Pluck’s Blog

Hannah, my writing coach and editor, asked if writing, Not of My Making, was cathartic. No, I told her. It wasn’t like that. Although many people assume it was. Writing my book was not an exercise in releasing pent up anger or other intense emotions that I had repressed years before. After all, most of the book was written shortly after the events or as they were unfolding. I was fully aware of my feelings and was actively seeking a solution to the conflict that confronted me.

However, the writing process allowed me to sort through events and figure out what had happened and why. I was desperate to tell my story. My adversaries did everything they could to prevent me from talking to others including shunning, expulsion from church and threatening legal action against me. It felt as if they had bound and gagged me and if I didn’t find a way to fight back I would lose myself. Then it came to me. I could take my journal and emails and write about what happened. While my adversaries were successful in silencing me within our church community, the First Amendment of the United States Constitution protected my right to talk to others outside of church and write a book about it. Every time someone reads my book or talks to me about bullying in churches I and other abuse survivors win.

Not of My Making provides support and comfort to those who have been similarly mistreated. United in a common cause we can seek ways to reduce the incidence of abuse in schools, work and religious communities. If you haven’t read the book, I urge you to do so. You will learn who is targeted and why; what the long term consequences are for the target; and what the target can do to protect themselves. The book is of interest not only to survivors of abuse but to clergy and mental health professionals who want to help their clients overcome their own abuse experiences. Click here enter the pass code Thrive to get 35% off the book. Or you can order the book from Amazon or Barnes & Noble Online.

Friday, September 18th, while I was inline skating at Poncin Hewlett Athletic Park, Jim stopped me. “Did you hear?” he asked me.

“Hear what?” I asked.

“Do you remember that lady that used to walk here?”

“Do you mean Kathy?” I asked.

“Yes. She passed away,” he said.

“Passed away,” I repeated. “How? When?”

“I don’t know but I’m going to go to the wake.”

“Thanks for telling me,” I said as I skated away.

I hadn’t known Kathy was ill. It had been months since I heard from her. I kept trying to get together with her but she never had enough time. I thought she wasn’t really interested in being friends. I gave up but kept thinking I should call.

When I got back to the house I called First Baptist Church and asked if the rumor was true. “Yes,” the woman said. “We are very upset about it.”

“Do you know the funeral plans?” I asked.

“Calling hours and the funeral will be on Wednesday at the funeral home next to the church.”

Sunday Ken, Kathy’s second husband, called early in the morning while I was dressing for church. He was upset when he realized he wasn’t the first one to tell me of his wife’s death. “She was well loved by many people,” I said. “The news spread fast.”
We talked for thirty minutes. “The doctors,” he said, “kept saying she needed to eat but at home she was eating.” He then told me everything she ate before going into the hospital. But it was too late. Ken’s deep love for his wife couldn’t fix the damage done by Kathy’s first husband. She had aged early. Her back was bent. She lived in fear. She grazed but seldom ate a full meal. She remained underweight. In the end her electrolytes were out of balance. She had a heart attack and died the day she was to be discharged from the hospital.

Victims of abuse struggle their whole lives. On average they die younger than those who have been well treated. One of the lingering effects for me as a survivor is I never know who is or isn’t a friend or ally. I expect abandonment. When Kathy stopped calling I assumed she was no longer interested in being friends. When Ken called I realized he regarded me as his wife’s friend. My eyes filled with tears as I set the phone in its cradle.

I remembered meeting Kathy approximately four years ago in the early hours just before dawn as I stretched before my skate at the park. Kathy was a newcomer to the park who unlike the park veterans chattered gaily as she walked the path stopping to introduce herself to everyone she passed. “Do you know Jim?” she asked. “He walks here too.”

“Oh, the old man,” I said.

“Who is that guy walking the golden retrievers?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“I’m going to find out,” she said. In that way, Kathy turned strangers into the early morning exercise club. Soon we were talking and joking as we passed each other on the trail.

Kathy entered my life at a time when I was friendless and hungry for connection. As we exercised in the park she told me she was a retired chemistry teacher and was widowed and remarried. She often praised her first husband but once she trusted me she told me he had been an abusive alcoholic. As a Christian Kathy didn’t want to speak ill of the dead. On Tuesdays Kathy frequently traveled into Stoughton near my office to visit her mother and the graves of her late husband and father. Despite numerous invitations she never joined me for lunch. I also tried to get her to go with me to book club. She didn’t want to go out at night. Finally as I skated along side her near the basketball courts I said, “Don’t you have time for friendship?”

