Galen

ex10:

"Galen, By your own admission, the most of the corps you dealt with were at the limb or country or whatever level and you needed class materials. Do I have that right?"

Absolutely.

Each different place that I was stationed or lived, I usually ran a Twig. It worked out such that breifly in '83 we were within a branch, and again in '95-'97. Though most of the we were not within any branch. Living here for a few years, then moving, over and over. We could usually find beleivers whereever we were and piece together a fellowship. But none of that had anything to do with Corpse. When we did need materials, was generally the only dealings that we had with them, usually on the Limb level.

My understanding has been that when sent out into the 'field' most of them were sent to limbs, and they remained within the local area around that limb office. So obviously most areas in the nation where I could possibly be stationed, there was on presence of them.

"Just consider that these people involved in such things were not representative of the masses."

Okay, but wasn't that 'them'?

"Most limbs, and countries as well (I assume) had limited resources. They tended to get pretty protective of their "stuff" and who was using it, for what purpose, etc. I'm not making excuses, just trying to point out that there were many factors involved in running PFAL classes, that maybe you aren't/weren't aware of."

Okay, uh sign people-up / arrange a suitable local / coord refreshments / parking / flip-charts / tapes / send in the money / contact limb to schedule using the tapes/flip-charts.

"There's no doubt that some corps "leaders" were jerks. But it's pretty upsetting for those of us who feel like we did our damndest for people, to be stereotyped. Surely you understand that?"

I understand that some were jerks. We are in agreement, again, thank you.

On 2 occasions, I have been given 'C'-grads to be within my fellowship. Both times I was told that they were on 'in-active' list and would be Twig members and not Coords. In 1990-93, one couple was very nice, wonderful people (The Olsens). Of whom we are still in contact with. They learned their own system of ethics, largely from attending the Corps program and had huge problems with 'leadership' in the field, ethically. I learned a bit about further study of the Bible from them, and they often filled us in on 'inner-dealings' of things with-in the ministry.

The second couple (1992-93) was a lady 'C'-grad who married a non-C-grad (a sailor). Moving to Connecticut was the first time in years that she had not been surrounded with other 'C'-grads. She would complain for hours of how she missed it all. That she had been used to spending all day in contact with other 'C'-grads. She had lived with them, worked at jobs with them, met them through-out each day, and spent every evening attending fellowships with them. When they lived in Ct, she truly went through 'with-drawal's as if she had been addicted. She still traveled 90 minutes twice a week to attend 'C' night at the limb office. Each monthly bill to be paid, each shopping trip, etc, was yet another stand for G-d and oportunity for the Adversary to torment her. After about a year of that I was trasferred. My wife and I were always treated as second-class citizens by her. She openly and constantly told us that we had never acheived our true potiential, and that we could not, without first attending 'C'.

edited to be more gentle:

I do not intend to be insulting to ALL Way Corps grads. I have not met all of them, nor do I intend to (within this life). My observations are limited to those individuals within which I have had dealings. I have been told that the majority of Way Corpse Grads were gentle kind and loving. Such has not been my observations, and I can only speak to that which I have both seen and heard. From among those Corpse of whom I have dealt, the majority of them ended as severely negative experiences. I had assumed that such was always the case with most Average Joe Believers. If anyone takes anything that I have written personally and feels insulted, I apologize. I can only speak concerning those of whom I have dealt with myself. On numerous occasions I have named Corpse Grads who have acted un-kindly and carried themselves in a manner which brought a bad name to Christianity. If you are not among those I have so named, then obviously you were never a complete idiot in your dealings with me. There were always many loving godly believers within TWI, who only wanted to worship G-d and serve others.

alfakat:

"Galen: I said what I said. You are tarring with a wide brush. Period."

Very well.

"Find the word shallow in what I said. I said you don't know what went on and you speak like you do. Period."

I dont know, what 'training' you wen through. I have said this before and will likely say it again. I dont think that I ever did say that I was there.

I can however still speak for what I saw and how I was treated. If that offends you, it is truly bad. Does your mirror image offend you? Does the image of old photograghs offend you as well? I am sorry.

"I WILL NOT speak to the Submarine Service; THAT is my WHOLE point, capiche???? I was not there where you were-- how could I??"

Which has been my point as well. It is good that we agree.

I was not in corpse training, get it?

"I find your manner offensive, Period."

That it too bad.

"You do not like that about ME, fine. Period."

I dont think that I ever said I did not like you.

Did it sound like I said something negative about you?

I dont know you, how could I have insulted you so mortally?

There were people who acted poorly, they treated others very badly. I saw it, and it brought dis-honour to Christainity. Did that include you? I have no idea. I dont know you.

If I simply speak the truth of what I have seen and done, how should it bring such offense to you, a man I dont know. You even think that I dis-like you personally.

