shepherds" for the home,
and Hopie and her husband, Joab, the top leaders, lived somewhere
else.

Only the leaders in this colony had their wives with them, since the
married musicians had left their wives back in London, or wherever they
had last been.  It was a miracle that they had allowed me to come.

Obviously, taking care of one's daily hygienic needs was a problem.

Every one was advised to use the bathrooms in cafes or restaurants
whenever they were out litnessing.  All showers were taken at the local
public baths.

There was no regular schedule for eating.  Breakfast usually consisted
of oatmeal soaked in milk overnight, with raisins, nuts, or whatever
dried fruit was available.  Since this concoction, which we called
muesli, was prepared the night before and put in the refrigerator,
everyone ate whenever they were ready, however, the table was cleared
by noon.  I remember developing a tremendous liking for this cereal
mixture, and although we ate muesli every morning, I never grew tired
of it.

Unlike in the Essen home, if people were hungry, they could ask the
head cook for food.  Since the head cook changed every few days, there
was no one to blame if all the food ran out.  However, as soon as we
had a steady person in charge of the kitchen, free access to the
refrigerator stopped.  Almost everyone not in the band was supposed to
be out on the streets selling literature or collecting donated food by
noon.  There was only one other mother besides myself, and we could
arrange our own schedules.  I had learned in Essen not to ask for
anything, but to pray for it.  So unless the other mother, who was only
passing through, requested special privileges for us, I usually just
followed along with the normal witnessers.  All the band, musicians and
singers, had a schedule of their own, led by Hopie and her husband,
Joab, and I saw Cal only at night.

Despite the harsh living conditions, I was euphoric about being in
Paris.  The city was a treasure to explore, and I had no leadership
keeping tabs on me.  After a few days, I understood that whatever one
was lacking in physical necessities--food, clothes, personal items--could
be bought from litnessing money.  As long as I showed up for
inspiration in the evening, I could do pretty much what I wanted.  This
schedule created chaos organizationally, but it was a haven for
independent-minded disciples like myself.  Of course, I didn't have any
money with which to buy extra food, but I quickly solved that
problem.

After learning how to ask for a donation in French, I began partnering
with Elam, whom I had recognized as a good litnesser.  Elam had been in
Europe ever since Mo first allowed disciples who were not leaders to
come over.  He already spoke three languages, and with his dashing good
looks, he concentrated his litnessing on women.  I soon learned that in
gay Paris, the relationship between men and women, even complete
strangers, quickly takes on a romantic flavor.  I watched Elam as he
charmed a Parisian beauty, and within five minutes came back with ten
francs.  The French were typically rather snobby, unless one knew the
power of charm.  Luckily for me, Elam taught me this without saying a
word, I picked it up intuitively, but I think living in Paris had
something to do with it.

The first time we went out together to litness, I had Thor with me in a
foldable stroller, and I carried all the changes of clothes, diapers,
jars of food, cookies, and Mo letters in a big bag on my shoulder.  We
had a late start because I had to prepare the baby, but Elam did not
mind.  Every one was given a metro ticket to start the day.  Elam
started passing out letters on the metro platform and asking for
donations.  By the time we left the metro station, he had some money.

"Let's get something to eat," he suggested.  He stopped at a cheese
store and bought a piece of Gruyere.  Then we went into a bakery and
asked for a hot baguette (a long, thin loaf of French bread).

"Here," he said, handing me the bread and a piece of cheese,"put this
in the bread and let it melt.  It's delicious."  I did as he said.  It
was one of the most memorable meals I ever had.

The warm bread had melted the cheese to a soft, sensuous consistency,
and the freshly baked bread held a fragrance I could never forget.  We
stood on the side of the busy Boulevard St. -Michel, eating with
gusto.

It was the first time since I had come to Europe that I bought food in
a store on my own.  In Germany we had not been allowed to spend any of
the money we made, and we had to take food from the colony, if it was
provided.  Elam sensed that I was enjoying his humble gift of food.

There were some moments during life in the Family when communion
between the right combination of people in the most simple and human
situations made the harsh realities of communal life seem like a
stepping-stone to an eternal connection with the universal soul.  Of
course, at that time, I could never describe these moments as such, but
I knew they were special.  This was one of them.

"Hey, did you ever have a Greek pastry?" he asked.

"No, what is it?" 

"Wait, let me get some money."  Elam stopped a few
people and sold a few more letters.  I followed him to another store,
where he bought something called a baklava.

"This is marvelous," I said, my mouth full of exotic tastes of sesame
and honey.

He also bought a drink called Orangina, which was a bubbly orange
juice.  It became my favorite French soft drink.

Thor was about a year old then, and he had started to eat adult food
cut up in small pieces.  I gave him some of the pastry, which he seemed
to enjoy, and he picked the sticky crust from his fingers.

By now it was night, but the streets of the Latin Quarter seemed busier
than before.  I was worried that we should start litnessing so we could
get home with some money before inspiration.  Elam smiled knowingly,
and I felt so dependent on him at that moment.

"Don't worry," he said,"we don't have quotas here like they do in
other colonies.  This is the freest place you will ever find in the
Family.  Enjoy it while you can.  Besides, if you don't make anything,
I will give you half of mine."  

Elam was right about the Paris home.  Unfortunately, it did not stay
like that forever, but while we had freedom, I enjoyed it immensely.

One night Joab read us a new Mo letter titled "One Wife."  Joab was a
big, hairy man, at least ten years older than his wife, Hopie, but
although I never talked with him very much, I knew he was a gentle man
despite his rough appearance.  He had kept us excited by this new
letter for days, dropping hints that "this was a bomb," and "the
revolution will never be the same."  Joab had been one of the first to
join the Family, when it was still called the Revolution, and his
favorite antic was to stop in mid-sentence and scream,"It's a
Revolution," to which all fifty-odd of us would scream back,"For
Jesus!" That night he stopped to scream about every two minutes.

"Are you ready, brothers?" he asked, his dark eyes grinning with
excitement.  "This letter will divide the sheep from the goats."

"One Wife" talked about everyone being married to everyone else, and
not having selfish little marriage units.

God's in the business of breaking up little selfish private worldly
families to make of their yielded broken pieces a larger unit--one
Family.

He's in the business of destroying the relationships of many wives in
order to make them One Wife--God's Wife--the Bride of Christ!...In 
other words, partiality toward your own wife or husband or children
strikes at the very foundation of communal living.  [249, 9, 12] 

Since I always thought we were all spiritually married to everyone
else in the Family, I did not find the message of this letter
particularly shocking.  However, it turned out to be one of the
significant letters of our history, starting us down the road to
threesome marriages and group sex.

Other letters came out around the same time with new revelations about
the freedom we were given in the Family,"Revolutionary Women,"
"Revolutionary Sex," "Lovelight," "Jealousy," "Women in Love.  "
Most of this freedom centered around sex, in fact, sexual liberation
seemed to be the pathway to spiritual growth, as laid out in the new
letters.

Women were told to dress and act sexier, to attract and keep the
attention of men.  Couples were told that jealousy is pride and "the
selfishness of private property."  A wife was reprimanded for not
"sharing" her husband with another woman.  With the average age of COG
members between eighteen and twenty-five at that time, any new
liberties in this area were welcomed.  We had been under traditional
moral guidelines since the Family's beginning, and these new freedoms
in the area of sex were exciting and desirable.  They didn't seem
perverted, in fact, every new revelation about sex was supported with
Bible verses or Bible stories.  There is much in the Song of Solomon
about lovemaking, and a few of the Old Testament patriarchs often
seemed more immoral than some of our contemporary television
evangelists.  I would venture to say that the modern Moral Majority
would not approve of King David dancing naked in the streets, or of his
taking other men's wives to bed, stories that can be found in the
Bible.  Any new revelation for which a Bible reference could not be
found was covered by Jesus' words,"I have yet many things to say unto
you, but ye cannot bear them now" (John 16, 12).  The implication was
that we were now ready for what Jesus did not tell his disciples, and
Mo was revealing these things to us.  In addition, the sexual sharing
at this time involved only those who had obtained a position of
leadership.  I had heard of and tried the "free love" philosophy before
when I was a hippie, and it didn't seem to bring any greater community,
perhaps this was only for the more spiritually advanced, such as our
leaders.

Although I was always curious by nature, I was not very enthusiastic
about sharing sexually with just any brother.  However, I was
interested in the concept laid out in "Flirty Little Fishy," which
explained how Maria, Mo's mistress, lured men to Jesus by using her
flirtatious powers as a woman.  Although it was written in January
1974, it would be a year before we tried this method of witnessing, but
I was inexplicably intrigued by the metaphor of "catching fish" (men)
with the bait (women) on a hook (the love of God), cast by a fisherman
(Mo or other male leader).  Why did this prick my interest?  Why was I
fascinated by a woman being used by a man to lure other men?  The image
was a classic pimp-prostitute model, but I did not recognize it.  Even
if I had, we had already learned that God can use anything the devil
uses for His own glory.  Mo taught us that the devil had a monopoly on
sex, and we were going to bring it back into God's realm.

Strangely, although many of us had been sexually liberated before we
joined, those who had come from the more religious fundamentalist
backgrounds took this new license to the furthest extremes.  As sex
became more and more prevalent in our lifestyle, I noticed that the
most insistent to follow the letters were those men and women who had
been good church-raised Christians and had never gone "astray" as I
had.  For instance, Mo's own permanent lover, Maria, had been a very
strict churchgoer before she joined the Family, and Mo was her first
sexual partner.  Most of the girls I knew who became lovers of leaders,
and even those who went to Mo's house, were former churchy "saints.  "
I don't know if they actually enjoyed the sexual freedom, or if they
were just oriented to obedience!  I followed these letters in part
because I had always been rebellious to authority, and I was therefore
now trying to prove I was a good disciple.  And since, for some unknown
reason, I seemed to be resigned to a life of sexually "giving" to men,
the new concepts on sex and sharing did not bother me.  In fact, it was
easier to follow than trying to sell Mo letters on the street.

My husband was more intrigued by these new letters than I was.  Since
we did not have our own individual copies of the letters at that time,
Cal tried to obtain copies to read over and over.  He informed me, as
if he were letting me in on a closely guarded secret, that there was
quite a bit of hanky-panky going on among the leaders here in the Paris
home.  In particular, Hopie, Mo's own daughter, and Joab, her husband,
each had started intimate relationships with single brothers and
sisters.  Since this was closer to home, my interest was further
piqued.  I realized that Beth, a young single woman who had joined the
Family in Scandinavia, wasn't sleeping in the dorm.  She had her own
bedroom in a small area behind the leaders' office.  I knew that there
were quite a few married men who were living in Paris without their
wives, and I began to wonder how much "one wife" principles were being
followed in the area of sexual sharing here in our colony.  I wondered
if I would be sharing Cal with anyone soon, and I truthfully did not
feel jealousy or experience any anxiety over this thought.  At
twenty-one years of age, I was interested in whom I might be able to
share with, mostly out of curiosity.  Sadly, this should have been the
time of my life when I would seriously be looking for a lifelong
partner, but one had already been chosen for me.

Since I rarely had the chance to become friends with a brother, I
understood how sexual sharing could allow deeper relationships to
develop.  Our life was so busy--everyone spent most of their time either
working in the home, litnessing, or attending meetings--that we rarely
had time to nurture friendships.  Sharing sexually certainly seemed
like a way to promote deeper friendships as well as the essential
feeling of unity with one another.  I did not have a sexual desire or
an emotional longing to become close to another man, and I don't
remember having a physical attraction to anyone at that time either.

But I would have liked someone to talk to.  However, these were nothing
more than fantasies, since at this point, the sharing concept was the
privilege of leaders only.  In fact, I learned later that only in the
Paris colony, the London homes, and the big colony in Italy where the
leaders congregated was sexual experimentation actually being
practiced.  Cal expressed conflicting hopes and worries about
sharing.

I think he liked the idea for himself, but he wasn't too keen on
letting someone else make love to me.  However, with our busy
schedules, Cal practicing all day with the band, and myself exploring
Paris and raising Thor as a gypsy, we were too absorbed to worry about
it for long.

My Paris days were exploding with exciting sensations of life.  I was
learning French.  I was also becoming cultured, which was an adventure
for a young, inquisitive American girl.  I had little time or money for
the relatively expensive museums, but the Paris streets alone are full
of culture.  Every day I was eager to go out into the colorful city
that I was beginning to love.  I took Thor to every park in the city,
and his first pony ride was in the famed Jardin des Tuileries.  I
delighted sipping a milk with strawberry syrup, a drink I could share
with Thor, while sitting on a crowded cafe patio, imagining that the
lone person beside me was a starving artist waiting for his work to be
discovered.

I always dashed away these fantasies, since litnessing was my primary
concern.  On the street, I considered myself a better witnesser than
litnesser, which meant I could talk to someone about spirituality more
successfully than I could sell Mo letters.  Essentially, I thought of
myself as some type of angel, rescuing lost souls from the devil's
clutch.  For instance, while I was waiting for a metro train one
evening, I saw a young man pacing up and down the platform and felt an
urge to talk with him.  As I got closer, I saw a troubled look on his
face, but the desire to speak to him became even stronger.  I
approached with a smile, and he seemed to back away in apprehension.

After hearing my noticeably American accent, he relaxed, and eventually
we sat on the bench, along with my litnessing partner, as I spent hours
telling him about Jesus.  We learned that because of insurmountable
personal problems, he had decided to jump in front of a train and end
his life, not an uncommon event in the Parisian underground.  He was
nervously pacing closer and closer to the edge, waiting to jump in
front of the next train, when I had approached.  Of course, our
conversation put a stop, or at least a hold, on his immediate
intentions, and he asked Jesus into his heart and came to our home for
visits quite a few times afterward.

Caroline, a young, pretty French woman, was another person whom I
witnessed to at a time when she needed help.  With a young child and an
abusive boyfriend, she had used up all the reserves of hope that she
had stored up for emergencies and hard times.  I met her on a corner of
the Rue Montmartre and talked to her about God.  She took my litnessing
partner and myself to her tiny apartment, where we talked for hours.

Her little girl's father was in jail, and her present boyfriend was
treating her roughly and not helping her meet her financial needs.  She
wanted a good home for her daughter, and she wanted to know more about
God and His Will for her life.  Within a few days, Caroline had left
her job, left her boyfriend, and with her daughter moved in with us.

This was our purpose in the world, to tell errant people what God's
Will was for them.  This was the type of work that drew me to the
Family, and since I was still able to help people in a very tangible
way, the apparent idiosyncrasies of the COG seemed superfluous.

Living in the Paris home, with the pampered musicians and our most
radical leaders, I was again protected from the mundane chore of
bringing in funds from selling literature.  Sure, we had quotas, which
were a set amount of money to bring back, or a certain number of pieces
of literature that had to be sold each day, however, with brothers like
Jeremy in our colony, who stood on a street corner for four hours and
sold only two Mo letters, we felt comically relieved of quota stress.

I did not realize it, or even think about it then, but wherever there
were really big leaders, like Mo's sons or daughters, or one of his
queens, there was always enough money in the home to survive.  They
obviously had a cash flow that the rest of us did not.  Perhaps our
best asset was that we had Hopie as the top leader of the Paris home.

Moses David's youngest daughter was one of the unexplainable phenomena
I found in the COG.  In my naive state of wonderment at all that seemed
true and beautiful, Hopie was the purest embodiment of it all for me,
representing selfless love in human form.  Her wispy blond hair
softened the angular lines of her face, and she looked like the good
girl next door no matter what age she was or what problems she had.

Throughout the many years I was in close contact with her, I can only
remember kind words accompanied by a smile and loving look whenever I
was in her presence.

As one of Mo's children, Hopie was considered "royal family.  "
Recently, Mo had inaugurated his oldest daughter, Esther, as Queen of
the Family.

The whole story of the real-life inauguration came out in a letter, and
more "queens" were added later.  Mo's three other children, Hopie,
Benjamin, and Joshua, were also considered part of the royal family,
and therefore top leaders, along with their wives and husbands.  Since
many of the royal family now had mistresses or lovers, they too were
classified as some form of royalty.

Actually, the added titles did not mean much to the rest of the Family,
since Mo's adult children had always been in the leadership circle.

Mo's own mistress, Maria, who was the age of his daughter, was his
constant companion, whereas his legal wife, and the mother of his royal
children, whom we affectionately called Mother Eve, now traveled the
colonies with a young consort.  Instead of considering these
relationships ungodly, I thought they were enlightening, although I
considered the titles to be foolish.  I knew that there must be a cache
of money somewhere, since the royalty and the leaders traveled so much
and always had what they needed, but I could not imagine that it was
very much.  We didn't make that much litnessing, so where could all
this money be coming from?  I knew that quite a few very wealthy people
had joined the Family, and maybe they had given all their money to the
group.  I knew that Jeremy Spencer, who had been relatively wealthy at
one time, had given everything he owned to the Lord's work, a fact that
reassured me.  Jeremy now lived in the same home that I did, and he
went out on the streets just as I did.  If he could live like this,
with all the money he had forsaken, why should I worry about who
controlled the money?  All that I had given the group was an old guitar
and a few vintage clothes.

However, any doubts about money and who had it were canceled after
meeting Hopie.  I perceived her to be a spiritual princess, and I was
honored to be in her presence.  Hopie was the one responsible for
bringing me to Paris.

By the mid-1970s, the COG were beginning to set up discos in the larger
cities in Europe, wherever we had colonies and musicians.  Initially
called the Poor Boy Clubs, these weekend discos attracted youth and
young adults by providing music and a place to dance.  Since the Family
had musicians, the entertainment cost us nothing, and there wasn't much
financing involved.  We rented a hall in a less expensive area of town,
sent our litnessers out with flyers advertising the club, and charged a
small admission at the door.  It soon became the main event of the
week, and with all the free manpower and womanpower at our disposal,
our discos became regular happenings for the Parisian teenyboppers.

Cal was now the drummer for the disco band in Paris.  Since some of the
leaders in London told us that including go-go girls drew a bigger
crowd, Hopie suggested I be a go-go girl, which meant wearing a skimpy
outfit and dancing on stage.  Not only did this new role come easy to
me, it also meant I would be free of the normal quotas for litnessing,
since I now had to practice with the band.  It was a wonderful outlet
for me, and it became a training ground that led to my professional
dancing career.  I usually brought Thor with me to practice and let
another sister watch him during the disco nights.

As important as dancing became, my primary concern was the nursery.

With more women having children in the Paris home, babies were becoming
a problem.  Fortunately, we never had a major illness or accident among
the children in Paris while I lived there, and I attributed this to
God's protection.  France, like most of Europe, had a free health
system, and if any of our members did not have the faith to heal
themselves, they could always go to the doctor.  I did not then
understand why we qualified for this service, or France's laws
concerning it, but I know that many of our mothers made use of France's
medical hospitality.  In addition, France had very strict vaccination
laws, and to avoid legal trouble, we all had our babies, Thor included,
vaccinated at the local clinics.  However, the first step toward making
the Paris stables into a home that could accommodate children came with
the arrival of Rahab.

A tall, pretty woman who had been in the Family more years than many,
Rahab had been married to Benjamin, the son and heir apparent of Moses
David.  Ben had recently fallen off a mountain in Switzerland while on
a walk and died.  Mo explained in a letter to us that his son had been
too good for the world and had gone to join forces with the spiritual
realm.

Nasty rumor had it that he had committed suicide.  Rahab was in Paris
with another mate and a small baby, and since Rahab was semiroyalty,
having been the wife of Mo's son, she had to be given a leadership
position.  Hopie put her in charge of setting up a nursery and
child-care department in Paris.  The problem was, Rahab had little
child-care training, she seemed to have no sense of organization or
scheduling, both of which were important parts of any effective
child-care program.  Joab recognized this lack of practicality, and he
suggested I work closely with her.  After a few days of meetings, I
decided that Paris must be the place they sent those leaders who were
too spiritual to do any earthly good.

Rahab and I set up a nursery in the small room next to the girls'
dorm.

It doubled as a bedroom for Cal and me, which did not make him too
happy, but since he was away all day practicing, it only interfered
with his sleep.  The nursery consisted of single mattresses on the
floor along one wall, a soft rug in the middle, and two changing tables
with covered trash containers for disposable diapers.  It had a
softwood floor, so it was safe for babies taking their first steps.

Thor was the oldest at a little over a year, and the other two babies,
Rahab's and another woman's, usually slept with their mother.  The
children usually followed the adult schedule, with a little earlier
bedtime, and single sisters took turns volunteering to read the babies
scriptures as they fell asleep.

Officially, the nursery could be used twenty-four hours a day, but only
visiting leaders and disciples made use of it at night.  Since it was
right across from the only bathroom, we brought water into the nursery
to bathe the children, and used a large tub to clean baby materials and
wash clothes.  We could not afford the expensive Montessori equipment,
which was used for the children in the bigger, well-stocked Family
nurseries, so we brought various pots and pans, plastic dishes, and
spoons from the kitchen, and odd-shaped cardboard boxes for the babies
to play with.

Rahab spent many hours in my nursery/bedroom, revealing to me the "new"
spiritual growth of the family.  She spiritualized everything, and I
wondered if she had always been like this or if she had learned it from
her deceased husband, whom I had met in Canada and remembered as an
ethereal person.  Everything from the stain on the babies' bib to the
recent death of the French politician Georges Pompidou had a deep
spiritual significance to Rahab.  Little child care was discussed.

Since Rahab came from the London home, where the organizational heads
and Mo were, she knew a few royal secrets.

"Do you know who Esther is sleeping with now?" she quipped while I
patted the last baby to sleep as he lay on the extra blankets we had
arranged on the floor.  Recently, a few mothers had come from colonies
outside Paris for meetings, and our nursery was a little crowded during
the day.  I was worried if they planned on letting the babies stay here
all night, but Rahab evidently was too spiritual to worry.

"Well, I suppose her husband, Jacob," I replied, knowing she would
soon fill me in on royal gossip.

"Oh, no.  Jacob is living with Enoch's first wife, Pearl.  That was
really a terrible thing to do to Enoch, you know.  I mean, he always
suspected that Pearl was more than Jacob's secretary, but until Mo came
out and explained about the royal family having consorts and
concubines, he really did not know, did he?  So Pearl is now Jacob's
second wife, and she's having a baby.  And Jacob's wife, Esther, is
traveling with Hosanna.  From what I hear, she is pregnant again, but
of course, no one is sure who the father could be."  Even for the Paris
home, this was radical information that I was hearing.  I tried to
change the subject, knowing that, since I was not a member of the royal
family, or even a mistress, I should probably not be privy to what went
on in their personal relationships.  I had heard that the London home
was even more on the libertine cuttingedge than the home in Paris, but
I was dedicated to our pioneer effort here and didn't care about
London's elite or what they did.  I usually had the attitude that
others could do as they liked as long as it didn't interfere with me or
my son.  But what I did not understand was that no woman is an
island--especially not one living in a commune.

"Do you think we could request funds for a crib in here?" I asked,
trying to change the topic.  "The babies should really be up off the
floor, and it would certainly be safer to have them in a crib, rather
than on the bed."

"Okay, I'll talk to Joab about that.  Well, you know, of course, that
Joab made Beth pregnant.  I wonder what Hopie is going to do about
that.  Oh well, I guess I won't be involved in their stories anymore,
now that Benjamin is gone.  Mother Eve is coming through here soon. 
She and I get along marvelously.  I think I'll ask her to take me
with her.  "

"What about the child-care program here?" I asked.

"oh, you'll do fine.  I really don't enjoy child care.  They just put
me here to give me something to do, you know.  Well, I hope you never
get stuck with Esther.  She is a tyrant to work with."  I had already
worked with a tyrant in Germany, and I had no desire to be near another
one.  Esther, however, was our Queen, and somehow I knew that with
Paris gaining the Family's attention, we would be graced with a royal
visit soon.

Mo's original wife came first.  Although she was Mo's first wife-- and I
don't think they ever divorced--she was never called a queen, just
Mother Eve.  She was a kind-looking lady in her fifties who traveled
with a young man about twenty-five years old.  Like her daughter Hopie,
she always wore a smile, and always had some words of encouragement.

Now that I had learned to read people a little better, she did not seem
old, but forgotten.  She did not keep herself as attractively attired
as the sexy French women of her age.  I knew from the letters that she
had been raised in the church and had married Mo when he was a budding
preacher.

I saw pictures of her in the Family history letters in which she was
playing a piano in church, and I wondered how this fundamentalist
Christian lady could ever be traveling and having sex with a man so
young while her husband lived with another woman.  I had been socially
prepared for this by hippie ideals, but she was more radical than I.

How did this poor lady do it?  She must really have believed that this
was God's true work.  She had followed Mo across America while he
searched for a "ministry," and had borne him four children.  When he'd
finally found his calling with the youth of California, the beginnings
of the Children of God, her children were all teenagers and witnessed
with their father to the lost hippies.  I don't think Mother Eve ever
shared the limelight during those days, but she certainly made up for
it now.

Wherever she went, she held meetings and talked for hours.  We never
knew what to think of her.  I had been told that Mo referred to her as
the "the old church" and to Maria as "the new church" in his first
circulated letter of 1969, titled "A Prophecy of God on the Old Church
and the New Church."  But he told us to respect her as a Mother and he
even published her talks, called Mother Eve letters.  At other times we
were warned that Mother and her consort were not obeying the rules laid
out in the letters and should be banned from fellowship.  At this point
in Paris she was still respected.

"Come here, honey.  You look pretty today.  Are you married, dear?"
she said to me when we first met.

"Yes, I am married to Cal."

"oh, he's the drummer, isn't he?  Well, honey, you better keep your
eyes on him.  He's a handsome young man, you know.  Are you happy,
honey?" I really did not think much about happiness.  I felt I was
doing God's Will, so I guess I should be happy.  She noticed that I
hesitated.

"Well, don't worry, dearie.  God never takes anything away without
giving you something better," she informed me in an apocalyptic
tone.

The realization came to me that she had borne all Mo's children and
then been cast aside, and maybe she was not happy.  I hid this fact
from my rational thought processes, a mental action that had become
ingrained.

Whenever a leader came through Paris, Hopie and Joab would throw a big
party and everyone enjoyed the royal festivities.  There would be music
and dancing until late into the night, and being in France, wine flowed
freely.  Every leader in the Family wanted to come through Paris, since
we were beginning to have good contacts with music and television
producers.  A well-known French singer and his producer had seen some
of us performing on the streets and were seriously interested in
promoting us as a music group.  In the small French entertainment
world, their influence meant success.  We had already made a recording
of our theme song "You Gotta Be a Baby," and we had appeared on a few
TV and radio shows.  Hopie had always been wonderful at making contacts
and establishing a good public relations image, but paperwork and legal
matters were not something she could be trusted with.  Her husband
Joab) a Vietnam veteran, was more of an inspirationalist than a
manager, so we knew our so-called organizational geniuses, Esther and
her husband Jacob, would be sent our way soon.

Esther came like the Queen of Hearts, yelling "off with their heads.  "
I heard rumors that Mo had sent Esther to Paris to put our home in
order.  Whatever the reason, a pall settled over Paris after Esther
arrived.  She was a small lady whose physically fragile appearance gave
little clue of the tremendous power she held as Queen of the Family.

Having known the loving, free, and easygoing Hopie, I was not prepared
for the Queen's wrath.  She had been given complete authority over all
practical matters in the Family, which was now centered in Europe.

Esther came to our home with her last baby and a child-care
helper in tow.  Her older children were all taken care of in the large
Italian child-care center that she had personally set up a year
earlier.  Her positions on how children should be taken care of were
full of contradictions.  Even so, Esther was in charge of setting up
huge nurseries and schools where many of the children were sent.  I
knew from the Family testimonies that these nurseries were clean and
well organized, that children were taught in Montessori-style classes
from the age of two, and that our nurseries and schools were on a par
with the best the system had to offer.  In comparison, here in Paris we
did not have a great practical setup, but at least the babies slept
with their mothers at night--they had to since we had no cribs.  I
remembered watching babies all night in the nursery in Ellenville, and
trying to understand how a mother could be sleeping over in the married
couple's rooms or in the leaders' house, and not be worried that her
baby was crying somewhere far away.  I didn't want Thor crying in the
middle of the night only to have him be held by some passing nursery
worker.  As far as I could see, big, organized nurseries meant
separation of mother and baby, and, consciously or subconsciously, I
did not want this to happen to me.  Up until now, I had kept Thor with
me night and day, but Esther's appearance in Paris marked the beginning
of the end for my close relationship with Thor.

Esther held a major meeting with leaders in Paris in which she ranted
about the deplorable conditions in the nursery, attacking especially
the lack of structured schedules, of cribs, beds, and playpens, and of
Montessori equipment or even educational toys.  In addition, she sent a
letter to all the other Family homes, citing the Paris nursery as an
example of what not to do.

I remember when she finally came into the nursery to chastise its
nursery workers.  "I cannot believe that you girls actually let the
babies sleep on the floor here.  Do you think that is a good way to
take care of God's children, or any children for that matter?  How in
the world were you girls raised anyway?" she fumed.

There were only two of us present, myself and another young mother.

Rahab had conveniently had herself transferred to another home soon
after Esther's arrival.  I was upset at her for leaving me alone, but
many years later I learned why Rahab had been so eager to escape
Esther's presence.  It seems that Esther, her own sister-in law, had
taken Rahab's first baby from her and given her to another woman to
raise.  No complaints were ever voiced since Esther was our Queen.

"Jeshanah, I heard you were trained in Ellenville.  Well, I know
Ellenville had a very good nursery.  Pearl herself went through there
on the way to London, and she was very impressed.  Surely, you know
better.  Why don't you have access to hot water in here?  Why don't
you have a refrigerator just for the children's food?  And never
again do I want to hear of a home anywhere in our Family where the
babies sleep on the floor.  Do you understand?" She spoke to me as if
I had it within my power to do something about the conditions of our
nursery.  Surely she must know that the humble servants did only what
they were told to do.

If the leader of the home told me that babies sleep on the floor, I put
them to sleep on the floor.  (It wasn't actually the floor, there were
clean mattresses and sheets.  ) One of them was my own son, who'd had a
handmade cradle when he was born.  Of course, I did not like him to
sleep on the floor, but he was a "revolutionary baby," and in the
Family we did it the revolutionary way.  Which meant, do what your
leaders say, and don't ask questions.  Maybe she did not know how the
proletariat lived, having never been anything but a leader.

"I wouldn't even let my baby in your nursery.  I went out immediately
and bought a foldaway crib when I knew I would be traveling," she
added.

"What do you girls have to say for yourselves?" I was literally
biting my tongue to keep from responding.  I could not tell her that we
simple servants did not have money in our pocket, or in the bank, or
under the bed, or anywhere else, to go out and buy a crib.

I could not even buy baby clothes with money my mother sent
specifically for the baby unless I got permission first.

"I am just going to have to write the world about this," she said,
meaning the Family around the world.  "I want everyone to know that
this should not happen again."  She left our wonderful Paris home to
bring her baby back to the safety of the Italian child-care center, and
she wrote her letter, mentioning the lack of cribs.  I took comfort in
thinking that anyone in the Family with half a brain would realize that
mere nursery workers could not go out and buy cribs.  It was like
saying,"Let them eat cake!" But there were deeper worries about why
I did not like a fully equipped nursery.  Esther had only brought her
youngest baby with her, but she had four or five others who had been
left back in Italy as she traveled around Europe.  I could foresee a
time when I would have to leave Thor behind in an institutionalized
children's home, and my fears were realized.  Within a year, Esther's
trained child-care workers had come to Paris and set up nurseries and
schools, and from the time he was eighteen months old, I had to leave
Thor at the school located about twenty miles outside of Paris.  He
cried every time he had to return, and I tried to be "revolutionary"
about our separation.  Thor was allowed to stay with me on weekends
only, and as I became more involved in the music world, many of my
weekends were taken up with activity.  I consoled myself that now Thor
at least had a bed, although in a room with a dozen other toddlers, he
had a regular schedule, unfortunately enforced by spankings and other
disciplinary measures, and he had Montessori classes.  But he didn't
have me to hug him when he fell and cut his lip, to praise him when he
used the potty, or to acknowledge his genius when he surprised the
"teachers" by adding numbers before they taught him how.  I wanted to
be there for every new piece of life he discovered, in pain or in joy,
but after Esther's visit, I was temporarily banned from child care.  My
plan of staying in the nursery to be with my son had failed.  I now fit
the archetype of the "bitter" Miriam instead of the skillful
baby-watcher.  Life was not offering me easy problems with easy
solutions.

Hopie came by to see us after Esther left and explained that she also
got a good going over.

"Don't worry, honey, God only dishes it out to those He knows can take
it.  You are a strong sister, and the Lord is going to use you
mightily."  I was encouraged by these words from the Bible, even though
I knew they were used repeatedly in any situation where a disillusioned
brother or sister needed uplifting.

In the end, the cribs were never bought, since our finance brother said
we could not afford them.  Therefore, I was given a provisioner and a
few quota-free days to go out and try to get some free baby cribs.

With Esther gone, the Paris home returned to its old joyful ways.  The
musicians and singers had two fairly successful records, though none of
us knew where the money went.  Our leaders were busy working out
contracts with the system producers, and meanwhile, all the Show Group,
as we were called, were told to go on litnessing-and making quotas like
normal disciples.  That must have been another organizational decision
initiated by Esther.  We spent our days practicing, and then ventured
out on litnessing sprees with big quotas to make.

Lately, we had begun using the method called "hustling" to make our
quotas.  In pairs, with one singer and one collector, we performed
uninvited at outdoor cafes.  Stationing ourselves in front of our
unwittingly captive audience, we played a few songs on the guitar, and
then the collector went around the tables with a hat to collect money
and hand out Mo letters.  On a good day, we could make our 100franc
quota easily in a few hours.  I often brought Thor with me in a
stroller, especially before the schools were set up.  Of course, that
was a problem when it rained, or when we got out of the home too late,
which is what happened on the eventful night when we started singing
inside the metro trains.

Cal and I asked Nahum, our lead guitarist, to go hustling with us.  He
was a dark-haired, broody fellow, who played great guitar.  I had
brought Thor along that evening since it was a weekend and the nursery
was closed.  Not only did we start an hour after the good hustling
times, but it was raining and cold.  None of us wanted to litness the
old way, by going up to people and asking for a donation while forcing
our Mo letters on them.  We tried singing inside the metro station
corridors, like the traveling hippies we saw, but few people would
stop, and even fewer left a donation.  Sitting on the bench while
waiting for the next metro car to take us to the ChampsElysees, where
we thought we might find some people in the cafes under the awnings,
Cal had a bright idea.

"Why don't we sing inside the cars," he said.  "The people are stuck
in there and they can't get away."

"I think it's a great idea!" I said encouragingly.  "I'll collect,
and Cal can hold the stroller.

We all had a quota to make, so it was worth the try.  We entered a car
half-filled with sleepy, unsuspecting riders.  Standing together at the
front of the car, Nahum strummed a note, Cal held on to Thor's stroller
so it would not move, and I called across the car,"Bonjour.  Nous
avonr quelques chansons pour vous" ("Hello, we have a few songs for
you") by way of introduction.  After three songs, in which we all sang
and Nahum held the passengers captive with his guitar, I aggressively
invaded the privacy of every rider on the metro car by holding my
basket under their nose and offering a piece of unsolicited
literature.

Asking for a donation, I smiled and gave the letters out to everyone.

The whole procedure took about five metro stops.  When we were
finished, I said,"Merci," and we moved on to the next car.

"How did it go?" asked Cal anxiously, as we sat on the bench to wait
for the next car.

I surrendered the basket to him, and he counted over 20 francs.

"Wow," said Nahum.  "That only took about ten minutes.  We can get our
quota in an hour."  Indeed, in less than an hour we had collected 176
francs.  Each car seemed to get better.  God was blessing us!

After our last car, we got off the train and sat on the metro station
bench in a state of exhilaration.

"What are we going to do about this?" asked Nahum.  He was already
thinking that we should keep this a secret for ourselves.  Cal was a
little more magnanimous.

"I think we should tell our leaders about this and let them decide.  It
would be nice if the metro cars could be the exclusive territory for
the band members, since we have so little time for litnessing."  All of
the Paris Family homes lived by selling letters on the streets or
singing at cafes, but since there were now so many of us--over five
hundred during the peak time of 1974 to 1976--the best litnessing and
singing spots were becoming saturated.  Before we discovered metro
singing, the whole Paris turf had to be divided, with each home vying
for the best hustling areas.  At one time we had three separate Show
Group homes in Paris and a few regular homes, which I never visited.

Since most Family members learned to sing and play basic guitar, the
method of making one's quota on metro cars was certain to become
popular.

"I think mothers should be included," I said.  Even though I was
considered part of the band, through my dancing, I knew how hard it was
for mothers to make their half quotas, and I saw this as a great
opportunity to ease their added burdens.

We told our house leader Micah what had happened, but word got out and
within a month all the Family members in Paris were singing on the
metro cars.  Depending on who was the top leader in Paris at the time,
different rules were made about who could go on the metros.  During the
"band only" rule, a lot of unbrotherly feelings arose among the regular
Family members.  Of course, all of this planning was made without ever
consulting the metro authorities.  For years we played cat and mouse
with them, always on the lookout for the metro police.  Many times, we
would be taken to their station and told we were not allowed to sing in
the cars, only in the corridors between the metro stations.  All this
did was waste our time.  The metros were too lucrative to give up.  By
the time I left Paris, we were singing on the brand-new RER, which ran
to the suburbs in twenty-minute stops.

We always turned in our money every night, along with the literature
count, but everyone knew we only gave out literature to fill up the
statistics on our reports.  If we did not make our quota, we were not
supposed to come home, however, this rule was usually not obeyed.

Instead, privileges were taken from us.  For instance, once Cal did not
make his quota on time and he was told he could not go on a planned
trip to Mont-St. -Michel, so another couple in the band, Breeze and
Abraham, went out that night to make it for him.  Cal and Nahum, who
often sang together on the metro, were also the only brothers to be
picked up by police and taken to the police station.  When the
authorities found out that their visas were long overdue, they were
going to be sent out of the country.  However, since they were
important members of the band, our producers stepped in and obtained
proper visas for all of us.

I was not aware of what our producers, who were not in the Family, did
or did not do for us financially, however, when we all went on the
road, we usually stayed in cheap campgrounds, while our leaders and the
producers stayed at fancy hotels.

The Spirit was moving in the music direction, and we landed our first
big contract to produce an album.  Our Show Group name was Les Enfants
de Dieu, which means "The Children of God."  Our first album and the
singles "My Love Is Love" and "Liberty" became big hits with the French
teenagers, and through contacts that our producer had, we were asked to
perform at radio shows, on French television, and to join the famous
Europe One tour of France as performers.  In 1976 we toured Spain,
Holland, Belgium, Germany, and England.

The French have a fascination with live spectacles, called the "gala,"
which is a cross between a Las Vegas show and a music concert.  Many
French performers spend the winter in Paris, performing on TV or radio
or at local theaters, and then go on the road with a gala in the
summer.

These shows require musicians, vocalists, sound technicians, lighting
technicians, and, usually, dancers.  With the amount of talent and
personnel available through our Family, putting together a gala was a
piece of cake.  Our galas were really a fancy inspiration time for us,
something we had been practicing for years.

Every one in the Paris Family wanted to be involved, and when word got
to Italy and England about our shows, performers were sent to Paris.

Sure enough, Queen Esther soon wanted to leave her real-life castle in
Italy, the home of a duke whom one of our women had married, and she
returned to the Paris home to be in on the act.

When the Show Group first started, I stayed with nursery work.  Many of
the female singers had children, and I was needed more than ever to
take care of babies.  In addition, Thor was now a little over a year
old, a very cute age, and I enjoyed staying with him as much as I
could.  We were now living in a seven-story building where we were
"squatting" in the Bourse area of Paris, the equivalent of New York's
Wall Street financial district.  A nursery was set up on the top floor
by the sisters who had been trained under Esther.  The nursery overseer
begged me to stay in the nursery, and I did so happily.  However, when
Hopie heard that they needed dancers, she sent for me.  I became the
only nonsinger in the group, since all the other girls doubled as
backup chorus and dancers.

The producer liked my dancing style and put me in the front line, next
to the lead singer.  When Esther arrived, she moved me to the back of
the line, and put herself in my place.  I did not mind, since I had
never had formal dance training, and I was sure it would be noticed by
the professionals we were soon to work with.  They would find out what
amateurs we were, Esther included.

Our little makeshift show was fine for the little radio programs and
small theaters, but when the producers told us we were to go on
national TV, they suggested we get a choreographer.  My old nursery
friend from Ellenville, Salome, who had been a professional dance
instructor before she joined the Family, was sent from Italy.

I was overjoyed to see Salome, but she had changed quite a bit.

Working in Italy for two years now under top leadership, she had lost
some of her rebelliousness.  She had also gained a considerable amount
of weight, and although she was by far the best dancer among us, the
producers usually kept her off stage.  Salome was a wonderful and
sensitive teacher.  She knew I had no training, and so she took me
aside and developed the natural talent I had for dancing.  I always
thought of her as my miracle worker.  We learned a little jazz and a
little modern dancing, we did stretching and other exercises and
practiced routines for six to eight hours a day.  Of course, Esther
rarely showed up for practice, and I knew she would be in trouble on
stage.

During our first stage rehearsal for the Guy Lux show, the most popular
variety show in France--the equivalent to our Ed Sullivan show of the
1960s--the TV producer made Esther leave the front line and brought me
from the back to take her place.  It was obvious she could not dance,
even the simple little two-step we did.  He, of course, had no idea
that she was our Queen.  Ever since that day, I was always in the front
line, even when the former professional dancers came to join our
group.

The number in the Show Group fluctuated between two dozen to thirty,
including singers, musicians, dancers, technicians, managers, and
leaders.  Singers competed to get the spotlight, of course, but the
worst fighting was between the leaders.

Esther finally maneuvered the control of the Paris Show Group out of
her sister Hopie's hands.  Hopie gave up the reins willingly,
explaining that she was a pioneer, and she departed to start a new work
in some unfamiliar Arab land.  Esther was now with us constantly.  She
left most of her five children in Italy at the school, but she brought
her baby and a personal nursery worker with her.  Even with the fine
nursery established by her own trained people, she did not leave her
baby with regular child-care workers.  Later, as we got more popular,
Esther brought her oldest daughter, who was still a pre-teen, to sing
in the show.

Because I was spending so much time away from Thor in those early days,
I finally tried to leave the Show Group, saying that I needed to help
out in the nursery.  That resulted in my being given nursery duty in
addition to show practices.  I was usually relieved of making my quota
on practice days, during the week, however, I had to make it during any
weekend we stayed home, and that meant bringing Thor with me.  My
little boy learned hustling before he was two years old.

The fun and glamour of being involved in TV, live shows, and recording
were somewhat diminished by the constant surveillance of the Family
leadership.  One was never quite certain how to act, since we lived
like "normal" COG, but we had to behave like some special stars in
public.  I still never had my own money with which to buy clothes.  All
our clothes were either bought by Esther or made by a seamstress with
Salome, who designed the costumes.  We were supposed to look nice, but
I was never sure what nice meant when one had no money to buy
anything.

One day, as we were loading the bus to go on tour, Esther was standing
in the front of the bus giving her usual speech on how to act.  Being
the last one on the bus, I had to pass her.  We were going to be in
southern France for almost a month, and I did not want to be away from
my two-year-old for so long, however, staying home was out of the
question.  I was told that there were other mothers on this tour, Queen
Esther included, and if they could make the sacrifice of being away
from their children, so could I.

Esther looked at my legs as I walked down the aisle.  "Jeshanah, do you
have nylons on?" she asked in front of the whole group waiting on the
bus.

"No," I said, thinking it was an honest question requiring a simple
answer.

"I can't believe that you are not wearing anything on your legs.
Proper girls do not go around with bare legs, Jeshanah."  She
embarked on a ten-minute speech about how she never again wanted to
see any girl in the Show Group representing God's Family with nothing
on their legs.

If she ever saw it again, that person would be out of the Show Group
fast.

I wanted to stand up and leave the bus.  I did not care if I was in or
out of the Show Group.  In fact, at that moment, I would rather have
been back in my bed waiting for my sleeping son to wake up.  But most
of all, I wanted to raise my hand and pose what seemed to me an obvious
question,"Excuse me, but where do we get money to buy nylons?" It
was the second time that Esther had publicly degraded me for not having
something that I had no money to buy.  The last pair of nylons that I
had been given had half a dozen runs in them now, and no one had
replaced them.  Besides, I never read any rule that said we had to wear
nylons.  I didn't say anything.  Why start a scene?  I suspected that
Esther was waging her own futile battle over my being in the front row,
but she knew as well as I did that the producers would not let me go
now.  My face was on all the publicity photos that they had paid for,
so I had to be in the show.  Still, she liked to pretend she had the
power to kick someone out.

Compared with Esther's verbal abuse, the letters that Mo was writing at
that time seemed innocuous.  While the Paris Show Group was becoming
famous in France as a clean-cut singing group comparable to the Sound
of Music family, Mo had taken a harem of buxom beauties to an island
near Spain to pioneer a new method of witnessing.  He shared with the
Family his enlightening experiences through a series of letters that
emerged slowly and eased us into the radical new way of witnessing.  I
was so engrossed in dancing and show business at that time, I hardly
realized what had happened.  The whole sexual revolution was going on
around me while I spent half my days stretching and learning new steps,
and the other half trying to catch up with my son's growth.  I knew
that there was something called "flirty fishing" being developed in
London and Spain, but I was too busy to wonder about it.  When we
received the letters called "Flirty Little Fishy," "Look of Love,"
and "Lovelight," I read them with detached interest, but basically
they seemed to be a rewording of what I had been doing all the time,
winning people with love--"God's Love," of course.  It was only later,
when we got the King Arthur series of letters, that it dawned on me
where Mo was really going with this new method.

These dark, shameful letters would soon become the guiding light of my
life as I surrendered my body to God's supposedly highest calling.  But
before that would happen, I needed to feel that I had at least a voice
inside my soul.  For the next three years, I struggled to identify my
voice in this strange life I had chosen, and although all I found was a
feeble cry from a deep abyss somewhere within, it was enough to keep me
connected to myself.  I would not explore the depths to locate the
origins of this cry for many years.  For the time being, I concentrated
on the surface crevices.  There were cracks in my own psyche and I
thought I would block them up--fill them in with something, never
imagining that they would merely get larger and deeper.  One crevice
was caused by my loveless relationship with Cal, which was emotionally
stressful for both of us, and it was beginning to affect all facets of
my life.  Perhaps if I had looked within myself at that time, listened
to the feeble voice that was hardly distinguishable then, I could have
found creative self-solutions, but instead, I looked to the Family for
direction.

"I want to get out of the Show Group!" I lamented to Micah, the
leader who had been sent to Paris to help Esther manage our
entourage.

Micah had been through many emotional and spiritual trials since
joining the Family.  We knew from gossip that his wife, whom he had
married when marriages were still a personal choice, had been taken
from him and given to a man Mo was recruiting into the family.  Micah's
two young children were now with his ex-wife and her new husband, and
he rarely saw them since they lived in London.

Micah was, nevertheless, always cheerful as he struggled to portray a
positive spirit.  A well-built, handsome young man of Mexican heritage,
he was also a talented musician and songwriter, and perfect to help
organize the unruly Show Group.  He had established an empathetic
relationship with those who came to him for counsel, and because of his
reputation as a balanced and just leader, I felt safe approaching him
with my problems.

Micah had recently married a former nightclub singer who joined the
Family and was now in the Show Group.  Talitha was something of a prima
donna, until Salome encouraged her to share her large and luxurious
array of lingerie among all the showgirls.  Since I was her size, I
acquired the nicest intimate apparel I ever owned.  I actually felt
that this was a blessing.  I had never been allowed to go out and buy
my own lingerie, and the underwear we obtained free from stores and
factories, or which our leaders bought for us, was very plain.

When I told Micah that I wanted out of the Show Group and my marriage,
he replied that this was out of his realm of decision-making power, so
he sent me to a higher authority, to Esther's first husband, Jacob,
who, of course, was Mo's son-in-law.  Jacob had a large office in the
building we occupied in the Bourse area of Paris, although he did not
actually live with us.  He had been one of the first disciples, so he
was in his thirties, about ten years older than I, as evidenced by his
thinning hair and protruding belly.  He looked rather like a worldly
businessman, but we knew better.  Jacob was third-incommand in the
Family at that time.

"I don't have a good relationship with Cal," I explained to him.  "We
argue constantly, and I know it's mostly my fault but I just can't get
the victory over this.  Also, I don't like being away from my son so
much.  With all these practices, shows, and witnessing on top of it, I
have hardly any time with him."  Most of the leaders had changed mates
at least once, I thought to myself, so why couldn't I get away from
mine?

Jacob listened intently.

"Why are you so sad?" he asked, in a way that made me think that I
was special.  I burst into tears.  I was really sad, and perhaps I did
not have a good reason to be.

"I don't know," I mumbled.

"Well...what would make you happy?" 

I thought for a moment.  "I think I would like to be full-time with
the children," I murmured hesitantly, knowing his wife had taken me
out of child care.

Child care had grown to a respectable position in Paris.  The top floor
of our Bourse building had been converted into a nursery for younger
babies, but by now Thor was away all week at the school in the
country.

Since I had a show on weekends, I hardly ever saw him, usually only
when I visited the school during the week.  I longed to be with my son,
and working in child care would give me that opportunity.

"I can understand that you want to spend more time with your son," he
said.  "I think that is reasonable."  It amazed me to hear him say
this.  Not even his wife, Esther, spent as much time visiting her
children as I did.  Since I was usually reprimanded for being overly
concerned about Thor, I thought Jacob would rebuke me for being so
selfish and unsacrificial, but instead he seemed to sympathize with my
plight.  It was the first time I heard a leader entertain such a
bourgeois sentiment as wanting to spend more time with your child.  He
was a father.  Maybe he could understand the confusing emotions that I
was experiencing.  I was touched by this man's empathy for my
dilemma.

"What if you had some sort of project involved with the children's
department?  It doesn't mean that you can stop participating in the
Show Group, but you will be exempt from witnessing.  Would you like
that?" he posed.

I thought it was a start.  Any project with children would give me more
time to see Thor.  "Yes, that sounds wonderful."

