Blue Vues

Back when I was younger, I made a habit of watching The 700 Club partly for laughs.  I got a particular hoot from the "word of knowledge" sessions, in which Pat Robertson, Terry Meeuwsen and the others would pray for miracles to happen--and they'd get words of knowledge about said miracles.  I couldn't help but think it was all scripted somehow--as if they'd somehow remembered the details of all the prayer requests that flowed in from across the country.

Well, while clicking around on YouTube, I happened to find one of these on CBN's channel.  This time, it was being led by Gordon Robertson (Pat's son), Terry Meeuwsen and John and Carol Arnott of Toronto Boondoggle--er, Blessing--fame. 




Now that I've become a charismatic Christian myself, conventional wisdom would suggest my perspective has changed on this.  Not by a longshot--and not just because I'm somewhat skeptical of these "words of knowledge," having been suckered by one of these so-called "words" myself.   Something about this screams "scripted, scripted, scripted"--at least to my ears.  Besides the remarkable specificity of these "words," doesn't it seem odd that first Robertson fils gets one, then Meeuwsen, then the Arnotts?  Seems to me that if these were real, they'd be popping in back and forth with these.

A surefire sign, to my mind, of just how bad this economy is can be found in the spam folder of my email account.  I've been seeing a considerable influx in the number of two particularly noxious forms of spam--phishing and advance fee fraud.

It's sad, really.  My guess is that some ordinary people get offers to send these emails out to a list of email addresses, in return for a hefty paycheck to augment what they're already getting.  However, the risks of this are astronomical--having your Internet access nuked, and the possibility of arrest.

The latest of these is probably the most surprising--a phishing email that appeared to be sent from someone at , of all places, Ohio State.  When I took a peek at the full headers, I thought, "This has got to be a forged header.  Who at Ohio State would risk their future by sending this junk?"  But sure enough, when I ran eMailTrackerPro on it, it confirmed that the email indeed came from someone at Ohio State.  Tsk, tsk.

Current Mood: exhausted

Believe it or not, the happiest moment I've had in the last few weeks isn't seeing Carolina whip up on Michigan State last night.  Nope, I'm in a relationship with so far the most wonderful gal I've ever met.

Her name's Dora, and she lives in Arkansas.  She's a former massage therapist training to be a teacher.  She's just about the sweetest gal I've had the pleasure of meeting.  We've been friends since 2002, but started talking again in late 2008, not long after her marriage tanked with a guy who was a male version of Jamie. 

It's hard to put into words what I feel for her--and that's saying something coming from someone who's a writer and journalist by training.  She's a writer as well--she's written a lot of poetry.  It's one of many reasons that we get along so well.  One other is that she's a big-time sports fan--specifically, the Razorbacks.  Now it looks like I have to learn how to properly call the Hogs.

For those who are reading this and getting nervous about what happened last time, I'm playing it slow.  We both are ... even though we're both crazy about each other right now.

Current Mood: jubilant
Current Music: "Thinking Over" by Dana Glover

I've found it hard at times to write much about some of the things that happened with Jamie and me, in part because when I want to write about it, the emotions that stir up in me make me afraid I could write something that could be construed as a threat.  So needless to say, the healing process, while far along, hasn't gone along as fast as conventional wisdom might suggest.  Those of you who've known me for any period of time--especially from Myers Park and Carolina--know it says something when I can't speak my mind. 

Part of it is coming to grips with the fact I was in an emotionally abusive relationship.  I should have seen early on she was an emotional time sink, but I'm a big-hearted fellow by nature.  You wouldn't believe the time I spent having to calm her down from her temper tantrums.  When we finally split up in August 2006, I'd been searching for an opportunity to get out since 2004--but something kept coming up.
Part of it, I guess, is that when I look back on it, it's still hard to adequately express the sense of betrayal I felt.  As many of you know, Jamie framed me up for supposedly making my niece watch X-rated movies as retaliation for having her son arrested for hitting me.  It's bad enough to find out that someone would hate me enough to frame me up for something so heinous.  In fact, even now as I write this, just thinking about it brings tears to my eyes.  It made it even more of a crusher to find out that Jamie had hit her son out of anger.  As most of you know, she didn't even contest that allegation in her divorce papers.  Most normal mothers would claw your eyes out if you even suggested they did harm to their kids.

