betz.org a journey through the very ordinary

I came across this video yesterday and was seriously moved. It was about a cult lead by self proclaimed messiah, Michael (a.k.a Wayne Bent). Wayne Bent is a form Seventh Day Adventist minister who claims he was “taken over by a spirit” named Michael and was was told by God that he was now the messiah.

This story is nothing unlike many of the other cult stories I have heard in the past. However, this documentary provides an intimate view of the people that fall into a life like this. Focusing more on the people around Michael, the documentary does an incredible job of giving us a glimpse of what these people are thinking.

It is unwise for me to simply stare at them for 45 minutes and call them stupid. Sadly, I have done this in the past. I have mocked them. I have laughed at them. I have questioned how people can be so gullible as to follow some loony down his rabbit hole. That is not the point of this post.

Perhaps it comes with age or a more intimate knowledge of myself that leads me to feeling nothing but sadness when I see people so lost and unable to see what is so obviously right in front of them. Personally, I think it comes from a deep need for us to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. A need to feel somehow special in “the larger plan”. Who doesn’t want to believe that we are all just cogs in the machine and that we really matter little in the grander scheme of things? For most of us, the reality is that if we simply cease to exist or never have existed at all it really wouldn’t matter much. Sure your mother thinks your special, but what has the summation of your life brought to the world? This isn’t to say that we don’t attempt to improve the lives of ourselves and others while we are here. This isn’t a mandate to tell everyone to just lay down and die because it all doesn’t really matter anyway. On the contrary. The philosophy is that no one is special, yet we all are. You just have to work for it rather than it being handed to you by some god or some fool claiming that he is god. It’s called personal responsibility. But this is fodder for a much longer post.

I also believe that being a follower in these groups has a lot to do with fear. A fear of missing the boat if “they” just happen to be right. Then after the cult has its hooks in you, it becomes a fear of letting down the group. We are social creatures and we look to others to validate us. These groups tend to get their hooks in you by the appearance of accepting you just the way you are. You don’t have to work very hard for their approval as long as you tow the line. Once you show any signs of questioning the faith, you are quickly shunned. The longer you stay, the harder it is to break free as the ties you had on the outside have been severed and you will quickly find yourself alone again. A feeling that lead you into the group to begin with. It becomes a seriously sad cycle.

In all honesty, it is hard for me to separate a mainstream religions from these types of groups. I don’t believe and I am not stating that mainstreams lead their followers down a potential path to suicide; however, many of the things mentioned by some of these cults are preached from the pulpits of your neighborhood congregations. “It is in your nature to be bad but by the grace of God you are washed clean.” “You can’t do anything but through God.” “You are a sinner in need of redemption.” Don’t they all say this? Don’t many of them focus on this?

Admittedly, these cults take statements like these to an extreme and by “god” they mean some crazy-eyed figurehead that calls himself god. Mainstream religion doesn’t go this far, but the foundations are one and the same. Some could argue that the foundations are similar because these groups usually offshoot themselves from the good ones. But I say that it is these same unproven beliefs that set the stage and therefore mainstream religion is but one footstep away from this type of madness. Until we can acknowledge this, we will never rid ourselves of these types of groups.

I am always floored when people can find Jesus or the Virgin Mary in unusual places. I often wonder the state of mind that people are in when they honestly believe that the mother of God would show up on a grilled cheese sandwich. A grilled cheese sandwich?

Anyway, the latest sighting happened in a Orlando, Florida hospital prayer garden window. My first thought is, “Well… that, at least, makes some sense. It’s not a grilled cheese sandwich or the trunk of a tree.”

The pictures are pretty striking. I can see a relatively clear face in the reflection. However, my first inclination is matrixing. Matrixing is your minds desire to order the world around you (basically seeing shapes in the clouds, but, in this case, light reflection off some glass). Seeing faces in chaos is a very primitive instinct that is believe to have a lot to do with our survival as a species. But this isn’t a lesson in matrixing

Also, notice that the angle of all the pictures is relatively the same and the fact that when the camera is closer to the glass, the image gets grainier and grainier. This leads me to believe that the image is definitely a reflection of the light and requires the viewer to be standing just so in order to see it. Though, in order to be fair, I wasn’t there and I am only basing my opinion off the pictures I have seen.

But regardless of what the image is, I find it really interesting that all of these images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary seem to be replicas of what we “think” these people looked like. Jesus being a tall, thin, white man with a neatly kept beard and long, flowing, black hair. This picture is reminiscent of this description. But is this really what Jesus looked like? I have heard arguments that it probably wasn’t, but who in the heck really knows? I think it is an impossible detail for anyone to really know for sure.

I am not a believer in this phenomenon. I have never seen anything that has really floored me and I am aghast that anyone can wholeheartedly believe in a reflection off of some glass or a burnt cheese sandwich is proof of their faith. My amazement certainly doesn’t end there, but you catch my drift.

However, I have nothing but complete and total compassion for the man who found some comfort in the image as his ex-wife is battling stage-3 cancer. Perhaps this is what really matters and it is the final point of the image anyway. If there is a God and he is behind this, then I say, “Kudos to you, sir… But lay off the cheese sandwiches, will ya? It’s a bit silly!”