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My first life chronology

My First Life

Dancing with Those Who Care on the tip of a Wedge Blade: 1964-1986

Introduction / Statistics from my life in the Order / My first life chronology / The Order: Ecumenical / Phase I: Emerging Generation & Order Youth / Photos, art, artifacts & stories

I believe everyone's life story, chronologically or otherwise, really begins with the story of our parents which than shape our basic sense of the world and how our lives fit into it.

1925: My mother, Margynel Bynum, is born during the blistery cold winter in the small town of Oddessa lost in the vast West Texas plains. She is the eldest of 4 siblings and her family would often struggle to make ends meet.

1928: My father, Kjell Christian Knutsen, is born during the summer in Halden, a small Norwegian town near the boarder with Sweden. He is the youngest with an elder brother and sister. His father was a Methodist Minister and it was always assumed that he and his brother would follow that vocation.

1944: Mom is engaged to Bobby Jackson, an enlisted soldier who is killed in action in Belgium following D-Day.

1946: After the German Occupation of Norway ended, dad graduated from high school and attended the Methodist Seminary in in the big city of Oslo beginning the journey towards becoming a Methodist minister like his father and grandfather. .

1947: At the age of 19, dad follows his fathers past footsteps and travels to the United States, arriving penniless and speaking very little english, to attend Northwestern University and Garrett Evangelical Seminary in Evanston Illinois.

1949 - Lubbuck, Texas

1948: That summer he meets my mom who is the Wesley Foundation Director at Louisiana State College in Nachidoches LA, and taking summer classes at Northwestern in preparation for her planned solo missionary work.

1949: They became engaged, that spring, when mom invited dad to be a speaker at her college. They were married that summer in the Bynum's church in Odessa after dad received his B.A. from Northwestern and Masters from Garrett his Masters. Their honeymoon was a trip by car from Texas to Hartford Connecticut for a year long program to prepare for their chosen mission to Malaya.

1950: After graduation from the missionary training program they traveled to Norway to live dad's parents for one year while dad worked at a church, the final step in becoming a Methodist Minister. Mom, who had a difficult time in Norway because of the language and cultural differences, became pregnant after their arrival.

1951: Dad is ordained in Oslo Norway. My eldest brotheris still-born and I understand that my mother is devastated and takes some time to recover emotionally. To save money they travel from Norway to Singapore by cargo ship a 6 week journey.

1952: After arriving on the Malaya mainland and embarked on an epic 600 miles journey by car through the jungles and mountains to the small town of Taiping in the northwest part of the country. There dad is a Pastor of the local Methodist church and mom is Superintendent of the Girls Methodist Hostel where girls from around the state would come to live while going to high school.

1953: Lester is born in the spring and soon after my parents are transferred to the coastal and jungle town of Kuantan on the eastern side of the country. They moved into a traditional Malay wooden house on tall stilts for protection from floods and jungle critters.

1955: Andrew is born in Kuantan during the summer.

1956: Dad is notified by phone that my Bestafa - grandfather - had passed over in Horton, Norway. Because of the distance it was impossible for my dad to return to support his mother and sister and I understand that this caused him much distress.

1960 - Raub, Malaysia

1957: Our family takes the first six month furlough which was required of missionary families every five years, partly so that they could return home and talk to Methodist congregations to fundraise for their mission. At the end of the year they returned to Malaysia, again by sea, where they settled in Raub, the oldest town in the state of Pahang.

1958: Bernhard is born in the modern hospital at Kuala Lipis, about 30 miles from Raub.

1963: At the age of 11, Lester is sent to Singapore to continue his education at the American School and live at the Methodist Youth Hostel. He said he felt as if he was being expelled from the family, but the real reason was that all of the Malaysian schools were now required to give final exams in Bahasa Malay (which he was not fluent in) instead of english.

