Richard E Kelly

I am currently writing a sequel, The Ghosts from Mama’s Club. The book is an autobiography of my life after Bethel, and it prompts the question, “So what are these ghosts?” In my story, they are dysfunctional behavior patterns, residue from the time spent in a highly controlled religious group. These ghosts can be toxic and debilitating roadblocks to a full, happy life after leaving the Club, if they’re not identified and exorcized. They are:

1. Prodigious amounts of misinformation acquired wittingly/unwittingly.
2. Constant guilt due to thinking one is not pleasing God. This occurs when old religious fears are not properly cremated.
3. The loss of cognitive thinking skills, an inability to think for oneself.
4. An insatiable need to have other people or groups do one’s thinking.
5. The inability to articulate well-thought-out religious/philosophical beliefs.
6. A potentially unhealthy attraction to high-control fundamentalist groups promising God’s truth & the correct interpretation of the Bible.
7. The inability to tolerate the insecurity of anything outside the sphere of physical science and a person’s conscious experiences.
8. A need to control other people. (When you’re abused, you can abuse)
9. A lack of self-control related to sex, alcohol or drugs.
10. The inability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time.
11. Black and white thinking, as answers were always found in the WT.
12. Difficulty understanding that the only things a person can control are one’s beliefs about events, people, circumstances, etc.
13. Difficulty assimilating into mainstream society due to JW phobias.
14. Stuck on constantly blaming the organization for robbing the best years of one’s life and unable to acknowledge one’s duplicity.
15. Obsessive time and energy spent on projects intended to topple the organization. (Expose them, yes. Toppling them isn’t going to happen as JWs fill a market niche for people in need of heavy-duty structure.)
16. A propensity to underline in ink key points in magazines and books.
17. Suffering persistent shunning by JW family and friends. (For many people, this is the most brutal ghost, and can be severely debilitating.)

I believe the most invasive of the ghosts is misinformation. Shedding “things a person knows that ain’t so” is a very challenging task. It requires cremating old religious fears. It may take years. But it can be done. If I were to leave the organization today, my recovery plan would include reading the following six books, in this order, and here’s why:

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A True Story of a
Once-in-a-Lifetime Adventure in Reno, Nevada

By Richard E. Kelly (Erika’s Papa)

It had been an exciting three days for Ruth Waalkes at the American Sheep Industry’s annual convention in Reno, Nevada—a pleasant break from the day-to-day routine of cooking and cleaning. It was a special place for someone with a lifetime passion for sewing. For Ruth, a professional seamstress and one of the top sewing instructors in west Michigan, this was a golden opportunity to meet sewing peers and see up close state-of-the-art practices in how woolen clothes were being designed and sewn.

But that wasn’t why Ruth was attending the convention. What had drawn her here was an event that would be staged on Saturday, an event that a seamstress grandmother could only dream about. Her granddaughter, Erika Kelly Waalkes, was a contestant in the National Finals for Make It With Wool contest in the Junior Division. She would be competing with thirty other contestants, ages thirteen through sixteen, all first-place winners from their home states. They were here to model dresses, skirt-jacket ensembles or coats they designed and sewed, and awards would be presented at the end of the show.

The contestants had been sequestered for two full days away from family and friends while they attended workshops, shared stories with peers, and were introduced to the latest in sewing machine technology and pattern software. They had also met with custom sewing designers, sewing experts and fashion merchandisers—the six judges—who would inspect and critique the clothes they modeled on Saturday.

As Ruth fidgeted in her seat, thinking about Erika’s chances of winning, she wasn’t alone. Sharing her angst and maternal concerns were Erika’s mom, Kim Waalkes, and Kim’s mother, Nana (Helen Kelly). Ruth had flown into Reno from Florida, Helen from Arizona, and Kim and Erika from Michigan. For the two grandmothers, this was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure—a vicarious experience, to support their fourteen-year-old princess and her dream to model sheep’s clothing. (Okay, so I had to put that in somewhere to make the title work.) But for Ruth, with her long, passionate history as a seamstress, to be here with a granddaughter who shared the same passions and talents, it was an indescribable joy.

Ruth knew the contestants would soon be introduced and escorted onto the elegant stage. The young seamstresses would model the clothes they had designed and sewn. When the staging was completed, an emcee would announce the thirteen finalists. And Ruth, along with Kim and Helen, was thinking that if Erika could at least make it into the group of thirteen, this would be the crowning glory of their adventure in Reno.

Fashion Show Competition – (photo courtesy of Mark Mirgon)

Erika had first shown an interest in sewing three years before. It may have been patterned after the fact that Grandma’s sewing expertise was woven into the fabric of her family’s day-to-day life. If someone wanted clothes for a special occasion, they asked Grandma Waalkes to make it for them. But Erika’s decision to learn to sew like Grandma was triggered when Ruth won first place for Michigan Adult Division and third place for Nationals in the Make It with Wool contest for 2008.

With a little coaxing from Grandma, Erika entered the 2009 Make It With Wool contest for the state of Michigan, Junior Division. She wanted to make a red pea coat and found a pattern that allowed her to alter the design to fit her unique sense of what’s fashionable. There’s definitely no wiggle room with Erika as she has strong opinions. It’s either in style or, “You’re not going to wear that, are you?” Just ask her Nana.

Competing with nine girls around the state of Michigan in 2009, Erika placed second and won a sewing machine. While the stitching, sewing and design of the jacket played a major role in how the judges scored, modeling was a big factor. And though Erika enjoyed the sewing experience, the modeling was critical in igniting her fire. She’s not a drama queen, but she definitely loves taking center stage.

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The 2010 Health Care Reform Law

Does it Make Sense for America?

By Richard E. Kelly, January 24, 2011

Before passage of the 2010 Health Care Reform Law, most Americans would have agreed that our health care system was flawed. And they would have cited high premiums, rapidly rising costs, insurance companies denying coverage at their discretion, and millions of American citizens unable to afford quality, reliable health care at affordable prices. So why now the cry to appeal health care reform, which appeared to have remedied many of those flaws?

Both political parties share responsibility for the flap-doodle. While health care misinformation is now at war-time propaganda levels, the roots of the problem began before the bill was passed. Among them were the lack of objective debate; ambiguous wording of the voluminous 1,017-page bill; wide disagreement between Democrats on how to implement universal health care; the appearance of impropriety—Washington making customary side deals to purchase passage of the law; and the inability of the President to frame the goals and objectives for reform in simple, easy-to-understand language.

To add insult to injury, we are now bombarded with distorted truths and overt misinformation about the 2010 Law. If Mark Twain were alive today, he might have diagnosed our problem as follows: “What gets most Americans into trouble in this health care debate is not that they know so little, but that they know so many things that ain’t so.”

Giving credibility to borrowing Twain’s assertion are polls showing an alarmingly disproportionate number of Americans who believe these things that ain’t so, including such fabrications as the new health care law covers illegal immigrants; Americans have no choice in the health benefits they receive; death panels will decide who lives; the government will set doctors’ wages; and no chemo treatment for older Medicare patients.

Per PolitiFact, the number one that ain’t so for 2010 because virtually every Republican leader told it repeatedly to the American public was: the health care reform law is a “government takeover of health care.”

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