socks

I would summarize thusly: The environment of POP, the platform for the events as they occured, was VPW's ill health and death. My opinion. He had been ill, very sick and it was a battle for at least 4 years (that I was aware of, perhaps more). He was sick, he was seeing Doctors, he tried a nutritional approach, then he had the surgery on his eye, and more time after that fighting his illnesses. He blamed his inability to both heal and die in a timely way (for Chissakes!) on the "unbelieving" of everyone else, mostly those closest to him like Don, Craig, Howard, and a few others. (Jaysus, he blamed so many people that worked right under his nose, so it's funny that all those years he himself was unable to keep mid level managers like Bob W and Tom whatsisnamewiththereadhair under control) He got sick, very ill, he had surgery, his health continued to go up and down and ultimately his health failed. The negative aspects of that are things many of us have or will deal with whether ourselves or others. Way theology redefined "health" in such as way as to mean that "perfect" health was always available but not always "received" due to lack of believing, be it our own or even the believing of others around us. Supportive believing feeds deliverance, negative feeds defeat is the basic flow of thought there. Biblically we all know the same verses on all sides - I believe what VPW taught on this, to clarify this one point - that deliverance is a product of the deliverance of God. God asks that we trust Him, rely on Him. Our trust provides the perpective through which we have our relationship with God but whether we do or not has little to do with what God does or doesn't "do", rather our destinies are governed by God's grace, in the big picture.... Regardless how you slice it all though, all of us are going to die at some point, barring alternative intervention. I think VPW acted like many people of his age and health at that time in their lives. He lashed out, blamed others, denied reality - he didn't like his condition - who would? Instead of chilling out and taking constructive measures to fix what he thought was wrong, he gave up - again, tired of the 'fight" with others. Given his lifetime of teaching all of us to "stand baby, no matter what anyone else does, you STAND, fight for the truth and the ministry that taught it to you babeee!"...... that's a little disappointing. It just is. He gave up and whined it out to Geer. In the end he was not that much different than anyone else, despite all the Word of God HE KNEW and was able to act upon. And at the same time he had his three closest bud's ready to kick him to the curb so they could get on with the Ministry Business as they wanted to conduct it. Talk about a flash of cold reality!

In the Way we took years to do things others would have needed months to do. Or weeks. The "fixing" of the Way wasn't difficult. If the purpose was to get us all "back on the Word" - that's not a relative value. It's specific. And it's not a process, it's a state of mind. "Believing" - the Way had taught that point for years. Instant clarity. Once the Trustees "said" they accepted Geer's direction, that was really all you needed.... If that's all there was to it. Geer had no interest in anything related to "adultery" other than he wanted it kept a non issue. If the Trustees had trusted him and the others they'd been screwing around with, they'd have had no problem, they'd have been perfectly happy to keep on with what they were doing. They apparently were muttering on about how to manage the failed ministry that was failing because they would not do a few simple things and instead try to debate their positions with Geer. Who gave a crap? Not any of us. It would have been very simple for them to - in a word - suck it up and come open, clean and honest with everyone and literally, start over. Over the years I've come to know the looks on their faces and their manner of behavior - it's simply fear. Deathly fear. Under attack their character flaws provided the gaps for the fear of failure - which we'd dealt with so much bluster over the years and hours of teaching and blathering about conquering fear..... To tear them down and apart. What were they afraid of? Everything they'd been doing that they knew was wrong - the money, the affairs, the nods and passes they'd given to people over the years and the condemnations they'd given to others for the very same offenses... The unfairness, the greed, the pride. Building the campuses and staffing them for what - ? I believe they'd talked themselves through all their bureaucratic crap for so many years until they finally realized - we're screwed. We're getting whacked by the very guy we 1. got everything from and then 2. pushed aside. Like dominoes, it all fell - The "Passing of the Patriarch" reads like a Manual for Crafting Failure" - I'm sure Geer and others who live in that life stream still don't see that. But it's so clear reading it today, clearer than it was even then, hearing it for the first time - no matter how well intended or what excuses Geer made or would make today - it's a chronicle of the failure of the leadership of the ministry. Geer does point out quite clearly that the point of the "root" was to "feed" the tree - despite the fact that the use of the tree as a means of understanding the Way's ministry so clearly pointed out but ignored the true life of a growing tree - it's fruit. They insisted that the rotten "root" was tainting the entire "tree" - that's nothing more than being blinded to the vast strength that did exist in the ministry regardless of what these a-holes did or didn't do - the many people of the Way. All the focus on Tom this and Bob that and Craig and Don and Howard - guess what guys, there were 1,000's of people who God loved, cared for and was working in reGARDless of what they did and who in both truth and fact could have been a source of strength and inspiration if even the slightest bit of concern had been shown for them. Instead, they sat eating popcorn, sipping coffee and enjoying the transcontinental travel while they flushed their own futures down the toilet. And they KNEW, the Bustees knew dammed well Geer wasn't going away quietly or quickly. Corps were taking sides, sending him money, buying into his tapes, mailings and anything else they could get. The Big ShootOut at the OK Korral was fought with water guns.

