Linda Z

Geisha, when's the last time you saw me bashing a church? I won't argue with you. It would never end.

I think Christianity is actually thee most exclusive faith that there is Socks....and Jesus may have challenged hypocrisy, but He brought exclusivity by claiming there was one way to the Father. You have a poll asking people if they are are Christian without defining what or who a Christian is.... I bet, if we really examined the parameters of the Christian faith....or even just what you consider Christianity....I would not fall into those same parameters. We believe in a different savior. I am not trying to be rude...it is just the truth.

I'm sorry, but I think you are presuming a lot in your sentence that I've put in bold above. It comes off sounding like, "My Jesus is the real Jesus, and yours is not. I can only hope that wasn't your intent.

<snip> (I have no desire to debate theology, especially in a simple poll asking who among us consider themselves to be Christians)

We complain on here that VP didn't pastor his flock, and he didn't ...he ravaged it....but, here we have a church who probably was looking out for their flock, and we jump to conclusions. I am not saying it was correct to bar anyone entrance without first trying to understand what they were looking for....and I know Mstar has a humble heart....I am sure it was an over reaction, but, who knows what kind of issues they had in the past with TWI. John Lynn could have visited their church for all we know. Any pastor worth the title is going to keep some of these ex-way people far from their doors. Some of these guys wreak havoc wherever they go.

I'm surprised that you would consider this good pastoring. What about asking God's input before turning someone away? In twi I called this "blanket revelation." Rather than seeking God's guidance in individual situations, some people would rather just make a rule and stick by it. This wasn't John Lynn. It was MStar, apparently seeking a new place perhaps to worship. God certainly could have let the "pastor" know if MStar had been a troublemaker. But no, just make a rule: No ex-wayfers allowed. I'm speechless.

To clarify, I don't mean to imply thinking is a bad thing. My point was that you can't know spiritual things merely by intellectual means. I don't even think word studies are a bad thing. It's about balance, and about differentiating between what can be known spiritually and what can be known intellectually.

That article seems to be nothing more than the flip side of the twi coin. VPW et al tried to make everything in the Bible fit together perfectly, by way of an intellectual exercise. This writer tries to show that nothing in the Bible fits together, again by way of an intellectual exercise. Same chit, different day.

5,000 word studies and "literals according to usage" won't prove anything in the Bible true, nor will dismissing the whole thing as inspired and authored by man disprove it.

You can't intellectualize the spiritual, one way or the other. God knows we tried, didn't we?

That's about as real as I can get.

i'm very very very upset that we'll have to put buddy down soon

me boy is an only and he's like a sibling to him

any advice? i know death is a part of life but it really sucks

I wish I knew something I could say that would make it easier. All I know is that there comes a point when letting them go is the most loving thing to do for them. Hugs to you and your sweet boy.

Like I said on FB, it's a scam.

<_<

Yes. Funny he suddenly showed up on April 1st, eh?

I was EXTREMELY disappointed when I arrived in-residence to find there was no real curriculum. I mean shocked. I expected all along real classes and instead found my self in study hall 4 hours working the way magazine and way of abundance and power classes and the rest of the day scrubbing toilets. What a joke.

Wow, things really changed. I wonder if your lack of a curriculum was the result of so many Corps having left twi, because almost all the teachers of the classes when I was in rez were Corps grads. When were you in rez, OldSkool?

We had a packed curriculum (I'm talking quantity, not quality, because the latter varied) during 1978-79 and 1980-81. We had fewer classes our second year in rez because we were given time to work on our research papers.

It's clearly an insult. Put another way, it says, "We all have our past hurts. If you think yours make you more special, have at it, but I'm tired of hearing about them from you."

I don't know the context of the remark, or what kind of relationship you have with the person who wrote it. If you and this person are friends and this is something that was blurted out in the midst of a heated discussion, in response to something you said that provoked the anger, I'd give the person who said that a chance to cool down and apologize. In any other scenario, I'd tell him or her to eff off.

Kit, I have loved your contributions to this thread. You have such a gentle manner in person, and it flows over into your written words.

Geisha, I like and respect you, and I have no doubt that you do many good works. But why are you addressing Kit in what seems to me like a very harsh tone? Seems to me you're assuming she hasn't considered your words, but perhaps she has already considered them, disagrees, and chooses not to debate but rather to simply restate her view. I don't believe she's under any obligation to counter your points one by one. This isn't the debate club, it's a conversation among people of differing opinions.

The rest of this post is directed to no one in particular...just some random thoughts on the topic of forgiveness.

I do not believe I must require someone to ask for my forgiveness (which I've often heard is a prerequisite for forgiveness). God has that right; I am not God and therefore do not assume I share that right.

On a human-to-human level, forgiving is something I believe God instructs us to do. It doesn't get anyone off the hook with Him, but it does remove others' hooks from us. It doesn't restore trust or credibility in the wrongdoer. It lifts a burden from the wronged.

At the risk of sounding repetitious (although I think it bears repeating), no one here is God (well, unless He's reading this thread :)) Who are we to judge? We can judge actions, sure. I can determine whether an action is righteous or sinful. But to judge a person as worthy of heaven or hell? No way. That's definitely God's job. He sees hearts. He knows the "backstory" behind everything. He is much better equipped to judge. It's His job, not mine, for which I am extremely grateful.