"Okay, come and see Pearl tomorrow.  I'll let her know what you need to
do."  Pearl, who was Jacob's second "wife," was in charge of all child
care in Paris, which had grown to huge proportions.  She came from a
wealthy background, and when she joined the Family, her parents became
very involved in anti-Children of God activity.  The story I had heard
about her parents was that they visited a few of our homes in the
States with police escorts, but since Pearl was no longer a minor, they
were required to go through a long legal process to get her out of the
Family against her will.  With their money and influence, they were
about to cause serious trouble for us in America.  I had been told that
New York State had started investigating us due to her parents'
insistence.

Therefore, Pearl was whisked off to a secret home in Europe, leaving
her new husband, Enoch, in our band home in Boston.  We later found out
that she had become Jacob's second wife while in London.  With her
model's face and well-kept hair and skin, her beauty was awesome, and I
respected the high status she had achieved in the Family, now being
mated to Jacob.  She was cold and distant, as I had expected, and from
her clothes and makeup, I knew that she enjoyed privileges that the
rest of us did not.

When I went to see her the next day, she said,"Jacob informed me that
I should give you a project with the children.  Do you know what he had
in mind?" I had no idea what Jacob intended, so I told her what I had
been mulling over.  "Well, I think it would be useful for mothers to
have their own Montessori kits.  This way they can teach their own
children at home when the kids are with them on the weekends.  I also
think it would be very useful for the mothers out on the mission field,
whose children do not come to the school."  Pearl looked at me with a
hint of surprise and hostility.  "Okay.  Can you give me a plan
tomorrow of what you want to do, and I will look it over.  If Jacob
said you were to have a project in child care, I guess you will have
to!" she sighed.

I stayed up all night writing a proposal for my project, and I handed
it in the next day.  It included a design for a wooden container, about
the size of a shoebox, that could hold learning tools for preschool-age
children, such as counting rods, sandpaper letters and numbers, adding
cubes, dressing frames, and anything else useful in learning how to
dress oneself.

Jacob called me to his office a few days later.  "Did Pearl give you
something you like?" he asked.

"Well, I gave her a plan, and she said she would get back to me.  "

"She will, soon.  Meanwhile, I'd like to talk to you about the other
problem you are having.  Why don't we go out for dinner and discuss
this?" I had never considered going "out to dinner" to discuss a
problem with a leader.  Normally if we discussed something over dinner,
it would be in the Family dining room or in the leader's private
office.  This was different.  Jacob took me to a good French
restaurant, and told me to order anything I liked.  Since I had never
been to a restaurant of this category, I hardly knew what the menu
meant, so he ordered for me with a self-satisfied sigh.

We talked over dinner about why I was unhappy in my marriage.  One
evening out led to another, and finally he invited me to his
apartment.

I did not realize that leaders had their own apartments.  I thought
they all lived in another colony somewhere.  By this time, I was
beginning to suspect that Jacob had designs of his own on me, however,
we had been taught that "God works in mysterious ways" and not to
question how God does something--just accept it.  I had prayed for a
change in my life, and perhaps this was how God would answer my
prayer.

Therefore, I followed Jacob's lead, and instead of questioning why he
was doing this, I reverted to my natural tendency to consider
everything a grand adventure.  He showed me into a small one-bedroom
apartment with a cozy sitting room.

"Would you like a drink?" he asked.

"I'm not sure.  Whatever you suggest."  He gave me a vodka with orange
juice.  It was the first time I had had hard liquor since joining the
Family.  His tongue loosened with each drink.  He was having his own
problems with his wives, he told me.

Esther, it was obvious, was no longer interested in him and had a young
consort traveling with her.  He thought Pearl had married him for his
position.  He seemed to be saying that he needed a sweet, tender woman
who cared about him.  I could not imagine why he thought of me as a
sweet, tender woman.  After all, I was trying to leave my husband.

"You know, Mo has every leader in this Family with new mates.  It will
probably be going around the whole Family soon, but he wants us to
experiment with this one wife' idea first.  It is not as easy as you
think to be in the royal family."  I could not believe he was talking
so disrespectfully about our leader and prophet.  It was scary and
exciting.  The alcohol had begun to numb my revolutionary training.

"Jeshanah, I am going to take care of you," he said, kissing my neck
awkwardly.  "You won't have to worry about anything in the Family
again."  Though I was secretly repulsed and felt no desire for Jacob
whatsoever, I let him lead me to the bedroom and have sex.  The whole
time, all I could think of was getting home to my safe colony.  I felt
ashamed and humiliated, but I could not understand why.

True to his word, Jacob gave me a big project in child care.  Pearl was
not happy about allotting one of the Show Group dancers such a
responsibility, but she did what she was told.  The project kept me
busy and content.  I felt useful now that I was doing something
productive.

With the carpenter, I designed and put together a dozen Montessori kits
for mothers in the field.  Typical of communist bureaucracy, by the
time news of the kits got out, the leaders' wives wanted them.  They
ended up in the leaders' hands, and few actually were given out to the
mothers who really needed them.

To clean up my other problem, Jacob met with Cal and talked to him
about having a trial separation from me.  I don't know what was
discussed or how Cal initially reacted, but Cal began to stay in the
main Show Group home located in Colombes, in northern Paris, and I
moved to the home in Sceaux, a southern suburb of Paris.  Thor began
spending one weekend with me, and one with Cal.

Jacob took me to his apartment regularly, usually without the dinner
prelude.  I also began drinking periodically, and hoped that no one
would find out about me and Jacob.  But of course, everyone knew, even
Cal.  He bore the hurt and shame heroically, just as Micah and others
had done before him.  They all obeyed leadership like good
revolutionaries.  I am sure that Cal, like myself, took his grievances
to the Lord.  He could have complained, but against a leader as high as
Jacob, it was almost useless.  He could have left the group too, but I
know he would never have left our son.  I was ashamed of myself, but I
could not see clearly what to do.  I had started this, and I would have
to see it through to its conclusion.  Perhaps it was better to stumble
ahead blindly than stop on a dark and unfamiliar road.

After the Montessori project was finished, I started writing.  I had an
idea to put some of the easy Mo letters in children's story form.  I
thought that the children needed Family stories written especially for
kids, so I made up a series of fantasy animal stories based on morals
in the Mo letters.  I did not talk about this project with anyone, but
it kept me distracted from the more stressful areas of my life, such as
my deepening relationship with Jacob.

I also stayed awake at night reviewing my life and actions in my
mind.

Cal was definitely not a bad husband.  He had always been kind and
considerate, never having that demanding attitude that some of our men
had with their wives.  Since we were taught that husbands rule over
their wives in the privacy of their "home" (we never had our own home,
so this meant bedroom to me), he could have been a lot more
demanding.

However, he wasn't, and therefore I had felt more compelled to give him
the sex he wanted.  I didn't want to discuss this with him, since it
would hurt his feelings, and yet I was hurting him a lot more now.

One day, Jacob picked me up at Sceaux in his car.  Only leaders were
allowed private use of our cars, and the one Jacob drove was a modest
vehicle I had seen before in our Family.

"I'm going to Switzerland for a few days," he said.  "When I come
back, I'd like you to start living with me."  I had just finished my
first children's story, and I was feeling good about myself.  I was as
free and independent as one could be in the Family.  I was able to be
involved in child care, and I saw a future for myself there.  I had
open access to visiting my son at school during the week, thanks to
Jacob's influence.  I was feeling a newfound joie de Pipre.  Why would
I want to live with Jacob?  He already had two wives.

Why did he need me?  And why would I again allow myself to be joined to
a man I did not love?

"I don't want to do that," I blurted out, without considering what his
reaction would be.

For a moment, he looked totally devastated.  Then he quickly regained
his composure.

"Jeshanah, you don't have much choice.  You either live with me, or you
go back to Cal.  I'll be gone for about a week, but when I come back, I
want your answer."  He dropped me off near the house without giving me
time to think about what he said.

"Do you have ten francs?" I asked.

He smiled and reached in his pocket, perversely happy to grant my
request.

I got out of the car and went to a local grocery store to buy a bottle
of wine.  There was a small park near our home, and since we never
witnessed anywhere near where we lived, I could safely get drunk
without worrying that I would be seen by someone who knew me.  I had
never done this before, but being with Jacob often, I had developed a
taste for alcohol.  Sitting on a park bench, I opened the bottle and
started to drink away every thought that I had stored in my mind's
closet.  I took out each feeling of guilt and every selfcondemning
accusation, and shook it like the rumpled piece of old cloth it
represented.  I had left my husband, a major sin in anyone's
religion.

I had allowed myself to become involved in an adulterous relationship,
one of the worst sins of all.  Then I remembered that Jesus had
prevented the crowd from stoning an adulterous woman.  I wondered if
that woman had also been obeying leadership and Jesus knew that?  In my
stupor, I cast my thoughts aside with the privilege enjoyed by those
drunken individuals who claim that "nothing matters anymore."  Since I
drank a whole bottle of wine on an empty stomach, I felt sick when I
stood up to walk home.  Entering our house while every one was around
the dinner table, I passed by quickly, went to the bathroom, and threw
up.

After cleaning out my conscience closet, I spent the rest of the week
singing on the metro and visiting Thor.  When Jacob returned, he called
a meeting at the Colombes home.  He had news from Esther concerning the
Show Group, she had been in a hospital in Switzerland, deathly sick
with a disease supposedly brought on by working too hard.  We were all
to have a prayer and fast for her, and try to get back into God's-Word
more.

Every time a big leader got sick, especially if it was Mo himself, part
of the cause usually lay with the followers.

Jacob was waiting at the door when I came in the Colombes house.

"Well, what's your decision?" he asked.

"I can't do it," I answered, and followed the others into the meeting
room without looking him in the eye.  I had hidden that dilemma in the
back room of my mind along with other unanswerable questions, and my
response had come straight from my heart.  Later, Cal and I were called
into Jacob's temporary office upstairs.

Cal knew what had been going on, but like a loyal revolutionary, he was
trying to take it as a test from the Lord.

"Cal, I want to apologize," said Jacob, without glancing at me.  "Like
you, I thought I could help Jeshanah, but it seems she does not want my
help either.  I want you to take her back.  She's yours.  Take good
care of her.  She needs a strong husband."  Cal looked tentatively my
way, trying to catch my eye.  Jacob had offered no clue that he was
going to give me back so heartlessly.  I had no choice in a matter that
concerned with whom to share my life.  I stared at the floor while
anger, shame, and confusion played havoc with my heart.  I could say
nothing.  Only large, uncontrollable sobs were piling up at the back of
my throat, like a huge tidal wave waiting to flood everything in its
path.

"Well, I will leave you two here to talk this over.  Cal, you can move
to Sceaux, or Jeshanah can move here, whatever you like."  Jacob got up
and left the room.

"Why don't you love me?" asked Cal, clearing his throat.  "I think I
loved you."

"I don't know," I cried, letting the torments of my soul transform
into tears.  "I don't think I know what love is.  I hate myself, and I
hate what I have become."  I returned to the meeting with a
tear-stained face.  It seemed to me that everyone must know what had
happened because no one asked me anything.  Maybe they were just better
revolutionaries than I was.

Cal moved to Sceaux.  We set up a room in the basement of the home, and
I spent many hours downstairs by myself, reading letters or writing new
stories.  Cal tried to get to know me, but I was a closed person.  I
had too many questions and not enough answers, and nobody I talked to
could supply any.  Cal had secretly brought a copy of Watership Down,
by Richard Adams, into our room, and I read it like a soul starving for
food.  When I asked him where he got it, he replied,"I got contacts,
baby," imitating James Cagney.  I would have liked to read more, but
since we were really not allowed to have books in the home, Cal did not
bring any more.

A few weeks after Cal and I were reunited, our home leader asked to
speak with us.  From the look on his face, I could see that I was in
trouble.

"Jeshanah, we just got this new letter from Mo, and you're mentioned in
it."  By the tone of his voice, I knew that this was not an honor.

"Do you want me to leave?" asked Cal.

"No, I think Jeshanah is going to need all the help she can get for
this one.  I am going to leave this letter here for you to read.  When
you are finished, please bring it to me, Cal.  I need to read it with
the whole colony."  We sat down, heavy in silent apprehension.  Cal
read the new Mo letter called "The Uneager Beaver" out loud.  It was
about the children's story I had written.  In the story a beaver,
looking for a name, learns a lesson on moderation.  It seems that the
editors at our publication unit had liked it so much, they gave it to
their best artists to illustrate.

They created a large coloring book for children, and then sent it to Mo
as a surprise, for his approval.  Mo sent them back this letter, which
he also sent to the worldwide Family.

The editors were berated for spending so much of God's time and money
on such a worthless story.  They were fired from their special
positions and sent to some obscure country to be missionaries,
supposedly to learn discernment.  Then Mo publicly humiliated me in the
letter.  He said I was foolish, a bad writer, and probably plagiarized
the whole story.  He said that I must not be in the Word to write such
nonsense, that I probably had been overly influenced by ungodly fairy
tales as a child, that my story had nothing to do with his Mo letters,
and I did not understand the spiritual message of his revelations.  He
suggested that the whole Show Group get back into the Word and spend
less time practicing and singing and dancing.

I could tell it was hard for Cal to read this to me.  He knew that I
had written a pretty good story, so good that our editors made it into
a bigger production than anything they had ever done with a Mo
letter.

That had been their mistake.  They offended Mo by taking someone else's
writing and making a larger, more detailed publication.  Ironically,
they thought that Mo would be impressed, after all, the story was
supposed to be based on one of his letters.  However, he was furious,
and the whole worldwide Family now knew never to put anybody's writings
above Mo's.

I accepted this humiliation as punishment for all the horrible things I
knew I had done, which Mo did not mention.  Mo was a figure as distant
and all-encompassing as God himself, and just as I have never seen God,
I had never seen Mo.  In the beginning I thought I might like to meet
him sometime, but as he wrote more and more letters rebuking the faults
of everyone near him, of anyone who got in his way, I thought that I'd
just as soon be out-of-sight, out-of-mind.  Of course, since he was a
God figure in our group, any big mistakes would surely reach his
attention and be dealt with severely.  Just like God does!  It's all
there in the Bible.  I sent a long letter of apology to Mo, and he
personally replied, writing "Amen" in red ink at the parts of my letter
he evidently agreed with and then adding a few words at the end.  These
were the parts of the letter to which he wrote "Amen", 

I am very sorry for writing that story about the beaver and I ask
that you and the Lord forgive me...I was really influenced throughout
my childhood by silly storybooks and fairy tales, however to the best
of my knowledge, I don't remember reading a story exactly like that
one...I really pray for any children who have read this story, that
God will set their hearts and minds right...I know it will only be by
the fresh water of His Words that these impurities can be washed 
away...Along with your forgiveness, I would like to sincerely ask you
to say a little prayer for me.

Mo wrote in red ink on my letter, We do and have prayed for you a 
lot...We really love you and are so sorry we had to spank you--But it
was needed.  Now let me love you up real good--Be my Valentine--And
Have Seven hugs and kisses and lovins and one great BIG ONE--all the
way--Dad 31/1/76

Time healed the wound, but I was always known as the "Uneager Beaver"
girl after that letter.  Mo, whom some of us had started calling Dad,
now sent personal messages to me through leaders.  If he had not heard
about me before, he had now.

However, my notoriety was quickly forgotten.  The group of letters
known as the King Arthur series were finally being distributed to the
Family, and members were struggling to find out what this would mean in
their situations.

The King Arthur letters explained a new method of proselytizing, called
"flirty fishing," or "fishing" for short.  In this series of letters
Mo laid out in detail the new doctrines that changed the Family
permanently from a radical Jesus People commune into a sacred sex
cult.

Mo's secretary, traveling companion, and lover, Maria, became our first
woman to try out this new method of recruiting men to the Lord.

I never met her, but from the eyewitness accounts of those who knew
her, she was not a pretty woman.  Mo himself had written that Maria
used to be a quiet, homely girl, with buckteeth and a very bad
complexion.  He beautified her by putting her on a strict diet, telling
her what to wear and how to do her hair, and giving her such love that
her face literally beamed.  She smiled a lot and was no longer shy.

With Maria in tow, Mo went to dance classes and ballroom dancing
establishments in order to recruit new members into the Family.  They
finally met Arthur, a rather hapless man.

Maria took him to he'd on Mo's advice, and she hooked him on God's
Love.

How this actually transpired was detailed in the King Arthur letters.

Mo sent Maria in to seduce Arthur through sex.  The metaphor of fishing
was loosely taken from Jesus' instructions in the Bible to become
"fishers of men."  Arthur was hooked.  Since Mo was not about to give
up his beloved Maria for the man, he instead took Micah's wife, the
beautiful Beth, and introduced her to Arthur.  Beth, after giving
Arthur all the sex he wanted, convinced him to join the Family.  Arthur
became known as a "king," since he was "fished in" personally by Mo.

Of course, mixing sex with religion was sure to cause a scandal, but it
wasn't until Mo took a flock of sexy young women to Tenerife, an island
off the coast of Africa, to practice and preach this method openly,
that the press began taking a serious interest.  Eventually, popular
magazines, such as the German Stern, sent reporters and photographers
to the small island, and Mo's first public photo appeared depicting him
as an old religious guru with a bevy of women.  Dressed in a long black
robe with Maria beside him, and surrounded by women with low necklines,
Mo quickly became the scandal of the town.  Besieged by reporters and
police, he had to flee the island, but not before he laid a curse on
the place.  Uncannily, the island had a major airplane crash the day he
left it for good.

Although I was wondering how "flirty fishing" would affect me, I soon
became distracted because my real sister Ruby, eight years younger than
I and now almost sixteen years old, was coming to spend the summer with
me.  I had stayed in contact with my mother over the years through
letters and convinced her that Cal and I were not the crazy, perverted
people that she had read about in the anti-COG articles put out by the
churches.  My mother believed, or wanted to believe, that we behaved
like good Christians.  So when Ruby asked if she could visit me in
Paris for the summer, my mother agreed.

Ruby had always been a bit rebellious and--somewhat like me-- did not
seem to fit into any groups at school.  She also had a beautiful voice,
and we soon had her singing on the metro with us.  She enjoyed communal
life, and after a month she told me she wanted to join the Family.  I
discussed it with my home leaders, and for some reason, they thought
she should go to the colony we had set up in Holland for new
disciples.

I think they wanted to get her away from her big sister's sheltering
arms.

While in Amsterdam, Ruby was taught about our new recruiting practices,
although she was too new in the Family to do it herself.  Meanwhile,
all the letters about "flirty fishing" had been leaked to the American
press, and the churches were notifying everybody about our evil ways.

My mother immediately called my house and wanted Ruby home.  Since my
sister was not there, it was all I could do to calm my mother down,
ensuring her that Ruby would be sent back soon.  My mother was terribly
angry, and we had Ruby returned to Paris and then sent her back home.

I think my little sister had not really understood all that was going
on in the Family, but she knew enough, and it was to haunt her the rest
of her life.  Like myself, it would take her years to figure out
concepts like right and wrong, and she returned to America promising to
join the Family when she was of legal age.  She never did.  Needless to
say, this episode made my relations with my relatives rather strained
for years to come.

My robotic obedience to the Family was soon tested to its limit.  At
our house in Paris we heard that wealthy Italians were coming to see
our Show Group.  Since these were men from the upper class who held
positions of influence in their country, we were told to please them in
any way they wanted, with whomever they wanted.  One of them, Flavio,
was called a "king," indicating that he must have given us some
financial support already.  Actually, the title was now being used
loosely, and many "kings" were just men who never joined our group but
whom we wanted to keep as friends.

After Flavio saw one of our shows in the Paris area, a manager named
Ben came to see me in the dressing room.

"Flavio wants you to come to the club with us," he informed me.

"Have you asked Cal?" 

"We said we would have you home tonight, and Magdalene would spend
the night with Flavio."  By now I had become accustomed to just
obeying orders, having learned that I was going to have to obey or
leave the Family in the end.  Also, we all knew that fishing was
under way in Paris, and although I was never asked to participate, I
was sure it was just a matter of time.  I had decided to belong to a
social experiment called the Family, and this was just another
variable, no one was twisting my arm.  And, how would we ever start a
new society if everyone balked at each new experience?

Sure, it seemed strange and deviant, but that is what living over the
edge is about.  Accepting Family ideology by faith, I gave my body much
as a soldier is taught to give his or her life.  And truthfully, Flavio
was not so bad.  He was a sweet, charming Italian, and I had enjoyed
talking to him at the party where we first met.  I was not in love with
my husband, and Cal knew this was coming as much as I did, although we
had never talked about it.

I went to the club, and Flavio danced only with me.  It was clear
Flavio wanted to spend the night with me.  Ben was sent to Sceaux to
get Cal's permission and I was told by another brother that my husband
had agreed.

I was taken to the Colombes home in a car, and Flavio and I went to the
blue room, which had already been prepared.  It was my first experience
of being offered as live bait to a man.  During my experiences with
Jacob, I had already crossed the threshold of moral ambiguity, and the
detailed instructions in the Mo letters provided me with both a
rationalization and a script to follow in sexual encounters.  Through
letters like "Revolutionary Sex" and "Revolutionary Lovemaking," we
had learned anything we did not already know about making love.  In the
Arthur letters, and later in the letters written from Tenerife, Mo went
into detail about how to massage the man, how to give oral sex, and
other sexual practices that were pleasurable for a man.  However, he
steered us away from anal sex or sadomasochism, and I was never afraid
of a man becoming violent, although perhaps I should have been.  I knew
that being a witness to God was my main job, and although the letters
told mostly of men who had already been witnessed to, Mo assured us
that God's Spirit would shine through us as we made love.  I wasn't so
sure of that, but I was not afraid or shy that first night.

In fact, I found it easy to perform my role without any emotional
attachment or moral dilemma.  As always, I did not use any type of
birth control, but I was not even worried about becoming pregnant.

Flavio evidently had been witnessed to by our women and seemed to know
the salvation message, I think he was already saved.  That was a
relief, because I was too tired to preach to him.  Although he was
extremely handsome, and had a better physique than any man I had ever
seen, I don't remember feeling any pleasure.  I did not experience
pleasure in sex for many, many years.  First it was a duty, then a
tool, and finally a burden.  But I was very good at faking pleasure.  I
often had myself convinced.

The next morning I woke up and wondered what I was to do now.  Flavio
was still sleeping, so I got out of bed before he would wake and ask
for me.  I knew I had to get back to Cal.  He had probably been pacing
the floor all night, waiting for me to come back and make love to
assure him that I was still his.  I dressed quietly and went
downstairs, looking for someone to give me some metro tickets.  Ben was
in the kitchen drinking coffee.  He had been up all night.

"Did you hear the commotion last night?" he asked.

"No, what was it?" 

"Cal came over and was trying to get upstairs to pull you out of bed.
We had to stop him forcibly."

"But he said it was okay."

"Who told you that?" 

"Micah did."

"Well, we never got his okay, but we never really needed his okay
anyway.  Mo has given us ultimate authority," Ben explained to me.
"Cal threatened to break down the door.  I calmed him down and took him
home.
Come on, I'll drive you back."  All the way home, Ben advised me to be
kind and tender and give Cal anything he wanted, as if it was my fault
that this had happened.  I had been up half the night already, and now
I envisioned another few hours making up to Cal.  The physical drain of
the last twenty four hours left me little energy to think about
emotional issues.  I did what I was told to do.  I was being a good
soldier of God.  But in the back of my mind, I thought,"Hey, it's me
that gave my body--I did the work!  What's all this fuss about Cal?"
Well the truth was, my body belonged first to God, then to the Family,
then to my husband.  Actually, the God and husband part is in the
Bible, we added the Family.

Ben came in with me and promised that from now on Cal could be in
charge of my extramarital affairs, especially those with men outside
the Family.  True to their word, Cal took over as my only fisherman,
and he gave me away sparingly at first.  Cal became known as the most
possessive and jealous husband in the Show Group.  Other husbands did
not have the problems that Cal did with sharing their wives, as far as
I could tell.

I say this because most wives began to go out regularly on club
excursions with male leaders, but I only went if Cal was along.

Of course, Cal had calmed down considerably by the time I got there in
the morning.  First, he wanted to make love passionately.  Then he
wanted me to tell him the whole story, minute by minute, of what had
happened.

Where did Flavio touch me?  Where did I touch him?  How many times?

And more and more.  I made up some parts just because I couldn't
remember every detail, even though it was only the night before.  It
just wasn't that important to me.  Now ask me about the details of how
my son laughs when I tickle him, or how he climbs up the slide ladder
by himself, his strong, solid legs pegging each step like a carpenter's
hammer, and that I can tell you.  But sex?  It was all the same to
me.

The word desire was never mentioned.  If it had been, I could have
honestly told Cal that I did not desire Flavio any more than I desired
him.  If someone had asked me about desire, I would have realized much
earlier that desire was not part of my sexual relationships, and I
could have begun to try to understand why it wasn't.  As a teenager I
had wanted sexual experience primarily because sex was part of the
hippie scene, as a wife it was part of the marriage institution, in the
Family it was part of witnessing and loving others.  I don't think I
ever desired sex or felt aroused.  I wanted to be touched and hugged--
to be cared for--but I had learned that intimate touch invariably meant
sex also.  If Cal would have asked me these questions, perhaps we could
have understood the problem, but Cal wanted to know if I still loved
him.  I couldn't believe he was asking me.  Didn't he remember that I
tried to leave him?  Didn't he remember that Jacob forced me to go back
with him as a wife?  I knew that he wanted to be loved romantically and
deeply as a lifetime soul mate, but he knew the rules of the Family as
well as I, We loved everybody unconditionally.  I answered him in
Family jargon.

"Yes, I love you!" I said, hoping he would let me rest for a while
before I had to go out witnessing.  He took me in his arms, and I felt
so very uncomfortable.  Who was I anyway?  And who was this man holding
me in his arms?  In many ways, being with a stranger for one night of
witnessing was better than feeling like a stranger with your husband
every night.  I often consoled myself with the thought that the
majority of women do not know their husbands, and those ideal stories
of romance and love I had heard before I married were just system lies,
like almost everything else we had been told.  Years later, when
well-meaning people asked me,"How could you hurt your husband like
that?" I would sigh and run through my head all the complex questions
I needed answered before I could attempt to answer that one.  For
instance, Define husband for me.

Define love.  Define hurt.  What is the meaning?  And so on.  Instead,
I answered with a simple "We were both in the Family, and it's too long
to explain."  

After my initiation with Flavio, I had a battle within myself over
using sexual favors to lure converts to the Family.  Whether I was
rationalizing or not, I finally concluded that I was helping the men
I loved through a sexual channel.  I personally believed in Jesus'
salvation message, and even if these men had not asked Jesus into
their heart, at least they had heard the message.  One day they would
remember.  However, I gradually came to realize that the leaders
seemed to be using sex as a tool to gain powerful friends and
contacts, and my husband felt that fishing was a last resort for
pulling someone into the fellowship of God's family.  The purpose of
fishing was in continual flux.


Flirty Fishing in the Kingdom

Sexual favors to strangers was fast becoming our main method of
witnessing about the Lord.  Even our work
on stage took second place to going to the top Parisian nightclubs and
picking up men who seemed interested in what we were offering.  The
showgirls had an easy time meeting the rich and famous, so they began
to go out regularly with a fisherman by their side.  After Cal grew
tired of sitting around in clubs until three in the morning, he started
to let me go with a regular fishing team, as long as he could make the
final decisions on which men I slept with.  If the male leader who was
with us thought a man was potentially worthy of our special gift of
love, I was instructed to make a date with him, letting him know I
would bring my husband along.  That sounds odd to Americans, of course,
but the French were not as surprised as I had thought they would be.

Most of the men I went to bed with while I was married to Cal met my
husband first.  I truly believe that our motives were generally to be
able to reach a stratum of men we would never meet elsewhere.  We still
went singing to make money, and as far as I know, we did not receive
any money from the men we met at the clubs during the early years.

Other than the witnessing motivation, we wanted to meet men who were
influential and who could help us politically or in our 
music business.

Sometimes I would pass the fish on to other women in my group, since I
had no desire to give sex to all the men drawn to me.  That left me
free to go on the dance floor.  Dancing had become my only personal
mode of self-expression, and moving to music had a mantralike effect on
me.  I liked dancing alone, and the crowded disco floor offered an
absurd opportunity to pretend I was by myself for a few minutes.  It
was a chance to be free from the Family's constant control and the
pressure of perpetual witnessing.  To this day, I use dancing as an
escape mechanism.

Since we usually went out with groups of four or five girls, and only
one fisherman, the brothers had to take turns in the role.  Being a
fisherman was not necessarily a desirable task.  Basically, a fisherman
looked like a pimp, coming into a club with a group of girls who
immediately went around picking up guys.  Cal soon realized that I came
to the club because I enjoyed dancing, not to have sex with other men,
and I think that made it easier on him.  Since we went out at night,
while Thor was away at school or in bed watched by a sister, it did not
take time away from my son.  It was the perfect job for a Family
mother.

During the day, the women who had gone out the night before were
excused from work duties, witnessing, or practice, so I used this free
time to take the metro out to the school to see Thor.

During the early days of using sex as a lure, the primary goal was to
convince the man to ask Jesus into his heart.  That could often be
accomplished without going to bed with him, and I knew it well.  I only
went to bed with those men who were hardened to what we thought of as
the Spirit of God working through us.  Most of them were ready to
accept Jesus after a few close dances.  I often talked incessantly
about Jesus and God's Love while dancing, especially in the early
days.

If the man asked for a second dance, he knew what we were preaching, so
that would establish him as potentially interested in the Lord.

During subsequent dances, I talked less and let the man touch me more,
and the French men are not shy about touching, neither are French women
embarrassed to be touched.  I could not help but notice that our French
sisters took a lot more men to bed than I did.  During the course of an
evening, I invited the men to come and sit at our table so I could
introduce them to my friends.  Sometimes, another woman would take
over, especially if a man spoke only French.  I preferred letting a
French sister witness to him then.  On other occasions, the male in our
group would engage in a discussion with the man, and often they became
friends in one evening.  In fact, Cal started a few lasting friendships
with men I had lured to our table.  Hopefully, by the end of the
evening, the man had heard the full salvation message, which is
basically the same simple message taught by the evangelical Christian
faith, Believe that you are a sinner, that Jesus died for your sins,
and that he can give you salvation so you can again be united with God
and go to heaven.  The proof of one's belief was to verbally ask Jesus
into your heart, which was merely an outward sign that you believed.  I
would venture to say that more than half of the thousands of men we
talked to in clubs asked Jesus into their hearts.  Of course, whether
they really meant anything by repeating this simple prayer is open to
debate, however, we were always optimistic.

If a man argued or showed absolute disinterest in this message, we
usually let him go at that point and looked for another dance
partner.

However, many of these same men would come back to our table on a later
occasion and would not argue this time, we assumed that they had
thought it over and liked our message now.

Actually, giving sex to a man often depended on who the fisherman was
at the time.  Some of the higher leaders, who had been with Mo at
clubs, gave the girls to the men very easily, even if the men already
had asked Jesus into their hearts.  "Give him a treat," they
chuckled.  "He deserves it."  Or they would say the man needed more
proof of God's Love, so go to bed with him.  The middle leaders, who
were afraid of doing something wrong, were more careful about giving
the women away.

Mo was very interested in the statistical information on this new
method, and the Family began keeping detailed fishing statistics, such
as number of fish witnessed to, fish loved, and fish saved.  Women had
regular reports to fill out at the end of each night, and they were
collected, tabulated, and sent in to our headquarters in Switzerland,
called World Service.

Every month, these report forms were filled out by our home leader and
sent along with our tithe (10 percent of all the home's income) and our
monetary gifts for the worldwide work.  Soon "it" testimonies from
around the world started to appear in the Family NelPs magazine.  Some
told of the "trials and victories" experienced by husbands and wives as
they obeyed Mo and started sharing sexually, others told of hardened
middle-aged businessmen, a group we had never reached before, who asked
Jesus into their hearts and changed their lives, seeming proof that
this method worked.  Just as any new theory is supported by tangible
examples, the idea of recruiting through sex was supported by these
testimonies, and within a few years the method had become part of our
everyday existence.

Around the time our sexual recruitment practices were evolving in the
mid-1970s, Mo wrote a series of letters in which he condemned Israel's
position against the Arab nations.  Still indignant over the
disappointing reception he had received on his visit to Israel in 1971,
he told us in a letter titled "Breakdown" that it had been his heart's
desire to establish a Christian work there.  He wrote us that "after
two thousand years of knowledge of Jesus Christ, [Israel] is still in
rebellion!  If any nation on earth is without excuse--the Jews are.  
'...Ye do always reject the Holy Ghost.'"  (66, 16).  I have since come to
believe that this was merely a temper tantrum on Mo's part due to his
not being recognized by his formerly beloved Jews, since he claimed to
be "a Christian Jew."  Irritated by his unsuccessful attempt to
establish a colony in Israel, Mo later became enthralled by Muammar
Qaddafi, the terrorist leader of Libya.  It was a bizarre relationship,
which was not understood by many of the group's members with whom I
spoke.

Most of us in the Family were far too busy to keep up with Mo's
confusing line of political reasoning.  We were the peasants, the
proletariat too busy supporting the kingdom to spend time in reading,
research, and reflection on the Mo letters such as "Israel Invaded,"
published in 1973.  In it, Mo predicted that Israel would be invaded
and conquered by the Soviet Union, Libya, and other Arab nations, and
he prophesied (supposedly God speaks in King James language),
"Therefore I will rise up and destroy the *** who calleth thyself Israel, O
ye children of the devil, and I will return my land unto them whom I
have given it, that they may be forgiven from the ***, O ye enemies of the
Almighty and ye crucifiers of the Son of God and ye rejecters of thy
King!" ("Israel Invaded" 281, 63).  Mo insisted the message about
Israel be distributed on every street in the world, which instantly
caused trouble for our homes, especially in Paris.  We tried to soften
the anti-Semitic overtones by placing the Israel letters beside 
testimonies about our missionary work in India in the literature we
gave out to the public.  However, once Mo started on a radical topic,
he stayed with it until the message became redundant.  Now his new
pro-Arab position had reached the most powerful leaders of the Muslim
world.

Qaddafi invited Mo and his family to be his guests in Libya.  In June
of 1975 Mo published a new letter documenting the visit.  That signaled
the end for Les Enfants de Dieu Show Group.  All of our producers were
Jewish, and they immediately withdrew support.

Around this time, most of the Show Group felt it was time to go on to
other things anyway.  We had been singing, dancing, recording, and
performing for four years.  We had produced a number of records and
albums, performed in every major city in France, and appeared on
nationwide TV and radio almost weekly.  France had heard our message,
and besides, due to the Israel letters, our days in France were
numbered, so we all began looking for new mission fields.  Even though
many successful projects we started were destroyed by Mo's letters, we
had become accustomed to deceiving ourselves that this meant it was not
God's Will to continue there.

During our quiet periods, the leaders sent out teams from the Show
Group to sell leftover albums.  We went two by two on what we called
"faith trips," which meant we were given no money, just fifty to a
hundred records to sell.  We usually did quite well, since records
brought in more funds than Mo letters.

On one of those trips, I went with my dance partner, Jonathan, to the
south of France.  Jon was one of my all-time favorite brothers.

Admitting to homosexual tendencies before he joined the Family, he was
now married and had children.  Jon was more fun to be with than anyone
else I knew.  He was clever, witty, not too serious, and best -of all,
always ready for adventure.  A tall, slim, and very refined looking
young man, Jon somehow managed to be dressed in the latest fashion and
always looked impeccable, from his well-trimmed hair to manicured hands
and pressed shirts.  He usually added a long, flowing scarf to his
attire for additional flair.

As my dance partner, Jon could invent new steps during a major
performance to cover any mistakes I made.  Jon always told me to just
keep on going, no matter what happens.

When Jon and I took a faith trip to the south of France to sell one 
hundred records, we planned to go to nightclubs along the CBte
d'Azur.

If we sold all our records, Jon wanted to go to Rome.  I didn't really
think we would sell them all.  Besides, Thor was at the school during
the week and I wanted to be home before the weekend.  However, we sold
all our records on our first day on the CBte d'Azur.

Jon and I were standing on a deserted St. -Tropez road late at night
when he reminded me that I had promised to go to Rome if we sold out.

I agreed we'd go if we got a ride there that night.  Rome was more than
three hundred miles away.

We waited for more than ten minutes for the first vehicle to appear.

Finally, a red car came around the corner slowly and stopped for us.

"DoPe Pai?" asked the man behind the wheel of a flashy sports
car.

"Roma," answered Jon.

"Si, si.  I too."  The Italian spoke little English, but Jon knew
enough Italian to find out that the driver was indeed going straight to
Rome, and he would take us.

I squeezed into the tiny backseat and fell asleep before we were out of
France.  When I woke up, we were in Rome.  We stayed at the Family
colony, where Jon's old friend lived, for three days, and sold Italian
literature on the streets to make money for us to take a train back to
Paris, in time for me to see Thor on the weekend.

Back in Paris, I couldn't stop dreaming about the beauty of the CBte
dAzur.  Although I never visited art museums, I fell in love with the
living, natural art of the sea, the coast, and the lovely Provincial
scenery.  In a few weeks, I convinced Cal to take another faith trip
down there with me.

This time, the trip was not as easy.  Cal and I had trouble acquiring a
ride out of Paris, and at nightfall we found ourselves in a tiny
village near Grenoble with no place to sleep.  A large, muscular man
with a thick German accent offered to let us stay at his farmhouse in
the country.

Cal and I suspected nothing as we rode with the man into an even more
deserted area.  He pulled up next to a dilapidated and isolated
building that looked more like a shed than a farmhouse.

"Let me make you something to eat," he insisted as he led us into a
room cluttered with newspapers and articles of clothes.  We felt
obligated to comply, but both Cal and I were becoming uncertain of the
man's motives, especially when he started drinking large quantities of
alcohol.  We began to suspect he was a madman, and we were no less
fearful when he finally told us the story of who he was.

"See all these newspapers around?" he said.  "Well, they talk about
the terrorist acts that have been happening in Germany.  Have you read
about it?" We didn't follow the news very much and responded in the
negative.

"Read them," he insisted again.  Sure enough, there were articles on
terrorism marked in the newspaper.

"That's me they're talking about," he said with pride, fingering the
large butcher knife he had been using to cut the sausage and bread.

I felt a shudder go through my body, and Cal began to talk nervously.

"Well, maybe we'll just go now instead of waiting until the morning.  "
The burly man was plastered by now, and he demanded that we spend the
night.  Since there was little room to sleep in the small, disordered
shed, we convinced him to let us stay in the car.

Neither Cal nor I slept at all, and as soon as the sun came out, we
crept silently away and headed toward the road.  There were no cars in
sight.  About half an hour later, we saw a vehicle coming.  It stopped
and we saw that it was the German.  He seemed sober now, and without
mentioning the terrorist story, he drove us to the superhighway, where
we caught a ride to St. -Tropez.  Both of us were more contemplative
after this incident, and for some unknown reason, Cal began to offer me
to other men with greater ease.  Perhaps he felt, as I did, that God
had just saved us from a potentially dangerous situation.

As soon as we arrived in the quaint and celebrated village of St.
Tropez, we met a lawyer from America who was vacationing there to visit
the nudist camps.  A soft-spoken, sedately good-looking man of about
forty, he talked with us all day, and he let us stay in his rented
bungalow that night.  After bunking down on the carpet with our
sleeping bags, Cal told me to go to the man's bed and give him oral
sex.

Probably, Cal was worried about me getting pregnant with another man's
baby, since it had been over three years that I had not become pregnant
with him, even though we made love frequently.

The lawyer was, needless to say, surprised, but he did not protest.  He
had already heard about God's Love that day, and I told him that this
was just another part of it.  Afterward, I went back to make love with
Cal, who of course needed emotional comfort.  I don't think I ever got
emotional comfort from anyone.  I had grown accustomed to living
without It.

Right after our return from the south, the Family decided to start a
home near Monte Carlo, so Cal began making preparations for our move.

It entailed getting approvals from our leaders, who were encouraging us
to leave Paris.  Taking Thor with us, we met the leaders of the Nice
home, and they said we could stay with them while we looked for a home
to open in nearby Monte Carlo.

Both Cal and I were excited by the move south.  Les Enfants de Dieu was
definitely finished, and the whole Show Group was splitting up.  Most
of the people we had lived and worked with for the last four years we
would never see again, but that was part of the revolutionary life.

The new home we arrived at in Nice was very small.  In an apartment
with two bedrooms and one bathroom, there lived a Swedish couple with
their baby and a single French sister named Mara.  Cal and I had
thought that our marriage problems would diminish in a new environment,
but instead, working so closely together every day, they intensified.

The Swedish couple seemed to be having troubles of their own, and they
never became involved with ours, however, Mara confided in me a few
weeks after our arrival that the Lord had shown her in a dream she
would marry my husband, Cal.  It was not such an unusual statement,
since threesome marriages were allowed in the Family.

While in Nice, we continued to support ourselves by selling Mo letters
on the streets, but in the evening, Mara and I went to the clubs while
Cal stayed home with Thor, who was now three years old.  We always had
our drinks paid for by the men we met, and sometimes I met a man to
whom I would witness further.  This meant that I would introduce the
man to Cal, and if he said yes, I would spend the night with him,
usually at his hotel room, since most of these men were tourists.

Whenever I had to spend a night away from home, Mara shared sexually
with Cal.  Eventually, I talked with Cal about a threesome.

"Mara already told me that she believes she will marry you, Cal.
Since she is spending so much time with you, maybe we should include
her in our marriage."  Threesomes were becoming one of the better
options in marriage relationships, and in many of the homes where
fishing was practiced, they were common.  In our cult, and in many
other cults as I found out later, threesome marriages (they were
usually two women and one man, but not always) turned out to be a
workable solution, perhaps because it supplied more help with women's
work and children and more regular sex for the husband.

"I don't know," said Cal.  "That's a big responsibility for me."  I
knew Cal well enough to understand that he had something else on his
mind.

"Don't you like her?" I asked.  Mara was a cute, petite French woman,
who was four years younger than I, and many people said we looked like
sisters.  We both had long blond hair and blue eyes, wore the same size
clothes, although I was taller, and we both loved to dance.

"Yes, I do like her very much."

"Well, is it the sex?" 

"No, of course, it is different than it is with you.  But it's still
fine."

"Don't you believe in threesomes?" 

"Well, I have been thinking about it too, of course.  It would make a
lot of sense, especially if we move to Monte Carlo.  But...I'm
concerned about you."

"oh, I don't mind.  Not at all.  Don't worry about me.  I like Mara
very much."  I could see Cal's face flush as I said this.

"So you don't mind sharing me with someone permanently?  You know, I am
serious about marriage.  And if I marry her, it will be for good.  "

"oh, I understand.  I don't care.  I mean, yes, I know you are
concerned and will take good care of her."

"I want to take care of you too."

"Don't worry about me.  I don't need extra attention.  I won't be
jealous at all."

"That's what I mean, Jeshanah.  I think you don't care at all.  Is this
a way for you to get further away from me emotionally?" It was like
he had thrown cold water on my face.  It woke me up.

I had been so excited about the prospect of Cal having another wife, I
had not stopped to ponder why I liked the idea so much.  I assumed it
was because I was a true revolutionary, but in that moment of truth, I
knew that I would be relieved to have someone share the burden of being
a mate to Cal.  I could never tell him that, however.  It would hurt
him too much.  There were other threesome arrangements in the Family,
and the testimonies in our Family mag were full of praise for this new
idea.  I bought into it, thinking it was a logical alternative for
loveless marriages.  Unfortunately, Cal seemed to love me in a
nonrevolutionary way, so I tried to reassure him.

"Cal, we will always be connected because of Thor."

"You won't try to leave me if I marry her?" 

"You know you can't really marry her.  That would be illegal."  I
laughed, but Cal was still very serious.

"All right, I will talk to the leaders about it."  Mara, of course,
said she already knew this would happen.  With her on our team, we had
enough help to start a new home, so we started living like a separate
"home" even while in Nice.  Two of us went out witnessing and making
money while one stayed home with Thor.  We began praying for a small
home in Monte Carlo.

During our first excursions to Monte Carlo, Mara and I had met Jean, a
native Monegasque who was close to fifty.  Both Mara and I were in our
early twenties.  Jean seemed to like me, but he enjoyed Mara's company
more.  As I listened to the two of them converse in French, I became
acutely aware of my lack of education and culture.  Although I had been
to college, and Mara had not even finished high school, she knew so
much more about literature, history, music, and art than I did.  Jean
and she discussed topics I could not even enter into.  I felt that I
would have to educate myself.  But how could I do that?  We were not
supposed to read anything but Mo letters.  And after my previous
experience as the Uneager Beaver, I surely should not be reading
books.

Instead, I began to pay more attention to every piece of culture and
knowledge I could glean from the people I met.  Not only did this
increase my own knowledge, it also made me seem more interested in the
other person, which was a wonderful asset to my role as a witness.

Our prayers for a home in Monte Carlo were soon answered.  Mara knew a
young man who owned a basement apartment in Monte Carlo.  It was not in
very good condition, but he said that if we fixed it up, we could stay
there rent-free.  We accepted immediately and moved into the exclusive
Monaco principality with little more than our suitcases.

Thor was three years old now, and I spent a few hours each day teaching
him to read and learn math.  Sometimes I took him panhandling and
distributing literature with us, but usually he stayed home with Cal.

We all enjoyed the wonderful Monaco parks and beaches daily.

Everything was within walking distance, which was extremely convenient
since we never owned a car.  Since Mara had already given herself to a
Monegasque taxi driver, we obtained free taxi rides whenever we needed
to travel a distance.

Among our first "fish" were an Italian businessman, an American lawyer,
and the son of a famous actress.  All of them were given sexual love in
order to reach them with God's message.  None of these early fish ever
gave us money, although they often took us out to eat as a family or
bought us gifts, such as a bed for Thor, shoes, or groceries.  Many of
the women in the Family were spending a considerable amount of time
with their fish, and so we felt it was a sign of the Lord's blessing
when we were given these "gifts."  Since there were only three adults
among us, we decided that as long as any two of us agreed, we should go
to bed with the man.  We were careful to keep clean, and since Mo now
told us to go to the doctor to be checked for sexually transmitted
diseases, whenever someone had any type of health concern, we took care
of it immediately.  However, due to prayer or luck, we never got
anything serious.

My first experience with the jet-set elite took me by complete
surprise.  In a club, I had met an interesting American who took my
phone number.  The next evening, I received a call from him.

"Hello, is this Jeshanah?" asked a voice I remembered from the
previous night.

"Yes," I answered.

"Well, you remember me, Tony?" 

"Yes, it is nice to hear you again.  "

"I thought you might like to go to a party tonight.  A friend of mine
is having a delightful party in Cannes.  I could send you a chauffeur
and car in one hour."

"Yes, I would like that very much," I said, not knowing if Cal would
agree or not.  

"How should I dress?" 

"Wear the best outfit you have.  This is a chic affair."  We arranged
a time and I gave him my address.

Then I went to talk to Cal.

"You should have asked if Mara could come," he reprimanded.  "You know
I don't like you to go alone on the first date."  It was an established
rule of the Family.  Ever since our first days in the group, we were
told to always go out two by two, which was the way Jesus sent his
disciples to witness.  Also,"since the devil walked around as a
roaring lion seeking whom he may devour" (I Peter 5, 8), we were told
to stay together for spiritual safety and to remind each other about
our spiritual mission.  Actually, I was never completely alone with
anyone outside the Family until I started this new type of ministering
with my body.  I had my excuses ready.

"Well, Mara met him last night.  I thought that would count as a first
date."  I did not know why I forgot to ask about Mara.  Perhaps I did
not want to take her along.  Mara made me feel inferior in some way,
and she usually pointed out mistakes I made later when we discussed the
evening together.  Also, I was beginning to enjoy the extra personal
freedom I had recently acquired with our move to Monaco.

"What will you wear?" asked Mara, who knew she had better taste in
clothes than I did. 

"I thought I would wear the dress that Jeanie gave me," I answered.

Jeanie was a famous singer in France who had been a friend of ours in
Paris.  She often gave us her "old" performing clothes, which the
leaders usually took.  However, a long silk dress with a deep slit up
the front was given to me since I was tall and thin enough to wear
it.

I felt very self-conscious in the sexy dress, and I never wore it out
to the clubs.

Mara thought it was too gaudy and made a face.

"Well, if it was good enough for her as a singer on stage, I'm sure it
will do fine," I said.  "There is nothing else anyway."  The real
problem would be a coat.  We settled on a beige raincoat, the newest
thing I owned but still vintage.  We had group prayer before I left,
but I was a little apprehensive.  Both Cal and Mara clearly disapproved
of me going alone.  We did not even know where I was going in Cannes.

For the first time I began to worry about safety, but I tried not to
show it.  After all, it was my idea to go alone.

I bathed, as we always did before a date.  My waist-length hair hung
straight down my back as usual, but the recent shampoo had added
body.

I wore a little makeup now, some lipstick, eye shadow, and mascara, and
I sprayed on some cologne.  The black going-out shoes I always wore
matched the dress, but they looked frayed.  I wore no jewelry at all
except a necklace with a gold heart and a circle inside, a symbol often
drawn by Mo on his personal letters of love to us.  It had been given
to me by a kindhearted female leader in Paris.  The only other piece of
jewelry I owned was another Family symbol, which we called David's
Harp.  It had been specially made for me by Cal.  I looked in the
mirror before leaving and saw how tatty the raincoat looked, so I took
it off and held it over my arm.

The chauffeur who picked me up did not speak to me the whole way to
Cannes, about a one-hour ride on the lower cornice road.  When he
pulled onto a small road leading through the woods, I felt uneasy and
tried to glean information from him on my whereabouts.

"Whose house is this we are going to?" I asked.

"You will find out," he retorted curtly.

I wondered if I was being kidnapped.  Perhaps the driver was part of a
pornography ring.  I really did not know this Tony guy well, and now
that I thought about it, he seemed a little sinister.

After we traveled down a tree-lined private driveway for a few minutes,
a huge white mansion appeared in front of us.  The driver pulled up to
the well-lit veranda accented by impressive Roman columns, and another
man, a valet I guessed, opened the car door for me.