Ooops.

edited to be more gentle:

I do not intend to be insulting to ALL Way Corps grads. I have not met all of them, nor do I intend to (within this life). My observations are limited to those individuals within which I have had dealings. I have been told that the majority of Way Corpse Grads were gentle kind and loving. Such has not been my observations, and I can only speak to that which I have both seen and heard. From among those Corpse of whom I have dealt, the majority of them ended as severely negative experiences. I had assumed that such was always the case with most Average Joe Believers. If anyone takes anything that I have written personally and feels insulted, I apologize. I can only speak concerning those of whom I have dealt with myself. On numerous occasions I have named Corpse Grads who have acted un-kindly and carried themselves in a manner which brought a bad name to Christianity. If you are not among those I have so named, then obviously you were never a complete idiot in your dealings with me. There were always many loving godly believers within TWI, who only wanted to worship G-d and serve others.

Radar O'Reilly:

". . . I PERSONALLY do not know that anyone that I knew or was friends with went into the way corps for any reason other than we wanted to be trained for a lifetime of christian service."

A noble purpose.

"I am not gonna make a blanket apology for all of the idiots that went thru and graduated from the way corps...that is their cross to bear."

I dont think that I have ever asked, nor even implied that you should.

"But please, when please listen and consider what Socks says....he and his wife..they leave a legacy of WHAT IT COULD HAVE BEEN in their wake. He isn't wrong.......at least not in this matter. He is speaking for many more of us than even he knows."

Very well.

edited to be more gentle:

I do not intend to be insulting to ALL Way Corps grads. I have not met all of them, nor do I intend to (within this life). My observations are limited to those individuals within which I have had dealings. I have been told that the majority of Way Corpse Grads were gentle kind and loving. Such has not been my observations, and I can only speak to that which I have both seen and heard. From among those Corpse of whom I have dealt, the majority of them ended as severely negative experiences. I had assumed that such was always the case with most Average Joe Believers. If anyone takes anything that I have written personally and feels insulted, I apologize. I can only speak concerning those of whom I have dealt with myself. On numerous occasions I have named Corpse Grads who have acted un-kindly and carried themselves in a manner which brought a bad name to Christianity. If you are not among those I have so named, then obviously you were never a complete idiot in your dealings with me. There were always many loving godly believers within TWI, who only wanted to worship G-d and serve others.

Question: How often do 'normal' children wear-out / destroy furniture and toys.

These syblings we have now (we have had them since June '02), have each destroyed their bunkbed. We bought new bunkbeds before they moved in. We try to stop them from jumping on their beds like trampolines. But then they each punched threw the box-spring platform that supports the mattress. Last summer(July '03), I replaced each with a 3/4 inch sheet of plywood, supported with 4 lengths of 2by4. We were cleaning some feces in the boys' room (after yet another one of their feces fights), and I saw that the 10 yr old has punched threw the plywood and split one of the 2by4s supporting it.

When they first arrived they all wanted bicycles, so we bought them each one at Bennys. They like jumping ramps and off sidewalks, and before school started again all 3 bikes had been destroyed. Two of them, the axle bearings had ground-up and spit-out. The handle-bars were bent and one was twisted apart. A couple times we did pull one or the other boy off of the bikes, beating on them with a pipe, or swinging a bike over his head and throwing it at another child, type of things. This past summer we did it again and supplied each child with a new bicycle. No bike has survived.

The two boys are each in therapy. Our 10 yr old is ADHD, RAD and on meds. Our 8 yr old is ADD, RAD, Bipolar and on meds. The 10 yr old likes to drive a bike out in front of on-coming cars. He has been hit by cars twice, doing this stunt (since he has lived with us). He likes the attention he gets from the drivers, and then an ambulance ride, etc.

Our girl is 11 and her mattress is currently on the floor as she collapsed her bed (both head-board and foot-board were kicked off from supporting that bed frame).

Bonnie has a printed inventory of all their clothing, and goes through checking all their clothes about every 2 weeks. Our girl comes home with extra clothing every few days (she likes to beg clothes from her school mates), at one point her room had a pile of shoes that came up to her waist.

I have purposefully avoided using the children's names in this post, as they are still foster children.

To me, access to a bicycle is a normal part of growing up, but they should learn somewhere that when they destroy something, they will lose it. Bonnie wants to give them each another bicycle this summer. I am concerned that as with everything else, when they break something the state will replace it. They say this and they beleive it.

Each November, December and January, social workers bring by boxes of presents. Some of them will have cards inside showing that they were collected by churches or charitys.

Does anyone think that by going a summer without bicycles, these children will learn something?

alfakat:

"Galen--you were very obviously burned by corps people."

Only by 'active' corpse people, who were Limb Coord (LC) or LC-suckups or higher. Not by the 4 corpse people that I have known whose focus was on serving G-d and His people. As I have said through-out not ALL corpse, were neccesarily 'bad'.