2 months old

1964: Tiaping, Malaysia

Marital tension had been building between my parents for many years. My mom later confided in me that she had lost trust in my father and suspected that he was having affairs on his trips away from home. While mom was pregnant with me, the whole family takes a medical leave and travel to Lucknow India to stay at a Methodist Family Counseling Center for three months. That December I come into the world as a breach baby with my cord wrapped around my neck, struggling to breathe

The Knutsen Family - 1965

1966: (1 year old) Tiaping, Malaysia - Lubbock. TX

Marital strife had increased tension in the family again and in the fall it is time for my parents to take their six month leave from Malaysia. This time there was a looming uncertainty about if we would return to Malaysia or if a different future awaited us. Dad also admitted that his years of work and responsibility - always being on the go - in Malaysia had strained their marriage and my mom, left to raise the children, felt alone and cut off from the mission work. The family split for a few months. Mom and all of the four kids travelled to Lubbock Texas where my grandparents now lived and dad returned to Norway.

During this time, dad meets Rev. Joe Matthews and his wife Lynn who were traveling around Europe on a small motorcycle visiting Christian communities that were experimenting with new forms of worship and ministry. Joe gave a lecture on "The Question of God in the 20th Century," that my dad described as mind-blowing and life changing.

1967: (2 years old) Lubbock TX

Dad joins the family in Texas and makes his rounds of the churches that had raised money for their mission. To earn extra money for the family he becomes a lecturer at Texas Technical Institute in their Preparation for Marriage program. Dad later said that the irony of this position was not lost on either of them given their own marital strife.

1968: (3 years old) Lubbock TX, 5th City on the west side of Chicago

While in Texas, dad attends a seminar for clergy led by Rev. Joe Mathews. The seminar, designed and presented by the Ecumenical Institute introduced a model and tools for educating church leadership on how to be effective in the 20th century. Dad feels energized and excited to try these new methods in his lectures and sermons.

My dad proposed and mom accepted the decision to attend a special summer long family residential training program led by Joe Mathews and the Ecumenical Institute in Chicago. We travel by car to Chicago, where I begin pre-school and my first solid memories of my life start. At the end of the summer my parents decide to join the Order and become volunteer staff with Ecumenical Institute. We had officially joined a cult and my father later admitted to wondering if it was fair to the boys. My dad writes his Masters Thesis on the process of renewing the church using Order programs.

1969: (4 years old) Chicago to Kuala Lumpur via Oslo

Dad presents a proposal to both the Mission Board and the Order that our family be allowed to open the first Order Religious House in Malaysia. The proposal is accepted by both parties and dad is appointed minister to the Trinity Methodist Church in Pataling Jaya - a suburb of Kuala Lumpur. The parsonage, that comes with the position, becomes the Religious House and soon there are sometimes 30 people living and working together there with at least 3 younger kids and the first Order "Youth Cluster" made up of five teenagers, including my brothers. This becomes the model for how the Order cares for their high school members, sometimes with disastrous results. I begin Kindergarten at the Methodist church and my brothers and the other school age youth are enrolled at the International School of Kuala Lumpur (ISKL).

My parents help organize an International Training Institute (ITI) for the Ecumenical Institute held that summer in Singapore with several hundred participants from around Asia. Lester, at the age of sixteen makes a proposal for a one year "Spirit Journey." Joe gives his approval and my parents agree to let him go despite their concerns. Lester hitchhiked from Kuala Lumpur up into Thailand to a Buddhist Monetary and then to India where he eventually got dysentery and was sent a plane ticket to return to Malaysia.

Sometime, in this or the next year, I am sexually manipulated by an older adolescent roommate hyper-sexualizing myself and occasionally, for the next six years, I act inappropriately with other girls my age and younger. I also break my right arm falling from a tree and am circumcised when my foreskin becomes infected. I start wetting the bed at night and my pants during the day and have problem controlling my bowl-movements.

Kuala Lumpur Religious House 1970. I am in the blue shirt with my arm in a sling.

Youth Cluster, Kuala Lumpur Religious House 1970. I am in the red shirt.

1st Grade, 5th City, Chicago. (All of the white kids are Order Kids. I am in the back row.)