Following the sound of other people, I walked into a split-level room
which opened to a patio with a pool.  There were about five sets of
couches and sofas around the plush-carpeted room, and a long oak table
set with hors d'oeuvres.  Outside, on the upper level, I saw a pool and
patio.  I looked around for Tony.  There were mostly black and
Arab-looking men there, as well as young, extremely beautiful women.

Every one was dressed so much more elegantly than I, and their
sparkling jewelry reminded me that I had not worn so much as
earrings.

"Jeshanah, come over here," called a man who appeared to be Tony.  I
had only met him the night before in a dark club, and now I noticed his
gray hair and age-lined tan face.

I walked self-consciously to the couch he was sitting on.

"Jeshanah, I would like you to meet my wife," he said, as he
introduced me to her and a few other people sitting there.  This was
interesting.  I had never met a fish's wife before, but I soon found
out that Tony was not a fish.

Tony continued to talk with his group, and I sat down wondering what I
was doing here.  There was a woman with a Barbie doll face sitting next
to me, and I was relieved to hear she was American.  She was a model,
she later told me, but due to her short stature, she usually modeled
only face, hands, and feet.

"You would be surprised how many requests there are for feet," she
said.  "But I really would like more face shots.  If I don't get more
work in Paris, I might have to come down here permanently.  What do you
do?" 

"I used to be a dancer," I said, which was my normal explanation for
living in France.  I was surprised she did not ask me what I was
doing now.

A waiter came by and offered us drinks.  I declined, but she took
another and gave him her empty glass.

I noticed that she kept looking at a large black man standing with
another blond woman.

"That is the one I want," she said.  "He is the special guest, I
heard."  She smiled at him coyly.

Even my introduction to wealth and luxury in Paris had not prepared me
for this.  The house was fancier than the famed HBtel George V in
Paris, which I had been in a few times.  The opulence reminded me of a
scene from La Dolce Vita, but more modern.  For the first time, I
realized how far removed I was from real life.  Not only was I "not of
the world," as Jesus had told us to be in the Bible, but I felt more
alienated from the world now than ever.  It was sometime in the late
seventies, and for seven years I had been living a life of almost total
social isolation, in contact with those on the outside only through
witnessing.  I was glad that Mara had not come.  It was the first time
I was alone among so many outside people, and had she been present, I
never would have felt this utter alienation.  I never would have forced
myself to think seriously about what I was doing there.  Whenever I was
with another sister, I felt I had to "fill in the gaps" and make sure
that God's Will was being accomplished.  By myself, I did not feel this
pressure to perform for my Family, and since I hardly cared what these
people thought of me spiritually, I had no role to fulfill.

At first, I could not quite understand what was happening.  Tony was
here with his wife, so it seemed to be a real party.  But here was this
model flirting with what seemed to be an African elite.  All the men
wore lots of jewelry, huge rings with diamonds and gold chain
necklaces.

All the women looked like models.  Their faces were impeccably made up,
their clothes seemed to come straight from the fashion magazines, and
each one had a stunning hairstyle.  I felt very inadequate, and
compared with them, I looked like a little girl who had tried on her
mother's clothes.  Tony interrupted my thoughts.

"Jeshanah, you are not as animated as you were last night.  Here, let
me introduce you to Amir."  He led me to the table and I talked with an
Arab man from Kuwait.  I did not even know where Kuwait was on the
map.

Luckily, dinner was being served, and I was relieved from having to
wonder what to do next, since everyone was eating at a formal
setting.

I tried to gain some information from Amir, but he was obviously not
interested in me.  He was busy eyeing a gorgeous redheaded woman who
seemed to be over six feet tall.  My physical attributes paled in
comparison to what these women offered.

In addition, I did not get any sense that these men were interested in
a Godly message.  As I sat at the table, eating food I couldn't even
identify, I searched my mind for a memory, a connection, any
information that I had stored away in the back rooms of my head before
I had joined the Family that would explain what was happening here.

How should I act?

What was expected of me?  I remembered a sociology class in which we
learned that all human interaction is socially defined.  We play roles
we are taught to play, however, sometimes we can also choose roles.

Where did that theory lead?  I wished I had learned more.  I felt so
much like Alice in Wonderland sitting at the Queen's table with a bunch
of strange characters.  My thoughts were interrupted by the person next
to me, a short, balding, fleshy man who asked if I was coming
downstairs to dance.

He led me downstairs where there was a club-size discotheque, complete
with a deejay.  I sat down on a chair on a raised platform on one side
of the room, and the man joined a group by the bar.  One by one,
different women stood up and danced in front of all the seated men.  I
looked around for the American model I had met, but she was not
there.

I noticed that the African man she had pointed out was missing also.

Someone called that I should get up and dance.  Even though dancing
came easily for me, and I knew I could dance better than these women
who were wiggling their bodies oddly without following the music, I
felt that my dancing would not be appreciated by these men unless I
danced like Salome before King Herod.  I wasn't ready for that yet.

Instead, I remained sitting in my chair.  I had been tempted to enter
their world, and I understood now that these women were very expensive
prostitutes, euphemistically known as high-class call girls.  This was
not what Mo was talking about in the letters.  I could choose not to
play this role.  Feeling very unsettled, I decided to just sit this
evening out and hope no one bothered me until the chauffeur took me
home, if he was still around.

While I was pondering my eventual departure, a middle-aged, short and
stocky Middle Eastern man came and sat down beside me.  He had a
wonderful, warm smile that spread across his small, round face like a
moonbeam.  Somehow, I felt I could trust him.

"What is the matter?" he asked.  "You look worried."

"Yes, well, I am not sure what I am doing here."

"These are my friends.  Do not worry.  They will not harm you."

"You see, I have never been to a party like this.  I am usually with
some of my own friends."

"Yes, well, maybe someday I will meet your friends also.  Now relax.
No one will harm you."  He patted my knee and got up to go.

Immediately after he left, the tall blonde who had been talking to
another man came over to sit next to me.

"I see you know my boyfriend," she said cockily.

"No, I don't know him.  Is he your boyfriend?  Who is he?" I replied
innocently.

"Why, he is the host of this party.  He owns this house.  Really, don't
you know him?" 

"No.  Tony invited me here, and he didn't tell me whose party this
was."  The girl saw that I was obviously not competition.

"Why, that's Adnan Kashoggi," she replied as if I should know him.

"I never heard of him," I said.

She threw back her head and laughed.

"He is just the richest man in the world, that's all.  Where are you
from anyway?  You will surely hear about him if you stay here very
long."  She left and went over to her "boyfriend," giving him a
playful kiss on his bald head.

With relief, I noticed that some people were leaving.  I went upstairs
and asked for my coat and for the chauffeur, but since I did not know
his name, it took a long time to find out who brought me.  I was
obligated to stand in the hallway in my humble raincoat, while all the
other girls were helped into furs.

My chauffeur was finally found, and I was taken back to Monte Carlo in
a subdued, but wiser, state of mind.

Cal was excited by my story, since it was the first time we had
penetrated elite society, which was our mission in Monte Carlo.  I had
been pondering the situation all night and concluded that we, the women
in the Family, had something much better to offer these men than those
beautiful models did, but we had to have better access.  We couldn't
just go to parties and be picked and paid for like a piece of pretty
merchandise.  How could we get to meet these people on a more personal
level?  We discussed this over dinner, like guerrillas plotting a
strategy.  Cal wanted to write to "World Services," the Family
headquarters, and ask for money.  Every home sent World Services 10
percent of their income, and that money was used to support top
leadership, the publications, and needy mission fields.

"Why would World Services send us any money?" I asked.  "We are not a
mission field."

"Of course we are," said Cal.  "We have to get into these expensive
clubs, and I should be going with you, if we are going to meet the
right people."  Mara agreed with Cal, and they sent a letter to
headquarters.  As far as I knew, they never got a reply.  I was
beginning to worry about how Mara always sided with Cal, however.

I was not sure if it was because they actually thought the same way, or
if she was trying to get closer to him by standing up for what he
said.

Since I was basically egalitarian-minded, I didn't like the power
imbalance occurring in our little team of three, especially since I was
often the odd one out.  I talked with her about it, and she told me
that I treated Cal disrespectfully.

I was not sure what she meant by this, but it started a division
between us.  I guess I had imagined that we women would stick together,
and instead she supported the designated "head of the house."  Many
years later Mara informed me that when she first joined our marriage,
she thought she would like to be part of a threesome.
However, when she realized my lack of love for Cal, she began to become
more emotionally attached to him.

The apartment we were loaned was completely remodeled after three
months of hard work.  The young man who had given it to us rent-free
liked the new look so much, he decided to move back in.  He gave us a
month to find someplace else to go.  Of course, we could never afford
Monte Carlo rents, and even the apartments in the small villages around
Monaco were out of our price range.  After praying about the situation,
we seemed to get an answer from the Lord through a couple who used to
work with us in Paris.

Abraham and Breeze were childless, freedom loving, and very talented.

They had been friends of ours in Paris, as much as Family members could
be friends.  Abe never listened to the house rules--he always had a
stash of wine and snacks in his room.  He also had worldly music, since
as a musician and sound technician, he was allowed this privilege.  I
was afraid to listen to too much worldly music, since I thought it
might have undue influence on me, but I often stopped by Abe's room for
a chat.

Breeze had come to Paris from Holland after the band did a show
there.

She wanted to be in the Show Group, and Abe seemed to be a door to that
opportunity.  As a singer and violinist, she was integrated into the
show, and she eventually married Abe.  I thought she might be in love
with him, but I knew she was secretly having sex with one of the
leaders from Italy.  It was secret because she did not get approval
from Abe first.  When she developed a fallopian tube pregnancy and had
to be hospitalized, Abe stayed by her every minute, and his love for
her was endearing.  I concluded that Breeze had been punished for the
deceit of engaging in secret sex, just as I had.  It seemed that sexual
sharing was moral, as long as it was done in the open and all those
involved were in agreement.

Abe and Breeze tried to live in a few homes after Les Enfants de Dieu
broke up, but as artists they felt uncomfortable with the strict
rules.

They heard we had opened a home in Monte Carlo and asked if they could
come.  We welcomed them gladly.  With two musicians on our team, we
could make enough money to pay rent.  The Lord was blessing us, so we
must be doing right.

The five of us, along with my son, moved to a three-bedroom home on the
beautiful hillside of Ere-sur-Mer in the winter of 1977.  We rented a
small house, called a villa, which had a much cheaper rent in the
winter months.  Summer was still six months away, and we thought by
then we would find something else.

My experience in Ere was one of beautiful days with my son flawed only
by ugly times in argument with Cal and Mara.  I seemed to gain strength
from the natural charm of the tiny beach and quaint villages along the
coast.  Taking my son, who was now four years old, for long walks by
the seacoast path along St. -Jean-Cap-Ferrat, I became closer to him
than I thought possible for two human beings.  Unconsciously, he became
my reason for living.

Cal and Mara were made "colony shepherds," mainly because they were
home most of the time and could devote themselves to reading the Mo
letters, filing reports, praying, and other time-consuming activities
that home leaders needed to do.  They decided all practical matters in
the home, such as how to spend money.  However, they also decided whom
I should go to bed with, and although I never minded that Cal had that
authority, it bothered me that Mara was advising him about my sexual
relations.

As a threesome, we had slept together in the same bed in Monte Carlo,
but now Mara was pregnant and needed more rest.  I agreed to move and
began to sleep in Thor's bedroom in an extra bed.  I always got up
early in the mornings to play with him and teach school lessons
anyway.

Cal wanted me to sleep with him sometimes, but since I went out almost
every night, and he was asleep by the time I got home, it just never
happened.

Although I knew from the Mo letters that sharing sexually was
established as a general routine between brothers and sisters in most
homes, we did not share here with Abe and Breeze, who had their own
bedroom.  That was not because we had qualms about adultery.  Mo had
told us that "the Mosaic Law has been done away with.  Whatsoever is in
Love, against such there is no Law" ("How to Answer Our Enemies--Preach
Sex" 2475, 28).  I think I was too busy watching Thor, singing and
witnessing,"fishing" at the clubs, and sleeping with other men to have
time to share.

Abe sometimes went singing with his wife, Breeze, in Nice, but it was
apparent that our most lucrative arrangement was for Breeze and me to
sing in the elite cafes along the CBte d'Azur between Nice and Italy.

Breeze had a wonderful voice and was an accomplished musician.  I had
natural, spontaneous energy and a childlike "anything is possible"
faith.  Together we covered the restaurants and cafes with liar money
and love and left with enough funds to meet all our humble expenses.

When we went out fishing for lost souls, the men were invited to the
house to meet the family.  Even though pregnant women in the Family
still went out, and there were many testimonies in our Family News
about women sharing sexually while pregnant, as Mara's pregnancy
proceeded, she often stayed home due to fatigue.

Men were legitimately allowed to sexually recruit women into the
Family, and although this happened sometimes, it seemed to be much more
time-consuming, and became a rare event.  We began calling the babies
who resulted from sex with men who never joined the Family "Jesus
babies."  Ideally, those children were to be loved and treated like all
our children, but in reality, they were not, and many Jesus babies grew
up to be psychologically disturbed teenagers.  As for myself, even
though I never practiced birth control, I did not become pregnant again
for seven years.

One day traveling on the train, we met a young British student, whom I
witnessed to but thought did not need sex.  Cal felt otherwise.  Our
new friend came to our house, and after receiving Bible classes from
Cal, and asking Jesus into his heart, decided to stop his travels and
stay with us.  I knew that he was a virgin, and he was younger than
I.

I saw no reason why he needed sex, after all, he had already decided to
stay.

But both Cal and Mara thought he needed physical love, and they thought
I should give it to him.

Instinctively, I felt I was violating some natural trust this poor
young boy had for me as an older and wiser sister.  I knew that I would
never marry him, or even become a steady sex partner for him, and I
felt that, as the innocent virgin he was, sex would mean something a
lot deeper than just "supplying his needs."  Reluctantly, I did as I
was told.  The student seemed infatuated with me, and we had to spend
hours teaching him that I was only an expression of God's Love, not his
"soul mate."  Eventually, he accepted the lesson, and he stayed with
us, going on to become one of the leaders in Switzerland.  From the
perspective of one inside the group, this seemed to prove that the
"method" worked.

Meanwhile, I began having open and heated disagreements with Cal.  He
felt I was pulling away from him more, and I felt he was using me.

Mara wanted peace, and when I suggested that I go to Paris for a month
or two, she convinced Cal it was a good idea.

I remember well the sad day when I had to leave Thor on the quay of the
Nice train station.  Cal would absolutely not let me take him, but I
was sure that Mara would send him to me after a few weeks.  In her
frail state, she could never keep up with my energetic boy.  So even
though I thought I would be separated only for a short time, it was a
heart-wrenching good-bye.

"Where are you going with a suitcase, Mommy?" he asked in a tiny,
almost fearful voice.

"I'm going to stay in Paris a little while, honey."

"I want to go with you."

"Not this time, sweetheart.  Maybe soon," I murmured as my voice
cracked, and I kissed him tenderly on his cheeks.

My precarious psychological state left my emotional resources depleted,
and I was hoping that in Paris I would have time to think things
through.  Not only was I painfully aware that I had married a man I did
not love, but I also had been giving my body to numerous men whom I did
not choose.  Living in Ere, as the almost sole provider of the home,
yet with the least personal choice, I saw no change in my situation.  I
had recently received a sweet letter from James, one of the brothers
whom I was close to in Paris, and he suggested a little vacation for
me.  I thought that odd.  No one in the Family took vacations, but
something about his letter made me feel that he was more liberated from
Family rules than anyone else I knew.  He now wrote that they had room
for me in their small home in Paris.  If nothing else, I could have a
little reflection time.  I had always thought that God would give me
Thor--after all, I had done all this for Him!  --but I needed to figure
out a way to have him for myself.

However, as I entered the train and looked back, I had a premonition
that I was leaving Thor for a long time.  Cal had his hands tightly on
his son's shoulder, but Thor's eyes were with me.  I brushed the tears
and thoughts away and boarded the train.

James was the same sweet and capable brother I remembered from the Show
Group days.  He knew a few very rich men in Paris who had already been
given numerous women from the Family.  When I arrived in Paris, these
men wanted me too.  Unfortunately, I slept with one of them before we
found out that there was a venereal disease going around.  When one of
the women in our home got it, James took me to a private doctor in one
of the fanciest areas of Paris.

I knew this must cost a fortune, and I imagined that one of our clients
was paying.  When I worked in the Show Group, the family members who
were foreigners were issued the carte de sejour, which entitled us to
free medical and social services.  But my carte de sejour had not been
renewed after the Show Group split up.  Many of our foreign members
received the carte de sejour by marrying French nationals, and all
children born in France were given free medical services.

James noticed that I was a little apprehensive.  I had not been to a
doctor since Thor was born and I had needed stitches.  He tried to put
me at ease.

"Don't worry," he said.  "You can witness to the doctor, you know.  He
might be a sheep."  The doctor interviewed me extensively.  He had
already seen a number of us, and he was curious as to what was going
on.  I explained it all to him.

"You see, we believe that God supplies all the needs a man has.  And if
we say we love someone, then why should we not give that person sex as
an expression of God's Love?" 

"But how do you choose to whom to give this sex?" 

That was a tricky question for me, since of course, my leaders always
chose for me, but I knew I should not reveal this to a stranger.

"Any one interested in knowing more about God's Love can be shown love
through sex," I answered demurely.

"Do you get paid for this?" he asked.

"Oh, no, we never take money."

"But some of the men I treated were obviously very rich men," he said,
realizing that he could be honest with me.  "Surely, your group must
target rich men."

"Not really," I replied, recalling my recent experience with the poor
young student.  "But often, it is the rich men who are most needy for
God's real love.  Like the Bible says, it is harder for a rich man to
go to heaven than for the camel to pass through the eye of a
needle."  For some reason he seemed to accept this as a reasonable
answer and nodded in agreement.

"Yes.  You are in good health.  Continue to take these pills, and see
my secretary about getting the last appointment next Friday.  I will
have the rest of the lab reports in by then."  Friday I came after a
full day of witnessing on the street selling literature.  The lights
were low in the waiting room, and there was no secretary.  The doctor
came out of his office in the back.

"Hello, Jeshanah.  My secretary had to go somewhere tonight, so I let
her off early.  But this should not take long.  Come back here."  I
followed him to his formal office in the back.

"Well, you don't seem to have anything.  You are lucky."

"Thank the Lord," I said automatically.

"I was thinking, though.  I am very interested in God, and would like
to know more about His Love, as you explained it."  I looked at him for
a second with distrust.  He was a doctor.  Why would he want to have
sex with someone who had been to bed recently with men who had VD?

"Oh, who cares," I thought.  I had explained to him why we were doing
this, and he didn't seem interested in being witnessed to.  He was a
nice-looking man, and I wondered if he was married.  Well, it didn't
hurt me to do this.  I had recently been with men twice his age and
size, and after those experiences, his trim, healthy body was a welcome
sight.

However, it was my first experience with a "short version" of sexual
witnessing.  I thought it would be easier to give him oral sex, since
we were in the office, and it was over in a few minutes.  I left and
never saw him again.  If nothing else, my trip to Paris had shown me
that I could make some of my own decisions.

After eight weeks in Paris, all I could think about was getting back to
Thor.  I decided to go back to southern France by train.  Having become
very independent living in James's home, I knew I could make some
decisions on my own.  I tried calling Cal, but the phone had been
disconnected.  Thinking they did not have enough money to pay the phone
bill, I wrote a letter saying when I would arrive.  But when I arrived
at the station in Nice, there was no one waiting for me.  I tried Cal's
number again, but it was still disconnected.  I knew he must have
received my letter by this time, so I could not imagine why no one
would be there to meet me.  Finally, I decided to call our leaders in
that area, Peter and Sheila.

"Hi, Jeshanah.  Praise the Lord!  It is good to hear from you.  Where
are you?" said a sweet voice on the phone.

"Well, I'm at the train station in Nice.  I thought Cal would meet me,
but no one is here.  I guess I'll take a bus to Ere."

"Oh, no, honey," said Peter, who had picked up another phone.
"Haven't you heard that they moved?" I felt like I had just taken a
dagger in my heart.

"What do you mean moved?  Where is Thor?  Why wasn't I told?" 

"You wait right there and we will come get you," said Sheila.  She
sounded truly concerned.

They arrived within half an hour.  I then learned that Cal and the
whole home had moved to a house in the mountains "somewhere," and he
did not want me to know where he was.

"I don't care about Cal," I cried anxiously.  "I want to see my son.
I haven't been with him for over two months.  I want to see him now!"

"Jeshanah, we are going to talk to Cal about this.  You can stay with
us for now.  And we will try to work this out."

"What do you mean try?  You are the leaders here.  If you say Thor
should see me, than Cal has to obey."

"Well, Mo is telling the leaders to try to persuade the disciples now,
and not to command them.  We are your servants, after all," he
replied, repeating by rote the words we had all read in the letters,
but which I knew were lies.  No leader had ever served me.

Being on my own in Paris, with James never telling me what to do, I had
regained some of my former independent nature.  This is one reason I
never thought I was brainwashed.  At some points of my life in the
Family, I thought clearly, like the autonomous person I had always
been.  But I know I was manipulated, and these leaders knew exactly how
to manipulate me right now through Thor.

"Jeshanah, honey, the Lord will take care of everything in His time,"
said Sheila in a voice coated with honey.  "Let's pray about this
together and find out what God's Will is."  I didn't need to find out
what His Will was.  I wanted to see Thor.  It was never part of the
agreement that Cal disappear with our son.  That was unfair.  The
Family needed to help me.  But I soon understood that they had their
own agenda.  Like so many times in my life, when I saw my walls of
idealism crumbling before my eyes, I bent over to pick up the pieces.

There were still the ideals to be upheld, and even if Cal and the
leaders were playing against me, I knew in my heart that what I did was
for God.  Surely, He would not let me down.  This was a time to be
"wise as a serpent, but harmless as a dove" (Matthew 10, 16), so I
listened passively while my leaders talked to me.  Rather than dealing
with my heightened state of desperation to see my son, Peter told me I
had been destined for a special mission to head up a home in Monaco.

I was biting my lip not to ask about Thor.

"Peter and I have access to a flat in Monaco for a few days.  We
thought you could come with us and we can go out together," piped up
Sheila excitedly.  "Of course, eventually we will try to get
visitation privileges for you to see Thor," she said, as if she had
read my mind, or maybe she was sensitive enough to see the pain written
in my eyes.

"Jeshanah, I want you to realize that God is in control here," added
Peter.  "This might be a hard saying, but I believe it is the Lord's
Will that Thor is away from you right now.  This will give you more
time for God's work, and at least at the very beginning of this effort,
we need you free from child-care responsibilities."  Peter had no idea
how many times I had heard that same spiel while I was a dancer.  How
often had every leader who came through the Show Group in the three
years of our heyday told me that I needed to forsake Thor for the
work?

I had been accused of loving my son more than God many times, and
despite my best efforts to do both God's work and be a mother, it
seemed that God was still jealous.  Like the Bible said,"I, the Lord
your God am a jealous God...and I will have no other Gods before
me."  Did He really mean that my son could be a god?

"Remember how the Lord tested Abraham," said Sheila.  "He had to
forsake Isaac, but he was given back."  I knew that Old Testament
story.  It was one of the stories I had the most trouble with.  Why
would a loving God want to test someone to that extent?  Should I
believe it?  What choices do I have?

"I know, Sheila.  I am repeatedly put to this test with my son," I
responded sadly.

"Well, maybe you haven't gotten the victory yet," replied Peter in his
harsh leader-knows-all voice.  "Maybe this will keep coming up until
you finally forsake him in your heart."  His comment prompted me to see
a vision of myself sitting on top of a spiked fence.  Sitting on fences
was a recurrent vision, since I had so much difficulty choosing.

On one side was the land of milk and honey promised by God and the COG,
and on the other was the filth and despair of the world.  Which side
would I jump into?  It all depended on which side Thor lived, and that
was never revealed to me.  All I could do was hang on to those pointed
slippery spikes until I could see more clearly.

"I know, Peter.  Please pray for me," I said, more because I knew that
is what they wanted to hear than because I really wanted prayer.

We actually spent the next few days in prayer, which was the usual
procedure when a big move or initiative was about to be made.  The
Children of God, for all their hypocrisy, seriously believed in prayer,
and those who made it to the top were often people who publicly spent
many hours in prayer.  During my hours of silent praying, I would try
to hatch a plan to find out where Thor was staying.

I had learned that Cal and the whole colony had moved someplace in the
mountains between Nice and Antibes.  Breeze and the men had been
playing at restaurants along the coast, and Mara was soon due to
deliver her baby.  Through constant and careful maneuvering, I finally
persuaded Sheila to ask Cal to call me.  I waited by the phone
anxiously the night he was supposed to call.  The ring of the phone
made my heart pound heavily in my chest.

"Hello," said a distant voice, evidently calling from a badly
connected public phone,"is this Jeshanah?"  

"Yes, it's me.  Cal, is Thor with you?  Can I talk to him?  Please
let me talk to him.  Don't do this to me!  Please?" I started sobbing
uncontrollably, which I had told myself not to do.

I felt that Cal's silence meant he was considering my feelings, but I
was wrong.

"No, Jeshanah.  Thor is doing very well without you.  He doesn't even
ask about you anymore.  You know it has been over three months now.  He
calls Mara Mommy."  It was the most hurtful and hateful thing he could
have said to me.  I could not hold back the sobs, which made me unable
to talk any further.

"Well, maybe this wasn't a good idea," said Cal coldly.

"No...pleeease don't hang up.  Pleeeease, Cal, don't hang up.  "

"I'll call you tomorrow at the same time.  I have to talk to Mara," he
said and hung up the phone.

I knew that Sheila was just outside the door, but I could not help
myself.  I just fell on the bed and cried and cried.

When I finally got back to reality, I wiped my face and went to see
Sheila.  Despite her years of following Family rules of leadership,
which could harden the most tenderhearted people, Sheila still seemed
somewhat sympathetic.  In any case, she was all I had for a friend at
this moment.

"I can't live without at least seeing my son," I explained, trying not
to become overly emotional.  "I just want to see him.  That's all.  "
Sheila had no children, and it was probably hard for her to understand
the deep mother instinct I was feeling.

"But if he is doing fine, and he is in God's hands, taken care of by
the Family, why would you have to see him too?" she asked.

Fortunately, I had cried all my tears for the day, or so I told myself,
and I was able to answer her dry-eyed.

"I must be weak in this area of my life, Sheila.  I can sleep with
anyone.  I can stay up all night and go out every night and witness,
you know that.  You know how much I sacrifice, that's why you want me
here.  I will do anything you ask me to do, I promise!  But Sheila, I
just need to see Thor, that's all.  I can't stay here and do this if
I don't see him."

"I'll talk to Peter about it," she replied.  "But ultimately, it is
Cal's choice.  We are not allowed to dictate those things anymore."  I
knew that was not the full truth.  The only way they could not dictate
was if Cal left the Family, and I doubted that he had at that point.

Whether they talked to Cal or not, I did not know.  I heard later that
Abe had heard me crying over the phone and tried to convince Cal to let
me see my son.  Mara also told me many years later that it was the
leaders who had told Cal and her that I was needed for fishing and that
they should keep Thor.  The next night Cal called and said I could meet
him and Thor at a public park in Nice, but only for one hour.

I will hold every minute of that one hour in my heart for the rest of
my life, next to where the minutes of Thor's birth are stored.  The
meeting was to be at a park near Place Massena, in the center of
Nice.

It was a sunny day, and I wore a light jacket and a long skirt.  On my
way to the park, I looked anxiously around, mistaking any little
red-haired boy for Thor.  He was nearly five years old, and I wondered
how much he had grown in three months.  I thought that he might not
recognize me.  I was twenty-five years old and had been told I looked
much younger, but I felt like a broken, old woman who had lost her
child in the Holocaust and now had heard he was alive.  It was
melodramatic, but it was real to me.

I saw Thor when I was still a block away.  Cal held his hand by the
fountain.

"Thor!" I cried, running toward him.

He turned around at the sound of my voice, and letting go of his
daddy's hand, he ran toward me.

I fell down to one knee and held my arms open wide while he ran
full-force into my embrace.  A little taller and more robust, he still
had a baby face and was smiling brightly.  I had tears in my eyes, but
for a few minutes, I was happy.

Cal was touched by our display of raw emotion, and he conceded to allow
me periodic visits with Thor.  It was a promising start, and I did not
see that I had any other recourse but to agree and thank him
profusely.

Walking home after that emotionally charged meeting, I felt that God
indeed loved me.  After spending three days in the belly of the whale,
I must have said something that pleased God, because now He let me out
of the darkness.  I could again enjoy the blue of the sky, the softness
of the gentle wind against my cheeks, and the sound of my son's
laughter in my ear.  God must love me, I thought, and the Family was so
good to me.

No matter what the sacrifice, I was thankful to be called to do a
special service for Him and His work, because I now knew that
ultimately, He would give me the desires of my heart, as He had
promised in His Word!  And if I thought about it honestly, giving God's
Love to strangers was certainly not a sacrifice for me.  In fact, it
was the easiest work I ever did in the Family.


Casting the Net

Sharon was chosen to join me in Monaco.  Recently
arriving from Paris, Sharon was just as I remembered, only a little
thinner.  She had been our lead female vocalist, but she was one of the
few performers who never got a big head.  Tall, blond, and largely
built, she always reminded me of a Valkyrie opera singer when she was
on stage.  Offstage, she was shy, insecure, and absolutely loyal to
friends and family.  The only self-gratifying action that I ever knew
her to indulge in was when she had a private affair with one of our
songwriters.  She was very much in love with him, so it surprised
everyone when instead she married Timothy, a skinny, feminine-looking
brother years younger than she.  I never knew if their marriage had
been suggested to them, or if they fell in love, but they were a
strange combination in everyone's eyes.  Timothy absolutely adored
Sharon, and she treated him with love and respect.

Timothy, Sharon, and I got along wonderfully, and within days we were
singing in the best restaurants in old Monte Carlo.  When we needed
more privileged contacts in order to get into Jimmy'z, the fishing hole
we had our eye on, Sharon's friend Pierre, a movie producer, helped us
out.

"Sure, bring along as many girls as you wish," Pierre said
enthusiastically when Sharon queried if I could come along on their
evening date.  He met us at the Cafe de Paris dressed in flashy
clothes.  He was a large, ruggedly handsome, and extremely jovial man,
and I could not help but notice what a striking couple he and Sharon
made.  Sometimes I wondered what she would have done had she not joined
the Family.

Certainly her strict Catholic upbringing had not prepared her to sleep
with French movie producers in order to gain entrance to a private
club.

As we stood before the small, dark, almost hidden entrance to Jimmy'z,
the guardian of the door peeked through the sliding aperture and gave
her decision whether access to the private club would be denied or
not.

Before it was our turn at the door, a group of colorfully attired
"beautiful people" walked right past us, knocked on the door, and were
ushered in.  I noticed that one of them was Andy Warhol, recognizable
by his white and distinctively styled hair.  We were next, and although
I was beginning to doubt if Pierre could get us in on this evidently
superprivileged evening, he gave no sign of concern.

Pierre knocked on the door.  The slide was pushed back silently while
those now familiar eyes scrutinized our group of three.  Pierre said
something I could not hear to the guardian and she quickly opened the
door and let us pass through.  Entering the vestibule, I followed
Pierre and Sharon into the next room, looking around at the other
tables for any faces I knew, but it seemed that everyone had eyes on us
instead.  We were led to the V.I.P tables, which were curved booths
that sat directly next to the small dance floor.  The lovely lady at
the table who greeted Pierre was Catherine Deneuve, the most famous
actress in France.  We were introduced as we all sat at her table, and
I found her more elegant, gracious, and beautiful than could ever be
revealed on the screen.

After being seated with the celebrated actress, we were never denied
entry to the private club again.  With access to Jimmy'z, we decided to
get a table for ourselves, since without one we would always be
dependent on some man from another table inviting us over.  Standing at
the bar in Jimmy'z signified a lower status, with our own table, we
could pick and choose from our vantage point.  We knew what we were
doing there, and the fish did not.  Using money we had left over from
singing, we bought a bottle of vodka and took a table.

It is not possible for me to list all the men that I went to bed with
during this time.  Much later, when I was out of the Family and trying
to get rid of what I thought were ghosts, a Christian pastor told me to
name each man I had been with, or visualize him, and then cast him out
of me.  I found that it was not only impossible, but tiring and
depressing, and I abandoned the practice of casting out demons as soon
as I arrived at the Monte Carlo days in my mind.  I have never
regretted the decision to abandon that technique for ridding oneself of
recollections, for I found it guilt producing and totally in conflict
with what I really felt for these men at the time.  They were not
demons, or even bad spirits that possessed me, in fact, if I believed
in possession at all (which I'm not sure I do), I possessed these men
with a good spirit.  What I did was in love and for love, and I think
that faith is what protected me from the horrors and degradation that I
witnessed in all the high-class call girls whom I met during that
period of time.

The Children of God firmly believed that we lived in a different world
from anyone else, and we merely stepped into this mundane world of
material things and sinful natures in order to save more people from
ultimate spiritual death.  In fact, death itself was just a
stepping-stone to a higher spiritual reality--a doctrine held by many
religions.  But we believed that dying without accepting Jesus'
salvation would mean hell.  It's very hard to say how much I really
believed this, now that I am so far removed from it, but I know that my
motives were not flesh induced or emotionally inspired.  For many
years, I did not feel physical pleasure during sex or even desire while
flirting.  I took on the role of a vestal virgin, offering my body as
God's gift of love, a perverse combination of the purity of sacred
devotion and the intimacy of marriage bonds.  Although I eventually
came to realize that not all our girls were so innocently naive about
sex, I was able to keep my emotions and my mission so carefully
separated that I lost the key to romantic/soul-mate love without ever
having used it.

The men I was with were not aware of my mission, however, and they each
reacted differently.  Nevertheless, I could group these men into the
following categories, (1) those who simply made use of the free sex
(these were the men I have generally forgotten), (2) those who
genuinely liked me or who felt a romantic inclination toward me (these
are the ones I remember best), (3) those who found my spiritual message
sexually stimulating (these were the ones I recall with pity or
disappointment), (4) those few who fell sadly in love with me but not
the Family.  These were the men I did not share with sexually, as soon
as I found out that their concept of love was not compatible with the
one I was preaching.  Perhaps these were the men who could have truly
helped me, who cared enough about me to want me out of the Family's
control, but I was too detached from my emotions to recognize real
love.

Within a few months after starting our little "home" of three in Monte
Carlo, we found an apartment in the plush, private residential area of
Cap Martin.  Among the exclusive millionaire mansions that lined the
coast of the last French peninsula before Italy, ours was one of the
few modest houses, and it had been divided into two apartments.  We
rented the one downstairs, aided by a large security payment from
Timothy's father.  Sharon and Tim had a beautiful baby girl now, so
Tim's father wanted to see them more settled.  The house was in walking
distance of a bus stop, which could take us to Monaco, the principality
that considered itself separate from France but which was served by
French public transportation.  Carrying a guitar or two, neatly
enclosed in a case, and dressed in stylish clothes that we had
collected over the years in Paris, we usually hitchhiked, in order to
meet more people.  At night, after singing or going to the clubs, we
had to ask a man we met to take us home, or use one of the taxi drivers
who had been a client.

Since Mo's photo had been taken in Tenerife and published widely
throughout Europe, Mo lived completely underground now, but from the
speed with which we received his encouraging messages, I suspected he
was somewhere nearby.  That made me rather nervous.  I knew that Mo
pulled women out of their homes at will to live in his "harem."  I
imagined life in his home to be terribly restrictive and embarrassingly
open about sexual activity.  This sounds sanctimonious, considering
what I was doing, but there were a few things happening at his house
that I felt were past the limit of what I could do, such as walking
around naked in front of all the children who lived there.

Recently, Mo had been sending us letters explicitly describing the sex
between himself and every woman in his home.  Sometimes, the
descriptions were not flattering, especially if the woman did not
please Mo in some way.  One young woman whom I knew was rebuked in a
letter because she preferred to return and live with the father of her
baby rather than stay in Mo's house.

By now, I was in a continual state of ambivalence over whether I
believed in Mo or detested him.  It was as if he had given us all a
beautiful way to live and then destroyed it, but we kept hanging on for
different reasons.  About this time I received a message from one of
our leaders through Tim.

"I am asked to remind you that you are the writer of The Uneager
Beaver, so we should keep a very close watch over your spiritual
growth," said Tim hesitantly one morning.

"But that doesn't mean that you are not doing good right now,
Jeshanah.  We just want to be sure nothing happens that could hurt
the work we are doing here," added Sharon sweetly.

"We thought you should have more time in the Word, you know.  You have
been going out every night, and you usually miss morning devotions.  I
think we will switch the morning devotions to noon, and we all should
be up by then," said Timothy, seemingly pleased that he had already
come up with a workable solution.

"Can I go on a bike ride right now?" I asked, wishing to get away for
a few moments.  "I will take a Mo book with me and read something in
the field down the road."  Sharon spoke up immediately and said that
would be a good idea.  As I rode through the posh neighborhood, seeing
only the large servants' quarters from the streets, I thought about
Tim's message.  Surely it meant that Mo did not want me too near him or
any of his pet projects.

That was fine with me, as long as I could stay near my son.  What if Mo
thought I was too unspiritual to raise a child of God?  Why did he keep
harping on that story I had written?  Did I not already receive
forgiveness for that?  According to the Bible, that sin should have
been washed away.

I parked the bike near a pretty orchard, probably someone's private
property, and sat under an olive tree.  Opening my booklet to one of
the more "milky" Mo letters, I tried to read, but my eyesight was
hindered by tears.  I closed the book and let myself cry
uncontrollably.  They were tears of despair and confusion.  I grasped
for meaning in my life, and I came only to Thor.  My son was happy and
healthy.  I was near him, and I knew that if I was good enough, if I
obeyed and sacrificed, repented of sins I didn't even recognize yet, I
would get him back one day.

When the sobs subsided, I admired my surroundings of neat fences,
manicured pastures, and picturesque olive trees with their gnarly,
bumpy trunks suggesting a life of difficulty.  After releasing the
recurrent pain and replenished by nature, I got on the bike and
continued my ride around the Cap. As I continued along the road,
pushing the bike now, I met a woman named Sophia, who was visiting from
Provence.  She promised to visit the next day and to bring her host
with her.

Sharon, Tim, and I were excited about the prospect of meeting someone
who actually lived in this exclusive neighborhood, but we were not
prepared to meet Charles.  We had in mind a stiff, dignified CEO type,
or maybe a flashy Hollywood pretender.  Instead, Sophia walked in the
next day with an unpretentious-looking young man who slightly stuttered
at first acquaintances.

Charles was of medium build, slightly taller than average, he wore his
straight, brown hair in a conservative short cut, and looked eerily
like Anthony Perkins when he wasn't playing a psycho.  I thought he was
handsome, and his strangeness only made him more appealing.  Charles
had a look that contained a blend of extreme sensitivity and
discernment, a combination that I have found makes normal life more
difficult to live.

As I grew to know Charles better, I discovered that he overcame this
difficulty by considering nothing "normal."  But then, he could afford
this luxury.

Charles had received a title of nobility and a substantial inheritance
from his grandfather, who also provided an intricate royal history.  An
illegitimate child without formally recognized parentage, he had been
adopted by a wealthy Hungarian Jew, himself ennobled by Emperor Franz
Josef II of Austria-Hungary.  The Hungarian noble's mother was a
Hapsburg and his father was rumored to have been Queen Victoria's son,
Edward, who became King Edward VII.  The queen, by special decree, had
granted him the right and privilege to use his foreign title in
Britain.  But the paternity issue was never finally resolved, and the
most likely candidate to be his ancestor was the Austro-Hungarian baron
himself.

His grandfather had also passed on to Charles the responsibility for a
wildlife foundation, which included a large piece of property and an
enormous villa on Cap Martin.  It was here that Charles lived and 
cared for a number of protected animal species, but his mild manner and
scruffy attire made it impossible to guess he was a descendant of one
of Europe's oldest royal lines.

Charles and I immediately struck up a close friendship.  He had been
married to the daughter of his grandfather's housekeeper, but their
marriage did not last long.  It appeared that Sophia, the young lady I
talked with on the road, was someone interesting he had met while
picking grapes in France, and although he informed me that they'd
remained in contact throughout the years, she was gone in a few weeks
and I never saw her again.  Of course, Charles and I spent more time
together after Sophia left, and I remember my first evening visit to
his chateau as one of the most mysterious and melodramatic moments in
my life.

The huge chateau, set off from the main street by a winding drive,
appeared nestled in the wild trees like Dracula's castle when I first
saw it in the bluish-purple light of the evening.  The gray stones
contrasted with the live pink flamingos that populated the small pond
in front of the chateau's massive doors.  We entered through the back
door that led past the servants' kitchen, actually the only kitchen in
the house.  I imagine that nobles never had to cook for themselves in
the days when the castle was built.  Charles, however, used the kitchen
quite frequently to entertain guests.  In fact, most of the ornately
decorated rooms with their Baroque, gilded furniture were never used by
Charles at all.  This night, he led me to the library, which had a
small room next to it that he used for his bedroom.  Instinctively he
felt that the library is where I would want to be, and Charles seemed
to want to please me.  Lighting a fire in the darkened room, he let me
browse through the books.  I touched them hesitantly.  The Family had
been through a number of book burnings, and we were discouraged from
reading anything, especially books such as these, that seemed to hold
ancient wisdom.  I was drawn to one in particular, a book by Chiero on
reading palms.

"Are you interested in palm reading?" asked Charles, coming up from
behind me so silently that I jumped.  "Oh, I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to
frighten you."

"No, well, yes.  I think I am.  This looks very intriguing," I said as
I thumbed through sketches of the heart line, the fate lines, and
others.

I was wondering if I should tell him that we really don't believe in
anything but what is in the Bible or the Mo letters, but since this was
such a rare opportunity to find out something really interesting, I
decided to keep that subject for later.

"My sister was into palm reading, among other things.  She moved to
Greece and opened a bar there with her girlfriend."  said Charles
quietly.

"Oh?  Is she still there?  I would love to go to Greece."

"No!  She committed suicide a few years ago.  In fact, I think this
book is hers.  Do you want to borrow it?" Dire thoughts raced through
my mind.  Tim had warned me that I should not go to Charles's castle
alone.  Both he and Sharon thought that Charles hid some great
secrets in this place.

Did he know black magic or something?  The eerie shadows made by the
fire caused what looked like ghosts to play on the bookshelves.  If I
took this book, would I be possessed?  I looked Charles in the eyes and
saw nothing but sincere devotion to a friend, along with a sadness
brought on by thoughts of his sister.

"Oh, Charles, that would be lovely.  Are you sure you don't mind, this
being your sister's book?  I'm sure it means something special to
you." 

"You are special to me too, Jeshanah.  You picked up that book, among
the hundreds in this room, so I think you should take it."

"Okay, but only to borrow.  I'll learn how to read palms, and I'll read
yours one day."  I went home that evening with a confusing realization
of having found a friend outside the Family.  That was not supposed to
happen.

"I don't know about that book," said Timothy questioningly as we went
over the previous evening during our noon devotions.  "What if it has a
strange spirit attached?  You know what Mo said about spirits using
things as vehicles."

"Well, we can pray over it and cast out any spirits," replied Sharon.
"Mo's own grandmother read palms."  I never understood if Sharon was
just coming to my rescue as a friend, or if she was just a closet
rebellious woman.

"Yeah, and Mo himself had his palm read by Madam M," I added, by now
earnestly desiring to read this book.

Although we wanted to keep Charles as a friend, Timothy and Sharon
thought it would be unsafe to give him God's Love since he lived so
close.  They were also concerned about all the questions Charles
asked.

He was very inquisitive, and living right down the  street, he
could spy on all our doings.  Since the Family was inherently paranoid,
living illegally in most countries, having no visible means of support,
and not adhering to local laws, such as sending children to school or
doctors regularly, the idea of having an outsider know about our daily
activities was out of the question.

"Has he made any physical advances towards you, Jeshanah?" inquired
Sharon in an excuse-me-for-intruding voice.

"Well, no, not really.  We kissed once after the movies, but he was so
shy about it, I didn't want to push anything," I answered, remembering
the kiss that Charles had given me.  His hands shook as he held my hand
in the car, and his lips were quivering.  I didn't feel that this was
someone I should seduce.  He seemed so vulnerable.

"Jeshanah, witness to him every time you're alone.  Then, if he wants
sex, he knows what it's for, and if he doesn't we know why."

"Why?" I asked, wondering what Timothy's train of reasoning could
be.

"Why, he's not a sheep then."  Ironically, Timothy's simplistic advice
was really the best we could follow.  He usually gave the right advice
for the wrong reason.  If I slept with Charles, I felt, he could be
terribly hurt when he found out that I did the same with lots of men.

I did not want to hurt my new and only friend, and although I had
various degrees of closeness to Charles throughout the years, I never
had a sexual relationship with him.  He never asked for it either, and
we enjoyed a platonic but deep relationship, a rarity it seems between
a man and a woman.

By the winter of 1978, Sharon, Timothy, and I had established ourselves
in Monte Carlo as an eccentric but accepted singing team.  Going out by
two, we took turns staying home with the baby.  We sang at most of the
restaurants near the palace--they all had enough of a clientele to make
it worthwhile--and at some of the fancier restaurants down in the Monte
Carlo casino area.  With Sharon's amazing talent, I did little but
collect the money after she sang, make new contacts, and talk to anyone
who had questions.  After a singing excursion, we usually went to the
Cafe de Paris to sit with a drink and wait until the clubs started to
fill up.  I was used to drinking nightly now, and although I never
became a heavy drinker, I felt that I could witness better after a
glass of wine.  Often, we met people just sitting in the luxurious and
much frequented cafe.  Now I had a new tool for breaking the ice.  If I
saw someone who looked like a prospect for fishing, I introduced myself
by asking if he wanted his palm read.

One evening, as I was drinking my third or fourth kir, I spied the
cooler-than-thou crowd hanging out at the back of the room.  I got up
and walked straight to their table, keeping my eyes on a short,
muscular man who I believed was a high-bred noble.

"Do you want your palm read?" I asked, taking his hand and studying
it curiously.  He looked up with glassy eyes.

"Can you do this?" He responded too simply, caught off guard for a
second.

I studied his hand for quite sometime, while the others at the table
debated the validity of palm reading.  Actually, even though I had
digested the Chiero book completely and knew the lines, clever palm
reading becomes perfect with practice.  Much of it is relying on
intuition and feelings.  As I held his small, square hand in my long,
slender one, I was surprised at the coarseness of this noble hand.  His
fingers were short and stubby, with flat, square fingernails.  I had
more than enough material to reveal what I thought of royal titles and
elitism based on blood and wealth.

"You have the hands of a peasant," I said, as I kept my eyes intently
focused on his palm.  I felt him jerk his hand ever so slightly, and
then relax.

There was a roar of protest from his friends.

"Some connection you have with God, not to recognize a noble hand,"
chirped a little pretty thing at the end of the table, obviously having
heard about me before.

"This is a work hand," I continued.  "In the old days you would have
been working in the fields.  Today this hand would work in the
factories, but it seems you have had some help from fate."  I had no
idea how accurate I was in accessing his ancestry.  Many years later I
would find out that his famous family was once known as "the dynasty of
the peasants."  This seemed to be enough for him.  He pulled his hand
away.

The gentleman, whose name was Andre, bellowed for more drinks.

"What will you have, Jeshanah?  Sharon?" he asked kindly.  His deeply
tanned face showed early signs of age, although he was probably still
in his thirties.  At twenty-six, I still looked much younger than
anyone at the table, probably due to my lack of makeup and unstyled
hair.  I was beginning to feel sorry for what I had said.  It had
obviously moved him in some way.  When they all decided to continue the
party at his house, we were invited.

Andre lived in one of the swankiest private apartment buildings in
Monte Carlo.  Situated to have a view of the sea, the mountains, and
the best spot to watch the famed Monte Carlo Grand Prix, I knew this
apartment cost a fortune.  Not only was Andre a noble, he also had
money, which gave him a top position among the young jet-set crowd.

This evening he had invited a few models to his home.  One of them was
a "James Bond girl."  Since I did not go to movies very often, I would
never have recognized her, but she was introduced as such.

I felt uncomfortable in this crowd, so I suggested that Sharon sing a
few songs.  I noticed that Andre listened intently as he tried to
figure us out.  People were coming and going, and a few times I tried
to excuse myself, but Andre always pulled me back, insisting I stay.

Finally, Sharon took me aside.

"Andre wants to bite," she said, reverting to her leadership role.  "I
have to go home, but I think you should stay here.  He may never have
another chance to hear the message like this."  Sharon left with a
chauffeur who was called from the casino area.  I wondered why Andre
wanted me to stay.  He had acted disinterested in me for the last
couple of hours.  Suddenly he seemed to notice I was there when
everyone had left.

"So, tell me about this talent you have for reading palms," he said,
seemingly unaffected by the lack of sleep that made it hard for me to
keep my eyes open.

"oh, I just started it.  Maybe I read your hand wrong.  I know you have
some title or something."

"Actually, I am a descendant of Napoleon.
Come, let me show you."  He took my hand and led me on a tour of his
apartment, showing me all the objects he had inherited from his famous
ancestor.  I was too tired to show due amazement, and I guess he took
this as ignorance or lack of sophistication.  We ended up in the
bedroom, which sported a tiny, boatlike wooden bed that he claimed had
been Napoleon's.  It looked like the right size to me, and I was hoping
I could lie down in it, mainly because I was thoroughly fatigued.  In
fact, we did lie down, and in robotlike fashion I told him that we were
really messengers from God.  I told him that I was God's Love to the
lost souls in Monte Carlo.  My eyes were closed.  I did not know if he
heard, or understood, or even cared, but I know I told him, and then we
made love.

When I arrived home in the morning, Sharon and Tim were at the kitchen
table eating breakfast and feeding their daughter in the highchair.  We
discussed our evening with the Monte Carlo jet set over croissants and
coffee, and we all agreed that they were not the type we should
concentrate on.  They seemed too rich, young, and beautiful to think
about needing God at this point in their lives, and we decided that
they were just having fun, while we had a mission.

