TheHighWay

Awwwww.... Congratulations, Mr. & Mrs. Raf !!!!! What a sweet, sweet face that boy has.

Life will never be the same, but having a kid is a wonderful journey. Forget the TV, we just spent all our time watching ours learn, grow, and explore... they are fascinating creatures that will never cease to amaze, amuse, and frustrate you. Have fun!!

THW

Leave us not forget the 'college division'-a decidedly lesser program for those who wish to excel in their professions.

To my knowledge, the way never helped or cared about ANYONE's profession ( well, they cared about the money they could glom-or using a person's status, if they had any). But training people? forget it.

Hey there... watch it... some of us here are Red-taggers (College Division alums) and proud of it!!!

I think those numbers might actually be "valid". When I lived at Emporia in the College Program the bulk of the 15th and 13th corps were housed there (the HQ dorm hadn't been built yet), plus a multitude of staff and interim corps, plus the college program folks. Then, as someone mentioned, you had some special weekends and classes run from the campus, and of course they did their own Sunday Night Service back then and a lot of locals came in for that so I can see how they would come up with that number with just a little stretching.

Oh, Twinky... I'm so sorry to hear this. It's always rough when the time comes... we just don't want to see them go! Take comfort in your current kitties and hope they will carry on the great legacy started by Twinkle.

((sending comforting thoughts and hugs your way))

That's not the way I remember the 90s. "Complacency" is not a word I would use on "Joe Believer".

This analogy(or whatever) makes no sense to me when describing the 90s. I find it to be a soft description of The Way.

Followers of The Way enjoy watching others be chewed out and kicked out. Standing up for what is right? What was there to stand for?

Evil to fester? What? It was always messed up.

No sense.

I disagree... LEADERSHIP enjoyed watching others get chewed up and kicked out. The rest of us were simply afraid of being the next victim. We were 'complacent' in that we didn't stand up for what was right (meaning standing AGAINST twi).

I'm sorry you cannot see the correlation here, but many of us feel it is an apt description of what happens whenever people turn a blind eye to someone else being wronged, which is what many of us did throughout the 90s (knowingly or unknowingly).

Was WW likening lcm's purge's to what Waysider described? What Waysider described is being likened to what is described in what appears to be a poem about Nazi party takeover?

Exactly... what are you not seeing here?

It is the methodology that is being compared... the complacency of one group to allow mistreatment of another because it isn't happening to "me".

TWI purged one category after another, and as long as you weren't found to be in that group it was easier to turn your head and ignore what was happening, even though it was happening to people in your fellowship or people you thought you knew well or were your friends. It was easy to say, "Well I guess I didn't really know that person as well as I thought. They must have really been hiding some serious sin to have gotten themselves M&A like that." Until it was YOUR turn, and the leadership came after YOU for something, and then it was too late to take a stand against the madness because everyone else would do just what you did, and turn their head.

The moral of the story is right is right, even if it's hard. And wrong is wrong and you should stand up to it, even if it isn't impacting you at the moment. If you allow evil to fester, it will eventually consume you, too.

To those of us who lived through the twi of the '90s the comparison is so obvious, it simply doesn't need to be spelled out.

(edited because it did a funky double-post thing)

Right after that came a purge of some of the full-time ministers. Coincidence? Doubtful.

Maybe he thought they were homos <_<

I honestly don't know how he kept all his purges straight in his head! Let's see there was:

1) Financial purge (aimed mostly at state/area leadership and upper echelon corps)

2) Way Corps purge (masking his stupid decision to put everyone on full-time status)

3) Homo purge (based on his own phobias and fears)

4) More financial purge (all believers this time -- hoping to gather enough money to cover the full-time corps debacle)

5) Commitment purge (used to root out those who weren't giving enough time or $$ to twi)

I'm sure there were probably more, they just eventually blended into one big "Do exactly as we tell you or you are gone!" purge for me...

"Secretive" is putting it mildly!!

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Excuse me?????

I can't even CONTACT you without telling you who I am first? Yeah... that's really gonna grab people who might be interested in your group, lol...

They allowed it up until the early 70's but sometime in the middle-70's quit allowing it. I have a letter from Bo Reahard somewhere in my Way Memorabalia file that explains it.

I would love to see a copy of that letter, and try to understand what justification they gave for closing their books. Any chance you could post a copy of it?

