The Evolution of The Peregrine Foundation
January, 1995
The Peregrine Foundation was created in 1992 as the non-
profit parent organization for a series of projects, the first being the
KIT Newsletter, The KIT Information Service and The XRoads Fund.
The KIT project began when I decided to research the story of
my daughter, Xaverie Sender Rhodes, in whose life I had
been prevented from participating by the Bruderhof. The Bruderhof, or Society of Brothers, or Hutterian Brethren East, consisted of
group high-demand Christian intentional communities that had
been, since the 1960s, developing decidedly
totalitarian tendencies. After Xaverie's sudden and untimely death
in 1988, I asked the Bruderhof leadership to allow me to interview
members who knew her. I intended to write a memoir and, in the
process, assuage a father's thirst for his daughter's presence. In the
process I also hoped that I would find some healing for the
emotional trauma caused by the thirty-year separation. I had used
the same technique when I wrote my book "A Death In Zamora" that
traced the life of my mother who was shot during the Spanish Civil
War when I was only two years old.
My daughter Xaverie had grown up in the Bruderhof with her
mother, after I was asked to leave and subsequently realized I was
emotionally incapable of living in the community -- and in the
marriage. Over the following years, despite numerous attempts to
communicate with Xavi, I was cut off from her completely by the
Bruderhof hierarchy. Occasionally I phoned when visiting the East
Coast in the hopes of at least talking to her, but was always told, "We
think it's in Xavi's best interests not to speak with you." I remained
enough under their control to accept their reasoning, but the
leadership's ongoing refusal to allow me a relationship with my own
daughter remained a festering wound in my heart.
When she was seventeen, I insisted upon a visit and finally was
allowed one hour with her in a local diner. It remains one of the
most magical moments of my life, although I realized it created a
dilemma for her: to listen to her heart's desire for her father or
remain true to the Bruderhof's (and her mother's) demands. After
that visit she wrote to tell me that she could not, as a novice
member, remain true to her faith and remain in contact with me.
Twelve years after that visit, she wrote once more to tell me that she
loved me but due to the differences in our lives she would be unable
to communicate with me further.
Despite the finality of her letter, I clung to the dream that some
day things would change. When my wife Judith and I traveled east in
the summer of 1988, she encouraged me to try to telephone Xavi
again. This time I had slightly better luck, because whoever
answered the phone did not recognize my voice and assumed I was a
customer for their toys.
"No, Xavi is not taking orders right now," he said. "She just gave
birth to her second child."
That was how I discovered that she had been married for three
years and that I was a grandfather twice over! I asked to speak with
my son-in-law, John Rhodes, and when he refused to allow me -- or
even Judith -- to speak with Xavi, I contacted a neighboring minister
as a possible go-between. We returned to San Francisco feeling that
perhaps some sort of beginning had been made towards resolving
the impasse.
On October 3rd, 1988, I received the news of Xaverie's sudden
death from a virulent melanoma cancer on August 26, roughly three
weeks after our phone call. When I read the letter, my first reaction
was one of shocked disbelief, but when I spoke with John Rhodes and
later read the transcript of the memorial service, the truth hit me in
all its appalling starkness. My daughter had died at 33, leaving
behind two little children. Five days later I still was trying to come
to grips with the reality, and yet it seemed as if months had passed.
Why couldn't the community have let me know sooner? At least
they could have telephoned. Why was I not allowed one final visit?
Six months later, I decided to research my daughter's life story.
Perhaps I could capture memories of her in the same way that I had
those of my mother in Spain by hunting down those who had known
her. When the Bruderhof leadership turned down my request to
interview Bruderhof members, I began to search for ex-members. I
knew the phone number of one Woodcrest survivor. He gave me the
names of two more ex-members who in turn gave me the names of
two more. By the end of the month, I had talked with more than
thirty and personally visited four. By the end of the second month, I
had spoken to over sixty. They all asked about the others I had
contacted and wanted their news and addresses. Many had followed
obediently the Bruderhof leadership's warning not to contact other
ex-members because that act would seal shut any possibility of
return.
The KIT newsletter started as a modest two-page sheet sent to
the sixty or so thirty early contactees to share addresses and
information. It became a monthly, and very soon I was mailing ten-
thousand-word issues to 200 addresses. The volume of incoming
mail was extraordinary, and the newsletter expanded to 16,000
words per issue, almost all of it 'letters to the editor'. At this point I
invited four local Bruderhof graduates to form a volunteer staff and
share the workload.