True, out. Nothing WAS ever specific. Geer's entire premise for "what was wrong" was based on one thing - that Dr. Weirwille had told him he believed the Way BOT, Directors, Corps Directors, WOW staff, all of the Way leaders, Corps members and anyone else with a phone or mail box that he'd ever taught the Bible too had 1. forsaken him 2. sold out to the adversary in one way or another and 3. didn't care or want to listen to him. That's not an exaggeration. That's the exact truth, as told to the Corps by Chris Geer. It only took about a minute to say, at several points in his public speech to the corps that year at Corps Week, and then there was the endless drubbing of the POP reading itself. But that was the sum and substance of the only things he said 'were wrong" - specifically. That Dr. Weirwille had been forsaken. Everyone therefore needed to "come back to the Word" which meant to come back to some - Very unclear Form of acceptance and activity that would show us all to be back in the Saddle again. It was bull - shi t. There was a lot of talk about "Prayer" - prayer's always a good thing but that became the recourse for everyone's confusion. Pray because no one has any idea what else to do. Desparation, for many of the pray-ers. Lots of talk about "believing" too - which didn't mean much to anyone who was already doing that to the best of their ability. It was, by any bibilical standards, or just those old dirty regular run of the mill human standards - a completely stanky mess. Bottom line though - it was a catalyst for change and that was a good thing - and could have been managed better and easier if anyone HAD REALLY WANTED to see change and progress at the Way. But none of them did once they got POP stuck up their butts, they were deathly afraid about what to do next. Funny - after all those years of pumping up their "believing" they caved at the first real challenge, which came from within their own ranks. Which in fact was something that VPW himself had identified while he was alive, would happen after he died...........so IMO the stew was brewing for a few years there, dissatisfaction, pride, envy, jealousy, greed - all the good ones were at work in that leadership group including Dr. Weirwille. Pride is the only real explanation for how a person of his history and investment would act in such a distorted way. I've always said though - Craig wasn't exactly a chicken shi t, in his day back then - so Geer was carrying some SERIOUS HOODOO to scare him into submission so quickly, SERIOUS cha cha in his bag.

I guess - by rights - I only mentioned because he does, and this is another opinion of mine aligned with the others - He does deserve to have his butt kicked from here to there and back, several times. He does. Not because he was a lowly sinner as were we all before we accepted Jay-zuz. But because he accepted Jesus and turned the trust others infused in him into a mean, spiteful and vigorously evil lifestyle. He did it with a group of people who - we said at that time - deserved to be treated with the utmost respect and love. He's also a pompously ostentatious blow hard whose very existence is an insult to people of morals and integrity everywhere, for the record. Last I heard he was franchising a teaching series, based on PFAL, and selling it for money. He built an evergreen cash stream out of the selling of God's Word. For that alone - he's scum. To me. In my book - scum. He had a chance to change and instead ramped up the product line so as to make a living off of it. People who do the work deserve the pay for it - that's why God says that He will reward us for our faithfulness and respond to our love for each other. God rewards. Geer wants you to pay. He wants his gold now. Fine, he's a weasel. Anyone that wants to tolerate that flea bag at this point, fine. Do it. Have at it. Talk to him, sure, if he falls into my lap one day when I don't have any Monk reruns to watch and the laundry's folded, sure. He needs help and guidance. Offer him a dime or give an inch to his obsequious pandering of the Devil's attentions - no. He can pay his own way. I don't need to say it. I just do anyway. I know - I'm as bad as he is, for being this way about it. Fine. I can live with that. There's room in this cootie platoon, move over. Nobody's perfect hey? Kind of gives us all a little room to breathe.

Regulation makes for some strange bedfellows, Twinky. http://www.usatoday....rettes/2414641/ Britains CMO sounds like a reasonable and intelligent person. We could use someone like that here. But regulated as a "medicine" sounds like an odd twist in the britches to improve the industry. Dunno. Here, government regulation to protect us usually means things are about to go wrong and very expensive. Usually. Sometimes.

