While the formation of BAND WITH US was greatly motivated by 2020. The real reason I started it actually goes back some twenty years prior to that time.
I grew up in southwest Minneapolis, MN in a Christian home. For the first 27 years of my life I believed that the Bible was without contradiction. But in 1999, I learned a painful lesson that this was simply not the case. And when I saw them side by side this devastated my faith. It quickly became apparent to me the spiritual dilemma I found myself in. Because if the Bible was untruthful, than I had lived a lie. I could not accept this and tried to resolve the contradictions myself. But by 2000 finally I hit a wall and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. For the next seven years I found myself in just about every psych ward in my city. What began as a spiritual battle of the heart ended up becoming a nightmare of the mind.
I was trying to come to terms with the truth I did not understand. And battling an illness I had never even heard of. I felt like a tiny wave that got swallowed up into the vast ocean. Until somehow, in the midst of this violent storm, I had become the ocean itself. And almost overnight, I went from feeling like an insignificant human to God himself. I can still recall those days vividly. When the overwhelming surge of insights relentlessly permeated my mind. But what goes up must come down. And later that same year I almost took my life. It was then it finally dawned on me that I had to put my search for truth aside. I realized I had to deal with my mental health first if I wanted to survive. And in 2006 I had my last manic episode.
I then turned my attention back to understanding the contradictions. I wanted to know why they were there and why I felt like God. It didn't take me long to realize the contradictions were there to get our attention. And awaken in us the desire to find the truth.
This however implied the existence of a lie interwoven through the Bible itself. But when I saw that the lie permeated our reality as well, I was deeply troubled. For that meant it affected us all and no one was immune to it.
Right then I knew the contradictions of the Bible could not be ignored. Because life as I knew it was a powerful delusion, something I will touch on later. But all this has motivated and inspired me to take a stand and do something about what is happening in this country and the whole world for that matter. We all need to stand up together and say enough is enough, work out our problems with courage and vigor to find the solutions. All Band With Us hopes to be is a framework for citizen's to help the political world in that effort. If a new world order is where we're headed than so be it. Why not do it right - Together!