Soon after, we were told by Mo that the Monte Carlo home should be a
secret in the Family.  The only trouble was that it was no secret to
Cal and Mara, who lived on the other side of Monaco in Cap Ferrat.  I
used to joke that Thor's parents lived on the two most beautiful and
exclusive Caps in the world.  My main concern was that Mara and Cal
insisted I could only visit Thor at their home and never brought him to
my place.

There are no simple explanations of why the situation was like this.

Cal claimed that I had deserted Thor, although he knew that I had only
gone to Paris temporarily.  I knew he was keeping Thor as revenge
against me.  But I felt guilty for not having been a good wife, so I
tried to work out custody of Thor while keeping Cal's feelings a
priority.  Cal clearly had the cards stacked to his advantage.  Not
only did he have physical possession of our son, but the leaders also
preferred that Thor stay with Cal.  They were still saying that God
wanted me to put Him first, so right now, as always, all I had for
leverage was my body.  That is what the leaders wanted--for God's work,
of course.

I spent every free day with my son and often spent the night so I could
be with him more.  I knew that Cal intended to send Thor to French
school in the fall, but I kept up with his reading and writing in
English and practiced math exercises with him.  His chubby little
five-year-old body was full of energy.  Often we would take long walks
around the Cap, stopping to look at fish or discover a turtle.  Thor
had a great imagination, and he liked to pretend he was a pirate, or a
soldier, or a knight.  I played all the other parts--the villain, the
damsel in distress, the enemy, the poor old lady who needed
defending.

At night I made up fantastic stories of Thor riding a white horse and
flying off to another world to save his princess Chiara, a little girl
who was his friend in Paris.  We bonded intensely, and for this time I
was forever grateful, since we both would need that connection to make
it through some very rough years.  Still, I was upset that Thor could
never stay with me in my home.  One morning, sleeping in Thor's room, I
woke up early before anyone in Cal's house was stirring.  It was still
a little dark outside as I shook Thor awake.

"Shh, don't say anything, Thor," I warned him as he opened his eyes
and looked at me with a smile.

"We are going on an adventure before anyone else wakes up.  Do you want
to do that?" He shook his little red head yes and jumped out of bed
rubbing his eyes.  I had already prepared a small backpack with some of
Thor's clothes, which I put over his shoulders.  I didn't want to carry
a suitcase and arouse suspicion.  We tiptoed through the French doors
that opened up into the yard.  Thor was very good about being quiet,
and I could hear my own heart beat excitedly.  I was planning to kidnap
Thor back.

I kept looking back over my shoulder while we headed for the road,
thinking that surely God would wake up somebody to run after me if this
was not His Will.  No one came.  As soon as we reached the main road, I
stuck out my thumb.  Most of the light traffic that came down the road
to the Cap were domestic workers coming in, not going out.

"Why aren't we taking a bus?" asked Thor.

"Because it is too early, honey.  The buses are not running yet.  But
this is an adventure.  You want to do something different, don't
you?" 

"Yes, but I'm hungry."

"Okay, as soon as we get a ride out of here, we'll stop and get
something to eat."

"Can I have a religeuse?" he asked, requesting his favorite French
pastry.

"You can have as many as you want, honey, as long as you drink it with
milk."  I would not be safe until we got a ride out of the Cap.
Finally, I saw a gray Mercedes come down the road.  I frantically waved
him down.

"I have to catch a train," I said.  "Can you take us to the train
station?" The driver let us in and dropped us off at the Beaulieu
station.

I had decided to take the first train going in either direction.

Luckily, the first one was headed for Italy, the direction I needed to
go.  We got off in the Menton station, and I took the first bus going
by Cap Martin.

Timothy and Sharon were just eating breakfast when I arrived with
Thor.

Sharon took my little boy in her arms while I cried on Timothy's
shoulder.

"Oh, Timothy, please let me keep him.  I just want to have him for the
weekends.  Please help me."

"He'll help you," said Sharon from the side.  "We'll make sure you can
have your son on weekends, Jeshanah.  I promise."  Sharon stuck by her
promise.  Timothy called Peter and Sheila, who came out immediately
knowing that Cal would throw a fit.

Cal came out to the house and searched, never thinking to go upstairs
where Thor and I were hiding in the neighbor's apartment.  Peter and
Sheila kept telling Cal to quiet down and go home, since they were
afraid he might blow our cover.

Finally, Peter and Timothy took Cal by force back to his home.  Thanks
to Cal's display of disobedience to leadership, the leaders were now on
my side.  They told Cal that unless he agreed to allow Thor to stay
with me on weekends, I would keep Thor in an undisclosed location
indefinitely.

He agreed.

Having Thor on weekends was like heaven on earth for me.  Now Breeze
and Abraham came over more often, first as liaisons from Cal's home to
make sure I didn't keep Thor, and then as regular guests.  Breeze was
my old singing partner from Ere-sur-Mer, and she started going out to
clubs with us more often, which was a relief for Sharon, who was
pregnant again.  We all suspected that Sharon had become pregnant from
a one-night stand.  Timothy took this like a real soldier of the
Lord.

He cared for Sharon, and eventually he treated the new baby as if she
were his own.

Breeze had been trained as a violinist, but now she wrote songs,
composed music, and played the guitar.  She was shorter than I and
rounder, but she made the most of her good points.  She wore heavy
makeup that accented her big brown eyes, and she permed her
shoulder-length brown hair so it hung in waves around her face.  Her
firm, well-endowed breasts were highlighted by the clothes she wore,
revealed in a low-cut bodice or tightly wrapped in a clingy material.

Breeze knew how to make a man look twice.

Unlike most of the girls in the Family who worked with me, Breeze never
seemed bothered by famous worries of competition.  In fact, seeing my
poor knowledge of makeup and clothes, she took it upon herself to give
me a make over.  She suggested that my waist-length hair be cut a few
inches and curled in spiral waves.  An experienced seamstress, she made
dresses for me that accented my figure and drew attention to the curve
of my derriere.  She even encouraged me to wear shorter skirts that
flaunted my long legs.  I felt safe with Breeze and trusted her opinion
almost as much as I trusted Sharon's.  More than any other home I had
ever been in, I thought that the members of this home embraced the
ideal of true brotherly and sisterly love.

With Breeze on our team, I had pink business cards printed that read
SONGS OF LOVE, IMPRESARIO, JESHANAH and our phone number printed on the
bottom.  We now passed as professional singers, which mainly meant that
it was easier for me to book us at private parties.  I carried these
cards with me at all times, handing them out freely, and this became
our cover for many activities during our time in Monte Carlo.

While waiting for final approval from Peter and Sheila for Breeze to
join our home, I met Salim, a dashing figure, well known in elite
European circles.  Once I saw a picture of Salim and his wife in a
national magazine, accompanying a story about a high-society party in
Paris, and only because of this did I know of his privileged status in
society.  I eventually discovered that he was a financier who was
respected and feared as one of the top players in the international
finance world, but since wealth and materialism meant little to me at
the time, I never inquired into his business or his private life.

As I have already described, Salim was the man who first gave me money
for sex.  Until that point, if I received any money it was understood
beforehand by the man that it would pay for rent, food, or necessities
for the Family.  I would ask them to take me shopping, and of course
some were surprised to find me buying baby clothes, children's shoes,
or a blender.  This might not seem like an obvious difference, but
receiving necessities and other supplies instead of hard money somehow
made it seem less of a monetary exchange for sex.  However, around the
time I met Salim, we began receiving the letters from Mo saying that we
should take money for it!"My Lord, you're providing enough it service
and getting laid, it's time you got paid!" ("Make it Pay!" 684,
11).  Women started to accept money for giving love, then they asked
for it, and finally the Family set up its own escort services.  Taking
the money from Salim was a turning point for me and for our work in
Monte Carlo.  He was to be my first steady fish in Monte Carlo.  I
eventually thought of him as a friend who showed his appreciation with
gifts, but he also provided introduction to quite a few Middle Eastern
billionaires.

As I became more acquainted with Salim and his lifestyle, I was often
reminded of the quote attributed to Lord Byron, which Mo had
highlighted for us in his letters,"I have drunk every cup of fame and
tasted every pleasure, and yet I die of thirst" ("War and Peace" 255,
98).  The more I met these men who had all the material wealth they
wanted, the more I felt like a true angel of mercy, bringing their
wasted and thirsty souls the water of life.  I don't know if they
shared this sentiment, but I certainly let them know how I felt,
especially Salim, who was the recipient of my letters and poems.  In
fact, I first thought that he truly cared about me when I saw a card I
had written to him stuck under the glass top of his desk, in view for
all his closest acquaintances to see.

Salim was not the only one I sent poems to, on the contrary, sending
notes to the men I met was part of my witnessing procedure.  I usually
followed a night together with a pretty card I personally selected that
reminded me in some way of the man or our experience together.  I wrote
a verse or a Mo quote that made reference to the salvation message or
continuing in God's Love.  However, for Salim, due to our lengthy
relationship, I began to write personal poems.  These were not love
poems, in the usual sense, but instead they explained a spiritual love
in "higher realms" of eternal life, such as this excerpt taken from one
long poem I composed and sent to Salim: 

Then from the view of this great mountain height, 
The world's injustices there plainly in sight,
If your heart is breaking, then let us cry, 
For the pain, for the suffering, for all those who die, 
For the greed, for the selfishness, for these things not right, 
Our weeping surely may endure for this night.

This was the type of poem I wrote to a millionaire who introduced me to
billionaires, some of whom have been accused of making their money by
dealing in arms.  I believed I was giving them spiritual insight, and I
consoled my conscience that I was taking from the rich to give to the
poor.  Once Salim understood that I used none of the money he gave me
for myself, he started to buy me personal presents.

"Do you ever buy yourself a dress with the money I give you?" he
asked me one evening as I dressed in his hotel bedroom.  I had on what
I thought my best dress, which he had probably seen a dozen times
now.

"No, I give everything to the Lord's work.  You know that."

"But don't you work for the Lord too?" he responded, playing in the
fantasy I had shared with him.

"Well, we decide together what is needed.  I don't think I need
clothes.  Did my clothes attract you to me?" I asked with a smile.

Salim allowed himself a rare smile and went into the adjoining sitting
room.

"Have you ever been to Yves Saint Laurent?" he asked me when I came
into the room, ready to leave.  I thought he was talking about a small
village nearby, St.  -Laurent-du-Vas.

"I think I visited there once," I replied.

"I want you to go there tonight and pick out a dress," continued
Salim.  "I will meet you at Jimmy'z later to see what you have
bought.  Get whatever you want."

"Isn't that a little far for me to go tonight?" I asked, still
thinking he was talking about the village.

"No, it's right across the street.  Kahlil will accompany you there,"
he said with a quizzical look on his face.  He was beginning to
understand that I didn't know what he was talking about.

Kahlil was Salim's right-hand man.  He took me across the street from
the Hotel de Paris to two haute couture boutiques displaying the
clothes of Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent.  I felt foolish when
I realized what Salim had been referring to.  Mara and I had often
looked in these display windows, while she pointed out to me which
clothes were tasteful and which were not.  I wished she were here with
me now to help me choose a dress.  I wished somebody were with me
besides Kahlil, and I felt awkward asking for his opinion.  But since
he was the only one, I asked anyway.

We went through half a dozen exotic and colorful dresses, which made me
look ridiculous, and Kahlil agreed that they were not for me.  Then he
suggested that I go next door to the Dior boutique, which had more
conservative styles.  He helped me choose a few eve rung dresses, and
we finally agreed on a simple black satin dress overlaid with
embroidered chiffon and a sheer cape covering spaghetti straps.  Kahlil
suggested I buy shoes to go with it.  Made of a black velvet, with very
high heels, they were the most exquisite shoes I ever owned.

Salim looked pleased to see me when I arrived at the club in clothes
that made me seem like a different person.  That evening he introduced
me to the mayor of Nice and his wife, who were sitting at the table.  I
showed them pictures of my son, which I carried with me at all times.

The mayor's wife, who was American, thought this was terribly
endearing.

On another occasion, Salim bought me a signed, limited-edition print by
a contemporary artist he had discovered in Paris.  Salim said that the
painting of a nude, waiflike girl with adolescent-sized breasts,
reminded him of me.  She had flowers in her long hair and held a folded
piece of material around her hips, in which she had collected a bouquet
of flowers.  A vine was entwined around her slender left arm, and she
looked gently at a dove she held in her right hand.  The lines of the
figure were lightly sketched over a blue background.  This print said
more about Salim's feelings for me than all the words he could have
uttered, but never did.

I often have wondered why it was Salim, and not some fly-by-night
client, who first gave me money.  Throughout the waves of doubt about
the concept of sacred prostitution that I continued to experience
during my Monte Carlo days, it was often Salim's special attention and
our presumed spiritual connection that caused me to focus on the sacred
side, and convinced my tortured mind that I was not a prostitute.


Sacred Prostitution

By the summer of 1979, we had moved to
Beausoleil, the French village that is literally attached to Monaco.

In our new home we had more room, a benefit since Peter and Sheila had
been sending us sisters to try out as sacred prostitutes in Monte
Carlo.  One of them was Sheba, an icy beauty who had recently
discovered her husband's homosexuality.  To everyone's shock, Mo was
tentatively condoning homosexual relationships now.  Mo had always
encouraged lesbian relationships, but he preferred men to be with
women.  A close relationship with a young man in his own home seemed to
have sparked Mo's enlightenment, which he detailed in a letter.

Although it was not clear if Mo actually engaged in homosexuality
himself, he expanded his doctrine to state that anything done in love
is not sin, which left the door open for homosexuals in our group to
come out of the closet.  Many of them were already married with
children, as was the case with Sheba, who was surprised to discover
that her husband loved men more than just spiritually.

Sheba was breathtakingly beautiful, but she was aloof and
uncommunicative.  She soon was transferred to another home, as the
leaders decided we had a good team as it was--small, together, potent,
and led by our faith that what we were doing was for love.  In biblical
terms, Breeze represented a Delilah-type seductress, hunting rich and
powerful men to use for her own amusement and personal
aggrandizement.

Sharon exemplified the ever-suffering Mother Mary, ready to sacrifice
when chosen.  I was the Mary Magdalene, symbolizing the tortured
integration of rational thinking and irrational actions.  I dissociated
my mind and soul from my body as I performed earthly missions of
providing sexual pleasures.

In our new home, I requested that the small study be turned into a room
for Thor.  In anticipation of entering school in the fall, Thor had
come to live with me while Cal and Mara hunted for houses.  I taught
Thor schoolwork almost daily.  He was well advanced in math and
reading, but I wanted him to learn French.  In all the Family homes at
that time only English was spoken, and although Thor had lived in
France since he was less than a year old, he still spoke almost no
French.  I had Thor tested at a local Catholic school, and he placed in
the second grade, at only five years of age.  When Cal had still not
found a home by the time school started, I enrolled Thor in the
Catholic school.  This was not the norm in the Family, but there were
no COG schools nearby.

Unfortunately, no one took into account that Thor could not speak
French when they put him in second grade.  Although he excelled in math
class, he didn't tell anyone that he couldn't understand much else.

There were no French nationals in our home either, so when Cal and Mara
found a home in Antibes, and they wanted Thor back, I complied.  I
reasoned that most of the children in wealthy families were sent away
to boarding schools by their parents, and Thor would not be far away.

I could visit him during the week and take him with me on weekends
again.

If he was going to go to school in France, he needed someone like Mara
who could help him with his homework in the national language.

Surprisingly, for having lived in the Family for so long, I was very
concerned that Thor excel in scholastic pursuits.  I think in the back
of my mind, I felt that if the Family did not work out for him, he
would have a good education to fall back on, unlike many of the
children being raised in the Children of God at that time.  Even Mo's
prophecy that Jesus would come back in 1993, making Thor only twenty
years old when Jesus returned, did not deter me.  Mo's prophecies had
been wrong before, like the one about the Kohoutek comet destroying
America.  Every time one of his prophecies did not come true, we were
told by Mo that we had misinterpreted what he said, or that the Lord
had mercy and gave us more time.  He referred us to the story of Jonah,
in which God had told Jonah to prophesy that the evil town of Nineveh
would be destroyed.  Poor Jonah, who didn't want to say the prophecy,
just in case it didn't come true, had to spend three days in the
whale's belly before.  he agreed to prophesy.  Then the Lord forgave
Nineveh and didn't destroy the town after all.  I was not taking
chances with my son.  He might live to be an adult, and there might not
be the Children of God around anymore.  Although I did not think about
it at that time, obviously, at some fundamental level, I was preparing
my son for life inside or outside the Family.

Thor moved back with Cal and Mara, who had found a very nice home in
the cozy town of Antibes, about forty-five minutes away by bus.  They
now lived with another couple from the old Show Group, and Cal had a
steady engagement performing at a local music club.  They were settled
in nicely, and their home seemed like a picture of family security.  I
felt that Thor would have the support he needed in education and
fatherly discipline, so I let him go without any trouble, after
securing a promise from Cal that I could take Thor to Monaco every
weekend and on vacation.  Meanwhile, during the week, I often made the
one-and-a-half-hour round trip to be with him.  Thanks to being free
from a normal job or witnessing quotas, this was possible.  As I went
on long, playful walks with Thor in Old Antibes, surrounded by medieval
architecture and the famous castle wall by the sea, I imagined that my
life was magical.

Back in Monaco, we began an earnest study of the letters describing the
"flirty fishing" ministry, upon Timothy's insistence.  An early letter,
"Law of Love," written in 1974, told us,"Are you so ruled by His Love
that He can liberate you from the rules?  Are you willing to lay down
your life--or even your wife--for a starving brother or sister?  Can a
couch be your cross?  Jesus said, If any man lose his life, for My
sake, the same shall save it.  Love God...and love thy neighbor
as thyself' (Matthew 22, 37-40)" (quoted in "Law of Love" 302c).  These
Mo letters were illustrated with drawings of naked women with their
bodies pierced by a hook, and sexily clad women offering a hook and a
look of love to admiring men, with a caption that read,"Hooker for
Jesus."  The lengthy letters, describing every detail of the fishing
experiences, were spiked with quotes asking if we were "willing to do
anything for Jesus to help your Fisherman catch men, even to suffer the
crucifixion of the hook...eaten alive" ("Flirty Little Fishy"
293).  Later, when women started to get sexually transmitted diseases,
our sacrifice was compared with that of Jesus,"We are suffering for
their sins as Jesus did for ours in order that we and they might be
saved" ("Affliction" 569, 108).  However, Mo did suggest we see a
doctor.

Now that we were told to accept money from our fish, the financial
difficulties that had plagued the Family around the world were
considerably lessened.  The COG headquarters expected a lot of money
from our tiny Monte Carlo home, presumably for distribution to poorer
missions in third world countries.  Wasn't this the case in most
nonprofit organizations?  At least the poor, where my compassion always
was, were receiving some of the money I made.  Along with our required
monthly tithe, we sometimes sent extra money to headquarters in
Switzerland by American Express checks, made out to a name that we were
given in our monthly correspondence.

We met our most generous givers at parties where Sharon and Breeze
were commissioned to sing.  At one of these parties I met Adnan
Kashoggi again.  We had been invited by Salim to sing for a small
affair to be held in a private room in the Hotel de Paris.  By the
way he described the event, I understood that we could flirt.  I
brought both Sharon and Breeze, and from the amount of money Salim
gave me for the party, I knew this was important.  It turned out to
be a special dinner party for a rich Arab business associate of
Salim, and his girlfriend.  My experience had taught me that the
presence of girlfriends had no bearing on anything.  As soon as I
entered the dark, paneled room, I recognized our honored guest as the
famed Kashoggi from the Cannes
party I had attended more than a year
ago.  His new girlfriend was a stunningly beautiful Italian. Kashoggi
did not indicate that he had seen me before, but he was visibly
impressed with our music and especially our message.  He wanted to
know what the Lyrics meant, so I translated songs that were not in
English for him.

Discussing the event afterward, we thought that Kashoggi had been
making eyes at Sharon.  However, when Salim met with me later that
evening, he gave me surprising insight into the thoughts of the Arab
billionaire.

"Adnan would like to know if Sharon is married," he said, when I
arrived in his suite after midnight, as planned.

"Yes, she is," I answered.  "However, she will be glad to spend time
with him if he likes her."

"No.  Adnan would not allow that to be," responded Salim gravely.  "He
will not willingly be with another man's wife."

"Is that because of his religion?" 

"I cannot answer you truthfully.  I have many friends who are Muslim,
and this does not bother them.  But Adnan will not do that."

"You know that I am still married," I said quietly, with my eyes
averted.  I was not sure if Salim had ever considered that fact.

"Of course I know.  However, you have been separated from your husband
for years, and he is living with another woman, who has his child.  "

"You know that?" I asked, surprised that Salim could remember details
of my personal life with all the international business affairs he was
involved in.

"Yes, I know more, too," he responded, looking deeply into my eyes.

He broke into a warm smile.  "And besides, I am not Muslim.  I am
Christian Lebanese, remember?" 

"So, what did Adnan say?  Was he interested in us?" 

"Yes, he is very interested.  He noticed that you and I pass
forbidden glances to each other.  He noticed that Sharon is a mother
and a mother-to-be.  He also notices that Breeze could be exciting in
the bedroom."

"He can read people well," I said, amazed at the accuracy of judgment
that Adnan achieved through such a brief contact.

"Of course, that is why he does so well in business.  Do you think
spirituality stops at the doors of religion?" 

"Well, would he like Breeze to see him?" 

"Yes.  A chauffeur will come for her tomorrow night.  Will she be at
home?" 

"I will make sure she is," I responded with my impresario authority. 
Of course, this transaction made me more of a madam than a manager,
but it was for a good cause.  Do the ends justify the means?

That is always the big question, and I had decided that sometimes it
does not have a yes or no answer.  It depends on what ends and what
means.  Witnessing to Adnan Kashoggi, who clearly had great influence
over a large number of people, seemed comparable to the role of Queen
Esther, in the Bible, given in marriage to a heathen king in order to
eventually save her people.  And as with Queen Esther, who was only one
of many wives available to the king, Breeze was pursuing a good end.

If she hadn't been sleeping with strangers while here in the Family,
she would be doing it out in the world and might end up with a terrible
disease.  Or a broken heart.  At least here, she was protected by God's
Spirit.

Breeze began a long and prosperous relationship with Adnan that lasted
for years.  Every time she met with him for a few hours, she returned
with wonderful testimonies of his spiritual growth, and an envelope
stuffed with thousands of dollars.  With both Adnan and Salim as
regular fish, we would never have had financial worries again, had it
not been for Timothy's economic plan.

Timothy suggested that we give everything left over at the end of the
month, after paying bills, to World Services, whether it be a hundred
dollars or a couple of thousand.  I agreed.  My motives were several.

I thought that if I proved to be indispensable in providing large
amounts of money to headquarters from my privileged position in Monte
Carlo, I would not be asked to go to another mission.  I liked being
away from top leaders, isolated from homes where numerous brothers
passed through wanting sex constantly.  I had more liberty of movement
and time than anyone else in the Family, and I was close to my son.  I
was in a perfect situation, and anything I could do to keep that
situation just like it was would be fine with me.

Sharon, as usual, was in agreement with her husband.  Breeze also
consented, provided her own physical needs would be met first.  Breeze
looked after herself.  Within a short period of time, Breeze had
acquired an extravagant wardrobe, as well as the most expensive
acoustic guitar that could be found.  She convinced Timothy to give us
each a "flee fund" of a couple of thousand dollars in case we had to
escape from France quickly.  Considering the illegality and volatility
of our situation, this was a wise idea, and one condoned even by our
leaders.  So for the first time in my life, I had a personal stash of
money kept hidden in my "flee bag" in case I needed to split
abruptly.

I asked for, and received, an extra allotment of flee funds for Thor.

Even with Breeze's constant requests for extras, and the high cost of
living in Monte Carlo, we supplied World Services monthly with
thousands of dollars.  I never kept the books, therefore I cannot state
with accuracy how much money flowed through our home to headquarters.

I do know that Breeze became known among the Arab billionaires as a
sexual stimulant, and she was constantly booked, hooking new fish along
the way.  Since we were not required to go by two on dates anymore, I
never knew how much she actually witnessed about the Lord.

I knew, from testimonies I had heard in Paris, that Breeze was
extremely sexually stimulated.  But now that I was living with her, I
became acutely aware of her unusual passions.  Sharing a bedroom with
an adjoining bath, I could hear Breeze unabashedly masturbating in the
shower, and although at first I was embarrassed when I heard her
moaning, I eventually rationalized that this was normal.  It must be I
who was abnormal.  After all, Mo had written volumes on the virtues of
masturbation, and how he had started it at an early age, despite his
mother's fanatic disapproval.  In his letter "My Childhood Sex," he
wrote,"[My mother] brought in a washbasin, a little bowl and a knife
and she told me she was going to cut it off!  I was terrified...I
almost never forgave my mother for that, threatening to cut it off and
embarrassing me in front of the family.  But that didn't stop me.  It
felt too good to quit!" He encouraged all of us to share sexually
when we needed to, and to masturbate when it was not possible to have
sex.  Since I considered my sexual relations as work for the Lord
rather than as filling a personal need, I could not fully understand
his perspective.

Listening to Breeze enjoying herself in the shower and bed, on the few
nights we were home, I thought that perhaps she had a secret insight on
sexuality.  Obviously, the Arabs liked her.  Although I was open to
sexual experimentation, the stimulation came from my head, instead of
my heart or body.  I relied on fantasy and theory while in bed with the
fish, and the enormous literature on sex and orgasms that I read in the
letters was processed through my reasoning.  I rarely felt what I would
call pleasure, and I always avoided kissing the men.  Sometimes one man
would cause me to become more excited than usual, but when I tried to
understand why, I could find no answer.  There was not a special way or
a look I liked, and I finally decided it was just extra love from
God.

However, I felt that Breeze was privy to something I wanted to know.

It was a curiosity aroused by intellectual rather than passionate
desire.

I approached Breeze on the subject one night under the influence of a
considerable amount of alcohol.  We had been talking with two American
tourists who wanted to take us to bed, but whom we had decided were not
the type of men we needed to give our bodies to.  Instead, we spent the
evening dancing, drinking, and dining with them, while they enjoyed our
company, and we witnessed sparingly about the Lord.

Our friends finally left us in a popular all-night restaurant around
three o'clock in the morning.  They had an early plane to catch and had
realized we were not going to accompany them to the hotel.  Both Breeze
and I were wide awake with coffee, but the alcohol and witnessing had
left me psychologically vulnerable.  I looked at Breeze's big brown
eyes that seemed to hold a merry-go-round of joy and happiness.  They
sparkled brighter than the diamond studs she wore on her ears.  In
contrast, I thought, my pensive blue eyes portrayed a look that many of
my more discerning fish called melancholy.

"What's your secret to enjoying sex?" I blurted out.

"You are a constant amazement to me, Jeshanah," said Breeze, her eyes
jumping with gladness at my new interest in her.  "I think that's why I
love you so much."

"Of course, you love me," I responded,"whether I amaze you or not."

I was always ready to take a statement to its most honest point, even
if it meant I would lose it over the side of a cliff.

"I mean I love you more than a sister," murmured Breeze, her eyes
still sparkling but her smile now gone.

I felt uncomfortable when Breeze stopped smiling abruptly.  It usually
meant she wanted something.

"Well, are you going to talk to me about sex or not?" I asked
casually, taking a sip of my vodka and orange juice to support my
pretense of aloofness.

"What do you want to know?" asked Breeze, sensing that I was becoming
uncomfortable.

"You obviously do something to the fish that excites them more than
most of the beautiful girls at their disposal.  But, what I am really
curious about, is why, with all the sex you get from men, why do you
still masturbate?" 

"Do you want the truth?  Or maybe you want to keep us in this safe
and careful arrangement you have created."  I felt nervous, as if a
strong tentacle had wrapped itself around my heart, ready to squeeze
the life out of me if I tried to unravel it.

"Tell me the truth, Breeze," I said boldly.  "You know I always want
truth."

"Except when it touches you personally," responded Breeze in what I
knew was an insight of love.

"You want to love me as a sexual partner?" I asked, pretending to be
objective.

"That and more," she said, for the first time showing a vulnerability
I did not know she possessed.

"I just want to know how you get so turned on all the time," I said,
changing the subject, since I did not want to go any further down that
road.  Breeze respected my decision.

"It's easier to show you than tell you," she said, the twinkle again
returning to her eye.

"I don't know, Breeze.  I've never been interested in lesbianism.  "

"Why not?  Mo says it's wonderful for two women to satisfy each other
sexually.  Tell me the truth.  Have you ever been satisfied by a
man?" 

"I don't know.  I like being with certain men.  What do you call
satisfied?" 

"I mean an orgasm.  How many orgasms do you have when you make love?"

"You mean in all my life?" I answered with my voice cracking.  Not
only was this conversation becoming embarrassingly honest, but I felt
the tentacle squeezing my heart.

"oh, no!" cried Breeze, throwing her head back in a deep laugh.  "I
really meant every time you make love.  But you answered that now.  So,
you hardly ever have an orgasm, do you?" 

"I think I do," I said, feeling that the only way to find out was to
discover what an orgasm meant to Breeze.

"I think you need a woman to touch you," she responded
affectionately.  "I want to touch you, Jeshanah, but you never let
me."  Breeze had touched me very deeply without realizing.  She had
penetrated into a place I never even allowed myself--my deepest human
emotions.  Why was I so outwardly hot and inwardly cold?  Why could I
love my son with the depth of the universe, while I despised the one
who made him possible?

Why could I write poems of deep-felt love to my special fish, while
knowing that every moan and move I made in the intimacy of the bedroom
was an act, carefully rehearsed and so fully integrated that I forgot I
was playing?  Maybe Breeze held some kind of key.

"Are you asking me to make love with you?" I demanded.

"I am asking if I can make love to you, Jeshanah.  I don't think you
can make love to me, but maybe, I am hoping, you can learn."  What she
said made me feel dirty.  I had also felt dirty when I had lost my
virginity to a boy who didn't even care about me.  I felt dirty when I
first made love to my husband.  The only way I didn't feel dirty was if
I detached my emotions from the act of lovemaking.  I didn't know
why.

At first I thought that all women did it this way, and later I
convinced myself that I was like this so I could be used by the Lord to
love many men and not just one.  Now Breeze was asking me to become
emotionally engaged in each and every act, whereas disengagement was my
most reliable survival mechanism.  Those tentacles were so tight now I
could feel my blood pumping uncontrollably.

"Okay, I'll sleep with you," I said, downing the rest of my drink.

A conflicting array of emotions seemed to cross Breeze's face.  She
seemed pleased at the prospect, but sad at my response.

"You don't have to," she said defensively.

I felt guilty for my lack of compassion and respect for her honesty.

Mo had written that sex between women was God ordained, and although I
no longer took Mo's opinions as the Divine Insight, I would consider
the possibility that I was made to like women instead of men.  But no,
I didn't feel any emotion for Breeze, or any other woman, but sisterly
love.

"Let's go home and see what happens," I suggested, hoping to gain
wisdom with time and experience.

We arrived back at the home with everyone asleep.  The last half glass
of vodka that I had gulped down was now taking effect, and I let Breeze
lead me to her bed like I let most of my fish take me without
protest.

But it wasn't the same.  I didn't feel a reason to make love to her.  I
made love to men because I was either told to or believed I was
"helping" them.  No one told me to do this.  There was also a social
stigma attached to lesbianism, just as there was shame to
prostitution.

Lesbianism seemed to be propelled by human sexual desire on the part of
both lovers, whereas prostitution usually involved one-sided desire.

I fit much better into the prostitution model, where sexual desire on
my part was not a necessary requirement.  Sexual craving, even
emotional desire for a partner in life, had been lost or forgotten by
now, and my only desire was an abstract wish to serve others in love.

My fish were in need of God's Love.  Our reasoning, which is not unlike
some contemporary radical theory, is that women in the world give sex
to men in exchange for something else, such as prestige, security, and
support in a marriage situation, or money in prostitution.  We
supposedly gave sex to prove to these men that we loved them with God's
Love, and although I eventually took money, the diversity of my
experiences shows that money was not the primary motivation.  Neither
was desire!  I could not find a reason to love Breeze sexually, after
all, she had a huge reservoir of God's Love at her disposal.  In
addition, I felt no overwhelming emotional need, no sexual longing, and
certainly no desire that could launch me into this new behavior.

"It's not going to work," I finally said.  "I don't feel it, and this
might ruin our relationship.  I'm sorry, Breeze."  I went back to my
bed and fell into a deep sleep.

Had I the energy and mental development to analyze this incident at
that time, I would have eventually wondered why I could have
participated in sacred prostitution and not in lesbianism.  Clearly, I
did have some concept of my sexuality, however weak, even though I
consider my years in Monte Carlo as the most spiritually lost time of
my life.  Years later, a young female member was rebuked publicly in a
Mo letter for not providing sex to a sister who "needed" it, but by
then I was beginning to consider my own wants and desires and less
influenced by Mo.  In Monte Carlo, I don't remember ever desiring
anybody, and perhaps that is why I did so much for the Family at that
time, however, had I been influenced by the previously mentioned Mo
letter,"The Girl Who Wouldn't," when Breeze expressed desire for me,
the story might have been different.

Breeze never mentioned the incident or tried to entice me in any way
afterward.  She continued to care for me like a concerned older
sister.

And even when the opportunity arose for us to be in bed together, it
was Breeze who declined.

Salim invited me to dinner on my birthday--June 27, 1979.  I was
twenty-six years old.  I met him at the suite, where he gave me a
lovely Cartier necklace of flat gold links.  Then we went to a
Monagasque restaurant, the Bec Rouge, where Breeze, Sharon, Timothy,
and Adnan had been invited to celebrate my birthday at a surprise party
given by Salim.

Adnan gave me his present, a gold-chain Cartier necklace, bigger and
much more expensive than Salim's.  I put it on with Salim's already
around my neck, but Salim told me they looked bad together, so I took
Adnan's off.  We had a lovely evening, my first and only birthday party
in the Family.  Salim asked Sharon to sing "Forbidden Games" for me,
and then he had to leave to attend a social engagement with his wife.

Adnan and Breeze sat next to each other, and he whispered something in
her ear before he too had to go.

"Adnan wants both you and me to meet him in his hotel suite later,"
said Breeze when we were alone.  We discussed it with Timothy, who
thought that was okay, since Adnan was our biggest fish, but Sharon
asked me what I thought.  I was in seventh heaven because of the love
and care I had received from both Adnan and Salim.  I knew Salim was
with his wife this evening, and I thought maybe he had set this up.  It
was okay with me.

Sharon and Timothy went home, and Breeze and I went to Adnan's suite.

He was not there when we arrived, but she had a key.  We sat in the
luxurious living room, looking at each other in silence.  I knew she
was concerned about something.

"Do you really want to do this?" she asked.

"You don't want me to, do you?" I responded, wondering why not.

"No, I don't think it will be good for Adnan to start this kind of
thing."  She said this with an expression that I intuitively read as
"Please don't do it, I don't want you to."  I never understood why, but
I respected her choice.

"Okay.  I'll write him a note saying that I am not staying because of
my attachment to Salim.  Does that sound legitimate?" 

"Yes," said Breeze with a thankful smile.  "I love you."  

Adnan found my little note amusing, and he never asked me to be with
him again.  He sometimes poked fun at my romantic relationship with
Salim.  I thought that perhaps Salim had told him something about us,
but in retrospect, I think I always acted like I was romantically
involved.  Salim was my surrogate father, boyfriend, and lover.

For a short time, he fulfilled every male role that was lacking in my
life.  All this from a man I never even kissed.

Now that we had the wealthiest fish in Monte Carlo, we could be
choosier as to whom we went to bed with.  After Timothy and Sharon's
second baby was born, Breeze and I pretty much became our own
fishermen.

We had been in Monte Carlo over two years now, and we knew who were the
locals and the passing tourists.  The easy criterion we had for all new
fish was--if they don't stay in the Hotel de Paris they probably won't
"need" sex.  This line of reasoning was consistent with Mo's emphasis
on the rich being the most neglected group of people spiritually.  Of
course, exceptions were made for those who owned mansions on the Cote
d'Azur, or had a yacht in the port, but the tourists or passing casino
players were usually only given a verbal witness.  For those who came
back to Monte Carlo to see us again, we sometimes gave a sample of
God's Love with a date or one night of sex.  These were the ones who
sometimes fell in love, until they finally realized what we were
doing.

Someone who held a possessive love for me was Leopoldo, a short,
stocky, balding, and very jovial Italian man who had inherited a title
and money from his family.  Living in his own villa when he was in
Monte Carlo, he drove around in his flashy Rolls-Royce, which I suspect
bolstered a weak self-confidence.  I engaged in a relationship with him
that lasted nearly two years.  Although he was quite religious, very
loving, and usually possessive, I never understood if he really loved
me or my spirit of recklessness.

Leo often took me to Rome with him on business trips.  Sometimes I took
my son, Thor, and we would spend the days visiting the famous Roman
sights, such as the Piazza Espagna, the Coliseum, the Vatican, and the
Catacombs.  These outings were an invaluable cultural experience for
both of us, and I only worried that Thor, at six years old, was too
young to remember them.

During my solo trips to visit Leo in his Rome apartment, I spent a lot
of time witnessing to him.  After making love, we read the Bible
together, and I explained our interpretation of various verses.  Leo
seemed to really love the Lord, and he willingly asked Jesus into his
heart when I told him what this meant.

That night we were watching television in his bedroom in Rome.

Leo was a dedicated Catholic, but he had never read the Bible very
much, so I had been sharing Bible passages with him for months.  It was
rather late and I had my Bible in my hands, reading verses out loud to
him while he surfed the available TV stations.  Finally, he switched
off the TV and asked me what it meant to be saved.

There were many analogies I could have used, but I chose the one that I
knew Leo could relate to best.

"It's like connecting to electricity," I answered.  "Think of your
life without electricity--no lights, no TV, no hot water.  Having Jesus
in your heart is like having electricity in your spiritual life.  "

"I'll do it," he said, seeming to be genuinely interested.

We held hands and he repeated after me a prayer that I had been taught
since I was a little girl, and I had now repeated with hundreds of
people.

"Jesus, I know I am a sinner and cannot have eternal salvation without
you.  Please forgive my sins.  Come into my heart and set me free from
sin."  This was my reward for giving up my life and body.  The Bible
said, and I believed, that this simple prayer and belief in Jesus was
the way to salvation.  If this was true, how could such a puny thing as
giving sex limit me from leading a person to salvation?  These busy,
important men obviously needed the intimacy that a sexual relationship
provides in order to open up to the message of Jesus' Love.  And when
someone like Leo sincerely asked Jesus into his heart, it provided me
with the inspiration and motivation to keep giving.

Leo also asked me to accompany him on a vacation he was planning with
some friends.  I only found out at the airport that we were going to
Bangkok, Thailand.

Until we arrived in Bangkok, I never really knew the level of wealth
that Leo was accustomed to, and I thought a little less of him because
of his seeming insensitivity to the extreme poverty at the doorstep of
his lavish holiday home.  Leaving the air-conditioned, plush-carpeted,
and richly decorated hallways of the hotel, I stepped out into a
typical Bangkok street, sweltering and humid and filled with noise,
with entire families living on the sidewalks.  Thailand is the country
of silk and precious jewels, say the travel brochures, but I did not
know, having lived so long in a bubble, that it also attracted tourists
looking for sex and cheap prostitutes.

My bubble burst as I walked the streets of Bangkok.  In some areas,
*** large block of text missing apparently ***
mensely.  This disproved my theory that because I took my sexual role
more spiritually than did the other girls, I did not experience
orgasm.

But with Spyros that night, it was different.  He struck a chord that
had not been touched for a long time.  I often thought about why this
happened on that particular night, because it never happened again with
the same intensity.  Maybe it was the pot in the air, or maybe someone
had slipped me something, although I doubt both of those reasons.

There was nothing particularly special about Spyros or what he did
either.

Also, Spyros was the first male of my age whom I had been with in a
long time, he was outside the Family, and I did not think of him as a
"rich fish."  These factors combined might have allowed me a brief
repose from my inhibiting, missionarylike hold on my emotions.

I awoke before he did, and with the light peeking in through the thick,
tightly closed curtains, I looked for a piece of paper on which to
write him the note that might start him on the path toward God's
Kingdom.

There on the desk, among other paraphernalia from the evening, was the
necklace he had taken off before getting in bed.  Holding it toward a
small stream of light, I read the inscription.  My dream shattered and
joined the invisible particles that glittered in the light like
diamonds of dust, for the name on the medallion told me that Spyros was
no ordinary rich boy, he was the son of one of the wealthiest and most
famous Greek families in the world, the Niarchoses.  I suddenly
realized that for Spyros to forsake all and follow God would not be
like a camel going through the eye of the needle, it would be more like
trying to split an atom with a butter knife.  The soul of such a one,
raised in the oppressor's world without an inkling of the People's
reality, would take a lifetime, perhaps a few lifetimes, to come to a
desire for the Truth.

This is what I thought-- not what Mo taught.  Our intentions for
Kashoggi, a much older man, had always been that he would be a "king,"
one who helped our group financially while we ministered to him
spiritually.  I had been hoping that Spyros would become a disciple,
but now, knowing of his extreme wealth, I had no hope for that.  Some
of my early, radical training suddenly resurfaced.  I didn't put this
thought into words, that would be sacrilegious in our religion, because
God's Spirit could perform miracles on anyone.  But I dropped the idea
of fishing Spyros into the Family and accepted that if nothing else, at
least he got witnessed to.

Spyros remained a friend, and although he proved to be the epitome of
the spoiled rich kid, he still had a humble attitude to anyone who
seemed to have more inner strength than he.  If I ever saw him in a
club or restaurant, I walked over, said hello, and usually sat down to
meet the people at his table.  Poor Spyros was so well educated in
etiquette, yet he never knew what to do when he saw me.  One evening I
asked Breeze to sing him a song that she had written, which I thought
appropriate for Spyros.  He was sitting with Ringo that night.  Breeze
started her song, and Ringo made unflattering remarks.  Finally,
without listening to the words that Breeze was singing, Ringo started
mimicking Breeze, but interspersing words like "We love you Spyros,
because you are so rich."

"You are such a fool!" I screamed at him, terribly hurt that he would
make fun of Breeze.  "Why don't you just shut up and listen to the
words?  You might learn something, having never written a good song
yourself." 

Ringo laughed ridiculously, but Spyros was offended by my outburst.

He took me aside and said that I could not talk like that to Ringo.

"Why not?" I asked, still angry that Ringo had questioned our motives
and laid them on the same low level as his own might have been.

"Well, because of who he is.  Who do you think you are to talk that way
to him?" 

"Who does he think he is to talk that way to God's servants?" I
retorted.

I was always sorry for Spyros after that evening.  I realized now
beyond a shadow of a doubt the inverse relationship between material
and spiritual riches.  I was getting a little sick of all this
decadence myself.

Life was not always heavenly living in God's Kingdom within the world's
kingdom.  I usually drank more than I ate, and when I was completely
sober, I sometimes cried myself to sleep.  Even though both Sharon and
Breeze loved me more than anyone had ever loved me in my life, I knew
that if I was not loyal to the Family, I would lose that love
immediately.  Once I locked myself in the bathroom, sobbing because I
felt no one understood me, and I only came out, in shame, after
everyone assured me that they also felt that way sometimes.  Even so, I
knew I was different.  When top leaders came by our home, I shunned
them, fearing to be in their revealing light, which exposed my every
evil doubt.

Just as the process of internalizing Mo's doctrine of sexual sharing
and sacred prostitution had been gradual, so my reawakening was an
extremely slow process.  Accepting the Family's values was made much
easier because everyone around me, even my husband, accepted them, but
discovering my own concept of morality was so much more difficult since
I was basically on my own.  I had rejected the world's conventional
moral standards, which seemed hypocritical to me, but if I did not
embrace the Family's, what did I have?  I was just beginning to think
that I might find, on my own, a universal morality, but the thought was
frightening, and terribly lonely.  Of course, there were probably many
others in the Family who at times had similar thoughts, including my
own husband though he didn't tell me.  No one shared such thoughts.  We
were conditioned to believe that they were of the devil.  They would
lead you out of the Family!  And we were right--if you kept thinking
that way, you left!

By the winter of 1979-80, we could feel that things were winding
down.

No one could express what was happening, but there was a general
feeling of change around the corner.

One morning I came home to hear that Sharon, now pregnant with her
third baby, had been kept all night in the Monte Carlo police
station.

She had been picked up while she was waiting for Breeze in the Loews
Hotel lobby.  Searching her guitar case, the police found copies of Mo
letters, among them the controversial anti-Israeli literature.

These were the letters predicting the invasion of Israel by a united
Arab front and condemning the Western world for supporting Israeli
expansion.  There were many people of Jewish origin in our group, and
we understood these letters as ire against the "state" of Israel, not
Jews themselves, however, they were considered by those outside the
group as evidence of an anti-Semitic stance.  We understood Mo's
allegiance with Qaddafi as a means to provide us with inside
connections to an eventual "Antichrist government."  Whether we did not
want to jeopardize our good standing with the Arabs, or whether Mo
actually changed his views on the Jews, is still a debate.  In any
case, the accusation of being anti-Semitic was never addressed by our
leaders, many of whom were Jewish themselves.

The police questioned Sharon, fingerprinted her, and sent her home in
the morning with instructions that she should not return to Monaco.

She was told to send the rest of us down to the station for
questioning.

We decided to obey police orders, it sounds odd that we had to consider
this, but we had lived outside the world's rules and regulations for so
long that only Family orders mattered.  Timothy went first, so that
Sharon would not be left alone with the children.  After he returned,
Breeze and I went.  The officers seemed amused when we walked in.

After waiting the obligatory time so that we understood who was in
control and how much respect they had for us, we were given mug shots,
fingerprinted, and then questioned separately.  I was questioned by an
older, more mature officer who looked like he never told jokes.

"We know of your every move here in Monaco, ever since you came three
years ago," he said, glaring at me as if I had tried to hide my
whereabouts from him.

"I'm sure you do," I replied.  "I always knew that Monaco had
excellent undercover police."

"I have documents of every hotel you have been in, madam," he said,
ignoring my compliment.

"Well, then.  I am sure you also have the names of other girls besides
us.  Are they being kicked out too?" 

"You better not be smart with me," he responded angrily.

"You told me we are put on the Interpol files and we should leave
Monte Carlo and never come back, yet you are not asking us anything
about the men we have been with.  What's the real reason?" 

"This," he said, holding up the Mo letters.  "We don't want trash
like this in Monaco." 

I understood.  They could avert their attention from drugs, and
stolen money, and high-class prostitution, but political consciousness
was too dangerous to bring into Monte Carlo.  They probably knew that
we had both Jewish and Arab friends, and if we promoted literature like
this, we could start a war here.

However, they did not realize they had nothing to fear.  First of all,
Sharon, Breeze, and I were much too politically naive to subvert
anyone.

Furthermore, the superrich were much too concerned about wealth and
power to become involved in international affairs on the basis of
idealism.  There was no money in it.  But I believe the Monte Carlo
Police thought they were ridding Monaco of subversive influences.

Back at home, after praying and discussing the matter, we came to the
conclusion that all good COG members come to when change happens--it
must be the Lord's Will!  We had been ordered to never set foot in
Monaco again, and advised to leave France also, since our visas were
long expired.  We had kept a three-month visitor's visa for years by
crossing the Italian border every few months to receive a stamp.  It
didn't fool anyone.  But I was worried about what it meant for Thor and
me.

Within a few days, our whole team had been invited to join the home in
Athens, Greece, where the Family was starting a new music ministry.  I
wasn't personally interested in moving there, and I also feared that
Cal would never let me take Thor so far away.

I went to visit Cal's home and explained our situation.  He was at a
loss as to what to do.  Mara and he were very happy in Antibes with the
other singing couple.  Thor was doing well in school and was already
speaking French fluently.  What was I going to do?

That night, as I tucked Thor into bed, my heart began breaking a little
more.  There was no way in the world I could ever leave him again.  It
seemed like there were only two options open to me, go to Athens, which
meant leaving Thor, and was therefore out of the question, or reconcile
with my legal husband, Thor's father.  I knocked on Cal and Mara's
door.

"Can I come in and talk to you?" I asked quietly.

Cal opened the door and came out alone.

"Mara's sleeping already," he whispered.  "What did you want?  Can't
it wait till the morning?" 

"No," I said, feeling the tears coming.  "I'll do whatever you want,
Cal.  But please, let me stay with Thor.  " I burst into
uncontrollable sobs, instinctively knowing that all was too late.

"What do you mean by staying with Thor?  When you left me, you left
Thor too.  You understand that, don't you?" 

"Yes.  I know that now," I said in between sobs.  "But I'm sorry. I'm
sorry for leaving you.  It was wrong of me.  I admit it.  I should
have stayed.  I am so evil and selfish."  The thought of not being
near Thor was so dreadful that I was ready to live as a second-class
wife, not even have a relationship at all with Cal, as long as I
could stay here.  I was in a bad situation, and all I had ever
learned was that it must be my fault.

It was a black-and-white explanation, but it was all I could think at
that time.

"I wish you would have realized that earlier," mumbled Cal under his
breath.

"I do, too.  I am so--so--sorry," I cried, with huge heaving sounds
now.  "What can I do?  I will make it up to you.  I will do whatever
you say from now on.  Please let me stay here.  I don't want to go to
Greece." 

Cal put his hand on my back as I buried my face in my hands, trying
to muffle the sounds of my heart being pummeled into a bleeding pulp.

"I will have to talk to Mara about that.  I would agree to you living
here, but I have to respect her wishes also."  Cal left me on the couch
alone, and I cried a flood of tears, nearly drowning in the depth of
despair.  Finally, I raised myself from the couch and floated to Thor's
room as if an angel were carrying me.  I lay down beside him, holding
his six-year-old body close to mine, and hoping I would die before I
woke up.

The next morning, I knocked on Cal's door while Thor ate his cereal.

"Come in," he called.

He was sitting at the desk already with a cup of coffee, obviously with
something heavy on his mind.

"Mara doesn't think that would be a good idea," he said sadly.

"What can I do then?" I asked, dumbfounded but having expected this
in the back of my mind.

"You can stay here temporarily, if you need to.  But eventually you
will have to find another home."  Cal seemed truly empathetic.  He
assured me that I still had visitation rights.  Now all I needed was to
find another home nearby.

I walked back into the kitchen as if nothing had happened, took my
coffee, and asked Thor if he wanted to go to the park.  Obviously,
reconciliation with my legal husband was not a viable option.

