I covered my window. The lights outside are many and the house behind this one is busy. Rather than being bothered, I secluded myself even more. Fortunately I spent a long while outside today, and got my fill of fresh views. It crept up in temperature, becoming actually almost warm by afternoon. Winter is not yet here, though it beckons.

Still I wait, still I listen, pondering not only my role in this world but also those patterns which have developed over generations. I come from Fundamentalist stock in a family which has been Christian for as long as can be remembered. This has some positive aspects which I noted in a paper I did a while back, but it also has its negatives.

I’m increasingly convinced that nothing is more insidious than evil framed in religious clothes. There is such a thing as spiritual abuse I’m learning, where an authority figure can cause significant harm by manipulating and confusing those who trust in the religious creed.

This, like any other kind of abuse, can be mild to severe, but is always damaging, and the effects are often passed down through the generations.

Fortunately, my parents are strong and have broken the cycle with my brother and I. But their families? It lingers. And it influences on realms which are beyond senses, attaching itself to patterns and behaviors with which I contend.

Like other types of abuse the victims have trouble separating from the abuser, and in the spiritual variety it becomes even more difficult as the abusive one is oftentimes a pillar of the community doing God’s work.

There’s a lot more to this, deep, deep discussions which I am only now really grasping.

I say this because I spent a couple of hours in discussion about this today, and at the end I felt like I had named that heavy weight. Family religious history indeed. It’s not all good news.