Twinky

Thank you, John. As you'll have read, there is no small suspicion among ex-Way people. We got sucked (suckered?) into a class that didn't cost much, and have ended up with all sorts of problems. Doojable makes the point about "one more wonder class." I believe you do want to try and help people; you know what cult indoctrination can do! Certainly if there are (reasonable) expenses in putting something on, there should be recoupment of the expenses. But - advertising? (posts at GSC don't cost.) I also appreciate that preparation takes time and that takes away from earning capacity. Paw, I know, manages this site in his spare (spare? ha!) time and if that were worked out at an hourly rate would probably be about half a cent a week and who could begrudge a little income there? As a professional, I charge for my professional advice. As a Christian, as a friend, as a listening ear, as a person showing compassion - I find I put my hand in my pocket, not my hand in the other person's pocket. And somewhere in between is "mate's rates." Which is still a professional thing.

Some great insights on this thread...

At risk of sounding a real pain ... Why is there a fee of $25? Who gets it, and why? Wasn't it paying fees for - what? - that got us into this mess in the first place? Is this seminar really entitled, "Power for Abundant LEAVING"? I know John is a professional but so also are many other posters at this site, and ultimately the Cafe is a "self-help" site.

Debt is an interesting topic, one which (surprisingly) TWI doesn't have right. I thought they had abandoned the "no debt" policy? What I'd be interested in, though, is the personal assets of the BoD or whatever they call themselves now. There were reports at the Cafe about Rosie having co-ownership of a piece of land that is mostly forest. Well, as she lives in Ohio, in a well-appointed home with zero need for expenditure, what does she want with forest elsewhere? Acts 2: 4 Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, 35 And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. 36 And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, (which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation,) a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, 37 Having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet. And I wonder what other "lands" any of them secretly own? With or without loans. If they want Corps to live squeaky clean lives - they need to set the example themselves.

Maybe he's excusable on the grounds that he has insufficient intelligence to understand what it's all about Maybe he never heard of contempt of court, either.

"Don't panic, don't panic!!" SARS, bird flu, swine flu... And next year's panic will be...? Ride a bike in heavy traffic. Without a helmet, if you really like to live dangerously. Lots of things are "risky" but keep things in proportion. Be realistic. Keep your immune system working the best by eating sufficient fresh fruit and veges. Go to bed and rest if you are ill. Flu really is horrible. It's not just a heavy cold. But let's face it, most of us don't get "flu" very often, we just get colds and call them flu. And most of us won't get this current ailment, either. Slaughtering pigs (WordWolf's item) is just as sensible as slaughtering every Mexican as being a potential carrier. I'm sorry for the underclass of Christians who is suffering most from this unnecessary cull.

Hey Oldies - we're likeminded on something! Yes - beware of bikes - motorized and pedal. Your first ad ran on TV and on the big screen on the cinema. When it ran in cinemas, you could see the audience flinch, even if they knew the ad. Sushi, speed limit in the UK in residential areas is generally 30mph. BikerBabe, thanks for making a case so eloquently for pedal cyclists. Being on a pedal bike is a dangerous activity. Most drivers are very courteous, but it only takes the one who says, "Sorry, didn't see you luv" - after he's hit you. I've never had a serious accident, but had a few near misses, none my fault. In town traffic, often a pedal cycle is quicker than a car. If a car driver cuts me up, when I go past at the next intersection or wherever, I bang on the roof or the window and demand to know why the driver cut me up. I have also found a useful trick from the police. (This happened when a driver RAN INTO ME whilst I was stationary at the side of the road - he saw a parking space near me and just decided to go into it - never mind me right by the parking space! He was very abusive to me. Unfortunately for him the police station was right in the next block.) Anyway, I reported this menace driver to the police and they took the car reg no. Later that afternoon they phoned me to report back. It was a company car, and they had phoned the Personnel Manager at the man's company. They said this often got much better results than them sending a warning letter to the driver. Since then, if a vehicle driver cuts me up, I note any phone numbers on the vehicle and phone to speak to a manager there to complain and to suggest driver education (it's a company liability after all, if their driver runs someone over!). I do it nicely and have only had one bad response from a company and that was where the driver was also the owner of the small business. It might be a vehicle driver's fault but it's the biker who ends up on the slab... Take care!

