[Oe List ...] Following up on my earlier "bomb"

Thu Jul 24 13:55:28 PDT 2025

I just simply want to tell you thank you for your courage.

On Thu, Jul 24, 2025, 2:55 PM Mary Combs via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
wrote:

> Thank you, Shelley, for your sharing and willingness to be vulnerable in
> expression of your truth. My heart goes out to you for your courage and for
> that suffering. I have only just joined this list and am so grateful to see
> this kind of healing interaction taking place. The OE was life changing for
> me and my family, before, during and after. My dad and mom, Braxton & Marge
> Combs, were students of Joseph Matthews at SMU/Perkins in Dallas and he
> visited us many times in California where they moved for their ministry. We
> were in 5th City in the summer of ‘67, lived in Religious House in San
> Francisco in the early 70’s, my parents lived in the Paris House while I
> was in (the first?) Student House in ‘73-74. We left and my parents went
> back to work in the local church in California. Talk about culture shock!
> Later, to try to make some sense of it, I attended Academy in Chicago and
> did a paper on the progress in 5th City for college. My husband attended
> Academy in Belgium in ‘83. More recently, I was (luckily- thanks Julianne!)
> found on FB and joined that group list in time to join the 2G reunion in
> Bloomington. I just got David’s book and am enjoying starting to read it.
> Connecting with all of you feels like opening a special gift I didn’t
> realize I needed. So many rich memories! So much to process.
> What I know for sure is this: Our OE founders and leaders and our parent’s
> who joined created a vision for the future that was(is) so profound and
> radical and, just the fact they did so, that’s still super hopeful for me,
> especially considering where our world is now. It is still relevant and
> worthy of celebrating, but the deep sharing and healing from within that
> must also continue. The story is still being written!
> Big Love to all,
> Mary Combs
> Aptos, CA
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Jul 23, 2025, at 10:41 AM, Shelley Hahn via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
> wrote:
>
> 
>
> It’s been a few weeks since I dropped a bomb on one of the threads here.
> It wasn’t my intention to just go silent.  Immediately after my post my
> attention was snatched by a flooded basement, two sick pets, and the need
> for some changes in my Mom’s care. (All is fine on all fronts now.)  After
> that there had been so much rich conversation and dialogue that I felt
> overwhelmed at the prospect of responding in an articulate and meaningful
> way; I got paralyzed.  Karen Snyder broke through my paralysis when she
> contacted me last week to talk about a witness I gave in 1983 (I was 22)
> about Celebration 10, a Student House reunion/gathering.  After talking
> with Karen I decided I just need to write SOMETHING, even if I don’t have
> all my thoughts and feelings sorted out.  I have no illusions that I can
> tell my whole story in one piece of writing. (Marsha spent months writing
> her reflections; I think David Marshall spent 20ish (?) years writing “Iron
> Boy.”)    Today, my only intention is to write from my heart, to tell some
> pieces of my experience, my truth.  Bear with me if I ramble a bit; if I
> let my inner critic get too involved, I’ll never post anything. 😊  So …
> in no particular order:
>
>
>
> ~ Starting with the bomb I dropped a few weeks back … I was sexually
> molested by the first prior in the house I was assigned to when I was in 7
> th grade.  I think that person left the Order not too long after that,
> and I am almost certain he has died by now.  I pushed that experience and
> the memories down for many years and finally faced them when I was in my
> late 20s.  Therapy and conversations with the people closest to me helped
> me process, heal and move forward.  Even so, as with any powerful life
> experience, the experience shapes one, becomes part of one’s fiber, woven
> in.  The experience does not define me.  It also cannot un-happen.
>
>
>
> ~ I live with an interesting paradox at my center.  Unlike many of my 2nd
> Generation peers, I have never wished I had a different life than I had
> growing up.  I have many very fond memories from my life in the Order,
> which started when I was 3 years old.  I have always been grateful for the
> many gifts that came with that life: community; a big extended family with
> scores of extra brothers and sisters and lifelong friendships; a global
> perspective; a trained intellect; a profound understanding of and care
> about the injustices in the world.  There are many others.  At the same
> time, there is just as much that makes me sad and angry.  I could start
> right there—emotions.  The Order was intellectually brilliant … and largely
