Why Blog or... Please Read

[Steven Budlong]

Why Blog?Steven C. BudlongSeptember 12, 2008I like this place, this Way Corps site. I really do. My thanks to John Richeson for setting it up. What I like about it is the friendliness of it. I see no backbiting, bitter words, anger or character assassination. The discussions aren’t stupid and nobody is memorializing their pets or favorite celebrities. The noise and static of life sends me here. I feel like I am waking up at The Way International in the early seventies. I call the late sixties to the early seventies, the Golden Age of The Way. It was a time of possibilities. I for one really believed we could move the Word Over the World, did you? Just the joy of saluting old friends makes my day. And I feel safe. I feel like I can stick my neck out. And, I have decided to speak up and begin blogging. Why blog? Well, let’s start with some background. If you don’t know me I will give you a very brief and humbled bio.I was born in 1956, grew up in Harrison, Rye and Larchmont (all in Westchester County, New York). My father was Clarke Budlong and Mother “Bobbie” Budlong. She was Family Corps Five, and fell asleep many years ago. My Dad passed last year. They were a lot of things to me, good and bad. I have two sisters, Gale Budlong and Carrie Hauger. Gale is my older sister. You can find her here. My younger sister, Carrie was married to Rev. Wayne Merrill. They are both godly women. I first came to the Ministry when I was 14, through my sister Gale. I started PFAL with Bruce Mahone in 1970, but "tripped out" because I did not think it would help me spiritually (and those were my exact words!). About that time I began a long fall down the rabbit hole and got into sex, drugs and rock & roll. My family moved to Columbus, Ohio, in 1971, and later that year, thanks to the Winegarners, I was reconnected with The Way. I was a Branch Coordinator in High School and continued my work for the Ministry through my years at Denison University. I studied a lot of things but majored in East European and Soviet Studies & Cinema. It was a double major. Since then I have gone back and forth to Russia and spent a lot of time sojournering in strange places around the globe, usually on somebody else’s nickel. Now what do Soviet Studies and Cinema have in common since the Soviet Union is no more? A lot! I will tell you about “Faith and Lies” later. It is one of my upcoming films.In my senior year of college I married the lovely Terry Moore and we took off on a long strange trip called life. After college I was partially successful at starting a film company with a silly name. I worked a bit too on weapon systems… Minute Man II's and III's and Titan Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. Rough years led to The Way Corps and the Corps was one of the peaks of my life. No regrets there. Lots of learning both good and bad. I came out alive (I have been a thread away from death three times, but those tales come later). Some of you may remember The Teacher film and Rock of Ages ’84. Those were mine, along with a number of other things like Niatross! I knew Dr. Wierwille kind of well. You may ask me if he was “One of a Kind?”, well… as far as human beings go… you decide! I even lived in the Wierwille home for three weeks. He trusted me with his legacy in part, that is the film I mentioned. He let me into his life to a certain degree and he told me and he showed me things about himself that were interesting, admirable and quite disturbing. I don’t need to tell on him because he told on himself. Hmmm, what’s that you say??? Have you not read his Tombstone, “I Wish I Were the Man I Knew to Be.” You know, the great puzzling statement that summed up his life. Doesn’t that say it all… like “I’m leaving with a lot of regrets and I surely hope skeletons don’t come out of the closet and into your face. I hope things stay quiet and hope nobody points out all the bad things I did…”Well, what do you do with that? Just what do you do with that!!! Bite and devour one another... or move on? I will explain to you in small morsels what I have done with that… later, okay? Because I have a responsibility to you, okay? “What responsibility?” you ask. “To speak the truth in love,” I say.So maybe he didn’t tell on himself, he just knew all the boomerangs he threw in life, and at us, were coming back at him and his legacy and his successors. And…. ah ha, yup… now there is a really good topic for all of us… LEGACY. We will get to that one later though. We will talk about OUR legacies. Ouch! Remember, what goes around comes around.So we enter The 12th Way Corps and do HQ, Emporia, Gunnison, LEAD and a dash of Rome City to see Mom. Terry and I are both the spokespeople for our Corps at graduation and we go to Manhattan, and not Manhattan, Kansas, thankfully. I had asked to go to Manhattan or LA. I knew saints in both locations working in the film industry. The ones I knew in Manhattan were working and the ones I knew in LA were talking about working. So we got lucky and went to Manhattan, known also as New York City. What heaven and what hell, yeah, and in the words of Jerry Garcia, “its a long strange trip were on man” because I still can’t seem to get out of Manhattan, even though we now live in Connecticut. We ran a Territory until I refused to pledge allegiance to a man or organization. Then I had the horrors of people coming to me after this terrible play they had been lassoed into which was a knock off of John Travolta’s “Staying Alive,” and saying things like “I feel like I have been deceived.” WOW, what do you do with that? Well, I spoke the truth in love and said “you have been deceived…” and, that is whole other story (and a very serious teaching on the ethics of the use of allegories and fables in media).!So we wrapped up Manhattan, moved to Westchester raised two kids and I go into spiritual bubble wrap. I sense the carnage. I hear the wreckage. I read the obituaries and I mourn the loss of the Ministry… I mourn what “could have been” if we had really behaved like one body with Christ as the head. I don’t blame anybody. I learned to be accountable to myself and clean up my side of the street and I climbed from under the rubble, or so I thought, only to find myself in a vortex of haze. Then there are the stories of my professional life, my personal life, my family life and on and on.So back to the question, “why blog?”Let’s start with now. Now I am a filmmaker, but I am a Christian first. I frequently get told I should do a film on this subject or that subject and I generally respond with "is that so?" And then plow through the drone of the other person’s really bad idea. What I would like to say is "if your idea is so darn good why don't you make the film?" But I am often too kind and put up with the bad storytelling and nod understandingly.See filmmaking is storytelling. If you want to be a filmmaker study art, photography and history and fill up your cache with knowledge of people, places and things. Leave the junk out. Have something to say. Then you can tell other people's stories or you can be really honest and tell your own story or stories. So that’s what I am going to do.I have decided to use this blog to address the household of former friends, acquaintances and true brothers and sisters in the Lord. I am going to stick my neck out and not be afraid. I have a lot to say. You don't have to read, comment or agree. But if you would like to yell at me, yell at me in private first. That is the polite thing to do. Please send all rants, fiery darts and BS to me personally. My email is [e-mail]. I will try to respond but I can make no promises. You see my life is a tsunami of things to do, places to go, people to meet and see. And, oh yes, obligations, obligations and obligations. But I know I have to tell you what I have been privileged to see, hear, experience and learn about body, soul and spirit through my life. God has been gracious and merciful to me and I have seen and heard and know things I want to share with you. There, I knew you would understand! I am full and it is time to get it out.What most people will not understand is that when you are true to your subject you must be truer to God. Sometimes I don't like what I uncover and have to ask God whether to reveal it or leave it alone. I will just tell you what I am permitted to tell you, whether it is dictated by God, wisdom or discretion. You decide what to do with the information. Along the way I will share with you what God has taught me because it may help you. It is my nature to teach. It pours out of me and I love it. I have been silent too long. I have been turtled in my shell hoping the noise would die down, but it hasn’t. I want to remind The Way Corps that you, we, us and all of the other saints around us were the best God had for our times. And maybe we still are. Yes, maybe we still are. We still have things to say, fires to light and words to throw. Most of us still believe in the integrity of God’s Word and I for one have not denied my Lord. When he comes again, he is looking for one thing and what is that, do you remember? Not your bank account, professional status, home, cars or kids. He said “When I come again will I find faith in the earth?” Do we slumber or do we awake? You choose. As for me, I am getting out of bed.Your True Friend & Brother in Christ,Steven C. BudlongCopyright 2008, Sojourner Media, LLC

