{"id":635,"date":"2015-11-18T12:59:58","date_gmt":"2015-11-18T16:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ubfriends.net\/?p=635"},"modified":"2016-09-22T08:28:49","modified_gmt":"2016-09-22T13:28:49","slug":"a-former-member-poem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/a-former-member-poem\/","title":{"rendered":"A Former Member Poem"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"f\"<\/a>This poem resonated well with me. I feel as if I understand this person and can somehow relate to their experiences. It is written by a former member. See if you can figure out who wrote this. I’ll share the author in the rest of the article.<\/p>\n

Poem: Survivor’s Rights<\/em><\/p>\n

I never have to explain my past to curious on-lookers
\nI always have the right to say \u201cNO\u201d and I never have to explain.
\nMy friendships do not allow for emotional debt
\nMy opinions, feelings, and needs are as valid as anyone\u2019s
\nNo one has the right to claim my experience or to own my actions
\nI am the only credible witness of who I am and what is best for me
\nI never have to act out of guilt
\nIt is all right and appropriate to ask for and accept support
\nIf I feel hurt then I am being hurt, regardless of anyone\u2019s intentions
\nI\u2019m responsible only for my own actions, never for the actions of others
\nI have the right to extricate myself from any situation at any time
\nI can end conversations whenever they becomes too painful
\nThere is a time for me to disclose things at a pace which is right for me
\nI am my own greatest resource
\nI have a right to live without guilt and shame
\nI have a right not to be exploited by others for their personal or financial gain
\nI have a right to be loved and love again
\nLove for my fallen friends does not diminish my love for others now
\nI have a right to my own interpretation of the past
\nI have free will<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The author of this poem is\u00a0Teri Buford O’Shea<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Teri earned her B.A. in Journalism from the University of California at Berkeley. While in college, she joined Peoples Temple, drawn in by her youthful idealism and vision of a better society. She was in the Temple for seven years until her defection three weeks before the massacre.<\/p>\n

Teri\u2019s work explores the aftermath of survival: guilt, fear, grief, forgiveness, and the constant search for meaning and new beginnings. She finds inspiration in the lives of other survivors, whether they have survived war, the Holocaust, abuse, cancer, chronic illness or other life-altering experiences. Her poetry moves beyond survival to express the universality and complexity of human experience.<\/p>\n

Today is November 18th 2015. This is the 37th anniversary of the tragic event on\u00a0November 18, 1978.<\/p>\n

The world needs to take manipulation and control seriously, and\u00a0understand the\u00a0ideologies that created Jonestown<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here are some further thoughts:<\/p>\n

“Although Jim Jones and Peoples Temple reflected the traditions of the Black Church, by the time the nearly one thousand members migrated to Guyana in the mid-seventies, the gospel they worshipped had become an expurgated version of the New Testament as cherry picked by Jones. It was very light on Jesus and big on communal sharing, the absence of pride and the subsuming of self to the ideals of an idealized version of communism. To me the leader was far less interesting than his followers. Jim Jones was commonly similar to many of history\u2019s failed and troubled leaders: Charismatic, empathetic, egomaniacal, prophetic, offering a grand carrot of hope and the means to achieving a \u201cbetter life,\u201d and a big, stern stick if you even considered an alternative.”<\/p>\n

(source:\u00a0http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=64891<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This poem resonated well with me. I feel as if I understand this person and can somehow relate to their experiences. It is written by a former member. See if you can figure out who wrote this. I’ll share the author in the rest of the article. Poem: Survivor’s Rights I never have to explain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emotions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}