waysider

Oh, OK. Another way to say "Just get over it."

".....men whose capacities and advantages, whose patient deliberation, and whose improvements in humility, mildness, and candor, give them a right to hope that their views are more just than those of their neighbours." SERIOUSLY?? You think this describes the subjects being discussed? Or, am I misinterpreting your implication? Here's a newsflash. The whole dogma of dispensations/administrations and 3 types of people is an elitist attempt to say "my dog's bigger than your dog.". It's the antithesis of what you seem to be suggesting. (Unless I'm misunderstanding the meaning of what you are saying, in which case I preemptively apologize.)

".....everyone else is deceived and therefore lesser children of god." Kinda like a pet schnauzer. "Fetch, boy, fetch."

You probably won't see many new faces. Offshoots seem to be filled with old TWI believers, pining for the good old days that never were.

There was no meat on those bones. That's why the skeleton never really managed to get anywhere.

Yeah, I don't understand the "answer nothing" part, either. I've got my hands full with "question everything" and "learn something".

"Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing."......Euripedes

I must admit, however, had it not been for the humorous exploits of this merry band of Gawd's Elite, I may never have understood the full and vital essence of the phenomenon we know as cognitive dissonance.

When I said we tried to guess the gift ministry, I didn't mean to imply it was some sort of game. That seems to suggest we had a cavalier attitude about it. We did not. We considered it to be a serious and solemn event. I apologize for not stating it more clearly.

"......we were fed the company line about TWI being the revival of the Book of Acts, and how it was a world-wide ministry...." FellowLaborers was promoted as a way to gain an intimate understanding of how the church functioned in the first century through academic scrutiny and practical application in our everyday lives. After graduation, the idea was to take what we had learned back to our hometowns and put it into use so we could be better leaders. It fell short on all counts. The academic aspect was dismal at best. The promised study of Acts was almost nonexistent. The daily living aspect was nothing but a commune with a religious twist. We had some good times. We had lots of bad times. We learned some valuable life lessons. Few of them had anything to do with the Bible or how the first century church functioned. It was all a charade at best. .....but we did learn how to grow mung bean sprouts and make our own mayonnaise so that's nice.

Breakfast at The Way........HERE

Ironically, it was the focal point of a much talked about plagiarism lawsuit. "Harrison wrote "My Sweet Lord" in praise of the Hindu god Krishna,[1] while at the same time intending the lyrics to serve as a call to abandon religious sectarianism through his deliberate blending of the Hebrew word hallelujah with chants of "Hare Krishna" and Vedic prayer.[2]" SOURCE

At least they can't hide the bull any longer.

"And, just maybe.....wierwille never let his mask slip in front of any of them." That's quite possible with Eddie and Donna, as well as Ray and Vera. Truly good people, all of them. But, they lived hours away and only saw what they were allowed to see. When rumors started flowing out of New Knoxville, they probably were fed the same propaganda as the rest of us. If they did know, they certainly never gave any indication to that effect.

My opinion is that VPW needed to surround himself with people who were beyond suspicion, people like Owens, Jess and George. When you think of these men, you think of wholesomeness. Whether they were wholesome or not I don't know, only that such is the perception that has endured all these years. Wierwille wanted and needed to associate himself with that perception to distance himself from scrutiny.

OK, got it. This time you'll be filling instead of removing. Little boy: "We got a new cat, Grandpa, and it's a boy." Grandpa: "Oh, how can you tell?" Little boy: "It's got whiskers."

"But then.....with spade in hand, I will be filling the grave with excavated dirt." I'm not real clear on this. Are you saying Ermal's grave was not filled with dirt from the excavation?

A parable? Nah, I don't think so. A comparison, maybe, but no deep, hidden meaning. You see these guys on the news who tell you about how some con artist got them to fork over their life savings and got nuttin in return. You think to yourself, "Geeze!, it must be embarrassing for that cat to have people looking at him, knowing he was such a fool." You wonder why he puts it out there for everybody to see.... Well, I don't know why.... Maybe he thinks it will keep some other poor shmuck from gettin' screwed like he did. Or, maybe, just maybe, there's something about it that helps him feel a little less foolish for having been such a fool. (My granddaughter, Clara Belle (Yep, that's her name.) said, "Gosh, Grampa Waysider, How's come you talk like a guy in some old Jimmy Cagney movie?")

Sometimes I feel like that old dude you see on the 6 O'Clock news, baring his soul about how some shyster took him to the cleaners and back again. It's embarrassing and yet a relief at the same time to get it out in the open.

It was a commonly held belief in the mid 1970's that ordination was reserved for those with gift ministries. Whenever we heard of someone being ordained we would try to guess their gift ministry. I don't know where the idea came from but I suspect it had something to do with the gift ministry teaching in PFAL.

Me, too. I'm still working on it.

Maybe he was the team Dr.

OK, now I see the discrepancy. We're talking about entirely different time periods and circumstances. As I said earlier, I became involved in 1972. I was already an adult. Because I was an adult, I immediately became involved in the mechanics of the ministry (ie: running a twig, setting up meeting places, lots of physical involvement.) I didn't grow up with it all around me. None of these things were evident at the local level at all. It wasn't until I availed myself of the 24/7 lifestyle of a training program that I began to see fragments of the things we are discussing here. And, it later took distancing myself from some of the Way dogma to begin to see things more clearly. I know people who are involved with satellite type activity, though I no longer know anyone who is directly connected to the mothership. More than knowing and not caring I think they simply refuse to believe the reality of what happened. Complacency is a much different animal than denial.

Spirit of seduction. I'd better alert leadership right away.

"What exactly was ever a secret about The Way? Any wrong-doings The Way did, the followers everywhere knew about. At least since before I was born." Being much younger than me, I can understand why it may seem that way to you. (I took the class as an adult in 1972.) Really, though, many of us didn't know much of what was going on behind the scenes. Sure, we would see this leader or that do things that appeared suspicious. Speaking for myself, I thought some of these shenanigans were one-off events. In fact, that's how LCM tried to play it off when he was exposed. I had no idea how widespread the problems were. And, you can't go playing snitch to the leadership just because you have a suspicion. I discussed that in another post, earlier today. (Just the Facts by Dana Fort/post #49) These things were carefully hidden from the rank and file believers in local areas. It took participation in a training program, where you have to stay in character 24/7, for me to even get a glimpse of what was beginning to look fishy to me. And that was just a peek. So, when you say "Any wrong-doings The Way did, the followers everywhere knew about.", I have to strongly disagree with you. Even as these posts appear, there is a remnant of the old-timers and some of their recruits who STILL refuse to accept the reality of it all.