In 1973, at the age of twenty, Cynthi had been drinking in a tavern with friends. A good friend of hers had insisted on giving her a ride home, but for some reason, Cynthi made a life changing decision to take a ride home with an acquaintance. As they approached and then passed through the intersection where they were supposed to have turned, the engine revved and then screamed. Her next realization was being in a void – traveling through space – being pushed and pulled at the same time. She was traveling at such an enormous rate of speed that she could feel friction on her body. This wasn’t the body that she was used to. Chas reads from the NDERF.org website.
“DISCLAIMER from Chas: In this episode I said some things that make it sound like I’m lumping wiccans in with communists and/or child molesters. I AM SO SORRY THAT IT SOUNDED THIS WAY! And I’m sorry that I said what I did. But just as a matter of clarification, that wasn’t my intent at all. My intent there was to point to various ideologies and to point out that we can have vastly different beliefs and still love and respect one another. Had I planned what I was going to say out in advance, I would have first said something like, “Whether we follow the tradition of Catholic, protestant, Buddhist, wiccan, astrology, Greek mythology, free-masonry, or any other belief system, can we embrace the people of another belief system? No matter how we differ in our beliefs, can we still embrace the people who subscribe to a different faith?” Then I would have talked about political differences, and said, “Can we embrace people of those differences as well?” And then I would have said, “But even if we can accept all those differences, here’s the acid test: can we embrace those who have done harm to others? Can we love those who have abused? Can we love the child-molester? Of course, we CANNOT and SHOULD NOT accept their behaviors in those things, and should NEVER justify their actions, but having placed them in legal custody and made sure they are not in a position to hurt others, can we then embrace them as fellow spirits on this mortal journey who are worth our love?”