Overpowered by my desire to be near my son, I had to come up with
another plan.

Later that day, I returned to our Beausoleil home and had an unexpected
visit from my friend Paolo, a handsome Italian who had picked us up
hitchhiking one night.  He lived right across the Italian border, and I
had been to his house a few times.  Paolo, who was far from being rich,
lived by himself, and he seemed terribly lonely.  Since I first met
him, I thought he might become friends of the Family, or even join one
day, although neither Timothy nor Breeze thought he was "sheepy."  I
had felt that there was something special about Paolo when I first
witnessed to him, despite the dreariness that he carried around and
threw into the atmosphere like the Sandman sprinkled sleep.  Breeze
told me he satisfied the aspects that she thought were necessary for my
ideal type of man, shoulder-length brown curly hair, expressive eyes,
and a huge chip on the shoulder.  I laughed off this assessment, but
the fact that he was here at my house waiting, just when I was
desperately trying to decide what I would do in the immediate future,
seemed more than a coincidence to me.  I thought that perhaps he was
sent to help me during this difficult time.  He was thirty-three years
old, just the age of Jesus when he was crucified.  Perhaps Paolo was
ready to die to himself and start a new spiritual life.  In my confused
state of mind, I confided my situation to Paolo that night.

"I don't want to go.  I want to stay here to be near my son," I told
him at last.

"Oh!" he said, a man of few words.  I thought he might appreciate it
if I got right to the point.

"Can I live with you?" He looked at me with what I thought was fear
in his eyes.

"That might be difficult!" he said.

"Why?  Do you have a girlfriend in Italy?" Whenever I was at his
small apartment, I saw no signs of another woman's presence.

"No!" 

"Well, what's the matter?  I won't stay long, if you don't want me
to."  

"I'll think about it," he said and left.

Paolo said he would come by the next evening, but he never showed up.

Nervous and frustrated, and not knowing where to turn except for the
Family, I was at the end of my rope.  I had to call him.

"Why didn't you come?" I demanded, secretly fearing that he was my
last hope to stay near my son.

"I don't feel good," he replied.

"Do you have a fever?" I asked.

"No," he said and was silent.

"What's wrong?" I asked again, pressing for a response.

"I can't drive."

"What do you mean you can't drive?  You drive here all the time.  Is
your car broken?" 

"No!" 

"What is it, Paolo?  You can trust me."  I sensed fear in his
voice-- great fear.

"I am here to help you," I continued.  "God loves you, Paolo, and He
sent me to help you."

"I can't drive when I feel like this."

"Feel like what?" 

"Feel like I am going to die."  His voice sounded
distant--worlds away.  I knew he was in deep trouble.

I had heard about depression before, but we had never acknowledged any
medical basis for this disease.  I was sure he needed the Lord.

"I'll be right over," I said.  "I'll take the next train."  Realizing
that I could actually be helping Paolo by him helping me better
supported my crazy idea to live at his house.  With absolutely no doubt
that I was needed, I had no fear for personal safety, even though I had
known Paolo for only a month.

I packed my bags and made the half-hour train trip and ten-minute bus
ride to his home.  It was late at night, but I felt safe in the small,
sleepy Italian village nestled at the foot of the Piedmont mountains.

Paolo, I found out, had been taking tranquilizers for years.  He was
now up to five or six a day, but even so, he sometimes was afraid to
get out of bed.  I couldn't understand this fear, but I knew that God
could help him.  I stayed with Paolo that night and the next day,
witnessing to him about God's love and power, and reading the Bible
with him.  He agreed to try to stop using tranquilizers.  He also
agreed to my coming to live with him.

When I told Timothy my plans, he was not happy.

"What are you going to do in some godforsaken Italian village?  You
will be so bored there, not to mention the waste of God's time and
talent."

"What talent do I have?  I can't sing or play an instrument very
well.  All they want me for in Athens is to have an extra available
girl.  "

Timothy looked hurt.  Perhaps he wasn't sure what he would be doing in
Athens either.

"I think she would like to stay near her son," interrupted Sharon.  "I
believe that is a good reason.  If she can win Paolo, well, praise the
Lord!" 

"You can't spend the rest of your life following Cal and Thor
around," said Timothy.  "Besides, I'm sure God will give Thor back
once you forsake him in your heart."  I flinched at his words, and
Sharon nudged Tim with her elbow.

"I think you're making a good decision," she said.  "And we will
always have a place for you in our home."  Breeze couldn't imagine my
staying with a nobody like Paolo, who owned a pet store.  Breeze might
have understood me emotionally, but she didn't know the diehard
idealism that flourished where love should have been.

Besides my desire to be near Thor, I thought that Paolo needed the
Family at this time of his life, and I would rather take care of a
sheep than be around bossy shepherds.

I told Cal the news about moving in with Paolo.  Since I would not have
much to do all day, or so I thought, I could come and stay with Thor as
much as I wanted.  Cal expressed concern about my future, but I assured
him that I really "loved" Paolo, and I thought I could bring him into
the Family.  The more I told people about Paolo becoming a Child of
God, the more I convinced myself.  Before I moved in with him, I had
told myself that bringing in a disciple would be the masterwork of the
Monte Carlo days.  After all the money we had made, the parties we had
attended, the men who had asked Jesus into their hearts while lying
naked in bed with us, this was the coveted crown--winning an eternal
soul and body into God's Kingdom.  It was a dreadful reasoning!


Crossroads

It was a cold January evening in 1980, my first night
as a resident in Paulo's small apartment, located on a cobblestone road
in a tiny Italian village.  I was completely isolated from anything or
anyone familiar.  The apartment had a small living room, a bedroom, a
kitchen, and a bath, and was more than five hundred years old.  Paolo
had remodeled every room and installed central heating, a luxury in
this small town.  I had been in so many homes that were not mine, I did
not find my new predicament unusual.  Cognizant of the reality in my
life that nothing lasts very long, I was enjoying my new
independence.

Except for being physically dependent on Paolo, emotionally dependent
on access to Thor, and spiritually guided by the Mo letters, I could
pretty much do as I pleased.

The first thing I took advantage of was listening to Paolo's music
collection of early rock and roll, hard rock, and many of the bands I
had missed during the 1970s and 1980s.  When Paolo came home that first
day, I turned the music off, conditioned to feel guilty about doing
what I liked to do.  However, since Bob Dylan had recently been saved,
the whole Family was listening to his Christian songs now, and
Paolo bought Dylan's Bible-based records for me.  They were the first
worldly recordings I had owned in ten years.

I had just turned off the stereo, and Paolo was now pacing back and
forth between the bedroom and the bathroom, where his tranquilizers
were sitting abandoned in the medicine cabinet.  He had agreed not to
take any more tranquilizers once I moved in, and I had spent most of
the evening praying for him every time he wanted to go to the medicine
cabinet.  It was late at night, the neighbors had all already turned
off their lights, but Paolo could not get to sleep.  Trying to
substitute Jesus for tranquilizers, I spent hours reading the Bible
aloud to him and praying.

But he still could not sleep.  I followed him out to the living room
and sat down on the couch in the dark.  The only light came from a lamp
in the bedroom that shone through the open door.

"Paolo, come here and sit beside me," I called to him as he paced past
the bathroom door.

"I don't want to," he snapped.

"I think you should pray this time, Paolo.  I always pray for you.  but
if you pray for yourself, it will have more power."  

Paolo looked at me with what seemed like hatred.  Normally, he appeared
slightly disturbed in a gentle way, but he now wore an aggressive
glare.

I was apprehensive, but I returned his glare without breaking
contact.

I saw more fear in his eyes than I felt in my own heart.  I told myself
that I was safe.

"I want you to pray, Paolo," I repeated with a firm voice.

He turned around and stalked into the kitchen at the end of the hall.

As he lingered there in the dark, for about twenty minutes, I quickly
went over in my mind the various scenarios that could take place here
in this isolated apartment in this deserted town where no one knew me
and I couldn't even speak Italian.  I said my own prayers silently,
knowing that faith could overcome any obstacle.

When Paolo finally returned, his distraught face looked as if he had
been through hell.  He fell to his knees and bent his head down, as
Catholics are taught to do when they pray.

"I don't know how to pray," he said after a few minutes had passed in
silence.

"Say what is on your heart," I suggested.

"Help me, God.  Jiutami, aiutami," he kept repeating in Italian.

After what seemed like a very long time, he got to his feet.  His face
looked better, and he seemed tired but content.  Evidently the prayer
had dispelled the hold of the tranquilizers, and I breathed a sigh of
relief.

Looking into his eyes again, I saw he had something to tell me.  "What
is it?" I asked.

"Do you want to know?" 

"Yes, I need to know."

"Will you leave me if I tell you?" 

"No.  I won't leave."

"When you told me to pray," he began apprehensively,"I heard a voice
in my head.  It said to kill you.  While I was in the kitchen the voice
told me to take a butcher knife and come in here and kill you."

"Is that why you went into the kitchen?" I said, goosebumps rising on
my arms at the thought of what he could have done.

"I wasn't going to do it," he responded defensively.  "I think I went
into the kitchen so the voice would stop.  I went in there to get away
from you because the voice did not like you."

"My spirit is much more powerful than that puny voice," I said,
remembering Mo letters that told us how the devil tries to scare us
when he knows he has already been beaten.  I pictured an enormous,
powerful angel on my side and a shriveled, bent-over little demon
whispering into Paolo's ear.  Now I was sure that Paolo would come into
the Family.  Even the devil knew it, and he was making his last
stand.

I succeeded in helping Paolo substitute faith for his addiction to
drugs and therapy.  I did not feel a sense of power over Paolo after
this, instead, I felt an enormous burden of responsibility.  I was now
his spiritual mother.  I had to nurture him, feed him, protect him, and
educate him until he was mature enough to be on his own.  It was as if
I had been through a difficult birthing experience, and the baby had
been born alive, but traumatized.  Tired as I was after giving birth, I
knew that the hard work had just begun.

Convincing Paolo to forsake all, a Family requirement in order to join,
took time.  Paolo was by nature selfish, stingy, and possessive.  Not
only did he not want to share me, he didn't like the idea of giving up
his coveted worldly possessions.  Paolo pampered himself with
fashionable clothes, comfortable furniture, and good food.  He had a
huge double closet full of the latest Italian fashions and dozens of
shoes.  I used to laugh to myself that my clothes took up only about
one-tenth the space that his clothes did.

Paolo was also not willing to share his money.  I brought my flee fund
money with me, and to provide an example of true communal actions, I
deposited the whole amount, about two thousand dollars, into his
savings account.  However, Paolo insisted I come to work with him at
the pet shop every day, and although he gave me money to shop for food,
I never had any spending money of my own.  One evening, as we passed
the only jewelry shop in the town, Paolo pointed out a gaudy gold cross
with Jesus on it and indicated that he would like to wear a cross now
that he was a Christian.  I offered him one of my Cartier necklaces,
suggesting that he ask the jewelry shop owner to make a trade.  Even
though I was unaware of the value of the Cartier at that time, I knew
it was worth much more than the cross.  In the back of my mind, I
thought that maybe Paolo would surprise me by exchanging my Cartier for
a cross for him and a ring, or necklace, for me.  When he showed up
with only the cross, and said that the shop owner had given him nothing
else, I was disappointed, but I dashed these thoughts from my mind.

Anything I could do to show Paolo God's true love was worth it.

Paolo's mother lived nearby.  His father, a Calabrese, had deserted her
with two small sons when Paolo was very young.  She supported them by
working as a nurse, but as a typical Italian mother, she spoiled her
boys, giving them everything they wanted.  She came over every morning,
after Paolo had gone to work, to make his bed, clean his house, and
take his laundry.  In the evening, she brought a warm dinner over for
him, or he ate at her house.

As I began my household duties, I thought of what Timothy had told me
about wasting God's talent.  He was against my living with Paolo, and
he still wanted me to come and live in Athens with them.  But living
with Paolo served many grand purposes, It was helping Paolo break his
dependence on legal drugs, giving him a goal in life, it gave me a
place to live so I would not have to go to Athens, which would break my
connection with Thor and perhaps with my own soul, and it took me from
the detached experience of loving many men to learning to love one
man.

Meanwhile, I took the three-hour round trip on the train and bus every
weekend to pick up Thor.  My son integrated well into the Italian
country life, camping out with us and going fishing, however, Paolo,
who was the poorest conversationalist I have ever met, was even less
talkative with children.  There is a Bible verse that says "a man who
keeps quiet is esteemed wise," and I thought that perhaps Paolo had
deep thoughts.  As time went on, I discovered that he just had nothing
to say.

A few times I floated the idea of bringing Thor to live with us, but
Paolo was averse to the idea.  He said it was better for Thor to be
with his father.  Meanwhile, I had completely changed my own lifestyle
for Paolo.  I was now a dutiful housewife with a good sleeping
schedule, regular meals, and lots of rest.  Within a few months, I
became pregnant.

Even though I had not practiced birth control throughout the years of
offering myself, I had never become pregnant.  Therefore, to be having
Paolo's baby was further proof to me that he was a disciple.  In
retrospect, I was just taking better care of my body.

All full-time disciples sent 10 percent of their monthly income into
the COG headquarters in Switzerland, but since Paolo did not want to do
this, we were put on the lowest status.  That meant simply that we did
not receive the "Disciples Only" (DO) letters, and we needed permission
to visit Family homes.  Of course, Cal never tried to enforce this
rule, and I could go and come freely at his house, but otherwise, I was
estranged from the COG.  Sharon, Tim, and Breeze wrote to me from
Greece, inviting me to come if I found out Paolo was not a sheep, and
to bring him if he was.  I could do neither.  Now that I was pregnant,
I would have to do my best to keep him connected to the Family, even if
it meant living with him apart from a Family home.

The new Family rule, according to the latest letters, was that if a
baby resulted from relationships with a fish, it was God's way of
showing that the fish was worthy.  Therefore, the bait (me) must stay
with that fish and keep him close to God's Family.  Nothing was
mentioned about love except that God can give you the love you need.

For many years I waited and believed that love was coming.  Sometimes I
even fooled myself that love was there, that I just had to acknowledge
it.

Years later, I heard the cynical words of a Dylan song,"Love is just a
four letter word," and I thought how true that was in my life.  But
for now, my time was absorbed with teaching Paolo how to be a Child of
God, and I had no time for inner-self thoughts.

Unfortunately, my student was not a willing learner.  He, at the same
time, was trying to teach me how to be a typical, subservient Italian
wife.  The first day I went to work in his shop, he yelled at me for
arriving late.  He let me do all the dirty work, such as picking huge
ticks out of the infested country farm dogs and sweeping the dirty dog
hair away from his grooming area.  After working in the luxury of Monte
Carlo for three years, it was quite a change for me, but I had learned
to be content in whatever situation I found myself in my service to the
Lord.

Paolo was nicer to me after I became pregnant, and his mother, who had
long ago resigned herself to her station in life as a single abandoned
mother, was the epitome of self-sacrifice.  She took it upon herself to
train me in her image and likeness, how to shop daily from store to
store, picking up the freshest pieces of meat and vegetables, making
pasta from scratch, sewing curtains, crocheting baby clothes (she tried
to teach me to knit but I have always been afraid to have knitting
needles around children), hanging up pretty curtains.  I followed her
respectfully, but without enthusiasm.  What I really planned was to get
Paolo and me into a Family home somewhere as soon as possible.

In the spring of 1980, Cal informed me that he and Mara were going to
go back to America.  Almost everyone who had been in Europe for a while
was encouraged to go on to other mission fields like the Far East or
South America.  First they would have to go to America and raise
funds.

Mara was pregnant with her second child, and since I was also, Cal
thought it might be a good idea for us to get divorced so that we could
marry our new mates.  I discussed this with him at length, and we
planned on meeting in America, and then going together to a mission
field and starting a home consisting of Cal, Mara, their little girl,
Thor, Paolo, me, and our new babies.  That would keep Thor with both of
us, and I liked the idea of having help in training Paolo to be a
disciple.  All I had to do was convince Paolo to move to America.

Paolo had already been to America when he had worked on cruise ships.

He was not interested in returning.  He was more interested in going to
Canada or South America, since he had never been to those places.  I
explained that first we needed to get married, which meant I had to get
divorced, which was easiest accomplished in America.

He seemed to agree.  Assured that I would be following soon, I agreed
to Thor going with his dad to the States ahead of me.

Cal left with Thor before the summer, and I promised to help pay for
the divorce.  He handled the whole procedure in New York, where his
parents lived.  Meanwhile, Paolo and I were to start gathering funds to
leave and meet them when summer ended.

As the summer months passed, Paolo seemed less interested in leaving.

I pleaded with him to put the shop up for sale as he had promised, and
although he kept saying he would, he did nothing.  Finally, in
November, seven months pregnant, I gave him an ultimatum.

"Paolo, we agreed on a plan before Thor left," I reminded him.  "I
trusted you.  I never would have let Thor leave if you had told me you
were not sure."

"You can't do anything about Thor anyway," he replied.  "You gave Cal
custody of Thor."  His words jolted me out of my delusional fantasy.

Basically, I had not counted on Cal asking for full legal custody,
which he had done once in America, but I had continued to have faith in
the plan.  Now, it became clear to me that even Paolo was ready to
betray my trust in him.

I had given Cal custody in order to obtain an uncontested divorce.

That was the only way that he would do it, and with him in America,
with Thor in his possession, there was little I could do.  The divorce
papers also said that I had deserted them.  I complained about this
statement, but Cal said he had to give some excuse for getting
divorced.  Paolo, the only other person I ever talked to at that time,
had encouraged me to sign the papers also, and now he was using this
against me.

"Yes, I did give up custody!" I hissed at him, angry that he could be
so insensitive to my feelings.  He was there when I received the papers
from Cal, when I cried over the desertion claim and the custody.  Paolo
knew how much those statements hurt me.

"But I trust Cal, and I still do," I cried.  "And I thought I could trust
you."

"Do you expect me to leave a good business, and go to America where I
don't know what I can do?" 

"You are going to America to be part of God's Family.  If you don't
want to do that, then I don't want to stay with you."

"What about the baby?  God gave us that baby for a reason.  We are
supposed to be together."

"God gave me Thor for a reason too, Paolo, and I am going to stay
beside my firstborn."  Paolo laughed condescendingly, an irritating
habit he resorted to when he didn't know what to say.

"I am leaving here with or without you, Paolo.  You can't keep me
here.  We aren't married yet, and you can't prove fatherhood either,"
I added, not knowing if that were true or not.

We were on chilly terms for the next couple of weeks.  Since I had put
the money Timothy had given me into Paolo's bank account, I had
virtually no money.  I contacted my mother and sisters, who were
willing to help me.  My mother had been reading all the anti-COG
literature she received from church groups that explained our unusual
marriage relationships, however, she was still horrified to learn that
Cal lived with a pregnant woman in New York, while I lived with a
stranger in Italy, and was also pregnant.  I had been in touch with her
through letters, but I never had given her the details of my life.

Other than news about Thor's growth, my letters were filled with Bible
verses supporting our ministry.  Now that my mother heard about my
divorce, she preferred I arrive with a husband-to-be, but said she
would send me the money if I needed it to leave Italy.  Paolo, sensing
that I would do this on my own, gave in.  He put the shop up for sale,
and we left before Christmas.  We arrived in New York in December 1980,
with the news that John Lennon had just been shot and killed.

"Great entrance into America," said Paolo sarcastically.

Paolo and I began to live in my mother's house in Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, and we were married a few weeks before I had my first
daughter.  Only my mother was present at the ceremony held at the
justice of the peace's office, and she took us out for pizza
afterward.

Paolo had not bought a wedding ring for me, despite having over ten
thousand dollars in the bank, so my mother gave me an heirloom ring she
had been saving.  It was too big, and I eventually lost it while doing
dishes.  My second baby was born in the local hospital, and we named
her Athena.

Back in Lancaster, I caught up with all my family's history.  I knew
that my sister Marlene, who had visited me in New York before I'd left
for Europe, had died in a car accident, but back in my home, I finally
had the time and space to allow myself to mourn.  Many times I looked
at the old pictures of her and remembered how I had hauled her to the
antiwar march on Washington when she was only fifteen.  Ruby had
married a drug user whom she felt sorry for, and was now divorced and
trying to start a new life with a baby.  Karen and Ingie were living in
Florida and doing well.  My brother, Steve, was in prison again.

Cal and Mara joined us in Lancaster, and we rented a house and lived
together for a few months while trying to raise money and decide which
mission field to go to.  My mother was terribly upset that we were
living together, imagining the most horrible sexual transactions taking
place, but actually, we never shared at all.  Every one had their
individual problems to keep them preoccupied.  Paolo had plenty of
money from the sale of the shop, but Cal was dead broke.  In COG
philosophy, we should have shared our money with Cal, but Paolo was not
ready for that.  He still had a hard time sharing his money with me.

None of us were particularly good friends, but friendship was not
valued in the Family.  I don't think that any of us would have even
kept company had we known each other outside of the Family.  Our
interests, likes, and dislikes were so different.  But in the COG, all
that mattered was God's work, according to Family doctrine.  As for me,
I would do anything to stay near my son.

It soon became evident that Cal, now almost thirty years old, was not
happy with Family policy.  He had stopped sending in his 10 percent,
and had started drinking and smoking.  One day I found out that he was
also smoking marijuana.  Like many people who control their own
negative urges by condemning them in others, I confronted him about his
vices during morning devotions.  I wanted everything to be laid out in
the open so I knew where we were going.  Cal stormed out of the room,
and Mara looked at me sheepishly.

"You guys aren't in the Family anymore, are you?" I asked,
dumbfounded by my lack of discernment.

"Cal's just having a difficult time," she replied.  I thought as she
said this that she must really love him.  How strange to love someone
in the Family enough to support their shortcomings.

"Mara, you need to let me know.  I have a new disciple I am trying to
train.  He can't be seeing Cal smoke dope.  What is happening with you
two?" 

"Okay," she confided.  "We both have trouble believing Mo now." 

"We always had trouble believing Mo," I answered.  "But what about
serving God?  Do you think the Family is still a legitimate alternative
to the system or not?" Having had a recent taste of the system life,
both with Paolo in Italy and now back in America, I concluded that the
Family was still a better way of living.  I didn't like the loneliness
of living in the so called world.  Of course, I hardly had time to make
friends, but with work and children to take care of, I didn't see how
any mother could have time for a social life.  However, most of all, I
didn't think I could live a life without a goal, and I saw my goal as
living for the Lord one hundred percent.  No Christian church would
take me in now.  There was basically nowhere for me to serve the Lord
but in the Family.

"You know that Cal has not been happy in the Family for quite some
time," continued Mara.

"Is he in or out?" I demanded to know.

"He wants some time to think about his life, about what he's going to
do, now that we will have two children."

"Cal has three children.  What does he plan on doing with Thor?" My
heart was racing frantically.  Cal had legal custody of Thor, and now
he was planning to leave the Family.  What would he do with Thor?  It
was my worst nightmare come true.  I had not counted on Cal becoming
a heretic--and having custody of my son.

"I'm going back to France to have my baby," she said, ignoring my
question.  "Cal is going to stay with friends in California and raise
some money."

"I want to know what he is going to do with Thor!" I said more
emphatically.

"You'll have to talk to Cal about that," she said, even though I was
sure she already had discussed the matter with him.

Cal informed me later, after he had calmed down, that he would let me
take Thor until he situated himself and his family.  I knew that could
take months or years.  As long as I had Thor, life made sense.

Thor was now eight years old and had been to four different schools in
his life, not counting the Family schools he had attended as a
toddler.

He had lived in four countries and in over a dozen different homes.  It
was a lot of moving, I had moved often as a child also, but I had thus
far never analyzed the psychological implications of that factor on my
life.  Thor made friends wherever we went, however, he was not doing
well in conduct at school, which I attributed to the system's poor way
of teaching and disciplining.  I started to teach Thor again at home,
and when we moved, I did not put him back in public school.

Paolo and I bought a small travel trailer and, together with Thor and
Athena, we started down the East Coast on our way to South America.  On
the way, we were joined by a COG family from Italy with four little
kids who lived in a tent.

By the time we arrived in Florida, it was hot, humid, and buggy.  We
found a home in Miami that processed COG missionaries on their way to
South America.  The Italian family separated from us there, and started
working on raising more funds, while we ended up in a trailer park in
Jacksonville.  Paolo went to work as a waiter, not wanting to sell
literature on the streets.  I stayed home with Athena and taught
Thor.

When Paolo complained about my not making any money, I sold the gifts I
had collected in Monte Carlo.  I eventually sold all the jewelry,
including the Cartier gold chain, and Salim's painting.  They brought
in a lot of money, but much less than they were worth.

Our trailer had no air-conditioning, and poor little Athena was covered
with heat rash.  In addition, since she had suffered a high fever after
her first vaccination, Paolo insisted that she have no more shots, and
I was always afraid she would come down with some childhood disease she
had not been vaccinated against.  Paolo had become very strict about
our diets and medical needs, fanatically embracing the Family's
policies of avoiding doctors.  Although all my children have been
relatively healthy, they also all went through the childhood diseases
that most children were vaccinated against, such as measles, chicken
pox, and whooping cough.  While in Florida, Athena acquired a red rash
all over her body, accompanied by a fever for three days, but I never
knew what it was.  By the time I took her to a doctor, she was already
better.

Also, during our stay at the trailer park in Jacksonville, Thor came
running home one day from the pool with his hand covering a profusely
bleeding forehead.  It was the first time I had left him at the pool
under the care of a neighbor, since I'd had to run home and change
Athena's diaper.  Paolo was away, and I didn't drive, so a lady from
the nearby trailer park store came to my rescue and drove us to a
clinic, where I was relieved to hear that Thor's cut could be sewn up
with a few stitches.

Finally, I received a letter from Sharon, who told me that a new music
ministry was being started in Puerto Rico.  It was easy to obtain
clearance to go to Puerto Rico, also, Family members could still
collect food stamps there from the government.  We put in our
application for Puerto Rico and received the okay immediately.  After
selling the car, and leaving the trailer with a dealer to sell for us,
we arrived in Puerto Rico in time for the ovenlike August weather.

Our first week in San Juan was spent in a tiny rented room with no
air-conditioning.  I lay on the bed in the shaded room with the fan
blowing on me during the heat of the day, while Thor and Athena played
in the wading pool we bought and put right outside the open door so I
could watch them.  I had to bring them in every twenty minutes so they
would not get heat stroke.  In the evening, I took the children for a
walk on the beautiful beaches.  Meanwhile, Paolo scouted San Juan for
housing and work.  Unless we lived in a home, Paolo would never
understand how to live by faith.  COG members did not work for money at
that time, they sold literature on the streets or sang in restaurants
and cafes.  Since I could not speak Spanish, and I had to watch the
children, I did not see how I could do either in this heat.  Finally, I
hit on an idea.

Paolo had always wanted to learn to play the guitar, and the Italian
brothers we visited had started to show him a few chords.  He had
bought a guitar in Italy and brought it with him through all our
travels.  I convinced him to play a few chords while I sang--on the
buses.  The buses were air-conditioned, or had a good ventilation
system, so it was better than keeping the children in the hot motel
room.  I took Athena in a stroller, and Thor collected up and down the
bus aisle while Paolo played the guitar and I sang.  After a few weeks,
Thor started to sing with Paolo and they went out alone, since Athena
often slowed us down.

I was worried about Paolo taking Thor out alone.  There had been a few
incidents when Paolo had hit Thor harder than I thought was
necessary.

Thor had been his usual rambunctious self while we were on a long
driving trip, and Paolo had reached the end of his patience and slapped
Thor hard across the face.  His mouth was bleeding, and I yelled at
Paolo for hitting him so forcefully.  Even though corporal punishment
was condoned in the Family, we were supposed to talk to the children
first, and let them know how they would be punished.  In addition, I
wasn't sure if Paolo would watch my eight-year-old son well enough in
the crowded San Juan streets.  I never had the feeling that Paolo was
as concerned about Thor as a father should be.  He was not mean to him,
but he was not sensitive to a young boy's needs, such as when to take a
break and when to buy him an ice cream.

During our first month in San Juan, we visited other colonies searching
for a place to live.  One evening we visited a large home outside San
Juan where they were having a get-together for the members in the
area.

I had not been in a regular Family home for years, and I was shocked at
the filth and disarray of the house.  The brothers and sisters were
sweet, but somehow different from the Family I knew in Europe.  I felt
extremely uncomfortable, and I later learned that these were all people
who had not received clearance to undertake a mission, so they
congregated in Puerto Rico.  Most of the members who could not obtain
clearance were actually incompetent.  Our socialist philosophy was to
take anyone into the Family who believed in Jesus, wanted to forsake
all and live communally, and would obey the Mo letters and leadership,
but I now began to realize what difficulties that entailed.  Some of
our members had come from very poor, undereducated backgrounds, and we
were not properly trained in social reeducation.  Although some of
these people eventually learned to clean up their houses, teach their
children to read and write, and earn enough money to support the
colony, many of them stayed in pretty much the same condition as when
they joined--abject poverty.  It was the first time I was aware of a
huge class difference existing within the Family, and I was not sure of
the causes or implications.  After dinner, the leader of the home, a
huge brother from Chicago, suggested we all put our names in a hat and
pick a partner for the night.  I declined, saying that we were not
spending the night here, but he insisted that I at least share before
going home.  Paolo also was not interested in having sex with a name he
picked out of a hat.  We left before the names were chosen.

Within a few weeks, we found a couple to live with.  They were clean,
well-mannered people who had already received clearance to Argentina
and were just staying to raise more funds.  We moved to a small village
called Humacao, rented a large, airy villa, and went singing in San
Juan.  This couple stayed pretty much to themselves in the second-floor
apartment of the villa, and we never shared sexually.

Sexual policies, I learned, varied greatly from one Family home to the
next, as well as at different time periods in the COG.

One day I got a call from the leader of a house that was underground.

"Hopie heard that you are in Puerto Rico," the brother said.  "She
wants you to come up and visit us."  Once again, Hopie, Mo's daughter,
was my savior.  A car was sent down for Paolo and me, and brought us to
a campground situated on a beautiful mountain about an hour's drive
from San Juan.  There were roughly twenty trailers and large living
tents pitched under the trees, with a kitchen and a huge covered patio
by a pool.  It was a picture of heaven-on-earth, and seeing old friends
just made it more celestial.  There were a number of musicians from our
Paris days, all of whom I knew well.  Most were married now and had
children.  There were also singers and musicians from Italy whom I had
met in my travels.  Then there were the big leaders, whom everyone
knew.  It was definitely the place to be in the Family at this time.

The latest push in the Family was to recruit members back into the
group.  Flirting had been toned down now, we were giving sex only to
men who were very influential or wealthy.  The new, elite ministry in
the Family was making videotapes of Family songs.  This camp in the
mountains of Puerto Rico was a gathering of our best talent, and more
was on the way.

One of the significant "backsliders," as we called them, who had been
brought back to the Family by Hopie's personal initiative was an
extremely talented young man named Gabriel.  He, along with all the
other "prodigal sons," were treated royally.  They were given the best
houses, the nicest clothes, use of the cars, and were instantly made
leaders.  Mo said we were to reach the world through music, radio, and
television, and we needed good musicians, technicians, and others with
entertainment-industry skills to do it.  Gabriel was multitalented, and
besides writing scripts, performing, and directing the shows, he was
one of our most successful public relations men, opening doors in the
South American music world that would have taken us years to even
find.

For a short while in Puerto Rico, he was treated like a king.  Many
years later, he was to become one of the first victims of the "victor
camps," where rebels or leaders who had disobeyed Mo in some way were
humiliated by verbal lashings and public spankings, forced to confess
before the colony every "sin" they had ever committed, subjected to
sleep deprivation and exorcism, and separated from any source of
help.

However, that would come years later.  In the camp near San Juan, our
little paradise, it seemed like no harm could touch us!

With intelligent and capable people like Gabriel around, I began to
have more faith in the Family again, and the depression and horrific
conditions of the San Juan homes that I had recently witnessed were
soon forgotten.

Hopie, who seemed to have a special liking for me, was her usual, happy
self.

"Praise the Lord, honey.  It's great to see you again," she told me
cheerfully.  "When I heard you were in Puerto Rico, I thought, well,
Jeshanah has to come up here.  She's an old Paris Show Group
performer.  So what have you been doing?  I heard you lured a fish
into the Family." 

"Yes, I did.  When Monte Carlo closed down, I went to live with a
fish in Italy."

"Well, praise the Lord.  Good for you.  That was Dad's main objective,
to get souls into the Kingdom.

"I want you to stay up here in the music camp," continued Hopie.  "Is
your fish with you still?" 

"Yes, we had a baby and got married.  "

"Praise God!  Two souls for his Kingdom.  Well, can he sing or play
music?" 

"No, not really.  He started to learn in Italy."

"I never knew an Italian who didn't love music.  I know what he can
do.  I bet he's a great cook.  Italians love good food.  Why don't
you and, what's his name, honey?" 

"Paolo."

"Why don't you and Paolo stay here and take over the kitchen?  We
could use some better cooks here.  And I'm sure they could use you in
some of the dance numbers, if they start doing shows like we did in
Paris.  That was great, wasn't it.  The Lord's Spirit sure moved in
Paris."  

Paolo and I moved up to the camp within days.  He recognized a good
situation when he saw it, and the camp was a true haven.  He was also
given a little special attention, being the youngest disciple there,
by years.  We bought a little pop-up trailer to place alongside the
RVs.

Although Hopie said we were to be in charge of the kitchen, the
practical leaders felt that Paolo was too young in the Family to be in
charge of anything.  He was relieved just to be there in the camp,
where our daily needs were met by the community and we did not have to
go singing to raise funds.

Soon after arriving, I found out that Sharon and Timothy had come over
from Greece and were living on the island.  When I finally talked to
Sharon on the phone, I realized she had changed drastically, however,
it wasn't until I would meet her, weeks later, that I understood what a
complete transformation she had made.  But for the time being, both
Paolo and I focused on adjusting to our new communal life.

Like in all Family homes, sharing was taken for granted in the camp.

The concept of "one wife" was now widespread in the Family.  Mo's words
"God's in the business of breaking up little selfish private worldly
families to make of their yielded broken pieces a larger unit-- one
family--one wife" ("One Wife" 249, 9) were taken literally now.  Some
homes even set up regular, weekly "sharing schedules" to ensure that
everyone got equal opportunity.  The ideal was to become one with every
member in the home, not just with your own mate.  Paolo, like most men,
had not joined the Family to share sexually with many women, but he
participated in the schedule until he was asked to go with a sister he
found unattractive.  After a brother explained to him that God's Love
does not discriminate by outside beauty, Paolo reluctantly agreed to go
with a sister he had refused repeatedly.  However, he talked badly of
the girl afterward, so the leaders wisely considered Paolo a special
case, and he was no longer encouraged to share.  Since I had become
saturated with sex, I was more than willing to pass up any
opportunities to share, using the excuse that Paolo was alone.  Sex was
a chore for me by now, and since we did not use birth control, I was
always afraid of becoming pregnant.

My old rebellious and dear dance instructor, Salome, was also at the
camp.  She now had three small children, and from what I understood,
one was from a fish.  Salome, as a nursery worker, had always expressed
to me her feeling that there were enough children in the Family, and
she did not want to add to the number.  She kept to herself in her own
trailer, rarely coming out for fellowship.  Rumor had it that she not
only refused to share with brothers, she would not have sex with her
own husband unless she could use birth control.  Since birth control
was absolutely not allowed in the Family, as far as I knew, I imagined
that they had a sexless marriage.

I envied her.

During our stay in the camp, Mo asked the Family to video women dancing
in various forms of the striptease, which he called the "heavenly
harlot's" dances.  In new letters written at this time, such as "Glorify
God in the Dance," Mo described how we should dance in these videos as
if we were making love to him or the Lord.  Like most of his new ideas,
they had been tested previously at selected homes.  Since ours was a
special, underground home, we were allowed to see some of the original
tapes that had been sent to Mo from the Greece home.  I was interested
in seeing Sharon's dance.  Hopie gave us a little prep speech before
showing the video.

"Now this is the second video we sent to Dad.  He was not pleased with
the first one, and especially with a few of the girls whom he felt were
not dancing in God's Spirit of freedom.  Thank the Lord for Dad's
insight, and that he is never too proud to let us know when we are
doing wrong.  Amen?" It seems that Sharon, among others, had danced
with such sexual inhibition that Mo had rebuked her and said that it
was time for that girl to receive the Holy Spirit, since evidently she
had not yet.  He also suggested that she drink a little more wine
before performing her dance for him, and he gave specific instructions
on what he wanted to see--more sex!

I was shocked when I saw Sharon's second dance.  She was a different
person from the kind, sweetly shy girl I had known and loved.  Her eyes
seemed spooky as she penetrated the camera with a flirtatious,
come-hither look that was not the Sharon I knew.  Other girls on the
video had danced and undressed in a sexy, but awkward, manner, however,
Sharon, whom I remembered as one of the most modest women I have ever
known, masturbated openly before the camera as if she were a
professional porno star.  She was brazen, brassy, saucy, and bold--the
ultimate sexual plaything for a man with unbridled sexual fantasies.  I
thought that she must have become one of Mo's own women, and it took my
breath away as I realized how close I had come to being one too.  Perhaps
it was my mother's prayers, or my own innate defiant nature, but
somehow I had missed being chosen by him.  In a rather warped way, I
entertained the thought that perhaps he did have spiritual insight, and
he knew I could never give up my soul to the point that Sharon had.  I
didn't want to believe it was the same woman I knew, and as I went to
bed that night, with a heavy heart, I pondered why Mo had picked poor
Sharon.  Sweet, sweet Sharon--the lily of the field, I used to call
her!

She was no longer lily-white, she was now the red, red rose of Sharon,
covered, smothered with the blood pouring from her wounded soul.  These
were my thoughts after seeing the person whom I had loved most in the
Family dancing before her king!

I was asked to perform a harlot dance the next day before a video
camera, and I wondered what I could do that would not be criticized by
Mo.  Intuitively, I now knew that I was safe, since Mo went after the
women who had a malleable inner core.  Knowing that I would never be
among Mo's inner circle strangely gave me more faith to stay in the
Family.  I had been a socialist before I joined, and I never liked this
hierarchical system that had developed in the Family anyway.  As long
as I was not part of the leadership, I should not take blame for any of
their mistakes.  The bottom line was that we were still preaching God's
love and salvation.  These naked dances were only for the elite, and
the upper echelon historically degenerate and are replaced.  I decided
to do my dance like the person I was--a woman who loved to dance for the
dance's sake, not for Mo, or sex, or pornography.  My warped mind was
bent on excusing Family perversions, and I had become quite good at
it.

Declaring that leadership would evolve to eventual perfection was one
of my best ploys of selfdeception.

Choreographing my own dance and designing the stage scene between two
trees, I began by dancing in the nude behind a sheer muslin curtain
with a stage light shining from the back.  Nothing could be seen but my
silhouette as I danced.  I let my body flow, spin, and spiral to the
music.  Of course, there was always the possibility that Mo would send
a message saying that I was not in the Spirit, but I had already
survived that experience years before.  After a few weeks, Mo did have
a message for me,"Tell the Uneager Beaver that I liked her dance."  I
heard this compliment from Hopie while I was at a dinner party at the
residence of one of the leaders, where Sharon lived, and my anxiety of
finally meeting with Sharon and Timothy overshadowed any reaction I
might have had to it.  Sharon had lost about twenty pounds and was
thinner than I. As she looked at me, she said,"I love you," but her
eyes looked past my heart or soul to some faraway place only she could
see.  I thought that she must have achieved either sainthood or
zombiehood, and I wasn't curious enough to want to find out which,
which was very unlike me.  I was a little scared.  Sharon reminded me
of a happy victim--the ultimate evil paradox.  Instead, I talked at
length with Timothy, who was watching the children so that Sharon could
entertain at the dinner table.  His boyish face still looked naively
hopeful as he explained to me that Sharon had a "special calling."

"I heard Hopie say that Mo liked your dance," Tim told me gleefully.
"He doesn't say that to everyone, you know, especially not on their
first dance."

"Yeah, he also called me the Uneager Beaver again," I replied, but I
could see that the meaning of this comment went over his head.

"oh, don't worry about that, I'm sure he loves you."  Actually, I
wanted to say that I was thankful that Mo still called me the Uneager
Beaver, which suggested he would always hold the story I had written
against me.  Now that I had witnessed the change in his wife after
becoming an "insider," I liked the freedom and safety of being an
outsider more than ever before.  I had never been very close to
Timothy, so I did not say anything, and Sharon was now much too far
away to ever talk to again.  She was like one of those monks who
achieve enlightenment after years of social isolation.  If that was
enlightenment--I didn't want it.

The camp was full of outsiders like myself.  We seemed to be a bunch of
freethinkers who had been temporarily handicapped by ideals,
opportunity, love, or other psychological/emotional anesthetics.

Almost everyone living in the camp eventually left the Family, and at
least one of them committed suicide after leaving.  But I never heard
of a suicide while in the Family, and certainly those days on the
mountaintop kept all of us preoccupied.  We were too busy to think
about what we were really doing then, and it was only after we left, if
we were able to spend time alone with ourselves, that the wastefulness
of our lives could be understood.  During these mock "days of heaven on
earth" in Puerto Rico, I was oblivious to the approaching storm.

Most of my concern was over my son, Thor, who was now eight years
old.

He was at an awkward stage of childhood development, made more
confusing by recent Mo letters on how to raise children.

Because of our free-sex lifestyle, sooner or later the subject would
have to be discussed with our children.  Eight-year-olds want to know
why Mommy and Daddy are sleeping in someone else's trailer.

More distressing than the sexual aspects of raising my son was the
discipline that was being taught to all parents.  Paolo took the
disciplinary rules very seriously, and on a few occasions, he took Thor
into the woods and whipped him with a stick.  Each time Thor received a
spanking, I wondered if his own father would have done the same.  Thor
asked about his father sometimes, and I said we would probably see him
soon.  But after these spankings, Thor especially wanted to see his
daddy, and my heart would break.  If God truly does punish us for our
sins, I know that the worst way He can punish me is through my
children, for this reason, I have often lived in fear.  Nothing ever
made me as anxious as the thought of what effect my actions would have
on my children.  On the other hand, there are never easy problems or
easy solutions, as I was soon to learn.

Near the end of the year 1981, I received a letter from Cal telling me
that he was out of the Family for good and that he wanted Thor back.

With the letter was a one-way ticket to France, where Cal now lived
with Mara.  I was sent into a complete panic.  My plan was utterly
destroyed.

I had not counted on Cal becoming a heretic when I had signed those
divorce papers.  The only reason I had given him custody of Thor was
that I believed we could all be together eventually, or at least live
close to each other.  To complicate matters, I now had two children,
with two different fathers.  The ideal was to all live together.  That
was not going to happen now, and I could not figure out what to do.  I
wrote Cal that I would not send Thor until some agreement could be
reached on visitation.  I was willing to return to Europe, if
necessary, but for now, I was relieved that Thor was in my
possession.

One day Cal called the San Juan home, and asked if I would come to the
phone that evening with Thor so that he could talk to him, which I felt
was certainly good for both of them.  I was hoping that we could come
to some sort of agreement during the call.  When Cal phoned as planned,
I explained to him that I did not use the ticket he sent because I
wanted to be sure that he would send Thor back to me sometime.  He said
he was upset at first, but now understood and that maybe we could work
something out for the future.

It was already dark outside, but we had to return to the camp, so we
said good-bye to our hosts.  Paolo was driving and I was in the front
seat, holding Athena, who was almost a year old and still nursing,
while Thor sat in the back.  As we turned a corner and headed down a
deserted street towards the highway leading out of town and to the
camp, a car suddenly headed toward us.  Before Paolo could swerve out
of its way, it backed into us and rammed our car.

"The doors," I screamed.  "Lock all the doors."  A dark-haired man
came running out of the car toward US.  I thought we were being robbed
and I frantically locked my door and the door behind me.  Thor was on
the seat behind Paolo and I could not reach him.

Everything happened so quickly, and I was in such an emotional panic
afterward, that I can't recall the exact details of this incident, and
those involved have contradictory reports.  I know that Thor was taken
away from me at that time, I remember I was relieved to see my
ex-husband, Cal, come toward me in the dark of the night, so I knew
Thor had not been kidnapped by a stranger, I came to the dreadful
realization that Cal was taking Thor away and I might not see him
again.

In a state of near hysteria, I was taken by Paolo back to the Family in
San Juan.

Paolo took me inside the home and I sat down while he talked to the
leaders, handing them an envelope Cal had given him.  They called the
camp and then explained to me what had happened.

"Jeshanah, listen!  He took Thor for good.  He's not bringing him
back." 

"He can't do that!  I have Thor's passport, he can't get out of here
without it."  The home leaders came back into the room and opened the
envelope.  It was a letter from Cal.

"He has been to the police already," they explained,"and he is
threatening to give away our locations and everything he knows about
the Family if you don't give him Thor's passport."

"But he doesn't know where the camp is," I protested.  Athena was
crying now, and I tried to nurse her but no milk came.  The leader's
wife took her.

"He knows enough," he said.  "You guys should stay here tonight.  They
will call in the morning."  I looked around in bewilderment.  Were they
going to let Thor be taken from me?  Forever, like Cal said?

Wasn't Thor worth saving?

What's wrong with these people?  This is my son!  I looked to Paolo for
help, but he didn't respond.  I didn't know what he was thinking-- I
never did!  Was he going to help me or not?  Could I count on him when
my emotional energy was depleted?

"No!  No!  You can't make me do it," I screamed hysterically.

"You need to get a good night's sleep," said the leader's wife, who
had already laid Athena down in a baby cot.  We were given a space in a
spare room.

I couldn't close my eyes.  Athena and Paolo slept all night, but I
stayed awake, rocking myself as tears flowed down my cheeks.  Maybe in
the morning, I would hear that Cal had changed his mind.  Maybe Thor
would refuse to go with him.  Maybe the leaders would force Cal to make
concessions to me.  All I wanted was a promise that Thor could see
me.

I would go back to Italy.  I would not go to South America, not if Thor
was on another continent.  There would be a change in the morning, I
was sure of that.  "Sorrow lasts for a night, but joy cometh in the
morning."  That's what the Bible said.  Still, I stayed awake all night
praying and weeping.

We heard the next day that all the top leaders had fled the island
during the night.  There was too much bad publicity about the Children
of God and many angry people in America were looking for the leaders,
many of whom were right here in our camp.  Groups like the one called
Free COG, standing for "Free our children from the Children of God,"
and deprogrammers, who kidnapped adult COG members and tried to
un-brainwash them, were becoming more powerful.  In addition,
individual Family members were now embattled by lawsuits from mothers
or fathers who had left the COG but whose spouse and children were
still in.  Cal had a lot of information about us-- leaders' legal names
and addresses and what they looked like--and they were afraid.  They
suggested that I give Cal whatever he wanted.  Hopie, who had also left
the island, sent a special message saying that it was all in God's
hands, and if I trusted Him, He would give me the desires of my
heart.

At that time, I did not mind that they left.  I knew that the top
leaders always protected their identity and location, but I couldn't
believe what they were asking me to do.  Paolo drove up to the camp to
get the passport and some of Thor's clothes.  Meanwhile, Cal called and
talked to the leader at the home.  Cal had been in San Juan about a
week, studying the movement in and out of the San Juan house, which he
found by following a brother home from the post office.  He had called
to make sure we would be there with Thor that night, then he and his
brother had planned the kidnapping.  He wasn't about to make any deals,
and all the chips were stacked on his side of the table.  I was in a
state of shock when Paolo took me to the airport to meet with Cal.  I
still hoped that I could persuade him to change his mind.

Cal met me alone at the planned location, without Thor.  He said he
thought it would not be good for Thor to see me in this state.  I was a
wreck from being up all night and day crying.

"Cal, you can't do this to me," I pleaded.

"You were going to do it to me," he responded spitefully.  He was a
different person from the one I had left a year ago.  He was tough and
much more sure of himself.

"No, I wasn't going to keep Thor away.  I wanted to work something out
with you."

"What could we work out?  You are in the Family, and I am not.  You
want to live in South America, and I live in France."

"I would not have gone to South America."

"That's what you say now.  But you would have taken him and
disappeared.  Why didn't you send him back with the ticket I sent
you?" 

"I know it looks bad, but I was afraid to send him.  I didn't have
any proof that you would let me see him again."

"You're probably right.  I don't want Thor having any contact
whatsoever with this perverted cult you're in.  You guys are nuts.
Your leaders are all f ing perverts.  Where are your leaders now,
huh?  They've all left you by yourself, haven't they?" I couldn't
listen anymore.  I knew he was right, but what could I do?

Agree with him?  It wouldn't get me Thor back.  And what about Paolo
and Athena?  I held my head together as if to stop it from exploding.

Like Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, I seemed to have been left without a
choice.

There was no road open to take.  I would have to forge one for myself,
but not now.  I was too weak, too confused, too close to the edge!

Knowing he was taking Thor for good, right now, this very instant was
all that mattered.  I turned to Paolo for help.

"Paolo, do something!" I cried.  "Find out where he's going.  Please
don't let him take Thor without knowing where he's going?" 

I sat on the nearest bench and buried my face into my hands while 
Paolo gave Cal the passport and suitcase.  Paolo had let me down.  He
did nothing at all.  Maybe he liked his position in the Family now,
near top leadership.  Maybe he just never liked having Thor around, a
bothersome, constant reminder that I had been married to someone
else.

But I had helped Paolo in his darkest hour.  Now, I wanted and needed
his help in my darkest minute, and he did nothing!  I would have to
take care of myself!  They were gone!  My beloved had been yanked out
of my heart and it was bleeding profusely.  Would I become a zombie
like Sharon?  Was that how God did it?  After all, the Family did not
plan this one.  Lifeless, I let Paolo take me back to the San Juan
home.

I didn't want to see anyone.  I stayed in the little room they had
given us for two days and two nights.  Not even Athena could make me
come out.

I nursed her and handed her back to Paolo to take away.

After crying all the tears I had left, I lay folded up in the fetal
position, praying to die.  Then I stopped praying, and anger took the
place of any false hope I had stored for God to do something.  I was
given messages from the leaders that God wanted me to sacrifice Thor as
a test, and He would give him back.  However, not one of my friends
from the camp came to comfort me.  During those tortured, guilt-ridden
days of passing judgment on myself, the Family, and the world, I
finally came to a verdict.

