Epilogue

The only place I couldn't escape The Way was in my dreams. For years I had no contact with anyone from The Way or its successors, yet I couldn't stop dreaming about it.

The usual dream rehearsed the same scenario over and over. I was back in the Corps, living and eating and sleeping and going to meetings with the Corps, yet I did not believe. I knew I needed to tell someone at some point that I didn't believe, but I wanted to do it in the right place, at the right time.

Sitting on a pillow on a hardwood floor, listening to a teaching with several hundred others, was not the right time. Standing on a rooftop, where I'd been housed with other Corps who were all sitting on their cots reading their Bibles, was not the right time. Walking in a stream of people flowing from a bus to an auditorium, where we were all going to hear another fantastic teaching, was not the right time. Standing on the street with a new believer, trying to arrange transportation to the Rock of Ages, was not the right time.

In my dreams I sometimes wondered how I got myself into this mess, returning to The Way when I didn't believe, but I never paused to regret it. I had made the decision and I would stand by it. Running away was not an option. I decided to come back, my reasons were sound at the time, and whatever they were didn't matter now. It was decided, and here I stood.

But I had to tell someone that I didn't believe! And yet, in every situation I found myself, it would have been so inappropriate. It would have thrown cold water on everyone's joy. Everyone would have looked at me, shocked, and said, "How can you not believe?!"

There is never an appropriate time and place in The Way to say you don't believe.

They never asked me if I believed. They just told me what I should believe. They told me that if I did believe, God would do this, that and the other for me. This, that and the other looked good to me, and the believers looked good to me too. They all believed, and look what it did for them. I decided to believe to see what it would do for me.

What it did for me was turn me into one of them.

I spent a year making up my mind to believe, five years believing full-tilt and one year talking myself out of believing.

Now I've spent ten years not believing, and I can tell you from experience that it's far better.

But in that damnably persistent dream, I was surrounded every night by beautiful, happy people, believers all. I was an island of unbelief in an ocean of believers. I knew I had to tell someone I didn't believe, but the opportunity never came.

This book has become my way of making the opportunity.

I do not believe.

© Karl Kahler 1999