Shifra

When I started this thread, I mentioned that the teachings of Paul are the basis of many (if not most) of the divisions among Christians, the long-standing bickerings and finger-pointing and accusations, which can all be summed up in one word: "condemnation". Of course, Paul states that there is no condemnation for those who are Christians, and then he proceeds to condemn and cut off and legislate and "confound" the early church. The condemnation in this thread just proves my point - about the divisiveness and about how sad it is that Christ-followers have become just plain hateful to each other. Yes, DrWW, I did scrub toilets because I wanted to. And I was made homeless because I wanted to. And I lost my daughter because I wanted to. You are a sick man. Or are you a woman? Paul said there is no gender. Whatever you are, you are a Paulist, and you have beautifully validated much of my speculations in this thread. Paul said a little wine is good for us. I think we both need a little wine.

Whew! Thanks for making me think so much! But maybe thinking is not such a good thing, because it might lead to knowledge, which is apparently a bad thing. Good grief. DrWW, it is almost comical that you would think I am prideful. TWI knocked the pride right out of me, and I am just now starting to get a little bit of it back. Pride is really good stuff, an honor to God who made us. The Bible says pride comes before a fall, but it also comes after a fall ... slowly ... when you start to get back up on your feet, and then gradually gradually you look back and see what pushed you down. Without pride, I would still be cleaning toilets for the Way Ministry. Now tell me THIS is not prideful: "To imply the Bible (i.e. Paul's revelations) is not needed to know God's wisdom is inane". You said that. This makes it very clear that you totally reject any other belief system outside of Christianity. This is religious pride, which is absolute exclusivism, the basis for "mark and avoid" mentality. Exclusivism, while preached by Paul, is the OPPOSITE of the teachings of Christ. Exclusivism is why the first word in TWI was "The"; it says right there in its name, that it is THE way, implying there is no other way. At the risk of sounding prideful again, I want to share with you that I am a midwife, and have delivered hundreds of little humans, whose parents represent many different belief systems. You will not convince me that those who were non-Christian families do not know about God's wisdom. Every mother I have ever attended - Islamics, Pagans, Jews, Crees and Sioux and Crow Indians - turned to God for help with birthing. These families have deepened my own beliefs in the power of God and how INCLUSIVE His love is. I respect your freedom to choose your view of holy things. Clearly your view will not accept any doubts about Paul. Quite honestly, I'm still checking it out, open to your input for sure, but not likely to buy all of it. It gets hard to hear each other when the words get personal. I apologize for any apparent sarcasm. So let me say it this way: I really do think I - and anyone who has read the gospels - would understand that God looks on the spirit. Heck, we learned that back in David's story, so you see Paul wasn't so clever in coming up with this concept. It wasn't such a stunning new idea. And then there's the argument about Paul's insights into the "Great Mystery". Aw come on, DrWW, haven't you seen the movie, "the Secret"? It's an overly simplistic presentation of exactly what TWI taught about the "Great Mystery". My Lakota friend will tell you that the "Great Mystery" is also a Native tradition, so-named because it is something we don't understand, can't understand, and shouldn't even try to understand, because then it wouldn't be a mystery any more. Paul, however, claimed to understand it, and so did VPW. Well, now I've said too much. I sure enjoy integrating all these posts into my ... um ... knowledge.

Mr. H - "Preparation" was preached big time when I was in Corps training. When it came to LEAD, the preparation was really weird. We were required to come into residence with very specific and very expensive equipment to use when it was our time to go LEAD. Particular brands and materials for our sleeping bags and rain gear and mountain boots and backpacks - these were designated on our lists, and we could not deviate from those lists at all. We took all of this stuff with us to Gunnison, but when we arrived, we were told to leave it in the main building, and were directed to a whole new stash of the same stuff, which belonged to Gunnison. In other words, they ordered us to use THEIR equipment, and leave ours behind. It was weird. We spent hours and hours shopping for these things, and lots of money, only to leave it behind when we headed up the trails and into the woods. I still don't get it. We were "prepared" at least materially, but it was all replaced by Ministry equipment. And LOTS of equipment too! I weigh 135 pounds and had to carry a 40 pound pack with me for the whole ordeal - iron frying pans, jugs of water, heavy stuff. H-e-a-v-y indeed!!

