Wow, these stories. We were nuts to not rise up and kick their nerd behinds, weren't we?
Topofthe world
I cannot believe they humiliated that girl like that! Yeah she's a stationary theif but they can do whatever the f they wanted to when they ran with their pack of lewd insider yes-men and women. The turds.
After he read it to us, he then said, "The entire letter is a lie". His reason: she wrote the letter on her company stationary. Because she "stole" that piece of paper from her company, it invalidated EVERYTHING that she said.
Watered Garden-----------Geez ! I remember that basement incident like it was yesterday!
50 people sitting cross-legged on a cold basement floor at 5:30 AM in total silence.
I was always the breakfast person in every house I was in so I was always anxious for the meeting to end so we could run our mile and get breakfast served. (proper etiquette at all times,of course )
I was trying to remember how many meetings per week we had and I came up with about 25 per week.
Does that sound about right to you? Do you remember all the formalities that went into the evening meal?
Legalism was alive and well even back in those early days.
Fellow Laborers, ah, yes, the meetings. We met for the "morning fellowship" ran to the big tree and back, ate our extreeeemely healthful and highly nutritious familia together, then off to work. Met at Limb for supper, had teaching on Tuesday, but otherwise worked our butts off until about 9:45 PM, had another brief meeting, drove back to Delaware for twig at 10:00 or 10:30 or so. I generally slept through twig. I worked in Columbus, and it is no surprise to remember that on our Saturday afternoons off, I generally took a nap. We lived in townhouse apartments on the north end of Delaware, Ohio. I distinctly remember this one roommate I had, blonde through and through, who had acquired some stylish shoes with wooden soles. One afternoon, noting I was napping upstairs, she ran up the uncarpeted wooden stairs in her wooden shoes to shut my door so I would have some quiet. Sounded like the Budweiser Clydesdales! We were six to a 3 bedroom apartment and 2 to a bedroom, unless you lived with a higher up or coordinator who got their own room then there were 3 in one bedroom, but it was luxury compared to what the WC had to live in. Many found their individualism threatened on a daily basis. We were monitored so closely. I got reproved once by a LC (JM) because I don't like outdoor sports and didn't want to go skate on the frozen creek that ran through the limb property. Why wasn't I out there? I should be enjoying myself with my friends. What was wrong with me that I didn't want to participate? (Truth is, I still hate winter but will play in snow only for my grandson, who is 3).
And that was mild as compared to what we did before our "conversions"!
Yes My cuople of buds and I received a serious lecture for taking many of the twig leaders drinking after tc meetings. In one case the bar ran out of draught!
I have to admit, after a few of these reproof experiences I would do my damnest to avoid these people...and even better I reveled in not obeying any of their petty bs. I remember on one occasion, a leaders meeting at my house, the phone rang, I answered it instead of just letting the answering machine get it. The LC proceeded to reem me for answering the phone at my own house during an important meeting. It just made me more committed to disobedience. I never again agreed to having any more meetings like this at my home. When the top brass showed up at your home, they made you feel like you were the guest. These people who didn't have a pot to pi$$ in would walk in your home like it was theirs. The real owners who worked their a$$es off to live there were given little respect by many way big wigs.
What a creep calflor. I remember having no privacy. I lived in a way home. I had a couple of cages in my room where I kept an occasional parakeet or hamster that was going to be destroyed at the pet store I worked at.
There was not a single seed out of place, the cages were spotless....but my lc went into my room and lbegan to litterally scream at me for my lack of commitment.
I was apprentice corpes, how dare I have these distractions from my duty? What was wrong with me?
My goodness it wasn`t enough that I worked and paid all of my share of the bills plus was on every class crew ran a seperate fellowship, plus all of the app corpes meetings and activities....brought damned near all of the new people to fellowship, and undershepherded at least one through every class that ran....all of that was nothing...I dared rescue a parakeet or two and I hadn`t sold my horses yet.
To this day I have to sy that it was the most terrifying experience that I have ever endured, I thought that the screaming would never end.
I have always had dogs and cats...was looked down on because of it. It was just one of the many reasons I never went WOW or Corp...I made commitments to my pets, that I would love and take care of them all their lives. The so called MOG can have expensive trained hunting dogs, but I can't have a lab or cocker spaniel? All of my dogs and cats have a special place in my memories and my life is richer because of it. Hypocrits! To this day, I gravitate to people who love animals.