I talked with exiles from the Bruderhof's Great Crisis of 1960-
1961 who were living in dire poverty, as well as survivors of various
'clearances' within the American communities. I discovered that one
ex-member, Lee Kleiss, had started a Round-Robin letter in the early
1960s that had continued through a few issues. I found the so-called
'Hartford Boys,' a group of young men driven away by a Servant
(minister) who beat them severely, and the tightly-knit English
group who had stayed more closely in touch. In common with the ex-
members in Germany, they seemed more willing to let bygone be
bygones than the feistier Americans, and tried to put a good face on
past wrongs. But one thing they all shared: an intense desire to know
whom I had found and what they were doing with their lives. The
Bruderhof's technique of warning ex-members away from contacting
each other had isolated many of them, but it could not stifle the
yearning to renew childhood connections, old bonds of friendship and
fellowship. Every person I contacted expressed the same hunger for
news, with a few exceptions. One or two had been alerted to stay
away from KIT by the Bruderhof and would not speak to me. A few
others remained too traumatized and fearful to accept even a sample
issue. However over the intervening years, many of the more timid
folk have put aside their fears and joined the KIT network.
Financial contributions from the readership kept abreast of
mailing and printing costs, so the staff only need to donate their time
-- and telephones. We named the newsletter KIT, an acronym for
'Keep In Touch,' and began to mail copies to each of the communities.
We seemed to be putting together a widely scattered support group
whose opinions ran the full gamut from guilt to rage. Some
staunchly defended the Bruderhof while others' anger erupted in
verbal vitriol. Each had his or her own dramatic story to tell. The
most moving were those told by people who had been ejected from
the communities as teenager, cut off from their parents and from any
type of financial or emotional support.
The Bruderhof leadership always made the separation as
difficult as possible in the hope that the individual would be
traumatized to the point of begging to be taken back, willing to
confess to even the most blatantly false accusations as proof of their
obedience and total surrender to the leaders. As more and more
personal stories were told, the Bruderhof leadership proved itself
remarkably cruel and vindictive, especially in the case of the
adolescents. What terrible burdens of guilt and shame they placed
on these youngsters! And, unfortunately, the driving force behind
the worst of these attitudes was their venerated elder, Heini Arnold,
who seemed obsessed with 'inner purity. ' Today, as their deceased
and still-adulated Vorsteher, their bishop, he must bear the ultimate
responsibility, no matter who carried out his orders.
In late 1989, we heard that the Bruderhof was very concerned
about the KIT newsletters. At first I received some frankly hostile
letters from members. Then a change occurred, and the letters
became more sympathetic. I heard that 'a new spirit of
reconciliation' was awakening in the bruderhofs. Ex-members wrote
about their surprisingly pleasant visits to relatives within the
communities. The usual challenges to 'repent and return' were
absent from members' conversations, although now and then a
'longing' might be expressed in a gentler manner. In January, 1990,
a Bruderhof couple traveling in California visited with KIT staff.
The meeting seemed to go well. I felt that personally they were
willing to acknowledge that I had been treated very badly. As long
as the conversation centered on the failings of individuals within the
Bruderhof, they listened. They acknowledged that serious mistakes
had been made in the past by various Servants and Witness
Brothers, but the moment either their beloved leader Heini was
criticized, or abusive aspects of the Bruderhof system itself were
mentioned, they just did not hear what was said. This lack of
communication on major issues set the tone of all future meetings.
In the late summer of 1990 we held our first KIT conference at a
youth hostel in central Massachusetts. Approximately fifty 'survivors
and graduates' gathered for three days of shared memories and
visiting with old friends and lost relatives. What an amazing event!
In December, 1990, the Bruderhof Elder Johann Christoph Arnold
(son of Heini Arnold) along with his wife and another Bruderhof
couple met with KIT staff in San Francisco. The meeting was friendly,
and Arnold stated that they were willing to "meet with anyone,
anywhere" and were eager for reconciliation. The other brother
expressed his fears about the impact of the KIT newsletter on the
Bruderhof young people if they had access to it. KIT staff's suggestion
of third-party mediation was turned down. Although the Bruderhof
couples expressed a desire to dissolve the barriers between the two
groups, very little progress was made. Arnold was asked if he could
'really deliver' on his previous guarantee that anyone could publish
in KIT without risking loss of visiting privileges. The Elder repeated
that all Bruderhof efforts to keep people from communicating in and
through KIT would completely cease. The last remark now seems
ironic in that almost ALL KITfolk are currently denied visits to their
families within the communities. Not only that, but members who are
being expelled are asked to sign a statement promising not to have
anything to do with KIT!
In 1992, KIT staff incorporated as the nonprofit Peregrine
Foundation ('peregrine' meaning 'pilgrim' or 'wanderer'). Other
above-mentioned projects were added, such as the Carrier Pigeon
Press that is publishing book-length memoirs and the "Women From
Utopia" series, and a computer bulletin board that allows KITfolk to
converse and interact on a daily basis. In 1995, the newsletters and
other articles will become accessible in electronic form on the
Internet.