“Of course I do, Miss Margaret,” That was Kathy’s affectionate way of addressing me. It was a compromise. I wanted her to call me by my nickname but after learning I held a doctorate in psychology she refused to address me without an honorific. Doctor was too formal so she called me Miss Margaret.

A few days later on Friday she finally came over to my house for lunch. She brought her own sandwich. After we ate we sat in the living room talking about faith. Kathy told me about her friend who was a nun in the convent in Plainville.

Kathy invited me to her husband’s choral concert to be held at Immanuel. Fearful she would learn about me from my enemies I asked her not to believe everything she heard about me. Kathy wasn’t interested in the church gossip. She encouraged me to come any way. My husband and I went despite my fears. Kathy greeted us and had no problem being seen with us.

In May 2007 things took a turn for the worse in Kathy’s life. She was in a major car accident. I went to visit her at Rhode Island Hospital and then at the rehab center in Boston. It was then I became aware she didn’t like to eat. Mary at the park had commented once on how Kathy’s back was curved and bony and wondered what was wrong. I suspected anorexia.

Ken and Kathy listening to music at the launch of Not of My Making

After her discharge from the hospital Kathy would occasionally stop by with gifts for my newborn grandson or to show me her new car. She supported my book, Not of My Making by attending my book launch party and buying copies for herself and family.

The last time I saw Kathy was about a year ago when I returned from my church trip to The Museum of the Russian Icons. She had an article about bullying she wanted to share with me. She also had concert tickets. I couldn’t go this time. Conflicting obligations. I am sorry now that I didn’t make the time. I thought I had more time. I didn’t.

When I skate at the park I see Kathy in my mind’s eye greeting everyone and encouraging me as I practiced my spin stop.
“You’ll get it, Miss Margaret, I know you will.”

My eyes filled with tears as I set the phone in its cradle.

Margaret Jones sitting behind her table at the All Saints Anglican Craft and Vendor Fair on September 12, 2009 in Attleboro, MA.

Despite the rain and having to move inside, business was brisk. Sales of both the rosaries and Not of My Making: Bullying, Scapegoating and Misconduct in Churches were excellent. Most people knew someone who was abused and mistreated not only in churches but in school, home and work and were able to identify with the author’s story.

Last Wednesday, August 12, Wayne Kent, a radio talk show host from Decatur, Illinois, interviewed me. His show, Direct Line, is designed as a live call-in event where current events are discussed through a lens of spirituality. Rev. Kent asked thoughtful questions about the impact of abuse on my life and what it was like to be cast out of my church family. I especially appreciated his own honesty when he admitted to bullying a classmate. To his credit as an adult he attempted to find her and apologize.

Time, of course, is at a premium on radio. The interview was like trying to talk to someone riding a bicycle faster than I could run. I could keep up only so long before they pulled away from me. With only a few minutes to make my point I found myself striving for a good sound bite when I prefer a longer conversation.

After discussing the impact of the abuse and what motivated my attackers, Rev. Kent asked if I forgave my adversaries. Whenever this question is asked I feel sick to my stomach. It churns acid. My arms are pinned to my side and I have trouble breathing. “I don’t know,” I told Rev. Kent.

I wish I had said, why do you ask me that question? If you read Not of My Making you would know I never sought revenge. I wanted reconciliation but my efforts only increased their abusive behavior towards me. I was powerless and terrified. During the church conflict my adversaries berated me for attending church before forgiving them while they insisted they had done nothing wrong. Fr. Lance at my present church has said they were seeking absolution which wasn’t mine to give.

While I remain confused about the difference between forgiveness and absolution, it appears to me forgiveness to my adversaries meant never talking about what happened. They expected me to come to church and act as if everything was still the same between us. I was, however, never good at pretending. I wanted to resolve our differences. The only way I knew how to do that was to discuss the issues that divided us.

Christians often rush to forgiveness believing that will heal everyone’s wounds. They crave stories of redemption. Since perpetrators rarely admit their sin and repent, Christians focus on getting victims to forgive.

Have you forgiven? The question leaves me flustered and unable to make a clear reply. Forgiven who and for what? What do you mean by forgiveness? Writers define it differently. No wonder I don’t know if I have forgiven them or not.