"Fine. However, your extrapolation out to the whole 3,4,5000 or so is unwarranted and your age and experience in life should tell you that I should not have to tell you this -- _you know better_. Do you want me to start disparaging U.S. armed services people with the same prejudice you are showing?? You are a better man than this and more honest so please take off the blinders you have put on..."

A lot of servicemembners are bone-heads. Okay. So what.

I hear you, and I think I understand what you are saying, though I dont really think that I have such 'blinders' on.

I had thought that VPW ran a large corporation, with multiple locations, training thousands of people. Here on Greasespot Cafe, I have been corrected. He taught each corpse person individually, and each corpse grad modeled their behavior after him. Okay, fine. This was not the empression that I had, but obviously I was in error.

"Now, because I was in the corps, are you going to rail on what I just told you and call me evil???"

No where did I call ALL corpse evil, did I?

But many even here on Greasespot Cafe will agree that their were many Corpse who were very evil and mean and nasty. To say otherwise would be dis-honest, sir.

Now, wait, I have made statements about how we have ALL done wrong. And we have ALL sinned. I know that I certainly have. I was a member of a large organization, that destroyed mens lives. I was led astray and bought into what the organization was doing for many years. I re-enlisted many times. I have worked alongside of men, as we all engested and absorbed hazardous chemicals and radiation, and many of them died. Anyone who complained of medical problems, we wrote-up as malingerers, charged them with crimes, and processed them out. And then later, I defended Muslims as they bickered with and fought Christians. I have been a consenting party to leading men to die, and I have caused men to die.

"And come on, gdamn it, vic was in charge--and in ways you CANNOT possibly know about, because you were not there and I, and others, was/were..."

Okay, I will admit that he was in charge in ways that I have no idea about. WHAT??? How can I possibly agree to such a statement? If I know nothing about it, then I know nothing about it.

"will you listen to me spout off about the Submarine Service, Galen??? will you??? really???? c'mon, get honest--you know you won't!! as my old man always said, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander...please let me know if I need to explain that...."

Take your best shot.

I think perhaps that you really dont know me, sir. I make statements about me, that to me dont give a ring of truth. If you think I am that shallow, then fine. I am being honest.

Whether goose, or sauce, or what ever, go for it, dude.

In the course of my limited exposure to TWI, I saw people act the way that they did. For me to report what they did, to say here how I saw people handle themselves, is honest. I dont see the dis-honesty in this. You do, fine.

edited to be more gentle:

I do not intend to be insulting to ALL Way Corps grads. I have not met all of them, nor do I intend to (within this life). My observations are limited to those individuals within which I have had dealings. I have been told that the majority of Way Corpse Grads were gentle kind and loving. Such has not been my observations, and I can only speak to that which I have both seen and heard. From among those Corpse of whom I have dealt, the majority of them ended as severely negative experiences. I had assumed that such was always the case with most Average Joe Believers. If anyone takes anything that I have written personally and feels insulted, I apologize. I can only speak concerning those of whom I have dealt with myself. On numerous occasions I have named Corpse Grads who have acted un-kindly and carried themselves in a manner which brought a bad name to Christianity. If you are not among those I have so named, then obviously you were never a complete idiot in your dealings with me. There were always many loving godly believers within TWI, who only wanted to worship G-d and serve others.

Dot Matrix-

“Galen: I am curious, and not being mean by asking this, but I am curious.”

Very well.

“You seem to defend the class and VPW with regularity but you bash the corps with the same frequency. I was just wondering how that can be?”

I mean to defend PFAL.

VPW has been judged by his actions, and presumably will be judged by someone ‘higher’ than I. I do not mean to condemn him, nor to exonerate him.

Corpse members were certainly a varied bunch. In my limited experience, the over-whelming majority of Corpse were mean nasty a$$holes.

However in my 18 years, I think that I did see a few who were not. I am sure that I have seen or been in the presence of at least a dozen, who did not have opportunity to open their mouths, and thus they were very nice and possibly even ‘loving’ if only from a distance.

I see no contradiction. I never met VPW, I can not hold such an opinion of him, negative or positive.

I have probably seen 100 corpse over the course of 18 years, between my wife and I, we can count how many we ever knew the names of on the fingers of 2 hands, of those 4 turned out to be nice. (I am hesitant to say ‘loving’). In limb meetings, at limb offices, etc, I have seen and dealt with many more green name tag wearers, who I never knew their names, but were less friendly than a scorpion in my shorts.

“Those of us who were decent people who loved God and went in the corps to serve God had to deal with the same ROTTEN corps you dealt with. I will grant you many of them were nasty, ego maniacs that caused much harm. But MANY if not most of the rotten corps were in the "inner - circle" or close to it (as they were sold out, just not brought into the "secrets" yet.)”

