Regret

  I was talking to my Mom on the phone.  She mentioned that, a while ago, my father talked to the only other two guys in his church about what they'd done to me in 1998.  They, along with some other guys who eventually did the same thing to the three of them, excommunicated me, put me out of fellowship, consigned me unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, put me on the "shun indefinitely" list.  This is old news.

  But my dad did something for me.  He told them he wanted to talk about it. They listened silently, apparently, and then changed the subject.

  My mother kept saying she didn't think there'd be any value in them staying home on Sunday and refusing to worship with those two guys who kicked me out of my birth culture.  She kept saying that until I eventually realized that this is what she thought I expected them to do.  Stay home.  Leave the church.  Cut off from those guys, because they disagree. Essentially: have a mini-division over me, their son, caused to pass through the fire those many years ago, an offering to what passes for Moloch among the Plymouth Brethren, whose feet are quick to shed blood.

  This made me need to know and tell her what I actually want.  I want someone who kicked me out (any of those guys) to communicate with me.  To reach out.  In that whole crew, only two people contacted me ever again after they kicked me out. I am going to name them, because I think they did a really good thing, and because they were the only ones in fifteen years.  One was Robert House, who phoned me three times, and the other was Ruth Smith, who sent me letters for years afterward.  Both eventually gave up on the correspondence, but both reached out to me, and I think they deserve credit for that.  Especially considering no one else did.  In this they are above reproach.  I see integrity there.

  So that's what I decided I wanted.  Contact.  An expression of regretting it all.  For someone to do that, who was involved in it.  It's not like I've faded quietly away, though I've certainly repeatedly been advised to by people who weren't involved.  I've not been quiet online.  Not with 300 and some views on many of these posts.  

  So I guess I need to clarify what I want.  I'm not out for blood.  I'm not out for an admission that anyone was wrong in any way.  I just want someone who was involved in the action to acknowledge that I'm here and am a fellow Christian, and that they regret what happened in our assembly and between us all.  That maybe it didn't turn out to glorify or even honour God.

  But yeah.  Just that.  I can't imagine it would ever happen in a million years.  So I'm not hoping for it.  But I thought I should make sure there's no doubt as to what I'd actually want.

  I don't want membership back.  I know they don't accept Christians on Sunday morning unless said Christian has been vetted, and has forsworn all ecclesiastical connection with the rest of the Body of Christ.  That's not my problem.  It's the sundered fellowship that I think is the tragedy.  How can we claim that anyone looking on could see that we love one another, that we display the truth that we are one with all Christians?  I don't need to be back "in fellowship," which can be Brethren code for "on the membership list with full Sunday morning communion-taking and social event attending privileges."  Just "will you acknowledge that I am?"  

  I can only assume that the start of a conversation like that one should start with both of us expressing regret as to how things went down.

  Of course it would be nice if I wasn't asked to not attend weddings and bible things.  But I'm just saying what I think would be a reasonable desire for me to have.  A "hello" and a shared expression of regret as to how it all went down.  Because I certainly regret what happened.