Just a quick comment (to DrWW) and then I gotta run: You speak of God looking on our spirits and not on our faults, and then you say we would not know of this if it weren't for Paul. Well ... Maybe YOU wouldn't know this if it weren't for Paul. But I would.

When I was "in" ... we had no choice. If someone was too weak or sick to go LEAD, then they got kicked out of Corps. Also, if you failed at LEAD (whether that meant the Gunnison folks didn't approve of you, or you didn't make it back - hitch hiking - within the mandated time frame) then you got kicked out of Corps. For Family Corps, there was an added difficulty, in that you were leaving your kids behind with God-knows-who. They sent us out on a bus to Gunnison, so our hitch hiking was only on the return trip. Actually, the hitch hiking was a breeze compared to the bus ride, because a wicked intestinal virus had just hit the Indiana Campus, and the bus was a perfect environment for group contamination. By the time we got to Gunnison, we were all sick, "drained", to put it nicely. But nobody would tell the leadership, because it would make us look like wimps. The wife of our assistant Corps director supposedly got "altitude sickness" on about the third day, and was excused for a couple days to recover. Truth was that we were all sick as dogs, and it had nothing to do with altitude. Nobody got hurt on our outing, but one couple got kicked out when they got back to Rome City, because they arrived a few hours after the deadline. This was a black couple, splendid people who loved God and raised their kids beautifully. Nobody even considered that perhaps their color accounted for fewer rides along the interstate from Colorado to Indiana. Most of us looked forward to going LEAD because it meant we got to be off-campus, a rarity in those days. For my whole life I have loved the mountains and the pines, the deer and the smell sagebrush. I live in Montana because of this. But after hiking and climbing and repelling and doing the "solo" thing, and then hitching home in a blizzard (they closed Interstate 80 so we hitched north to Interstate 90 and beat the closures up there by about an hour) ... after all of that, it took a lot of being back in the woods under NORMAL circumstances, for me to be able to once again appreciate God's handiwork in nature. LEAD ruined that appreciation for a lot of people. It was more a feat of survival than an exercise in trusting God or learning anything. And there was always this worry about the children back in Indiana, and what would happen to them if you got injured or killed in Colorado. It could have been handled so much more effectively. It was a neat idea that got into the hands of some Way Nazis, and ended up being a nightmare.

DrWW ... Does it make sense to try to convince me of Paul's holiness, by using the words of Paul to put me down? Beep beep beep beep warning warning incoming Waybrain alert !!!!

George, I agree with you !!! If I didn't agree with you, would I be disassembling the Epistles like this? What I have NOT concluded yet was whether Paul did all this stuff maliciously and intentionally, or if it was just his own personal religious quirk-y-ness. Whatever the driving force was behind his travels and teachings, it sure took its toll on Christianity. Please note that these are the only two explanations I am considering, about Paul. I am not considering the standard Apostle-blinded-by-the-light version. I am really on your side when it comes to literal interpretation, as well as the dumb notion that the Bible is the one and only truth. At the same time, I hang on to being a Christian myself, and find it a very sad thing that so many other Christians are divided among themselves, as well as being hateful towards other religions ... mostly because of Paul's writings. And Lindyhopper, Do I know you? You have added some fuel to my conspiracy theory with your remarks about the Epistles being written before the Gospels. I didn't know that. Makes ya wonder if maybe some of Jesus' buddies felt a need to clarify Paul's misconceptions, so they decided to write their own books.

Excathy, You ask hard questions. "What kind of praise is good for a kid?" Hmmmmmm. Well, I guess legitimate praise is good for a kid. Y'know ... like pointing out something that actually was done well, instead of ... like ... "Oooohhhh what a pretty picture you have drawn! What is it?" I mean if ya can't figure out what it's a picture of, then is it really that good? Kids can see right through that kind of BS. Kids need to be shown how to see their own worth, rather than relying on other people's opinions. I think some parents (like mine) worked so hard at praising me, that it was almost as funky as the parents who are always yelling negatives at their children. It leaves the kid with a real distorted idea of who they are, and also a sort of craving for constant evaluations. Just a few thoughts. I'm no expert. Just a mom and a daughter.