1970: (5 years old) Kuala Lumpur

Mom and dad were assigned to teach an I.T.I. in Madras India and I was left in the care of the other adults in the house for six weeks. I began First grade at the ISKL and am carried kicking and screaming by my dad to the car. All of the youth are driven to school by Lester that year. Sometime during the year, Joe Mathews comes to our Religious House for a visit (which is a big event for the House and requires weeks of preparation) which is my first solid memory of him. While he was there he was very friendly to and I have a memory of feeling secure sitting in his lap me and once he puts on a sarong and joins me dancing, with his arms outstretched the to the sky, in the refreshing afternoon downpour of the monsoon season.

1971: (6 y.o.) Kuala Lumpur, 5th City Chicago

Dad is assigned to teach another ITI in Bangalore India. This time Mom stays in KL with the kids. Afterwards, she suspects dad has had an affair while there. I finish my 1st year of first grade and am diagnosed with a learning disability causing my struggle to read aloud or copy letters or numbers. Later this is confirmed to be a mild form of dyslexia which I still struggle with today.

At the start of the summer it is time for our regular furlough from Malaysia. While Andrew and Bernhard travel later with mom to Texas, I fly directly to Chicago with Lester to the Order campus in 5th City, where we do not know anybody, and he reluctantly hands me over to a stranger who sticks me on a bus full of strange kids and a few adults. This begins a three day journey to hell (for a 6 year old), seemingly living on PB&J sandwiches and sleeping on the floor of the bus in puddles of piss, to attend the Order Camp New Jerusalem held in New Orleans.

This camp becomes one of my earliest times of sustained trauma and abuse in the Order. I was physically punished every day for wetting my sleeping bag on the floor of the huge dormitory my grade level slept in, and shitting my pants because I, along with a majority of the camp, come down with a tropical strain of Shigella, a highly contagious disease. The entire camp is quarantined by the local Health Department for four weeks.

While I am at camp, the rest of the family arrives at the Order campus and my parents, just as I get back from camp and spend one or two days with them, are assigned to teach a secluded 8 week intensive course on Order methods to prospective members. I am given to another family to care for and am bullied relentlessly by their two older children. It is decided that I need to take first grade over again and am sent with the other Order Kids to Leif Erickson, the local elementary school where we are all bullied terribly by the community children.

2nd Grade, singapore - 1971

1972: (7 years old) 5th City on the west side of Chicago, Singapore, Seremban & Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

At beginning of the year I return to Malaysia with mom. There it is decided that I should be sent to Singapore to the Methodist Youth Hostel (where Lester went when he was 11) to complete first grade at the American School. Mrs Sneed, an elderly British expat who runs the hostel becomes my guardian for the next 1 1/2 years. I write letters to mom asking "When can I come back to the family? I promise to be a good boy." For holidays I am sent home by myself on a plane. Dad is assigned to a church in Seremban, in the jungle highlands, and, because of the ongoing tension between them, mom spends the year between there and the KL RH.

1973: (8 years old) Singapore, Kuala Lumpur & Seremban, Malaysia

In Singapore, I join the "Doodlebuggers," a little league team and finish second grade at the American School. Dad visits me once and we go to see the new James Bond movie "Diamonds are forever." Unfortunately, James Bond is my role model on what it means to be a man. I return to Malaysia but by now all of my brothers have been assigned to other Order Religious Houses and I never live with them again as a youth. I am enrolled back at ISKL and skip third grade going directly into fourth which later I realize was a mistake and set me up for struggles in my later education years.

1974: (9 years old) Kuala Lumpur, Uptown Chicago & Milwaukee

Mom and dad are assigned to teach ITI in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia while I stay in KL and finished fourth grade.

At the end of the school year, I go with mom and dad to Chicago where we live at the new international headquarters for the Order, EI and ICA at the Kemper building near Lake Michigan in Uptown. Lester and Linda get married on the second floor of Kemper in the Daily Office room during the summer program. Everyone is given an hour off to attend the wedding.

