Oakspear

There was only one of the foursome whose face I could clearly see during the whole ceremony and he looked very uncomfortable. The other man is one of a handful of Way people whom I would feel justified punching in the face! It was a good experience for me; I did my usual professional job. It would have been interesting to hear post-ceremony remarks, but I was not at all interested in mingling with this bunch afterwards

For the last eight years I have been a wedding officiant in the Midwest. My wife and I have officiated at close to 400 weddings during that time, including for one of my Grease Spot buddies in 2012. We advertise locally and on the internet and are occasionally pleasantly surprised that someone we know calls or emails us about performing their wedding ceremony. A few months ago I agreed to do a wedding for a young man whose parents had been in The Way when I was. His mother had taken PFAL in my house in 1981 and she and her then-husband had been in the same Twig as I during the 90's. I knew this guy since he was a toddler. The wedding was today. At the rehearsal last night the groom's mother and her new husband were there - she was very nice to me - I did not ask her if she was still involved in The Way, although I think she is. At the ceremony today I spotted the local Twig Coordinator, his wife and another couple who had been involved when I was kicked out in 2001. They did not see me...until I walked up the aisle with the groom...the looks on their faces were great! Shock...surprise...changing to frowns as I read a service that was "off the Word" in so many aspects. I left immediately after and did not interact with them at all. Sometimes it's just great to be me!

Geez...

The invisible dragon is not in my garage, it's in my bathroom.

Well no, because you can't prove a negative. And maybe it is Jesus behind all those warm feelings and prayers, although I doubt it and I see no treason to believe that it is. I'll not address the "faith based" comment because Raf, who actually gets paid to string words together coherently, did it quite adequately.

One thing that about believers who "know" that their beliefs are true - and this includes believers of every stripe, not just Christians - is a pretty fuzzy definition of "to know" From what I have seen, unexplained feelings, coincidences and things just going right are interpreted in light of the preferred belief system Somebody prays and gets a warm feeling and they "know" it's Jesus

Kudos to you Raf, for being ballsy enough to speak freely about your atheism and to question "Da Word". The derailment of this thread is one of the reasons I gave up on GSC several years ago...anytime I even thought about questioning the underlying assumptions of Christianity, or was skeptical about some miraculous event, I was assailed with personal attacks and a chorus of "I just know it's true"

Martindale made an announcement (in the 90's) that the Word was over the world.

There are many reasons why people stay as long as they did, or who got out as soon as they did, and the differences are as many as there are ex-TWI-ers. Maybe it was a spouse who didn't see the problems, or other family members who were stuck in Waybrain. Perhaps it was a belief that "The Word" wasn't being taught "accurately" anywhere else. Sometimes it was a mindset that TWI could be changed from within. In my years posting on GSC I noted a tendency for many of us to view those who got out after us as deluded; who were just blind to the error, the abuse and all the rest - how could they miss it? Of course we were involved before the crap hit the fan, or at least before it was obvious. Those of us who left when the lawsuit was announced couldn't understand why those who stuck it out stayed in. The folks who left after POP couldn't fathom why we were still wayfers. The people who got out in the seventies were amazed at the people who trudged along through the eighties, and so on. A lot of us thought that the moment we got out was the perfect time to jump ship!

In retrospect it was obvious they didn't really care about the people involved, just how it would reflect on "the ministry". I look back in amazement that one of us idiot WOW's wasn't injured or worse when they sent us naive, untrained kids in to "confront" your hometown right in the middle of that mess.

I was never in the Way Corps, but could see some of what socks describes out in the field; newly graduated Corps showing up to run branches that only existed on paper, single guys being assigned to run an area full of old married people with kids... I remember a Limb leader pushing us to split all the twigs in our city; took 5 twigs that realistically should have been three and split them into ten. New Corps show up thinking that we had a branch and a "twig area" and all kinds of growth...

Yup L.U. is on the list of the GSers who I have met in person over the yearsI don't think I'll ever retire...don't think I could afford it!