At one Word in Business, I was seated at dinner with, among others, Mich@el F0rt. The woman attending with me asked him about the books, and he gave the "AC Grad" answer. (I don't remember if he mentioned anything about faithful abundant sharing, though I wouldn't be surprised if he did.) I wasn't particularly interested in checking the books at that time; it seems I missed a great opportunity!

George

I seriously suspect that if any of us HAD inquired to see the books, we would have been questioned thoroughly and repeatedly about why we wanted to see them and it would have been "ascertained" that we didn't have a spiritual need to see them, but were just listening to devil spirits, and we would have been placed under closer spiritual oversight by our local leadership rather than be shown anything about twi's financial matters.

Skyrider, that is an EXCELLENT summation of way corps training and its impact!!

I, too, came in with high hopes and got caught up in the regimentation. I knew the military was regimented, and it produced leaders of the highest caliber. I thought that's what we were working toward.

But you are absolutely right that they didn't want leaders, they wanted followers... nothing more.

The summer before 'graduation' a group of HQ corps were sent to Gunnison to work the family ranch camps. We hitch-hiked there and hitch-hiked back. On the way back, my traveling partner and I had a series of things happen that most would call 'miracles'. When we got back to HQ and told our story, our fellow corps were just as thrilled and humbled as we had been, but the leadership... well, frankly, they were ....ed off. The whole campus was in preparation mode for corps week and roa, and who were we to come in and sidetrack things? Seriously, that is exactly how we were treated!!

A month later, when we arrived at our assigned location we were given instructions by our state coordinator that basically hobbled us hand and foot. We were actually discouraged from getting too close to our people, from building too much excitement or from becoming too innovative in our approach. We were told to follow orders to the letter. Period. (Of course, if something went wrong then we were completely at fault for not being innovative or for not getting our people more involved.)

I knew then that it didn't feel right, and I knew then that I wasn't happy. But I also knew that I wanted with all my heart to try to make it right, and I really wanted to trust the leadership, so I kept at it. It took me another 10 years to figure out that the leadership simply weren't trustworthy and never would be. What a sad waste.

I agree, I never heard VPW use this expression, only LCM. I'm guessing he used it early on, but it probably only became known ministry-wide when he was promoted to mog-in-waiting, which would be 1981. And by the late 1980's and into the 1990's (ie - postPOP) is when he became so paranoid that he was constantly warning about what would happen to you if you left the group and he also took on more of the teaching duties because he didn't trust anyone else to do it right. I doubt there were many times he was up at the podium that this piece of crap didn't come out of his mouth.

Oh, and the trucker song was called "Convoy" and was done by C.W. McCall. (good stuff, maynard!)

One of my cats was a stray kitten but very loving and easy to handle when I first took her in. I could pick her up and hold her for as long as I liked with no problems.

However, two years later when I added another cat to the mix I made the mistake of trying to hold cat #1 while introducing them. I thought it would help her stay calm but she freaked out anyway, which caused me to grip her harder to keep her from hurting me or the new cat or herself. By the time I got her set down she was berzerker.

And ever since she has been completely skittish about being held. For about a year she simply wouldn't have it. Finally, she started letting me pick her up for brief periods, and now she'll stay quiet long enough for me to scratch her ears and cheeks a bit (maybe as much as a full minute) but she'll be on the lookout the whole time and the second she sees one of the other cats she wants down NOW.

That one traumatic encounter seemed to put it into her head that being held meant something bad was about to happen and even though it has been eight years since the incident I haven't been able to erase that from her thinking.

Mark, sorry I didn't read this earlier... your treatment is BRILLIANT!! Keep up the good work!

THW

I am SO glad you decided to leave the cats at home when you visited your mom for the holidays. I think you would have undone a lot of your progress if you had taken them! (sorry, I hadn't visited this thread in awhile or I would have said so before)

As for your cats being upset with you when you returned, and giving you the cold shoulder, mine do that, too.

And wanting you to watch them eat... mine do something similar. Every morning each of my girls (I have three) expects me to come downstairs and "do something" to the food and water bowls, even if they are already full. Once that is done they will happily eat, but not before. Then, I'm supposed to spend individual time with each of them. They each have their specific morning spot they go to and expect me to come visit them there. Obviously, they have me well trained!

I also have one cat that will pick up her favorite toy and call for me throughout the house until she finds me and then she'll drop the toy at my feet. However, I've learned this doesn't mean she wants to play, it just means she wants some attention.

