Nice to See it Back in Action

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The new National Affairs Office, originally uploaded by tadnkat.

I snapped this pic on my way back to the Metro today. It’s awful nice to see the Fraser Mansion back in action as the new Church of Scientology National Office. I’ve got so many fantastic memories of being on staff there – I know virtually every square inch of that building. Well, at least I used to. The renos in the building for its new purpose as a meeting ground for all of the Church’s social betterment programs has definitely changed a few of the spaces.

Celebrating L. Ron Hubbard’s 101st Birthday

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Celebrated L. Ron Hubbard’s 101st birthday at the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington DC this weekend. 

It really is heartening to see so many people around the globe taking his life and legacy to heart.

Family and my Decision to be a Scientologist

Scientology Cross on the Founding Church of Scientology, Washington, D.C.

A college anthropology student sent me a question from my Scientology Parent page, as she’s doing some study for her class on how family history & background can lead people to various religions.  As she was studying about Scientology, she was curious how my own family and significant events in my life led me to Scientology.   Her questions were thought-provoking on my part (an angle I’d not yet thought about) so I figured I’d post my answers here.

Question:  How does your family history relate to your quest for meaning in life? How has the history of your family led you to Scientology?

I touched on this when I was answering a similar question for another student here, but I’ll try to tackle both parts of that question.

My mother and father were both Scientologists at the time I was born, both of them becoming involved with the religion about 4 years prior.   Until I was about 9 years old, we lived out on a 10-acre farm in mid-coast Maine, in a town of about 600 people.    Our nearest Scientology organization was in Boston, about 4 hours to the south, so I didn’t spend much time in the Church as I was growing up.    I knew quite well that my parents were Scientologists, though.  My parents quite liberally used Scientology Assists with my sister and I, a practice that instantly made sense to me and which I found helpful.  Other various basic tenets of Scientology found their way into conversations & questions that I’d pose, but it wasn’t until I was about 7 that I think I started to choose my own way on Scientology a bit.

See, I did have a number of friends who went to local churches on Sundays.  They’d attend their Sunday school as well.  I do remember posing questions to my parents and to my friends about why they went to church.   The only reason I could seem to get anyone to tell me was because they were meant to go to church, and that they did that because they were christian.   The reasoning seemed quite circular to me at the time (go to church because you’re christian because you have to go to church) and I wasn’t really tracking – there didn’t seem to be a purpose, and it seemed to my 9-year-old logic to be a great way to waste a Sunday when you could be out building a fort in the woods.

But I did learn that when my parents went to their Scientology church, they explained to me that it was always for a purpose.  They were always there doing a specific course of study or counseling action, one which had real-world benefit and was to help them with something that could be actually articulated (even to a 9-year-old) as a tangible benefit.   I naturally asked if I could take a course too, and enrolled onto a course communication course.  At the end of that communication course, I honestly felt I had learned something – I had figured out how to communicate better, I figured out that I could get my point across clearly, I understood why people didn’t like being interrupted, and that it was enjoyable for both parties when you’d acknowledge when you understood what they said.

And for me, at that point, it did really set the bar for all religion.  For me, my expectation was that, in going to church, one should be going so as to achieve some benefit to one’s life that one actually desires oneself, and not because of some fuzzily-understood moral/social obligation to “go to church”. 

The very next course I took in Scientology had to do with L. Ron Hubbard’s study technology.  And amongst all things, one thing that I learned is that the first barrier to learning anything is the idea that you already know all about it.  And if there’s someone who already “knows it all” it’s a spunky 9-year-old.   But that one stable datum has carried me through a lot of study and efforts to really understand life around me.

An interesting illustration of this:  I recently re-took that selfsame first course in Scientology – the Success Through Communication Course, just recently – doing the course together with my wife.  And the same exact principles that taught a 9 year old the value of actually communicating with parents & friends, was able to re-teach my wife and I how to communicate to each other and to our kids.   I wrote my thoughts on that here.

Question: What were some important milestones in your personal history that led to your choice to become a Scientologist?

Well, as I said above, I think that the key milestone for me which led me to being a Scientologist was where I took my first course – one that I completed at a small Portland, Maine outreach office of the Boston Scientology church.

The other reinforcing aspect I had to this was in watching my parents after taking Scientology services.  They would sometimes go down to the Scientology religious retreat in Clearwater, Florida for counseling services and to study.  Each time, when they came back, there would be this certain, difficult-to-describe, serenity or – really - certainty about their demeanor which indicated to me that they had resolved something personally, or had overcome something personally in their study, something difficult-to-describe which left them better and happier at the end.  It was something that I knew I wanted as well – I wanted to know that I had looked into myself, and found in myself what I wanted to change, and had done what I could to make that better.