Yeah, I wondered if anyone would catch that. My excuse (?) is that I wrote that teaching awhile back. Whatever. Now about being selfish ... I have heard this saying: THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEING SELF-CENTERED, AND BEING CENTERED. A lot of us never learned that difference, so every time we even remotely approach being centered, we feel guilty and jump back into our familiar role of give, give, give, give. Just stop it!

A few years ago, I was asked to teach at a sort of experimental fellowships of Way rejects. Recently, I found my notes from that teaching. I hope it's OK to share these here. (Don't worry; it's pretty short.) EIGHT WAYS TO BUILD UP YOUR SELF ESTEEM (AND CONFIDENCE TOWARDS GOD) 1. Don't put yourself down. When talking about yourself, say good things. Otherwise, you are putting down God. Exodus 4:10-11 2. There will always be people who seem to be smarter, stronger, prettier, or richer than you. Stop comparing yourself to others. God made us all unique. How boring if He hadn't! II Corinthians 10:12 3. Make a list of 20 positives about yourself. Nobody else needs to see the list. Keep it in a drawer and add to it as you recognize more and more good things about YOU. Focus on your strengths, and be thankful to God for these. When you are feeling bad about yourself, pull out the list and read it. Galatians 6:4 4. Remember your successes. Did your heavenly father help you get there? Remind yourself of these victories by displaying photos, awards, trophies, or other momento's in places you will see every day. These are symbols of your confidence in yourself - and in God. Psalm 103:2 5. Associate with enthusiastic people! a. Accept compliments without polite argument. Luke 1:28-35 b. Build up other people. I Thessalonians 5:11 6. Recognize the needs of others, and help them out. When you give of yourself, you can clearly see your own value, which in turn, builds YOU up. Note: Be sure to love yourself, before you love your neighbor as yourself. Galatians 6:9-10 7. Don't structure your life around getting approval from anyone but God. If YOU are not being YOU, there is no self to esteem. Psalm 20:4 8. Do what you like. Like what you do. Ecclesiastes 2:24 Java Jane - I think some of us, like myself, were raised by well-meaning parents who praised us all the time, in hopes of convincing us of how wonderful we were. We grew up on this kind of fuel, which I call external esteem, and never had any need to develop our own personal internal praises of self. I think this NEED for external recognition is why a lot of us were attracted to TWI. "Oh, you're the best!" Barf. Gag. We came begging for more. Other simpler families raised their kids with an occasional pat on the back, but living in a more real world, they unknowingly allowed for their young ones to create their own conversation within themselves which said, "Hey, I'm OK", or "I'm really great at this job", or "Wow, I am a success!" so these kids matured without the addiction to people pleasing. Self esteem has to come from one's self. For folks who graduated from their parents' praises to the saccharine sweetness of TWI (which eventually turned to venom), well, it's no wonder that we crave the approval of ... anybody and everybody. But ... self esteem is still within reach; we're just getting a late start.

Temple Lady, I agree. I thought in order to be a Jewish leader, one had to be married and have kids. Paul didn't do either, at least from what is written. Anywhooooo... Here's a little more: Paul is said to have "confounded" the Jews (Acts 9:22), and when he tried to join up with the disciples, they were afraid of him, and didn't believe that he had been zapped into Christianity. I think this is comparable to bin Laden showing up at the Republican Convention, and asking them to assign him a place in Congress. This was not just some bubba trying to get into a bowling league. Think about it. Paul apparently went to Arabia shortly after the episode of getting blinded, healed, converted, etc. (Gal 1:15-17), but what for? It doesn't say. Maybe it was to check in with some mysterious boss, like the girl-spies in "Charlie's Angels". Isn't it weird that we know he went to Arabia, but not why? And why THEN? In my Bible, the book of Galatians has a zillion notes, because it was constantly being taught by TWI. In all the incredible teachings of Paul regarding the Gentiles and circumcision and all of its symbolism, did we ever hear about this one little phrase - "I said unto Peter before them all ..." (Gal 2:14) What this means is - that right in front of a crowd of Christians, Paul is contradicting, if not ridiculing, Peter. He goes on with the famous words, "Foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?" The context of that question, is a confrontation with Peter. Seems a little disrespectful to me. Seems a little divisive. He could have just talked to Peter privately. Yep, I think Paul was a trouble causer, who planted doubt in the minds of believers, and who turned one bunch of Christians against another. How about this comment: "The Bereans were more noble than those in Thessalonica". In psychology, this is called "splitting", turning one party against another by way of negative comparison. He was a jerk. Or maybe not. Still checking.

