The Laws of the Ring by Tim Keown, Urijah Faber Read Free Book Online Page B

preaching about his relationship with a girl. He started out by saying their relationship was originally only about sex, and it got a little graphic. It was really odd and uncomfortable. Even my grandparents—who had been excited about Ryan’s born-again Christianity—were so disturbed that they walked out. When I pointed this out to Ryan, he told me, “They were convicted.”
    Roughly six months after the meeting—on New Year’s Eve 1997 to be exact—with Ryan one class shy of getting his AA degree and moving on to Azusa Pacific, my parents got a phone call from his boss at Nordstrom. His boss said, “I know this is not any of my business, but if he was my child, I would want to know. Ryan hasn’t been showing up for work on time, and when he does, he acts strange. He’s losing weight—we can’t get him to eat when he is here—he will rarely talk, and doesn’t smile. He walks around with his head down, and isn’t able to perform his job duties as before. Even his regular customers are noticing and commenting. You know Ryan, he is always so fun and bubbly, joking around and making people laugh—he is no longer himself.”
    Both of my parents were remarried at this point, my mother to Tom and my father to a nice woman named Marrian. Both had their hands full. Pops was still recovering from a mild stroke he had suffered the previous summer, and my mom and Tom had Michaella, who was almost four.
    But of course my mom snapped to attention and called the family Ryan had been renting from. Yes, they said, it seems like something’s wrong. Ryan had moved in with some of his church friends earlier in the year, but had recently called the family and asked to move back with them.
    Concern turned to panic. My mom, stepdad Tom, Pop, and stepmom Marrian left Michaella with me and drove seven long and anxious hours to Los Angeles to find Ryan. My mom had his ex-girlfriend’s number and pieced together where he would be. They found him at a New Year’s Eve party for the LAICC. It was on the college campus at Cal Poly SLO. When they finally found the ICC New Year’s Eve party, Ryan was nowhere to be found. They looked relentlessly, asking various people if they knew or had seen him. Finally, my mom spotted him. Ryan was sitting by himself in a fetal-type position on a section of one of the lawns on campus. His arms were wrapped around his legs with his head almost in his lap.
    â€œRyan, is that you?” my mom asked. He looked up.
    â€œMom?” Ryan said faintly. My mom was horrified. It was him. Ryan was skin and bones, almost unrecognizable. He was so gaunt and starved-looking that you could see the outline of his teeth through his skin. It was as if he had been locked up as a prisoner of war. There was another church member standing nearby, just watching him as if not to let him out of their sight.
    My mom and pop said, “Come on Ryan, we’re taking you away from here.”
    He said, “I have to tell my discipler first and make sure it’s okay.” My parents were fuming by then, and my mom said, “What? You have to ask someone if you can leave with your parents? Who is your discipler?” My mom couldn’t wait to be face-to-face with this person.
    â€œSteve Burger.”
    â€œOkay then, let’s go talk to Steve,” my mom said. She said that when she met him, she could not believe this was a religious leader. He wore a white button-down dress shirt, almost completely unbuttoned to be sure everyone could see his chest, a gold chain, and a diamond earring in one ear. Mom said he looked more like a pimp. My mom had some very choice words with him, and my parents then took Ryan for a walk until they could convince him that they would just take a short ride.
    Of course, they were kidnapping him, without much protest other than his mumbling attitude about needing to tell his discipler he was leaving. You could see