I probably should have seen it coming a month earlier, though.  Jamie and her niece got in an argument over the way she'd acted at a Fourth of July cookout.  I heard something that sounded like someone hitting someone else and thought, Holy crap--did she hit her?  Jamie's answers were somewhat evasive.  I came thisclose to leaving her the next day--in fact, I seriously considered calling my mom and telling her I was coming home when I dropped off some clothes at a friend's house.  But in the end, I didn't feel comfortable leaving since I thought I'd have to report it to DSS--and since I hadn't actually seen anything I wasn't sure if I could report it.  So when I found out she'd hit her oldest son, I felt a world of guilt, since in all likelihood she probably had hit my niece after all.

In hindsight, I think realizing that I might have let Jamie get away with hitting a child was why I felt a bit embarrassed at first when one of my old pals friended me on Facebook and inspired me to resurrect my then-dormant account.  Seeing how well they were doing, I thought that they wouldn't be understanding.  Especially since so many people looked up to me and expected so much of me--I felt like a failure.  But the support I've gotten from them has been unbelievable.  It's been a bit sobering--after all, I realize that I crapped away my 20s looking for the one thing I hadn't gotten right since coming to Myers Park.  Most of my friends knew how hard it was for me to find a woman ... so naturally, I should have come to them for help on the romance thing.  In hindsight, I think most of them would have warned me off Jamie if I'd told them about her.

I had an awful dream last night while napping for work.  As most of you recall, I was framed up by my ex for supposedly making my niece watch X-rated movies and threatening to beat her up if she told anyone about it.  I dreamed that I'd actually been convicted of this--and sentenced to three months in prison.  And in solitary confinement to boot--anyone who does anything to a child is considered the lowest of the low on the prison social scale. 

Needless to say, I'm still shook up--I don't know how I was able to hold it together at work last night, and I finally broke down and cried this morning.  I can't even contemplate doing something that heinous.  Two things in particular really hurt--the fact that Jamie knew I could never do something so awful, and the fact I'll probably never get to hear her say she's sorry for doing this to me.

On Friday night, I went to see Myers Park take on Independence at Myers Park--the first time I'd been back to my old high school in nine years.  The basketball team stunk it up for most of the time I was there, but this year is no worse than the third-best team in the city.  We ran Independence off the court.  About the only thing that made high school basketball games fun when I was in school is that we had a great time every Friday night heckling the other team.

The one thing I didn't understand, though, was that the students who were there weren't making any noise at all.  Yeah, it was the end of exam week--but you'd think that would be a chance to really let your hair down.  Perhaps some of us old men and old women ought to head over there one night and teach these people how to be a real sixth man.

Current Mood: calm

I'd hoped to get up with some old friends this weekend--but in hindsight, those plans got kiboshed on Monday.  I came home from work Monday morning to find that somehow, the back screen door had been locked.  So I was stuck outside for 15 minutes in 30 degree weather until Mom could come home from her substitute job to get the door open.

And this when I unexpectedly got a four-day weekend due to us being ahead of schedule at work (we don't go in Sunday night).  And they say there's no such thing as luck?  Baloney!

Current Mood: blah

Recently, I've had the chance to renew old friendships with my college and high school friends ... I let some of those slip while crapping away my 20s trying to find a woman who'd love me for who I am.  Inevitably, it's led me to think back--what if I had drunk the Wrong-Waymaker Kool-Aid 12 years ago? 

Judging by what's happened with most of my former "brothers" and "sisters" in there, I think they were grooming me to be a leader in that bunch.  As many of you know, a good many of my former compatriots in that outfit eventually went onto ministry in EN--one couple's even serving as youth pastors at KPIC, while another is serving as children's pastors there.  Heck, sometimes I think KPIC's church plant in Charlotte was supposed to be my church.

Where would I be had I not "rebelled" (ack, another good word ruined forever!)?  I certainly wouldn't be divorced, living with my mom again and working in a warehouse.  But then I think of what I'd have had to give up--my integrity, my individuality, my dignity.  I wouldn't have given those up at any price. 

I'm still angry 12 years later at the Waymakers for stealing the first six months of my adult life from me.  But more and more, I find myself having pity for them--because sooner or later they'll have to face up to all the people they've stepped on over the years.  What still mystifies me, though, is how in the world they could continue to do Pastor Ron's bidding even after I warned them back in '97 that he'd been lying to them about his past with Maranatha.  Any normal person would have walked out of there.  Were they that drunk on power already?  Was it that ingrained in them to do whatever their pastor told them?  That's one of the few things about Wrong-Waymaker to which I'm still trying to find the answer.

I wanted to go to the Panthers game next Saturday--but wouldn't you know, by the time I got through the only seats left were $400 club level seats.  I didn't want to go that badly.  Oh well, guess it's off to Picasso's ...