This was not between me and the Family, I told myself.  It was between
me and God.  What kind of God would ask Abraham to sacrifice his only
son?  Why put a man to a test like that?  I had tried to understand the
reasoning, and as long as I had not been so intimately touched, I
could.

But no longer.  I had found at least one truth in my heart.  I could
not trust a God who would ask this of me!

I went to my knees and raised my clenched fists upward.

"I am not a man!" I cried.  "I am a mother!  And I won't pass that
test.  I won't even take it!  I will not sacrifice my son!" I dropped
to the floor, and while a coat of scales fell from my soul like a
snake's skin being discarded, I closed my eyes and slept for the
first time in three days.


Living in the LookingGlass Mirror

After Thor had been kidnapped in Puerto Rico, I told Paolo that with or
without him, I was going back to
France to look for my son.  At first he tried to convince me to stay,
but when he saw that I actually meant it--that I would leave without
him--he said he wanted us to stay together.

We sold our trailer to some Family members, who I think gave us money
for it because they were glad to see me leave, and together with
Paolo's leftover funds we had enough to buy standby tickets back to
Italy.

It was February 1982, and I was almost thirty.  In a French village
above Monte Carlo, we stayed in the converted garage of a lady friend I
had known before we left.  While Paolo scouted around for business
opportunities, I rested at home and watched Athena.  In the evening he
drove me to the Loew's Hotel, where I landed a job as a cocktail
waitress.

Our plan was to save some money, borrow some more, and open a health
food store in Italy.  Paolo had become interested in health food
nutrition while in the Family, and there was a trend toward healthy
living under way in Italy.  Meanwhile, I wrote a letter to Salim,
explaining that my son had been kidnapped by my ex-husband, and asking
for his help.

His lawyer called me within a few days and told me they had hired a
private detective to locate Thor.  I knew only that he probably lived
in France.  They had moved from the place where I had sent mail and
left no forwarding address.  I did not know Mara's legal name, or the
name of her parents, but I did know Cal's legal name.  While I waited
to hear again from Salim's lawyer, I lived an anxious, limbolike
existence between the piano bar in Loew's and the garage-home outside
of Monte Carlo.  One night a man, who had appeared two evenings in a
row, stayed late, following me with his eyes.

It was almost closing time, and I brought him his check.  Without
taking his eyes off my face, he reached into his suit jacket and pulled
out a badge.  I looked at it briefly and then looked at the silly,
I'm-in-control expression he wore.

"What does that mean?" I asked.  "That you don't have to pay?" The
grin fell quickly from his face.

"I think you know what this means," he replied in a thick French
accent.  "We don't want you in Monaco.  I think I've made my point.  "
I left my station and clocked out, deciding to leave by the underground
employees' entrance and call Paolo from another location.  As I walked
through the well-lit streets of Monte Carlo, I recalled the many nights
I had walked those same streets with Sharon and Breeze.  It seemed like
another world ago.  It was.

Paolo had found a suitable location for a store near the popular
seaside town of San Remo.  He borrowed money from relatives to open the
store on a shoestring budget, and we lived in a small room in the
back.

I spent the next few months helping Paolo set up an herb and natural
food store.  While waiting for customers, I wrote, scribbling in pen
and ink on looseleaf paper reams of fictional stories.  They were all
eventually put in the trash, having been written more as a kind of
personal therapy than for anyone to read.

Finally, I heard from the lawyer.  They had located Cal, who now went
by his legal name, Jerry.  He lived and worked in Canet Plage, near
Perpignan, which was on the other side of France, by the Spanish
border.

"He says you can never see your son again," the lawyer told me
matter-of-factly.  "He tells me that you are in a strange cult that
abuses children, and that your son was abused by you and others in this
cult.  Is that true?" 

"He was in the same cult as I was," I replied.  "But I am not in it
anymore."

"Does he know this?" 

"No.  I can't write to him to let him know.  I don't have any way to
communicate with him."

"I will let him know.  I will see what we can work out.  But you must
be telling me the truth.  Are you out of this cult?" 

"Yes," I replied truthfully.  We had not written to the Family or
heard from them since we had left Puerto Rico almost a year ago.

I waited anxiously for weeks.  Finally, I received a call from the
lawyer.  She said that Jerry had agreed to talk with me, and if it was
all right, she would give him my phone number.

Jerry called about a week later.  After discussions back and forth,
which lasted for over a month, he said I could come and visit Thor.

But he included a long list of do's and don'ts.  I agreed to anything
he said.

We planned for me to take the trip during the Christmas season.

Paolo's shop would be less busy during the quiet time after the
holidays when everyone had already spent their money.  Since I was now
eight months pregnant, Paolo thought Athena should stay with him.  I
took the long train trip by myself, hardly seeing the beautiful French
scenery as I envisioned my first encounter with Thor in over a year.

Jerry met me at the train by himself.  He wanted to talk with me awhile
to be sure how I was doing and that I would not cause any emotional
scenes.  I assured him that I would do exactly as he told me, and I
would not weep in front of Thor.  When I entered the small town house
they had rented, I saw Thor playing with his half sister in the yard.

He had grown tall and thin, but he still had his distinctive red
hair.

All his babyness was completely gone, and he portrayed a maturity that
I had never recognized before.  I felt as if I had lost my little boy
forever.

But when he turned around and looked at me, all his childlike innocence
came rushing back into him, as if a floodgate had been opened.  With
love in his eyes that only I could recognize, as his natural mother, he
came running to me and jumped into my arms.  My big stomach was in the
way, but that didn't stop him.

"Whoa.  Your mother's pregnant, son."  said Jerry firmly.  "Calm down
and act like a man."  Thor disregarded what his dad said, as he told me
excitedly of things he had done since moving to France.  He took me to
his room, where he had a set of mechanical toys, which he had made into
some sort of flying vehicle.  He pulled out a game board that could be
converted into about twelve different games, and after explaining how
each one was played, he asked me which I wanted to start with.  I
played with him for hours, as I observed his happy face and remembered
that he had never been allowed to play with toys in the Family.  Toys
were something systemites gave their children to hook them on material
things.  It was a ploy of the devil.  If so, the devil knew how to make
children happy.  Thor's face was radiant, and I hoped that some of it
was because he was glad to see me.

His dad must have also talked to him about not displaying too much
emotion, because it wasn't until I put him to bed that night that I saw
tears in his eyes.  He quickly brushed them away and turned over
saying,"I'm happy you're here, Mommy."  He had called me Mommy, and he
would continue to call me Mommy until he was well over twenty years
old.

Late that night, after the children had gone to bed, I talked with
Jerry and Mara, who was now called Mona, her real name.  "Thor seems
genuinely happy and content here," I said wistfully.

"Yes.  In the beginning he was telling us all these things we should
not be doing--like eating white sugar, or watching TV, or me smoking
cigarettes," said Jerry with a laugh.  "But he soon started to like
the system way of life much better, and now he doesn't even want to
talk about the time he had in the Family."

"Has he mentioned me often?" I asked, getting to my main concern
quickly.

"No.  Only the first few weeks," replied Mona in her usual
truthbe-told manner.  I usually admired her Libraish balance on life's
most emotional issues, but this time it hurt too deeply.  However, I
knew better than to cry in front of them.  I had promised no emotional
displays.

"Well, I suppose that is better for Thor.  How is he in school?" 

"He had to be put back because he forgot most of his French.  But he
does very well now, especially in math," said Jerry.  "Of course,
he's had a few run-ins with other kids.  One in particular was a bit
messy when he broke the nose of a policeman's son."

"Oh, no!" I cried.  "We have always taught Thor antiviolence!" 

"Oh, don't give me that peace bullshit.  You know Mo talked about
killing every Antichrist israeli, and every non-Christian goes to the
fires of hell.  Real peaceful stuff!" 

"That was just a madman's ravings.  I never believed that either, and
I certainly never told Thor that."

"Well, don't worry.  Thor is a good boy.  And his fight was really to
protect his sister.  Seems this boy pushed his sister off a swing, so
he punched his nose." 

I knew that Jerry had been quite a fighter, growing up on Long
Island, but I made no mention of this.  He seemed almost proud of his
son.

I went to bed late, and the next morning, I took Thor to the beach,
despite freezing weather.  We played among the sand dunes all day, and
that evening I felt a chill.  I ignored it.  For three days, I spent
all day with him, exploring the surroundings of Perpignan with my
son.

I wanted to be able to imagine every minute of his day.  How could I
leave him?  Of course, I would have liked to stay there and never
leave.  But life was not so easy.  I had another child in Italy, and I
had promised Paolo I would be back by a certain date.  He had work to
do and could not watch Athena indefinitely.  Also, I promised Jerry I
would not make a scene and beg for Thor to come back with me.  This was
a beginning in reestablishing my connection with Thor.  I told myself
that I would work things out.  However, leaving Thor was an emotional
wrench on my spirit that I was not acknowledging, though my body did.

When I left on the train to return home, I had a high fever.  Eight
hours later, when Paolo picked me up at the station in Italy, I was
almost delirious.

My fever raged for three days, and then a doctor was called.  He
diagnosed me as having pneumonia, and given my pregnant condition, he
suggested I be kept in bed and taken care of.  I was moved to Paolo's
aunt's house, and for days I was oblivious to this world.

"You must think of Athena, and the new baby," I remember Paolo's aunt
telling me every time she tried to spoon some homemade broth into my
mouth and I refused.  I think I again wanted to die.  It seemed such a
good idea.

After seeing Thor so happy and content in his new surroundings, I
thought to myself that I had been a very bad mother.  I was now a very
unhappy wife, and although I loved my daughter, Athena, I would
probably not be a good mother to her either.  Why should I go on having
children?

Why not just die now?  I had no will to be healed.  I seemed to have
made a mess of what was most precious in life to me--motherhood.  Thor
now had a new mother, and for Athena--better no mother than a bad
mother, I thought.  I wanted to die, and I was not afraid of death.

Then I remembered that I had rebelled against God.  "Curse God and die,
" Job's wife had told him in his darkest hour.  Good old patient Job
had not cursed God, however.  He said,"Though He slay me, yet will I
trust Him."  Job was another story I did not like.  It was a man's
story.  Who would want to live after all his children had been killed,
just to learn a lesson?  So what that Job got more children back?  They
weren't the same ones.  How could God imagine that one set of children
could replace another?

It seemed to me that God was still on my case.  He wasn't going to let
me live happily and He wasn't going to let me die.  One thing was sure
though.  When I finally did die, I would have a whole lot of questions
to ask.

Paolo kept bringing Athena in, saying she needed me and was crying for
me.  Athena was like a doll.  She had the beautiful Italian features of
her father, and the defiant fire of her mother.  She had always been a
handful.  When she was a newborn, screaming her lungs out with colic,
even the nurses in the hospital said they never saw a baby cry so long
and so hard.  She wasn't going to sit back and take anything she didn't
want to.  I thought Athena would do all right in this hard, tough
world, but she probably needed a mother's love as much as Thor did.  I
decided to get well for her.

We wanted to have our next baby at home.  When the midwife arrived at
our old stone house in the tiny village, I was already quite far along
in my labor.

"This bed is too low!  Put her on the kitchen table!" she
commanded.

She was a big, heavy Italian momma, and she was uncomfortable stooping
to our low bed as she prepared me for delivery.  My baby was born on
the kitchen table on a tiny lane called Canevai, meaning the dog's way,
in an old, picturesque Italian village by the sea.  The small stone
house she was born in has since become a national monument because it
was built in the year A. D. 500.  It had probably been the birthplace
of many babies, and she was the last!

When they brought her to me, wrapped in a rough blanket, she was
sucking on two fingers.  We had chosen the name Genvieve, after the
patron saint of Paris.  As much as Athena was noisy and lively as a
baby, Genvieve was quiet and calm.  I often checked her crib to make
sure she was still alive.

I spent most of my time writing, crocheting, and raising the
children.

I started to teach Athena to read when she was three years old.  She
was bright and eager to learn.  I taught her in English, and spoke
English to the children all the time since their relatives spoke only
Italian.

One day, Paolo came in with a man who looked vaguely familiar.

"Hi, Jeshanah," he said with a huge smile that I had almost
forgotten.

"You remember me, don't you?" He had an Asian face, but an American
accent.  Holding a guitar in his hands, and carrying the trademark
lit-bag that all good Family members have, I knew he was a COG.

"Well, I see you don't remember my name.  I'm Sojourn.  And this is my
daughter, Crystal," said the stranger as he held out his hand.

I looked down and saw the little girl for the first time.  She also
looked Asian, and had a warm, friendly smile.  I offered her some
candy, which she refused sweetly.  Then I remembered that Family
children don't eat candy.

I had met Sojourn in Paris, but having met hundreds of people briefly
at that time, I hardly remembered him.  He remembered me of course,
since I was in the Show Group.  He could not believe Paolo when he told
him I had left the Family.  Sojourn and his wife, Maggie, along with
their two little children, spent the next few months parked outside our
house, eating in our home and staying inside with us most of the
time.

They both tried to persuade us that the Family had changed.

"You are so talented, Jeshanah.  You must come back and use your
talents for the Lord," Sojourn told me one evening.  "We need more
leaders who are concerned about children."

"I don't want to be a leader.  I never did.  Listen, I love the way
you guys are, and how you live so freely.  But the leaders are not
like that.  People change when they get power, in the Family as much
as in the world."

"That's why we need people like you, Jeshanah.  You have the power and
the heart to be a good leader."

"But she doesn't want to, Sojourn.  She just told you," interrupted
Maggie.  "She has three children now, and I am sure that keeps her busy
enough."  I was thankful that Maggie included Thor as one of my
children.  Even though I saw him only twice a year, at Christmas and in
the summer, he was always on my mind, and I guess Maggie realized that,
being such a loving mother and a caring person.

Separation from Thor was still a source of grief for me.  Although
Jerry said I was allowed to visit him whenever I wanted, Paolo did not
give me much free time.  Now that we had two children, Paolo did not
want to take care of the little girls while I was gone, and the train
trip was too long to take two small children alone.  I had visited Thor
only one more time in the next year, when we all took a vacation there
in the summer.

"if nothing else, you should stay with the Family to be an example to
Thor," said Sojourn, seeming to read my thoughts.  "He has no
spiritual training with Cal."

"I don't think you should be prying into Jeshanah's life," said
Maggie.

They had a strange relationship.  I knew that Sojourn, who was a
mixture of Hawaiian and black American, used to be homosexual.

Although homosexuality was subtly allowed in the Family at one time,
the goal for men was to be able to have sex with women also in order to
produce babies.  All former homosexuals were encouraged to find mates
of the opposite sex, and Maggie seemed to be one of the few women
willing to accept a man who liked men.  In return, Maggie, a quiet,
usually unobtrusive person, had an adoring husband who was gentle and
mutually submissive in his marriage relationship, a real rarity among
Family men.

They talked to each other with equal respect, and I never saw Sojourn
openly disagree with his wife, or use his God-given power as "head of
the household" over her.  On the contrary, he usually asked her what to
do, and obeyed her slightest hints of disapproval, as he did now.

"I'm sorry.  You're right, Maggie.  Jeshanah is really probably in the
Lord's Will.  I should not meddle."  I could not help but notice his
humble reaction to Maggie's suggestion, and how different it was from
how Paolo and I related to each other.

Unfortunately, Maggie was not around to stop Sojourn from talking to
Paolo about joining.

Paolo was not doing well with our health food business.  We had
borrowed heavily to open the shop, and there was no more money to
borrow.  He eventually sold the shop to a rich banker's daughter from
Torino.  After paying off our debts, we had enough money to buy a
mobile home and set it up on a piece of land owned by Paolo's aunt.

Paolo began selling health food in the Italian markets, and encouraged
by Sojourn, I began going out singing.  Together with Sojourn and his
daughter, I took Athena and a guitar, and we hit the open cafes up and
down the Italian Riviera.

Maggie stayed home to watch her little boy and Genvieve.  We were
living a communal life again.  It had all the benefits and none of the
disadvantages caused by leadership.  Finally, Paolo told me he wanted
to rejoin the Family.

I had mixed feelings.  Ever since Thor had been taken from me, I had
lived life with half a heart and half a will.  I was not at all happy
with my marriage or my situation, but as a mother, there was no
alternative for the time being.  Joining the Family at that time gave
me hope that Paolo would have other sources to fulfill his emotional
needs.

I didn't think I could ever fulfill them.  I had married him to bring
him into the Family, and I had expected help with his spiritual
growth.

If he wanted to join again, perhaps that would be the best course of
action for him and for our marriage.  When Paolo had "joined" the
Family the first time, he did it only to stay with me.  This time it
was a decision he was making, and I probably went back into the Family
because of him.

It seemed to be the lesser of two evils, as the saying goes.  Without
Thor, I wasn't completely happy anywhere, so if Paolo felt better
living in a community, I did not have any strong opposition to it.

Of course, I did feel that the leaders in Puerto Rico had let me down,
but maybe that was my own fault in a spiritual way.  I felt that I had
been wrong to associate myself with the elite of the Family.  Maybe
they were the only ones who were corrupt.  Perhaps these kind, humble
members were different.  Also, the Family had recently experienced
another "revolution" within their group, and all leaders were
demoted.

From what Sojourn told me, most members were living quite independently
of leadership and rules.

I told Paolo that I didn't care one way or the other, that it was his
decision.  I didn't want to get the blame for this one, as I had gotten
for everything else we'd done up to then.  And I didn't want it to
interfere with my visits to Thor.

It was the year 1985.  The Family had changed in many ways.

Joining simply meant that we sent in 10 percent of our income, and they
sent us the Mo letters and supported some of the poorer missionary
fields.

"Missionary work" was now the volunteer work we did in retirement and
nursing homes, hospitals, and orphanages.

This was the part of the work that I enjoyed.  With Sojourn's talent as
a musician, I taught the children a small dance routine, and we put on
performances at social institutions across northern Italy.  The
children liked performing, and after every show we talked with the old
people, the sick, or the poor, holding their hand and telling them
about Jesus.

We often received a free dinner from the Catholic sisters or social
workers who ran the place, and we took pictures to use in the brochures
we carried around.  Eventually, we traveled for days in our trailers
like Gypsies, from one town to the next, performing with the kids.  I
was pleased to be bringing light and happiness into the lives of those
who were institutionalized, but I had a few worries.  What if Jerry
found out?  And what if I got pregnant again?

I talked to Paolo about using birth control, but he would not hear of
it.  He warned me that God was against birth control, and dire things
could happen to me if I went against God's Word.  He had internalized
Family and fundamentalist Christian doctrine much better than I ever
did.  In addition, since he was the head of the family, and he did not
want me using birth control, it was forbidden.  I wanted to obey my
husband this time, but I secretly tried the rhythm method, counting my
days carefully, and avoided having sex on the days that I would be most
fertile.

As for Jerry finding out, he was too far away from us to know what we
were doing.  He had agreed that Thor could come visit us in the summer,
so I planned on spending that summer at our trailer in Paolo's
hometown.

This time while we were in the Family, we were on the bottom rung, but
we had no leaders over us.  We could pretty much do as we pleased as
long as we witnessed and sent in our tithe.  Living on the Italian
Costa Azzurra, we were close enough to the tourist beach towns to sing
at cafes and restaurants, which provided us with funds.

When Thor came to visit us on vacations, we discovered that he was a
talented musician, having studied music and theory in the French
Conservatoire.  He became the star of our show.  When ever I took him
to sing in restaurants along the beach, we made twice the money.  I
played guitar and sang, while Thor played the accordion or tambourine,
and then collected the money.  He was a natural-born showman, having
been raised in the Show Group, and no one could resist him.  He was
eleven years old when he started singing with us and virtually never
stopped until he struck out on his own.  Sometimes he wore odd-looking
hats for emphasis and used them to collect the money.  We gave him a
small percentage of the money to take home, but I was worried about his
father finding out.  I preempted this by calling Jerry.  My ex-husband
was a typical musician who would be thrilled to hear that his son had
inherited his performing genes.  I didn't think this would risk my
seeing Thor, and I was right.

"I wanted to know if you mind if Thor goes out with us?" I asked him
on the phone.

"What does he think of it?" 

"Well, I took him out a few times, and he likes it."

"Does he collect?" 

"Yes."

"Well, what do you know.  I guess if he doesn't mind, it's okay with
me.  How much do you give him?" 

"Ten percent."

"Ha!  I doubt if that will keep him content for long.  But if he's
happy with that, it's okay with me."  Thor played and sang with us for
the next couple of years, and each year as he progressed, he was given
a bigger cut.  He went from playing tambourine to playing guitar.  By
the time he was fourteen, he was singing and playing guitar, and I was
collecting, giving him 50 percent.

But it was worth it.  By then we were making two hundred dollars a
night.

Jerry moved his family back to Nice when Thor was fourteen, less than
an hour from us by car, so my son came to our house almost every
weekend as well as all summer.  I thought that I must be doing
something right now--and oddly enough, I was in the Family.  Singing
with my teenage son gave me some of the happiest moments of my life.

The fabulous weather allowed tourists to sit in the open cafes by the
beach and enjoy the lovely Italian seaside.  Thor and I had our regular
restaurants and cafes in every town along the coast.  We planned our
work systematically, making sure we kept good relationships with the
restaurant owners by not coming too often, and we hit a different town
every night.  The more popular resorts, such as San Remo and Diano
Marina, were saved for the big nights of Friday and Saturday.

Living a gypsy lifestyle brought us into contact with other Family
gypsies.  What I liked best about that time during the early 1980s was
that all the ambitious leaders had gone to the "mission fields" such as
India, South America, and the Far East.  Remaining in Europe was the
equivalent of staying in the United States, which meant you couldn't
make it as a missionary.  No one in Europe bothered us about our
spiritual state, and as long as we sent in a decent 10 percent, we were
left alone.  However, many of the struggling Family homes wanted us to
join up with them.  As I traveled from home to home, I realized that
not only had I previously lived a privileged life in the Family, but I
also had a strength that made others want me near them.

Without birth control, I conceived again while Genvieve was still a
baby.  I felt sorry she would have to grow up so quickly now.  When my
third daughter, Jordan, was born, eighteen-month-old Genvieve stood
next to the two-day-old baby Lying on my bed with her eyes wide open,
with her two front fingers stuck in her mouth as usual.

After receiving invitations to live in various homes, we chose to stay
in a new home opening in Nice because it was closer to Thor.  Around
this time, the publications from the Family, which I usually never had
time to read, talked about the life and teaching of Davidito, the
little boy Mo's lover had with a fish.  The Davidito Series, as these
letters were called, explained how the parents themselves, or the
nursery workers, should teach the children about sex.  One Family
publication included a picture of the nursery worker putting Davidito
to sleep by fondling him.

Later, Mo issued a statement that he did not approve of sex with minors
and renounced any writings saying that he did, claiming that someone
else had written that.  It was difficult to know what Mo actually did
write since he renounced anything that caused trouble.

By this time the Family homes were spread all around the world, and the
Mo letters, especially in the area of sex, were followed in varying
degrees.  Some women in the Family never shared sexually with anyone
but their husbands, while some husbands forced their women to do so.  I
heard stories of wives being physically punished for disobedience, but
I never saw this with my own eyes.

It sickened me to read anything that seemed to condone any type of sex
with children.  In all my travels, I never met a family that actually
did this, and I inquired everywhere I went to see what the others
thought about the Family's child-sex education.  No one ever admitted
to pedophilia.  Nevertheless, years later, I heard tearful confessions
from ex-Family members who said they or someone they knew molested
children under pressure from their leaders.  I am thankful that I was
not in a home with leaders--not until the very end of my time in the
Family.

The brothers and sisters at the Nice home felt the same way I did about
teaching children how to engage in sex--that is it was a sick thing to
do.  When he was younger, Thor had been with children who had been
encouraged to explore each other's bodies, and he did not retain happy
memories of this.  The idea of showing young children adult sexual
organs, and actually teaching them how to use their immature sexual
parts in an adult way, was even more perverted.  But I could not face
this issue at that time.  Unfortunately, Paolo and I didn't talk about
it, we avoided the subject altogether.  When letters arrived that
discussed childhood sex, no one in the home mentioned them.  I hardly
read any letters now anyway, but lived only to raise my children.  We
were not even sharing among the adults here in Nice, and I believed
that no one made sexual advances toward the children.

Around this time I called Salim to thank him for helping me find my
son.  I had sent him a thank-you card years earlier, but I had never
thanked him in person for his help.  I told him I was living in Nice
and he immediately made an appointment with me to meet in the Hotel de
Paris.

I was extremely nervous.  Not only was I five years older, but I had
borne three more children since I had last seen Salim, and there was
nothing new I had to offer but the same old message.  I was surprised
when he wanted to make love to this thirty-one-year-old mother of four,
who had done little to keep her youth or beauty intact.

"Why do you like being with me?" I asked after a most mundane
exchange.

Despite my numerous sexual experiences I had not learned any of the
special tricks or unusually stimulating procedures that are rumored to
keep men interested.  Why did Salim want to see me when he could pay
for the best and most beautiful of the elite's high-class call girls?

"You have a strength that no other woman I know has," he responded, as
if the answer had always been on his tongue ready to fall out.

"What do you mean?  You know so many women, some are much stronger and
much more sophisticated and experienced than me."

"That is all outward strength.  It is not the same.  You can uncover
secrets of life.  And although it seems like you are weak and
submissive, it is only because you choose to be at this time.  When I
make love to you, I feel strength within me.  You are strong!" This
was the longest and most revealing piece of personal information that
Salim ever gave me.

Salim had always kept a very powerful image before me, and anyone else
I saw him with.  I was surprised that he had let his guard down, even
for a few minutes.  I looked at him carefully.

He still had the same iron-clad expression, but his eyes had become
softer.  He withdrew back into his powerful-man mode, and I did not see
him again for years.  But the insight that he had shared with me,
whether it was true or not, stayed with me forever.

The Nice home, like all pleasant situations in the Family, did not last
long.  We found ourselves on the road again, this time traveling with
our family in an old RV to one of my favorite cities, Venice.  There we
found a deserted farmhouse in the milk-producing region of Pordenone.

I was sent to the owner of the house, a wealthy industrialist who had
bought the property on a whim and later decided that raising cows was
not his cup of tea.  He flatly refused to even rent the house to us,
although we had suggested he give it to us free in order to keep it
from being vandalized and lie in disrepair.  We had been taught never
to take no for an answer, and I went back to him about half a dozen
times.  Each time he became more friendly, and as I showed him our
photo album full of pictures of the children and me singing in nursing
homes and hospitals, he softened a bit.  After more than a month of
persuading and bargaining, he agreed to let us live in the house
rent-free, and we agreed to refurbish the old place and bring it back
to life.

"I don't really care if the house tumbles to the ground," he said. 
"I don't need the income from it, and I don't ever plan to sell it
either.  But I don't want you guys causing any trouble out there."  

Paolo and I invited another couple and their children to help us fix
up the grand old stone farmhouse.  We quickly learned that this area
of Italy was a provisioner's paradise.  There were factories of every
kind all over the place, and we established regular contacts with
Benetton clothes, Parmalat milk, cheese, and yogurt, and many
others.  We literally remodeled the house with supplies we got for
free, but it was labor-intensive work.  I spent most of my waking
hours, when not physically involved with the children, scraping,
cleaning, and painting the old walls and beamed ceilings.

There was no central heat or indoor toilets.  The large kitchen had a
huge wooden stove, and the enormous living room, covering half the
downstairs, had a fireplace with seats on the side, so you felt as if
you were sitting inside the fire.  However, it did little to heat up
the rest of the house.  There was one other room downstairs, which had
a private entrance and no heat at all.  Upstairs were four large
bedrooms and a center hallway large enough to serve as a den.  There we
placed an oil heater that we had procured from a factory in the area.

Walking out on the back patio from any of the downstairs rooms, one was
greeted with the beautiful Friulian pastureland.  A cement sink with a
water pump constantly gave us fresh springwater that had a sulfurous
taste, but was sanitary and healthy.  My daughter Jordan spent hours at
this pump, drinking and playing in the water.  The barn, which was in
terrible disrepair, housed old machinery, and eventually we filled it
with chickens.  it was a pastoral dream come true for an old nature
lover like myself, but unfortunately, I could never be completely
happy.  Thor was farther away from me now, which meant he could only
come for the summer, and I was still not happily married.  Knowing that
bad marriages happen to the best of people, I consoled myself by
raising my children with all the energy and love I found available.

All my children started learning to recognize letters from the time
they could talk.  Athena was already a proficient reader at the age of
four, and she often helped me to teach phonics to her sisters.  I also
taught them to dance and sing, and we performed at hospitals, schools,
and nursing homes regularly.  Different Family members visited us
periodically, and some stayed on indefinitely.  The house was big, and
extra Family members usually meant more hands to do the work, and more
income.  That was until we were graced by the presence of "leaders.  "
One day they finally arrived--my old nemesis from Germany, Naomi, and
her husband, Samson.

As I suspected, Naomi and Samson stayed only a few months before moving
on to their mission field, but not before they almost ruined the open
access I had with my son.  As usual, Thor came to visit me in the
summer.  Although Naomi had suggested that the presence of a
"systemite" kid might be a bad influence on their sheltered children, I
insisted on this one, and they eventually acted as if they had heard
from the Lord to allow him to come.  When they saw how much income he
generated through singing with me in Venice, they quickly changed their
minds about him being a systemite and tried to recruit him back into
the Family.  Of course, Thor, at thirteen, was much too smart, and had
been too indoctrinated by his father on the evils of cults, to even
consider this invitation.  But the strange behavior of his mother, who
lived with people in her own house who told her literally what to do
every minute, was confusing to him.  I tried to explain that I believed
in communal living, and one took the evil with the good, until the evil
became too much.  At his young and tender age, he was forced to
struggle with the dissonance of the moral dilemma between idealism and
the corruption of absolute power.  Even though Jerry eventually
realized that I was back in the Family, he believed that Thor was
mature enough for exposure to a radical ideology he once believed in
himself.  I had talked with Jerry back in Nice, before I left for
Venice and Pordenone, and wanted to bring Thor with me.  He agreed, but
told me that he knew we were back in the Family.

"I'm only in it because of Paolo," I said.  "I don't have many choices
in my life."

"I feel sorry for you sometimes,"said Jerry, as he shook his head.
"But don't worry, Thor knows enough about the Family to never want to
join it.  Just keep him away from the leaders--okay?" Naomi had put
Jerry's faith in his son to the test by enticing him to join us, and
Thor had passed with flying colors.  I remember controlling my urge to
tell Naomi to back off, and I watched to see what would happen.

Looking into my son's bright eyes, I saw him weigh the lifestyles in
his quick, observant young mind, and he decided the system had more to
offer him.  I was truly happy about his decision.

Maybe he could make it out in the world.  Obviously I could not!

During the time that Naomi and Samson were in Pordenone with us,
another couple, on their way to serve God in Eastern Europe, had
stopped by our home for an extended stay.  Paolo and I were away taking
Thor back to his hometown.  We stayed longer than planned, with the
excuse that we were making money singing with my son along the coast.

When we returned, I discovered that the other couple's four-month-old
baby was terribly sick.  The poor Italian mother was holding the baby,
who looked like a limp rag doll, draped over her outstretched arms.  In
her pain and despair, the mother recognized that I could help her.

"Don't let the children come in here," I said to Paolo as he opened
the kitchen door, having parked our RV in the field by the fountain.

"There's a sick baby, and I want to find out what's wrong.  "
Fortunately, I had just been in Genoa, where the story of a small child
in the Family who had died from meningitis a few months earlier was
still the major topic of discussion and prayer.  I had researched the
symptoms, and this baby, Lying almost dead with an extreme fever,
seemed to have the same condition.

"We're taking care of this," barked Naomi, who came in from the living
room and ordered the mother to take the baby back upstairs to the cold
and drafty second floor.  "It's none of your business, of course, but
we have been praying about this situation with the baby's father.  The
Lord has shown us that the mother has a spiritual sin which needs to be
confessed, and then the baby will be healed."

"Oh?  What sin does she have?" I asked, curious as to what reasons
they thought God would have to let a baby and mother suffer so.

"She is rebellious to her husband."

"Well, I don't believe it.  I don't think God is keeping that baby in
pain because the mother has problems with her husband.  I want that
baby to see a doctor.  Right now!  Do you know what meningitis is?  Do
you have any idea how quickly a baby can die from it?  And did you know
that your own children, Naomi, might be exposed to this terrible
disease right now?" 

"My children are protected," Naomi said rather weakly.

Just then her husband, Samson, came in.  He spoke directly to Paolo.

"I think you need to take Jeshanah out of here.  She is standing in the
way of God's work."

"Oh, how ridiculous!  How can anyone stand in the way of God's work?"
I was furious, and I was going to get that baby to a hospital if I had
to drive it myself.  But I had not driven a car for over twenty years,
and I had no license.  I would have to go for the jugular vein-- the
dreaded authorities.

"Paolo," I cried, turning to my confused husband.  "Do you realize
that this house is legally in your name as the only Italian resident?
These foreigners are your guests, and you are liable if this baby
dies in this house and you did nothing about it."  I didn't know if
that was true or not, but it could have been.

Both Paolo and Samson had a shocked look on their faces.

"We're going to pray with the father about this again," said Samson,
taking Naomi with him upstairs.

Paolo asked that I go out into the RV and stay with the children.  In a
few minutes I saw the baby, the mother, father, and Paolo get into the
car and drive off.  I went into the house.

"The Lord showed us it was time to take the baby to the hospital,"
said Naomi without looking up at me.

Thankful, I went back to the RV and put my children to sleep without
dinner, reading them a story and holding them close.  Paolo returned
hours later with the news that the baby did indeed have meningitis, but
it was hopeful that the baby's life could be saved.

Later, after the baby and his mother had spent two weeks in the
hospital, a visiting sister told me that the doctor had looked at a
picture of Jesus hanging up on the wall and pointed to it.

"You can thank Him that this baby lived," he said dramatically,
"because this was a miracle."  The baby's parents never came back to
our home.  The father implied at other homes that I had interrupted
God's work of making his wife submissive, and that it might take years
before she learned that lesson again.  Clearly, here was a father
willing to sacrifice his son.  I wondered if he too had been quoted the
story of Abraham?  Did he imagine that God was going to stop this baby
from dying at the last minute because he would obey God's voice and
give him up willingly?  What would that prove?  But the mother of the
baby sent me a message, through a sister, saying that she was grateful
that I'd saved her baby's life.

This experience not only had given me further insight about my own
strength--which Salim had seen but I never did--it also prepared me to
stand up to any leader who came our way.  This fearlessness in the face
of leaders was not enough, however.  There were more lessons for me to
learn.  There was still the struggle between God's Will and free will
to be resolved.  Before Thor had been kidnapped, I had not believed I
possessed any free will once I submitted my own will to God's.  Now I
fluctuated between what I was told was God's Will and what I felt was
my own free will, however, as long as I continued to think in terms of
this dichotomy, of only two polar opposites from which to choose, that
fence-sitting vision that disturbed my thoughts at inopportune times
would always bother me.

After Naomi and Samson left for Yugoslavia, we were graced with the
presence of Emma, the former wife of Jeremy Spencer, who had now become
an artist in the Family and was living underground somewhere in the
world.  Emma was the mother of five or six children with Jeremy and
another three with her new mate, Giacomo.  I was curious to find out
about her oldest children and how they had fared being raised in the
Family.

"Where is Teddy now?" I asked when she first arrived, wondering about
her oldest son, whom I had watched as a child and who was now about
eighteen years old.  I had read nothing about him for a long time in
Family News letters.

"Oh, Teddy has forsaken God and the Family," she replied coldly.  "He
backslid in the Philippines, and I don't know where he is now."  Emma,
who had once been a top adviser on motherhood in the Family, with
responsibilities for organizing our best schools and nurseries, now
seemed tragically unconcerned about her own offspring.

"Don't you have any contact with him at all?" I asked, projecting the
pain I felt about my own son onto the concern I felt for poor little
Teddy.

"No.  He has chosen his path.  No child has had as much opportunity for
spiritual growth in the Family as Teddy has had, besides Davidito of
course.  And if he has rejected the Lord's work to follow in the steps
of Satan, he'll have to make it on his own.  Of course, I pray for him,
but really, it's in the Lord's hands now."  The fact that Emma could
talk so objectively about the loss of her firstborn gave me chills that
penetrated deeply into my heart.  I remembered how devoted she was to
Teddy and her little girl when I lived with her years ago in
Ellenville.  I never trusted her again, and I tried to keep my own
children as close to me as possible.  Such a cold, hard attitude was
certainly not conducive to raising healthy kids.  Her "good" children
received special attention and had become quite snobby.  The little
girl who was about Athena's age bragged about her singing exploits in
India, and showed off her beautiful In than said.  When we visited the
nursing homes, however, the little girl was either too shy, or too
aloof, to hold the feeble, wrinkled hands of the old people, as Athena
did naturally.

Later, I discovered that Emma's oldest daughter, now in her late teens,
already had two children, no husband, and was living somewhere in the
Far East.  Her fourteen-year-old, Andrew, whom they had brought with
them to our home, was under constant condemnation because he had not
been accepted into the coveted Family teen camp in Hong Kong, where his
younger brother now lived.  Emma let us all know that Andrew had some
serious spiritual problems, but that with God's help, he might work on
them and be accepted next year.

The teen camps were just starting up, and so far were only in the
countries in the Far East, where we had many disciples and where most
of our leaders were.  Mo's own son, Joshua, who had a few teens
himself, headed the huge teen home in Hong Kong, which we read about in
our Family News.  There the teens, most of whom had been raised in the
Family and never attended system schools, were taught skills like
carpentry, had computer training, and learned to play musical
instruments.  There was little emphasis on academic education.

Evidently, there was some kind of admission procedure to go to teen
camps, which I was not interested in since I never planned to send my
kids to any of them.

I took Andrew out witnessing and provisioning with me whenever I
could.

He seemed to enjoy my freedom and spoke openly with me.

"I want to be a truck driver when I grow up," he told me one day.

"But we don't have truck drivers in the Family," I replied.

"I know," he answered, looking at me with hurt, inquisitive eyes.  He
was a tall, handsome boy who probably had superior intellectual
abilities that had never been stimulated.  "It's the only thing I've
been taught to do, though, since I am not a musician.  I drove a truck
when we lived in the Philippines."  I realized that he meant he would
leave the Family, just like his older brother, Teddy.  We were told not
to talk about Teddy around the children, and since I didn't want to
bring up painful memories I changed the subject.

We talked at length about the possibilities "out in the world," and
I was pleased that my own son had all those opportunities to choose from
as well.  Sooner or later, I would have to come to terms with choices
in my other children's lives, but for now, they were safely innocent
and ignorant of adult decisions and mistakes.  Much later, I found out
that Andrew had indeed left the Family and enrolled in college to study
theater.  Truck driving is a legitimate career path, of course, but I
felt that the quiet, sensitive Andrew had other talents to offer the
world.

With so many children already in our home, I was anxious about not
becoming pregnant again.  The Family policy was still "no birth
control" of any kind, and my husband Paolo was strictly adhering to
that rule.

Since we rarely went to doctors, I did not know what was available in
the social health system in Italy, so I tried the rhythm method again,
and again, I became pregnant.

It was September 1986.  I was thirty-three years old, giving birth to
my fifth child in a hospital in Pordenone.  The nurses were excited,
since I had agreed to use a new birthing chair they had bought and none
of the local Italian women would try it out.  I told them I would much
rather sit during birth than lie down.  When the contractions came hard
and strong, they put me in the chair, only no one had taken the time to
figure out the complicated stirrup and strap system.  The cold metal
felt icy next to my hot, sweaty skin, and while they tried adjusting
the stirrups up and down and over again, I held my legs open, pressed
tightly to the sides of my bloated stomach, and pushed and pushed.  Out
came my second son.

Paolo wanted to give him an Italian name, so we called him
Michelangelo, after the great Florentine painter.

After Emma's departure, we enjoyed a few months of raising our children
with a few lowly but sweet family members.  Our peace was short-lived,
with the unfortunate arrival of two new leaders.  Judah was an American
who claimed to have a degree in journalism.  He was a cynical man and
his large, bearded face showed little sign of empathy or compassion.

His wife, Anna, a thick-skinned Italian beauty, had not borne children
gracefully.  Thankfully, we never shared with any of these Family
members since we were supposedly not engaging in any sexual sharing
between couples due to the venereal diseases that were spreading around
the Family.  Adults entering Europe from Eastern countries were
particularly told not to share at all.  On the other hand, the letters
about having sex with underage teens were explicit.  A series of
letters supposedly written by Mo about a fictional future end-time
supergirl named Heaven's Girl was circulating among our teens.

In these illustrated letters the young teen has multiple sexual
relationships with men of all ages.  With each new letter that arrived,
I became more worried.  Heaven's Girl became a sex fanatic.  Then a new
series titled Heaven's Girl was sent out with an artist's depiction of
Mo in bed with a teenager.  I confronted our new leaders immediately on
their opinions of these letters.  They were conveniently vague.

"What do you think?" asked Judah, without batting an eyelid.

It was a moment of truth and I failed miserably.  If I confessed that
didn't approve of Mo or any adult man sleeping with teenagers, I might
as well leave the Family, which was an option I had not yet discussed
with my husband.  Paolo and I never talked about the implications of
these letters.  Parents in the Family had become like the people we had
despised when we were young revolutionaries--those who "turn their head,
pretending they just don't hear," as Bob Dylan says in "Blowing in the
Wind."  I wanted to make sure my own children were safe now, and later
I would address the issue of what was going on in other homes.  At the
same time, by accepting a deviant collective conscience, I was
beginning to doubt my own virtue.

"I think it's Dad and Mamma's business what they do in their
household.  He is supposed to be the Prophet.  But I don't want my
girls exposed to adult sex.  Is that clear?" I answered.

"Don't you think that Mo is God's Prophet for the End-time?" asked
Anna, completely avoiding the question.

"Actually, I have serious doubts about that, yes.  But whether Mo is a
Prophet or not doesn't bother me at all.  What bothers me is people
taking Mo's letters as if they were God's Word.  And if you really want
to know, I don't even believe everything in the Bible is God's Word
either.  A lot has been tampered with through the ages."

"Why are you in the Family then?" asked Judah suspiciously.

"I'm in the Family for the community.  I'm in here because I still
think it's better than the system.  And right this minute, I'm in here
because this is where the father of my children is.  I lost one child,
and I don't want to lose any more."

"No wonder you guys are doing so badly.  And we were told it was
Paolo," replied Judah, rubbing his chin as if that discovery took a
lot of mental effort.

"Well, it's me.  But I'm also the one who got us this house you are 
living in.  And if you want to stay here, I want to know what you think
about sex with children."

"You have no right to come in here and demand us to answer your
questions," shouted Judah.  "You made your point.  Don't worry.  I
won't touch your precious little girls."  The Family was not free of
the bureaucratic problems found in the system.

I wasn't in this hierarchy, but I still had minimal power in my own
house.  I spoke to Paolo about my conversation with Judah, but he
thought I was imagining things.  Since our children slept with us, in
our own bedroom, he said we had nothing to worry about.  The letters
about sex and children did not seem to bother him so much.  He said
that it wasn't really having sex.  Mo never said to have actual
intercourse with children!  Like most of us, he probably did not read
these perverse letters, but they were there, like a cancer eating any
ideals we had left.

Every one I talked to convinced me that I was taking these letters too
seriously.  I began to think that I really had a problem after all.

But what problem was it?  I thought about it for hours as I lay awake
in bed at night.  I recalled an incident that had happened about a year
before, when my mother and sister Karen were visiting me in Italy while
we were alone at Paolo's hometown.  Karen mentioned that it was
terrible how we let the children run around naked on the beach.

Actually, most of the Europeans do that also.  We got into a heated
discussion about nudity, and finally she said what was on her mind.

"I read that the adults in your group show their naked body parts to
their children, as a way of sex education.  Is that true?" Suddenly,
as if a window of my past life had been opened, I saw my father showing
me his penis.

"Well, what's so bad about that?  Dad used to do it," I answered.

"oh, you're disgusting!  Dad never did that!  You're just making that
up because you're in this group!  You're sick!" She talked to my
mother about this, since my mom and dad had already been separated when
she was still a little girl.  My mother assured her that it was not
true.  Coincidentally, my mother also had a severe epileptic attack
while she was visiting at this time.  I don't remember if it was before
or after this conversation.  It bothered me so much that I closed that
window to the deep past.

As I lay in bed and recalled this event, I thought perhaps I was afraid
of something in my past.  Not one of the other adults living with us
seemed as concerned about sex and children as I was.  I did seem to
have a problem with sex.  Maybe it was I who was perverted by an evil
and sick mind.  On the other hand, those who did not like the Mo
letters left the Family.  What was I doing here anyway?

I had a lot of time to think about it.  Soon after my outburst with our
new leaders, I was restricted to my room for two hours of extra word
time and prayer a day.  I welcomed this restriction since I used it to
get much needed sleep.  But I also did a lot more thinking than
praying, and I didn't read the Bible or Mo letters.  Why did I still
let leaders tell me what to do?  Because I had grown accustomed to it
maybe?  It was a habit--part of living communally.  But why did I live
this way?  My ideals were gone.  My curiosity about a different
lifestyle had long been satiated.  Like Alice in Wonderland, I had seen
enough.  My dream was over.  I came to the conclusion that I was only
in the Family now because Paolo wanted to stay.  I had to convince
Paolo to leave.

However, Paolo seemed to find life in the Family easier than life in
the Italian system.  Although he worked hard, he had no rigid work
hours, and all responsibilities were shared by a group of adults.  If
money ran low, we had a choice of going out as witnessing teams to sell
tapes or singing in restaurants.  Paolo was also convinced that the
system was a bad place to raise children.  Because of his own traumatic
experiences as a child, which had left him and his brother with forms
of depression, he did not want his children to have the same
condition.

Two of his cousins had died drug-induced deaths.  He saw the Family as
a haven from a cruel world.  He appeared to like having rules and
regulations to guide his every act so that he didn't have to think,
make decisions, or take the blame for anything.  Even though I know he
did not agree with the letters either, he truly believed that his
children were safe here.

Unlike Alice, I could not seize the tablecloth in my hands and shake
everybody off.  This was real life--not a dream!  I spent a few months
vacillating in my ruminations about who was crazy, I or they.  In my
weakened state, I was reproached by Judah and his wife for making Paolo
use condoms, which I had recently insisted upon, so he stopped using
them and I became pregnant immediately.

When I was about three months pregnant, Judah and his family moved to
another home.  We were expecting a new family soon, and I started
cleaning out the bedrooms upstairs in preparation.  As I went through
the drawers in the children's rooms, where Judah's girls had slept, I
came across a spiral notebook.  I thought I could reuse it for school
if there were enough empty pages, so I leafed through it.  The name of
his oldest girl, who was about eight, was written on the first page.  I
turned another page, and the drawing leaped up at me as if I had been
grabbed around the throat and choked.

There, drawn in pencil, was the replication of a fully erect penis.

I gasped.  I shut the book and breathe deeply, trying not to scream.

What had gotten into me?  I had seen drawings of penises in Mo letters
before.  But this was a child's book.  And it appeared to be drawn from
looking at a live model.  The detail was too precise.  I opened the
book and frantically searched through the other pages.  It was full of
penis drawings, at different stages of erection.

"oh my God!" I thought to myself.  "Did this happen in my house?  Was
a little innocent girl taught to draw her daddy's penis while I was
sleeping in the next room?  What a horrible person I am.  And how much
have my own daughters been exposed to?" Athena was seven years old.

Was she included in these lessons?

I took the book as evidence and went to the window to check on the
kids.  Athena was playing on the swing we had hung under a spreading
oak tree.  Genvieve was dressed up in her long princess dress, playing
at some fantasy about being married to a prince.  She had long, curly
blond hair, and whenever a small boy visited our home, my four-year-old
would make him be a prince.  She lived in a fantasy world.  Jordan was
by the fountain, throwing flowers, leaves, and bugs she found into the
pool that had formed from the running fountain water.  I couldn't
believe that my precious little ones had been touched by this evil.

From a deep recess in my soul, the part that I had shut off because of
a long-ago pain, I had a premonition of repeated history.  I did not
know what it meant, but I knew I had to protect my children.

Michelangelo was asleep in his cot.  At barely a year old, he had been
touched by none of this.

And I was never going to let that chance come.  I gathered up the
children's passports and hid them in the pages of one of my books.  I
took the book outside and hid it again in the barn.  That evening I
confronted Paolo, showing him the horrible notebook drawings.

"We don't know that these were drawn by her, or that they were even
drawn here," he said, pushing the notebook aside as if to take it out
of his sight and so out of his mind.

"Of course, they were drawn by her," I protested.  "And so what if
they were not drawn here in this house.  This is pornography.  What if
Athena saw this?" 

"You don't think Athena has seen the Mo letters?" I realized with a
gasp how foolish and blinded I had been.  What was to stop the
children from looking at the Mo books with fully detailed sex organs
drawn for the adult readers, or so I wanted to believe.  And even the
children's newest comic books from the Family, the much-read Heaven's
Girl series, included the naked man's body.  He was right.

Athena had seen pictures like this.

"But this has been drawn by a little girl!  Don't you see the
difference?" 

"What are you worried about?  They're gone now!" 

"But they'll send more leaders to us.  Paolo, I don't want my
children exposed to this.  I'm leaving."

"Where are you going?  And how are you getting there?" Paolo laughed,
knowing I could not drive.

"I'm writing my mother.  She will send me money to leave Italy.  I have
the children's passports, Paolo.  I'm leaving."  Paolo's face
dropped.

He looked in the drawer and saw that our passports were gone.

"I'll find them," he said weakly.

"No, you won't.  And what can you do?  I have proof, just like Jerry
did.  I can get the kids if we go to court.  But I know what it's
like to have a child taken from me, and I won't put you through that
pain, Paolo.  I'm leaving, but you can come if you want to."  Paolo
softened drastically before my eyes.  I knew I would make it out.

"What will I do for work?" asked Paolo.  "We've been in the Family
for years now.  I can't borrow money again from my family.  How will we
live?" I felt truly sorry for Paolo, especially since I had
introduced him to the Family to begin with.  But I knew it was Paolo
who had decided to go back, so now I would make this decision without
my everimposing guilt feelings.