[David & Linda (Smith) Scovel]

Ahhh! Can you feel that? A breath of fresh air against all the clamor of the world. Thanks for sharing Steve.

[Kellie O'Malley]

Really cool blog Steve. Keep it coming, you have a lot to say and you are so great to read, and you inspire me. Lots of Love and Blessings... Kellie O.

[Glenda Sue Morris]

Man Steve, I'm about to "pop" myself with all that's in my heart. What I see you saying is the time is now to rise again, only this time with wisdom instead of ignorance, discernment and maturity to know what to say and when. The journey, the learning, the experience, all bring us the tools to make a difference in this world. I'm with you, I'm outta bed and almost dressed (women take longer)! Lots of Love, Glenda Sue

[Steven Budlong]

Ted, Steve, Glenda Sue, Mike, Dawn, Danny and all those who have reached out to me, I thank you. I agree with how we handle our public memories of our teachers in life. I believe in lockbox and I believe that God has committed all judgment unto the Son. And when he was reviled he reviled not again. Yet he spoke truth in the face of power and was not hesitant to cut through the masks of men and attack personal evil. That is our example on how to handle men and women and their legacies. But we must not be afraid to apply doctrine, reproof and correction where things were wrong, for whatever reasons. I cannot discern the hearts and intents of men, unless by revelation. But God searches them and knows. So whether things are done maliciously or out of ignorance or drunkeness or anger, I cannot say. I just bring it back to the Word.

And, Ted, I still have your Hosea 4:6 45 rpm. Thank you for singing your heart out to us all those years!

Steve

[Ted Ferrell]

Steve
Thanks for sharing your heart. Your word of wisdom touched me deeply.

Oh sure VP did screw up here and there, but I still belive he was a man after God's own heart. Jesus Christ was the only one that ever walked perfetcly .The rest of us (including me) fall short of the glory of God. Because of The Word that was taught many souls got born again and were delivered from sickness.sin and death.

First and foremost VP and other men and women of The Way taught me more about God's matchless Word that I had never heard before or since,and for that I will forever be thankful.


Steve there are so many wonder filled belivers on this site.And your bio post has added so much to all that will read,and have ears to hear.

Your Brother In Christ
Ted