Okay, where were those decent loving corpse? I presume they were in Ohio. If I was doing a twig, and needed something, and went to Limb, the Limb Coord (LC) or whatever green-name-tag I dealt with would usually give me a detailed grilling about what I wore, what Twig I ran, Why I needed whatever, and How dare I think that I could run a twig in the absence of corpse.

“But who do you think was leading the corps to be self-serving? Who do you think was telling us it was okay "to get your needs met" at the expense of the believer? “

At one point I would presume that Steve Strezpec was leading them.

“BTW you are correct about corps that were kept in smaller twig positions, those of us that were kept in "smaller" positions were the ones fighting against that school of thought. So, we did not rise as we were not "the cream of the crop". We were “bad” corps.”

I would think otherwise.

The 4 corpse that we did like and get along with: were 2 couples that had each been ‘reduced’ to Twig Coord (TC) level. One couple in 1983 in Fresno (Steve Frampton and wife), and the second couple in 1992 in Mystic (John and Margi Olsen).

I would have to say that those people were the ‘Good’ ones.

“I was just wondering how you can be in two different camps? You seem to think the guy who was leading the corps in their "ways" was a great man, yet those he mentored and trained were all horrible? I am interested in why you seem to feel this way. “

I am not sure that I am in two separate ‘camps’.

You blame all of the corpse’ conduct on VPW, okay. Did you sit at his feet and study his every move? I don’t know. I thought that he likely administrated the running of: Emporia, HQ, LEAD, Gunnison, and Rome City. It always seemed like far to big of an operation for one man to have singularly ran everything.

“Those that sold out to VPW’s monkey business were the bad corps of whom you speak. Those who were nice to people and refused to use them, were viewed as the "bad corps" by TWI because we would not sell the Weirwille philosophy.”

Okay. We could very well be in agreement. I don’t see the dis-agreement.

The people of whom you call “bad”, I would have said were likely “good”, and in fact I would have more likely called them believers.

It seemed to us, that often when the person thought of themselves as “Corpse’ then they were likely also very nasty and mean. Whereas when the person thought of themselves as “Beleiver” or “Follower together of Jesus” then they were very likely to be a nice loving caring person.

But try this. Picture any TWI event that you have ever attended (Not including: Emporia, HQ, LEAD, Gunnison, or Rome City) If there was 100 people in the meeting, and you saw 10 being nice to each other, helping one another, and loving. Wouldn’t it be a good probability that that 10 do not wear the title ‘corpse’.

Within the same meeting, if you could see 10 people would were hurried, on people’s cases for little things, who others were trying to avoid, and who would openly degrade and hate others, it would be a very good possibility that this second 10 people are corpse and are proud of it.

I think that PFAL still has some very valuable lessons within it. That is all.

“(This is not a mean spirited post I am just curious)”

You are sweet.

Edited to be more gentle:

I do not intend to be insulting to ALL Way Corps grads. I have not met all of them, nor do I intend to (within this life). My observations are limited to those individuals within which I have had dealings. I have been told that the majority of Way Corpse Grads were gentle kind and loving. Such has not been my observations, and I can only speak to that which I have both seen and heard. From among those Corpse of whom I have dealt, the majority of them ended as severely negative experiences. I had assumed that such was always the case with most Average Joe Believers. If anyone takes anything that I have written personally and feels insulted, I apologize. I can only speak concerning those of whom I have dealt with myself. On numerous occasions I have named Corpse Grads who have acted un-kindly and carried themselves in a manner which brought a bad name to Christianity. If you are not among those I have so named, then obviously you were never a complete idiot in your dealings with me. There were always many loving godly believers within TWI, who only wanted to worship G-d and serve others.

Here in Connecticut, at one of the classes that I had to attend last month, the social workers were saying that sometimes when they have taken custody of a child, one worker will have the child in his/her car, while calling the office, and the fellow office workers are going through their rolldex to find other local foster-homes with empty beds. So it is not un-likely that when the phone rings, with a worker asking if you are willing to accept yet another hell-spawn; at the same time, a different worker is turning onto your street with this 'new' hell-spawn in his car.

We have often asked how it is that we can hang-up the phone, and at about the same time there is a knock on the door. You open the door and it is a worker with a child in his car.

I dont mean to offend anyone with my use of the phrase "hell-spawn". In our household it was first used by our eldest son. It is a phrase that well describes so many foster children. Many foster parents can easily identify with the phrase. Many social workers also identify with the phrase. If you dont like the phrase, dont use it. So far we have found that social workers like this phrase over our previous phrase ("Demon-spawn").

ex10:

". . . From my experience as a branch coordinator, and then territory coordinator, it seems that these "leadership positions" were a real dividing point."

We are in agreement.

"Let me explain. I think the most difficult "position" in TWI was that of a branch coordinator. I'm talking back in the day, when a branch was 7 to 12 twigs. Usually, branch coords were not salaried staff employees, but "volunteers." So they had to do everything else the twig coord's were doing, ie, hold down a full time job, support your family, haul kids around to ball games, run classes, attend "ministry" functions, etc. The demands were many, and ya had to be able to function in "real life."

