Added July 18th, 2009:
    This is perhaps the bitterest article I've written for the paper, even moreso than my final article. It's the closest I've come to open discussion of certain issues that wouldn't really benefit by open discussion, either then or now. One of the things I use as an example comes pretty close to a direct quote that was used against me.

    The most alarming thing about this article is that I got a lot of positive feedback on it. It seems that while my specific circumstances were unique, there were a lot of people hurting out there, and a lot of them were hurting at the hands of churches and Christians. I am just thankful that I was able to maintain a separation between the actions of people, and actions that came from Christ and Christianity itself. So many people in the world are not, and I think that's where a lot of atheists who only don't believe, but are hostile towards belief and believers come from.

    The simple facts of life is that a church, or any sufficiently large organized body is going to have politics. If you're lucky, those politics can accomplish good. Unfortunately, the Bible makes pretty clear that all of us are by nature corrupt, and so even believers can end up hurting other people, usually (and hopefully) accidentally.

    In retrospect though, I was ignoring some blessings. While Point Loma did have fairly obvious clique lines (and not always confined to students), those lines were a lot thinner than most, and I was able to transcend a lot of them, getting to know and befriend a fairly wide base of the population, and very rarely feeling rejected for not being good enough. And I know of other people who transcended those lines too.

    When it comes down to it though, at this point, I am able to forgive those who have hurt me. A number of people I held anger at back then didn't do anything to hurt me, but just failed to act (or maybe even failed to notice) I was hurting. And if the circumstances were reversed, while I'd like to say I would have acted, I can't say so with absolute certainty. Plus, I have to admit that there were times that I was less than a pleasant person because of this. The stress I was going through is the primary reason for that, but it's not really an excuse.

    As for the people who did directly hurt me, I'd like to hope at least some was accidental, but even if it was purposeful, then they had issues they were dealing with. I learned early on at Point Loma that everyone had baggage. Some people's baggage can end up being a heavy burden, both for themselves and others. I just hope they're able to find the healing that I have.