More on The I Am Activity

The "I AM" Activity

Since there have been at least 50 page views of the above article in the last month I realize it is one of the articles people seem to be interested in.

My own opinion about what the "I am" Activity actually was when I grew up (I really can't say what it is completely about now) because I haven't been member since 1969 when I was 21. I found that as I grew up I first accepted the religion as a young child as being like most kids, "the way things were in the Universe" when they are raised in a religion worldwide. Since my parents were put in charge of the Los Angeles Church in 1954 when there were about 500 to 1000 members at that time. Since most had joined the religion during the 1930s my mother conducted at least 300 funerals and memorials during that time and all were cremated according to the ideals of the church. When my mother's father died she had what was then called "a nervous breakdown" and my mother and father asked to be relieved from their duties as lay ministers, even though my father continued to lead a "Violet Flame Class"  on Wednesday nights and sometimes "Fundamental Classes" on Monday or Tuesday nights for new people and for regular member required to go through fundamentals at least once a year as a sort of refresher.

Around age 9 or 10 I began to question the sanity of some "I Am" students, especially when an old lady grabbed my lapels on my suit and sang, "I love money, I love money, I love money, oh Mighty I am". After this experience though I was still very polite as a lay minister's son but I became scared of some "I am" students after that and wondered if they were all there. So, just like in any church you might feel that about 50% of the people have it pretty well together and the rest don't in varying degrees.

Just like Christian Science (in fact Mr. And Mrs. Ballard were students of a famous Christian Science practitioner) we used positive thinking. And sometimes people died because they wouldn't go to the doctor for ailments. However, this has changed (at least for people who go to college in the church) when I was growing up. Also, at that time there was a lot of worry that our church members were being corrupted by liberal Colleges. So, in this sense there was a very conservative Republican point of view in the church (at least when I grew up). So, when I went to college I learned very quickly what I found to be both incredibly good and incredibly bad about both Conservative and Liberal points of view to the point where I became an independent in my thinking. So, rather than being political I vote for what will help my country survive. Often I don't even consider what would be best for me personally. Rather I vote for my country, it's constitution and bill of rights to survive anything that comes for future generations ongoing.