You have to give it to them... they do manage to communicate their wants and needs amazingly well.

Sorry to resurrect a somewhat old thread...

But I wanted to add that I ran into Rico a few times during his interim Corps year in So. Illinois (he was in Carbondale, I was in Belleville). He was, in fact, highly enthusiastic (to put it mildly). In fact, it was his enthusiasm (along with ROA 88) that was one of the primary drivers that moved me to disappear off the face of the TWI earth. (When I had a military permanent change of station I didn't bother to leave a forwarding address for TWI)

So while I would put him in the kool-aide drinking mind-numbed jerk category, I am, in a way, thankful that I ran into him.

FWIW

I agree on this time-table... the delightful Rico I remember fondly was from our first year in-rez. Our last year in, he was already well along on the leadership track. (Anyone who has been through corps training will tell you they knew exactly who was pegged for upper leadership positions long before graduation!)

Definitely.

Even though I was no more than a non-corps staffer, it was clear that VPW's presence at HQ was considered something of an annoyance by the cabinet. They had their agenda and goals and didn't particularly like their peaceful and orderly routine disrupted by VP's edicts.

Hmm... interesting. So, VP sees he's losing power BEFORE he steps down. He wants to go out on top, no matter what the long-term consequences so he installs Craig as his successor thinking he can control such a sicophantic idiot from the sidelines. But once Craig is made king, he and the rest of the BOT pretty much ignore Vic completely because the BOT have now got little Craig's full attention. Nice. I think this is the first time it all fits for me... I knew doc Vic was feeling left out once Craig was in charge but I hadn't realized how early on it had started. Very interesting.

The rest I had pretty much pieced together:

A petulant Vic throws a few pity-parties for himself (some teaching tapes I remember hearing) but none of the leadership respond. He then travels to Scotland to throw himself a BIG pity party with someone he thinks will back him up. But the joke is on him because the travel wears him out and he comes home on his deathbed. His actions, however, leave the door wide open for Geer to swoop in and claim his true VP loyalty in the face of the obvious disregard the BOD had been showing old Vic. Sweet.

Once the first strike was made, the same leadership that had grown to disregard VP now show their utter contempt for Craig and start carving out their own little fiefdoms from twi's turf. Poor Craig (who I think actually believed his own press) struggles to regain control until he finally realizes he needs to cut his losses, shore up what is left, and go from there. He sends out his loyalty letter.

And from that point on his entire focus is on revenge toward those who wronged him, and purging out potential traitors before they have the chance to do it to him again.

Amazing how little of this I realized at the time... ((sigh)).

Okay I just came back and decided I better add some to my last post.

I have had more time to go through some of the old posts and to listen to some of the grease spot radio posts. and I have officially revised my opinion.. VPW was corrupt from way back.. maybe even the beginning.

IT is something I am still working my way through...

We left (Hubby and I) early in 83...we left quietly because he was struggling to find work and felt he was failing as a Corps grad. we left because we thought we were out of fellowship.

We thought we would be grease spots by midnight... but what happened was we made a new life.

Thanks Oakspear and Geisha for all your information all over Grease spot. You inspired me to go give it a closer look.

Leafy... just keep peeling back those layers... exposing the ugly truth can really hurt but it is so empowering!!

THW

I further question jp's outcry about the mrs. I agree, and feel her situation was POORLY handled..

but the whole situation was rather "politicized". That's where I would draw the line on this.. to me, it looking back, I think it was a rallying point, and a failed attempted "coup" of sorts..

so BOTH mac and jp have a rather large heavy and old ax to grind with those "in power" in New Knoxville..

NOW.. they start this "continuation" of da way corps.. same junk, "new(?)" "leadership"..

and they put the vicster's namesake at the helm.. give him enough audience and adulation that an immature mind cannot turn it down? Yeah.. another "coup" of sorts..

I'm equally disappointed and confused on this... somehow I had gotten the impression JP and the other kids had come to terms with their heritage and realized their dad wasn't all he proclaimed himself to be... was I all wrong? Did JP just buy into POP and think: these twi idiots ruined everything and stole my dad's life-work???? That's all I can think now that he's pushing V2P2 onto the throne. It's just sad and pathetic.