As a stranger to other Order Kids, and because I am continuing to wet the bed, I am bullied for the entire summer. At the Order summer camp, I run away one night with another boy my age because we both felt like we couldn't take it any more, only to be picked up by a Sheriff, when we had finally decided to try hitchhiking after walking for a couple of hours, and returned to the camp and handed over to the staff member that was most abusive to us.

After the summer I am sent to Milwaukee to live with Linda and Lester at the Religious House there. I began fifth grade and start stealing money, cigarettes and alcohol from Order Adults and books and snacks from stores. I become truly drunk for the first time on stolen House Church wine and entertain the other Order Kids by my antics of climbing up to my bunk bed and then acting crazy and falling off. I also become an obsessive bully of the younger kids. I view this year as the beginning of my lifelong struggle with addiction.

My first suit, bought at Sears, for Linda & Lester's wedding 1974.

1975: (10 years old) Milwaukee, Kuala Lumpur & Klang Malaysia

By now the tension between my parents has reached a crescendo and they decided to separate for a year marking the beginning of the end of the marriage. My dad returns to Malaysia and is assigned to a church in Kelang, about a 45 minute drive from KL. Mom stays at Kemper in Chicago and I finish fifth grade in Milwaukee. That summer she decides to try again with my father and takes me back to Malaysia, surprising my dad and causing more stress factors in the relationship. I live in Kelang with dad and get a ride to the ISKL school with my music teacher for sixth grade. Mom spends most of the time living in KL at the Religious House, coming to Kelang on the weekends for church. Grandma Bynum passed away and mom returns to be with her family for several months. My dad does not expect her to return.

6th Grade, Malaysia - 1976

1976: (11 years old) Kuala Lumpur & Klang Malaysia, 6th Grade Trip, Chicago Student House

I began to experience deep anger at my father for the way I have seen him treating mom and begin to consider him a hypocrite which helped in my conclusion (along with the theological inconsistencies of the bible which my Sunday school teachers were unable to explain) that I could not be a christian (though I continued to to the decision, begin a phase where I basically stopped communicating with my dad which lasted for the next four years. Mom does return to Malaysia, I think mostly for me, and it is clear that she can't live with my dad so she stays full time in KL and I start spending more time there with her. At the end of my school year my parents announces that they are getting divorced. That is the last time that I ever live with my parents as a youth.

As part of the divorce my dad is expelled from the Order while my mom decides to remain with it, effectively keeping me in it as well.

Mom and I return to Texas for a few weeks and then she is assigned to the RH in Oklahoma City, and I fly to Washington D.C., where Bernhard is living at the RH. From there I join the 6th grade trip for Order Kids in New York. We spend a month traveling the Bicentennial trail in New England - Boston, Philadelphia, Valley Forge, Washington DC. - and then hike the Appalachian trail for a month. At the end of the trip we each had to spend a full night by ourselves without food. This is our Order "Rite of Passage" from children to youth. I begin smoking marijuana with an older youth staff summer.

I spend almost the entire month of August by myself at Kemper. There were over 500 adults and kids in the building at the time, but there was no one who was responsible for me and I learned from other Kemper youth how to break into the liquor and snack rooms and the walk in refrigerators in the Kitchen where all of the donated food and milk was stored. I also begin stealing from adults in the building and the change that was collected each day during our Daily Office ritual. I learned where and how to buy pot on the streets of Uptown.

After 6th Grade, all Order kids are sent to the Student House on the third floor of Kemper. This is a two year brainwashing program to ingrain Order theology and culture into the youth, hopefully so that we would be more passive and accepting of Order structures and guidelines. During this time all of us are subjected to mental and spiritual abuse and some are victims of physical and sexual abuse by both adults and youth. I was bullied by everyone older then I, and I bullied those that were weaker or lower on the hierarchy. We went to Joan F. Arrai Middle School where we were called Institute Kids and many are bullied and beat up by members of the three main local gangs.

I began to contemplate suicide as an option. I would climb up onto the roof of the eight story Kemper building, usually inebriated in some way, and stare down onto the street and think about how easy it could be to step off.