Krysilis,
In the late 70's and early 80's I did. But, I could see where things were headed...a day when I wouldn't, so I got out while the getting was good in 1984.
A big event was coming up, can't remember what. Sp.ptnr had lovingly sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers; he knew we would be busy and wanted to bless me. As usual I was on beverage crew and knew I would hardly see my bed during this event (long hours). So I brought the flowers down and arranged them in the main lobby where I knew I would be serving most and everyone could enjoy them, not just me. I got told to remove them. Asked why - it was because "there weren't any on the table in the dining room lobby and the people getting drinks there might wonder why" (I have an idea he said they might get jealous, but I can't really imagine he did say that - maybe it was the overall impression). I split the flowers into two bunches and put some on each table. It still wasn't good enough. The flowers went back to my overheated room and I peered at them through the matchsticks holding my eyelids apart as often as I could.
Often wondered: would anyone really get upset if one beverage table had a few flowers on it and another some distance away didn't?
The stiffling legalism in twi was so obviously repressive, so obviously controlling, so obviously wrong...
...It almost seemed at times that the "leaders" who tore into you were getting even for when someone higher on the food chain, tore into them.
It was this cruel little chain of command that would sneer at, and disregard the individual...
Slash and burn...public humiliation, lording over other people, invading their privacy, manipulating their time and finances...and they thought that they were right?...They thought they were "blessing people"?...
In hindsight, I can think of better ways to live my life, than by subjecting myself to a relgious hierarchy...but that's just me. :)
there are people in twi that I will hate until I die. 3 of them. for dismantling my sense of self so completely that I actually disappeared for years.
and for the rest who stood by and watched and support the 3, I can forgive if I see genuine remorse. but those 3 people... I can't even speak about it, but they are bringers of death.
it's been a much longer and tougher path to reassemble myself from recovered parts than it was for them to destroy me.
the love was fake. the godly oversight may as well have come from the devil itself. because of all their so-called care for me, the more someone seems to care about me, the less I trust them. toughest thing ever to try to maintain relationships with normal people when I want to run screaming into the night if they seem even a little nice.
potato...How long have you been out?...I see that you are a relatively new poster.
Take comfort in the idea that the longer you are out, the better life becomes...it's true. I've been out for nearly 20 years now and I feel (and have felt for many many years), that whatever twi did to me...well, I've recovered...
...it's true that their love was fake...but there's much love that's real...unconditional love where people accept you and genuinely care...we call them family and friends. People who are willing to extend a hand and MEAN it...people who are willing to invest themselves in you...and to be there when the chips are down. Don't despair my friend, better days are coming for you I suspect :) ...and don't forget that many of the folks I speak about are right here on the GreaseSpot Cafe...salt of the earth. :)
it's been a much longer and tougher path to reassemble myself from recovered parts than it was for them to destroy me.
Take courage, it is hard to "reassemble" yourself, but I find that the pieces fit together better than they ever did before. What's more, I like the end result so much more.
Don't forget to add some extra bits like compassion, patience, forgiveness and longsuffering.
Groucho, I officially left in september, but I'd been in the process of disentangling myself for a few years. it was just hard to make the final break but I'm oh-so-glad I have. I do like myself better, I have to remind myself constantly though not to sweat the small stuff because I don't have leadership breathing down my neck anymore.
It was great to read everyone’s comments. I had no idea that LCM had such a fetish with office supplies! The only thing that made me sad was that as the legalism increased it seemed that the love and caring decreased. This is such a shame because the love was very real. At the present I am still looking for a church where the caring and sense of community is a palpable as it was in the Way.
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Bolshevik
Yes JD it was sarcasm. Just another way leadership controlled via confusion and not taking responsibility like, you know, a real leader would.
E. W. Bullinger
Dear Greasespot: I sometimes wonder why I stayed with the Way after it got so legalistic in the 1990’s. So in light of this I thought it might be interesting if we could share legalism stories. Her
Calflor
In the early 80's I had been running a twig in a small midwestern town for a few years when we were sent WOWs...long and short of it, I was not allowed to have any influence with "LCs WOWs". One of t
Tom Strange
I can see you in your Karate outfit now! ...kicking the krap out of her!
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Dot Matrix
Wow, these stories. We were nuts to not rise up and kick their nerd behinds, weren't we?