Seattle's weather has kinda sucked for the last week or so. Been in the teens to low 30's for over a week now. Yes, I know compared to hometown Duluth, it's a banana belt, but for the PNW it's been brutal. The worst weather we've seen around here in about 18 years.

Yeah, that's when I lived there and it snowed a few inches in November. Everyone freaked out and everything shut down. Since I had just moved there from a northern state I thought it was funny!

The traffic is the worst part ... not being able to get around 'cause the roads are all blocked with abandoned cars gets really old. The locals around here never seem to catch on about how to drive in the snow either. Everytime we have a bit of snow, everyone takes that as a cue to drive immediately into the ditch. I don't get it.

I remember that part, too. They seem to think if they just pretend it isn't there the snow it will go away.

Fast forward to the nineties. A total of four twigs. We had a full time LC couple and a full time BC couple. No travelling involved. A lot of busy work.

This reminds me... when they did put all the corps on full-time status our LC wanted to travel around the state to visit all the twigs and he was told NO by the RC. Something about focusing on his own back yard. (I'm quite sure the truth was that twi didn't want to spend the money.) How stupid. You are supposedly a full-time minister but you aren't allowed to go visit your flock? Duh....

When everyone was getting ready for RoA (early 90s), I saw quite a few of the "executive types" out offering to help for the evening work sessions. And also working hard in the day, on things that wouldn't be their "normal" work. They did it because they wanted to. RoA prep was a very busy and generally quite fun time.

Agreed... but ROA/Corps Week was a special, fun time of year. That doesn't mean it happened the rest of the year 'round. For the most part I saw the peons work their buns off and the big-wigs watch (I mean 'oversee') and complain about how we weren't doing it right.

Wow. Thank you for pointing that out, Waysider. I know I took the way tree class and all that, but for all the times that sentence about a twig being self-**** was quoted, it was almost never quoted in its full context. (and that, from the ministry that prided itself on looking at the full context... oh, man!!)

Once again, I am stunned over something I shouldn't be stunned over... where the heck was my head back then? Oh, I know, it was firmly up... well, never mind.

The point is, I believed in the goodness of twi and its tree structure. To think that a twig had freedom only within the context of the whole tree never struck me as odd because you don't think of a tree as being selective or secretive about what it passes along to the twigs. The same nourishment flows throughout: root to tip. That's what we were told was happening and that's what I believed for so long.

HAH! I was so naive.

Thanks for posting your list. I'm interested in knowing more about the applesauce ornaments you mentioned - can you post more details, please?

I'm always looking for crafts and stuff to do with the kids. We did potato stamping today and it was huge hit. I have a gingerbread house kit I got at a fabric store for $3.99 that we might decorate today.... I think it will be fun but doubt the frosting will make it to the house to stick it together, if you know what I mean...

Most recipes involve equal parts of applesauce and cinnamon... (enough to make a sort of dough that you can flatten out on wax paper. Then you use cookie cutters to make the shapes and a straw to poke a hanging-hole at the top. Then you simply let them set out for a few days (turning them over every few hours or they will curl at the edges) until they dry. -- I've seen some recipes that also add some white school glue to the mix, and some say to lay your ornaments out on a cookie sheet and bake them at 200 degrees for a few hours.

But that seems like an awful lot of cinnamon, which isn't cheap these days! I wonder if you could cut that with some flour and add a drop of cinnamon oil or fragrance instead? Anyone tried something like that? Of course, it might make them look more tan than dark brown, so that's something to consider.

Looks like I'm late... hope you had a great birthday!!

OMG!  I just looked at the link WW so kindly put up for the Y2K preparation, I cannot believe they put something like that out to "bless" everyone in the New Year!  If one were to take that stuff seriously, they'd have a panic attack and wall themselves up in a unibomber cabin someplace they couldn't be found!  

What a gross miscarriage of religious authority (ha!) to issue such a long communique based on a foundless RUMOUR!!!  What did they think they were running, the State Dept?

Yes, and we were not only expected to supply ourselves with everything on the list, but our preparedness was CHECKED by our local leadership.

Thankfully, they didn't actually come into our homes but they did sit each adult/couple down and go through the list with them to make sure everything had been addressed to their satisfaction. In our home I did all the shopping so I did do some stocking up but any equipment I bought (hubby insisted) like a camping toilet and a small gas grill, I left all packaged up so I could return it as soon as the "crisis" was over. And some things I just said we had and never bought (oooh, little liar me).