Autumn Panic

Intervention Strategies

Arriving at Summer's house I was still a little traumatised. The thought of losing Britney had transitioned into the realisation I was actually losing Winter.

"Summer today has made me realise that if we don't do anything we are going to lose Winter! When I thought I had run down Britney the sense of loss was overpowering. Ever since we went to Wattle Court I have been having nightmares. I think subconsciously I made the connection with Winter and my mind was trying to bring it into my consciousness telling me to act."

"How" Summer queries.

"Well I don't know."

"What do we know." I add

"Her mum thinks we are acting for the Devil." I start

Her Society want Winter to Shun us." Summer retorts

"Her dad is already shunned!" pausing then I scream as if having received a bolting light of wisdom "Let's look SOTEP up on Google.

We agreed to surreptitiously intervene in her Winters life and solicit helpers. We got on the phone and created a group of Interventionists. Everyone understood and agreed Winters rights to her choose of religion was never to be challenged.

That no matter what the outcome we would never shun or unfriend her because of them. The administrators of her beliefs were however trying to force her to shun us so we were prepared to take up a fight for her.

The organisation we were fighting were skilled at recruiting and defending their position. We knew we would not win in a head to head battle because whilst they banned their members studying philosophy they had trained their operatives in the art of it, Winter included.

We figured we had an advantage of accessing information from the internet mainly created from members who had escaped the SOTEP cult. We could recruit many interventionists to aid in our fight. We could rely on Winter's huge capacity to think logically and most of all her prolific ability to love.

The Ace in the sleeve had to be she had the looming torment of either shunning her dad or potentially being shunned by her mum.

We had identified some areas of attack and needed to allocate specific areas for more detailed research. There was much that the Society of The Everlasting Providence believed that was not in dispute. Not challenging Winter directly would also not put her in breach with her brethren. We had to rely on Winter questioning herself what her society was normalising and hoping she would use members of our group as a sounding board. We were doomed if she realised the game at foot. The stakes were high!

Summer and myself had to reassure Winter that she did have and could have best friends who are not SOTEP.

Summer and my mum were to have Winter perform Yoga exercises with them without her realising she was doing Yoga.

We knew Winter enjoyed playing in the school Softball team so we were to ensure without outing Winter's religion that the team heightened her level of fun and sense of belonging playing down the personal performance and focussing on the definition of team "together everyone achieves more".

Jasmine was to introduce girls and boys that were homosexual and not confrontational in nature to our group so that Winter could befriend them before identifying them as dangerous. We knew this area was potentially contentious.

Celebrating Mother's Day and Father's Day which was assigned to Elly was also going to be problematic as every day was day to give thanks but if we could illicit special feelings in Winter when things went over and above we may be able to get her to see no harm in extra special effect for Mother's Day next month.

The issue of women being subservient to men was to be coveted by all of us. We phoned Mr Johnson to see if he would be an interventionist. Whether it was the trauma from earlier or hearing Mr Johnson sobbing over the phone I lost it and burst into tears. He agreed to look for an appropriate opportunity to have a discussion with Winter regarding not associating with family members who leave the flock. This would profoundly affect both of them once Winter was baptised.

We were confident we could convince our English teacher to include what would be regarded as worldly books for interpretation within class.

Mr McIntosh every year would address the value of voting and its importance within our society at school assembly later in the year. Mr McIntosh was politically a little to the left of centre and I had a feeling "little" may be being polite. I would see if I could illicit his help to maximise its reception this year.

The interventionists were to remonstrate about issues that impact us so that Winter would hopefully be drawn in to develop her own views. SOTEP did not allow views on worldly matters. When views were needed due their patriarchal beliefs it was the men who should be providing them having obtained them from the Society.

Defending our country or belief in our country or government was considered too big an issue. We would just have to address issues that might pop up in the news. We hoped Anzac Day may also afford some opportunities.

We were uncertain about how to address sexual fantasies and we therefore decided to leave it alone. This was an area that could confirm the cults demonised views of us. We could not see a way to get Winter to transgress in this area when she seemed to have accepted that the only boys worth dating would also be members of the Society of The Everlasting Providence despite not yet identifying any suitors within the Society.

It was strange as we reflected on the outcomes that we had become the very devils that the society was forever vigilantly trying to protect their members from. We felt justified in attempting to save our friend from a cult culture but we could also see the irony of this chicken and egg story. We needed Winter to believe belonging to clubs for socialising with us wasn't going to challenge her beliefs when in actuality that was precisely what we were now proposing to do. How could we do otherwise?

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Hey it's Scott just thanking you
for supporting my story.
Some of you though are still
silent readers so I ask can you
please cast that vote. It really
does make our day when the
notification comes through.

Hey and don't forget to comment
too your feedback and thoughts
are so important.