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Now this is some interesting gardening and spiritual stuff: We all know this verse: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. (Gal 5) Are we so familiar with this verse? In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Rev 22) I’m intrigued that there are twelve fruits on this wonderful tree in the new Jerusalem. There were 12 tribes of Israel. Now there are 12 fruits. However, it’s not defined who these fruits are for. But the leaves of the tree are not for the 12 tribes, but for the nations. For the Gentiles. For us. There are healing leaves that we as Gentiles eat: herbs, vegetables. Leaves of trees, less so in the usual western diet, but possibly so in other cultures. Sometimes, I wonder if there are more fruits of the spirit, but we don’t have access to those. Yet.

These days, I'm a s/emp gardener. I just love being in gardens and helping plants "be their best." I learn so much about God, and about living, from tending plants. Plant something in the right location and watch it grow. It may need more - or less - sun or shade. Acid-soil plants won't grow in some soils and need special soil or being planted elsewhere. Is your job, for example, the best place for you to flourish, or does it drag you down. Is your church the right place for you? A plant needs proper nutrients and water. Do what's necessary, to get the best growth. Feed yourself with the right things to help you grow ("think on these things!"). Don't poison your own growth with things that either stunt growth or don't allow growth at all and which will ultimately kill the plant. Are your habits beneficial? Occasionally a plant needs pruning - to keep its shape, to stop unwanted growth, to encourage it to produce more fruit or blooms, etc. Think how savagely roses can be pruned - back to not much at all - yet the next year they're flourishing. If you don 't cut them back, they revert to root stock and lose their lovely blooms. So with us. Sometimes bad things happen. We can let them "kill" us, or we can allow this to be a pruning of unnecessary "stuff" so that we can grow in the best way to suit our own personalities and gifts. Put a plant in the best and most appropriate location. It should grow. Sometimes it doesn't thrive. Take it out and put it somewhere temporarily - and it really takes off. Sometimes what seems the ideal isn't in fact the best for that plant. Some plants like companion plants. They tend to thrive best if other plants are nearby. Some plants help ward off insects or diseases off the principal plant, or attract good pollinators, or give shade, etc. Some plants just look good together and enhance others' beauty. Do you have companions who help and guard you, and who bring out the best in you? All plants are seasonal and nothing bears fruit or new leaves all the time. It has a rest every so often ("fall" or autumn). This is necessary. But then the plant "wakes up" ("spring") and next year's growth is better. Sometimes there's nothing obvious going on because last year's growth has been cut back to the roots. Don't worry if there's nothing to see: back next year in better form. So we need rests occasionally. Sleep well at night but get busy the next day. Allow yourself a rest or vacation - but remember, it's only temporary, not sitting back being a couch potato for ever. And the fruit needs enjoying. It's not just there to be pretty. It needs eating, digesting, and helping nurture your own body. Some parts of the fruits need replanting, for more crops next year. So feed yourself and share with as many others as possible with the fruits of the spirit. Enjoy being kind, patient, forbearing, etc, because these things will help you and others become more kind, patient, forbearing, etc. I could go on indefinitely. But you get the gist.

Wow pretty wild. Branham is known as the father of the modern or second Pentecostal movement. Pentecostal church leader.

Awesome, hey! I like walking. Long walks, in forests or in mountain ranges. Especially forested mountain ranges. I pause and look at all the different colours of green that there are in a mixed forest, or in a small copse. Bluey greens, yellowy greens, reddish ones, and even greeny ones. So many different shades of green. I think: God had fun doing this. Could've made everything one flat colour, but no - look at the variety. Just done for pleasure, fun, enjoyment (a botanist might say differently ). Just like we're all just a bit different from each other. God didn't make us all the same, either.