I seem to recall that was about right. In my limited experience within TWI, we were in 2 different branches. In 1980 and again in 1983. One BC was a interim-corpse WOW, and the second was a Corpse-grad couple. Both had to work, though I seem to think that the couple was able to submit some expenses for compensation.

The remainder of our experiences, we were running a twig and interfaced with limb directly. It seemed like at annual-limb-meetings we were usually labeled 'out-lying areas'.

"Step up to territory coord. Then maybe, you got some kind of financial reimbursement, as in "ministry" related expenses, but usually you weren't yet a fully vested Way employee. If you were lucky, you got a few bucks to cover gas and your long distance phone bills, and if your "believing wasn't big enough" for a FREE room to hold meetings for 120 or so people, you might get reimbursed for a room rental fee."

I dont recall ever interfacing with anyone who called themselves a 'Territory Coord'.

"Once a postion above territory coord got offered, the decision had to be made whether to "full time with the ministry" or not. Those who chose to go "full time" had to be pretty sold out to the organization, because now they were employees, usually and dependent on towing the company line for their bread and butter. . . . Once the waypay started coming in, things changed drastically."

Yes, I see entirely. We have dealt with other Twig Coord(TC), 2 Branch Coord(BC), and with various Limb Coords(LC) in different limbs (Connecticut, Virginia, California, Ct, Washington). The best we did in interfacing with them was while stationed in Scotland. I met with C. Geer and C. Kent, and we were named "Country Coords to Americans living in Scotland". As CC we lived 30 minutes from Gartmore, but we had to call Ohio for classes and support.

After reading your post I think that I understand far better now, thank you. It did seem that walking into a limb office, everything was a business, and often it was like since I was not corpse I was an out-sider standing in the wrong office.

Getting classes to run within our twigs became harder and harder to do. Regardless of how many new students you had signed up, not being a club-member, made getting support very hard.

Making a 'stink' about it, once, in the California Limb office, I was finally pulled aside (by the LC) and told to make a copy of PFAL. So I would have it on hand, within my home and able to run it whenever I needed it. That way I would not be having to compete with all those corpse, each time I had new students for the class. He did seem to understand for that short moment, that seperate from all the corpse that he surrounded himself with, there really did exist TCs who ran twigs.

Edited to be more gentle:

I do not intend to be insulting to ALL Way Corps grads. I have not met all of them, nor do I intend to (within this life). My observations are limited to those individuals within which I have had dealings. I have been told that the majority of Way Corpse Grads were gentle kind and loving. Such has not been my observations, and I can only speak to that which I have both seen and heard. From among those Corpse of whom I have dealt, the majority of them ended as severely negative experiences. I had assumed that such was always the case with most Average Joe Believers. If anyone takes anything that I have written personally and feels insulted, I apologize. I can only speak concerning those of whom I have dealt with myself. On numerous occasions I have named Corpse Grads who have acted un-kindly and carried themselves in a manner which brought a bad name to Christianity. If you are not among those I have so named, then obviously you were never a complete idiot in your dealings with me. There were always many loving godly believers within TWI, who only wanted to worship G-d and serve others.

WordWolf:

"I think the uncorrupted leaders, the ones who genuinely wanted to do their

best for God, were local and not high up the "food chain".

For the most part, if you were in it to "climb the ladder", you didn't stop

at territory coordinator-you pushed for more. If you really were in it for

others, above territory coordinator the others become faceless, and that

can't be good. So, the best, in my opinion, were kept down due to their

"ambition" to serve, which only helped us because they could make a

difference in OUR lives since we could find them."

I could agree with that summation.

I dont recall ever being within a twig that was led by a corpse person, but I do recall hearing that there were some corpse who were just Twig-coordinators. On the few occassions that I was traveling and found myself in a 'heavily populated area' (meaning a city with dozens of corpse living in it), it did seem that the 'lower' corpse were much nicer and could even possibly be considered human. Almost as human as a regular beleiver.

So it would be a reasonable idea that the 'nasty / evil / boot-licking / a$$hole' characteristics may have been painted on thicker as a person climbed higher up the ladder.

Edited to be more gentle:

I do not intend to be insulting to ALL Way Corps grads. I have not met all of them, nor do I intend to (within this life). My observations are limited to those individuals within which I have had dealings. I have been told that the majority of Way Corpse Grads were gentle kind and loving. Such has not been my observations, and I can only speak to that which I have both seen and heard. From among those Corpse of whom I have dealt, the majority of them ended as severely negative experiences. I had assumed that such was always the case with most Average Joe Believers. If anyone takes anything that I have written personally and feels insulted, I apologize. I can only speak concerning those of whom I have dealt with myself. On numerous occasions I have named Corpse Grads who have acted un-kindly and carried themselves in a manner which brought a bad name to Christianity. If you are not among those I have so named, then obviously you were never a complete idiot in your dealings with me. There were always many loving godly believers within TWI, who only wanted to worship G-d and serve others.