That book speaks to me like a voice from the distant past, calling to me from the other end of a long, dark hall.

I knew or was acquainted with some of the people in the book. In fact, Wolfe quoted and referred frequently to a very close friend of mine, who unfortunately died a few years ago.

It all seems like 1,000,000 years ago.

Hooray! Prayers continue for his speedy and complete recovery.

Hi back my friend.

I only bash men who can't run faster than I can...that narrows it down quite a bit.

Seriously, I agree. I like men a lot, and I only bash the ones who treat people (men or women) like crap.

Socks said:

ODD ISN'T it - that the women involved have been the most open, often at personal expense yet THE MEN who were involved on the other side of the coin - kinda quiet.

Wow, socksness, you said a mouthful. I believe (based on personal observation) that some of these men aren't opening their yaps because because they still buy into the "all the women of the kingdom belong to the king" BS, and they still think they're in the king category. I suspect some others have realized by now how wrong their behavior was and are simply too ashamed to own up to it.

But back to VP. For all the show he made of adhering to "the Word, the Word, and nothing but the Word," he had no problem disregarding or rationalizing away verses that would have interfered with his un-MOG-ly activities.

So...good or evil? I saw him do good sometimes, but I know from reliable witnesses he also did evil. Therefore, I'd say he was a man who sometimes did good and sometimes did evil. The sad thing is that he used people's trust in him as a minister to do the latter.

God's accounting system is way better than mine could ever be. I trust He'll sort it all out in the end, and I have a feeling somebody's going to have some 'splainin' to do.

My mom just called a little while ago to tell me about your mom, Waysider.

She was a kind, hospitable, dear woman who loved God. My sincere condolences to you and your family.

She's in the recently formed Facebook GSC group. I don't follow it very closely, but I don't recall her saying anything there about her health.

Nice to see YOU, Psalmie. :)

Hey there. :) I've thought of you fondly many times. Nice to "see" ya!

That's so wonderful, OE. Enjoy your cardio-rehab. They'll work your a$$, and it will benefit you!

The footwear, clock, and ball sound like Cinderella, but that doesn't fit with the other clues. Hmmmm.

I could be wrong, but I believe all credit unions keep their money in banks, which then invest the money. Credit unions aren't banks; they're sort of a financial co-op. I know my credit union deposits our money in a local branch of a large bank.

Credit unions, as far as I know, don't have the same capacity to stockpile money or make investments as large banks do. Credit unions are made up of a small group of members compared to banks, which have huge numbers of customers and much more extensive resources. So in this regard, I think twi's credit union is quite typical.

I've been on FB for about a year, and I've never had friends suggested other than friends of FB friends. I must have accidentally done something right when I did my FB settings.

Johniam, perhaps the person who was offended was Jewish or some other religion.

At the doctor's office last week, I heard one of the office staff lecturing the others about how Christmas was based on a pagan holiday and Jesus was really born in June. She sooooo reminded me of a zealous Wayfer. If she had said he was born in September, I'd have asked her if she had a green card.

The other people just looked at her as if to say, "Well, merry f'n Christmas to you, too, ya big spoilsport.

I know I've told this story before, but one of my favorite anecdotes about Mrs. Owens relates to this thread. At the annual HQ Christmas party, the trustees and wives did a reception line to greet everyone arriving at the party. When one of my friends (who had worked with Mrs. Owens on several occasions) went through the line, Mrs. Owens leaned close to her and said quietly, "Merry Christmas." I can just see the twinkle in her eyes.

Great news, OE. I'm glad to see you able to sit up and post!

Has anyone heard how OE is doing?

Maybe if this were moved to the current prayer requests forum, more people would see it. I looked all over the place for this thread and couldn't find it until I searched by his name.

When I was on staff (82-86), I did my banking in St. Marys. I didn't do direct deposit and don't remember whether that option was offered. Going to the bank on my lunch hour on payday gave me a good excuse for not eating lunch at the OSC anyway (which, toward the end of my time there, was punctuated by LCM or Mrs. LCM tirades--not an aid to digestion). They did offer loans then, because I took out a car loan there. The people running the CU weren't board members/officers of TWI.

Whether they extended membership to people in the area later, I don't know, but it wasn't that way when I was there. Allowing/inviting people to join who aren't with the core organization is not unusual. The one I belong to was founded for teachers of a certain school district. At first they opened membership to people working for certain nearby companies, then later they opened membership to people in the nearby communities and later still, to family members of credit union members. In fact they actively solicited this.

Interestingly, a lot of the RC parishes around the city have their own credit unions. One of them is about a 1/2 mile from my home, and I never got an invitation to join, so maybe credit unions established for members of a church are allowed to stay exclusively for those people.

Of course TWI "has no members," so I don't know how they got around that one.

Hi Gen:

There were Corps there from the beginning, to the best of my recollection. VPW used to talk about making it some kind of a resort, with a restaurant and a walkway over the Gunnison River. That never happened.

I was only there in the summer. I have a friend who was on staff there, and she used to sit quietly in a lawn chair in the winter with kernels of dry corn on her outstretched arms, and the deer would come and eat the corn. I would have loved to see that.

I'm sure it's a beautiful place during winter, as Twinky has said. In summer it was dry and dusty and but still pretty in a rugged way.