My prayers and best wishes are with you rottiegrrl. My mother died several years ago - it seems like so long ago I can't remember the year, but it was only 5. Take whatever time you can and need to make things as best you can. It will mean a lot. For me, the position of predestination takes my mind off doing what I can, with what I have, for God and my fellow man. Any sense of "well, God will do whatever He wants with me anyway" takes away from the simple truth of that, but that's me, that's how the Bible itself seems to express God's will for man - for all to be saved, for all to learn and know, and all to be to His glory through Christ. I think - and this is with a capital T - that the people who wrote the stuff I read in the Bible grappled with the same things and ideas we do and that's why it isn't clearly resolved in the Bible and we end up having to interpret some ideas in light of others. I think it's unclear for a reason - God's true nature is beyond our understanding and ability to clearly articulate in human, man terms. People can write all the godly inspired literature they want and print it 24 hours a day - "the truth" of God's presence and of this life will reside in us as more of an idea than a writ. More of an impetus than a preconception. "Spirit" that comes and goes and we don't know where from or where to. Sure, I know lots of stuff but the Big Stuff? I'm only a student with a leaky pen and a hungry pet dog who likes my homework. . I'm not succumbing to an easy out - in fact, it's more difficult to allow for serendipity than it is to try and fail, or try and succeed. My faith is - and this is my "story" as it were - built on a reality that I am learning about everyday but can't fully explain. I try and I would assume in that Great Day in the By and By if I find out I'm wrong about any or all of it, frankly I'll be thrilled either way. "AT LAST - AHA!!!" If I turn out to be the broken vessel by God's design, I guess I'll have to accept that. What else could I do - but say, well, that explains why I was such a pain in the foot I guess. Case solved.

I think the reason I'm not really engrossed in the issue is that one or the other, it wouldn't change the exact reality that I have today, with God and the core experience of my life around both that reality and my resulting "faith". It would have an impact on some of it but unlike many Christians, I'm not overwhelmed with worry about all the details of "how' God "created" life. It's interesting but not really a deal breaker. Other people often pose this kind of information as if to say "SO, now, let's just get this straight PLEASE - all this business about your god and your spirit and this jesus is WRONG. Refer to (whatever it is) for details. Please get back to REALITY which is (whatever they say it is). Uh, no. I did some browsing - I guess this guy's premise is reasonable - there's a lot of "if" and "probably" and then "so if then it would have to be" kind of verbiage he uses as WW noted, and that seems to make it sound like he's doing a card trick out of the basic facts - so, so if then and if then and probably so then it would HAVE TO BE.....see, that just sets off alarms in my head. But the basic information appears correct. I'm not a scientist, can't verify any of it other than what I read. It sounds like the basic facts are "true". There's all kinds of slants on it though, ran across this in general browsing - http://www.answersin...s/tj/v17/n1/dna I'm not reading for or against, just reading. There's lots on both sides of the information that cast additional light and shadow on it.

Excellent verses! Cop out may be a strong phrase. I read and talk to people that have given up to defeat and rather than trust or asset their trust in God, basically give up and declare "it's over", and God has directed them into their current state. That may - or may not - be true. So it probably doesn't work across the board to state that. Free "will" is incorrect, agreed. "Choice" is what I see. I'm very much into considering these ideas, as you know Geisha. :)/> I really really do appreciate the opportunity to consider things here, yours and the others. God wills. We by our will or effort will not change or foil God's will, agreed. Example - God says Salvation is Door 1. There's only Door 1, have at it! Man or whoever says I built a Door 2 and Door 3, and I'm going to choose Door 2, for salvation". Man can't and won't change what God has established, and by "will" or directed effort cause it to apply or not be applied.

I'm not inclined to counter argue the point - it may in fact actually support an intelligent fusion of the suspect chromosomes, by intelligent design. I guess I'm missing something, where does it mean that this means man is "evolved" from his simian neighbors? I don't think that this is proof of that, Ham, I was kind of surprised that he/we/anyone make that jump. Related, in a way we are related to animals, God's creation. All the debate can cloud that, and asset the separation and differences, but I have to say I believe there are significant differences in the upper register of our intelligence stack. That things change based on environment, conditions, choice, goes without saying. "Evolution" isn't rocket science, to me. But the evidence doesn't prove that's the process that produced man, from simians, monkeys, salamanders or bees. I'm not suggesting a white haired God in flowing robes built Adam out of a clay pit as the alternative. I just don't think this proposal "proves" man evolved from (you name it) Maybe we did. This doesn't prove it. If someone can duplicate it that would be interesting.

Well, that's an interesting thought - control and what it means. God is "in control" yes, and I would expect that would also mean intimately, in each of our lives. That wouldn't mean God "controls" our lives, intimately however. As you note, the "Adversary" appears to be active in that arena. Me, I think the "god is in control" religion is a cop out. Most people are trying to be very much in control of what they do, as much as is reasonably possible - but when things don't go the way we'd like which is often, they say "there's a reason for everything and God is in control".... Really? Y'know - is that right? We'd like to think that there's reason to the madness we often see and hear and order to the chaos that can run amok everyday - I see it as the way of the world. This world wasn't designed or intended to be a controlled environment. If it was, it would act more like it. It just doesnt and trying to explain life's inconsistencies that way leads to a muck of goofy explanations to explain the explanations that aren't explainable.That way. It wouldn't mean however that a God didn't create a universe that would produce mooks like us that would try to explain it, one way or another. :biglaugh:/>

