Any way Big Ed called again today. He's my former boss/pastor, more boss than pastor as I can't exactly say he did a lot of mentoring and looking out after my well far, especially after I "fell from grace". Can you really fall from grace? But that's what a lot of people in that circle say. I guess it shows their limited view of grace and in my opinion of God. Big Ed did set my wife and I up for counseling in this 12 day super camp for fallen ministers right after all went wrong in our lives.. It was terrific and is probably what saved our sanity, such as mine is. I don't think it produced what he wanted though. I think he wanted them to find some major character flaw, some deposited devil I had somehow allowed into my life and cast it out bringing me to a whole new revelation of purity and holiness. Instead, I found new levels of grace, people who said lighten up a little, you are a man who acted like one and made a mistake, now move on from here.
It was there on that mountain that I discover God loved me and LIKED me and I did too. It was there that we came up with the plans to move here and begin again, which the entire group believed to be the healthiest thing we could do. Get this two counselors and three ministers along with two of their wives got the full story. All of them agreed that the punishment was severe and that the system we were under bred failures and mistakes b/c of the pace and tone of leadership. WOW! 7 people associated with full-time ministry said that after only hearing our story, their are others esp. now two years later who have been run over by the same system. Some have fallen to their own sins, some just fallen in the tracks at the jagurnaunt of the whole crazy machine run by this man. You see Big Ed is another of my contradictions. There are few people I have respected and loved more in my lifetime and yet few people I have grown to feel more embittered towards than this man. Even now as I start to rant and rave on all he has done negatively I am cautious b/c he is yet still a man of God in my eyes and worthy of some respect for that.
The past two calls are somewhat funny and amuzing to me. You see at the "fall" Big Ed made all these statements about how he was going to "walk me through this", "that he hands off a lot of projects(yes he used the word projects, too) but he would not be handing us off- he would see to it personally" and how he had "loved me like a son". Ohh Big Ed. Yeah well, you see after we got back from 12 days on the mountian and decided to move away and cut the puppet show strings I don't think he was happy(which he later kind of admitted in a meeting we had this Feb. now that I think of it). So after we moved here which is only about 3 hours away, by the way, and is also the place he flies out of regularly and the home area of his very best friend whom he regularly visits, we got phone calls every 3-4 months if that to "check up on us"(I wish I could make you hear the tone of it for real clarity's sake). Then was the infamous meeting this past February about 1 year after all the fall had happen and on my mother's b-day of all days, typical Big Ed timing. In this meeting he addresses the fact that he still believes he handled the situation correctly, I guess so I wouldn't dare think he had gone soft or was going back on his decision or something. Then he tells some story about going to Florida for some conference and not even knowing why but realizing it the first night as the speaker talked about "spiritual fatherhood". He then realized he was supposed to be a spiritual father to me. WHAT!???!!!??? That is exactly what I had always seen him as and had wanted so badly for him to be to me. Now after being abandoned in my moment of failure which by the way is a person's greatest moment of need you want to come back and be my spiritual father? He asked me how I felt about a few things and I only half let him have it(I've never been able to stand up to him in person, I don't know if it is intimidation or respect really to be honest). I told him I thought he lied about sticking by us and walking us through this. That is when he gave the reason of not doing it b/c we didn't stick around so he didn't think we wanted him in our lives. Yes in our lives, just not controling them, ohhh I forgot he does know how to do that!He asked us about ministry. I told him that for most of the year we had been away to that point I had loathed ministry b/c if this is the way church treats people who make mistakes then we can forget ever winning the world, but that in the past few months I had actually been thinking more about the some day of ministry again. I think that kinda hurt his feeling some but then June drove the point and the proverbial nail in. She said she had never seen ministry be worth it not to her dad who also failed, to us, or even to Big Ed And Spicy(his wife). She talked about how they've sacrificed their lives and on and on. She should have driven the point of the kids a bit more b/c I feel so sorry for their son. He gets a lot of the toys he wants to try and make up for the lack of attention he doesn't get. He lived at our house more than theirs for awhile 1-2 years there. Anyway there were these superficial attempts at apologizes and some lets's try to work these things out kinds of statements and feelings but not much really. It all ends w/ Big Ed's normal "call me". TO which I responded "what do you want me to call you?" He probably wouldn't like some of things I've called him over the past few months as my bitterness towards him, his system and treatment of people has really grown. You see he has really been acting like some more kind of Don down in his little ministry town. He is now charging people to do minisrty in his church. That's right charging people to do it minisrty. It is part of the ordination process ther so I am sure he justifies it by saying you don't get seminary for free or some stupid shit like that. I mean come on two of my best freinds are still unfortunately in that system both work factory-type jobs barely making end meet for their families as it is. Both bust their asses for this man and his "vision" and YET he is going to charge them for the training the receive from him and his staff. RIDICULOUS, that is what that is! I am sure it had something to do with the fact that I was asked by an ex-member of the church to do her wedding this summer and Spicy found out about it. So in order to not sanction me and Conan, another of the pastors who fell and got ramroded out of town,they are goin to charge annual fees to everyone else. I am also sure it is to cull some of the ones who have been in this developmental program but have done no developing in like 4 years. Instead of having the hard discipliship conversations with these people lets make everyone else pay that make sense doesn't it? Only in Big Ed's system, my friend, only there do you punish the faithful. Then we heard that he was making it manditory that all his staff from all 4 of his churches pay any missions money to his organizationa nd they would distribute it. What? One of my friends still on staff at the time, who left shortly there after, said to his wife, "I ain't doing that". It is becoming cult-like and Big Ed is in June's word's becoming a Don instead of a pastor. SO to get to why the calls have been amuzing. Are you still with me or have I droned even a computer to sleep? We haven't taled to Big Ed since a wedding in one of his churches in July or some time like that and that was just passing casual conversation. I have felt so embittered at all that I've been hearing and at some of what I've realized about him and how he treated me even when I worked so faithfully and diligently for him that I had just about written him off, removed his numbers from my phone and decided never to set foot in one of his churches agian esp. after that last visit(see Jackie June's diary for explanation). Then as he gets our Christmas card and remembers ohh yeah I haven't called them in months, "I need to check up on them", he calls. In todays message he even mentioned getting together for lunch or dinner somtime when we come that way or maybe he'll be in town up here some. Yeah you are up here more often that you ever contact us you dope. It some how feels like a slap in the face. I almost want to say we aren't your project to worry about anymore, you can go on your merry way, I'm sure you have plenty else taking up all you precious time-apparently anyway! We don't need somone to check up on us we aren't kids we are 28 and 30 years old. Sure we are still learning and havn't arrived yet by any means but we don't need spiritual cops in our lives either. If he wants to be friends and talk about life and ideas and what's happening in the world and if we've seen any good movies lately like normal everyday people fine but this once every 6 months check-up like a spiritual warrant officer is not for me. NO thanks, Big Ed! Ok enough I'm going go wake June it is feeding and loving time enough ranting about this shit!