Current Mood: content

I've spent much of 2008 restoring ties that should have never been severed in the first place--and if I'd kept them up, more than likely I wouldn't have made the mistake of marrying Jamie.  The first was with my old pals from the high school and college days.  The other was my love for Carolina football and basketball.

When Jamie and I were married, she always pooh-poohed it when I started singing "I'm a Tar Heel Born" or "Here Comes Carolina" out of nowhere.  She thought it was all in the past.  I didn't get a chance to watch much basketball and football when we were married, in part because she never really liked it.

Back in November--the Saturday after Obama's election--I went to see Carolina take on Georgia Tech.  It was only the third Carolina football game I'd seen since I'd graduated, and the first time I'd been back to Chapel Hill in five years (for the 2003 NIT).  It's hard to put into words what I felt when I crossed Franklin Street and got on campus.  I felt like I was at home--where I belonged.  I was hoping to yell my head off for the second time in a week, and I got my wish--we won, 28-7.  Two weeks later, I got more confirmation I had it back when the Heels laid an egg against State.  I turned off the TV around halftime--first time I've had to do that since my senior year, when we went 3-8.  The next day, when I opened the Observer and saw State players partying on the Kenan turf, I thought, Just what in the hell do they think they're doing? 

Yesterday, I went to the Meineke Car Care Bowl.  I ended my lucky streak--it was the first time I'd seen a Carolina team lose a football game in the three times I've seen one since I graduated.  But I had a great time nonetheless.  Before the game, I tailgated with a bunch of my old high school and college friends--Franklin, Martha, Rebecca, Cameron, Mary Grey, F.T.  It was only the first or second time I'd seen these guys since I graduated. 

Current Mood: chipper

There's a reason I haven't opened my big mouth lately--I've been wanting to air my feelings out about my ex a year after the divorce, but in the mood I've been in regarding some of the things I learned about her, I was afraid I'd say something that would get me arrested.  I hadn't really been able to talk much about it during the summer of 2007 on the off-chance Jamie would somehow find it and use it as a way to wring me for alimony before the divorce went final in October.  Granted, the chances of that happening were remote, but with the possibility of not being able to live on my own ever again hanging over my head, I wasn't willing to take those odds.  It finally boiled over emotionally on Monday morning--it was all I could do to keep from bursting into tears out of nowhere just before I got out of work.  I was able to hold it in until I got home, and I felt kinda down the rest of the week.

What sank in this week was that my three-year marriage was based on a fraudulent premise.  I'd married Jamie in part because she'd told me her previous husbands had treated her like dirt--I believed her that she wanted someone who would treat her right.  Well, not long after I left her, I managed to get the filings from her first divorce to find out if our marriage had even been legal.  I read a statement from her first husband in which he said she'd hit Kristoffer, her oldest son, several times in the head out of anger.  She didn't even respond.  No woman--no normal woman, anyway--would let an accusation like that go unanswered.  That was a crusher, to say the least.  There is no way, no how, I'd have ever married her if I'd known that.

In hindsight, though, it isn't surprising.  I'd been trying to find a window to leave her since 2004 because I was starting to get fed up with her temper tantrums.  In fact, I'd planned to leave after Christmas of '04 ... but on Christmas Eve, she ended up in the hospital for a week.  That was the story of the next few years--every time I wanted to leave her, something came up.  So naturally, to find out about what would have been an immediate dealbreaker was pretty hard to take.

Quite honestly, at this point if Jamie died, I wouldn't shed a tear.  Maybe it's because I don't think much of people who would even think of laying a hand on a child.

I recently decided to go on my Facebook account after letting it sit fallow for some months, purely on a whim.  Well, actually, it was after getting friended from one of my old high school pals.  In the last few days, I've probably managed to link up with 15 or so of my old Myers Park and Carolina friends.

It's heartening in part, but a bit saddening on the other.  Looking at where I am now--divorced, living with my mom, working in a warehouse--I feel like I let a lot of people down.  After all, I had a lot of people looking up to me.  Also, Myers Park was the first place where most of the people I knew accepted me for who I am, warts and all.  Seeing how they're doing now reminds me of how much of a roller coaster the last five years have been.

I haven't been to church in over a year--another casualty of Jamie.  I had to leave a church I loved because Jamie showed up there one time out of nowhere a few days after Thanksgiving '06.  Now, this was while I was still in limbo due to her cowardly attempt to frame me up.  Thinking she was trying to booby-trap me into getting packed off to jail again on more false charges, I got up and left.  Despite assurances from my friends there that they were on my side, I spent the next few months looking over my shoulder to see if she'd show up.  After a few months of this, I haven't been back there since Easter '07--I just didn't feel safe anymore.  Even though Jamie has conned her way back west (Washington state, I last heard), since her niece is a juvenile I have no legal way of knowing whether she has been held accountable for 1) beating me up and 2) her involvement in the frame-up--even though I'm the victim!  Without that knowledge, I can't chance going back, only to have her start something and get me arrested again.