What I can tell you is I never sought revenge. I had a few fantasies of the church blowing up or burning down but I never planned to get even. Instead I tried to get my adversaries to discuss what happened. I was desperate for them to understand me. They were my friends. I wanted them to listen. I wanted to fix things. I wanted them to remain my friends. I would have done almost anything to regain my place in the church except lie. I wasn’t going to be untrue to myself. It was my former friends who sought revenge by driving me out of the church.

So have I forgiven them for that? Geoffrey Robinson, a Catholic bishop, wrote in Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church, that he has found survivors who say they haven’t forgiven yet who by his definition have. Perhaps I am one of those. I don’t know. When I consciously chose not to excuse what my former friends did to me and stopped seeking reconciliation I healed and moved on. I will leave it to God to judge whether I have forgiven or not.

When I first read Daphne’s review of my book, I gasped. Oh, my God, I thought. She is identifying with the clergy who breached confidentiality and congregants who chose to gossip about me. What does that say about her? Does she value civility over truth and kindness while stigmatizing anyone with a history of depression and anxiety?

In her review Daphne distorts the facts of my life by minimizing the abuse I suffered and exaggerating the length and intensity of my emotional problems. She appears to view my depression and anxiety as long-term and unchangeable character defects rather than the predictable and treatable response to sexual, physical and emotional abuse. Consequently, she rejects my premise that nothing I did merited the spiritual abuse I suffered. Instead she agrees with my adversaries that I have “significant problems getting along with other people” and that I “fail to take responsibility”. Like my adversaries Daphne does not take into account my successful marriage and good relationships with my children and others outside of the congregations I wrote about.

In addition to her belief that I lack good social skills, Daphne concludes my therapist had to be right when he wondered if my perceptions created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Dr. Emmett’s knowledge of the self-fulfilling prophecy comes from a well-known study where it was shown that teacher expectations about student’s potential achievement influenced how well or poorly students performed. Less widely known is that the study was never replicated and subsequent research showed that the “effects are minimal for most teachers because expectations are generally accurate and open to corrective feedback.” Even if the phenomenon of self-fulfilling prophecy was real and significant Daphne ignores that prior to being betrayed and rejected I had expected friendship, loyalty and understanding. Instead I was emotionally abused and shunned.

Finally, in her review Daphne is using the self-fulfilling prophecy as a way to blame the bullied and to exonerate the bully and the bystander. By blaming victims and insisting that if they behaved differently abuse wouldn’t occur gives onlookers a false sense of security that it couldn’t happen to them. Some how they are stronger and wiser than the victim and it is the victim’s weakness that is the cause of the problem. However, all of us have vulnerabilities that other people can manipulate to further their own selfish agendas without regard to our welfare.

The second round of my virtual book tour occurred during the first weekend in May. It was a challenging weekend. I found myself debating with atheists while responding to comments about spiritual abuse at five different blog stops. It all started when I began promoting my blog stops by posting on Tweeter:

Problems with church started when I said I was uncomfortable with having a gay minister. Unitarian Universalists weren’t tolerant.

The problems followed me as clergy talked about me and allowed others to gossip. In the end the Lutherans didn’t want me either.

I have finally found a safe place among traditional Christians who walk the talk. Learn more at …

It is then that Taigitsune, a systems administrator for the Unitarian Universalist Association, asked, “In what way did you question it?”

I hesitated. What did he mean “in what way”? Was he asking if I was polite and respectful or was he asking what my specific doubts were about having a gay minister? Why did it matter? I replied by directing him to the day’s blog stop.

He replied he didn’t see any mention of Unitarian Universalists there and Unitarian Universalists weren’t mainline Christian. Some UUs are Christian others are not, I replied. In New England they are certainly mainstream. I was a UU for ten years. Taigitsune then wrote, that one of Unitarian Universalist’s seven principles is the inherent worth and dignity of each person including gay ministers. So who, he asked, was really intolerant?

The Unitarian Universalists I answered without hesitation. Tolerance is the practice of allowing or respecting the beliefs of others. In 1993 when I expressed discomfort but indicated I was willing to discuss the issue, my fellow congregants responded by refusing to talk directly to me. Instead they gossiped.

Taigitsune expressed the common UU conceit that they are more tolerant than other churches insisting they don’t place doctrinal demands on their members. But they do. There is an expectation members are political and social liberals with an interest in other religions except Christianity. Tagitsune also wrote that the scapegoating was merely my perception of things. Not so I thought. I was expelled. Told never to return. “No,” I replied, “Scapegoating is a set of behaviors. It is how people avoid taking responsibility for their cruel behavior.”

