1992, 05/04. Stewart Traill’s Message To Jim LaRue.

The following is a message to me from Stewart Traill, which was his response after I stood up and spoke to him at the meeting the previous Sunday.  It was dictated over the phone by Traill to the office and then read to me by Joe S., who read it with great enthusiasm from a file card, as he stood before me.   Since it was from Traill, it was considered by everyone to be the real deal on me.

Nowhere in the message does Traill say that he was doing this because I stood up to him at a meeting.  In no place are any of the words I said repeated, nor does Traill answer anything by saying “I am not doing that,” or, “I don’t agree with what you said.”  Rather there is this high-minded sounding message that almost sounds like an Old Testament prophecy, in which metaphorical, universal and eternal sounding words are pronounced against me as his response to some pointed and direct observations I had made about him.

The words that I had said to him were:

“You said that you repented (back at the “Grace Meeting” in 1989), and I think you were sincere, I really do.  But I see that you have gone back to the way you were before, in fact, you’re even worse than before.”

“You’re alone and you need to get your views checked.”

“You are pushing brothers around.”

I never got to finish what I had to say, because many of the brothers in the congregation rose up in one angry voice, denouncing me for “attacking the very reason why we are together as a church,” and for “attacking the roots of our church” – which, in a sense is true, if one considers that we were huddled around Stewart Traill as our leader, a leader who had a unique and only correct view of Christianity in these modern times, which is essentially the belief we were willing to give our lives over to.  I, naively and sincerely thought that if I spoke up, there might be changes here.  Within seconds I was soon to realize that the only change that was going to happen was a change in my church membership – which would also include the immediate termination of my job and the immediate loss of my place of residence – since I both worked for and lived in the Church of Bible Understanding.  I might be escorted off the property immediately.  If I were lucky, I might get a ride back to New York to pick up my things before being put out on the street and then try to find a place to stay.  Despite having been a member of the church for 11 years, I was put on a “three day sudden death,”  which is the ultimatum that was given only to the most violent and disruptive “new disciples” we “swept up” off the streets.  If I did not show change, I would be put out.

I was very surprised and shocked to receive this treatment, and being overpowered, I immediately backed down and began to blame myself.  However, that moment became a milestone in my thinking about the Church of Bible Understanding and all that it stood for, and about my place in it.   Those that I lived and worked with were willing to summarily throw me out the door for having voiced a few objections about our way of life.  Traill was not opposed to this.  No one objected, nor did anyone say I had a point.   The man of truth, Stewart Traill, who was always “truthspeaking” and exposing our faults in bitter tirades against us “older brothers” at meetings which often seemed to be on the level of the Nuremberg Trials, would not permit the slightest criticism of himself.

Here is the message:

“Give this to Jim LaRue.  Tell him to read this 17 and a half times and take two aspirins.

“Jim LaRue’s world:  “The Nile is mine and I reform it into whatever I want.”  Jim LaRue’s goal is to be allowed to be left alone to put together and live in his own little world.  Jim LaRue, among other things, is very strong-willed and convinced that his own little tree world is the best off all possible worlds and, being a true believer, he is ready, willing, and able to suffer for his faith.  He refuses to accept the dominion of reality, yet he recognizes that he is also dependent on reality in order to survive and also to find “good things” to squirrel away in his tree world.  So, he is forever /committing/ and frustrated and irritated at his dependency on reality (but he will grudgingly accept the latter) and there are signs that he is starting to lose his way in this bizarre connection.  He just hasn’t gotten the concept of one or the other!  To him it is impossible to settle for only one.  So he actually argues that he will have it both ways.  The normal thing is to grow up and to realize that “I am part of something that is much, much bigger than me.”

“There are very few like Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, and Jim LaRue.”

[So, you see what I was up against.  A closer reading of this message reveals certain concepts: I am trying to do something that is impossible (trying to live in two worlds).  I am starting to crack or lose my mind (implying that standing up and speaking to Stewart is merely a symptom of my internal troubles).  In other words, it is a diagnosis of the "fact" that I am losing my mind.   I am being defined as a mental case, and I am trying to live contrary to all of reality.  (That is, contrary to Stewart's teachings, which are reality.  This is not directly stated, but, after all, it is Stewart--who represents truth—whom I have spoken against.)

Nowhere in this message is this connection mentioned (the reason why the message is being delivered), though it was plain to everyone, including myself, that the message was given as a result of what I said.  Nowhere are any of the things that I said to him mentioned or dealt with in a substantive way.  We all "knew" anyway that Stewart always went to the deeper issue in any situation--the "truth."

I am also being "offered" a way out, a way to "come to my senses," since my way, of course, is hopeless.  In his greatness, there is no retribution for what I have done, but rather a condescending offer to "join in something greater than myself."  Then, as a final mock, I am grouped with three legendary and great world conquerors, implying that I have delusions of grandeur.

This message is a pronouncement only, a diagnosis.  There is no invitation to call and talk to him.  I suspect that I was on to something real with him, and he was trying to buy me (and everyone else) off with a diversionary tactic, by an attempt to portray me as a person on the edge of sanity, someone who has a perception problem, and with a condescending offer to stop this behavior (to stop saying things like this to him) and to humbly rejoin the flock.]

For my journal page where I wrote about the incident, see the link below, then scroll down about halfway through.

jamesl1.wordpress.com/1992-0603-cast-off-into-red-hook-warehouse-living-at-its-finest/

 

 

I also mention this incident in my “Exit Statement, Why I Desire to Leave the Church of Bible Understanding.”    You can find that by looking at the menu at the right of this page for 1993, 08/15., or you can click on the link below:

cobuessays.wordpress.com/8/