When I left (or rather, was kicked out), they sent my ABS check from the previous week back! But maybe they had more people then. They could afford to say goodbye to my funds. But it was a last kick in the teeth at the time. But hey, I LOVE giving to worthy causes. People that are really out making a real, healthy, difference in the lives of others. Yeah, a good cartoon. An octopus springs to mind.

gc, your parsnips will probably go well - if you leave them long enough they will seed and if you let them seed they will go crazy all over the garden! (Nice yellow flower/umbellifer, though). The beetroot are quick to germinate and grow. Pick them when small and tender, a bit bigger than a golf ball but much smaller than a tennis ball. Last year the collared doves ate the growing tips from my brassicas (cauli, cabbage and brussels sprouts) - experienced gardeners recommend netting them (more work for you!). They would go for broccoli, too. I grew some purple curly kale later on in the year but they didn't go for that. Have a go with perpetual spinach (chard) - you will be very impressed with the results. I have been out in my garden or on my patio (deck) quite a bit lately and I have noticed quite a lot of wasps about (wasps, not bees). Don't know where they are coming from. I have just started letting my cats out under supervision (see "Cat Whispering! thread) and they love these little fast-moving things. So far they haven't caught one but it may only be a matter of time. I do not want to even think about that scenario. Anybody got any good ideas for wasp deterrence? I could persuade them to fly around in another part of the garden, but I don't really want them elsewhere, either.

I applaud those of you who are still with TWI simply because your spouse or other person that you love is still there. I applaud your faithfulness and commitment to your marriage vows (something about staying together in sickness and in health?). And I trust you are making arrangements for the day your spouse realizes that s/he is part of some sick organization, and that TWI isn't really the place to be any more. It doesn't say much for your spouse's reciprocal commitment and concern for you, that s/he doesn't realize how miserable you are and has not enquired why. (Yeah, sure, it's you who is "possessed" - gag.) Keep talking. One day you too will join the exodus.

I thought this bore repeating. Quite a question to ask of a fading organization. Perhaps they are so Waybrained and so used to Wayspeak (saying the opposite to what is the fact) that they have confused "add" with "subtract" - ??

Come, and bring that wife of yours. Tell her there are believers here who would love to meet her, or something...! (There are some Way-ish fellowships around, in fact. But I don't know any that are affiliated.)

Copenhagen - a six pack!!!??? What happened to the two drink limit? LOL

Eloquently put by the author of the class description. I felt near to tears. The author obviously has a heart to hear and to learn, and as usual got kicked back. As ever, what a waste of talent and heart. All very sad. Get out now!

You could add some lavender too - smells lovely. Harvest the blooms in the early morning. Can go in a border, not necessarily your herb garden. Can get leggy, looks better after a bit of a trim but not too viciously.

Hello again! Kimberly, you crack me up with your mint description! Too true! And lemon balm is a close second, but much loved by bees. I've heard copper tape well spoken of, but not tried it. You should see the slugs we have round here (well, no, you shouldn't; they're so ugly, shudder) - great big mid-brown things and they are usually well over 6" in length. How much of MY veges do they need to get that big? There are smaller black slugs too. And snails in quite pretty colours. It has been dry as dust here for the last month or so. No rain at all. But last night it started, nice and gentle, rained gently for about 12 hours, a good cloudburst at lunch time today, and now bright sunshine. Perfect for giving those weeds a good start! I finally attacked my yukka over the weekend. It was a big mature plant, lots of "heads" on it, very stylish ... and completely out of place in a cottage garden. Occupied a lot of space for little return - and provided lots of hiding places for slugs and snails. I finally sawed it down and the shrub border has really opened up. Am amazed at how much space it took. Now I need to work over the whole shrub border (which also had 4 greatly overgrown leylandii in it till last Sept/Oct) - there is a lot of ground elder (pernicious weed) in the border which I knocked back last year with Round-Up, but it is coming through again. I think all I can do is keep digging over and digging over and removing as much root as I can. Once I have done that, I have a number of shrubs to put in the border, some rescued from before the leylandii removal. I might extend the vege garden into some of the shrub border where the yukka was. Maybe. I have a border on one side of the lawn and I plan on widening that too. Decisions, decisions....

Well, I found out what the thing was in Tuxedo's flank, actually her shoulder, when I managed to capture Tuxedo today. I found this hard thing in her fur and pulled at it - it's a claw, or sort of fingernail thing, you know, that cats rip off. But whether it belongs to Tuxy or to Crypto is impossible to tell. There didn't feel to be any scab nearby which might indicate a tear or rip in the skin. They are still both in a funny mood today. Almost like they have switched personalities. Tuxy is very jumpy and hardly comes near me. Crypto, on the contrary, wants fondles, or at least is not so averse to fondles. Maybe you're right, Dooj, it's their hormones gone awry. I'm interested in your crockpot remedies! Though they may not be acceptable to this pair, unless they are Go-Cat goulash or similar. They turned up their noses at bits of steak last night, they won't eat fish (well salmon anyway). Tuxy loves liver; Crypto loves ham. Anything else gets stalked away from.

