We invented a game called Find The Rabbit. One of us, the Rabbit, hid and the rest of us competed to find the Rabbit.  Nice invention don’t you think?  No fences could exclude us because we were super-heroes then and could leap high gates in one or two bounds. Damage to shrubbery or a flowerbed was not a goal of the game but it did not deter swift pursuit either.  We simply presumed that everyone’s front, back or side yard was our rightful play area.   And we were unhindered by adult direction.    The first to find the rabbit got the trophy and a clever new hiding place was greatly admired too.   

You probably invented the same game yourself and I only tell you about it to set the scene for the important part which is that play came to an abrupt end for one of us.   Fresh home from Catholic Church one Sunday came Eileen and she brought alarming news.   We were all going to an dreadful place later, all except Eileen.    And our parents were going there too.  It was a horrid place and bad, bad things would happen to us and forever.  It was because we were nasty and unsaved.  Eileen was saved.  She didn’t say how but we were definitely not!  

Eileen played with us once or twice more.  Her cheerful smile and pretty face became squinched up; she looked frightened.  Then we saw her no more even though she lived directly across the street for years.  And we never saw her parents either. 

I was very puzzled.  This was in the days before I learned not to ask my parents or any big people how or why things worked.   My parents only shrugged and said, “Some people believe that.”   Evidently they did not feel in any danger and that was some relief to me.   But we did miss Eileen.  And I had a lot of pondering to do.  Was Eileen locked up at home or at church? What did getting saved mean? What things are true and what are not?   How does the world work?  Did anyone know any of these things and if so why wouldn’t they tell me?  Why the secrecy? 

Eileen never reappeared.   Now I know what happened. She had fallen into the Catholic Cult and some criminal in a black suit had poisoned her mind! And her family had let it happen!  And now I know how vile it is to load up a vulnerable child’s mind with superstitious fears, passing it off as known truth.  I still think of her and I hope she escaped.  So I ask you, 

DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAS BECOME OF EILEEN FARLEY?