Twinky

Giving out of obligation - is just extortion. Giving out of a thankful heart - is freeing. And, though I have no Biblical evidence to support this, I feel that money given in love, from a thankful heart, achieves more than money given merely from obligation. I know this thread is in context of tithing (money) but what about tithing YOUR TIME? Genuinely getting involved in people's lives in a helpful way - at Foodbank, hospices, hospitals, worthy charities? Involved in your church's outreach program (and I don't mean door knocking)? What about giving your surplus THINGS - we have so much in material terms! How many coats, sweaters, pairs of shoes, etc do you have, and how many do you really need? (I challenge myself...I reckon I could give away a tenth of my clothes and household clutter, and still have too much) (Yep, I'm going to do some of that right now!)

Hey, I love fruit cake. Especially heavy fruit cake. And Christmas pud (at any time of year)!

The "mass" part simply means, "meal" - something you're going to eat no matter what day it is. Christmas = Christmeal. The meal to celebrate Christ's life and death became reduced from an actual meal to a sniff of wine and a pinch of bread or flimsy wafer (what kind of a meal is that!?) The eucharist, as WW says. Feel free to call every day Christmas - to celebrate his life. If you don't have any particular traditions or desire to enjoy Christmas for yourself, newlife, I wonder if you would enjoy helping others? There are lots of places that serve a Christmas meal to elderly, homeless, hospitalised or other people who are likely to feel lonely or uncared-for. Just think of it as an opportunity to serve - not as celebrating Christmas (if that helps). PS - And throw away the vile "Christmas music" and the drummer boy and the sleigh!!!!!! :( :wacko:/>

Don't fprget that "they" put Mrs W in a nursing home when her Alzheimer's got too much for them. Didn't the W family have to pay for that, though, not TWI?

Hey Rottie, are you home yet? How was Israel? What did you see, learn, enjoy?

Bolshevik, that's known as the Aaronic Blessing. It's quite widely used in churches etc and there are some lovely posters available in Christian bookstores with photos of loving-looking dads and kids etc. Even VPW didn't need to state that he was blessing the congregation using a scripture from Numbers.

Heh, just seen this after all this time. I wonder who asked me the question originally?

No bad thing, Raf, to bring up an old thread. Makes it interesting. Better than starting a new one on the same topic. Glad for your more recent info Longhunter. I wish the kids well. Didn't know any of them though. BTW those tweets all start on 1 April. April Fool, somebody!! There are one or two added in May but maybe the same person was just carrying on the spoof.

Welcome, Longhunter. Sounds like you are an "outie" now but you have plenty of family who are still "innies." It can be very difficult! Sounds like your parents were on staff - try not to be too upset if you read some unpleasant things about them or any others of your relatives. Some of the things people post can be very hard to take in. Cheers, Twinx

What always pi$ed me off was the requirement that one stood when a "man of God" (a Rev) entered the room. Often, not only stand up, but bl00dy well applaud as well. I have never ever seen this anywhere else. I think the (arch)bishops in the Anglican church would be horrified at that behavior - certainly the local bishop and his predecessor would be appalled. They're genuinely humble men. And as for the local vicar or whatever, heck, I don't know any who would consider this appropriate. From what I've seen of Methodists, the Sally-Ann, etc. this isn't expected or wanted either. At least TWI only expected us to stand...not actually bow down. MoOG worship. Huh.

Ralph doesn't run it. He drops in there from time to time. Makes good posts, thought-provoking. There are a number of other people who add very thought-provoking posts, too. There is not so much re-hashing of events, as discussing doctrinal issues (at present) and people explaining their take on different aspects of Christianity and life in general.

I 'fessed much to a friend, who finds it difficult to understand quite how I got so wrapped up in this cult. Really, he has no understanding. One day we were talking about this foolish young men that went off and joined these middle-eastern terrorist groups. Became suicide bombers. I wondered how they could allow themselves to become so mislead. He just remarked (quite callously I thought), "Well you joined a cult and you did stuff like that." Not quite like that - but I did abandon family and friends for the sake of my beliefs. Even moved to other countries (none being a conflict zone). And it is true to say that some cult-heads have done totally silly things - committed mass suicide for example. I do think those young teenage kids - girls and boys - can be helped to return to saner thinking. But it might take a while. How long has it been since most of us left TWI? And we're still working cult-headedness out of ourselves. They don't need to be punished for ever for their adolescent foolishness. But they do need to be received back with caution.

Time for another bump on this thread, I think. If you're new(ish) here, prepare for not just one but several horror stories, the principal one at the beginning, and others are interspersed in the later part of the thread. There's some foolish infighting in the middle. And like all negative events, ALL of the events referred to were airbrushed from TWI history.