Cman - Geeeez, that's really wild! Are you saying that all the teachings about homosexuality are actually referring to adoring one's self, and NOT referring to sexual relations with the same sex? Oh my goodness! Now, THAT is material for a thread of its own. And WW - Are you giving the credit for comprehension of the Great Mystery ... to Paul? I thought VPW was the one who figured it out! Ha! Just kidding. But what if ... just what if ... OUR Way-brain understanding of the Great Mystery is wrong? My dearest friend is a Sioux sundancer who speaks of the Great Mystery too, and this friend is not knowledgable of the Bible, not a Christian, and yet lives a more Christian lifestyle than anyone I know. How "mysterious" is that? And, by the way, I'm not narrowing down the star of the show to just Jesus, ie eliminating Paul, as you suggest. Actually in my personal roster of hero's and spiritual leaders, there are several - including St. Luci, Martin Luther, Crazy Horse, and Boudica. What I'm doing here is enjoying a little input from those I admire - you guys - as I theorize on the possibility that Paul was the main culprit, the villian, the outstanding trickster who took the simplicity of Christ's teaching (specifically the purity and beauty and freedom of the two Big Commandments), and twisted them up, intentionally, in order to maim Christianity for generations to come. No conclusions yet, just playing with a possibility.

Jiminy Crickets! All kinds of folks on board here! I'm trying not to be intimidated by the scholars, or even the Eeyore's in the bunch (That's you, Larry - "Tut tut, looks like rain"). I love you all. Well, here goes ... To begin with, his name was changed. Who did that anyhow? "Paul" means "little" or "small". Sorta reminds me of Peter's name, which meant "pebble". People back then knew the meanings of the names. Could be Paul was wanting to fit in, to seem like one of the guys, so he switched names to something similar to that of the hero of the group, which was Peter. "Saul", Paul's original name, meant "to be asked". Hmmmm. Asked by whom? Was he born to be a secret agent? His parents adhered to the Pharisaic branch of Judaism (Acts 23:6) and he was a Roman citizen (Acts 22:26-28). He was schooled by Gamaliel, a Pharisee (Acts 22:3). Pharisees and Romans - bad guys, right? He spoke at least two languages (Acts 21:37-40). In the USA, we send our would-be spies to the Language Institute at Monterey. He approved of the murder of Stephen, and extended his persecution of Christians beyond Jerusalem, and procured written authorization from the high priest to search out Christians, to bind them, and bring them to Jerusalem for trial by the Sanhedrin. He wasn't just a hater of Christians; he had powerful connections with the big shot Jews. Most of us who are here on GreaseSpot are aware of fake revelations being the basis for major decisions within TWI. The same thing could have been the explanation for Paul's vision. It looks like somebody got the details of that experience a little messed up, because in Acts 9:7, it says the men who were with him when he had this revelation heard a voice but saw no man, while in Acts 22:9 they saw a light but didn't hear a voice. Whatever really happened, the guy who came to the rescue and supposedly gave Paul back his sight is another bad guy, Ananias (Acts 9:17). I don't think this is the same Ananias as the one in the Ananias-&-Saphira story. I think this is the one in Acts 23, a high priest, a character in another funky story where Paul wimps out and claims his affiliation with the Pharisees in order to save his own butt. Anyhow, I am speculating that the vision or revelation that he had was all a big hoax, staged by Pual, Ananias, and whomever else was involved in this conspiracy. They needed some dramatic event to account for Paul's sudden flip-flop from Christian-killer to Apostle-hood. Enough for now. Gee, maybe he looked like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible. Nahhh, then he wouldn't have been celibate.

