they had grown into clever and creative human beings whose minds I’d want to know even in the absence of our genetic connection. I’d spent my early years seizing upon every opportunity to spend time away from them, desperate to be free of responsibility for them and to be a Big Kid. Now we sought each other out whenever we had free time. We’d walk to the bakery for cake pops and frosting shots while Noah pontificated on Captain Underpants and The Hunger Games. We made time for family movie night most weekends, parsing scenes from films like Inception and Never Let Me Go for weeks afterward. On more than one occasion, I reached my arms out to my sides to stretch only to have Luke mistake it as an invitation for a hug. The nine of us were easily a self-sufficient picketing team, a formidable crew of laborers, people who could work together mostly drama-free to get things done, with good-natured teasing and banter all along the way.
Sunday afternoons would see us hiking together with our parents along the trails by the Kansas Governor’s Mansion, chatting and laughing and tripping over each other in the waning sun, throwing ourselves onto the train tracks and feigning looks of abject terror for an impromptu photo shoot. Our parents would hold hands, contentedly watching over the whole brood of us and laughing at our shenanigans. The lessons that brought us to this place hadn’t come easily, but they were among my most treasured. Being part of a family this size—especially with our imaginative and ever-attentive parents at the helm—had helped to teach us humility and patience. We had each come into the world with a strong personality and an outsize sense of justice, but as we grew, we learned to pick our battles, not to throw down at the slightest provocation. We learned to yield to each other. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
In the months that followed the installation of the self-appointed elders, I dedicated myself to employing these lessons in the face of escalating confusion and frustration. The elders issued new edicts on an ad hoc basis, and always via direct, in-person communication; gone were the days of church-wide emails and meetings where important matters were hashed out for all members to hear and weigh in on. Instead, members would learn of decisions from an assigned elder: one’s husband, if married, or father, if not. For the few members who had neither husband nor father as a church elder, an elder was appointed to disseminate information to them. Questions and concerns, once freely discussed with all other church members, were now confined to our assigned elder or parents only. My brother Sam had been my friend and counselor for many years, but when I asked him about a new decision in the early stages of this process, he shut me down: “You need to talk to Dad about that. He’s the one you should be addressing such things with.” Joy, contentedness, submission—these were the only acceptable communications among the church body as a whole.
Not even Gramps was an appropriate audience for questions or doubts, as he was kept only minimally aware of all the maneuverings of the elders and the day-to-day happenings of the church. This had already been a trend for some time. My grandfather was getting older, and my family had taken an example from the book of Exodus, when Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, saw that the job of leading the Israelites had become too much for Moses to do alone. Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone. Jethro proposed that a system of lesser judges be instituted beneath Moses, and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee. The new elders seemed to see themselves in this manner, relieving my grandfather of the burden of leading the church. To go over their heads and seek aid or comfort or understanding from our pastor directly—to call the elders’ judgment into question in any way—was not allowed. Even as the cruelty toward my mother continued