The Lead‑Up to the Grace Meeting
The yoga farm was more than a backdrop; it was a stage set for prophecy. Its peeling walls and empty fields carried the residue of past seekers, but now Stewart claimed it as the site of a world‑changing event. He spoke of moving us there, spreading across central Pennsylvania like a caravan of flea markets, as if our lives could be repackaged into trinkets and sold on folding tables. Even in my fogged mind, the idea rang hollow, but sleep deprivation dulled urgency. When you are stripped of rest, stripped of trust in your own instincts, even madness can masquerade as destiny.
The message had been whispered for weeks: “At the next meeting, the brothers will be set free.” It was repeated by lieutenants, rehearsed by the men, dissected by the women. No one knew what it meant. Freedom was not Stewart’s language. His meetings were theaters of humiliation, where he slandered the brothers as a mass, then plucked one unlucky soul to serve as a living warning. To hear him speak of liberation was like hearing a jailer promise keys.
And then came the exiles. Fifty, maybe seventy‑five of them, arriving from the shadows of years past. They had left days, months, even decades earlier, yet here they were again, drawn back not by loyalty but by curiosity. Their faces carried the lines of time, but also the unmistakable look of people who had once lived under Stewart’s thumb.
The room was charged with their presence. For us still inside, they were living proof that escape was possible. For them, it was a test: had Stewart changed? Could the man who once crushed their spirits have softened?
The air thickened with anticipation. Current members whispered rehearsed lines about freedom, their voices brittle with doubt. The women sat in uneasy silence, wondering why liberation was always rationed, always conditional. The exiles stood like ghosts, their eyes scanning the room, measuring Stewart against the memory of his cruelty.
Every detail heightened the tension: the smell of dust in the yoga hall, the restless shifting of bodies on folding chairs, the way Stewart’s lieutenants prowled the edges of the crowd like guards. We were half‑awake, half‑alive, waiting for a revelation that might be salvation or another trap.
The irony was sharp: a yoga farm, once meant for peace and renewal, now twisted into a backdrop for control. And we, conditioned to doubt ourselves, shuffled forward as if the script had already been written.