cara

Maybe he plucks. If he shaved himself while looking in a mirror, could that work? It's his image that's the focus, not himself ??

That's a great post about the temptations , Mr. Wordwolf - thanks for the thinking.

Pat, i like your name - what's the question?

In the matter of family versus thinking, I could talk to certain TWI friends in the same way that I could to family members, asking questions and trying to figure things out together was fine, no agenda suspected, but asking questions of others was often seen as an attack of some kind, and i learned to keep my mouth shut and my thoughts to myself. The very fact that I felt like that with some people got me to question other things that they said, so not a bad thing in the end.

You asked about this, Kit. And you're right - so close but so different, individual.

Both are considered Celtic in origin - Celts being a sort of tribal group that got pushed (or migrated voluntarily) westward until they reached the western edges of Europe. Then later tribes have stranded the Celts at the extremes of western Europe, into a few remaining areas comprising (mostly highland) Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall (extreme SW of England) and Brittany (extreme NW of France).

All of the western seaboard of Europe has since time (or at least boats) began been subject to invasion and counter-invasion from different tribal groups. Scotland was invaded from Scandinavia (think, Vikings); England - the very name is derived from Anglo-Saxon - Angles and Saxons being from different areas of what is now Germany; and so on.

The Celtic tribes gradually got pushed west until there was no further to go. Remnant cultures have remained and Gaelic (think Gaul, now France) is still spoken in France, Ireland and Scotland. Welsh is a variant Celtic language spoken in Wales. There has been a strong nationalistic tendency there and it is difficult to progress in council/administrative or teaching type professions unless one is bilingual in Welsh and English. Road signs are bilingual. Scotland has not got quite that radical - yet. Ireland has been divided on religious grounds but southern Ireland (Eire) has its own separate (Gaelic) language.

I don't know how interchangeable the Gaelic languages are from these remnant cultures from Scotland to France. I think they are mutually comprehensible. It might be rather like Brit English underlying American English but both have acquired different accents and use words a little differently so they have different meanings.

Scots Gaelic is close to Irish Gaelic and Manx; Welsh, Cornish and Breton are a different branch. The Irish used to be called the Scotii by the Romans (probably from an earlier word, see "Scotia") and the word Scotland came from that (there was also a kingdom in Scotland at one point that belonged to an Irish kingdom). In the Republic of Ireland there are still areas and, outside of those, individual households and schools where Irish is the first language, but everybody has to study it from when they start school at four or five. This puts some pepople off it. In Northern ireland learning it is voluntary but there is quite a bit of enthusiasm for it, especially among adults, as far as I know (not getting into the religious/civil rights issues that are so hard to explain).

Some of the differences between Irish and Scottish cultures are to do with when the Anglicisation happened, eg, as far as I know, why there aren't Scottish "O" names (from the word for heir). Both Mc and Mac are found in both countries - each is from "mac" which means son. And then Scotland also had the Picts and later had different relationships with the continental europeans.

There were Celts all over Europe and in Turkey (Galatia). In the old stories, the Celts who came to Ireland came up from Spain (the Milesians), and originally from the middle east, and recently, I think, they found a strong genetic connection between the Irish and the Basques.

Excathedra, did you ever read a book called "How the Irish Saved Civilization"? Brilliant :)

Well maybe not really brilliant, but an easy read (if you didn't already know it)!

Just curious. Before Opera Buff rebuffs me for the scientific inaccuracy of on-line poles..

maybe I'm just trying to figure out how uneducated the average wayfer really was..

current innies. You may want to look around and ask the same question..

The instructions for the pole. It is (or was) you level of education during your twi experience.

So, if you started as a student and were still involved when you got your degree, or went back after getting your degree, then that degree would count?

(I'm not a pole.)

I have a few ideas – like gardening or housecleaning or painting or being a virtual Personal Assistant or proof-reading – but I’d appreciate any suggestions as to the Whatever that you think I might be good at. (I note that one Spotter reported some enterprising people started up post-Rapture petcare - but that person probably doesn't have a lot going on right now...LOL)

Only proviso: services provided have to be legal and decent!

The start-up costs can’t be excessive – like purchasing very expensive equipment – and I will look for night-school classes in some of these to learn better or complementary techniques or skills, once decided.

So in summary:

1. What do you think I could turn my hand to?

2. Who might be the target “employer” for any of these services?

3. What attributes would help me be successful?

4. What attributes would count against me?

5. What pitfalls might be encountered - if you tried something in a similar line?

Would appreciate your help.