So I stop back at the old tavern and the same ol' barflys are here! I opted out of Grease Spot a couple of years ago...but the Grease Spot years were good ones. I've kept busy though. I went back to college. I'll be done with my associate in business/accounting focus next Spring. The annual college publication that compiles student poems, short stories etc will be publishing my essay Making a Snowball this coming Spring. Added a grandaughter to the family: Lily Kay Nice was born in January 2011 and lives in western Nebraska. My wedding business, Beyond Illusion Wedding Officiants is doing well, we are averaging over 50 weddings a year. I completed a 5-year course of spiritual study and function as clergy in the local pagan community. I saved up some cash to buy a camera and have amused myself by taking pictures of local musicians at work/play...a couple of them use my stuff on their Facebook profiles...one of my pictures was the front page of one muiscian's website for about a year. I write a blog reviewing various kinds of beer (oh yeah) Ill-Gotten Booty Beer Reviews And this month I will have been out of The Way for eleven years!

Makes sense; I think rascal's husband might have been involved...

Within the last year a woman who was the daughter of a divorced couple; dad was attending an offshoot and mom was active TWI, came to talk to my wife & me about performing her wedding. She ended up going with another officiant in the area. I think it would have been a hoot to see all those wayfers and ex-wayfers sitting in the audience as I officiated! What turned out to be funnier was that the woman who ended up doing the wedding was a friend of mine, and the High Priestess of a Pagan group here in town!

Yes, I was there, but I was drinking industrial quantities of beer and playing my kazoo while Sudo pole danced with the tree while the snipe hunt was being perpetrated. Pictures were posted. They're probably on here somewhere!

In my opinion, the reason that you attend a wedding ceremony and/or reception is to rejoice with and support the people who are getting married. It should have nothing to do with ones support for or agreement with their religious faith or ones personal opinion of the officiant or other guests. My ex-wife recently refused to attend the wedding of our son because she disapproved of the officiant (me) - I'm sure that she felt that she stood on principle but she did great harm to her relationship with our son.

I second that...btw...you live in St. Louis, correct? I was there for a few days the first week of November...thought of you.

One of the reasons we usually stayed anonymous

Other than the types Pawtucket (he's not my paw) mentioned, nobody was hated. Although we didn't always succeed, we mods tried to be even-handed. Personally, I learned much more from the people that I disagreed with than those that were on the same page. Mike and I always kept things civil between us, although I just couldn't see the logic in what he was saying, ClayJay & I have had a respectful rapport even though we live on opposite ends of the political spectrum, and people like Geisha and I have had great conversations even though I'm apparently destined for hellfire for eternity! As a moderator, the one consistent thing was the close-to-equal number of complaints that we moderated too much compared to those who thought we should be more vigilant.

hah! I only "moderated" you once and that wasn't even in the Politics Forum... (I didn't moderate there because I participated)

Since Kit just showed her (or rather Elvis') face, I want to take the opportunity to recognize all that she has done for Grease Spot Cafe. A lot of the organizing, archiving and dusting of the furniture was done behind the scenes by this very giving woman. Thanks Kit

That would be me. You and the other guy (he can give himself up if he wants to) approached me off to the side and asked to talk to me privately. I'm thinking "What the f***? - we are all drunk off our asses - these guys want to have a serious conversation?" - then I started hearing banjo music (we were in the South ya know)....

My memory says that both events happened at Weenie Roast #2...but that's just my memory. #3 was at that state park that had the beautiful waterfall - those were the only 2 that I attended

I had missed the confusion surrounding the events of the late 80's because I had left active association with The Way some time in 1983. It was mostly over disagreement with the local LC, and I had it in mind to get back involved in The Way at some point, which I did in late 1990, mainly because I wanted my kids to sit through PFAL. Landing back in The Way at that time I was required to sit through "The Leadership tapes" aka the "Galatians Tapes" and mostly heard only one side of the story. People I knew and respected stuck with Martindale; the few that I knew who had left were those that I had a low opinion of, so I decided to get back on board with The Way and not go with one of the offshoots, of which there were several "branches" of in Nebraska. Things gradually got bad in the 90's, but it wasn't until the A<<en lawsuit in 2000 that I started to really examine things. Eventually I came to doubt much of what was taught in The Way and ended up posting on Waydale & GSC while still in. they found out and kicked me out. I didn't look back with any nostalgia or with affection on those still in, because I had lost every ounce of respect for the leaders and the rest of them had demonstrated that they really didn't give a crap about me. It will be 10 years next Fall.