Hope R said:

"I know quite a few good men and women who were in TWI serving as leaders who wanted nothing more than to love God and the people they served."

In theory, I wish such were the case. Such was NOT my experience however.

diazbro:

". . . I don't know about that but in my expeience almost all of the bad I ever experienced while in TWI involved leaders. My experience is far from unique and I daresy more common than not."

I could not agree more.

In my 18 year experience with TWI, the 'good' leaders were those who lived 100+ miles away from me. Each time that we were in small branch-areas, the Limb Coordinators usually could not drag themselves away from the inner-city huge branches, to be bothered with us out in the sparce under-populated areas. Without a doubt the Corpse-nazis who never knew my name, and never visited my twig, who the 'greatest' Men-of-God the ministry had.

Some Country Coordinators were okay, generally just the non-corpse ones though.

Usually it seemed to me, that the ministry worked well and was very loving so long as no corpse were involved.

Edited to be less insulting:

I do not intend to be insulting to ALL Way Corps grads. I have not met all of them, nor do I intend to (within this life). My observations are limited to those individuals within which I have had dealings. I have been told that the majority of Way Corpse Grads were gentle kind and loving. Such has not been my observations, and I can only speak to that which I have both seen and heard. From among those Corpse of whom I have dealt, the majority of them ended as severely negative experiences. I had assumed that such was always the case with most Average Joe Believers. If anyone takes anything that I have written personally and feels insulted, I apologize. I can only speak concerning those of whom I have dealt with myself. On numerous occasions I have named Corpse Grads who have acted un-kindly and carried themselves in a manner which brought a bad name to Christianity. If you are not among those I have so named, then obviously you were never a complete idiot in your dealings with me. There were always many loving godly believers within TWI, who only wanted to worship G-d and serve others.

Mcarroll-

“I have often asked myself this question...not sure if any of you have.”

I certainly have.

“. . . I would hear "You have no friends when it comes to the Word", "No compromising..." and "Iron sharpeneth iron".

True, I think that what we think and say within our own ‘inner’ dialog is one thing. What we say to ourselves, in our thinking. It is perhaps yet another thing what we say out in public and to others.

Do you take the idea of "No compromising..." to mean that I can not allow myself to be within the room while someone else knowingly does compromise? Or that you yourself you will not allow any compromises, but you can still be aware of and ‘sharpening’ yourself when you travel the world and see others making compromises?

“My trust in others was shattered . . . “

Yes TWI had it’s problems. It was not perfect, nor was totally wrong either. Some people did see opportunities for ‘bettering’ themselves, they saw who to suck-up to for advancement. Often young and in-experienced people were put into positions of authority over others, and from all of the problems some leaders became very abusive. But that is / was a large group of people.

“ "iron sharpeneth iron" meant confronting your friends no matter how harshly you did it and growth would come out of it.”

And yet I thought it meant discussing the Word, and studying it with others who were like-minded.

The corporate body of people within TWI got focused on confronting each other. But that is forgetting the Love that is also ours.

“. . . I find it so difficult to cultivate friendships.”

Yes the failing of TWI, did leave it’s mark onto thousands. I am sorry. I certainly don’t feel entirely responsible for it, but rather I was there and I saw others taken advantage of.

G-d loves us. Jesus died for us.

“. . . I just zap them!”

Be gentle. Our father’s love is great, He is also willing to work in their lives. None of us are perfect, we are all walking on the path, He is still working in each of us.

“When I see weakness in their lives and I feel they are too wimpish, I speak up. I dont know how to be compasionate. “

I suppose that I have advantages over you here, in my life I have done things that have been fairly bad. I KNOW that way more compassion and forgiveness has been shown by Our Heavenly Father in forgiving and loving me, then would seem reasonable. I feel obligated to be compassionate toward others.

“I dont know if any of you out there are having a hard time at cultivating friendships like me. I know that I am making myself very vulnerable by posting this here. . . “

Yes, there are others in the same boat.

Feel free to private message me, or email me.

“Thanks for listening (ahem, reading) anyway.”

You are in the same boat as many of us. Don’t give up. Don’t release your beliefs, or relax your strandards.

Goey:

"Some y'all are having trouble with quotes . . ."

Is it a bad problem?

". . . so I thought I would post this to show how it is done."

That is truly very nice of you.

". . . . It is really quite easy. Here's how."

There well done.

http://personal.isot.com/goey/images/quote.gif

"That's is all there is to it."

Thank you, sir.

May I have another?

Do you attned any foster support groups in your area?

We go to one in our town (coordinated by State DCF), and another one a neighboring town

(ran by a private Foster support agency).