It's a gigantic wad of goodies, once we get going rottiegrrl. No question about that. I know many people, Christian, who just can't wait to get this life over with and get on to the next. Who feel the "real" one is - like a party going on next door they can't go to till they get their chores done. I like this one, now that I feel like I'm getting a leg up on understanding it. I know that sounds incredibly facetious and ridiculous - as if I have all the answers. I don't. And I understand that I'm not supposed to. I don't need to. To have a good life I can learn, listen, do things just like we're doing here and both fail and succeed, be smart and be stupid and just keep plodding along as if I didn't know any better. I don't. :biglaugh:/> That's what's so WONDERFUL!!! Sorry - enjoying the moment.

I agree, WW - Miller seems to be offering the same answer that he's challenging. Dawkins (although more extreme) does a similar disservice to his own ideas, contending no more than "things are the way they are because that's the way they are" to rephrase his logic. ============== How funny though - I know I'm the only one to see this so I don't expect you to get it Ham, but that video is titled "How to Shut Up Pesky Creationists".....did they even listen to or watch it? It's a perfect illustration of how the debate always goes. Well, Miller - having been a "Roman Catholic theist" at one time myself I can say from experience it doesn't do a lot for your brain and it does take a certain amount of time to recover and reconnect after any lengthy exposure to RCism. I can only hope that he too is in successful recovery, for there but for the grace of God ... I would tend to compare the broader view of the information in Genesis favorably in light of his contention(s) though, so no naysayer am I, no knee jerk jump off from me, no sir. Adam and Eve come into being in chapter 2. There's a lot of action before that. Given that the writer of Genesis wasn't 1. a Roman Catholic theist or 2. a Dr, of anything and certainly not a 3.4.5 scientist, biologist or genius The flow of the information in Genesis would flow with a development of life and it's formation on earth. I know many "creationists" don't think that or see that, so I gueeeeeess I get the rush to judgment. All the arguments about days and cells clouds the larger story of Genesis - it's not a school text book that will be revised next year based on whatever piece of scientific croutons are crumbled before next publication deadline. It's a record of magnanimous measure - the entire creation of the earth and all the surrounding universe, by a "God" who also creates a man and woman Two like no other before and to which a specific relationship was established by their creator. I say that because Genesis itself doesn't cover any of the kinds of information that it's normally compared against or in favor of. It tells it's own story, it's own way. But Miller's information actually could follow the same path, IMO.

Nice! Think it's a combination of things, rottiegrrl - Genesis - free will, choice - "Free will" or freedom of choice as I would term it, is often mis applied to mean "man can choose to control God or manage His will". There's a knee jerk reaction to it - "Oh, so you think you're better and smarter than God do you?" That's not what mans capacity to choose is or has ever been and as WW notes, it's not what Genesis states nor can be found anywhere in the Bible that I've read, even allowing for some of the looser translations. Clearly, in the Bibles' history man has ALWAYS had choices to make. It's almost ridiculous to assume that a universal creator that creates an entire universe of possibilities and developments would not be able to include choice and as many possible outcomes as His plan and design would allow for. It's as if there are two Gods and a choice has to be made (pun intended) as to which one we choose - one who, in order to maintain top status must control everything including the city you're going to live in and the traffic patterns tomorrow - that's the same one who ooks like a white long haired hippy, when he's not wearing his Stetson hat and spurs. and the God who creates a universe by His own design and allows it to develop on it's own WITH parameters, limits, and periodic points of contact along the way. The God of the Bible didn't invent Levi's or iPhones and doesn't have a favorite football team. Those are man's things. The idea of God controlling the color of my snot and the number of red lights I"m going to encounter this week is insane and is in conflict with The idea that my acceptance of God, my faith towards Jesus Christ, by whose faith I am saved - Is the important matters of my life as intended by God. Why WOULD a creator of the universe give a crap about what house I buy? The presence of God can be seen - and this is completely my own perception - in the interactions and actions of His creations. WE present the infinite magnitude of God, expressed through the endless life of thought and action we have. "In Christ" we would have the best life of all lives lived, if and when we followed the basic precepts taught in the Gospels. "Choice" is, I would describe it as the cuts on the diamond that make it's shape and cause the sparkle. THAT we can choose and God be over all is - to me - the most incredible thing about reality. It just whisks me off into a very pleasant place. />

How can I put this nicely....? I"m deleting this all out - enough. The topic is interesting, rottiegrrl, I see why you and others are scarce. :o/> I hope I contributed something to the mix, perhaps another time it can be discussed.

