“We had this prayer… They taught it to us as children,” she says softly. Her eyes are gazing—not ahead, but into the past. “I used to say it to myself every night before I went to bed. Before every meal. In church every Sunday.”
A tear runs down her cheek as she begins to recite it in a mechanical voice that doesn’t sound like her own.
“To serve is to find peace. To obey is to find happiness. To listen is to find truth.”
When she finishes, the silence crashes down on us like a tidal wave. It’s brainwashing, pure and simple. It’s manipulation. It’s cruelty.
And it makes me so f*****g angry that I have to restrain myself from punching a hole in the window.
“I used to think it was so beautiful,” she admits, the shame thick in her voice.
“That was what you were meant to think.”
“That’s