Friends, This is a developing line of thought - from me. I have never read this anywhere, or even talked about it before, so maybe you can help fill in the blanks. Or argue with me, if you'd like. It's a theory, just starting to brew in my brain. I never liked Paul. I won't call him the "Apostle Paul", because I think he gave himself that title. Probably some of my distaste for Paul comes from TWI's promotion of his teachings far above those of Jesus Christ. But even before I ever heard of TWI, I didn't like Paul. The contrast (contradictions?) between him and Jesus are profound; Jesus freed the people from the law, and Paul pushed religion and legality. Jesus was inclusive of everyone, while Paul was exclusive (Paul invented "mark and avoid"). There's a lot more here, but you get the idea. Here's my Conspiracy Theory: I am proposing that Saul, the Christian-killer, devised an incredible scheme of infiltrating the early Christians, convincing them that he'd had a vision and was now a Christ-follower, and then traveled across the various geography where Christians were on the rise, and screwed up the teachings of Jesus. He even changed his name. My theory is that the purpose of Paul's work was to strategically undermine the early church - from the inside - and that he was likely commissioned by the powerful enemies of Christianity. He was so successful in this that even Peter and several of the others bought his BS, although not without some hesitation. Shift gears out of your Way programming for awhile, and think about Paul as an evil James Bond. Yes, James Bond with a sinister mission of crippling the developing Church, splitting leaders, turning one Christian community against another, presenting details of so-called righteous living in a manner that is not far removed from the laws of the Old Testament. His messed up theology is with us still. So many of the modern-day divisions among denominations are based in the teachings of Paul. Just think about it: the woman's place in the church, financial matters, homosexuality, baptism, marital status of leaders, real basic doctrinal divisions. I have a book with a few pages which cover a sort of time-line of Paul's life and works. I'll post little sections of this for us to disect together. Well, I bet I have already offended a few folks. Nothing new. More later.

Been doing some thinking and decided to start a thread in the Doctrine section about Paul. Seems like the Way taught more "Paul-ism" than Christianity. And personally, I think Paul was a conspirator. I don't want to side-track Roy's "Mirror" discussion, so please continue this thoughtful topic, and also join me in Doctrinal if you'd like. -Shifra.

Roy, It's interesting to me that most of these verses come from the writings of Paul. Never liked him very much. He is telling us to imitate or follow HIM (Paul) or to imitate those in the church. This sort of copy-cat behavior is what lots of folks did in TWI, and probably still do ... copying leadership, copying VPW, etc. Yuk! Imitating Jesus would be a different story. Are there any verses in the Gospels where Jesus tells us to imitate him? I remember where he says we will do GREATER things than he, but I don't remember any place where he tells us to actually imitate him. I'm asking, that's all.

Out There: You say you would have stood up and shouted "....". That was not a very dramatic word for the youngsters at Rome City, because they heard it all the time. Folks who were LCM wannabees went around using HIS jargon a lot, including that favorite word of his. Actually, kids who threw tantrums were hit with the spoon repeatedly until it stopped. Parents didn't get very creative (now that's a bad word!) with any communicative techniques or other forms of guidance - just the spoon. This is because, as I said earlier, we as parents were very fearful of getting kicked out. Now, what would be worse for your family? To beat the child as directed, or to be put out on the road with only the clothes and books that you own, no job, no home, no money, and usually not even a car? Great choices, huh? Such was the life of the Family Corps in training. Most families just opted to whack their kids and stay put. I remember once in the dining room at lunchtime, there was a "junior corps" boy about 14 year old, who had a seizure, falling out of his chair, and writhing on the floor. Nobody, including his parents would help him, because we had all been so thoroughly taught that this was the behavior of a devil spirit. Later, the parents were confronted by leadership for allowing this spirit to enter their son, and told to examine all of their thoughts and everything in their rooms to try to identify where this came from. Talk about neglect and abuse. This kid needed medicine! At Rome City some days begin with very foggy weather, and the public school system would announce a "two-hour-delay". Probably every other child in the community was cheering, and staying in bed for a little bit longer. But our kids hated two-hour-delays, because they were made to WORK during this time. Washing dishes, washing apples, mopping, setting tables, babysitting, all sorts of tedious work. It was the same on snow days. What a statement ... that the kids would rather be in school than take a day off! My kids said school was the only time they got enough to eat at a meal too. ...and people wondered how the Corps stayed so slim and trim.