Understood. :dance:/> Everyone that I know, have known or read about or heard about, including myself, exemplifies - at times - the characteristics of the man and women in Genesis, the "Adam and Eve". Everyone, without exception except for one - Jesus Christ. Allowing for everyone that I haven't known or heard or read about there is some possibility for other exceptions, admittedly. No problem working within that range. Within that range, I would contend that the similarities are strong - where (one) knows something that is acceptably "right" and considered the correct action or path to choose - and then chooses not to do that, be it for reasons of their own or other reasons or choices they are offered. I'm not talking about a "there's no right or wrong" everyone's a love bug in their own skin, here - I mean Don't stick the knife in your leg, don't eat that plant, go easy on the pork, get some sleep and rest - And then not doing that - knife in the leg cause you're stupid, eat the crap have the heart attack, stay up and party and fall asleep at the wheel driving, Even the "soft" stuff - share some back of what we get because it makes sense to build relationships - naw, I"m keeping everything for myself, screw you and everyone else. Then you die and everyone admits they hated you and swap stories of how they tried to screw with you back all your life. Right - wrong, simple stuff. Don't do that Billy!!! You'll kill yourself!!! Naw, go on Billy - that'll be so COOL!!!! DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT!!! Billy does it, Billy's dead now. Poor Billy. That's mankind. Man tries and does pretty darned good much - shoot, most of the time. Except when he doesn't. Or you do and someone else is out kidnapping baby squirrels because they like to throw them off bridges and see how they look when they hit - they just like doing that. Those kinds of opposing forces and results - that's Genesis. Fall, push, quick kick in the butt, fork in the eye - I can call it a number of things. It happens every day, all the time. There was likely a first time it happened, somewhere in the long distant past, up and down the food chain. I don't think that's the way it was intended for a variety of reasons, or that it's the way it's going to end up for some of the same reasons.

"The Fall" is a historical fact, according to the Bible. Be these records metaphors or attempts to describe real events, that cycle is or was, what it are. There's a standard a 60 cycle AC hum that seems to be around, and of the possible choices, certain ones make for a clean signal so to speak, others provide interference, etc. etc. That scenario is very consistent in nature - nature may have a cleaner state where that is not the case but there's a very basic intrinsic essential aspect of things like the "hum" in AC, the need to get up and walk to move, the need to remember, the need to mark and measure time - all of these kinds of things make life as it is what it is - and there's always a need to learn, adjust, fix, maintain, water, plant, etc.etc. etc. With God there's no "variation" we're told, no shadow, God is constant. We're not - so call it a "fall" or a really bad day in Eden - there's a difference and the Bible speaks to that being due to man's actions in "Genesis". God's plan all along? Start with Adam and end with Jesus Christ? Yes, I'm with you. IMO - the Big answer to the Big question of why God did or does anything including - I don't know. The answer might ultimately be "Because, that's what I wanted to do". The bible speaks of God acting upon HIs "Pleasure", to me that's it. It's His thing, not mine. If I keep taking it back a step before, and back again, I come up with a "this is the way it is" and that comes back to a "is God - well, how did God come to be then and - why huh, say what?" I don't know. I think - and the Bible speaks to this thought in many places - that creation reflects the creator. God created after His own image. Choice is - appears to be - God's prerogative. God does as He wishes, as He wills. Says it all over the Bible. He is the great "I am". He's not Bob, the God, cutting a deal. For his creation to have the ability to choose would seem natural and normal then. As God is, so God does. A future is spoken of that will be the ultimate recognition by all of God's prominence and an acceptance or imposition of His will on all who agree and disagree, either way. We're not there yet, so I'm out of pocket on that.