Topofthe world
I cannot believe they humiliated that girl like that! Yeah she's a stationary theif but they can do whatever the f they wanted to when they ran with their pack of lewd insider yes-men and women. The turds.
Rascal
I was teenager as well.
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Lori
Top, I remember that story. It was on a teaching tape! And yes, it had the same effect on me, too.
This poor girl must have been so humiliated!
Did they ever care about that?
I say, NOT!
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excathedra
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waysider
Watered Garden-----------Geez ! I remember that basement incident like it was yesterday!
50 people sitting cross-legged on a cold basement floor at 5:30 AM in total silence.
I was always the breakfast person in every house I was in so I was always anxious for the meeting to end so we could run our mile and get breakfast served. (proper etiquette at all times,of course
)
I was trying to remember how many meetings per week we had and I came up with about 25 per week.
Does that sound about right to you? Do you remember all the formalities that went into the evening meal?
Legalism was alive and well even back in those early days.
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TheInvisibleDan
These "Tales of Woe and Legalism" are scary stories indeed!
Just in time for Halloween.
All the more glad I left in 1987.
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Watered Garden
Fellow Laborers, ah, yes, the meetings. We met for the "morning fellowship" ran to the big tree and back, ate our extreeeemely healthful and highly nutritious familia together, then off to work. Met at Limb for supper, had teaching on Tuesday, but otherwise worked our butts off until about 9:45 PM, had another brief meeting, drove back to Delaware for twig at 10:00 or 10:30 or so. I generally slept through twig. I worked in Columbus, and it is no surprise to remember that on our Saturday afternoons off, I generally took a nap. We lived in townhouse apartments on the north end of Delaware, Ohio. I distinctly remember this one roommate I had, blonde through and through, who had acquired some stylish shoes with wooden soles. One afternoon, noting I was napping upstairs, she ran up the uncarpeted wooden stairs in her wooden shoes to shut my door so I would have some quiet. Sounded like the Budweiser Clydesdales! We were six to a 3 bedroom apartment and 2 to a bedroom, unless you lived with a higher up or coordinator who got their own room then there were 3 in one bedroom, but it was luxury compared to what the WC had to live in. Many found their individualism threatened on a daily basis. We were monitored so closely. I got reproved once by a LC (JM) because I don't like outdoor sports and didn't want to go skate on the frozen creek that ran through the limb property. Why wasn't I out there? I should be enjoying myself with my friends. What was wrong with me that I didn't want to participate? (Truth is, I still hate winter but will play in snow only for my grandson, who is 3).
How ridiculous can one get?
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NOG
Potatoe (hoosier's),
Only at the Saint Louis Zoo as I recall...
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NOG
Groucho,
And that was mild as compared to what we did before our "conversions"!
Yes My cuople of buds and I received a serious lecture for taking many of the twig leaders drinking after tc meetings. In one case the bar ran out of draught!
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Calflor
I have to admit, after a few of these reproof experiences I would do my damnest to avoid these people...and even better I reveled in not obeying any of their petty bs. I remember on one occasion, a leaders meeting at my house, the phone rang, I answered it instead of just letting the answering machine get it. The LC proceeded to reem me for answering the phone at my own house during an important meeting. It just made me more committed to disobedience. I never again agreed to having any more meetings like this at my home. When the top brass showed up at your home, they made you feel like you were the guest. These people who didn't have a pot to pi$$ in would walk in your home like it was theirs. The real owners who worked their a$$es off to live there were given little respect by many way big wigs.
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rascal
What a creep calflor. I remember having no privacy. I lived in a way home. I had a couple of cages in my room where I kept an occasional parakeet or hamster that was going to be destroyed at the pet store I worked at.
There was not a single seed out of place, the cages were spotless....but my lc went into my room and lbegan to litterally scream at me for my lack of commitment.
I was apprentice corpes, how dare I have these distractions from my duty? What was wrong with me?
My goodness it wasn`t enough that I worked and paid all of my share of the bills plus was on every class crew ran a seperate fellowship, plus all of the app corpes meetings and activities....brought damned near all of the new people to fellowship, and undershepherded at least one through every class that ran....all of that was nothing...I dared rescue a parakeet or two and I hadn`t sold my horses yet.
To this day I have to sy that it was the most terrifying experience that I have ever endured, I thought that the screaming would never end.
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krys
You had a choice?