Hi Twinky, a quick note to say that I have done freelance proofreading, and it's something I would go back to depending on time and need. After I read that publishing companies prefer to use freelance people and that if you had an expertise (a "niche") you'd be better to look for a company that published books in that area, I wrote to several places that put out books related to my training, got a few tests sent to me to do at home, and then a phonecall out of the blue. It's a lonely job, not something I could do 40 hours a week at home, but it was good training for me, and it looks as though you have other more social jobs in mind as well.

Thank you. If I may ask, just what is "Hiberno-English?"

Sorry, BA, I did it again - Hibernia is what the Romans called Ireland, though they never went there, not as an army anyway, and when I was googling "irish english" one time, looking for a dictionary to check something, a link to a Wikipedia page about the English spoken in Ireland came up and they called it Hiberno-English, so I thought that was a good international term, not "hiberno-centric" - the best-laid plans ...

Finally if God allows the Devil to commit evil, the implication is that God needs the Devil in order to show his goodness. In other words, good needs evil in order to exist. Not exactly an almighty God.

Now, I have nothing to offer in terms of another explanation, but this one leaves me with a lot of questions.

I have to go and think/read about this stuff also, but for a start I wouldn't think that good needs evil to appear good - the evil is there but it's going to run its course and after that it'll still be good, I think.

Yes, BA, and using the "you" form for 2nd person sing (probably started long ago as a sort of politeness or formality, to add distance, as some languages like Spanish still do) - using "you" also loses the comfortable intimacy of the real 2nd person sing (thee/thou) which was more laterly used for family, friends, people you know well or at least are familiar with. Helps you know status and standing, if you like, to use a TWI-type expression.

Not sure that thee/thou was always reserved for closeness, but for a KJV equivalent it would be worth a look at Shakespeare to see when he used thee/thou and its other forms. Certainly he used it between intimates (eg Hamlet and his buddies) - and between people of roughly similar rank or from a higher person to a lower person; not sure that the lower person (the peasant, rascal, whatever) would commonly use it to address the duke, king, lord, etc. But then again - it's a literary device so may not strictly adhere to "normal" usage of the time, though it should not be egregiously different.

This is a very interesting thread - thanks all, for the reminders and links. I'll have to go back and study. Twinky and Broken Arrow, I grew up using "ye" for plural "you" informally - it's fairly common in Hiberno-English. In some parts they say "yous" but I think ye is nicer, though I wouldn't use it with someone from another country. I like the Northern English thees and thas.

I'm looking for a good source to help me understand the ins and outs of Jacobean English, as used in the King James Bible. The source could be a book, web site, a previous thread in GSC, whatever. Just a reliable source or two to explain the usage of 'thee' and 'ye' and 'thou' etc. More importantly, to explain to me the manner in which actions by God were described in the Old Testament books. I'm not sure exactly how to phrase it because I'm just not clear on it, but it's something to the effect that verbs were used in the passive voice to describe actions. Or maybe it was that verbs were used in the active voice to describe passive actions. Something like that.

Anyway, thank ye for whatever help thou canst provide me.

Hello buff. If general use of thou/ye is what you mean, then thou is singular and ye is plural in the nominative case (subject) and they change to thee and you in the accusative (object). Just googling "thou ye" I found this:

http://av1611.com/kjbp/articles/bacon-theethou.html

I read somewhere else that the usage had passed out of regular use at the time the KJV was put together:

As far as I was taught and can remember, the active for passive usage you were talking about is a figure of speech, so I suppose it has nothing to do with English.

And Holland is in The Netherlands, not "Never Never Land".

As far as the EU, I'm sure a lot of folks see it as one more step toward one-world government which is a sign of the "end times" as discussed in The Book of Revelation. I'm just addressing why some are opposed, or feel threatened by the EU.

I personally think that the United States needs a strong Europe. We need allies, and we need for them to be strong. There have been many times both have turned to the other in a time of need. George W. Bush said the U.S. has no greater friend than England. That probably would have hurt my feelings if I were Canadian, but I believe the point is well taken. Competition is good for the economy and Europeans are simply looking for ways to be stronger. It simply means the U.S. also needs to be more competitive.

I don't understand what you mean when you speak of "U.S. economic repression". You're not the first non-American I've heard say that, but I don't see it. I would like to be enlightened.

I have never thought about the U.S. states "being one block". That is a very interesting perspective to me. I see it as different as the EU because in the U.S. the federal government has the final say. With the EU there has to be consensus amongst the countries, correct?