During the Student House, we all took turns on washing dishes for the entire Kemper, 300 - 500 people every night, sometimes past 10pm on school nights. We also had to work after school and on the weekends on jobs that either made money for the Student House, or provided enablement support Kemper including childcare of infants through 5th grade.

The common punishment for students who were rebellious or acted out was swats on the back of the thighs with a paddle that left imprints on the skin for days. I saw and heard 11 - 13 year olds beaten with the paddle while they screamed. Some youth who did not scream or complain would often receive even more swats to break them. The gym teachers at school became concerned with the number of Order Kids who had marks of abuse.

The Order adults enjoyed their Celebrations - often to excess, and these parties at different points of the year lasted until the early hours and allowed any youth, who wanted to, to find ways to drink as much alcohol as we could consume.

1977: (12 years old) Chicago Student House

After 7th grade I am assigned to be Junior Staff at the Order summer camp in Indiana. Other youth either work jobs in Chicago, and on farms in Wisconsin. During the summer camp it is fairly common for us to steal Beer from the adults and take the canoes out into he middle of the lake or the other side for late night parties. The entire camp rented a theatre and went to see Star Wars.

During August I traveled by myself to visit mom, who was assigned to the Pace Mississippi Human Development Project, by train and then by bus to San Angelo to visit Grandpa for two weeks and returned to Chicago by bus.

I started my 8th grade at Joan F. Aria Middle School. After seeing the Dean of the Student House repeatedly punch a friend in the face while placed in a stranglehold on the floor for calling a staff member a "bitch, I helped him while we called the call Child Protective Services to report physical and mental abuse in the Student House. This resulted in an official investigation during which we had to clean the Student House and be on our best behavior and effectively ended the use of corporal corporal punishment in the Student House, at least for a couple of years.

During the spring, dad stopped by Chicago to see me on his way back to Malaysia. It would be the last time I see him until my 11th grade. I broke my left wrist playing tag football on concrete schoolyard and re-broke it playing Rollerball on skateboards. I was caught stealing beer from the liquor room and, since they couldn't give swats anymore, I was forced to run 100 laps from the 3rd to 8th floor and back.

Dad marries Debbie in Malaysia. They had met when he was last there. Andrew, who was assigned to the Malaysian Human Development Project at Sungui Lui, was the only other family member there.

Before our Christmas Break a group of students are tasked with producing a Christmas pageant. I ask if I can write the play and ____________ Letter

During Christmas break I took a bus by myself from Chicago to San Angelo to visit my Grandpa. My cousin Duane was there as well. We were both arrested when, after sneaking out of the house and breaking into a high school, we were picked up by two guys who thought they recognized and invited to a party. The car was stolen and they had an ounce of pot in the glove box. We spent about 8 hours in jail before we were released into my Grandpa's care. He gave Duane and I each a carton of Marlboro cigarettes for Christmas.

The Boys from Brazil meet at an Order Kids Reunion - 2010

1979: (14 years old) Bananaris-Brazil, Houston

The youth are invited to spend an evening with a famous Brazillian soap actor who owns a ranch on the edge of town. We are given some locally grown marijuana that gives us a psychedelic experience. One day after smoking some on our lunch break we decided to rebel and not go back to work and instead took a three hour ride on Bannana tree trunks down the Bannanerias river through the tropical paradise. It was another hour to walk home.

Before we leave Brazil, the youth are assigned to organize and lead two Youth Leadership Forums, one in Bananerias and one in Rio de Jenerio. The complexities of leading two forums in completely different settings, navigating the huge gulf between the rural poor and city youth, and the need to have everything translated between Portuguese and English, is extremely stressful.

Leaving Bannanerias and Brazil is bitter sweet. I reflect on how much I have grown and changed this year, physically and mentally. I have gained a deeper awareness of my inner struggle between the dark and the light. I feel, sometimes, that I am a pendulum swinging back and forth between two extremes. I never finish my final exams for some of my 9th grade correspondence courses. This will haunt me when it is time to graduate and I do not have all of the credits needed.