So I've been church-hunting--but I saw something today that makes me wonder if I should cross any Assemblies of God around here off the list.

I was on Daily Kos earlier today, and happened on a discussion about a bizarre case in Texas.  According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, a now-defunct Assembly of God got sued by a former member who went through two exorcisms in the space of a week--the second of which resulted in her getting carpet burns and bruises on her wrists.  However, the state Supreme Court ruled that finding the church liable would violate its First Amendment rights.

Looking at the case, I find myself stunned by the callousness of the people at that church.  Seems this whole thing started when a girl collapsed during a June 1996 service.   Let's see here now.  June, in Texas--wouldn't you think that someone collapsing might, just might be having problems with the heat?   Rather than consider this obvious fact, several members of this church laid hands on her and tried to cast a demon out of her.  The same thing apparently happened later in the week, and held her down again.  She later cut herself and was ultimately diagnosed with PTSD.  The girl sued, and was awarded damages for mental anguish.  After all, you would expect a secular establishment to check to make sure someone who faints is all right.  Shouldn't we expect the same of churches?  Apparently, the Texas Supreme Court doesn't think so.

The scandal drove that church to merge with another church in the Fort Worth area.  But unless I've missed something (and I apologize if I have), I don't see anywhere where they apologized to her.  Now that bothers me.  I don't know what to think--is this a Texas thing, or is it something nationwide?

Current Mood: cranky

Today I'm relishing my first real weekend in three weeks--and only my second real weekend this month.  One of the departments at work was behind (due to a lot of turnover, I think), so we had to work Friday night for three out of the past four weeks.  While I like the extra money on my paycheck, this schedule throws my sleep schedule off by a mile. 

So now I'm using this free time to finally sit down and work on a couple of projects I've been kicking around for awhile.  You probably know about one of them--"Gangsterism for the Kingdom," a detailed account of my experiences in the Wrong-Waymaker chamber of horrors, along with my role in helping blow the lid on their past.  The other is a fiction book--the first in a series.  It's based slightly on my high school experiences.  Strangely, getting the beginning right in both is the hard part ... the broad outlines of what I want to write have basically been etched in cement for awhile.

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Dana Glover

I was just working on another entry--a much longer one--when I came across something one of my friends forwarded to me.  Seems that some people are having a hissy-fit over Oprah Winfrey giving a spiritualist's book major play on her book club.

Looking at the hand-wringing comments on a YouTube video slamming her, I find myself wondering, "Um, what's the hooey?"  The way everyone's reacting, it's as if Oprah expressed her support for the likes of Robert Mugabe or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 

Do I agree with what she's doing?  No.  But do I support her right to do it?  Yes.  Maybe it's just me, but I don't see how it's harming anybody.

Current Mood: confused

Just a few months before Jamie and I got married, Scott Peterson was arrested and charged with the grisly murders of his wife and unborn son.  The case really hit home for Jamie.  Modesto isn't that far from Napa, and Jamie identified pretty strongly with what Sharon Rocha was going through.  In light of what I've since learned about what my ex was erally like, I'm convinced that Jamie has a lot more in common with Scott Peterson than Sharon Rocha.  How's that, you ask?  Well, Peterson, from what I've recently read about the case, is a textbook sociopath--and knowing what I now know about Jamie, I'm convinced I was married to one for three years.

Now I know what most of my close friends are thinking--Duh!  She tried to get a 15-year-old girl to commit perjury.  Of course she's a sociopath!  For those who don't know, Jamie retaliated to my having her son arrested for hitting me in the head by falsely accusing me of making my niece watch X-rated movies and threatening to beat her up if she told anybody.  True, that by itself would make her a sociopath.  After all, we're talking about a gal who put up the front of being a devout pentecostal woman.  But there was a lot more than that to it.

Just like Scott Peterson, Jamie was willing to put on a different face for every situation when it suited her.  For instance, when we started dating, she changed the clock on her computer to Eastern time (three hours ahead of California) and told me several times when I went to meet her in person that she didn't consider California her home anymore.  But one day when our relationship was falling apart, she told her sister and niece who were staying with us that she wanted to stay in the Bay Area--and my insistence that she come over here resulted in the state taking her daughter away from her.  (Her kids were taken from her in a CYA move by the state due to her youngest son being murdered.) I was so shocked I didn't know how to react.  Especially since when we first met, she was dating a guy in Nigeria and was making plans to move out there.  Now let's see.  We're talking about a woman who in one breath wanted to move to Africa and in the next was concerned about moving away from her daughter and losing her????  What's wrong with this picture?