Side note - on the "mathematical exact"ness and that approach to the Bible - I could ask myself what would these things be if there were no words for them? Things like love, truth, God, eternity, thought, choice, evil... many things exist without being depicted or communicated and there is therefore a "truth" to them. That truth, reality, it has a fundamental integrity and coherency that is very exact and very precise. When I take a specific thing and express it I would say the goal is always to be as precise and exact as I can be - "take a right at the next block" means something that I intend it to mean. "life is full of turns and the next one is a right" could mean something very different but also be very exact in it's meaning but not mean physical directions for driving a car or walking........ The idea that everyone has their own truths and versions is very true - but that represents our conscious perceptions. The next step is always to determine if what I perceive can be validated, which is kind of what life is all about, IMO. I'd prefer to be more precise than vague and pursue stability if it can be achieved. Others mileage may vary. Gods' allowance of the Genesis record is really the rubber hitting the road, I agree geisha. Gods' sovereignty is unquestionable and has to be at the foundation of any logical premise, IMO. That the record illustrates God giving his creation the choices to make and then the environment in which it all exists is the "truth" of the record, regardless of whether it's literal or figurative. Just as we live in a world where we can go to the store and buy tomatoes or stand next to the President of the U.S. tomorrow, or join a choir and sing with a group of people - everything we do is because we can. When and if something changes that, we can't. No tomatoes, we can't buy them. No other people to sing - no choir. Without couching Genesis in anything other than what it says I'd have to assume that the "nachash", the "Devil" was there because the earth, the world, was a place where he could be. If God had not wanted him there he would not have been there. Here. In the record. From that standpoint the question - what was God doing, then? Was God setting man up to fail or for the Devil to succeed, was God making a decision about how they would act and decide? If one premise is to assume that God is sovereign and capable of doing anything then what He did there in Genesis was create a world where choices could be made. Christianity articulates this through Jesus Christ - to choose Jesus Christ opens clarity into other things - grace and mercy, forgiveness and redemption. The over arching lesson to me isn't that man continually fails or succeeds by God's design and direction but rather that God directs man to choose and to choose rightly. Mankind will never choose 100 per cent perfectly all the time, every time. It is essential that we then rely on certain things - grace, mercy, forgiveness and restoration. This cycle seems to be what happens, over and over. When that process is ignored or refused, there is failure. Where it's accepted and lived, success. An incredible thing to me is the idea that a Satan, a brilliant creation of God who knows God and his own brilliance, would decide to alter, change, ignore, overcome, defeat any part of that. It seems - weird. Yet, I can do the very same thing, do things at times that are counter to what I know is the best thing to do, not out of ignorance but by choice. Questions like - why wouldn't God forgive the Devil? Maybe the Devil doesn't want to be forgiven. Why didn't Adam throw it all down and say "I am sorry! Please, can't we learn from this and I won't do it again?" Maybe Adam didn't want to, maybe Adam was like many of us today who, against better inclination and guidance, seek to go against the better of two choices...? Genesis can seem like a silly morality play that is so impossibly abnormal that it isn't viable....but if I just look at history it's not quite as silly in it's premises and outcomes as it might seem at first glance. This.........leaves some things unanswered, unaccounted for I know. But maybe, food for thought.

Another general thought around the topic of the "serpent" rottiegrrl, The image of "Lucifer" is thought by many historians to be based on the Egyptian god "Set". Reading up on Horus, Osiris and Set gives an interesting angle on the topic. My opinion, there's more than it to just the Jews got their conceptualization of the Devil from the Egyptians - I don't think they visualized the Devil much at all - but there's threads in history that pull it into the westernized versions and interpretations of Jewish history that then became Roman christianity. Just some stuff to chew on - "Set" is very similar to the Christian "Devil" and is the idealization of chaos and rebellion. I think the general weirdness of it was very useful to early religious theologians who wanted to memorialize Satan as the Ultimate evil one to be feared. The Bible's Satan/Devil/Lucifer isnt' anything like Roman Christianity's version, at all in my opinion. Personnification of willful self interest and arbitrary self determiniation - "Pride" and "Greed" - at a level that might be expected of one described as that brilliant in the Bible. Mankind has typically said that if God would make Himself known and clearly understood and "real" that man would believe in Him and follow Him - yet, the lesson of Satan is that one can be so self willed as to know that, clearly, and not accept it or respect it but want to change it, even destroy it. Kind of weird, to think of that.

Good question, Rottiegrrrl...this will have a lot of "I don't know" in it... "Serpent" is the hebrew word nachash and means shiny, or shiny one. God curses the nachash and says that now more than any animal will it be cursed, denigrated to a low state, on the earth. This seems to fit with this creatures' future on the earth - Satan is referred to as "god of this world" or this age, 2 Cor. 4:4. He is associated with "this age", this period of earth and heaven. Given all that Genesis describes as God's curse and the other ways that Satan is referred to, I think it's wrong that theology gives Satan the role of god or ruler of the earth as in one who is in control of it. The bulk of scripture doesn't paint that picture, really. Rather I see God's description as Satan being kind of the Head Guy of Sin, of disobedience of and willfulness against God. So it's not a title of authority and ownership, but rather a title of function. As if to say, "Sin? Disobey God? That's Satan, he's THE guy on that". He has a title then but no a true claim to God's creation. Influence but not ownership. And Satan is cursed, and the lowest of all earth's creation, animals, etc. and that would in fact - include man if I understand that - and therefore - kind of SOL and no paddle. When I really look at what the Bible says the "Devil" is not one to be feared and whatever he really is - it's mostly a kind of rabbit trick going on. But it's a very weird, twisted kind of trick, that would seem to be so warped by any human standards as to be scarey, for want of a better word, as it's the opposite of what God wants - life, growth, procreation. Thus, the tendency to promote Satan to a higher position, even though God's condemned him to a much lower one. So the presence of a "shiny one", possibly an angelic presence that would have physical brilliance, fits. Not a serpent/snake. What exactly? Cant' say, exactly. What this nachash was doing there, have to come back to, again, some observations on scripture, with some I dunno's - will have to come back to this later. Hope this makes sense, for consideration at least.