I love the way Roy thinks. Thanks for helping the rest of us think some of these thoughts too! Just wanted to say that I tried to look up the word "imitate" in my Young's Concordance, and ... it aint there! Well - maybe it is, and I'm just not seeing it - still pretty early in the morning - I need another cup of coffee. I know we sure heard a lot about "imitating" Christ while in TWI. Where is that verse? What's the biblical meaning of "imitate"?

One of the most troubling factors regarding the strict (abusive) "care" of the kids ... was the double standard between the in-residence children and the staff children. Two set of rules for sure. But in addition to that, the TWI climate during the 90's took a terrible toll on the young ones at Rome City. Here's why: It wasn't just us Corps-in-training that were scared to death of dismissal, and subsequent homelessness, friend-less-ness, job-less-ness; it was also the staff. As a result, when a child or teen misbehaved, the parents (whether staff or students) were panic-y that their whole family would be kicked out. A sort of corporate blackmail evolved among and between staff and in-residence families regarding knowledge of the kids' misbehaviors. Example: one of our kids along with the son of W. Cl--p (Family Corps CEO) actually stole a car, and got caught by the cops. Did anyone ever hear anything about this during the lunchtime rants? Did anyone ever hear about this during Corps night? Nope. It was a crime worthy of substantial punishment, but we never got one word of reproof. Another example: The Children's Activities Director confronted us constantly (it was fashionable to confront back then), until one day when we told him that his own daughter was suicidal. She had a crush on one of our boys, but our boy was not interested in her, and her response to that was to say she was going to kill herself. We took it to her dad, and afterward he backed off from all of his confronting. Was this because he was thankful for the info? No. It was because he thought we would report his "possessed" daughter to the higher-ups. What a sick environment for these children! Not only were they smacked around, neglected, and verbally abused ... but there was no model for integrity, no genuine ethics being practiced by the adults around them ... just pompous superficiality and an over-riding fear which any child could sense about the adults. It's so sad that some of these kids later rejected God and any mention of God, because of this. It's equally sad that some of them imitated their parents and gradually grew to become the same cultish droids as their role-models. Sexual abuse of kids? Yep, that happened too. The 13-year-old daughter of some friends of ours finally told her parents that she had been molested by a 19-year-old son of a staff couple. She kept it inside of herself until after the family had been dismissed for something entirely unrelated. After they were packed up and on their way from the campus, this little girl told. The boy had threatened her that if she reported him, her family would be canned. Once they were canned for something else, she could finally speak. This was rape. It doesn't feel good to talk about this stuff. But it's important to expose the truth, so that maybe other children (other people) won't be so devestated. And regarding someone's previous posts, claiming that their child's experience at "camp" was such a positive thing, well, I don't think you can begin to compare a few days at "camp" with what our kids went through.

Fascinating. Please elaborate on this sentence: "To let your women keep silence in the church is to allow the Holy Spirit to speak when it sees fit, not when the husband says so." I don't understand this interpretation ... but I like it.