The heaviness I felt in my heart last week when I wanted to have every memory of my time in twi swallowed up by a dark hole someway in a galaxy far, far away has lifted. The beginning of a new spiritual relationship with God and Jesus feels more real to me now. Without twi telling me what I need do and think as a believer in their ministry, there's now the sense of a freedom and even joy. You know what It's like when you spend a long evening with a large group of people in your house and then once they all leave, you can finally get to be alone with the one (or ones) who mean the most in your life. It's like that. The Way has left the building! Still being active both on GSC and with reading Undertow, I can better handle references to the twi created with their practices and doctrine because I can now contrast them with what's happening in my life now. Thanks again for all your help and support.

What makes ANY of you think Mike is actually reachable? He's been deflecting the same arguments for 20 years. There's never any indication of genuine rational discourse. NEVER.

Hmmm. HE was genuinely hurt.. he reproved THEM.. sounds like he really cared.. only for HIMSELF. Not that I was aware of.. my understanding, he roasted a few people with fire publically, because of MINOR errors, and "missing" etiquette and protocol that even Emily Post was not aware of.. Poor corps were sometimes so worn down from swinging from gluttony to starvation, besides lack of sleep, and verbal berating.. they'd believe anything.. Sorry, I just HATE shots. Beat me with a hose, anything.. but please, no shots..

WOW-the microphone behind the tie! Another first for VP ! The Marxist Minstrels- I remember such insight as The Monkees "I'm a Believer" being an ode to marijuana and the drug culture. The book was mainly an extreme right wing diatribe against leftists, communists,and drug pushers, which was just about anyone connected to the music industry . I 'ran' a state bookstore for a year, and often questioned why I was pushing that book and some others. I didn't question enough,unfortunately.

Something about this picture just doesn't look right.. for the life of me.. I just can't see loy scooting around on a motorcycle.. it would "ruin" his hair..Perhaps his "father" wanted loy to adopt the same interests.. jeeze. Bad enough he took up all his other bad habits.. CAREFUL deliberation??? I doubt it. Ah.. more of the same old stuff.. "You're in, you're out. You're a speck of dirt in God's eye, you're the greatest" Again, and again, and again.. gads, they sure were masters at keeping people off balance.. I WONDER why. vic "confronted" the guy? Asking him WHY? The guy is incoherent for God's sake.. how is HE gonna know???! I wonder how much it had to do with the freakin instability.. "you're in the corps, you're out. You're a pile of dung, you're wonderful. You're.." Not to mention the diet there.. first gluttony, then starvation.. Probably would have made me incoherent too.. So much for being able to help somebody in a crisis.. just send them home.. unbelievable. Concerned. A godly attribute.. and vic just proceeded to beat the last shred of humanity out of ole loy.. "move on son, nothing more to see here.." "There's NOTHING you can do". Really? Seems this little lesson taught loy how to "handle" people.. just put babbling, incoherent people on a bus, put "disobedient" staffers and whole families in a Ryder truck with little or no resources.. no place to go, and no way to get there.. and not have even a tweak of conscience doing so.. I kind of wondered where he learned this..

"I see a lot of naivety and hero worship in Craig. Especially in the beginning. Things like, oh wow, a rolodex, golly gee, Dr. is mowing the lawn! That truly is pathetic. Everything VP did was somehow so "spiritual." I don't understand why this inspired such awe in young men. Its got to be the father thing somehow." Exactly my feelings. Craig gushing over how VPW used a stack of index cards to keep track of students. Wow, somebody's easily impressed. Reading this stuff again, I can't know whether Craig was writing it to fill space or he was truly impressed with the obvious....

I see a lot of naivety and hero worship in Craig. Especially in the beginning. Things like, oh wow, a rolodex, golly gee, Dr. is mowing the lawn! That truly is pathetic. Everything VP did was somehow so "spiritual." I don't understand why this inspired such awe in young men. Its got to be the father thing somehow. As LCM starts getting more responsibility and realizes VP is going to back him up, he starts getting more cocky. I heard him read this when he was made president. I thought it was one of the most blatent hero-worship things I had ever heard. VP was an idol to him - literally and figuratively. Its the same worship and devotion Hitler's men gave him. There's just something very unnatural and bizarre about it.