Many of those marriages have been annulled, probably because if they weren’t out and out arranged, they were certainly shaped by “pastoral leaders” and the coordinators. Part of this relational dysfunction was the legend of “no divorces” in LOG, but there were some after members left, and then many more once the community dissolved, not the least of which was head coordinator Dave Nodar and his wife Cheryl. Shootings at the nearby middle school (where, for a time, LOG held general community gatherings) made my decision a lot easier. It was also tough for me to move out of the cluster area, but I knew I had to do so in order to break the hold I let LOG have over me. In LOG, even though I did have genuine friendships there, the underlying, unwritten rule was that you had to befriend everybody, which is just not realistic or even desirable. Like love, friendship is a choice, and people move in and out of my life. It also helped me realize something else: I don’t have relationships with most of those co-workers now, and that’s okay. It took a long time for me to realize that I could have successful relationships with those who didn’t see things the way I did, and one of the things that most helped me was the year and a half I spent working with a team of 45 on rotating shift work. Considering the teachings we got which purported that the world outside LOG and similar “covenant communities” was an eeeevil place, it was easy for me and others in LOG to become inwardly focused. Once I left LOG, I discovered that knowing and living around only like-minded people wasn’t necessarily a good thing. I enjoyed walking along Westgate, Stamford, and Rock Glen Roads and saying hi to the various community members who lived there. It also kept property values from falling, which they did after most LOG members moved out. ![]() Intentionally or not, the West Baltimore/Catonsville “cluster” in which most LOG members lived seemed to be an attempt to keep the close-knit neighborhoods of the past going, the ones where everybody knew everybody. ![]() ![]() I’m not doing so because I dislike the people who were involved one of the things I miss about community life is having so many like-minded friends so close by. I know that some of my fellow former Lamb of God Community members may not appreciate what I’m doing by writing this blog. 430 Westgate Road, the last house in which I lived as a Lamb of God member.
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