DogLover

Speaking of racist: During my interim year in the 13th Corps at HQ, I went with a black woman from the 12th Corps to Adolph's. They would not allow my friend to order because she was black ... this was 1984! Talk about racist ... I think the entire town of New Knoxville had some issues with black folk, if the folks at Adolph's were any indication.

J*m D*r* was a total arse ... didn't have enough sense when he arrived to even have tread on his van tires ... with wife and three kids and wife pregnant with the fourth ... he sure got fat that first year when the Corps was on salary (he said himself) from "studying the Word" and eating his wife's home-baked cookies. She had been a delight earlier when she was in the 11th Corps, according to a friend of mine who was then good friends with her. ..... but she married this jerk who did not have the sense God gave a chipmunk ... or the personality God gave a weasel.

Corps leadership at Gunnison? TJ THOUGHT he was an Einstein, but he was more of a Benedict Arnold ... was overcome by his sense of superiority and importance ... but he too was one of those whose wife really led the marriage .. he was not the head of his family in much of any sense of the word and he seemed to have a Napoleon complex because of it. Took it out on the Corps and others around him ...

Gee, am I being too vague?

Geoffrey Mayer (and his brother, Kevin) were in the 13th Corps with me. Sad to see Geoffrey is still at HQ.

ROCK NAZIS ... I love it! What an apt and descriptive term for those jerks!

I agree...just when I think I have "heard it all" as far as TWI (and in particular on this topic, LEAD) ... then I hear something else. My time at LEAD was ten of the most horrible days of my life ... whenever anything difficult has come up in my life, I think: "I survived LEAD, I can survive this." That wasn't exactly what they had in mind, I would guess, when they talked about LEAD building an "unalterable I Can Do attitude." What it DID do is make rock jocks think they were spiritual and make any of us who were NOT rock jocks think we were sub-human. It took years for me to get over the things that were said to me by one G*ni*e McH*n*y on my evaluation ... and yet, here I stand, still standing with God (and not the Way) 35 years after I first did Romans 10:9 in what was a Way fellowship. I daresay she was wrong when she made the comment, "I feel sorry for anyone who's ever in your Twig." The folks in the home church I belong to are, rather, quite blessed with my life and love ... and have never once asked me to climb a rock to prove my spirituality. I think one of the things that made GM so angry is that I didn't take "the rocks" seriously enough ... I had a relationship with God not affected by rocks and rock jocks, and I still do.

Reading about how folks had to amputate parts of toes and suffer lifetime debilitating injuries, all while the Way was covering up, making their lives more difficult, separating them .. makes me very, very angry. I suspect it makes God a lot MORE angry ... his heritage is His people. He gave his only begotten Son for those very people that the Way treated so poorly.

As an aside, I think Ms. Martindale spells her name Kerry. Not that it matters ... I just spell a lot better than I climb rocks! :-)

DogLover

Just for clarification: I was 13th Corps, not 11th.

DogLover

One of the funniest stories I have ever heard told was John Lynn talking about "the appendix incident." It was either shortly after or perhaps during the time he was doing the colon cleanse at HQ ... it caused his appendix to swell ... he described his trip to Indianapolis with then-wife-Pat in his usual humorous style ... but I remember the description of his going to the bathroom along the way and him screaming as "hot molten glass" came out ... this story, though it made us all laugh in-residence till we cried because of his storytelling abilities, made me doubly glad I had never done the cleanse.

I had true friends while in TWI ... of course, most of us left within a six-month period (some later) and now fellowship together in a wonderful church we started on our own!

Cool Waters,

I have read many of your posts over many years, even as far back as TranceNet (though not as "Dog Lover" all the time.) Of all the posts, this one is the most well-put, most informative, and most helpful one ... which is not to "diss" the others :-) ... it is just to say that you have capsulized the harmful thinking that overzealous, non-Biblical TWIts (including me, sadly, sometimes) applied to themselves and others ... and I think it is true that it happened to us one step at a time, one bit of poison at a time ... thereby all the more deceiving and all the more effective, sadly.

Your post is well said, my dear!

Well put, Dot Matrix, well put ... I agree, Elizabeth. Remember that God holds you in the palm of His hands tenderly at all times.

DogLover

I read a letter Michael Fort, once a dear friend, sent to a close friend of mine who had been a clergyman in the Way and was tossed out for not agreeing with the Board of Trustees on the debt issue and for refusing to move wherever they wanted him to ... he (the man) showed me the letter just before throwing it away ... in it, Michael told him that he would would be dead within a year for his disobedience ... surprise, surprise ... that was 1996, this is 10 years later and the guy is alive and well.

In case you are checking out candidates for prophets, that one prophecy alone eliminates Michael D. Fort from the selection pool. (This won't be news for all of you out of TWI, but may prove helpful to those still in.) Goes to prove the adage, "Sincerity is no guarantee for truth."

As for TWI AND for "personal prophecy" by CES and others, I will steal this line: "I've seen the fruit. I ain't buyin' the seeds."

I'm new to reading this (although not new to GreaseSpot), and setting aside the middle school he said/she said nature of much of it, I propose the following for consideration ... this was shared with me by someone else, and I will in turn share it in hopes it may clear things up:

Whenever any group of men and women, such as a Board of Trustees or a Board of Directors, come between God and His Son and the members in particular in a vertical hierarchy, such as we all experienced in the Way Ministry, and which exists in all tax-exempt ministries (by law), SOONER OR LATER the ministry will fail and fall because the organizational structure itself is flawed. It is of man's origin, not God's. It may take years, as it has with CES/Spirit and Truth, etc. and it may happen with well-meaning people (such as CFF, for example), but IT WILL HAPPEN. All the name-calling and particulars in this instance are clouded by the issue of whether personal prophecy is, or is not, of God ... but that is only the smoke screen ... what is or is not of God in the grand scheme of things is the structure of the "ministry" itself.

