Dead dogs and pot smokers, definitely not a good analogy.
"The good ol' days" are highly overated and have become of mythical proportions when it comes to the Way I think. Likewise the "bad ol' days". That's not speaking of your own experiences or anyone else's specifically but I would say there's no single bucket that holds the entirety of what "everyone" experienced. We can go back and back and reconstruct forever, peeling back the layers of ideas, looking for clues, influences, answers and explanations and it all still ends up a bag of air when it comes to a 25 words or less statement of "good" or "bad". What we have are lives lived and depending on the point from which the perspective is focused (me, you, VPW, the Way Corps, the program this or that, you choose) the details will change. I for one choose the point of what I believe are the consistent factors that run throughout all of those points. Yours may differ and probably will if they don't hold any value for you or the same value that I do.
This makes so much sense to me. I think people, as they get older, have a tendency to romanticize their youth, even in the best of circumstances. It is human nature.
Hubby and I wander down the "remember when" road a couple times a year. . . we have also traveled the "what if?" road. Funny, that one never gets us anywhere.
Today is my son's birthday. He was born during my sojourn in TWI. . . born while I was sending in my ABS and while I was helping with a classes.
I always bore my kids silly with their birth stories every year. . . how dad tried to put on clothes from the dirty laundry and I made him change twice. . . who was there, who helped. . . and always how much I suffered in labor to bring them into the world. . . :)
It always ends the same way. With the thrill of seeing them for the first time and holding them. . . the thrill of knowing them. They are a true gift. . . . Mine.
Those memories are not tainted for me because of TWI. The fact that my kids were born while I was in a cult is not a great source of pride for their father or me, but it doesn't take away from the joy or happiness of the time.
It is just the way it happened.
It really isn't a slap in anyone else's face or a belittling of their experience while in TWI.
It is not the same memory as the times I was abused, or had a stalker, or the myriad of other things I suffered. It is not the same memory as when my other son was born.
I used to have to hear that stuff all the time geisha. burning bridges is a long process when the other side won't accept it. acknowledging that twi was a mistake is just far more important to me than hearing that stuff.
just me I guess.
Silly example. Smoking pot and teaching others of God's love are NOT equivalent.
George
neither set out to hurt anyone, but did anyway.
it's a law of nature we can't get around far as I can tell.
I used to have to hear that stuff all the time geisha. burning bridges is a long process when the other side won't accept it. acknowledging that twi was a mistake is just far more important to me than hearing that stuff.
just me I guess.
I wouldn't think my memories would mean much to you Bolshevik. . . . either way. They don't have to move you. . . but they don't have to offend you either.
Did I say TWI wasn't a mistake? I don't remember writing that, in fact, I wrote it is an insidious cult.
Maybe it is selfish on my part to allow some joy in my life, especially from my past. . . my husband of 20+ years and the kids we had while in TWI. . . the people we still are friends with to this day. . . .
You are right. . . when hubby gets home. . . he is outta here. . . the kids. . . on the streets. . . the friends. . . who needs them. Burning bridges is much more important.
Except. . . I don't want to burn SOME of the bridges. . . they are part of the good in my life.
There is plenty of bad to get rid of. . . time to make up for. . . can I keep the good things too?
Haven't we sacrificed enough at the altar of TWI abuse?
Not everybody was hurt by their association with TWI. Many learned godly things and about God's love, not just TWI commandments. People were healed, and people are still being healed. Not by TWI, but by the power of God that they learned about. Does that make it any better that many WERE hurt, some quite viciously? Of course not. But it's silly to blame everyone for the sins of a few. It would be like saying that the Wise Men were wrong to leave Nazareth without reporting to Herod. Oh. sure, it worked out fine for Jesus; but what about the forty infants who were killed by Herod? Can you accept any good thing from Jesus, knowing about the suffering of the forty children and their families? Oh, that's right. IT WASN'T HIS FAULT.
Ham just reminded me of something I thought about a little while back....most posters on here are 'born-again', many of whom 'genuinely' spoke in tongues etc.. some of the aforementioned have now thrown out baby jesus with the bathwater, so to speak, and now vouch for paganism, buddhism yadda, yadda...
I can't help wondering if they STILL retain some form of contentment in a smug, benign sort of way, knowing that if their 2nd choice of spiritual enlightenment is eventually proven to be wrong, false...that, hey, what the heck, I'll still be at the 'gathering together' :unsure:
In case you're wondering...I still preach Christ Jesus
I dunno.. one LONE SINGLE innocent victim is far too much.
*you* can have my "eternal life".. back.. along with te "good times"..
it's not worth it..
Interesting.
Two of my acquaintances were healed of significant physical impairments within the last month. They belong to a "splinter group," and the man who prayed for them studied healing in TWI.