On the second day of the blog tour Shtole, one of Taigitsune’s followers, joined the conversation by retweeting Taigitsune’s, “If you think you’re right, you’re probably not.” I replied to both of them, “Then you must be wrong since you are so sure I am wrong and you are right.” Taigitsune withdrew and soon it was five against one. I am proud to say I held my own. I didn’t flinch. While not all of my arguments were strong and articulate I did not let them bully me. I demonstrated to other survivors how to stand up for oneself. During this exchange the number of my followers jumped confirming the more I am myself, the more people follow.

During this hot debate I was simultaneously discussing on We Survived Abuse recovery from spiritual abuse. On John’s Grace Walk we talked about why I didn’t leave the abusive churches sooner. On Sunday I stopped by T Michael Cart’s Truth in Ministry where people responded to my Letter to Spiritual Abuse Survivors. We talked about making church a refuge or safe place for all. On Monday at Under Much Grace we talked about patriarchal structures and patriocentricity where the family patriarch is central to family life and family members. We also discussed restriction of emotional display and speaking up for oneself.

Thank you to all the lovely people who have supported me by hosting a blog stop. Together we will plant the seeds needed to reform our churches making them better places for everyone.

The first week of my blog tour is over. Sitting in front of a hotel window overlooking Lake George in the Adirondacks I have some time to reflect on how it went. At the end of Day 1 Deena of A Survivor’s Thoughts on Life emailed me asking me if it turned out okay and expressing the hope that my other stops would turn out better. I replied:

I think the blog stop worked out fine. It gained some exposure for both of us. I know several people read the post even if they didn’t write comments. Some people emailed me privately. One has asked me to write a book with him on friendship. You cannot tell right away how successful a marketing campaign is or isn’t. Some books sold.

Book marketing is hard work. I had to take time to read my hosts’ blogs and write a post for them to use on their blog. My hosts read my book, wrote a review and helped moderate the comments. During the blog stop I monitored comments and responded to readers as close to real time as possible. I also twittered about it motivating people to read the posts and comment. I offered the incentive of a drawing for a free book. Mary Morgan won the drawing for re-tweeting the announcement and Cat M won for writing a comment.

Day One of the tour I stopped at Aida Calder’s Forgetting the Former Things and at Deena’s A Survivor’s Thoughts on Life. Both women posted reviews of my book on their blogs. I then posted my reaction. Several women followed me at Forgetting the Former Things, commented and retweeted my messages about the virtual book tour. Deena asked me questions throughout the day and I responded.

My third blog stop was at The Apostle Wive’s Club. A few women who had commented at Forgetting the Former Things followed me there. Before “meeting” the owner of the blog I had never given any thought of how the Catholic Church responded to priests who broke their celibacy vow and married. Their reaction appears hypocritical. Over the past decades the Catholic Church has covered up sexual abuse and reassigned offending priests. Why are they so forgiving of pedophiles but not of priests who fall in love and marry?

The fourth tour was at Book Hookup where Donna Sundblad asked me to write about what inspired Not of My Making. Read The Healing Journey

The blog tour has gotten me out of my comfort zone and I have “met” several interesting people. That has been one of the unplanned benefits of book marketing. Immediately following my de-churchings I became mildly agoraphobic and withdrew into myself. Book marketing forced me to be assertive and outgoing. I wasn’t going to sell many books if I withdrew into the safety of my home.

If you missed the blog stops you can still read the posts about Not of My Making, spiritual abuse, friendship and book writing. They are located at:

Forgetting the Former Things

Haunted by the Ghosts of Spiritual Abuse

Aida Calder’s Review of Not of My Making

A Survivor’s Thoughts on Life:

Interview with Margaret W Jones, Ph.D.

Is Shunning a Form of Emotional Abuse

Deena’s Review of Not of My Making

Not of My Makng, Part 2

Not of My Making, Part 1

Not of My Making, Initial Reaction to Book

I Met Someone Today – Divine Appointment?

The Apostles Wives Club:

Margaret Answers Your Questions

Book Hookup:

What Inspired Not of My Making?

Week Two of the Tour will start May 2^nd. Please join me. The schedule is:

With the help of my virtual assistant, Lee Drozak I have been planning a virtual book tour for Not of My Making: Bullying, Scapegoating and Misconduct in Churches. The tour will start on Monday, April 13^th at Aida Calder’s blog, Forgetting the Former Things.