They each have entirely different resources available to them, and neither group shares it's resources with the other group. So for us to go to both meetings bring us into a far wider array of services.

Keep it up.

I just checked again, and I must say that the prices are currently down fairly reasonable again.

For me to go into New York it jsut quoted me $47 each way, for the 2 hour trip. Not bad.

I also looked at a trip down to Maryland (Bonnie goes go there 2 or 3 times a year to visit her sister), it quoted me $77 each way. Again not bad.

I have used Amtrak a number of times, in the 80's and 90's. I always really liked it, and enjoyed the sleeper cars. Once on-board with a passenger-ticket you could usually up-grade to a sleeper car for $20.

Since coming back stateside that last time, I have looked at Amtrek a number of times, and I have really been surprized at how much the prices have gone up.

From here New London Connecticut, we used to be able to ride into New York for around $30. Now it is $200.

I was trying to help our eldest son go attend a 'Live out loud' conference in Michigan, but again the prices were crazy. He ended up driving out there on his bike, and he spent less than a tenth of what the ticket would have cost.

jen-o:

"galen, if that's how you feel, then don't go see the movie."

Dont know if I 'feel' that way or not.

Just listening to a recent teaching that he did.

I was just (this morning) listening to a teaching from a friend of mine out in San Diego.

He was making a point about the influence of movies and the media on our minds. We can read something, and G-d can work in our minds-eye so that we can form our own image of what something was like. The more we study the Word, perhaps that image will change and become more in tune with the written record. But once we have seen a movie, then those images are frozen in our minds describing the scene.

For example: The Ten Commandments. Did Moses look like Charlton Heston? Likely not. Is it a big thing? or not. Moses would have been of darker skin tone. and he stuttered. In public he never spoke for himself, Joshua spoke for him; so Moses never said to Pharaoh "Let my people go". But Heston did. Moses was on the mountain talking to an angel who stood beside a bush. And afterwards as an effect from being in the 'presence' his face shown with a glory such that others could not look directly at Moses' face. They had to cover his face with a veil, for him to travel in public. Heston did not walk around veiled everywhere.

Samson if shown in a cartoon movie, is shown as a body-builder. If a movie was shot today Arnold Schwartz____ would possibly be filmed in the title role. Our mind's image of Samson is then set. We begin to think of him as a strong man. But the Philistines asked "where does your strength come from?" Was that because he was obviously a strong man? It is possible that to be in harmony with the Biblical account Samson should be played by Don Knots.

Whether someone agrees with TWI's account of the days of Jesus' ministry, or not. There certainly is room for doubting the World's account of it either.

I know from my reading that Jesus was tortured. He was beaten. He bled. He died. He also got up again.

Do I need to have my senses assaulted, by 2 hours of witnessing a man beaten, to make it any more 'real' for myself?

Dot-

“. . . Were people that stupid going into the corps? We were that excited to try and please God and love his people. It was a cult. By its very nature it lures you in with a lie then manifests the lie later on.”

I think, and have said that they were perhaps na?, but I think that many corpse-nazis were also lured by the power and control over others.

Many of us, I would think the majority of followers saw VPW standing by the principles he taught in PFAL.

“VPW taught in front of a large group of WOWs "to keep it in your pants"”

And this was repeated everywhere.

“I am in a church now and there is nothing even close to that as a standard practice -- or even as an occasional practice. It just does not happen outside of TWI and some other controlling groups.”

Your church today, does NOT teach about tithing? Wow. Cool.

That has not been my experience in churches

Bramble-

“Gosh, compying on the schedules etc. We did it. Cuz we were in God's One True Ministry, and you can't get blessed anywhere else in the entire world. And obeying your spiritual overseers in the Word kept you safe from that Eeevil Adversary, who was just looking for a crack in your wall... Look at Job, look at how small his crack was, how huge his loss... If you didn't obey, you weren't meek, you needed to be confronted.”

I certainly saw this. The willingness to ‘confront’ someone, and it only got worse when you answered back with scripture.

“The leaders I had in my last 6 or 7 years in were not loving. They were not friends. I was valuable to them if I complied and made them look good to their upper leadership. I was worthless if I caused any trouble, especially if a branch or Limb co ord. knew of a failing.”

During my 18 years, I saw very few leaders (corpse) who were loving or friends. But to me, it was not about those bone-heads, it was the relationship with Our Heavenly Father that counted.

”As far as my experience, it was ALL about control--making sure you were scheduling intimate spouse time, making sure your house was clean(how about those inspections? fun, huh)”

Cool, your house was inspected? Wow.

Bless you, May our Heavenly Father bless you in everyway, in the wonderful name of His son and our brother Jesus.