Broken Arrow and Twinky, thanks for your comments. BA, I did hear about that invasion, though I probably didn't know about it at the time, but I think he must have meant the post-Civil War US. My memory is not the best, but I think the problem with the EU that he was trying to explain (sorry about being so eu-centric, now there's a "good" word!) was that these countries that in twos and threes had been at war with each other and invading each other over eons were now forming an alliance, and that wasn't spiritually good. Still doesn't make sense, not that any of it has to anyway! (And some of us never invaded anyone, well, maybe some raiding a long time ago but then later we saved civilisation).

Twinky said "And I further thought: yeah, all right for you to say that...now...now that your States are all one block. Do you want to disband the US union because that union is so evil? No, thought not. You just want to stop others achieving the benefits of cross-border business, multi-nationalism, etc."

Twinky, that must have been rough for you, but at least you had the ability to see another reason for it, when all I could think was that it didn't make sense.

Helloooo - I have another question!

I don't think my political views were influenced - I didn't have a vote in the US and things were different elsewhere. As an observer, I did find it odd that a US TWI person might speak of other non-TWI Christians as not knowing anything, being like natural men (!), or even worse (!!), but in a political race a non-TWI Republican would suddenly be "our guy." I suppose that helped me figure out that it didn't matter what people said unless it made sense to me.

Here's the question that I never figured out. I got into a short discussion once with a US person (that I liked very much) about the EU - he seemed to think it was a step down the slippery slope, but he couldn't explain to me why, and all I remember him saying was that the US had never been invaded (in comparison to Europe). I said he should tell that to the nearest tribe, but he meant the political US, not geographical, ha, ha. I've heard some strange things said about the EU, and I've heard others say it's not "spiritual' at all, but economic worry. Was there a TWI policy about the EU or signs of the one-world gov or such?

You remember correctly. We were responding to a position he held at the time. (I don't know what his

current position is.) He didn't use the term, but it was what's called "Openness Theology"

in Christian circles (or "Open Theism".) He stated it with a presentation on Genesis 3 he titled

"A Pivot Point in History." We both concluded that his presentation had a number of fundamental errors

in it, and addressed each in turn. We never intended to make its details public, so it was never

presented as such on the GSC. That having been said, there were some interesting ideas that WERE

discussed on a thread here. Personally, I think one of the thread's posters behaved poorly and kept

interrupting the discussion, but we had an interesting discussion around him, and addressed some

issues that the original paper never touched on.

The thread was called "What does God know?"

Thank you very much, Wordwolf. I've read it through once (it's currently on p 16 of doctrine threads) and will again - very thoughtful, thought-provoking posts, only one demanding poster, not so bad - and think I might even have notes on an "Open Theology" teaching, not that I knew it was called that. I can picture the atemporal God, who sees both the current me making decisions and the future me with the results, and am certain that I'm the one choosing. I can also picture a benign father, looking on in an entertained way as a mutinous child heads for trouble, knowing he's going to have to do some helping and comforting soon. I don't want to go too far down the imagination road though when there's so much about him already told, think I'd better concentrate on Him, and I appreciate very much that so many verses were brought into the posts.

Congratulations on your fatherhhod!

From Watered Garden

"When they returned the whole group of them had to listen to that Corps Night rage, and I looked in the dining room and she had her head down crying as she listened to what he said about her. Her husband sat next to her, shame-faced at being married to such a loathsome, weak, unspiritual and worthy creature.

Oddly enough, they stuck it out and as far as I know are loyal Wayfers to this very day.

I am so dumb, my unspiritual mind kept saying "why didn't they take her to the nearest ER like anyone else would do with an acute asthma attack?" I mean, I certainly have no in-depth spiritual perception and awareness, but I do know how to treat someone who is having trouble breathing - "scoop and run" it's called. You can pray on the way to the emergency department.

And I guess the big thing about confrontation - I would NEVER let anyone speak about my husband in such a fashion, and I think this woman's husband should have stood up after the tape ended and announced that he was outraged that LCM would speak about his woman, the mother of his children, in such horrible terms. He could have then driven to NK and punched the SOB in his fat ugly nose. But nooooo, if LCM says your spouse is a piece of poo you better agree with it."