I would like to see if any of you have any advice about the happy couple and their present "relationship." Tuxedo you may recall is the bigger cat. Crypto is about 2/3 her size. They both like to play but Tuxy can be rougher and can push Crypto over quite easily. Crypto acts scared of Tuxy. They generally tolerate each other but aren't particular friends, and never curl up together. Tuxy is generally the ring leader, and Crypto will follow once she sees nothing awful has happened to Tuxy. But last night and today it has been complete turn-around. Crypto has had several goes at Tuxy and Tuxy is cringing away in fright, even to the point where she will not approach the food bowls (and she loves her food!) because Crypto is there. Tuxy has skulked on a chair under the table and Crypto is on the floor near the table glaring at Tuxy with the meanest look in her eye. She has chased her round the house several times. This is most unCrypto like behavior. After an aggressive day today, there is a lull in hostilities this evening. C has approached T and allowed T to lick her head and ears (C seems to like this, on a regular basis) but T has done it warily. Tuxy will not now allow me to fondle her much - just the briefest stroke of the head. I stroked down her flanks and she permitted this down one side but will not down the other - I managed it once and think I may have felt something, a lump perhaps, but she will not let me near that side any more. (Oops, a hitting session both ways just taking place.) They are --- I must go - war is happening. ...T is now back on the chair under the table and C is in the middle of the kitchen floor looking cross. At a guess, T "played" with C last night but a little too aggressively and hurt C and C is still upset and determined to get her own back today. But it may well be something completely different. I am pleased that C is "standing up for herself" but she is doing more than just defending herself - she is actively seeking occasion to chase, hit and generally intimidate Tuxy. It is so very out of character that it is alarming. I haven't done anything different to or for them. They haven't been outside for the last couple of days but going out is new for them. I was dosing C with Mimulus which is supposed to reduce timidity, but she hasn't had any of that for several days either. Suggestions? Comments? Should I be pleased or worried? If worried - for which one of them?

Dooj, there are some clips from The Apostle, including the opening 11 mins, on Youtube. Very scary, very emotion-whipping-up, no substance. I found myself cringing. But I do know where VPW got the idea for that white suit!! (Ah no, Duvall plagiarized VPW's idea, no?)

Hi all, just looking in after a long absence. I have been the usual idle slob and not got onto the garden as much as I should have done but nonetheless am making up for lost time. I have things sown in starter boxes and pots and they are sprouting nicely. My cabbage from last year is still in the ground, but it's all bolted and is about 3ft high, very funny. I have broken off the flowers but have left it in the ground for the time being because I pull off a few leaves to cook every now and again. I need to get some mangetout peas, they're so nice. Peas are nice anyway but a lot of space is needed for little result (cheaper to go to the shop!!) but something different like mangetout (expensive to buy) would be worthwhile. I read what you all posted about garlic and probably I'm too late now but my garlic planted ... nearly this time last year (gulp) is still in the ground and growing well. Just before autumn (fall) I cleared out four leylandii trees. They were pretty big and they are now out, roots and all. I dug compost and horse manure into the soil before leaving it for the winter. If nothing else, it supports chickweed (prolifically). At present am uncertain if this part of the garden will remain a shrub border with some new shrubs, or if I will set it to veges. I also want to re-shape the border on my lawn because there is no room for plants that I do want to have in the garden, flowers and shrubs and some such. I was given some raspberry bushes last autumn and they all failed. I got some more a few weeks ago and they are now all showing signs of growth, which is pleasing. Time my beans went in, too. Perhaps this weekend. Need to move the compost heap, will put the mature compost into the bean trench with some hoss muck and the beans should go beautifully. I like beans. Runner beans, that is. I planted chard last year and that has cropped and cropped and cropped and cropped.... not sure whether just to leave it where it is or to sow some more seed elsewhere. Some of it must go to flower/seed, presumably. gc, I might be down your way sometime soon. We shall have to see if we can swap some "babies".