As of December, 1994, the KIT newsletter has published over a
million words, and three books and four 'Annuals' (bound and
indexed collections of the newsletters) are in print as well as various
smaller brochures and pamphlets. The XRoads Fund (named in Xavi's
memory) has assisted various young people, and helped one young
man move out of a homeless shelter into an ex-member's home. Also
we were able to track down his birth father and reunite them -- a
real detective story! In another case we aided a large family thrown
out of the community under the most adverse of circumstances and
told to go on welfare. Rarely does a month go by that we do not
receive a 'thank you' letter for the help and services provided. We
have held three more annual conferences in the U.S. and two Euro-
KIT gatherings have been held in England.
KIT serves many purposes. It allows all voices to be heard, the
angry ones, the ones pleading for forgiveness and understanding, the
ones just wanting to share their life stories. At times the various
purposes intersect and collide: the 'support group aspect' --Ęthe need
to vent anger -- interferes with the need to communicate to the
Bruderhof leadership in the hopes of resolving some of the
outstanding conflicts and misunderstandings.
Various attempts to meet for conflict resolution have been made,
but all offers to meet in the presence of neutral outside negotiators
have been turned down. The leadership keeps repeating to everyone
that I explicitly said to them over the phone that "As long as the
Bruderhof follows Christ, I will try to destroy them." This is such a
blatant lie that I feel that it demeans me to have to reply to it, yet I
have done so in the newsletter various times and over the telephone
directly to Dick Domer, who insists that he himself heard me say it!
Unbelievable!
Many similar problems and misunderstandings remain
unresolved. In the words of one newsletter reader, "History,
sociology and pastoral concerns intersect." How, for example, do
Bruderhof parental authority patterns combined with particularly
prudish notions of sexual 'purity' result in various kinds of abuse of
children and adolescents? And how can these issues be discussed in
an atmosphere that does not seem threatening to the leadership?
Why do they continue to deny visiting privileges to family members
just because they read KIT issues or attend meetings with people
who do? Why do they persecute various recently ejected families by
acts that are blatantly illegal and persecutory, such as tapping the
telephones, burglarizing their homes, and threatening their lives and
livelihoods in various ways?
Recently I interviewed a Bruderhof graduate who has remained
a seeking Christian, and he expressed very ably the spiritual
contradiction at the heart of the Bruderhof belief system. On the one
hand, one takes a vow at baptism to "always speak out if one sees
that the Church is moving in the wrong direction." Yet on the other
hand, when the new member speaks out, he is slammed into church
discipline and then the REAL baptism takes place. The real Bruderhof
baptism is not the baptism by water upon the person's confession of
Jesus Christ as savior, but what I would call 'a baptism by fire in the
flames of church discipline.' The new brother or sister must be
willing to surrender to church discipline whether or not it has
been applied correctly. You must be willing to be crucified by the
Servants for the sake of your brothers' sins, following in the
footsteps of Christ who purportedly bore with humility the unfair
accusations of others and the burden of other men's misdeeds. You
must die to your self, abandoned by your brothers and sisters,
despite the voice of your conscience screaming, "But it wasn't me! I
didn't do anything wrong!"
The Servants seem to operate on the theory that, inasmuch as we
all are sinners anyway in the eyes of God, what do the particulars
matter -- i.e. what particular member erred? Similar to other
totalistic groups, what is deemed important is the accused's total
obedience to authority, displayed by his willingness to be
scapegoated. Yet what dies in this travesty of Christ's crucifixion,
along with the truth, is the voice of the member's individual
conscience. What emerges from this surrender to the will of the
leadership ("Whether I am guilty or not, I am guilty because the
Servants say I am guilty and I must submit to their superior vision.")
is a hollowed-out husk of a person, completely malleable by the
leadership.
The Bruderhof leadership is very skilled at helping the new
member through the baptism by water upon confession of faith in
Christ. They are equally adept at manipulating the new member
through church discipline and 'the baptism by fire' whereby the
individual conscience is killed, or at least betrayed into silence.
Whether consciously or not, they are equally skilled at making sure
that the new member never receives the baptism of the Holy Spirit
(too emotional, too unpredictable and hard to control) but remains
forever a worm, forever out of touch with God, constantly reminded
of this fact and open to manipulation at the whim of the hierarchy. It
sounds horrible -- and the truth is that it is horrible because the new
member is led, step by step, towards the Servants' goal of having
him denounce the voice of God in his own conscience. What the
victim is told is, "We have all been through the gift of church
discipline and it was such a blessing! Now it's your turn to experience
what I experienced when I was 'out'!" It brings to mind the initiation
rituals practiced in boys' schools or fraternities, but in terms of the
teachings of Christ, it is a sadistic abomination.