In setting up the tour I have had the honor to correspond with and talk to a number of wonderful people dedicated to helping fellow survivors overcome abuse. Read Deena Springer’s post about our phone conversation at A Survivor’s Thoughts on Life

As I wanted, my book is promoting a discussion about abuse in churches. Below are my responses to some issues raised by John Weaver of  Against Biblical Counseling:

John wrote:

I think what your book does do well is provide an insight into the kind of doctrinal and internal in-fighting that goes on in mainline churches. I was shocked to find that Unitarianism can be so divisive. Coming out of the evangelical tradition, I had no idea that Unitarian belief – which many evangelicals (not me) believe is too vague to provoke disagreement – can provoke such profound disagreements among its members.

My response:

People argue about whatever they feel passionate about. While Unitarians insist they have no doctrine, in fact, they do. Some of its tenets are: man is good, there is no sin, morality is relative, all value systems are equal except Christianity which is the cause of most wars, homosexual behavior is biologically determined and is not a sin, it is wrong to be a Republican etc. If you step outside of this even a fraction of an inch you will be accused as I was of not being a real Unitarian. Unitarians tend to be far left ideologues who play with religion picking and choosing what makes them feel good from the world’s religions while condemning or ignoring the parts that they find too challenging. Often Unitarian churches are no more than left wing political organizations masquerading as religion.

John further wrote:

The situation you describe in your book is hard for an outside reader to judge accurately, especially when only presented with one side of it.

I replied:

I asked my adversaries to share their perspectives on the events I wrote about in my book. They refused. From what I can deduce, they believe I am unreasonable and bad and it is better not to help me. I hope and pray that they know at some level that what they did was wrong and are ashamed to have it out there in print. Maybe some day they will apologize just as my high school classmate has. You can read about that in my blog post, “Facebook Redemption”? Be sure to read Jeff Fisher’s comment. It corroborates my high school experience and will give you a glimpse of how I was viewed when I was a teenager.

John wrote:

I am not saying your church(s) did not scapegoat you, just that it would be impossible for me or any other blogger to be able to honestly say they knew the ‘truth’ of your story, even if the sole guidepost they were using is your text. In this, it differs, from, say, Renee Altson’s book Stumbling Toward Faith, where it is obvious to any reader that Altson underwent extreme abuse at the hands of evangelical church leadership. Similarly, too, the Mercy survivors I cover obviously were abused by their exorcists, as careful research into Mercy Ministries clearly demonstrates.

My response:

I suspect you and/or your readers are having difficulty accepting that emotional and relational abuse can cause as much damage as the severe sexual and physical abuse and/or you do not believe people who share your values are capable of being abusive. Psychological research has discovered it is the emotional abuse that accompanies most sexual or physical abuse which causes the most harm. That is why you can have a woman who has been raped by a stranger on the street and whose family rallied behind her, not develop PTSD while someone who has been neglected and emotionally abused by their parents develop severe PTSD. As for who is capable of being abusive, we all are. It is part of our animal natures. Watch videos on great ape groups. Alpha males will kill the infants of competing males. Physical abuse of weaker apes is the norm. As human beings we get to choose. We can be beasts or we can develop a sense of morality and learn to protect those weaker than ourselves. As a Christian I do not believe we can do this without God.

John:

Please note that I am not saying you were not scapegoated or abused by your church. I believe your interpretation of these events is very likely the correct one, especially after reading some of the crueler comments fellow church members made about you. But I simply can not prove this conclusively from the text, as I can with Stumbling Toward Faith.

My response:

I read through the reviews of Stumbling Toward Faith and see it is a memoir just as my book is. I do not see any mention that she presented any corroborating evidence to her story. So I am puzzled that you find her story more credible simply because the abuse she describes appears on the surface to be more severe.

John:

I also think you create a strong bond of sympathy with your readers. I felt greatly worried for your past and present mental health after I read the book.

My response

I am puzzled that you “felt greatly worried” for my present mental health. If you read through to the end of my book you should realize that I was on the road to recovery and that I received treatment from a competent and well trained therapist. I suspect you see me as weaker and sicker than I am now or ever was. This is a common error. To quote Elie Wiesel: “Their experience has set them apart: they are neither better nor worse, but different, more vulnerable and at the same time more hardened than you.”

John:

Please feel free to use any excerpt from this e-mail to help advance your book. I do think there are many good aspects to it, and the pre-Unitarian section is particularly strong.