My english ain't what it used to be excedra. One of the strangest? Only one of? I'm going for the gold, here. Let's break it down: I'll pray for him, - it's free, hey. and given the opportunity would be happy to talk through our past. - time and place are everything. I'm probably not going to expend a lot of effort. But happy to, sure. He's the sorriest excuse for a person I can remember. - memory's fading so take it with a grain of salt, but surely he did not fare well. But I won't chase him down or harass him. - This is the vague part. Let me clarify - I won't chase him down or harass. Him. Geer threatened people physically over the years, got puffed up like a drunk bumblebee in his three piece suit and liked to bad foot people. Get in their face. Like the heresay quoted here by someone about busting anyone's head who'd mess with his car. I don't like people messing with my car either but if you shoot off be ready to put up - that's just the way it is. I doubt anyone faced off with Geer, ever and just said fine. Throw down. He got off easy because most people either respected him as a "man of God" and tried to excuse his insanity or gave him the benefit of being a "son of God" so let him off the hook for being a dillweed, or were just plain scared of him because he was such a freak and let him get away with whatever he wanted. My point - we're adults now. Whether Christian adults or whatever your brand - most of us aren't going to bust his head for being such a damaged human being who only know how to do more.

I agree completely - follow the $, it's always very consistent in how it trends. Cross pollination is basic marketing. You scratch me, I'll scratch you, we'll both make money in the process.The strategy is to leverage shared membership roles in order to (fill in the blank), grow, increase sales, validate, etc. Cross sell, up sell. Marketing 101. The Way had a way of turning people into goobers if they weren't careful. "Wise" but extremely trusting, especially when the cross sell techniques were needed more by one side (us/me/The Way, CES/Lynn's foot Burgers) than the other. The most needy side is always at a disadvantage Always. VPW maneuvered around that reality as well as any but at some point the laws of nature do prevail without intervention and adjustment and the Way never got that "spiritual" advantage over the long haul, or long enough to do a lot of good, IMO. The Way Nash always needed financing. It had the books balance for a few years in the early stages, with brother HEW's assistance and short term bank loans (which VPW always prided himself for paying back and not loading down the books with debt).....and that was good. But the strategy of the Way - "WOW" - didn't need campuses to successfully execute and in the mind of this writer the rush to expand locations - Emporia, Rome City, Colorado, Tinny - Weighted the Way down to an insurmountable level that was a contributing factor to it's ultimate failure - on it's strategy. As all sound business acumen dictates, where profit is the desired outcome - growth has to be capitalized, funded, reserves have to be allowed for. Not all new business is good business and growing too fast isn't good if you can't manage overhead, everyone knows that. Jesus did. His "model" was scalable. The Way's wasn't if it required campuses, locations, support systems, etc. etc. The ROA - we were staring down the pipe by 1980, and knew it, there's only so much room. Find one person who can give you the projected plan, on paper with major requirements penned in and a timeline - and I'll buy your next cup o' free coffee. The Way's success was based on expansion of the Word via "PFAL" completions. X number of graduates = success. There wasn't complete agreement on what that number was but the process was agreed on - each one win one and eventually achieve span out, layering growth on top of growth. "WOW" was figured out on paper, more than once. It wasn't an entirely ambiguous goal, nor how it would be managed and maintained ("twigs", etc. etc. etc. etc.) The Way is still there but hardly acting on any kind of vision with vigor and drive. It's gone kaput. It likely would have for a variety of other reasons too but this would have done it, no matter what else happened. They would eventually have to re tool their strategy and sell - which they finally did but from a losing position. Instead of making money or profit of any kind they just unloaded properties when they had to. Never a good strategy but you do what you have to do. I know there's all kind of spiritual reasons why the Way would have turned into a turnip field eventually but I consider history and trending as the start of interpreting data, and this is what I see.

Well, it's like I told my wife years ago - I didn't leave the Way before they had a chance to be really mean to me. I left the Way before I had the chance to be really mean to them. Everyone's better off keeping their distance. We're not kids anymore. Paul Allen ripped Craig a new one. Never saw that coming. The Great One brought down to humbler station. There's people who would have beaten the pus out of Martindale given the chance. Allen gave him a gift, really. They don't want that kind of trouble and neither does Geer. I'll pray for him, and given the opportunity would be happy to talk through our past. He's the sorriest excuse for a person I can remember. But I won't chase him down or harrass him.

POP Greeting Cards - "for when just saying you suck wont' do". I think the condolences cards would be a big seller as times of illness and death are when Geer heads will really want to stick it to people, when they're the most vulnerable and in need of support. "Sorry for your loss....too bad, they'd be alive if it wasn't for your believing! " "To everything there is a season - except for your apathetic disbelief of God's wonderful matchless prevailing Word, you do that all the time and so people die like this!" "I was going to send a donation to their favorite charity......then I remembered God would want the money to go to a ministry that was really doing great work in His Word. So I kept it. Get better quick. Or whatever the problem is, believe for it to go away. Or if they're dead just move on. Soon. You're welcome"...........