Thanks, Mark. I feel God really wanted me to be a part of this church. I felt like I had "come home" at the first service there. It was very soothing. I would attend and listen to the sermon, and tears of joy and blessing would leak from my eyes, couldn't stop it. The church has been very healing. The housegroup is a bit strange, after TWI, with everyone saying, "I think this means..." but they are all deeply thoughtful and have been Christians for a long time. Each is on his or her own walk with God. The comment, "I think this means..." speaks as much to where they are on their on walk with God, as to underlying meanings. Nobody knew my background when I was assigned/offered this housegroup (as opposed to any of the others running within the church set-up). But I do think it was the best place for me to be. One woman there says she can see how much calmer and more peaceful I am. I asked her what she meant, and she said, when I first started going, they (she) wondered what was going to come out of my mouth. Gosh, and I thought I was keeping my mouth shut and trying to keep a lid on TWI dogma!

Why did I buy it? Because I wanted to know more about God, the creator of the universe. Had had a conventional upbringing, sent to church (C of E), to chapel (Methodist), rebelled iin early teens because I couldn't see what it was all about. It didn't seem alive or interesting, just a load of oldies standing up and sitting down and singing a few songs. It was all very formulaic and didn't touch my heart one bit. I did do some confirmation classes with the vicar, which were quite interesting, but the whole churchy thing was too boring. Years later and still searching. I would wander into churches from time to time. Nice people, sometimes nice songs, but nothing that really grabbed my heart. Many years later and I had decided to read the Bible from start to finish. I read Acts and was amazed and astonished, and really wanted to know what had happened to the power of God that those people knew and lived by. Where had it gone? Why wasn't it around now? And I wanted to learn Greek to get more out of it than just the English words. I knew I was missing a lot in the translation. Some time later, I was in an intensely stressful job with a horrible manipulative boss. He was clever, but mean. I met a WoW, who was clever and lovely. He had answers and showed me in the Bible all sorts of things, and he always had an answer. I was interested in what he said, and in him. I believe God spoke to me and said that life could be either this way, or that. I could use my own intellect and abilities and become mean like my boss; or I could go the other way and be kind and helpful to others. It was my choice. (There is, of course, a little more to it than that, but that's the essence.) I wasn't interested in the class that the believers kept pushing and trying to sell to me. Eventually I did take the class because this great bloke that had witnessed to me, was getting a lot of pressure put upon him by some interim Corps. I still didn't like the class but took up the "read the epistles for the next three months" challenge and that really decided me. Of course, I'd be reading it faultily, through PFAL-colored glasses, but then, I'd never read the epistles before. There was a knowledge, intensity and passion about the believers (WoWs) that was not to be found in any church I'd been in. They were great and lived a life in acknowledgment of God. Some of them went into the Corps and I loved being around them. (Later, other mere "twiggies," ended up hurting me horribly.) The class, though I didn't enjoy it, had taught me more about the Bible than anything else I have ever heard. It just made sense. And I wanted to carry on getting to know God better, know more about him. Of course, if the church actually taught something, really taught, went through scriptures like PFAL did, then I wouldn't have fallen prey to the abusive organisation of TWI. The vicar at my current church once said, "If the churches did their job, people wouldn't get sucked into cults." He's right. And of all my current church's housegroup, about a third have come from some closed or cultic background, and about half of the house group have suffered abuse within their churches. Even the rest said they didn't learn much in their original church - hence we comprise Methodists, Baptists, C of E, RC, independent churches, and some from cults, in this thriving and very laid back church. Which really strives to know God and to educate those of the congregation who want to know. You wouldn't recognise the church as belonging to any particular denomination. No formal liturgy, no robes, no standard procedures though all fall within a range. People like to leave time to listen to God and not push him out by doing things by rote.

Welcome, Stayaway, you finally made the break. Think you may have been a lurker here for a while and you know that there is nothing out here that can hurt you. You will not be a grease spot by midnight unless you eat too many of the Cafe's donuts, LOL. Last one out, close the door, please. Rosie, if that's you, suggest you empty the swimming pool as well.

Oak...when was TWI ever about keeping anyone informed? (LOL)

Well, I have had them out a little today, as well. It was such a hot sunny day. I left the door open and encouraged them out. They were hesitant. Crypto explored more than Tuxy. They both enjoyed a good roll on the warm concrete of the patio. They flopped down together to lie on the doormat in the sun - never seen them lie down together before. After a while Tuxy got up and went inside into the shade! It is good they are getting a little more familiar with the outdoors environment and that they aren'[t in a hurry to bolt off, which was my main concern.