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Calflor
I have always had dogs and cats...was looked down on because of it. It was just one of the many reasons I never went WOW or Corp...I made commitments to my pets, that I would love and take care of them all their lives. The so called MOG can have expensive trained hunting dogs, but I can't have a lab or cocker spaniel? All of my dogs and cats have a special place in my memories and my life is richer because of it. Hypocrits! To this day, I gravitate to people who love animals.
Krysilis,
In the late 70's and early 80's I did. But, I could see where things were headed...a day when I wouldn't, so I got out while the getting was good in 1984.
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Twinky
A quickie "in rez" tale.
A big event was coming up, can't remember what. Sp.ptnr had lovingly sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers; he knew we would be busy and wanted to bless me. As usual I was on beverage crew and knew I would hardly see my bed during this event (long hours). So I brought the flowers down and arranged them in the main lobby where I knew I would be serving most and everyone could enjoy them, not just me. I got told to remove them. Asked why - it was because "there weren't any on the table in the dining room lobby and the people getting drinks there might wonder why" (I have an idea he said they might get jealous, but I can't really imagine he did say that - maybe it was the overall impression). I split the flowers into two bunches and put some on each table. It still wasn't good enough. The flowers went back to my overheated room and I peered at them through the matchsticks holding my eyelids apart as often as I could.
Often wondered: would anyone really get upset if one beverage table had a few flowers on it and another some distance away didn't?
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GrouchoMarxJr
The stiffling legalism in twi was so obviously repressive, so obviously controlling, so obviously wrong...
...It almost seemed at times that the "leaders" who tore into you were getting even for when someone higher on the food chain, tore into them.
It was this cruel little chain of command that would sneer at, and disregard the individual...
Slash and burn...public humiliation, lording over other people, invading their privacy, manipulating their time and finances...and they thought that they were right?...They thought they were "blessing people"?...
In hindsight, I can think of better ways to live my life, than by subjecting myself to a relgious hierarchy...but that's just me. :)
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excathedra
this is one of the most painful threads (subjects) for me
i guess because when you combine it with the motorcoach guidelines.....
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potato
there are people in twi that I will hate until I die. 3 of them. for dismantling my sense of self so completely that I actually disappeared for years.
and for the rest who stood by and watched and support the 3, I can forgive if I see genuine remorse. but those 3 people... I can't even speak about it, but they are bringers of death.
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rascal
((((potato)))) I hear you and understand.
Dismantling of self, it was one of the worst things that they did to us.
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potato
it's been a much longer and tougher path to reassemble myself from recovered parts than it was for them to destroy me.
the love was fake. the godly oversight may as well have come from the devil itself. because of all their so-called care for me, the more someone seems to care about me, the less I trust them. toughest thing ever to try to maintain relationships with normal people when I want to run screaming into the night if they seem even a little nice.
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GrouchoMarxJr
potato...How long have you been out?...I see that you are a relatively new poster.
Take comfort in the idea that the longer you are out, the better life becomes...it's true. I've been out for nearly 20 years now and I feel (and have felt for many many years), that whatever twi did to me...well, I've recovered...
...it's true that their love was fake...but there's much love that's real...unconditional love where people accept you and genuinely care...we call them family and friends. People who are willing to extend a hand and MEAN it...people who are willing to invest themselves in you...and to be there when the chips are down. Don't despair my friend, better days are coming for you I suspect :) ...and don't forget that many of the folks I speak about are right here on the GreaseSpot Cafe...salt of the earth. :)
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Twinky
Take courage, it is hard to "reassemble" yourself, but I find that the pieces fit together better than they ever did before. What's more, I like the end result so much more.
Don't forget to add some extra bits like compassion, patience, forgiveness and longsuffering.
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potato
Groucho, I officially left in september, but I'd been in the process of disentangling myself for a few years. it was just hard to make the final break but I'm oh-so-glad I have. I do like myself better, I have to remind myself constantly though not to sweat the small stuff because I don't have leadership breathing down my neck anymore.
my kids like me better now :)
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Kevlar2000
Just remember - don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things. :)
You'll do fine, potahto. No worries.
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E. W. Bullinger
Dear Café:
It was great to read everyone’s comments. I had no idea that LCM had such a fetish with office supplies! The only thing that made me sad was that as the legalism increased it seemed that the love and caring decreased. This is such a shame because the love was very real. At the present I am still looking for a church where the caring and sense of community is a palpable as it was in the Way.
Thanks for your thoughts…..
Sincerely,
E. W. Bullinger
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