Galen

ET1 SS - USN Retired,

Pilgrim of the Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the mystic shrine.

and

'University of Life' Alumni

"I live in the spirit of prayer. I pray as I walk, when I lie down, and when I rise. And the answers are always coming. Tens of thousands of times have my prayers been answered. When once I am persuaded that a thing is right, I go on praying for it. the great point is never to give up till the answer comes. The great fault of the children of God is, they do not continue in prayer, they do not persevere. If they desire anything for God's glory, they should pray until they get it." - George Mueller

krysilis:

". . . But what I see now is as if we're in a WWII movie and Zix in in the submarine trying to evade the enemy, the big boat on the surface tossing depth charges. No matter what the sub does.....it's only a matter of time until those depth charges get thrown overboard and start shaking things up again. And whenever the sub tries to launch a torpedo it either narrowly misses, or otherwise seems to be of no avail."

Subs work the best when un-seen. With lots of sub-hunters over-head there is not much a sub can do without being observed, and thus sunk.

Once detected, the battle is lost. Not necessarily the war however. Go deep quick, shut everything off, hide under a thermal-layer, and go to sleep. Sit on the bottom, with no motors running, no equipment making noises, dont allow anyone out of their bunks. (More men up and about means more noise. Subbers are used to this effort, no hard-soled shoes, no music, no PA systems, etc.) After a day of mucking-up the water, the targets get bored and leave. Then as they begin to leave the area, we can slowly rise up to P.D. (Periscope-depth) program one torpedoe for each skimmer target, launch at least one fish at each target, when we hear their hulls crunching from the extreme pressures of the sea as they go down, we can go on about our business again.

Your story of sub-skimmer warfare seemed a little 'hopeless', the idea is to sink everyone before the hunters find you, or make yourself 'impossible' to find (quite, under a thermal-layer, or wedged in among the silty-muck on the bottom). (( for more cool info on wedging in with the silty-muck on the bottom chekc out our new "Brown-water subs". They converted 2 old boomers to work better while sucking mud for reactor cooling. ))

All around Jerusalem there are so many hills covered with old graves, I had thought that possibly during an earth quake say a dozen graves were un-earthed such that those bodies slid out, and down a hill side (possibly tumbling in the process) and a crowd of people were there frightened by the earthquake and doubly frightened at the sight of those bodies sliding and tumbling down the slope.

I could see that stories that would have circulated.

If this was the same quake that damaged the temple curtain, I could see accounting it to Phenominon.

Bless you, May our Heavenly Father bless you in everyway, in the wonderful name of His son and our brother Jesus.

Galen

ET1 SS - USN Retired,

Pilgrim of the Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the mystic shrine.

and

'University of Life' Alumni

"I live in the spirit of prayer. I pray as I walk, when I lie down, and when I rise. And the answers are always coming. Tens of thousands of times have my prayers been answered. When once I am persuaded that a thing is right, I go on praying for it. the great point is never to give up till the answer comes. The great fault of the children of God is, they do not continue in prayer, they do not persevere. If they desire anything for God's glory, they should pray until they get it." - George Mueller

Dear Sweet excathedra-

"no offense to galen or mike. i just felt like i adapted a new style, that's all"

??? !!! ???

um,

Thank you.

No offense taken.

Really I sound a lot like Mike? Cool. (Great minds must travel on a seperate plane, together).

In which case, welcome on-board to our plane of thought, where we travel on to that un-discovered country.

Zixar-

Thank you, in my advanced class sylibus, I find miniatures of the flip charts.

I will likely scan them and enlarge. Thank you.

Groucho:

"Galen...are you for real?"

? ? ?

I am just a figment of your imagination. Not saying anything that I have not said for the past 2 years.

Bless you.

:-)

FontanaAna:

"Thanks once again for your emails,it was greatly appreciated..I have acquired what I needed to.....someone did email me about charts and I somehow deleted it or sumthin....please email me again....oh and there was someone else, something about the books on dvd....oh, and.........It sure is nice to know that there are some posters who do not give a flying whatever about what other posters say about Dr.....GOOD FOR YOU"

I may have been the individual looking for the flip-charts. My PFAL video is a little out-of-focus and at times gets a little difficult to read what the flip-charts say. So I am looking for anyone who might have the flip-charts. Whether for real (we can always scan them onto CD), or even better if they are already on CD.

Thank you.

(I recently got the 'books' on CD as well).

Bless you, May our Heavenly Father bless you in everyway, in the wonderful name of His son and our brother Jesus.

Galen

ET1 SS - USN Retired,

Pilgrim of the Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the mystic shrine.

and

'University of Life' Alumni

"I live in the spirit of prayer. I pray as I walk, when I lie down, and when I rise. And the answers are always coming. Tens of thousands of times have my prayers been answered. When once I am persuaded that a thing is right, I go on praying for it. the great point is never to give up till the answer comes. The great fault of the children of God is, they do not continue in prayer, they do not persevere. If they desire anything for God's glory, they should pray until they get it." - George Mueller