> devoid of heart and compassion.  Love is not just a structural approach; it
> is also a human emotion (and I’m not just talking about romantic love).
> From my perspective, emotion wasn’t just ignored it was considered weak,
> wrong, unhelpful … put down and squelched.  What a loss for all of us.  And
> to return to one of the central pieces of recent discussion … in my
> opinion, separating families and not TRULY caring for children and youth
> was a HUGE mistake.  I’ve always felt my parents’ love and I’ve always
> loved them powerfully, and when my father died I was devastated to realize
> how few actual memories I had of time with him before my parents moved to
> Bloomington when I was 43 and he was 73.  Would there have been hard times
> and “bad” memories if we’d been together all those years?  Of course!  That
> doesn't change that I was denied years of connection with my parents.  How
> sad that at some point the decision was made to take “family” out of
> “family order.”  There’s a lot more I could say about good and bad, pro and
> con, but it’s more than I am up to at the moment.  Perhaps the main point I
> want to make is that acknowledging mistakes doesn’t mean there was no good,
> no value.  I am a product of all of it.
>
>
>
> ~ Back to my appreciation of our community:  I have ALWAYS been so
> grateful for my Order family.  I have wonderful memories of SO many of
> you!  I remember the Marshalls and Hahns all going out for dinner in our VW
> beetle (yes, there were 10 of us!) one family night.  The Barleys took me
> in as family and cared for me exquisitely for three months when I was in 4
> th grade when my parents first went to England.  The Wainwrights and
> Baileys were my family in Santa Monica, the Averys and Bonnells (before
> Clare was even a Bonnell 😊) in England.  Alfrieda Wilkins was my
> guardian when I was in high school and did a stellar job in a difficult
> role—big sister, friend, mentor.  Martha Laird was assigned to oversee our
> youth cluster at Kemper when I was 16 or 17 and we all adored her (she got
> off easy with a fairly responsible bunch 😊).  Bob Rafos was my surrogate
> dad when I was 18 and largely lost.  Seeing so many of your faces and
> hearing your words during my father’s Zoom memorial service was the
> greatest gift I could have received at that painful time. I could go on and
> on.  I am SO GRATEFUL for this bunch of human beings.  Get ready for the
> emotion:  I have real love for so many of you.  This is my truth just as
> much as the truth that I was molested as a child.
>
>
>
> ~ And I have to address this separately:  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my 2nd
> Generation family.  I have a weekly breakfast with Tamara McClelland and
> Jane St. John.  Yesterday as we walked to our favorite haunt, Jane said,
> “WE are the greatest gift we got from the Order.”  “We” meaning all of us
> who grew up in the Order, in all of the different iterations and phases,
> with all the attendant joys and pains.  She is right.  The love and
> connection we share with one another is big and intense and powerful.
> Three weeks ago my husband and I drove to Chicago for a get together with
> Mark & Cari (Boivin) Jewell, Pat (Boivin) and Tom Price, David Allan and
> his wife, Susan, Chris Boivin, and Sharon Rafos.  Chris & I realized we
> hadn’t seen each other in 35 years.  It didn’t matter.  From the instant
> that we all greeted each other it was as if not a week had passed.  We
> support each other.  We get each other.  We celebrate each other.  We
> listen to each other.  Our reunions are fantastic. Big love.  And I want to
> say as carefully and gently as I can:  a big part of why we are so tight is
> that we get each other’s pain. Many of my peers say we came out as well as
> we did in spite of the Order, not because of it.  Speaking for myself, I
> believe it’s a mix.  But I think I can guarantee that none of us feel that
> the ends justify the means when it comes to the mistakes that were made
> with regard to how we were raised.
>
>
>
> That’s about as much as I have energy for right now.  I mentioned that
> Karen Snyder contacted me about a witness I did in 1983.  Wow!  Karen asked
> for my permission to share that piece from the archives.  On reflection, I
> don’t want to share that without also taking time to do a re-write from my
> 64-year-old perspective.  Perhaps you’ll be seeing that in the
> not-too-distant future.
>
>
>
> A number of you reached out to me after my very short post a few weeks
> back.  Please forgive me for not responding to you individually sooner.  I
> do intend to get back to each of you soon, now that my heart and mind have
> settled a bit.
>
>
>
> Thanks to everyone for being out there.  Thank you for “listening.”  Thank
> you for being part of an important dialogue
>
>
>
> With love and respect,
>
> Shelley Hahn
>
>
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