The segment to the left of the wild roses is just a computer printout of various signs and symbols. It's supposed to represent the Mental aspect of the four: Physical, Emotional, Mental, and Spiritual. I have used this part of the Wheel in teaching some of my clients (expectant parents, grandparents, single moms, etc) how if one piece of this is ailing, it is best to look at the three other pieces, and not just the obvious problem. It's about addressing the whole person. This is why I liked what you wrote about the spiral. Maybe these four segments actually link three dimensionally to the next bigger ring, or the next smaller ring. In this one, my own Medicine Wheel, it moves from Time (the moons), to Person, to Elements, to Totems, to Seasons. I prayed each time I sat down to paint a little more, and God really put it all together, to show me some important lessons. For example, why is there a red flag sticking up into my Childhood (the Springtime of my life)? I didn't plan that. Having to re-do the Emotion segment was an eye-opener too. If you run your finger over that part, it's really rough, because of all the previous attempts to represent Emotion. I remember one of my attempts was a lightening storm. Ooooo - way too angry! And adjacent to the Emotion segment is the Element of Fire. It too had to be re-done several times, and started out as a forest fire, a little scarey, so I had to tone it down, another message ... to me ... about me. The Season in that quadrant corresponds to my time in TWI. I was in the Summer of my life then. I tried to show Summer as a County Fair, but the tents and flags turned out looking like a concentration camp. How appropriate. As I processed my Way experience more and more, it evolved into the picnic basket, which looks lovely, but in reality I don't eat bread or watermelon. Both make me sick. Weird, huh? The Autumn has been much more peaceful, and the painting of this part came quite naturally. No do-overs. And on and on and on ... I could talk about this stuff for days. Sorry. Don't know if I was playing at a way of being an angel. Who me? But for me, this was a way of touching my own spirit, angelic or not. Sir Guess is right, painting (or dance or poetry or journaling or whatever) is healing and guiding for many of us. Truths come out that you didn't even know were inside of you.

I was an adult when I entered TWI. Did the classes, the twig-leader trip, then Family Corps training, then got marked and avoided. The kids were there for the whole trip. I know that I myself still have some pretty drastic "issues" directly resulting from my experience in the Way. Sometimes I wonder whether TWI children are more severely harmed than the adults, since they are exposed to this junk at such a formative time in their development. And other times I wonder if these kids will fare much better in the long run (assuming they get out of TWI of course), because children are much more resilient than adults are. Crystal, stay protective of your children. But give them the freedom you were not allowed as a child. It's possible to do both at the same time. I hope they have another parent who was not brought up in the Way, so there is someone to refer to when you're not sure about raising your kids. Bolshevik, train a child up in the way he or she should go ... not in the Way.

Thanks, Belle! Not sure how you did that, but I'm glad you got it posted. If you click on that picture, you can see the painting a little better. In real life, the colors are much brighter. Anyhow, some of the descriptions on this thread made me think of my painting: Sir Guess - "Our firstborn sense of self most naturally becomes our deepest widest grand canyon of self as we age." Roy - "That which I was I will be again." Belle - "Could those be spirals off of the center?" I did some reading about traditional medicine wheels a few years ago, and one thing I read was that if you are a healer, it's good to make your own wheel, so I did that. Medicine wheels are normally read in a clockwise direction. The number four represents balance and wholeness, ie four seasons, four phases of the moon, etc. You can choose any four things to depict on the wheel. I think Roy will understand the four aspects of being a person - physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual - which I tried to show too. This wheel is definitely mine, and some of the meanings are obvious, while others are more private. Mostly, I wanted to share how ... after all our learning and living ... we come back to where we were and what we were in the beginning. To my way of thinking and seeing, the wheel works to describe this, because it is continuous (which offers hope) rather than linear (which sets up goal-seeking). In the Native tradition, there is a "Red Road" - see it in the painting? - meaning the path we walk in our lives on earth, and a "Blue Road", meaning the path we walk with God, before and after our earth time. For me, the painting shows some different parts of my own history, as it moves through the life seasons - the horses can't figure out which way to go, the eagle finally gets to see the whole picture, and so on. Interesting notes: The wild roses were chosen to show the emotion aspect, and this segment of the wheel I had to do over and over again, the hardest part for sure. Also, I realized when I was almost done with the whole thing, that I had the moon phases running backwards! So I had to correct this - my desire regarding Time, perhaps? All of this taught me a lot about myself and my progress or lack of progress in relating to God and the Universe. It was fun too. Thanks for letting me share it!

Thanks guys, but I tried that. When I do the upload thing, there's a graphic of a gear that spins round and round, and then after about 60 seconds it stops, but nothing happens. Does the html option, also at the bottom of the reply page have something to do with this? Sorry, Sir Guess, for this technical interruption.

I did a painting that sorta shows my take on this subject. It shows how my view of it is more circular, rather than a ladder or line. I did this painting three years ago. Trouble is ... I can't figure out how to insert the image. Can anybody help me with this? I do have a photo of the painting, fuzzy tho it might be.