My response:

Thank you for taking the time to read my book and providing me with a critique. I wanted to learn more about you but couldn’t find any information about your background. You will see from my websites I strive for openness and transparency. I want there to be no mistake as to who I am and what I stand for.

Part of the journey of writing and publishing a book is putting yourself out there and asking for reviews. This can be a little nerve racking and a rollercoaster ride for ones ego. When Not of My Making received excellent reviews from Midwest Book Review, Joanne Carnavale (A Reader and a Writer Reviews) and others I was ecstatic with pride, joy and relief. There was no difficulty deciding what to do with them. I just basked in the warm praise happy I succeeded in writing a compelling story well.

Reviewers brought something of themselves when they read my book and when they wrote their review. Those reviewers who wrote the book was outstanding understood its central theme and identified with having been bullied and mistreated. Those reviewers who were less positive either could not identify with my experience or were expecting something that I did not promise. One reviewer, for instance, wanted to read more about my childhood and the impact of the church conflict on my marriage. I don’t think I promised to do that in my advertising blurbs and in my view, was not central to the story I wanted to tell.

This reviewer also wrote that I espoused a belief in a distant but noble God. That is not something I actually said and that he inferred. It is not how I would characterize my faith. He also appeared to treat my faith as something that was static and unchanging rather than a journey of moving away from and then back to Christianity. During the experiences I wrote about I was confused by the failure of my former friends to walk their talk. The paradox is that while I do not speak the traditional Christian talk, my tenacity and perseverance in the face of rejection and abuse demonstrated significant faith in God and Jesus. I didn’t give up on church. I am finally a member of a church where there is a sincere emphasis on leading an authentic Christian life. It is not just a Sunday feel good hour.

Another review appears to be more about the reviewer’s misperceptions about me and anger rather than about the quality of the book. She accuses me of holding onto anger and failing to move on. As a psychologist I can’t help but wonder if she is projecting her own fears, hurts and repressed anger onto me. She fails to recognize the long-term impact of neglect, verbal and physical abuse when she describes my parents as merely “very critical”. When survivors such as myself tell their stories, it is their fervent hope that by doing so they are helping to prevent others from being abused and are providing comfort to those who are still struggling with their own victimization.

Writing Not of My Making was a painful journey of discovering why my parents, classmates and former friends were so cruel. I am grateful to everyone who has taken the time to read my book. I pray that their knowledge and understanding of survivors has increased and they are less likely to blame the victim. I also pray they will support groups who are trying to end abuse and care for survivors.

Now that I have poured out my heart and soul into writing and producing Not of My Making, Bullying, Scapegoating and Misconduct I needed to get the word out that my book is available. Following advice gleaned from books and the internet I submitted my book for review and was pleased to receive outstanding reviews from Midwest Book Reviews, TCM Reviews and Lightword Reviews. I even received an unsolicited review from Joanne Carnevale of A Reader and Writer Reviews. I was ecstatic. I was surely going to succeed and sell all the books I printed. But just as I was riding the wave of my success an individual who hasn’t read my book posted a comment to Midwest’s review of my book challenging their credibility and implying either I or Pluck Press paid for the review. Neither of which is true.

Now why would someone out of the hundreds of books Midwest reviews pick on the review of my book to disparage? Why not go directly to the reviewers profile page and challenge her directly? Were they somehow connected to the antagonists I wrote about in Not of My Making? I checked their profiles. One person had his or her name as Ghost, another just an initial and last name. They provided so little information about themselves that it has not been possible to find out anything more about them.

I was uncertain how to handle it. I wondered what kind of impact if any it would have on book sales. I decided to explain Midwest Book Reviews policies and inform Ghost and the others that I had not paid and will never pay to have my book reviewed. They always had a come back. I found myself talking about the credibility of Midwest Book Reviews and a reviewer who I never met instead of about bullying in churches.

I didn’t want to be arguing about the veracity of book reviews. The publishing industry established its customs and procedures long before I came along. I have to use them to my best advantage to accomplish my own goal. I want to share my story and make people aware of adult bullying in churches. I love church and want to help make it a safe place for all.

Read my book and judge for yourself. I invite you to participate in the discussion about bullying in schools, work and churches. Have you ever been bullied? Have you bullied someone? Did you watch someone get bullied? If so, did you intervene or did you do nothing? Why did you do what you did? How can we decrease bullying and help others find a place within the communities to which we belong?