The heresy that one must allow church authorities to crucify
oneself in order to faithfully follow Christ's example can be refuted
by Scripture, and here I quote from a more knowledgeable friend:
"Accepting false accusation in imitation of Christ is easy to rebut.
Christ never agreed with the accusers that he was guilty of the false
charges they made. He said to Pilate "...therefore he who betrayed me
to you hath the greater sin..." implying that the false charges were
sinful. Jesus said the devil is a liar and the father of lies, implying
that untruth is of the devil... He said "I am the way the truth and the
life..." implying that what is not of the truth is not from him... He
defended himself vigorously against the charges of the Pharisees and
Saducees. Jesus suffered "for the sins of the world" but not in order
that religious authorities could inflict suffering on others... that is a
diabolical twisting of the Christian doctrine. Jesus very certainly said,
"Inasmuch as you did it (i.e. anything) to one of the least of these my
brethren, you did it unto me." If the Bruderhof authorities want to
claim the right to make false accusations in the name of Jesus for the
sake of his humility, then there is no further arguing with them...
They haven't a leg to stand on according to Scripture, which also
states, "For freedom Christ has set you free." He did not die for you so
that you can be enslaved by religious authorities.
Recently I wrote to that same friend:
"A group that shares the same belief can strike a sympathetic
resonance with the source of all being, with God or the Holy Spirit, if
you will. This resonance expresses itself in a mutual harmony when
all goes well, as I have experienced within many communal groups.
Yet it must be renewed constantly because, as in a marriage, the
daily wear-and-tear gradually wear away the contact with that
deeper source.
"How that renewal occurs, and what price we are willing to pay
for it varies, but I think it's best that we don't hunt for it and force
its blossoming in our lives. Instead, let it surprise us every
springtime with the rebirth of the forests and fields. I suppose that
is what I have come to believe -- that nature's rhythms are best.
Odd, because the Bruderhof also professes a great love of nature.
They encourage that attitude in the children, and the adults cultivate
it in themselves as evidence of a childlike attitude toward life.
So when the ambitious schemes I concoct come tumbling down,
or when society seems out of step with my dreams, it only takes a
walk in the woods to inspire me with wonder, with how our planet
nurtures us despite all the terrible things we do to her. Nature's
reality is the real reality, and it happens on a time span so much
greater than our own. I find peace in acknowledging the brevity of
my stay here and knowing that, after I am gone, nature will continue
to create this beautiful, 'best of all possible, worlds'. That is, if our
accumulated self-hatreds do not poison us and all other creatures off
this earth. Recently I read in the newspaper that the majority of
Americans believe in some sort of End Time scenario, and yet so
often we increase the possibility of the worst happening when we
believe in the worst.
When women and men come together to live in a heaven of their
own design, so often they create a hell. Yet these artificial heavens
and hells may be necessary as test tube utopias where we can
discover our individual selves within that complex dance we perform
with all life. Humans everywhere should be free to live any variety
or flavor of lifestyle that they desire, as long as they do not hurt
others, including their own children. Personally, I believe adults
should be free to live in the most eccentric grouping their fevered
imaginations can devise, as long as they do not include children and
do not impinge on the rights of the neighbors. Once children are born
into these groups, these young people's inalienable human rights -- as
expressed in the United Nations document on human rights -- must
be safeguarded. I suggest that Canada, by assigning a teacher from
the local school district to religious communal groups such as the
Hutterites, has taken a first step in the right direction. Society-at-
large somehow must find a way to defuse future potential Wacos,
potential Jonestowns and Temples of the Sun, and move to protect
the quality of the lives of the children within these apocolyptic
groups.
Personally, instead of searching for heaven these days, I'm
content to live spiritually close to the earth, accepting her time-
tested rhythms as my own, her seasons as my moods. Still, I always
feel this yearning to belong to a tribe, and I have found its scattered
members in unexpected places. The tribe I belong to is pagan,
animist-Buddhist like the Tibetans, sexy, softly loving and accepting
of new ideas -- everything the Bruderhof is not. We are self-
confident enough of our values to welcome ex-members with open
arms and bid them a fond farewell when their needs take them
elsewhere. Instead of finding God through guilt and self-denial, the
big 'No-No-No,' we celebrate total self-acceptance as a gentler, more
life-affirming path, the big 'Yes-Yes-Yes!' This path also brought me
to that secret inner place where God speaks to me. And strangely
enough, just like that very first time that happened -- in the
Woodcrest preparation group -- the sun is always in my eyes when I
hear His voice.
The world seems so much brighter when we're in love. Or...
could it be the other way around -- the world seems so much more
loving when we stand naked in the light?
Much Love,
Ramon
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