Looks like you got in. It's a difficult site to manage. Just topics in long strings that are hard to follow, and jumbled up. Not as easy to use as the Forums here. I've already lost patience with it.

John is now undergoing some SOQI treatment.

Proves nothing, except that perhaps she's scared of him. Don't know the history of the relationship, but it's not a promising start, when he's a wife-beater before she's even a wife. Or is she after a slice of his income, which she could only get if she married him and then divorced him? Being a punchbag is a very high price to pay.

Berlin Wall came down while I was in rez. Was months before I found out. Such a momentous event - reconciliation, reunification. You'd think it'd be a cause for rejoicing. But not a whisper.

I practised in Family Law and in Probate Law for a while. Ah, the bitterness there can be after a death where there is an unclear will. Unbelievable!! (And the bitterness between divorcing spouses often shocked me.) There is such a lot of stuff especially in the OT about family relationships and obligations - they're there for a reason (perhaps to learn from?) - for one, that's why the oldest male got a double portion of his father's "estate" - so that he could provide for his bereaved mother and for his sisters, where necessary. Not for him to hold greedily to himself. This has potential to be not a nice thing, Catcup (says Twinx, understatedly). Keep your in-laws in your prayers, and pray that WayBro will come to his senses quickly. Blessed are the peacemakers.

Hello, Catcup, nice to see you back here. Sounds as though things are working out well for you now. Tremendous! What was SiL's response? Flabbergasted, no doubt. Wouldn't believe you. Your MiL should have put the land into a properly constituted trust with two trustees (at least) and all the siblings as beneficiaries. No doubt she trusted WayBro as a true Christian... if only she'd known. I would think that the siblings would have a good cause of action (should they choose to sue WayBro) because there have been distributions of the income in previous years from this informal trust. WayBro is going to have to document the "change of heart" and that will be difficult for him. The costs may have to be borne from the estate (the land) and that will eat up its value and the amount each sibling gets (including WayBro). Definitely a case of agreeing with one's adversary quickly! Regrettably this isn't going to do anything at all for family unity and building harmony in the home (ha ha) and will probably give WayBro even more reason to entrench with TWI. The greedy b******!

I've never heard of half these schemes. Build your cabin at Gunnison? Build a house on TWI property? There were no "leave us a legacy" plugs when I was there. A restaurant in Gunnison? Huh? But then, it was all winding down when I was there...my Corps cleaned out Emporia prior to its sale. Hardly Rise & Expansion, more like Deflate and Entrench.

No, O&A, it was because of their lack of believing!!

Eph 6:2,3 "Honor your father and mother"—this is the first commandment with a promise: "so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth." From Ex 20:12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. Ps 68:6 God setteth the solitary in families... We are (supposedly) all the family of God. And we should respect those who have helped up, raised us up. Take care of them. Heck, likely we are all going to be old one day. And not just because those old-timers in the Word (stay with me!) have been around for a long time. We are supposed to be kind even to our enemies. Even to those who hate us. How much better should we treat those who have been the faithful? Seems to me that there is a record of very old people hanging around and still serving in the temple. Simeon - a very old man whose eyes saw the longed-for Messiah and blessed the infant Jesus when he came in to be circumcised. The prophetess Anna, who had served in the temple for decades - she would have been very old in a culture that old age might well have come early. It's often said that it's how a society looks after its most vulnerable that shows what sort of society it really is. And TWI is adept at casting out anyone at any age who has some problem that slows them down. I just wonder how long it is since Rosalie ran round the grounds for half an hour.

Best healing you could get from TWI, WG.

Rottie, your tour is getting close now and no doubt you are getting quite excited about it. I went to talk recently by a Palestinian Christian - he was born into one of the small remaining groups of Christians and historically, his family has been Christians for many generations. He talks about aspects of life in Palestine, specifically in Bethlehem where he lives. There are very few Christians left in Palestine and particularly in Bethlehem, and this work supports that small minority group. Among a persecuted people, they themselves are often more persecuted - by Palestinians. They can get a "free pass" from Israelis and this religious distinction is used as a divide-and-separate device by Israeli soldiers. He is a young man of about 30, trained as a lawyer, can't get legal work, and did some work / training at the Bethlehem Icon School. Bethlehem Icon School He was keen to promote the work done by the Icon School, which brings a much needed source of income for Palestinian Christians, who paint the icons to earn some money. There is almost no other work to enable people to buy the necessities of life. Bethlehem is usually included in Israel tours, he says, but few tourists realise that they are in Palestine not Israel; and they spend money in souvenir shops that bring money to Israel not Palestine.

Excie, PM me if you want me to invite you. I just got joined into the site (first look at it this evg). Unfortunately I see other women writing about being assaulted (with variations on your story). You won't be alone there.