"Are you saying you will leave the Family for good?" I asked.

"I'll follow you and the kids, not because I want to but because you
are making me."  It took a few more weeks to encourage Paolo to do
this.  A new family had come to the farmhouse, and it seemed like
everything would be fine again.  Paolo tried to convince me that Judah
was a special case, but now that my eyes were opened to the reality of
the Mo letters, I saw sexual innuendos everywhere.  I was insistent.

Many years later, when we had been out of the Family for years, I asked
Paolo why he had wanted to stay in a group where there might have been
child abuse.

"I did like everyone else," he answered without hesitation.  "I put it
out of my mind.  I thought this would never happen to us.  We all
thought, well, it didn't happen to us.  And living in a community gave
me security.  I didn't know how I would get a job if I left or how to
support my family.  The community gives you security."  

Finally, we left in our RV.  Paolo was still complaining about how he
was going to support us all.  He told the new people that we were
only going on a faith trip and we would be back.  Every one knew I
was having problems.

I was also pregnant, and pregnant women, everyone knew, sometimes act
funny.

I didn't care what they thought of me.  I had enough thoughts of my
own.

Should I stay with Paolo?  He was the father of the kids, after all.

And he was so weak.  Maybe I would stay with him until the kids were a
little older.  At least I would stay until the baby was born.  I
couldn't make any decisions now.  All I wanted to do was get away.

There were about eighteen thousand members in the Family at that
time.

There were now six fewer.


Like a Rolling Stone

Globs of blood were coming out of me as
I sat in pain on the toilet seat.  There was a blood trail from the
bedroom to the bathroom.  I felt sick as I looked at my pieces of fetus
floating in the pink toilet bowl water.  The girls were in the yard
playing.  Michelangelo was crying in his highchair, waiting for more
food.  I leaned over, squatted, and pushed hard.  There was no use
trying to save this now.  Maybe God was punishing me for leaving the
Family.

"No," I thought, as I grew dizzy from losing so much blood,"this will
be a blessing, not a punishment."  When Paolo arrived back at the
trailer, after going out to look for work, I asked him to take me to
the hospital.  One of the advantages of living in Italy, married to an
Italian, was their socialized health care system.  I knew I should see
a doctor after what had just happened.

"Why?" he asked.  "The blood probably washed it all away.  These
things are natural, you know."

"I just feel I should go to the doctor, that's all."  Paolo went down
the street and asked his mother to watch the kids while he took me to
the hospital.

I was advised to stay overnight and get a D and C, which is a uterus
cleansing, the next day.  The doctor suggested that I have my tubes
tied after he heard I'd had five children and this miscarriage, but
Paolo was insistent that I should not do it.  He promised to let me use
birth control, and I inserted an IUD, which made my menstruation longer
and, for the first time in my life, painful.  But it was worth it.

With our trailer parked in the garden plot of land that belonged to
Paolo's uncle, we were mainly concerned about bringing in daily
income.

Paolo spent a few months selling our leftover Family tapes, while I
took the girls out singing.  Although Paolo was not happy to be working
in the system again, I was thrilled at the limitless possibilities open
before me.  However, after a few years, I realized that in Italy
married women with children already had their place established for
them.  It was in the home, serving her husband and children.

Since we now were living in Taggia again, and Jerry was living with his
family in Nice, Thor was less than an hour from me.  A tall, lanky boy
at the difficult age of fifteen, Thor often had serious arguments with
his father, and he was now free to come to my house whenever he wanted
to.

Although the Family always preached that God would punish those who
left, I instead felt blessed.  With Thor close by, I could see him
every weekend, and he soon became an integral part of our little family
show group.  An agent signed us on to perform at small theaters, but
because of the travel involved, and the little financial recompense, I
created my own music business.  Under the name of "Happy Songs," I
developed a program introducing English to children in elementary
school through singing and games.  We performed at most of the local
schools, and the local paper ran an article on the girls singing in a
school, comparing us with the Sound of Music family.

When Athena, our star, enrolled in school, I began taking her on a
public bus in the morning to another town, and picking her up in the
afternoon.  I still could not drive, and Paolo now had a job as a
salesman, which kept him out most of the day.  We had to stop
performing, and our singing was limited to hospitals and nursing
homes.

In the summer, I made use of the tourist beach towns, taking all the
children to sing on the large pedestrian streets.  The money that the
sweet italians, who absolutely love other people's children, threw in
our guitar cases helped to pay for children's clothes and other
necessities.

My good friend Charles, who had always helped us financially, giving at
least one thousand dollars as a gift every time I had a baby, invited
us to spend vacations in his St. -Tropez home.  I went out singing in
the St. -Tropez restaurants, and brought back quite a bundle.  It's
not that I was g gs Ringer ar mllsician, I was neither.  But.  by now,
I had a tough skin.  Once, when singing in Villefranche, an American
man at the first cafe/restaurant gave me the equivalent of one dollar
and said,"Here, go get some singing lessons."  Since we needed lunch
money, I had to keep singing.  At the next cafe, a young Arab gentleman
sitting with a beautiful woman asked me to sing a special love song for
her, and he slipped me a hundred dollars under the table.

Whenever Thor came with me, we made twice as much.  He now kept half
the collections, but he was worth more musically.  Having studied for
seven years at the Conservatoire in Nice, he was a virtuoso on many
instruments.  At fifteen, he was tall, sported bright red hair, and was
shy about his hormonal changes.  Sometimes it was painful for me to
watch as he struggled through the complexities of being a teenager.

Like most fifteen-year-old boys, he was less mature than girls his age,
and as far as I knew, not very interested in them.  Perhaps I was in
denial that my darling little boy had grown up.  I was only now
addressing the reality of adulthood myself, having lived in never never
land for fifteen years.

I never talked to Thor about sex, or the sexual experiences of the
Family, but I gathered that his father had told him a lot.  One
evening, after we had just finished singing at our best restaurants in
Diano Marina, a hip beach resort, we bought some delicious Italian ice
cream and sat on a bench to wait for our train home.

"Why did you leave Dad?" Thor asked me out of the blue, licking at
his cone hungrily and pretending not to be very interested.

"There were many reasons, honey, but you were not one of them.  You
were the reason I stayed with your dad, and why I am still friends
with him.  I will always love him as your father."  I could see tears
welling up in Thor's green-blue eyes.  His face was becoming bright
red.

"Why did you do that to him?" He started crying.  "How could you do
it?" 

"What?  What did I do?" I asked frantically.  I knew he wasn't
talking about divorce.

"You know.  Dad told me everything.  How you went with other men--lots
of them."  Thor was slobbering now.  His ice cream had dripped down
around his hands, and as he tried to lick it, the sticky melted stuff
was spreading down his chin and neck.  I tried to wipe his face with my
napkin, but he pushed me away.

"You must be a bad person," he continued.  "I know how it must feel to
have the girl you love go with someone else.  You cheated on him!  Poor
Daddy!  Why did you do that, Mommy?" I was beginning to understand
that Thor must have had his first pangs of puppy love.  He also had
been told too much by his father, at too tender an age, and without a
balanced view.  But how was I to explain all this to a sexually budding
fifteen-year-old boy?  Despite his protests, I drew him to me and held
him tightly.  He melted into my arms, as the cone he held in his hand
fell to the stony ground under our bench.  His favorite flavors of ice
cream spread across the sharp rocks, covering them with sweetness.  I
wished my love could do as much to the rocks that had been thrown in my
little boy's heart.

I listened to him sob uncontrollably, as the last big cry of his
childhood opened a door into maturity.  I prayed he would not be
afraid.

I prayed he would eventually hear my side of the story, because I knew
it was too early to tell him right now.  All I could do was hold him
and hope that he felt my tremendous love.

"There is more to the story than what your father told you,
sweetheart," I whispered when he finally calmed down.  I wanted to
tell him everything from my point of view, but I believed that it
would confuse and upset him even more.

"Whatever you think about me, I hope you know I love you very much.  I
always have and always will."

"As big as to the sky and back," said Thor with a smile, using an
expression we shared when he was a child.

"As big as to the end of the universe and back," I answered, wiping
away my own tears.  "Come on, we have to make the last train."  

We were all living in a small one-bedroom trailer.  Our garden was
beautiful, but in the winter, with four small children running
around, the cramped space seemed unbearable.  Then one day I noticed
an article in the paper that gave me an idea.

There were dozens of tiny villages in the mountains around our area.

With populations under three hundred in the winter, swelling in the
summer with tourists and foreigners, the villages' schools were
constantly under threat of closing down.  I read of one town near us
that was lamenting the fact that their one-room elementary school house
would no longer have enough children to be eligible for public
support.

I called the mayor of the town and told her I had three school-age
children, and one more on the way.  If she could find us a decent house
at an affordable price, we would move to her town.  Within days, not
only had she found us a house, but she also offered me a job running
the after-school program.  I talked to Paolo, and we accepted.  We
lived in this village, located over six hundred meters above sea level
and still with a view of the ocean, for a few months.  Then the mayor
of Apricale, a neighboring town, called Paolo and offered him a huge
house for a ridiculously low rent.  Since Apricale was closer to the
main roads and the beach area, we moved our family into an elegant old
stone house, with four bedrooms, living room, den, kitchen, and
terra-cotta floors.

This was the beauty of old Italy.

I spent the first two months cleaning the three-story home, which had
belonged to the mayor's family but been unoccupied for over a dozen
years.  After whitewashing all the walls, scrubbing the broken terra
cotta, and covering the cracks with linseed oil polished to a shine,
hand-sewing lace curtains for the windows, and designing handmade high
beds for the children to keep them off the cold and drafty floor space,
I finally had time on my hands to think about life.  Paolo worked in
the tourist towns along the coast selling publicity for the newspaper,
and without a car or even a driver's license, I was forced to live a
village wife's life.

I walked the girls to school every morning through the stony pathways
that turned and twisted around the medieval town set on a hill.  The
Italian children wore little grembulas, which are a type of apron, over
their school clothes, and I had made the girls grembulas of faded jeans
and lace.  Athena was eight years old, with brown inquisitive eyes that
questioned everything.  Genvieve, at six, had retained a baby-face
expression of naivete and innocence.  Her long blond hair was worn in
two braids, and her expressive mouth was either smiling or round with
wonder.  Jordan, my cute little doll daughter, who scowled when
everything was not exactly how she wanted, was only five, but she
attended the same classes as her older sister in the tworoom
schoolhouse.  Together, they made up a third of the school, and as the
only half-Americans, in a town whose inhabitants spoke a dialect not
even the Italians understood, they were always the outsiders.  Their
friends were the children of other marginal dropouts, the recently
arrived Italian and German hippies who were buying up small, deserted
farms around Apricale in order to "live off the land."  The mayor of
the town had learned to recognize these new residents as his only hope
for the town's survival.  Most of the natives' own children had moved
to the bigger cities to start their families.  Still, there was a
deepening gap between "us" (the locals) and "them" (the newcomers).  I
watched this real-life drama from the sidelines, and ironically, I was
included as "us" since my husband had been born and raised in Liguria,
and included as "them" because I was a foreigner.  Due to this
precarious access, I was often asked to serve as a liaison between the
two camps when disagreements arose over town politics.

Thor, who was now an independent teenager, came to visit whenever he
could.  He had not only become an accomplished musician but also
excelled in math, and had been selected for the difficult math track in
the French schools.  That guaranteed him a college education in the
prestigious colleges specializing in math and science.  I was so proud
of him.  Through our talks together, I knew he had a deeply inquisitive
approach to life, and would find answers to questions that I didn't
even know to ask.

I usually brought Michelangelo, my youngest son, to the preschool,
which Apricale provided for all the under-school-age children.  He
attended unwillingly, and often I let him stay with me in the piazza,
playing in the morning sun while I took a cappuccino at the only cafe
and read or wrote.  However, on those winter days when it was too cold
to play outside, and it took the house, with only one wood-burning
stove in the kitchen, all day to heat up, I thought Michelangelo would
be more comfortable in school, where he could also learn Italian.  We
still spoke English at home, and I continued to teach my children to
read and write in English.  During those winter months, I took a heater
into the tiny, windowless room we used as an office, and with an old
portable typewriter I had bought seconthand, I wrote stories to keep my
troubled thoughts from clogging up my mind.

It was the fall of 1990.  I had been out of the COG for almost two
years, and I was ready to write another children's story.  I had never
heard of the symbolism of a labyrinth before, and I started this story
without knowing where it would go.  It led me through a labyrinth
ritual.

The story line told of a little girl who discovers that she can jump
into a tall calla lily growing in her garden and slide down into the
underground world below.  The lily's roots open into a labyrinth
through which the girl must discover the answers to many of life's
basic questions, such as why is there evil, where does it come from,
and what can one do about it?  I read the story to my children as it
unfolded, and they remained enthralled, so I sent it off to one editor
in the States.

When I received a rejection letter, I switched to writing adult
stories.

I wrote intensely, listening to 1960s music as I worked, and with the
Bible and Mo letters cluttered around my desk.  Writing was the only
way I knew to clean out my guilty conscience and express the cry of one
truth-seeker who failed to find truth.  I was thirty-seven years old,
had been in college for only a semester over twenty years ago, and had
not been allowed to pursue any type of academic research during the
fifteen years I spent in the Family.  But due to a natural inclination
to include eclectic knowledge, my writing was interspersed with quotes
from a range of sources, Bob Dylan, Francis Schaeffer, Leo Tolstoy,
B. F. Skinner, Moses David, and the Bible.  I sent in a twenty-four-page
thesis to Rolling Stone, which rejected my article.  I decided I must
be too religious for the radicals, and I resigned myself to try to
learn the system.

This period of writing proved to be therapy for my questioning soul.  I
felt I had to empty myself of a polluted perspective before I was free
to file new material.  Writing was an emptying process, but it was only
a small beginning.  There seemed to be a bottomless pit to empty.

After winter passed, and the cherry trees began to blossom on the
lovely hillsides, I put the typewriter away, left my windowless room,
and joined the children while they played on the sun-warmed stones of
the town piazza.

During this time, Paolo was constantly changing jobs.  He was unhappy
with his working prospects, and when he met a member of a religious
commune from America who had started a community in Sus, a small
village in western France, he asked for their address.  He took us to
visit the community, which looked much like the COG, in the early days
before sexual liberation.  Every one in the hundredodd-member commune
shared food, housing, clothing, and work responsibilities, as they ran
an American-style coffeehouse and built futons, and other hippie
furniture, to sell.  Marriages were sanctioned by the leaders, and
children were taught, disciplined, and cared for by everyone.  The most
notable difference between this commune and COG was that the women wore
head scarves and were even more subservient to their husbands than the
Family women had been.  Their marriage ritual included the wife
kneeling on the floor before her husband, while he placed the scarf on
her head.

The symbolic scarf, which the wife would forever after wear in public,
was a constant reminder that the wife is under the man's rule, as the
Bible supposedly commands.  I was liberated enough at this time to
think to myself that even the system has a better symbolic act, with
the man kneeling to the woman as he asks for her hand in love and
devotion, but, alas, Paolo thought communal life offered the ultimate
set of rules.  The leaders of the group convinced Paolo that until I
bowed my head to him and wore the head scarf, our marriage would always
be bad.  Paolo told me on our third evening that he was joining.

"Fine," I said.  "I'm taking the kids and leaving."  My first
reaction, although it did not last long, was relief that Paolo wanted
to stay, followed by an urge to take my children and run!

"How are you going to do that?" he asked with assurance.  "I have the
car, and you don't have any money."  I knew I was stuck without
resources.  We stayed another few days, and either through subconscious
manipulation on my part, or because I was truly desperate, I felt that
maybe I should think over the possibility of joining.  I somehow
convinced Paolo that I would join, but that we should first go back
home and get our belongings.  Once back home in Apricale, I called the
only Christian friends I knew, Baptist missionaries who worked, of all
places, in Monte Carlo.  I went to visit them and told the story of the
commune through tears and weeping.

"I only want my children to be happy and healthy," I cried.  "Maybe I
should join this commune with Paolo.  They aren't doing anything bad.
I don't think they abuse the children.  But I just can't see myself
submitting to Paolo, and I don't want to raise my girls to do that.
But maybe that is the answer.  Maybe I have never found the answer
because I have not submitted to a man."

"You have submitted to many men, from what I understand," said the
missionary wife, who was somewhat liberal and very pragmatic.

"Oh, that was only in the flesh.  I have never submitted my will, my
spirit"--I was searching for the right word--"I have never given up my
soul to a man--that's what they are asking me to do."  The husband of
this woman was a very open, sensitive man.  At one point he put his arm
around me while I cried, but he had nothing to say that could comfort
me.  After all, even in their Protestant religion, the wife was
ultimately obedient to the husband.  However, they did meet with Paolo
and convince him not to join that group, but to attend their church
instead.  Their support seemed to be enough for Paolo.

After the episode, I took a walk with my children along the beautiful
mountainside trails, with all sorts of wildflowers blooming in the
spring breeze.  Sitting under the cherry blossoms, with a view of the
Mediterranean Sea below us, and the blue sky that reached across Europe
like a secure blanket covering a divided bed, I felt more lonely and
lost than ever before in my life.  Here I was living in the most
charming place on earth, with the most adorable children I could ever
hope for, with a husband who said he loved me and wanted to work on our
marriage, and I felt utterly hopeless, as if my soul was desperately
struggling to keep from dying.  Why did I feel this way?  Tears rolled
down my cheeks as I clenched my teeth and tried to keep the sobs
noiseless.

I walked back to where my children were playing joyfully under the
trees.  They couldn't wait till the cherries would be ripe and they
could pick them, but then I would have to explain to them that these
cherries belonged to someone else.  We could only pick and eat the
cherries that belonged in our family, or to some nice person who would
allow us to pick their cherries.  This is life.  This is not the Garden
of Eden that I read about to you at bedtime.  From some memory storage
in my mind came the words,"There is no truth outside the gates of
Eden."  Fine, I thought.  I'll ponder that.  But what if there is no
Garden of Eden either?

The next few months passed as if I were stuck in glue.  The days went
by, the calendar pages were flipped over, but I did not feel that I was
getting anywhere.  I thought I had already emptied myself with the
writing.  What else was there to empty?  Where did one find answers?

Why did some look, while others did not?  Was I doomed to eternal
seekership?

How could I be a good mother and a truth seeker at the same time?

Truth seekers are always rejected and criticized by the contemporary
majority who don't want to rock the boat.  They have had the truth for
two thousand years, and if I couldn't recognize it, then there was
something wrong with me.  Just be a good mother, I told myself.  But
how could I be a good mother when I felt like a hypocrite and a fake,
when I felt like I was teaching my children to live a life that did not
make me happy or fulfilled, when I really thought the purpose of life
is to seek truth, love, and happiness, but I had given up?  The paradox
of my two most urgent, emotional needs--the search for brotherhood and
the pull of motherhood--was tearing me apart.

Paolo was unconcerned with my dilemma.  Either he could not understand
it, or he did not want to be bothered by it.  When I annoyed him with
existential questions, he suggested I might be crazy.  My only
intellectual support, Charles, who had remained a friend to us
throughout the years, offered me hope that I was not crazy but instead,
just beginning to explore another level of understanding.  Through
conversations with him, I was able to recognize a ray of light inside
myself.  Perhaps I was not without resources, but during that dark time
I felt utterly helpless.  Against my will, I cried out for empathy to
the person who was supposed to be closest to me.  Maybe I was a
hopeless romantic after all, but I believed that my husband-- the one to
whom I gave my body, but who also wanted my soul-- would, should, could
understand me!

Instead, Paolo avoided my questions about why I was so unhappy.  We
began to argue over every decision involved in living together, from
the big ones to the small ones.

"Help me!  Help me!  For God's sake, help me!" I screamed one
evening, as I lay completely prostrate on the cold floor at Paolo's
feet.

As I listened to Dylan's song "Like a Rolling Stone," I realized how I
used to make fun of the "systemites" and the people who "hung out" at
churches.  Now I was scrounging for a spiritual meal, and I was on my
own.

I didn't even know where home was anymore.  How did it feel?  Enough to
drive one crazy.

A few weeks later, I woke up in the early morning hours hearing a child
cry.  It was still dark outside, but because we left a light on in the
hallway, I could see out through our open door.  Our bedroom was
situated next to the children's room, which was right at the top of the
steep stone steps.  There, on the platform at the top of the steps, I
saw a little girl, covered from head to foot in dripping blood.  She
was about the age of my youngest daughter, who was five.  I couldn't
tell who it was because the blood hid her facial features.  It could
have been my middle daughter, who was seven.  She just stood there in
the hallway, crying.

In that split second of realization, I imagined that my daughter had
fallen down the stone steps, crawled back up while blood from a head
wound splattered her body, and was now at my door crying.  I screamed
out in terror and pain.  I could not move or make an intelligible
word.

Paolo rose quickly from a deep sleep.

"What?  What is wrong?" he asked, looking at me as if I were a
madwoman.

I pointed to the little girl, still standing in the hallway.  I could
do nothing but scream.  He looked to where I pointed and then back at
me.

"What is it?  What are you pointing at?  What do you see?" With a
chill of fear running down my spine, I realized that Paolo did not see
what I saw.  I looked at him for an instant, my eyes wide with
disbelief.  When I looked back to the hallway, the little girl was
gone.

"Go look at the girls," I cried, as I found my voice again.  Maybe
Paolo had not seen her since he just woke up and had not focused his
eyes yet.

Maybe my bloody daughter had gone back into her bedroom, frightened by
my screaming.  But I could not move to go look for myself.

Paolo went into the next room.  All the girls were now sitting up in
their beds, awakened by my screams.

"They are fine," said Paolo when he came back.  "What is the matter
with you?" I got out of bed now, and ran into the next room, followed
by Paolo.

There were my three girls, all sitting up in their beds, and all
without a drop of blood on them.

"What's happening, Mommy?" I gave them all a hug, as I touched each
one to make sure they were fine.

"What was it?" asked Paolo.

"I must have had a nightmare," I said with fear still in my eyes.
"I'm going to stay in here and sleep with the girls.  I don't want to
let them alone now," I said, Lying down and trying to act rational.

"PLease, tuck the girls in.  It's still night.  We need to sleep."  As
I lay in bed, with my eyes open or closed, I saw demon faces.  We had
acknowledged the presence of demons in the Family, and although I had
never seen one, I prayed and rebuked them while in the COG, like I was
told to do.  Now, as I lay awake in bed, I had little to go on but what
I had learned in the Family.

"I rebuke you in Jesus' name," I said silently.

I had no tools to fight with but religion.  I repeated the name of
Jesus over and over, and quoted all the Bible verses I could
remember.

That helped me to make it through the night, but the days were worse.

When Paolo woke me to get the children ready for school in the morning,
I knew my experiences of the previous night were not over.  My whole
consciousness had been altered.  I felt as if I were walking in a world
that was not real to me.  I did all the rituals that were required,
washed, dressed, fed the kids, took them to school, came home, cleaned
the house, prepared lunch, etc., but all the time, the real me was in
another place, looking on at my dissociated self.  At night, demons
came back and tried to convince me I was crazy.  In the day, I walked
around as if I were a zombie.  Paolo finally grew concerned.

He took me to a doctor who was a homeopath and used natural cures.  He
diagnosed me as having had a nervous breakdown induced by stress and
poor eating habits.  Natural doctors seemed to attribute everything to
eating meat and processed, chemically enhanced foods.  I was put on a
strict diet of brown rice and vegetables, and given natural vitamins
and other homeopathic remedies.

However, after three nights of demonic visions, as I lay in my
children's bed, desiring to be close to them since they were the purest
form of love I knew, I looked the demon in the face and laughed.

"You have no power over me, so why don't you just go away.  I am
protected by angels," I said, using the only references I knew.  "I
have Jesus in my heart.  I have light, and you are darkness.  You
cannot exist inside me.  You can only bother me from the outside.  I am
not crazy.  If I were, you would be inside me, and you're not.  You are
out there!" The demon faded away.  Others came, but they all faded
away.  I never saw them again after that night.  Sometimes, years
later, whenever I started to lose faith in myself, this fear of demons
would come again.  But it only took remembrance of the light within me
to make it vanish.


Breaking the Shell

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your
understanding.

--KAHLIL GIBRAN 

Charles gave me a book when I first left the Family.  It was M. Scott
Peck's The Road Less Traveled.  As I read through it, the desire to
know my purpose grew in intensity.  Charles gave me other books as
well, mostly written by recent Nobel Prize winners, and I reread the
classics, which I found in a local English library.  I soaked in
these books as if I were dying of thirst, which I was.  My husband,
who never understood my interests, had given me only one book in our
fourteen years together.  It was written by a beautiful Italian
television actress and was about how to keep your breasts firm.  I
had nursed five babies now, and he thought I was worried about what
shape my breasts were in.  I wasn't until he gave me the book.

I knew the direction for my new life was to go back to school.  I had
worked as an English teacher for the British School in San Remo, Italy,
for a while, and when I asked the director why I received half the pay
that other teachers got, he told me,"You don't have a degree."  At
first I wanted a degree in order to make more money, but the more I
read and realized how little I knew, having lived in an intellectual
vacuum, the more I wanted to go to school just to learn.  Early in
1991, I tried to go back to college, but everyone laughed at me, my
friends, Paolo's Italian relatives, the college administration.  They
all told me, in one way or another, that at thirty-eight years of age,
with four children at home, higher education was not an option.  At
least not in Italy.  But if I could not go to school there, I would
have to go somewhere else.  As if others were conspiring to help me, my
sister Karen called from the States, offering me her house if I wanted
to come to America.  I had been thinking that I could go back to school
if I lived in America, but I had not told anyone.  I had kept in touch
with my family through infrequent letters and small Christmas gifts,
but the last time I had talked to Karen was when she came to visit us
in Italy three years before.  She had no idea that I was thinking of
returning to America.  But here she was on the phone telling me that
her husband had taken a job out of the States, and I could use their
house in the southeastern part of the United States.  She thought it
was time I come home.

The last time I had been in the States was when Athena, who was now ten
years old, was born, and even then, I was there for only a few
months.

All together, I had been away from America for eighteen years.

Discussing the possibility of going back with Paolo, I suggested that
we try our luck in America for a few years, and if it didn't work out,
we could always come back.  Paolo finally agreed, after he lost his
fifth job.  It took us months to sell everything for the money to buy
tickets, and by that time Paolo had found another job, which was going
well for him.  He now wanted to stay in Italy.  We were back in the
trailer again, and with the tickets already in my hand, I said that I
and the children were going.  Paolo stayed in Italy another five months
before joining us in America.

The hardest part of going back to America was being separated from
Thor, who was now eighteen and ready to graduate from high school.

Ironically, his father also wanted to return to America, and Thor had
already been thinking about it himself.  He would attend college in
France, since his grades were good enough for him to make use of
France's academically vigorous, but free, universities.  However, he
would visit in the summer, and he was already thinking of going to
graduate school in the States.  My four younger children were excited
about going to the country where almost everything came from--the
movies, the music, the latest fads, their mother!  I told them I would
kiss the ground when I arrived, and I did.

Returning to America, however, was more of a cultural shock than I
expected.  My sister no longer lived in the city where I landed, but
she sent a friend to meet me, for which I was extremely thankful.  I
had only recently learned to drive, and the seven-lane highways looked
terrifying.  My mother came down from Lancaster right away to stay with
me and help with the children, but I still felt estranged from her,
having been emotionally absent for twenty years.  I was busy learning
how to live in America, in this hot, humid city where no one walked
anywhere, grocery stores were open twenty-four hours a day, children
did not play outside but in the play areas of fast food restaurants,
and people did not visit without calling you to make an appointment.  I
didn't have anyone to visit me anyway!  Often, I went to sleep crying
silently, so the children would not hear, wondering how I would make it
in this harsh environment.  There was nothing to do but persevere.

First I had to find a job.  I drove the half hour to the first city
rapid transit stop, rode the underground train to a center city
connection, and descended into a corridor filled with police.  Two men
had just been shot at the entrance to the station.  It took another two
hours for me to find the office for my first job interview.  I had
dressed in an elegant silk pants suit that I had seen women in France
wear in offices, however, the lady behind the desk looked at my pants
with my bare ankles and said,"You really should wear a skirt and
stockings to an interview."  Stockings in 90-degree weather, I thought,
remembering that Esther had told me the same thing years ago.

As I sat in the cool waiting room, I thought of my four children and
elderly mother back at the house with no air-conditioning.  They must
be so uncomfortable.

Tomorrow I'll go out and buy some kind of wading pool for them to sit
in.  Finally, a man called me into an office for an interview, however,
the stress of the day was so great, I started to cry when he asked me
why I had come back to America.  On the way home, I decided it would be
easier to work in one of the cheap family restaurants down the street
from our house in order to earn a few extra dollars in tips.  I was
hired immediately and began working the night shift, returning home at
three in the morning.

Meanwhile, I looked for a school for the kids.  Apprehensive about
sending the children to a large, impersonal public school after the
small, one-room schoolhouse they were used to in Italy, I went to every
private school in the area, offering to work in exchange for free
tuition.  I didn't have a degree, but I knew two languages and had
taught English to children in Italy.  Surprised by two job offers, I
took the one that gave me a small stipend plus free tuition.  It was a
Christian school with about one hundred students, in kindergarten
through twelfth grade, and my children adjusted well, even excelling in
the school's basic academic courses.  At first I was a teacher's
assistant, but within three months I became the first-grade teacher and
taught Spanish to the high school students.  When the principal found
out about my evening job, he offered me a better stipend so I could
quit working at the restaurant.  I think he was embarrassed that one of
his teachers was a waitress.  No one knew that I had been in a cult,
and I never talked to anybody about it.

I had called Paolo to let him know how hard it was in America, and that
maybe we should just consider this a visit and we'd all come back.  But
he already had his mind set on coming.  It was no easier once he
arrived, in fact, for me it was harder.  Now I felt responsible for our
poverty and guilty for having taken the children away from beautiful
Italy.  I had almost given up the idea of going back to school when,
during a visit to my hometown of Lancaster, my old friend Jan told me I
could go back to school on a Pell grant.  She had received her degree
while she was a divorced mother, and the Pell paid for it all.  So I
applied and soon I was going to college full-time in the evenings,
while I continued to work as a teacher during the day.  After my first
quarter, during which I received all A's, I knew I would be able to
handle it all, but Paolo discouraged me all the way.  Later, in
Christian counseling, I was told that it is very difficult for a man to
accept a wife with a superior education, but that wasn't a good enough
reason for me to stop college.

Charles had lent us money to invest in a mobile pizza trailer, and we
began working the fairs to supplement our low income.  For one year I
went to college at night, taught during the day, and helped in the
pizza business over the weekends.  I studied literally every spare
minute, I carried note cards out onto the school playground at recess,
had my kids read college texts to me while I drove, and covered my
books with flour and tomato sauce as I read while making pizza.  I made
straight A's my first year, but my marriage with Paolo had reached a
crisis point.

It wasn't only because of school!  Paolo had become more difficult as
he saw me gain more independence.  I knew inside myself that it was
only a matter of time before we would have to separate, but since I was
working in a Christian school and attending church, the counsel I was
receiving left me feeling guilty about even thinking of divorce.  It
was my father's stay with us in 1992 that provided me with the key to
moving on.

My father was in a veterans' nursing home in Pennsylvania, and I took
my family to visit him.  Frail, skinny as an old TV antenna, and hardly
able to remember who I was, he asked me to bring him home.  The doctors
told me he might live a month or a few years.  Almost eighty years old,
he suffered from emphysema after smoking two packs of cigarettes a day
all his life, and he had weakened an otherwise strong body from alcohol
abuse.  After discussing it with my mother, who had been living apart
from him for over twenty years, we decided to bring him home with us.

I watched in amazement as my poor mother fell into the same reluctantly
obedient role I had observed her enacting when I was a little girl.

"Freda, Freda," my father would call from the other room.

My mom would drop the dishes she was doing and run to him, complaining
on the way.

"Get me a cigarette," he said when she arrived.  He was too weak to
walk very far, and I kept the cigarettes hidden, out of his range.

"You are only allowed one per hour," she replied.

"It's been an hour," he yelled at her.  "Get me a cigarette."

"Oh, all right, but you won't get one for another hour, you know."

This same scene was repeated about every hour throughout the day, and
my weakened old mother obliged him every time.

She complained about him constantly, however, and I told her not to
answer when he called.

"Well, he might need something important," she said.

"Well, don't give in to him," I answered, without thinking of the
multiple meanings this statement could have.  Suddenly, I understood.

I had always experienced a block to understanding my confusing emotions
about men, and I felt like I had now found the key.  A child first
learns about relationships from her parents.  There are few "perfect"
marriages, but my parents definitely had a very peculiar one.  My
mother was the only one who supported our family emotionally, and she
received no support for herself.  She gave constantly, yet often
without joy!  She argued with my dad, complained about his drinking,
cried when she discovered he had stolen the family savings, yet in the
end, she always gave in to him.  She disliked my father deeply, yet she
gave and gave and gave--it was the Christian thing to do.  I remember
when I was a young girl my mother and father slept in different
bedrooms, and sometimes my father would go into her room.  I heard her
complain, and then the complaining would stop.  He did not come out.

"Why does she keep giving to him?" I thought when I was a little
older and knew what he was doing in there.

And here she was, an old but content lady, still giving herself.

My father died in my house less than three months after arriving.  I
had taken him to the VA hospital for a checkup, and the doctor
basically told me that he was on his way out.  We discussed putting him
back in the hospital, but even the doctor saw no point in it, and my
dad expressed an earnest desire to go back home.

A few days later, I was sitting with him on the porch.  He was in the
rocking chair, struggling to say something to me while I held his
hand.

Listening earnestly, my heart sounding like the clock of the universe
on the quiet porch where we sat, I thought that maybe he would say,"I
love you, Miriam."  I don't think I ever heard that from him.  He
raised his arm weakly with the first two fingers of his hand sticking
out like a priest about to bless a congregation.  I felt he was
dying--dying peacefully while I held his hand, after having lived a life
of alcohol-induced confusion and turmoil.  What was he going to say
with his dying breath?  He could not get it out as he coughed and
sputtered.

"God loves you," I said, hoping that he would go to heaven.  I said a
prayer for him as he looked into my eyes with what seemed like an
understanding of the meaning of life.  Finally, his voice came back and
he said the words he was trying to say, bringing his two fingers close
to his mouth as if to kiss them.

"Gimme a cig!" I smiled.  Was I a spiritual fanatic or what?  I got
his cigarette and lit it for him, but he just let it burn away,
seemingly content to know it was there.

I had to leave him to take my mother to the dentist.  She thought he
would be all right till we came back, and I left one of my daughters to
sit with him on the porch.  Charles, who was visiting us at the time,
also came out to sit with my father.  When I came back from the
dentist, Charles told me he had passed away peacefully.

I never saw my mother cry over his death--not when we checked his pulse
to see if he was dead, not when the coroner came, not at the funeral.

Maybe she cried in the seclusion of her room, she had always been a
very private person emotionally.  I cried because he was my father, but
I thought to myself,"I would not cry if he were my husband either--I
would be relieved."  The moral of the story unfolded like a dream to
me.  I was continuing this subtle, yet life-sucking form of
oppression.

I had unconsciously learned it from my mother, and I would be passing
it on to my daughters.

I was always giving in to my husband, Paolo, and hating him a little
more each time I did it.  I didn't know all the psychological theories
of why daughters continue the dysfunctional models set by their
parents, but I knew I had to stop it!  I was not teaching my children
love, I was showing them how to learn hate and pretend that it was
love.  Forget the "wives obey your husbands" rule!  There was no reason
in the whole universe good enough for me to give love lovelessly.

I finally took the first step to breaking that long chain of
oppression, and struggling against the self-condemnation that I felt
rising in my heart from years of church indoctrination, I separated
from Paolo.  I promised to stay nearby with the children, but I felt it
was dishonest and unhealthy to live under the same roof with a man with
whom I felt less of a connection than with a stranger.  Yes, he was the
father of my children--but why?  Because I gave him sex to lead him to
the Lord, to keep him in the Family, and finally to obey some rules
that I was no longer sure who made and why.  Trying to keep the family
together for the children would ultimately perpetuate the cycle of
oppression I wanted to break.

I discussed the separation with my children, and did so periodically,
asking them if they had any questions, any problems, any preferences of
where and with whom they wanted to stay.  I will not say it was easy
for them, however, they have always been honor roll students in the
public schools they now attend, and they have told me they like it
better this way because Daddy and I used to fight all the time.  I
question my daughters often, wondering what they remember from the
Family.  One of my daughters told me that her earliest childhood memory
is that of her parents arguing.

Paolo and I went for about a year to a marriage counselor, and I took
the children to see if they would reveal any hidden anxieties in
counseling.  We were told that our kids were some of the healthiest
children, emotionally and psychologically, that they had ever seen.

"Whatever you are doing," the counselor told us,"it's working with
these kids."  What we were doing was attempting to have an amiable,
intelligent separation.  Paolo paid a decent child support, saw the
children at least twice a week, and they went to his house on
weekends.

I started attending day classes at another college, working parttime,
and living in a trailer again until I saved enough money to move into a
house I bought with my mother.  We split the down payment and the
mortgage, and she helped me watch the children while I finished
school.

My mother was still a giver, but now she was giving where she desired
to give.  I asked her many times if she wanted to go back to her home
in Lancaster, which she now rented out, but she always told me she'd
rather stay with us.  She was an immense help, and just her presence in
the house made me feel safe when I was gone.  Three years later, I
graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor of science degree, and I was
accepted into graduate school with a graduate research assistantship.

During my first few years back in America, I looked to the churches to
provide me with understanding and spiritual support, but after about
three years, I finally realized that I was not going to find a resting
place for my soul within traditional organized religion.

Thor visited us every year, and I discussed my search for truth with
him.  Now twenty, he had grown into a tall, thin young man with a
tousled mop of red hair, a sharp mind, and a spiritual orientation.

Although he had become a talented musician, played in a band in France,
and earned all his money through music, he was intent on getting a good
education and continuing his own search for truth.  His father was now
divorced also, and living in Colorado, so Thor lived alone while
finishing college in France.  We spent hours together discussing our
past lives in the cult and our present lives in the world.  At that
time, Thor saw the world through the eyes of a mystic.

One day as we drove down the interstate, he explained to me that he saw
God in everything.

"Of course," I responded.  "I can see God in the trees, in nature, in
children.  But what about that," I said, pointing to the city
skyscrapers that just came into view.  "Do you see God in that?" 

Thor had a peaceful expression as he smiled and gazed out the window
at the highway.  "I see God in the tar on the highway," he said.

I looked at the material on the road, as intensely as I could while
driving.  I detected little sparkles in between the black.

"Yes, I can see some beauty among that too," I responded rationally.
"But what about child molesters.  God cannot be in a child molester.  "

"God is in everything and everybody.  At least in the way you
understand God."

"Well, okay, let's define God, then."

"You first." 

"God is Love.  Well, let's not talk about Love.  Its meaning is too
distorted.  God is truth--absolute Truth.  But where can one find
absolute Truth?  In churches?  In religion?" 

"There might be absolute Truth," he responded,"but it is not in the
domain of dogma."  I agreed heartily, since it was about that time
that I stopped looking for truth in church and religion.

Yet I felt strangely very "spiritual."  I noticed little miracles
happening around me constantly, and I felt guided by dreams that I
could not remember.  I identified with the "paradigm shift" that some
avantgarde scholars were predicting.  I could not help but notice that
the old paradigm characteristics were definitely masculine in nature,
such as competitiveness, individualism, power struggles, whereas the
new paradigm called for cooperation, community, peace, and
nurturance.

I was on the verge of embracing feminist thought, but for the time, I
was interested in understanding my involvement in the Family.

My 4. 0 grade point average in college had proved to myself and others
that I was not stupid, a common accusation leveled against those who
join cults, and in my case reinforced because I was a blonde.  Now I
seriously tackled the question of why I had spent most of my life in a
cult.  I had not been led blindly, since I knew what I was doing and
could have left at any time.  Yes, I had perhaps been blindly
idealistic.  My ideals were those taught by the Bible, such as "Greater
love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his
neighbor."

"All that believed were together and had all things in common."

"Lovest thou me [Jesus]?  Feed my sheep."  But I was also an
extremist.

Someone told me how to live these words to the extreme, and I followed,
along with about twenty thousand other people.  I was also
self-sacrificial.  I was willing to be used for a greater cause.

But a cause greater than what?  Than capitalism?  Perhaps idealistic
extremists should stay away from religion and politics, but I did not
know that at eighteen years old.  I also did not know the difference
between religion and spirituality.

In every upper-division class I took in college, I made use of my
experience while conducting research on cults or the Children of God.

Eventually, this line of research led me to the study of women's
issues, but in the beginning, I was intent on understanding what had
happened to me.  One of the best explanations of cult experience was
written by William Kephart, who created a valid typology of people who
join cults.

I identified with the "deep feeler," who, according to Kephart, views
social problems on a grand scale and identifies emotionally with social
issues much more strongly than does the average person.  He claims that
the "deep feelers" do not usually feel that they are victimized, since
their emotional involvement is often for the masses.  I did not like to
describe myself as a victim, or if I ever used the word, I said I was a
willing victim.  I think children in general are victims, as well as
any person who is physically, emotionally, or psychologically dependent
on others.  The question became why had I allowed myself to be
willingly abused, but the answer to that was still hidden.

Most cult analysts claim that cult members are alienated from
society.

However, that in itself was not a sufficient reason.  Many people I
came to know outside the COG were also alienated.  In addition, there
was a growing number of ex-cult members now living in the world who
were still alienated.  Perhaps knowing the cause of alienation in each
individual would shed light on why one person dealt with alienation by
becoming a criminal and another by becoming a prostitute or a monk and
so on.  I believe that in the COG we received relief from alienation at
the price of exploitation.  There were no blanket answers.

During my graduate studies I learned some amazing theories of social
interaction, which I tested on my experience in the cult.  One of the
classical theories in sociology talks of a "collective consciousness"
that becomes an entity of its own in society.  One learns, obeys, and
internalizes the morals from the collective consciousness of the group,
and in my case, having rejected the consciousness of mainstream
society, I adopted first the counterculture's, then those of a new
society, the Children of God.  I did not realize, of course, that
morals eventually become internalized, I would not even have known what
the word "internalized" meant at that time.  But my experience and
subsequent reflection showed me that everything I had been taught as
morally wrong in society was questioned and often replaced by the
group's new morality of "love."  Emile Durkheim wrote of the impulse we
have to seek harmony with the society to which we belong, to adopt the
ways, thoughts, and actions of those who surround us, to obey without
reason solely because the moral maxims possess social authority.

But why did I not internalize the morality of normal society?  Why had
I chosen--actively sought out--an alternative?  Classical social theory
explains that society is like an organic body, and one part of it
cannot be infected by a disease without affecting the whole, therefore
in times of crisis there will arise currents of disillusionment that
create a sort of social malaise.  At this time, religious systems might
spring up to reduce the feeling of the senselessness of life.  Those
who experience this alienation often look to these new religions for
relief from their pain.  In the late 1960s, America was undergoing an
internal crisis that resulted in a proliferation of what scholars call
"new religious movements," but which are commonly known as cults.

Without clear goals or a sense of direction, the (usually young) people
who are most sensitive to society's sickness often join what they see
as an alternative.  That is what I did.  But the question still
remains, why me?

I hope that this story of one cult will not instill in the reader the
simplistic idea that all new religious movements should be stopped.

Consider the fact that Christianity started as a cult.  What I do wish
to impart to every person who considers new fountains of truth is to
seriously consider the source!  And lines must be drawn.  I believe any
group that condones child abuse needs to be rooted out.  Those are not
merely weeds!

Through much research, I had begun to find academically sound reasons
for why some highly idealistic people join cults and participate in a
destructive moral system, sometimes, as we have seen in Jonestown and
Heaven's Gate, to the point of mass suicide.  I still did not
understand why I did it.  Nevertheless, I continued to explore cult
involvement as I talked with the growing number of adults, teens, and
children who left the Children of God over the years.  And there were
many.

In 1990, the total membership of the COG was reported to be eighteen
thousand, and it remained at about this level for years, as the number
who left were replaced with newborn babies.  Researchers estimate that
hundreds of thousands of people from my generation have been involved
with cults at some point in their lives.  For those who joined as
adults, reorientation into the "world" was always difficult, but for
children raised in the cults, it was traumatic.  I became acquainted
with a few organizations that gave support to those who came out of a
cult experience, but inquiry showed me that these support groups were
usually religious, and often steeped in dogma.  In fact, one of the
ex-cultists I worked with had been "kidnapped" (forcefully taken
against his will) by a hired deprogrammer, along with his brother,
while they were both in the Children of God.  They were kept in a hotel
room for days and supposedly deprogrammed from all the brainwashing
they had experienced while in the cult.  Upon their release, his
brother went home, but he promptly rejoined the COG and stayed a few
more years.

I wanted to have some contact with others who had been in cults, if for
no other purpose than research, but I didn't want to get involved with
a church-influenced organization.  Then, in a coincidence which I
eventually recognized as the serendipity that occurred frequently in my
life, an ex-COG member, my old friend Ruth, moved to the city where I
lived and organized a meeting with other ex-Family members.  Together
with another single mother and a couple, Rose and Bishop, who had been
out of the Family for about twenty years, we planned a national reunion
of former COG members.

The reunion, held in a park in Atlanta in 1993, drew not only former
Family members from across the nation, but also the attention of the
national media.  The focus on us--amplified because of the recent event
in Waco, Texas, involving the Branch Davidians--was short-lived, but
through it we established a network of ex-COG members that has grown
exponentially.  I was interested in helping former members discover
themselves, but I was also interested in their stories.

it was wonderful to see and hear from my once beloved brothers and
sisters.  Some of them had turned to drugs, many returned to Christian
churches, others had tried to salvage badly made marriages and had
failed.  However, most tragically, there was a great number of women
who now struggled heroically to raise their children and find a stable
means of support, often alone, misunderstood, and looked down upon by
others, especially if they told their story.  Clearly, the women of the
cult had suffered greatly, and compared with many of them, I felt
fortunate to be so far along the road to recovery.

Sociologist Steve Kent, an expert on the Children of God, reports that
"the most manipulative use of feminist rhetoric against women occurred
in the Children of God, where its leader...subjected women to
numerous pregnancies, traditionalistic family roles, subservience to
men, prostitution, physical violence, and general sexual
exploitation." 

I was now a witness to the results of such indignity.  I had a
feeling that I had passed through this abusive cult for a reason.  But
I was not yet ready to understand its significance.  First, I needed
more revelations about myself.

Other than higher education, my search for meaning led me to read many
of the popular books that were currently reflecting the baby boomer
midlife consciousness.  With my belief that nothing was too sacred to
question, I was on the path to questioning God.  I read with an open
mind and heart the contemporary works of Clarissa Pinkola Estes,
Matthew Fox, Scott Peck, Alan Jones, James Redfield, Rosemary Altea,
and others--all writing on modern spirituality.  Jones claims that to
mend the world, one needs self-knowledge.  I was on a search for my
original self so that I could know her.  I had reached the midlife
decision that Estes talked about--whether to be bitter or not--and I
chose not to be.

Little had I known that I would receive the "gift of tears" along the
road to joy!

One of my earliest influences among popular nonfiction writers, after
leaving the Family, was Scott Peck.  In his book 24 Different Drum, he
sets forth in layman's terms the stages of community building, which
are very much like the stages of faith development.  He explains the
four stages--pseudocommunity, chaos, emptiness, and [true] community-- as
a developmental process that those seeking to build community must
pass through.  When Peck came to speak in the city where I lived, my
supervisor at college gave me her ticket since she could not attend.

During the question-and-answer session, I asked Peck what he thought we
could do about the poverty in the world, or even in America.  His
answer made clearer to me than ever before that there are many forms of
poverty.  I had been working on pulling my family out of economic
poverty, but I still had forms of my own emotional and psychological
poverty to contend with.  However, I didn't have the financial means to
seek qualified outside help.

Later, when a Peck-inspired "community-building workshop" came to town,
I received a scholarship and attended the workshop for three days.

On the first day the facilitator told us to write down any dreams we
might have that night and to talk about them the next day.

I woke up about 5 A. M. sobbing uncontrollably.  I had just had a
dream, and I could recall it vividly.  Not sure if I was awake or
asleep, I went through the dream again in my mind, and I felt as if I
were there.

I was a little girl about seven years old.  My mother was away at the
hospital having her fifth baby.  My brother, who was two years older
than I, was hiding somewhere in the house, and I guess my two younger
sisters were being taken care of by someone else.  I seemed to be alone
with my father.  it was dark outside, being January, and I was playing
in the alcove at the front of the living room with a doll I had just
received for Christmas.  I was pouring her tea when I heard my father
calling from the middle room, right before the kitchen and at the foot
of the stairs.  It was dark in there, and he was slouching on the
couch.

He always slouched that way, and he mumbled as he talked.

"Miriam, Miriam, come here!" he muttered.

[Lying on my bed at forty years of age, I felt the fear, loneliness,
and helplessness that I had felt at seven years old, as acutely as if
I were there again.  ] "Where is Mommy?" I cried to myself.  "Why
isn't she here to protect me?  Where is my brother?  He should be
here playing with me.  I don't want to go in to Daddy.  Why isn't
someone here to save me?"

"Miriam, come here, I said.  come to Daddy," he called again from that
dark place.

I put the tea things away in the case and lay the doll inside the bench
box we used for toys.  I wished the doll could help me.  But she was
lifeless.  I never played with her or any dolls again.

I walked into the room dragging my feet.  The familiar smell of my
father, of cheap wine, filled the air.  My father was on the couch with
his penis out.

"come here and hold this, Miriam!" I didn't have to write the dream
down.  I could remember it vividly now whenever I wanted to.

When I went to the workshop that morning, I waited for others to say
something.  There was a much smaller crowd since some of the people
decided that this wasn't for them.  No one had a dream to tell.  The
facilitator kept looking at me, as if to say,"Tell your dream.  "
Finally, I started, as tears welled up in my eyes.  By the time I
finished, I was sobbing, and so were a lot of other people in the
room.

Then, one by one, half the people in the group began recounting sexual
or emotional abuse that they had suffered as children.  Some seemed
much more terrible than what I had experienced, a few, like mine, had
never been remembered or talked about before, but all were traumatic.

