Paul, quoting you:

So Phil gets his hammer and John gets his saw.  Pat gets her loving sewing
kit and Helen gets her aspirin and all the rest contribute to your
healing.  They start hacking
and whacking away at you until you are a bleeding, painful mess and in your
pain you go off confused and dazed and hurt others searching for help you
were never allowed to be given because of your helpful friends  -end quote-

This comment is bad enough, and as about as un-Christian as anything I have
ever read.

And quoting you again:

I can no longer be a part of a group whose self-pride and
self-righteousness is so strong that they will allow you to continue to
come to them so they can feel like good Christians.  -end quote-

But this judgmental accusation aimed at everyone but yourself, is the
worst, and
as long as you feel free to publicly chastise us, I feel it is our
God-given right, and duty, to express our own reactions to your very
uncalled-for rebuke.

As you said, poor dear Chris will probably not even understand what you are
saying.
Then why did you address this to him?  Why did you not address it to the list?
The message is clear, dear brother, and contains no spirit of God's Love,
either to us or to Chris.

Quoting you again:

I will not post publicly for a while to ensure that it is not my own
self-pride saying all of this.  -end quote-

It is unfortunate that you did not ensure yourself of that before posting.

Helen





At 02:16 AM 1/14/04 -0500, you wrote:
>Hey, Chris
>
>Imagine that you had a bad toothache and needed to see a dentist.  But your
>loving friends are concerned the dentist will hurt you.  So Phil gets his
>hammer and John gets his saw.  Pat gets her loving sewing kit and Helen gets
>her aspirin and all the rest contribute to your healing.  They start hacking
>and whacking away at you until you are a bleeding, painful mess and in your
>pain you go off confused and dazed and hurt others searching for help you
>were never allowed to be given because of your helpful friends.  In
>Christian love, of course.  But what's wrong?  The tools are all good.  Of
>course they are.  They've seen Matt build bird houses with them!  They know
>they work.  The problem is, Chris, they don't know how to use those very
>useful, very helpful tools to help you. Not in your case.
>
>I don't know if you even understand what I'm saying.  Apparently they don't.
>When you were first on the list I begged them to stop feeding into your
>problems because they were doing you more harm than good.  They just are not
>qualified to give you the help you need.  And with every well intentioned
>note they just set you off spinning again in ways that could harm you more
>or cause you to harm others as you whizz off in some unknown direction they
>can neither know nor control.  You left the list for a while and there was a
>debate about whether to have you come back on.  I begged them not to do it
>because, again, I thought you need more help than anyone here can give you.
>In my personal and, yes, unprofessional, opinion (and I've told you this
>publicly many times) you need the kind of help that can only come from a
>residential program.  And the more people on this list feed into your need
>for attention the less likely you will seek out that program.  What I never
>realized until now is that if Phil didn't see it in his daughter's need for
>a residential drug treatment center he wouldn't see it, and out of respect
>or their own misguidance, others wouldn't see it either for her or for you.
>
>My point is, Chris, that you need help.  More help than we can give you.
>And as long as you keep coming here you will not go there (to get the
>counseling by competent people you can be with in person any time of the day
>or night).  And all the prayers from all the world are not going to change
>that.  It's irresponsible to try.  It's no better than being in a church
>where there is a child with a gun and saying "If we treat him nice he won't
>hurt himself or anybody else."  That is not right morally or ethically.
>
>I know, "I ! am ! mad ! I ! will ! quit ! the ! list !"  Don't bother,
>Chris.  I am leaving the list.  (If I can remember how.  Laughing out loud.
>If not, I'm sure Vicki will help me.)  I can no longer be a part of a group
>whose self-pride and self-righteousness is so strong that they will allow
>you to continue to come to them so they can feel like good Christians and
>thereby risk you hurting yourself or others rather than encouraging you to
>get off this list and get into that treatment center you need.
>
>I will not post publicly for a while to ensure that it is not my own
>self-pride saying all of this.  (Unless Vicki decides to unsub me after this
>note.)  So I'd hope any responses to this note will be to me privately.
>Except yours, Chris.  I don't believe we have anything to say to each other
>privately and am publicly posting this note so that neither you nor those
>who call you or forward notes to you misquote me.  And, frankly, part of
>your problem is misquoting other people.  I don't make innuendoes and then
>publicly say I was misquoted when what I inferred is understood and
>responded to as has been done on this list before.  I hope that, someday, if
>they don't change the list name again...smile...you will get the treatment
>you need, come back and read this note in the archives, and realize it was
>out of concern for you and others that I wrote it.
>
>May you find the true healing that only comes through JESUS CHRIST through
>the competent professionals He uses in His wisdom and knowledge as He used
>Dr. Luke and wine for Timothy's stomach despite all of the apostles around
>him.
>
>Paul