This was the disaster. Moving into Dilaram House in Vancouver. An absolutely stupid move if ever I made one. Even now, almost four decades later, I still feel clinging to me like sticky remnants of spider web the trauma I incurred from living there. Because the Live-In community had gone into suspension there was a void in my life for Christian community. I became vulnerable. I was introduced to the leaders of Dilaram while visiting one of the splinter churches resulting from a grievous split in St. Margaret's. I was swallowed alive by charisma and three months later I was living in their community.
The good things: 1. a daily discipline of prayer and Bible reading, individual and communal.
2. a strong theology of love manifested in daily contact with needy individuals through our counselling centre, crisis line and our presence in the community.
3. the transparent honesty and mutual accountability.
the bad things: 1: the leaders were dictators
2: very little privacy. We all had to share bedrooms.
3: only a fundamentalist interpretation of the Christian faith was considered acceptable.
I left in disgrace after nine months. I was considered rebellious because I had gone with a friend to spend an entire Saturday without permission from the leaders (a new rule I had not been informed of). I was summoned to a "council" meeting at 11 pm, was told by a half dozen "elders" (I was twenty-two, they were all at least twenty-four or twenty-five) that my life was cursed and I had to leave the house immediately so they wouldn't be tainted by the curse, which of course meant that in January I was being tossed onto the street at around midnight. I phoned my mother who let me stay with her till I found a place to live.
The trauma never quite went away and even now I still sometimes feel its shadow.
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