I felt an emptiness inside, and I realized that before this emptiness I
had been living in chaos.

I began to understand something about my soul from that point on.  The
issue in my life was not only cult involvement.  Another issue was, and
still is, the abusive power imbalance.  The fact that my father, like
many fathers, brothers, uncles, and other authority figures, as head of
the family (or whatever power position they hold, such as priests,
teachers, coaches, doctors), could violate his duty of moral
transmission and get away with it is an attack on a child's soul.  This
scene, which I had repressed, was not the only blow to my soul.  There
were others, such as the time my father threw a chair at my mother and
it hit me on the head instead, leaving a scar that remains today, and
the nights I spent at the top of the stairs, afraid to go to sleep and
ready to run out the front door if my father came home drunk.  By the
time I was ten years old, a strange man exposed himself to my friend
and me on a quiet neighborhood street, and I was so confused, I thought
it was funny.  Recently I read that child-abuse survivors can
experience a long list of psychological disorders as adults.  One of
them jumped off the page--an inability to establish meaningful intimate
relationships.  That was another reason why I had found it so easy to
be a Heaven's Harlot and so hard to be a wife.

My psyche had been wounded at a very young age, and no one came to help
stop the bleeding.  There had never been any healing.  Perhaps this was
the bloodied little girl who had appeared to me in Italy.

When I eventually discussed this with members of my family, no one but
my sister Ruby gave me any emotional support.  On the contrary, as is
typical when only one child remembers abuse, I was discredited.  One of
my siblings suggested it could have been the typical Freudian fantasy
of a female child in the oedipal stage, which is commonly known as
"penis envy."  My family insinuated that I was imagining the incident,
and at the same time they said,"Well, it wasn't that bad!  Lots of
drunk men expose themselves."  They were right--child abuse often
involves much "worse" intrusion than mere exposure, and drunk men are
notorious for indecent exposure.  Some children are more resilient than
others.

However, the fact that I buried this incident so deeply in my
subconscious, and that it returned with such emotional violence in
dreams and visions, indicates that I was profoundly affected.

Perhaps I had become a "deep feeler" for the sufferings of the
downtrodden masses, but I was also an "unfeeler" of my own pain.

Perhaps I had been eager to dissociate from myself so I would not feel
the pain.

Perhaps in locking up pain, I had also locked up morals and values.

Wasn't it the universal moral taboo of incest that had caused my pain
to begin with?  What better way to rid myself forever of that pain than
to discredit the taboo.  if I had not been a mother also, I probably
would have remained oblivious to morality.  Now that I understood my
original wound, I questioned God even more earnestly,"What is the
meaning of this?  Why would you, God, allow this to happen over and
over again?" For some children it is much worse.  Some children don't
make it through.

To this day, any incident of child abuse that I hear about causes
profound feelings of pain to surface, and I often weep to the point of
emotional exhaustion.  When I read about the two girls who were found
dead in a Belgian farmhouse, having been subjected to sexual abuse for
months, I almost completely lost faith in any concept of God.

The parents and townspeople had prayed for months for the protection of
these kidnapped girls.  I questioned everyone and did not find a
suitable answer as to why any God would let this happen.  I don't know
how God the Father thinks, but God the Mother would not let this
happen.  Even after being indoctrinated by Family principles of
morality for years, after internalizing the belief that sex is natural
and should be shared with all, and after giving my body, in the end I
was not willing to give my children.  Fortunately, I had enough
decision-making power left to decide to take my girls away from
eventual abuse.  How could an all-powerful, all-knowing God allow
continual abuse to happen in His creation?  So who or what is God?  I
want to know!

My mother was living with me at the time I had the dream/ revelation.

Although she had played a significant role in that incident of my
childhood, by being absent, I knew she was not guilty of neglect.

Actually, she was a survivor herself, and I now recognized that my
detached attitude in life was modeled after my mother's.  I had
perfected the coping mechanism by becoming dissociated.  I was now able
to identify the signs indicating that my mother used whatever she could
to survive her pain and abuse.

She had been trained to be a scholar and socialized to live a
middleclass lifestyle.  Instead, she married an alcoholic who could not
keep a job, and being a devout Christian, she allowed him to father her
six children.  Nothing had prepared her for parenthood by herself, and
even more tragic, nothing had prepared her for the abusive relationship
inherent in being married to an alcoholic.  Her religion told her that
she could not divorce, and so she did not.  Instead, she bore her
burdens by forgetting them.  My mother forgot almost all the dramatic
incidents that I remember in detail.  During her first pregnancy, she
developed epilepsy, and she has taken phenobarbital and Dilantin ever
since.

Perhaps this had something to do with her memory loss, but it also
helped her to survive her life in hell.  The Christians certainly did
not help enough.  When her own father suggested she get away from my
father, offering to help her start a new life in Germany, she
refused.

She told me later that she stayed with her husband because of her
convictions.

Memories seem to collect cobwebs like an unused attic, but I had to
start cleaning out the rooms.  I have lived too long with vague
memories.  I remembered all along that my father had been abusive, only
I did not consistently remember.  As a child I had recurrent nightmares
of a "boogeyman" in my bed, and sometimes I would wake up and see a
tall figure leave the room.  I asked my mother to sleep with me until I
was a teenager, and I even wet the bed once at sixteen years of age
while I baby-sat at a neighbor's house.  All these are serious
disturbances, but I did not look for a cause.  When Mo advocated sexual
activities with children, I allowed the memory of my father's actions
to resurface as something that was not morally wrong.  However, when I
saw the results of abusive sexual relationships, through the drawings
of Judah's child, I finally made my own decision that indeed it was
terribly wrong.  But again I blocked out my own sexual abuse.  All
power abuse cuts to the heart and soul.  And as children, who have
nowhere to run and hide, all we can do is let our heart bleed and hide
our soul!

I think my mother, who stumbled into this abuse as an adult, hid her
emotions.  I know she suffered greatly because she stayed with my
father.

When I was five, right after my second little sister was born, my
mother's fourth child in less than eight years, she had a nervous
breakdown in front of her children.  We were living in a hotel on the
highway, and she took the baby and sat in the middle of the street
screaming like a lunatic, while the other three children, myself
included, stood on the side of the highway waiting for help.  The
police came and put her back into the hotel room.  She doesn't remember
the incident.  She was one of the silent survivors of a society that
allowed patriarchally sanctioned abuse.  Abusive husbands in the 1950s
were supported by the law, while abused wives were silenced.  I was not
going to perpetuate this grim silence.  I wanted to scream to God--to
the world--"Why do you let this happen?" But I couldn't scream yet.  I
couldn't even find my voice.

Through books, I learned much about the correlation among suffering,
searching, and knowing oneself.  In Women Who Run "Pith WolPer,
Clarissa Pinkola Estes talks about the women who die a thousand deaths
and are constantly reborn, Having lived through a gross repression
causes gifts to arise that compensate and protect.  In that respect a
woman who has lived a torturous life and delved deeply into it
definitely has inestimable depth.  Though she came to it through pain,
if she has done the hard work of clinging to consciousness, she will
have a deep and thriving soul-life and a fierce belief in herself
regardless of occasional ego-waverings.

I had lived through an emotionally torturous childhood.  As a young
adult I joined a repressive authoritarian subculture, and I lived most
of my adult life allowing myself to be manipulated by men.  Somehow I
hung on to consciousness, and I was ready for a thriving soul-life,
sensing that there was more to learn.  Little did I know that my oldest
son, the love of my life who gave me the utmost joy and was the
unwitting cause of my most intense pain, was going to be the key to a
deeper spirituality.

Thor came to live with me in 1995.  With a hard-earned French degree in
math, he applied to graduate schools in America.  After scoring a
perfect 800 on his GRE, he received an assistantship at one of the best
schools in the South.  The time we spent together was priceless, and I
discovered that my twenty-two-year-old son was a spiritual seeker of
great depth.

His own sufferings, which only he can write about, and his essential
search led him to an Eastern form of meditation, a spiritual discipline
known as Sahaj Marg, or the "natural path."  He explained this practice
to me patiently for many months, and I started the meditation
sporadically at different times, but because there was a "master,"
which reminded me too much of my cult experience, I was always wary.

In fact, during one of my rare conversations with the "master" of this
particular discipline, I expressed to him my distrust of any type of
leader or guru.  He suggested that I "just meditate."  I have not
become as involved in the Saharj Marg practice as Thor has, but as a
result of the meditation I have done, I began to experience more dreams
and visions.  First, I rejected these as too "cultish," because the
Family had put so much emphasis on dreams and visions, especially those
received by Moses David.  However, I wrote them down, and they have
been a source of inspiration for me, since they were usually messages
about myself.  It also is a way for me to counterbalance the
nonspiritual world of academia.  I had become so absorbed in external
struggles, such as the economic one, that I found I had little time for
self-reflection.  Yet self-awareness, like morning dew, is
life-sustaining.

When I began to meditate, I was doubtful that it would yield any
benefits, but because I wanted to be part of my son's life in whatever
way I could, I did it.  Sitting still for an hour was very hard, and
thinking "no thoughts" was even harder.  No one gave me any indication
as to what should happen during meditation, or that I would "see"
anything.

However, as I concentrated on the inner light as a focal point, I began
to feel more peaceful.  My first visions during meditation were of
beautiful colors and designs that I had never seen before and could
never reproduce.  Another time I saw a multitude of robed people,
stretching out across eternity.  One day I envisioned an evolution
regression, seeing an ape change into a fish and finally into some
microscopic organism in which I felt intimate energy.  Sometimes I saw
things that I recognized as "my story" in symbolic form, other times I
received images that gave me inspiration or revelations about something
that was bothering me.  The meditation practice helped me during a
difficult period in my life.  I was a single mother, with four
school-age kids, and going full-time to college.  I felt I was just
keeping my head above water.  Then one night, while sleeping at Thor's
apartment, I had the "dream."  I will recount the dream exactly as I
wrote it down early in the morning, with tears still streaming down my
face.

I was living next to a big old house, almost a mansion in size, and it
seemed that I knew this house intimately.  Maybe I lived there
before.

I now live next to the house with my children.  I know that the people
who were living in the big house had left and the house was now
empty.

But I heard a baby crying in the house.  At first the cry was very
faint.

Sometimes it would go away.  This had been going on for months now [as
I knew in my dream].  I thought the child must surely be dead, if there
really was a baby in there.

I often asked myself,"Why don't I go in there and look?" But I was
afraid.  I was afraid of that house.  Something had happened to me in
there.  But tonight, in my dream, I hear the baby distinctly.  I hear
her crying louder and louder in desperation.  I know I will have to go
in and look for her or else I will go crazy!

I do not want to go alone, so I wake my oldest daughter, Athena, and
tell her about the baby crying next door.  She believes me, although
she cannot hear the crying, and she says she will come with me to look
for the baby.

The old house is connected to our house somehow, and we climb through
the attic and into the house next door through an attic trap door,
since I do not want to go in the front main entrance.  Once in the big
house, I feel oppressed with fear, but the sound of the baby crying
keeps me going.  I must find her.

I start looking everywhere in the attic, and I can't find the baby
anywhere.  Then I stop hearing the cries.  "She must be dead," I
think, but just then I hear the crying coming from downstairs.  Athena
thinks she heard something but isn't sure.  I hear it distinctly,
however I don't want to go downstairs.  Athena thinks we could save the
baby.  So we go to the next floor and search everywhere, but again the
cries stop, and again I hear them coming from down further.  Each time
I search a level, I can hear the cries on a level below.  Finally,
Athena, who has never really heard the cries, thinks we should give
up.

We are on the floor above ground level now.  It is the floor of the
master bedroom and the library.  The furniture is of an old, massive
type and very heavy to move.  I pull drawers out frantically to look
for the baby behind the big dressers.  In the library, I madly rip the
books off the shelves, looking inside and behind them.  Athena is
beginning to think I am losing my mind.

"I am sure the baby is dead by now," she says, almost trying to help
me give up my frantic search before I go crazy.

We are in the master bedroom now.  I can't even hear the baby cry
anymore, and I am about to give up, when I hear the baby breathing.  I
can hear her better than I hear my own breath, in fact, it feels like
it is my breath I hear.

"No, she's in here," I say excitedly.  "I hear her breathing.  She
might be on her last breath and she doesn't have the energy to cry
anymore."  Athena cannot hear it, but she believes me.  I get down on
my hands and knees since I think the sound is coming from below a great
oldfashioned wardrobe.  I peer underneath it, and there in the back is
a tiny fragile baby, covered only with a small blanket and Lying on her
stomach.  I gently pull her out.  She is so small she fits in one of my
hands.  Her skin is translucent and she is glowing like a star or a
crystal.  She is breathing very faintly, and I am thinking how
wonderful it is that I have found her.  I will take her home and
nurture her back to health.  I am filled with an amazing love for this
glowing baby.

Just then, a man comes in downstairs.  I look over the stairway and he
comes up the steps.  He is a sophisticated-looking man in a nice gray
suit, but his face is without emotion.  He is accompanied by a little
lady, and he tells her to go up to the attic and shut the trap door.

Then he looks at me with an evil smirk, as he takes the baby out of my
hands and throws her disinterestedly over his shoulder.

"So you found her," he sneers.  "Well, she's mine.  And now you are
going to suffer for finding her."  I remember thinking that I should
not have brought Athena with me.  This seemed to be my destiny, and I
should not have brought Athena into it.

I am overcome with such a fear for Athena that I wake up.

I wrote the dream down right away, but even in my wakeful state, I was
strangely afraid, especially for my children.  I told Thor the dream,
and he thought I should see a Jungian psychologist, trained to
interpret dreams.

In wonderful synchronization, my friend Ruth told me about a Jungian
psychologist whom she knew in Paris and who now lived in our city.  I
contacted her and made an appointment.

The psychologist, a woman, forced me to draw the explanation out of
myself.  The house is myself, my life, and the baby is my soul, who has
been abused and neglected for many years.  I was forced out of my house
by this man, and perhaps kept out of it at different times, in
different situations, by different men, but now I was ready to come
back in and take possession of my house.  My soul had always known its
birthing place.  Now I had found my soul, and my journey was just
beginning!

Meaning, purpose, understanding--they were mental processes, paths
through the head, and I felt I could now learn the way of the heart.

This is my continuing journey!


The Swan Symbol of Paramatman (Supreme SeIt)

The Family

The following statistics were taken from a 1987 Children of God
publication: 

Total membership, 12,162
Number of COG homes worldwide, 1,080
Number of children, 6,470
Number witnessed to, 910,080
Number saved, 92,750
Number loved [through fishing], 218,722 (to date)

According to a COG publication from April 1990 (Stats Analysis): 

Total membership, 18,000
Average number of children per couple, 4. 5

In May 1996 the Family distributed a publication in which they claimed
that there was nothing wrong with "flirty fishing" since the motivation
was not money or power, however, the practice was discontinued in 1997
in order to "emphasize other means of ministering the Word of God to
others" ("Women in the Family", 10).  Those who left the Family after
1997 claim that although its use was greatly reduced, it was not
completely eliminated.  The Family does not deny that sexual sharing is
still allowed among consenting adults.  "A married member is free,
after receiving the agreement of their spouse, to have sex with another
partner" ("Women in the Family" , 18).  However, certain boundaries
have been established, No sexual contact between adults and minors, No
male-with-male sexual activity (female-with-female sexual activity is
allowed with mutual consent) No sex with those outside the family
Sexual activity between adults must be done with full consent and done
in private ("Women in the Family" , 19.  This information can also be
found on the Family's website at www.thefamily.org).

Moses David reportedly died in 1994.  Maria and a group of elders were
given his position of absolute authority.  Meanwhile, Maria suffers
from an eye illness, which causes her great pain if she opens her eyes
in the light.  Therefore, she sees only in the dark, but she continues
to write letters to the worldwide Family.  Due to reorganization of the
group, membership rules and regulations were tightened, and in a
publication of 1996, the group, now called simply the Family, claimed
it had 3,000 full-time adult volunteer members, 6,000 children, and
20,000 associates working in over sixty countries.  This implies that
there were close to 30,000 people associated with the Children of God
in some way at that time.

I found an article on the Family's website that stated,"Our present
fellowship does not go by the Children of God name because that
organization was literally dissolved...the Children of God
movement represented a substantially different organization with a very
different leadership" (1/9/98).

There are various websites that mention the Family.  One of them, at
www.religioustolerance.org, writes,"In 1987, incest and sexual
abuse of children was specifically banned," and "current membership
estimates from non-COG sources vary from 9,000 to 12,000" (1/9/98).

This same site also states,"It is our assessment that accusations of
criminal activities by the Family are unfounded...No evidence of
sexual abuse of children was ever found...former members
frequently refer to a book, the Story of Davidito, which was written by
David, son of David Berg's wife, Maria.  Although the book does discuss
his witnessing of sexual behavior within the group, and their
encouragement of him to explore his own sexuality, there is nothing in
the book related to adult molestation or abuse of children" (1/9/98).

I have access to the "Davidito" book, and have seen pictures of an
adult child-care worker caressing Davidito's private area when he was a
child, and of Davidito, as a young boy, sucking on the breast of an
adult woman.  Perhaps this is not regarded as child molestation by the
writers of the above-cited "objective" website on religious cults.  As
a social science student, I also try to be as objective as possible.

The following stories from young people are not an assessment but
descriptions.

I cannot vouch for anything that happened in the Family after I left in
1988.  Nor can I know what happened in homes other than where I
lived.

However, I have heard hundreds of stories from adults and children who
have left in the past ten years.  Many talk of serious physical and
sexual abuse.  The evolutionary process of perversion in the Family is
clearly established as people who won't put up with sexual aberrations
leave, and therefore only those who do remain.  Many left with the
first wave of sharing and "flirty fishing", others, like myself,
finally left when sexual abuse of children became an undeniable
reality.  I believe these reports are true since it would seem that
those who remain have either denied the abuse consciously or
unconsciously, or believe it is acceptable.  As I hear the stories of
children and parents separated indefinitely, corporal punishment in
public of teenagers and adults, mind manipulation, sleep and food
deprivation, and more, I wonder how a person can ever hope to live a
sane life again.  Then I remember--this is also my story and my hope!

Here, at the end of my story, I want to tell you what happened to the
various players in this story, some who woke up to life and some who
didn't.

Later the Family Esther, the unknowingly wicked Queen in this tale, was
reportedly excommunicated by Moses David, her father, in the late
1970s.  According to her own account, she was ultimately expelled from
the Family because she did not want to give in to his incestuous
desires toward her.  All of her children and the man considered her
mate at the time left with her.

She wrote a book about her experiences as Mo's daughter, The Children
of God, The Inside Story (1984), which was published by a Christian
publishing house.  I read her book and realized that she too had been
victimized, but I am disappointed that Esther did not acknowledge the
extent of her own role as victimizer and abuser of the immense power
entrusted to her as our "Queen."  Perhaps she had not yet found answers
to her most tormenting questions at the time she wrote the book.  Today
she is associated with a strict fundamentalist group in California.

Rahab, who had married Esther's brother, the one who "fell" off a
mountain in Switzerland, left the Family and became a nurse.  However,
her oldest daughter, Hannah, who is Mo's granddaughter and Esther's
niece, remained in the Family until a few years ago.  This young woman,
who was left without parents and raised in Mo's house, wrote about her
ordeals in an ex-cult newsletter, No Longer Children (November
1992).

Her sad testimony reveals that she endured dozens of intrusive sexual
encounters with her grandfather, the first before she was twelve years
old.  She wrote that she was beaten with a rod, spanked in public at
fourteen years of age, tied to her bed at night, and accused by Mo of
being possessed by Satan himself.  Hannah eventually wound up in a
mental institution in Macao and was sent to California to live with her
grandmother (Mother Eve), who no longer lived in the Family.  Today she
lives with her aunt Esther, for reasons I cannot fully explain, instead
of with her birth mother, Rahab, who finally found her lost daughter.

Jacob, Esther's first husband, a top leader of the group, and the one
who "helped" me by committing adultery with me, left the group with his
second wife, the wealthy former socialite, Pearl.  They are now
divorced, and Jacob runs a prosperous business in America.

Coincidentally, many of his early employees were teenagers who had
recently left the Family.

When Jacob attended the 1994 reunion for ex-COG members, I heard from
others present that he had apologized for his shortcomings as a leader
in the Family.  I was not in the room when this was said to have
happened, however, I talked with him for a short period in private, and
he never said he was sorry for what he did to me.  I did not mention it
to him.

Ruth, the young southern belle whom I first met in Ellenville and who
worked with me in Paris, had also been separated by Jacob from her
first husband, the father of Thor's childhood friend Chiara.  Jacob had
attempted to include her in his growing harem in Italy, but instead she
was sent to Paris to be part of the Show Group, and was one of our
first women given in marriage to a "king," in this case to our music
producer.

She eventually left the Family due to what she calls a moral
decision--the Family no longer needed her husband, but they expected her
to leave him and return to become one of the flirty recruiters.  She
broke contact with the group and stayed with the French producer, who
was now the father of two of her children.  After what she calls "one
of the longest-lasting flirty-fishing' experiences in the Family
(eighteen years)," she, too, following years of emotional,
psychological, and even physical abuse while trying to be a "good
Christian wife," decided to leave her husband.  With three children
she made her way back to her hometown in America, arriving from France
about a year after I did.

Ruth has recently returned to college, pursuing degrees in foreign
languages and psychology, and she is very interested in trying to
understand the disparate reactions of ex-members upon leaving the
Family.  From her own experience, she has become aware that there are
many women like herself who leave the Family and fall into similarly
controlling and abusive situations, which tend to perpetuate the
experiences that they had while in the cult.  Ruth, like myself, is
seeking a way to use her own cult experience and subsequent journey to
self-awareness as a source of help to the many who leave and who find
themselves totally lost in a world they have not been prepared to live
in, especially those who were born and raised in the group.

Jon, my former dance partner who traveled with me to Nice and Rome,
left the group and started a new life with his family in California.

He returned unabashedly to a gay lifestyle, but he kept up a warm and
loving relationship with his wife and children.  They eventually
divorced amicably.  When he read an article I wrote for a reunion
newsletter, he called me and said he was hurt that I did not say hello
to him in my regards to various former members.

James, the most lenient leader I ever met in the Family, and whose home
I stayed at while in Paris, left COG and returned to his hometown in
Canada.  His wife remained in the cult, but he took his two oldest
children with him and raised them for many years as a single father.

Today he owns his own music video production company, and he sends me
original compilations of music tapes for inspiration.  James understood
that I am soothed and nourished by music, and thanks to his concern, I
now listen to more than Bob Dylan.

Abraham, the unfortunate former husband of Breeze (who as far as I know
is still in the Family), left with a Frenchwoman he recruited into the
group.  They had two children and lived in Texas until she divorced him
and married a wealthy Texan.  Abe became a "Dead Head" and followed the
Grateful Dead around America while selling tie-dyed T-shirts.  He
visited my home when the Dead played where I lived in 1992.

Gabriel, the multitalented musician who was recruited back into the
Family in Puerto Rico, stayed with the cult until 1992.  His wife was
mated to another brother and lived in a separate home so that Gabriel
could be free to use his business and technical talents for the group
around the world.  Living with top leaders, Gabriel became one of the
first victims of the "victor camps," which were set up in the early
1990s to break anyone who still had a strong-willed spirit.  After what
he described as "incredibly harsh methods of mental, psychological,
emotional, and even physical abuse," the leaders in Japan finally gave
him a ticket to return to his parents, since they suspected he was
about to become a serious mental problem.  After months of therapy,
Gabriel spent a few years attacking the Family publicly in television
interviews in the United States and in countries where he had lived,
but his emotional state and mental condition by this time were so
strained that he gave up his fight.  After he admitted on national
television to engaging in pedophilia, in the hopes that his confession
would convince the authorities that the Family should be investigated,
his plan backfired and he was depicted as a pervert by the cool, calm,
and well-trained Family public relations men.  Gabriel spent the rest
of his life on prescription drugs and committed suicide in June of
1996.

Rose and Bishop, the two former members who started the tradition of
yearly reunions, left before the height of sexual activity in the
Family.  Rose, who had joined in 1969, lived in the same commune (or
compound) as Mo during her first years in the group, and was married by
him to a man she did not want to marry.  Eventually, she left with a
husband she chose, but she felt a sense of failure, rejection, and
isolation upon leaving the group that had defined her identity.  "Nine
years of an intense lifestyle and indoctrination can be hard to put
behind you," she contends.  She feels that encouragement and support
are important for people when they leave a cult, proposing that
"sometimes the best person to talk to is someone who has experienced
the same things that you have."  She and her husband have now become
the connecting source between former members of the Family, borderline
members who are contemplating leaving but are not sure what they will
do, and those who are still in the Family and whose children are trying
to contact them.  They would like to see a retreat where families with
many children, single parents, and young, inexperienced teens who leave
the Family could rest and acquire the resources to tackle the work of
living in the real world.  The need for such a place became one of
their main concerns after hearing the stories of those who left the
group in recent years, especially the teens.

Jesse's mother brought him into the group when he was six years old.

She quickly rose to leadership position, and Jesse lived ten years with
what he claims were experiences of sexual and emotional abuse that
taught him little about right and wrong.  When he left the Family at
the age of sixteen, he found it too hard to adjust to society and ended
up spending years in prison.  Jesse told me that while he was in jail,
he was so lonely he wrote to the Family and asked someone to please
write him.  He received dozens of letters, and after prison, he began
visiting their homes again.  His mother and sister are still in the
cult.

A Family publication numbered GN 480 DO, from October 1991, published a
letter from a teen in their group named Tony, also called Zack Attack.

He complained about having a problem with being under constant
supervision and restricted from being able to ride "a skateboard or a
horse or go ice-skating or roller-skating or even climb a tree."  In
response, he received "Dad's Blast after hearing about Zack Attack,"
which stated,"Give him the ultimatum!  Tell him, Tonight at our next
meeting, you're going to get up and weep and pray and cry for mercy and
grovel on the floor and confess that you're all wrong in front of all
the teenagers and everybody, and beg for mercy."  ("Grumblers Get
Out!" 
2716).  

This was the type of environment that many members were subjected to
at what became known as the victor camps.  Adults found it hard to
leave because of their connections to their children and spouses in
the Family, but teens, who had been raised in the group, had nowhere
else to go.  Even so, some left and tried to locate distant relatives
or to make it on their own.

Teddy, Andrew, and their first sister, Shirley, the three oldest
children of Jeremy Spencer, whom I took care of when they were young,
left the Family on their own.  I read about Andrew, who did not use his
father's famous name, in an article from a London paper, and it
appeared that he was interested in going to college.  However,
according to testimony from former COG members, one of Jeremy's
daughters who left the Family now works as a stripper.  A case in point
is that of River Phoenix, the young actor who died of a drug overdose
in 1993.  His parents joined the Children of God when River was only a
young boy--according to some sources, age two--and they became Family
missionaries in Venezuela.  Like many COG children, River sang on the
streets to help support his family until they left the group and
returned to America in 1977.  His childhood experiences in the Family
certainly must have contributed to what became a troubled adulthood
(one author described him as a "disillusioned innocent") and ended in a
drug-induced death at the age of twenty-three.

Hopie, Mo's second daughter, wrote in a Family-published article on
reaction to childhood sex" (1988) that "daddy made me feel good all
over...I don't think it perverted me...but it sure converted
me to His call."  She came to America for health reasons after her
father's death, but it was rumored that she was having conflict with
the leadership, especially Maria, who had taken Mo's place.  In
America, Hopie started living with a former male member of the cult,
and they have been together for a while, purportedly out of the
Family.

I learned through reunion sources that before coming to America,
Hopie had been sent to Siberia by the Family, and while there she
established a food supply chain across the Russian wilderness to feed
the forgotten starving Siberians.  This involved negotiations with
Russian officials as well as the Russian mafia, according to her own
testimony.  In 1996 she called me and asked if I would like to help
her in Washington, D. C., with her fund-raising effort for the
Russians in Siberia.  I declined, but I wished her luck, and I heard
she is doing well.

Cal/Jerry, Thor's father and my first husband, had three daughters and
one more son with his second wife (exactly as I had, and pretty much
around the same years).  Thor is therefore the older brother to six
girls and two boys.  Cal eventually divorced his wife, and the children
live with him in Colorado.  We call each other occasionally and are on
good terms.  While writing this book, I asked him if he would like to
relate some of his own story.  The following is what Cal wrote to me
from his own memory, but his perceptions of the Family, why he joined
and why he stayed, were the same as mine.  For me, the intentions and
motives I had weren't wrong, and I believe there were many others who
were sincere, who held the beauty and light of their personal vision,
and stayed hoping to change what the reality was becoming.  Many times
I thought, I questioned, and doubted things, but we had been
conditioned to resist such thoughts, so our behavior became more
radical and consequently more fanatical in some.  Maybe we were just
plain old afraid to "go back out into the world."  Whatever the reason
we stayed and obeyed will always be a bit of a mystery.  Why people
like us join something like this I think is clear--it's the historical
climate of the times.  We were idealists,"some of them were
dreamers/some of them were fools/they were making plans and dreaming of
the future/On the brave and crazy wings of youth/we went flying around
in the rain/till our feathers once so fine grew torn and tattered"
("Before the Deluge" by Jackson Brown).

When the whole fishing era started I was pretty anxious.  We had been
prepared for the ultimate sacrificing of our mates to the crucifix of
the bed of love.  For months the letters just became more and more
specific.  I didn't really have a say the first time.  It hurt bad.  I
felt we had lost something in our union.  Our union wasn't so good at
that time because for months the anxiety just built on me seeing
clearly where all these new letters were leading.  As the months passed
I behaved more and more erratic--possessive, fear of losing my most
precious loved one.  Anyway, I got used to it and persuaded myself that
this was the ultimate sacrifice.  Then in time we were more
manipulative and motives and intentions became less honorable.  Within
the group the fatherless population grew, bad treatment--bad karma-- bad
press.

How did I feel about being a pimp for God?  At first I had been
sincerely persuaded of the power of love--and the attraction of a pretty
woman to win souls.  There was always a tinge of jealousy and hurt.

Always I participated vicariously, imagining I was the stranger
experiencing for the first time the fruits of my wife's love.  It made
her more attractive and desirable and therefore I couldn't wait until
she came home to me.  My own emotions, however, made me blind and
insensitive to her needs and lack of desire toward me--due to fatigue
and probably disgust at times because her experience had been
distasteful.

To my heart and mind at these times, I hurt because I thought it was
me.

"I let you sleep with strangers and you reject me?" It was a problem
and created a communication breakdown dividing us.

I believe we were deceived innocents.  I hope you don't carry any guilt
feelings from the past.  I am sure that all of us who have gone through
these things and survived are better people for the experience.

What made me finally leave?  It was seeing what happened to poor
Sharon.

When I heard about her video, something snapped inside me.  Of course I
had been thinking of leaving for years by then, but knowing what
happened to Sharon, I snapped.

While I was writing this book, Mara, the third in our threesome
marriage and Cal's second wife, called me.  She appears to have gone
through her own long journey to self-awareness, and she answered my
questions with realistic honesty.

I asked Mara to write me more on why she joined the cult and why she
stayed during fishing.  The following is taken from a letter she wrote
me.

I joined this group while deeply into a spiritual search, and what I
now know to have mainly been a search for myself, my true values.  In
the world I saw corruption, where power and money seemed the name of
the game, and where I thought there was no room for me.

Why did I accept fishing, in spite of my original disgust at the
practice?  Certainly because it was challenging and revolutionary, and
that word always struck a chord in me.  Going beyond morals,
transcending the taboo of sexuality in Christianity seemed very
appealing.  Now that was the intellectual approach, and I must say that
my body could never quite follow.  I wasn't free sexually and it made
it hard to win people to Jesus that way.  Of course, money also being
involved made it quite degrading at times.

Looking at it now, I can clearly see my immaturity and lack of
confidence, and that I covered up with a display of culture and
savoirvivre.  I was very proud, often felt smarter than others, but at
the same time very inadequate.

More than the beliefs, it's the human warmth that attracted me in the
group, so when I left it wasn't hard for me to cut emotional ties, and
go back to my first spiritual interests in Hinduism and Budthism.

Today I feel so different than during that time of my life, that I feel
that I am writing about someone else.  I can only assume that the
serenity and balance I found today are a fruit of all the questions and
deep searching that followed that period.  It led me to psychotherapy
and now meditation.

Mara, now forty years old and divorced from Cal, lives near her
children in Colorado.

My Family My older brother, Steve, has spent most of his life in
prison.  He currently is finishing a twenty-year sentence for unarmed
bank robbery (he reportedly smashed his arm through the teller window
and demanded money).  No one was hurt but himself, when he cut his arm
on the glass, however, since he had already had more than three strikes
on his record, he is in the same ward with murderers and rapists.  I
asked him recently if he ever hurt a person in any of his robberies.

After a few minutes of contemplation, he told me that the only person
he ever hurt was me.

"I punched you in the stomach once when we were kids.  I think we
were wrestling and you kicked me, and it hurt so badly that I punched
you.  You started crying and I have felt sorry about doing that all
my life," he explained.

Although all my sisters believe in the Christian perspective of God,
none have become very "religious."  Perhaps my sister who died in a car
accident at the age of twenty would have been.  My other sisters all
live in Florida, have steady jobs, own their own homes, and seem to be
happily married.  They are typical Americans and lead typical American
lives, however, I will leave it up to the reader to define "typical."

They do not talk to me often about my time in the Family, and they
encourage me to stop talking about it also, so I hope they don't read
this book.  Only my sister Ruby, who was in the Family for a short time
in Paris and knows how manipulated I had been, understands why I would
not want to stay with the father of my children.

Ruby told me years later that when I first joined the Family she was
only nine years old, and she had always looked up to me as the big
sister.  She hated the COG for taking me away and saw that it hurt my
mother a lot, so she swore she would get back at the Family for doing
this.  As she grew up, she watched TV shows about cults and believed
that the people in cults were brainwashed, however, when she visited me
in Paris, she thought that the Family was just like a group of
peace-loving hippies.  It was fun in Paris, especially since her sister
was in the Show Group and danced on stage.  Ruby enjoyed singing on the
streets and living with other young people.  When she heard about
fishing she thought,"I will never do that."  She thought the idea of
showing one man God's love was nice, but she would never do that with
lots of men.  "I liked their beliefs in the Bible, and their witnessing
methods--distributing literature on the streets and singing at cafes.  I
felt more like an observer and was just having a good time in Paris.
But nobody was going to convince me to joinit.  I was real careful not to
get brainwashed."  My mother continues to live with me as an
ever-present grandmother to my children.  She visits her other
daughters in Florida a few times a year, and talks with her son on the
phone every week that he is not in the "hole."  She continues to pray
every morning, goes to church weekly, and spends many of her waking
hours translating German sermons into English.  Although she has come
to a few ex-COG reunions, and has met many of my friends who were
former members, we do not talk much about the time I spent in the
cult.

I divorced Paolo after three years of separation.  He runs a profitable
business and lives close to our home.  He has a good relationship with
the children and me, thanks in part to counseling he receives from a
men's group and from his pastor.  Paolo feels comfortable in a church
environment, and I am happy for him.  I am also delighted that he has
done so well in his business, something that never happened while he
was with me.  I often wonder if it was my fault.  Although I have
written about my bad experiences with Paolo as my husband, now that I
am no longer his wife, we both treat each other better.  I don't blame
Paolo for anything.  In fact, I take the blame for using sex and
marriage as a witnessing tool--but in the end, it worked for him.  I
don't think that Paolo would be capable of living such a rewarding and
constructive life as he now leads had he continued his use of
tranquilizers, and stopping them was a prerequisite for marrying me.

Eventually, I had to deal in my own conscience with the complex issue
of annulment, which even the Catholic Church allows in exceptional
cases.  I believe my marriage was an exception.  When I asked Paolo
what he thought of our marriage in the Family, he said that he saw it
in the context of the "one wife" view that the COG held.  For that
reason he never gave me a ring, and he called me a "mate" instead of
"wife."  However, he did not join to share with other women, and he did
not particularly like that aspect of our beliefs.  He accepted it
perhaps because he too was a former hippie who was willing to try out
alternative lifestyles.

Once out of the Family's doctrinal hold, we both discovered our true
personalities.  Paolo is basically a traditional man, with a
conservative outlook, and capitalist proclivities, which have helped
him to develop a successful business.  I am a nontraditional woman,
with a radically liberal outlook, nonmaterialistic values, and an
eternally questioning mind that attracts me to scholastic pursuits.

Even though we are worlds apart philosophically, I do respect his
beliefs and his chosen way of life.

My dear children are the only reason I could continue to live during my
most despondent times and despairing moments.  I hope when they read
this book (which they are not to do until they are eighteen years old),
they will understand that the woman I am writing about is not the
mother they know, the mother who they complain is "too protective,"
"too old-fashioned," and "doesn't know anything."  They don't know me
as the Jeshanah in this book, although they are aware that they were
born and lived in the Family.  They have also gone to the reunions and
have met the children of other ex-members.  They have heard the
stories, and they have probably heard my story from other people.  I
remember Thor's heartbreaking reaction to hearing about me from his
father.  Since I will probably never be able to sit down with each one
and tell them my side of the story (they would never sit still that
long), this book will eventually let them know why I was at one time a
Heaven's Harlot.  But most of all, they should know that it was worth
it all in order that I might have had each one of them, and that it has
only been through them that I know how to love.

Thor, my firstborn, who explains life to me better than anyone, is now
half a foot taller than I but still asks for hugs and kisses.  I see
him as a performer, scholar, philosopher, and mystic, but he would say
that he's only living a life.

Before Thor left to study in Germany for a year on an exchange program,
I spent some time alone with him.  Both vegetarians, we talk after a
leftover meal of broccoli and pasta.  The night falls, and we stay
there talking about alienation and meaninglessness, about Jesus and
other spiritual masters, about Eastern religions of the heart and
Western philosophy of the mind.  I tell Thor about the little old lady
I see when I meditate who informs me that she is wisdom, and I ask him
what it means to climb the spiritual Himalayas.  As I listen to his
answers, I know that he is going farther than I. On the morning of our
last day together, I am worried about his future in Germany.  Besides
the fact that I will miss him again, it seems like an unnecessary
difficulty for my son, now twenty-four and working on his doctorate in
math, to be an exchange student in Berlin.  He doesn't even speak
German, and the scholarship he will receive is considerably less than
he got in America.

"It's the mountain, Mom," he told me, with a smile that remains in my
mind forever.  "The mountain was there on my path so I had to climb
it." 

I knew exactly what he meant.  I had been coming to a deep abyss,
knowing that I must cross it.

Although I have not been a perfect mother, I have been a flexible one,
and I have imparted the concept of an expansive God to my children.

This was so wonderfully illustrated to me when we were answering
questions one night around the dinner table.  Jordan, at twelve years
old, wondered why the American Indians were close to nature, living in
tents and eating the food from the earth, whereas the Europeans lived
in houses and were advanced in technology.  The answers offered by her
two sisters were that Indians were closer to God, or that God wanted to
see how different cultures would be.

The next question came from Michelangelo.  "What is the meaning of
life?" asked my ten-year-old.

I did not answer him--he was so young--but as I asked him to answer that
himself, I remembered when my own search began.


Epilogue

Three of my children were born in Europe, and the first two
were raised there since they were one year old.  In the summer of 1997,
I took my four younger children to Europe to visit their paternal
grandmother and to rediscover their roots.  Back in Italy, visiting the
places where we had lived, my kids had the opportunity to explore and
remember who they were as young children, and thankfully, their
memories were joyful.

Meanwhile, my memories, like cobwebs in a corner of my mind, were
glistening in the misty light of the past.  While in Italy and France,
I recalled the gray ghosts that I had left in those places, and who
were waiting there to greet me.  Some of them I dismissed, and they
vanished.

Others clung to me, begging for existence.  Sometimes I gave in, such
as when I saw Salim walk by while I was sitting on a bench in Monte
Carlo, drawing pictures of exotic trees.

I don't think he recognized me, although he looked back my way three
times while walking at a quick pace with another well-suited
gentleman.

He himself had changed considerably, but I knew his eyes.

Salim was not always in Monte Carlo, I don't remember him ever walking
anywhere, and I was only there for one day, so the fact that he passed
by was too fortuitous to be a coincidence.  Thinking over the reason
for this, I decided I should let him know that I was writing this
book.

He had been so helpful in finding my son years ago, for which I will be
forever grateful.  Therefore, I left him a note at the Hotel de Paris,
not even sure that he still had a suite there.  The concierge
recognized his name immediately and said he would give the note to
Salim's secretary.  I wrote that I was visiting the area and, if he had
time, I would like to talk to him about a book I was writing.  I was not
sure if he would remember who I was, and all I had for a return address
was "in care of" the American Express office in Monte Carlo, since I
was traveling.  When I checked back the next week, there was a message
from him with a phone number to call.

It had been over ten years since I had last seen Salim, and I was a
little apprehensive about what he might think of my contacting him
again.  But I thought he deserved an explanation for my actions in the
previous years.  I thought he might like to know that I had finally
broken free from the cult's clutches--for surely he must have known that
I was in a cult.  And most of all, I wanted him to know how much I
appreciated his help in finding my son and to tell him that Thor and I
were together again!  Still, I was nervous when he answered the
phone.

"Hello, this is Miriam."

"Who?" he asked in a thick Lebanese voice that I recognized
immediately.

"Miriam.  I left you the note.  I used to be called Jeshanah."

"Oh yes, I remember.  Yes, I was surprised to get your note.  How are
you?" 

"Fine, thank you.  I--" 

"Yes, can you come see me?" 

"Well, yes, I'd like to talk with you."

"I don't want to talk.  I hear you are writing a book, but I don't
want you to interview me.  You know...I want to relax with you...like
we used to do."

"Oh, Salim," I laughed rather heartily, so thoroughly unexpected had
been his comment.

"I don't do that anymore.  That's what I wanted to talk about..."

"Well, I really don't have time to talk, you see.  If you want to
relax with me, give me a call.  Otherwise, I wish you the best of luck
with your book."

"Okay.  Well...thank you...Goodbye."  I hung up the pay
phone in a daze.  I was so sure he was a friend that I never thought to
question his motives.  Why was I so naive?  Going back to the hotel
room, I was thankful that the children were in Italy with their
relatives.  It gave me time for contemplation and meditation, and I
desperately wanted to explain myself to me.

"I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir," said Alice,"because I'm
not myself, you see."  Alice in Wonderland told this to the
Caterpillar, who sat on the mushroom smoking a hookah.  She had been
through quite a number of changes and found it hard to explain who she
was.  I also found it difficult to explain myself.  I remembered a Zen
saying,"There is no better explanation than actual experience.  "
Sitting quietly on my bed with a view of the terra-cotta rooftops of
Nice, I relived the experiences of my lifetime in my mind, observing
and absorbing each impression.  As I contemplated the concept of
meaning, I asked the question,"Who defines the meaning of anything?"
Continuing along this line of questioning, I arrived where I really
wanted to be.

"Who defines me?  Who will give meaning to my life?" I should, of
course!  Perhaps that was one of my first mistakes.  I had lost the
meaning I gave to myself, the definition of me, and I accepted other
people's meaning.  No wonder it never fit right.  I arose from my bed,
and in the light of the midnight moon, I walked down to the beach,
searching for a memory of me.  Intuitively, I knew that the beach at
night had been the scene for many of my turning points.  Perhaps the
memory of who I was and who I am would come back to me through the
timeless rumbling tide of the sea.  She once took my thoughts far away,
but eventually she would wash them ashore again.

I listened to the waves' steady roar, mentally searching the shore for
my memory.  An illuminating awareness surrounded my thoughts, and I
understood that I had lost not my soul but my self during those years
in the cult, yet I have tried to explain myself through the story of my
experience.  And the story has now come full circle, I was back at the
same place where I had stood twenty years ago, when I let my own
thoughts drift out to sea and accepted the concept of sacred
prostitution.

Whenever I had tried to define myself during those years in the cult,
someone always took the self-defined me and threw her overboard.

Now I had taken back the captainship of my soul, but it was a long
process finding the self that had been thrown out to the sea.  It
required the coordination of time and space and thought and
intuition.

It took crossing the ocean and talking to Salim on the phone before I
understood that I still had to reclaim a part of me that had been lost
somewhere in Monte Carlo.  It meant meditating for hours as I let my
thoughts take wing and fly down into the abyss of nothingness where
meaning can be created.  And I had to follow my intuition to go back to
the sea.  That starry summer night, standing alone on the windy pebbled
beach the Cote d'Azur, where it all started, I called my self back.

Eventually, she came--a cold, shivering, confused young girl, but still
alive, just as my soul had still been breathing underneath the
wardrobe.

I took my trembling self inside the warmth of my heart.  I understood
her perfectly.  Wide-eyed, innocent, and silent, she had been waiting
to be reunited with my body.  Before calling Salim, I was still a naive,
peace-loving woman who craved deep friendships and believed in
idealistic love for others.  I had been the clueless girl who had
idealized the Family and desired a close relationship so much that I
allowed them to define who I was.  Now I was the captain of my soul--not
a captive of some other person's ideology.  This time, when Salim made
his offer, I answered with my own words, as one who knows who I am.

After discovering my childhood secrets and taking control of my
"house," I now could affirm who I was.

"No, I am not a prostitute!" Those words were spoken for me and from
me--a woman who had found her soul.  Those words said that I was now
creating my own identity, that I was not an object of sex--not for my
father, or husband, or a millionaire, or a leader, or even "God."  In
the process of defining myself, I have had to establish precise moral
imperatives.  For instance, never have I condoned any form of abuse of
children, especially sexual abuse by adults, or even sexual promiscuity
among children.  Nor have I ever been anti-Semitic, however my
involvement with the Family might seem to negate these positions.  As I
have tried to explain, and as has been confirmed by many ex-COG members
who have written about their experiences, we had willingly given up
control of our lives when we joined the cult.  The majority of us were
still in our teens.  All of us were extremely idealistic--and in a
practical sense, extremely naive--and I believe that most of us had been
sexually, emotionally, or physically abused as children.  We were
victims as children, and as adults we unconsciously chose to continue
to be victimized.

However, I do accept responsibility for having manipulated men, for
having allowed the emotional and physical abuse of my son, and for
having permitted him to be exposed to sexual issues at too early an
age.

I take responsibility for having allowed perversions in the group to
continue by not taking a definite stand against what I read in the Mo
letters, but when it came to a point where the perversions were in my
own home, and I believed they might be perpetrated against my own
daughter, I finally realized what responsibility meant.  I was not
willing to be responsible for child sexual abuse in my own home, so I
left it.  That was the breaking point for me.  Abuse victims, we often
read, continue the cycle by becoming abusers themselves.  If only they
would take responsibility now for their actions, the cycle could
be broken.  I intend this book to be an act of taking responsibility
for my behavior, of setting an example by one person who did break the
cycle.

I want to be absolutely sure that the above point is understood,
especially by all ex-COG members who now live with the torment of
hiding/explaining/forgetting/remembering what they once gave their
lives to.  living in a closed society, we unconsciously reinforced
each other's sentiments, believing that everything we did was for love,
not for lust or vanity, until at last, we were worse than brainwashed--
we were self-less, beings totally vulnerable to manipulation.  Valuing
only some abstract ideal of love, we had little respect for ourselves,
and therefore little respect for others.  Fortunately, the lives of my
children held greater value for me, and thus I was somehow able to snap
out of my ideological stupor.

As for the accusations of anti-Semitism in the Family, I really thought
it was more a question of strict Christian identity, and since there
were so many Jews in the Family, I did not believe it possible that we
could be anti-Semitic.  I know that I never was, and I often witnessed
to Jews.  However, in order to confirm my feelings, I called a former
member who was Jewish and who had lived with Mo from the very beginning
of the group's history.  He believes that being Jewish gave one "extra
clout" in the Family, and he remembers sitting around the television
watching reruns with Mo and the first disciples and cheering on the
Israelis during the Six Day War in 1967 He emphasized that Mo often
claimed to be part Jewish and envisioned living in Israel to help
establish God's Kingdom on earth.  In addition, he contends that Jews
in the Family always had a bit higher status, being considered God's
original elite.  They were sort of the elite of the elite.

There remain many issues for me to resolve, and new issues continue to
emerge periodically, and by no means have I reached the end of my
journey.  I am still dealing with having lived fifteen years of my life
in an oppressively fanatical religious environment dictated by a
sexually obsessed megalomaniac, followed by four years of floating in a
fundamentalist purgatory.  However, I don't believe Moses David could
have had any power over my actions, my mind, or my body, had I not
previously been indoctrinated by the church to believe that the
greatest goal in life was to serve God, and had I not been taught by my
culture that men have been ordained the figures of authority,
epitomized by the fact that "God" is always represented as a man or at
least as the male principle.  So many of us, especially the
selfsacrificial, the idealists, and the altruists, are conditioned to
let someone else take control of our lives.  I am only beginning to
establish my boundaries and to sink my roots deep into the ground to
take in the nourishment I need.

Some people will protest that because I had Jesus in my heart ever
since I was a child, and because my devoutly Christian mother continued
to pray for me, it was the Christian faith that protected me and helped
me to survive all along.  I really cannot deny that, however, the
infinite universe I have found inside me is not in the doctrine I was
taught by my church.  There is Jesus and more, and I think that He
would agree with me.  Yes, during what I perceived as a demonic attack
in Italy, my faith in the name of Jesus helped to keep the demons at
bay, but it was the subsequent realization of the strength within
myself that caused them forever to vanish.  I don't doubt that there
are multitudes of Christians who have found truth, meaning, love, God,
and whatever answers they need in their religion.  What I have
discovered is that all dogma is too small to hold even one universal
truth that my soul and my self reveal.  Since America is basically a
"Christian" country, I supplicate all well-meaning religionists to
consider Matthew 22, 37-39 before judging my life and conclusions,
"Love God, love they neighbor, love thyself."  I have spent half a
lifetime loving God and loving my neighbor--I will now learn to love
also myself!

I wish I could provide the answer that all the hurt adults and
suffering children who have passed through this and other cults need to
hear.  But as trite as this might sound, the only truth I have
discovered that has helped me is that the answers lie within
yourself.

Peter Townshend wrote,"There is no blood like the blood that flows
within one's own body, and no dreams like those that spark from one's
own mind."  There is also no truth for yourself like the one that
dwells within your own heart.  Find your soul and love your self.

the end.