Heard that Rejoice. Yes! I remember that ham, hearing about the duplicators someone, some people, got. Nuts. Y'know, we never know more than what we know, no matter what we think we know. The future has a way of calibrating everything, it's The Ultimate Validator, more than the past, because we can re write that to be anything, the second it's over. But the Future - that's the rubber hitting road. If there's rubber and a road to hit - like the tapes and tape dupers....who would have known we could put the entire Way library into a thing smaller than a box of Kleenex? Or imagined what the proecesses would be to do that? We had Geer's paper read to us at Corps week, that summer, if memory serves - right? The entire eye glazing, drool inspiring thing, word for freaking word. You did that, you didn't do that, you never really loved me, you never really believed, you, you you you. It was like being at a Women's Rights for Sheep NOW! festival. I was glad to be a smoker then, as it gave me that moment to get up, kind of nod this way and that and work my way out of that hay baled sweltering humidified box of canvas tenting and get out to the muggy August air and share some healthy tobacco exhalant. Now I think the POP paper is in all kinds of media......POP paper plates and picnic plastic ware, all branded "POP" with useful quotes engraved in......POP Goes The Pool! hoop toss games for summer swimming fun...... How about POP greeting cards with messages like: "So sorry you're not feeling well....GET BETTER SOON YOU UNBELIEVING DAIMON HOTEL". "Happy Birthday! Another year to fail your Father in the Word! God bless!!" "My condolences on your recent loss....NOT REALLY, IT'S YOUR OWN FAULT!!" "CONGRATULATIONS! I guess you finally decided to listen to me! You owe me $$$, stop stealing from God you thief!!!" Sorry, this isnt' exactly epistle material, raf.

Excanesta, the way I remember it is thus. Ly: Early 1986, maybe around Jan - Feb - I got a call from someone at the Way Nash, then my wife got a call, and the people were asking if and what we knew about a "book", a "paper" written by Geer. They described it as a "tell all" thing, named names, was the posthumous remarks, comments, last months of and recorded legacy of VPW, written by Geer. It had been read to the Way Corps at the Way Nash that week by Craig who had gone ballistic, literally. He was talking about how messed up everything and everyone was - they told me that he had made the statement that if it was "this bad" it was "MALPAK" time, time to hit the road and get out. It sounded a little over the edge, to us. I/we knew nothing about such a paper/book, that was the first we'd heard about it or anything like it. Assorted tapes were bootlegged out for a few months after that, as the Way's Region and Limb bosses and assorted management types were called in and met with, and the blubbering was well under way by that year's Corps week and ROA, as you may remember. I remember it somewhat - clearly - because I could understand what was happening at the Way Nash, having lived there. We spoke to people that next few months and it sounded like a hayride in a hell - paranoia, fear, constant diatribes against this person or that, every week a new person vilified for anything imaginable, then someone else lauded to the heavens for their great Stand On The Word. And nobody knew that the f they were really talking about - nothing had changed, really - the only thing that changed was how we thought. Everything done up to that point was done. Once anyone got squared up with that simple reality the future was and is the only thing left to consider. It was kindergarten Kristianity, and very difficult to get a grip on what was happening there and throughout the country as everyone suddenly - it was like the cap blew off a bottle of soda that had been shaken up for years and now WHOOOOOOSH!!!!!! and there was no going back in the bottle. I had a copy of the POP papier sent to me, a copy of a copy of a clandeestinely smuggled scratched out copy of some notes from the tapes - which reminds me that there were people suddenly buying pallets - I was told this but don't know if it's true - but pallets of cassette tapes so they could start copying everything they could get their hands on, and they were doing exactly that. It was like a war zone and Memorex was the infantry weapon on the ground. But once I got my eyes on the actual information it seemed a little....thin....and more than a little....self serving. Sure it was meaningful to the time and the people, all of us. But it wasn't worth losing much sleep over. VPW had been sick for years before he died. In fact, the overall time of the Way under his acting leadership was relatively short, from the formal filming of PFAL in 1967 to his death in 1985. In fact it could be argued he really only put in about 12 - 13 really active years as President of the Way before he was hampered by illness. Sure, the Way times their history back decades before that but "The Way" we came in contact with, the guy in the skinny black suit wiping his schnozz and saying "Dot's RIGHT!" every 5 minutes really memorialized in 1967 - and then quickly became outdated within about 2 years. He was reinventing himself very quickly, then. You know I don't write off all of my years and work I did with others, what I learned and the wonderful people I met like yourself. But I lost my rose colored glasses long ago. It burns some people that I'm so blunt about it while valuing the Word of God and the relationships I gained. But I do, to me there's no conflict left, "it is what it is" and was, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I only have one thing left now, and that's more than enough for me.