The members in particular in the body of Christ in the LOCAL CHURCH are the great checks and balances God set in place. Each person has a voice ... not just the Board of Directors.

I don't remember naming our twigs, but I do remember we had to have a name for our twig when we had a dance on Circle Drive at Emporia ... I think part of it was filmed for the "My Story" Corps video ... we were Spanky and Our Gang, but my favorite was a twig of four guys and four girls, dressed appropriately as the "Four Skins and the Circumsisters." The guys had panty hose over their heads and the girls had made cardboard cutouts of scissors, which they wore. (I can pretty well bet you didn't see them in the video, though!)

For those of you who knew/know Ronnie Sink ... great guy/Corps grad ... his father, L.G. fell asleep earlier this week. He was buried in Lexington, NC (Ronnie and his family currently live in Lexington, KY) ... sadly, Ronnie's mother fell and broke her hip a day or two after his death and had to miss the memorial service in Morganton, NC (Ronnie's hometown) held there on Saturday, December 15. For those of you who view this in the next couple of weeks, you may read the obituary and place online condolences if you wish at www.sossomanfuneralservice.com

DogLover

ILB,

I was very blessed to read what you wrote .. it capsulizes your deliverance and makes me realize God will always be the One who helps us find our way ... when we open our heart to Him, he makes a way where there seems to be no way. As we have discussed, your leaving TWI was for many years a heart's desire of mine ... I hated to see a good friend so encased .... so as you might imagine, it's a great, great joy to read of your deliverance through the journals you shared.

DogLover

When I was in-residence with the 13th Corps, I remember John Lynn telling us that Pat Lynn had been a member of the "Zero Corps." She smiled and agreed.

Corinthians instructs the Christian believer to give as he purposes in his heart ... no percentages are mentioned or implied. We aren't under the law, so we don't have to give any particular amount ... it is just as we purpose in OUR heart ... not as some organization purposes and then dictates to us. Whatever amount we purpose in our heart to give should be given cheerfully ... not out of fear of what will happen if we don't give. God is not a Mafia boss to whom we pay protection; He is a loving Father.

Thanks for all the info ...

A friend of mine, a former Corps grad who sometimes lurks here at GreaseSpot, asked me recently if I knew where she could get a copy of the ABC News video we saw in the Corps (and probably was also shown in some Advanced Classes), "1968, A Crack in Time." It covers all the weird things that all occurred in the year 1968 ... MLK, Jr and Bobby Kennedy being assassinated were just the two that stuck out. Does anyone remember this, and/or does anyone have a copy of it? (I tried online and have e-mailed the fellow who has an audio copy of it that can be purchased when you Google the title, but haven't been able to find anyone with a copy of it....she wanted to look at it again).

Can anyone help?

Groucho:

Loved it, loved it, loved it ... still laughing!

I recently wrote Bagpipes with just what I decided to write here just now ....

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Rascal posted on GreaseSpot the following:

Parents reported being told by Mi-cha- F--t to beat their kids with a 2x4 and if that didn`t work to leave them in the woods for God`s sake.

My God, did he REALLY say that? Of course, he did ... but it so saddens me that the man who was so loving, so supportive, to me in particular and to us interim Corps in 1984-85 could have "fallen" so far from walking practically in the grace of God ... Every once in a while I think there is nothing else that can surprise me about what people I know and loved from TWI would do and then WHAM! another reality check.

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Okay, back to the present: Whenever I read something on GreaseSpot and someone asks, "But how could that happen?" or "Why did we let it happen?" I always remind myself, "One step at a time ... we let it happen one step at a time." I am reminded of something my sister mentioned after seeing the Holocaust Museum for the first time ... about how the first signs of what became the holocaust were simple, no one complained, every one went along with it out of fear, etc., and then by the time it WAS a holocaust, it was a major disaster that caused many folks their lives ... and so, I believe, is what happened in TWI ... I was in 23.5 years (I remember hearing the "man of God" speech as early as 1974 -- do as he says do and you will be blessed, even if he is wrong) ... we accepted (yes, were pressured into accepting) each lie, one at a time, until the pile of lies and wrongly divided Word were overwhelming. In looking back, I have oft wondered WHY I put up with that, and I think it comes back down to several things, at least for me: (1) I was young and foolish and afraid to stand up for myself because these people were "older and wiser": (2) I wanted to do God's Will and these folks had shown me in other teachings the greatness of understanding the Bible, so I took the trust they had earned from that and transferred it into trusting them about things that were not biblical. There are other reasons, but those are the two that stand out for me ... that's how I fell for the lies, one step at a time.

About "believing" ... it has helped me to understand it as "trust" ... remaining firm on the promises of God.

Too much wrong teaching about manipulating our minds to push God around is associated with the word "believing" for me ...

Hope this helps someone.

Sami,

She lied ... the father is a Corps grad, and so is the adopted mother. Very loving people with whom I had Thanksgiving dinner just last evening. Her abandonment followed her having an affair with B**d while she was still married to the child's father.

Last I heard, they were Branch or Area coordinators in Cary, North Carolina outside Raleigh. Despite any claims to the contrary, S*lly has a "quarter century" of living proof of her lack of motherly love. Fortunately, her former husband (before Brad) remarried a loving woman who raised the child S*lly abandoned.

A good friend of mine, "Macmarine" of the 9th Corps, talked with this "other Jeff" (Mohn) a few years ago ... seems Jeff has changed quite a bit from his Way days ... haven't we all? Seems more mellow ... good luck in contacting him. I think you will have a pleasant surprise.