I should have noticed something was a bit off a lot sooner the first time I saw Jamie's mood swings ... from sweet and kind one minute to yelling and cussing (even with F-bombs) the next.  I took a lot more than I normally would have from someone else.  Part of it was because I actually thought something was wrong with me, and that I was the one who needed to grow up.  I didn't realize that Jamie wasn't letting me be Darrell, and that I was giving into a woman to whom you really couldn't say no.  It appeared she'd been through a really bumpy life, and I let my bleeding-heart instincts lead me into thinking I had to make it up to her.  It got to where I couldn't say "no" to much of anything to her.  I later learned that she'd once told my mom, "Darrell loves me--he'll do what I tell him." 

Current Mood: bored

Last night I unplugged my cell phone from its charger, only to have it suddenly go from almost full to totally empty.  I tried plugging it back in several times ... same thing happened.  I'd been thinking of switching providers for some time, since I'd seen a lot of people on my side of town with AT&T.  Believe it or not, there are several parts of Charlotte where my Verizon phone's signal was so weak I couldn't even use it.  But this decided it for me. 

Total charges today ... just over $100.  Money I really didn't plan on spending ... but oh well ...

Current Mood: annoyed

I know, it's been some time since I've posted.  But unfortunately, I hadn't planned on staying quiet this long.

As many of you know, Jamie and I split up in August '06.  This past summer, she sent me some obviously phony divorce papers--she'd somehow conned her way to Washington state.  No tracking number, nothing.  I went ahead and filed here ... and as much as I wanted to pour my feelings out, I didn't want to chance something that could force me to have to fly to Washington in the outside chance those papers were real. 

It went final in October--and right after that, we went into the busy season at work, so I had to work a bunch of Saturdays.  Needless to say, I was wiped ... but things are calming down now, so now I'm opening my big mouth again--and I don't plan on shutting up any time soon.

Current Mood: satisfied

I know, I know, I haven't opened my big mouth in awhile.  But believe me, it isn't by choice.  As most of you know, I'm going through a divorce.  I'm afraid to say anything that my soon-to-be ex could used to try and wring money out of me.  Hey, when you're dealing with a woman who wouldn't think anything of telling a 15-year-old girl to lie under oath, you never know what she may pull.

However, over the weekend, I've found out something that had me so steamed that I can't in good conscience remain silent.  I speak of the Blasphemy Challenge, a project to get atheists to "come out of the closet" and declare themselves as atheists.  The way it works, atheists are supposed to submit videos to YouTube in which they record themselves denying the Holy Spirit.

Naturally, this has a lot of Christians mounting a heated response--but nothing like what I saw from the Yahoo 360 page of the daughter of a gal (also posted on her MySpace)who attends some of the online praise sessions I've lately started hanging around.  She urges her friends to contact the 700 Club to let people know about the danger to children.

Sorry, but when you want to enlist the services of Pat Robertson, you don't just want to make people aware of something.  You want to snuff them out.  As a Christian, I find the concept behind Blasphemy Challenge appalling.  But as someone who is a near-absolutist on the First Amendment, I find it even more appalling that there is still a certain element in Christianity that feels any form of criticism against the faith shouldn't be allowed. 

Voltaire once said, "I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write."  And such is my stance with the Blasphemy Challenge.  As much as I want to lend my support to the numerous Christian sites who wish to counter this by praising God, I can't in good conscience do so when their ultimate goal is to snuff out their opponents. 

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: The Blitz on ESPN

I just discovered this gut-wrenching comment in my initial post about the Wrong-Waymakers.  The parent of one of my compatriots in Carolina's class of 2000 said she seriously considered yanking her daughter from Carolina because of what these gangsters did.  She even said that Loretta Bates tried to convince her that there aren't any churches in the Northeast (where they apparently live--can't blame her for being nervous about revealing it).

To this parent or any other parents whose kids were burned by this outfit--you aren't alone.  And you don't have to worry anymore--even if the administration is dragging its feet, the court of public opinion has found these clowns guilty as charged.  They barely register as a blip on the radar at Carolina now.  That's what happens when you grow mostly by deceiving people--eventually, you get too large to keep the low profile required for deceptive tactics to work.

Anyone who's been burned by these guys--drop me a line either here or at darrell96 @ gmail . com (remove the spaces) and we can talk.

Current Mood: determined