Confronting, when nobody else can interrupt whether because of politeness or distance- how brave.

i really don't know cara

the yelling and face melting just seemed to be "a way" (snort) for crazy people to feel like they were important

Thanks for answering, o chair person. I suppose I was thinking of the relatively minor (but still uncalled-for) shouting in the outlying areas, eg, if someone said christmas or if someone had their eyes closed during a teaching, rather than the real crazy behavior to the Corps themselves that I've seen described here - a trickle-down effect maybe, unintentionally learned.

luckily i missed most of martindale's insane years

but he was starting to lean that way when i knew him and so was tom jenkinson and chris geer (well he had already gone off the edge in my opinion) and some others

Hello everybody - glad we're all still here. I was never in the Corps but have a question to do with the shouting/facemelting - was it taught that shouting would scare anything devilish away? I think I later heard something like that somewhere. And I remember people in the corps that I liked and admired and who I normally found warm and funny, that some of them could do the shouting bit also, and I wonder if they felt they had to do it.

Just in case someone has an answer at their fingertips, I have another question: I've been reading and reading (still have loads to wade through) and remember that Wordwolf mentioned somewhere that he and Raf (I think) had written to C. Gee[ about the idea of what God knows, his foreknowledge - I've tried searching for this subject and could be looking in the wrong place but wonder if this was actually directly discussed, the different ideas about it. I'll keep looking anyway and thanks to all for the interesting topics.

God bless you friend. Maybe that is the whole point here..

What, you mean the point of the Cafe is to annoy people! Ha, ha. Your made me laugh.

Oh, the "empties floating by" expression goes waaaaaay back. People were already using that when I "got in" in 1972. Yeah, "unbelievers" were viewed as empty clay vessels, devoid of any life, except for they breath-life they exhibited. The "empties floating by" expression was used to conjure up images of empty bottles being carried down the river, at the mercy of the current.

edit:

(It's a bastardization of the scripture that says "We have this treasure in...yada, yada..."

What a hardhearted picture.

I had a friend who used to tell others when introducing me that I had undershepherded her, and I would say no, I just liked you. It hadn't been work to be pleased to see her, and I had an idea that undershepherding was hard (that old broken bread business}. I hadn't thought about the farm animal aspect of it. It's all so odd. We would be told not to rely on experience, but so much that became defined and limited to a manual or in how it was passed down was based on others' experiences, and then we would think that was how it should be done. And it would often end up with us thinking, or forcing ourselves into thinking, that we had an order from God to annoy someone else.

PS Happy Saint (I've no reason not think he was one) Patrick's (and he did exist) Day!

Matthew 23:1-12 (NASB)

1Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples .....

12"Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.

It takes your breath away sometimes - thanks.

OK. This is more like a diary entry.

Back in the day, LCM once said that the "dropout rate" in twi was highest the year after the wow year. He was acting like that was a BAD thing. I think it's a GOOD thing, and I saw related reenforcement of that couple nights ago. Let me explain:

Going wow was sort of a litmus test for the individual. I don't know about that "ten year's growth in one year" stuff, but before going wow, pretty much any believer could lead whatever double life they wanted. Go to twig, put on your church face; go home or elsewhere, put on any other face you want. But when you go wow, you live with and hang out with believers 24/7. Even on your job your time is regimented. No room for a double life. Not arguing the ethics of this, just saying that by the time that wow year is over, you KNOW what you're in for if you continue with twi. So it's perfectly normal if someone decides "hey, this is not for me".

I'm wondering what you meant by a double life - it's a red bullflag to me, it brings up the memory of the feeling that you had to justify yourself to other TWI believers by telling victory stories from the times when you weren't with them, that what mattered was the physical superficial time spent with them, not your life in Christ, with God. That being around non-TWIers was wrong (they couldn't be real believers), being normal conversationally was wrong, and that basically there was no way God would be with you if you weren't continually with Them. An over-reaction on my part, I'm sure, but I'm wondering what you meant.

In the summer, June/July-ish, of 1981 I took the Advanced Class at a hotel in Peebles, Scotland. There were some big-wigs from the US there - Vin** F!nn&^an was running it, and VPW was there for about a week. They and the local Core were looking around for a property at that time, I think

One of the major things that I remember is that "they" told us we were eating too much, and I wonder if this is where the idea that the European people didn't eat properly came from - how ironic would that be. I'm sure it wasn't a normal diet for any of us, but the hotel put on a good spread, and what young person having a good tiime with friends is going to say no, especially when it was all included in the price. Anyway, they had a word with the staff and there were some changes made. I don't think we were excessively dopey during the sessions, but I definitely wasn't getting my normal fresh air exercise and sleep.