At the time, as a kid, the one thing that was real to me was that I wanted to be fast as a student, and I wanted to be happy and motivated.  So, I approached a lot of my studies in Scientology with this in mind.

But later, the more I studied, the more I could see things in myself that were ripe for improvement.  My level of responsibility, my ability to absorb & understand new subjects, my ability to choose my friends and to know when relationships with others were dragging me down – these were all things I learned that I could do something about through Scientology and weren’t just things I needed to “understand I couldn’t change” or “learn to live with”.

But I’d say that by the time I was about 11, I was completely, and by my ownvery conscious decision, a Scientologist.

And, as you can see from my writing, that’s not something I’ve regretted.     Hopefully that answers your questions.

Live Performance of L. Ron Hubbard’s “Battling Bolto” at the Founding Church of Scientology Washington, D.C.

L. Ron Hubbard Stories from a Golden Age Reading of “Battling Bolto”, originally uploaded by tadnkat.

My wife and I (as well as my daughter) were treated to another good time at our church this weekend – this time care of an amazingly-professional performance of the L. Ron Hubbard sci-fi short-story entitled “Battling Bolto”.

Unfortunately, unlike last year’s live perfomance, I forgot to bring my DSLR, so the only photo I could take of it was from my lowly BlackBerry Curve.   But the performance itself, held in the chapel of the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C, was just as excellent.

Author Services has been working to release the full array of  L. Ron Hubbard’s short stories – both as illustrated books, but also as high-quality audiobooks.  It’s the audiobooks that I, personally, have been most fond of – as they’re all told by  not a single voice, but by multiple actors and replete with outstanding sound effects.   Before the performance, we were treated to a demonstration of what goes into making the audiobooks – the actors, the sound effects, the attempts to find sounds that can instantly communicate what’s happening without one having any visual to go along with it except what’s in your head.

And the story itself, “Battling Bolto” is one that one can now get as part of the L. Ron Hubbard paperback entitled When Shadows Fall.   The story is about a hulking man from another world, Bolto, who is duped into being whisked away by a traveling con man who travels from planet to planet selling his wares.

I already am a subscriber to these Golden Age Stories (i.e. I get a new one monthly when they come out) but seeing the performance in person is a real treat.

Playing While we Trim the Tree



Testing out the new quick post function on the WordPress Android app, with a photo of my son playing in the chapel of the DC Church of Scientology.

I Love My Local Church of Scientology

 

Founding Church of Scientology of Washington, DC, Embassy Building, Night, originally uploaded by tadnkat.

Any of you who are remotely close to me (or who follow my Flickr updates) know that I recently had my second child, a bubbly baby boy. And whilst the story of how he came into the world is a somewhat colorful one (one I’ll record for posterity on my Scientology Parent site), I just wanted to take a few seconds to just say how much I appreciate the support I’ve had from my friends – the staff at the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C.

It was heartwarming to have such a group of caring, spirited, and genuinely thoughtful folks there at the Church – who at every turn have been thinking with how to make this baby be as trouble-free and as comfortable as possible for my wife and I.

Starting with an incredible Scientology pregnancy assist program which relieved a LOT of stress for my wife, and proceeding through visits at home, and even a box sent to us at the hospital full of goodies for the new baby.

It was just so thoughtful and helpful all along, that it just makes me glad to be a part of the Scientology community here and have friends who actually care about us.

So, thanks again from my wife and I – I really love you guys.

New Meet a Scientologist Video Series

Sometimes it’s tough trying to get across to someone what it’s like to be a part of a religious movement that the other fellow has no real experience with aside from what a quick Google search told them.   It’s rough because one can get some odd ideas.

I can only imagine what Muslims in the US have to go through, as they face existing archetypes – false data like “everyone who’s a Muslim is a terrorist or religious extremist” or something bizarre that really couldn’t be further from the truth.

As such, it’s such a relief to have a resource like the Meet a Scientologist videos on the Church of Scientology Youtube Channel to be able to quickly give a vignette of what it’s like to be a Scientologist. 

On the Scientology Parent blog, I highlighted some of the Scientologist Parent videos, but there are a bazillion others.

One I took a particular liking to was this one of Bishop Fraser, a Pentecostal Minister who is also a Scientologist – elucidating how he has merged and reconciled the two faiths in something that is very spiritually satisfying and workable for him.

Each of these videos is only a snapshot into the lives of these people, but I think it’s a very satisfying one, which says in only a minute or so of time why so many people just plain like being a Scientologist.