I fly back with the youth to Chicago and then make my way by bus to the Houston Religious House where mom is participating in a week of planning the next year for the Religious Houses in that Area, which included Houston, Dallas, Amarillo, Oklahoma City, and New Orleans. I plug into the planning session with about 15 Order Youth to map out a "strategy for youth engagement," in each city. At the end, my mom is assigned to the Dallas Religious House and I request, and am granted, an assignment to the Houston House as I have developed close relationships with the youth already assigned there. This includes my first deep teenage infatuation with a girl assigned to Houston and excitement of our late night cuddle and make out sessions. I have begun the rollercoaster ride of teenage relationships in which someone always ends up getting hurt.

I am enrolled in 10th grade with the other youth in the Vanguard Program for accelerated studies at the neighborhood Jessie H. Jones high school that is 98% black and the white students, primarily from wealthier neighborhoods, are bused in.

Houston Religious House Youth Cluster - 1980

1980: (15 years old) Houston

· Dad sends a check for $1200 to pay for a plane ticket so that I can visit him and Debbie in Penang. I open my first savings account but quickly begin to whittle away at the money spending it on drugs and alcohol for the youth in the house.

· Finish 10th grade – struggle with depression and life angst.

· 1st series of consensual sexual experiences and deep teenage infatuation (which of course I thought was true love.)

· 1st LSD experience while camping in the Houston National Forest.

· · Drunken car accident at the end of the year. (I was a passed out passenger in the back seat with out a seat belt.) We borrowed a car from a RH intern, got a case of beer which we drank while driving around Houston. Driver passed out and hit a tree. I broke the orbit around my right eye that impacted with the pull down ashtray in the middle of the back of the front seat. Then I rebounded and broke my jaw on the door handle. I had to wait three days for the swelling to go down before they could operate and wire my jaw shut for the next several months. I lost 30 pounds and became addicted to Codeine.

Passport photo 1981

1981: (16 years old) Houston, Dallas, Kansas City

· I had no energy for school. All I wanted to do was drink, smoke and take my painkillers. I decided to drop out of school early in the year.

· I was assigned to the Dallas RH to be with mom while the Order decided what to do with me.

· Mom gets permission for me to use a lakeside cabin as a weeklong solitary retreat. I use this time to smoke the rest of my pot that I brought.

· Mom arranges for me to see a psychotherapist at a Methodist run center.

· Mom works in the office at a suburban church

· Linda and Lester and family visit and work temporary jobs to earn money.

· and went to Dallas to stay with my mom before going to Kansas City to join the Order youth contingent at the Religious House there.

· Began 11th grade again

· Began photography

· Attended the 1st Youth Symposium in Chicago

1982: (17 years old) Kansas City, Chicago, Kansas City

· Helped organize the 2nd Youth Symposium in Kansas City

· Began as Fry Cook at Annie’s Santa Fe on the Plaza

· Graduated High School from Lincoln Academy in December and left the Order moving into my first apartment with Bill who became a cocaine dealer and addicted as well.

Christmas in Toronto 1984

1983: (18 years old) Kansas City

· Bill moved out and Rob White moved in. Rob moved to Joplin and Bruce Lanphear moved in.

· Helped provide logistical support for 3rd Youth Symposium in Kansas City

· Became youngest Assistant Chef with Annie’s Santa Fe on the Plaza

· Celebration 10 in Indiana marking the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Order’s Student House program

1984: (19 years old) Kansas City

· Bruce and I moved to a better apartment closer to the Plaza

1985: (20 years old) Kansas City, Memphis

Hired by Chef Charlu to open Raphael’s Cantina in Memphis as Kitchen Manager

1986: (21 years old) Memphis, Chatanooga TN, Houston, Washington DC

· Joined the Community for Creative Non Violence serving the homeless in Washington DC . Worked as co-manager of soup kitchen cooking 2 meals a day for over 500 homeless and low income, food procurement & dumpster diving, homeless shelter renovations

- New England Walk for Nuclear Disarmament and NE hitchhiking

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