Wow, a lot of anger in your post. The word is "misandry". From there you should find the derivations. Look it up again in your Webster's and Oxford, do a word search on the Internet, look it up in "Dictionary.com", look it up in Wikipedia. It's not a made up word.

This is weird. Since I was in college I've complained (not too seriously) that only misogyny and misanthropy were in my dictionary, and I thought that something like misandry should be allowed. So maybe I sometimes make sense. Saying "feminism" means hatred of men does not.

PS My mother had an oval influence on me - I've been waiting for a chance to say that in public. Is that allowed? I can't say she had the other kind.

Not one person EVER who lived to be an adolescent has not had desire for someone they couldn't possibly have an open relationship with.

Not wanting to fight but I would have to argue with that generalisation and guess that you didn't have any sisters to keep you in reality, ha, ha (I mean one where you could have close communication with the opposite sex without weirdness, as I had with a reasonable father and brothers). Not saying you mean immediate family in your sentence, but they're the ones who teach you about the world and how to deal with it.

I calmly told her they married their siblings, that there was no one else around and that incest wasn't a biblical issue until 2000 years later when a man named Lot was incestually raped by each of A 46 year old middle school math teacher recently confessed to 11 counts of statutory sodomy at my kids' middle school. She would tell 12 and 13 year old boys that they needed to come with her to a building owned by the school district but abandoned. She'd drive them there and do oral sex on them. She didn't get ratted out by any of the boys; she said something in passing to another teacher who suspected something and started asking questions and one thing led to another and she got busted. Never did hear what she was sentenced to. If she'd been a male teacher and did that it'd been all over the media. Nice.

Lot of anger here.

Actually, I could find you examples of such women being all over the media.

This has been an interesting thread, though, thanks.

FWIW, I never heard of Waydale.

I'm glad this place is called "Grease Spot Cafe". Had it been called Waydale, I probably wouldn't have paid any attention. As it was, I found Grease Spot Cafe as I was looking for the zip code, preparing to crawl back to TWI over broken glass because my life was so miserable on the outside. The intriguing diversion to the Cafe...has distracted me ever since. Never made it back to TWI. Phew!!!

Twinky, I read your posts yesterday and was haunted by them and had a nightmare (happens when I'm overheated). Anyway, I was "back" in some way, there were lots of people around, but I was rushing up and down, never where I was supposed to be.

Je*ff Bri*dges was in it as well, but he semed to be having a good time. I think he must remind me of a (better-looking-than-) Fabio type in my life, someone from a US east coast state, south of DC, that I met at an ROA and who was kind enough to phone me when he heard of some of the goings-on, the only person to clearly tell me anything before I read here, so when I read the Fabio thread I saw it as a from-Fabio-to-Fabio link in my life. I thought his story might have been a one-off thing, none of my business, and I put it away and didn't ask questions of other people. I'd hear grumblings and rumblings here and there about stuff, but it was all couched in "spiritual" terms and parables - maybe i didn't have ears to hear?! Golly, that's something to chew on.

Thank you again, Mr. P-tucket and everybody.

I'm intrigued by Biodiesel. Yes grease can be turned into that stuff.....but it requires a great deal of filtering....and that's what we have had to to. Filter what we learned and clarified it....got the junk out and kept that which was real. I really like that. I wonder....will the rest of the world understand it????

It is definitely appropriate, though.

It makes sense to me, it's just a little harder to say and write.

I've been thinking of tedious puns to do with "mene, mene..." and "weigh(ay)ed," but nothing that trips off the tongue. Or "strangers/strange land." Oh, "Strangers' Inn"!

Or, just in fun, for all you technical people who set this place up and allowed me in, what about "I, Teapot"?

What a clever poem - and it scans!

It's not just a winding road. I think we are willfully blind, one lifetime after another..

what are the alternatives.. hmm.

some of us are "cursed".. i.e.. we remember at least partly what came before..

I hope this makes sense to somebody besides me..

It certainly is a winding road - I never imagined I could become fond of a squirrel who drinks a bit and talks about past lives :P

Thanks for that video, I hadn't ever seen it.

Hey, can I be a back-up singer? And bring my harmonica?

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/sy-14210959/leonard_cohen_closing_time_official_music_video/

"...Yeah I missed you since the place got wrecked

By the winds of change and the weeds of sex

looks like freedom but it feels like death

it's something in between, I guess

it's CLOSING TIME ..."

Hee, hee - I think that's about another place.

Bloody ads.