Will you tell them that they need to "give back" their wholeness because VPW was an a-hole?
this is great discussion going on here and i appreciate it very much because it makes me dig deep and really think instead of just feel the hurt all over again and again. i've never been able to really talk about these things before because the discussion would get so emotional and break down into a family feud, so this venue is doing me a whole lot of good that i wouldn't have gotten otherwise. thanks everybody because i know it takes alot to "put up with" being questioned and stuff, so i'm glad you guys have been so patient with me and this discussion.
bigben said "I can't help wondering if they STILL retain some form of contentment in a smug, benign sort of way, knowing that if their 2nd choice of spiritual enlightenment is eventually proven to be wrong, false...that, hey, what the heck, I'll still be at the 'gathering together'" and ham said "I dunno.. one LONE SINGLE innocent victim is far too much. *you* can have my "eternal life".. back.. along with te "good times"..it's not worth it.." wow! potent very potent things to think about that i never really thought about before and may even deserve their own discussions.
something i am realizing because of this discussion is that i have been very mad at anybody and everybody that ever was in the way because i have felt that if they hadn't been involved and hadn't been feeding the machine then nobody would have been hurt so badly. now i am looking at things differently and am beginning to think that if it wasn't the way international then my mom would have found something else because that's who she is and was and she needed to belong to something to make her feel worth something after the divorce and everything because she lost custody to my dad because he made her out to be a worthless mother. that's a thought i never considered before because it's been too easy to just blame her.
Two of my acquaintances were healed of significant physical impairments within the last month. They belong to a "splinter group," and the man who prayed for them studied healing in TWI.
Will you tell them that they need to "give back" their wholeness because VPW was an a-hole?
George
I think that you changed what Ham said George, that isn`t fair. Being an ahole doesn`t necessarily equate with losing an innocent. That seems minimalising to the enormous damage that this man did.
I feel like the many people who died as a direct result of following twi root teachings on healing and believing etc. should quite definitely be a consideration when we want to give credit to twi or vpw or whether what was taught in twi was spiritually sound.
Could it be that your aquaintances were healed by God because he was asked, not because of any special mumbo jumbo hocus pocus practiced by the one petitioning?
I don't know that I told you to do anything. If I did, ignore it. For me, burning bridges has been the right thing to do.
That's not for anyone to answer.
Bolshevik,
Fair enough. In the grand scheme of things, the past, good or bad, has a nasty tendency to rear its head in some form or another in our lives. . . . and visiting an ex-cult site and speaking daily about the past is not really burning bridges.
It can be a healthy thing.. . . . but it does not exactly lend itself to a true disconnect with the past.
I would venture to guess you still have those you love who are involved in TWI to varying degrees. Even if it is just the mindset.
What exactly is it you are advocating as bridge burning?. . . because if I were to take a stab at guessing. . . I would come up with accepting nothing good about anything concerning TWI tenure. Including, but not limited to, family and friends.
We all pick and choose which bridges to burn. Apparently you too. Continuing to speak of TWI, even in warning to others, is a bridge to the past.
If some of us choose not to burn some people up in the process, it does not mean we don't know what TWI is, or haven't come to terms with what we were involved in. . . how do you make that leap? Although not stated. . . it seems implied in the tone of your posts.
Two of my acquaintances were healed of significant physical impairments within the last month. They belong to a "splinter group," and the man who prayed for them studied healing in TWI.
Will you tell them that they need to "give back" their wholeness because VPW was an a-hole?
George
it isn't my call.. it's theirs. But I think If they came to find their offshoot leader to be a drambuie soaked, kool short huffer with a propensitiy of drugging women and such, I think the answer would be obvious..
just for me.. I've abandoned every last bit of vic/twi related material. For me, personally.. I don't think any perceived *good* I got from twi was worth what others paid.
You may feel differently, I just don't. I know of cases in offshoots where their promised "healing" methods failed to materialize.. *significant* health *issues*..
and apparently the "green light" that is always on was burned out at the moment or something.. they probably spent the next six months trying to analyze why *doc*'s miracle potion did not work..
and I have seen some supposedly healed physically, but hobbled for life spiritually..
mistaken or not, those are a few personal observations..
and I haven't even begun to tell people here what the *ministry* really cost me, personally, professionally, financially, emotionally, mentally, spiritually.. physically. Those who know me may know a little bit of this..and I'm sure if they are honest, they can see the same thing in themselves..
the more I look at it.. I see most of the good I realized had a heavy price tag.. and I only claimed a little bit of the good.. others claimed a lot more..
Fair enough. In the grand scheme of things, the past, good or bad, has a nasty tendency to rear its head in some form or another in our lives. . . . and visiting an ex-cult site and speaking daily about the past is not really burning bridges.
It can be a healthy thing.. . . . but it does not exactly lend itself to a true disconnect with the past.
I would venture to guess you still have those you love who are involved in TWI to varying degrees. Even if it is just the mindset.
What exactly is it you are advocating as bridge burning?. . . because if I were to take a stab at guessing. . . I would come up with accepting nothing good about anything concerning TWI tenure. Including, but not limited to, family and friends.
We all pick and choose which bridges to burn. Apparently you too. Continuing to speak of TWI, even in warning to others, is a bridge to the past.
If some of us choose not to burn some people up in the process, it does not mean we don't know what TWI is, or haven't come to terms with what we were involved in. . . how do you make that leap? Although not stated. . . it seems implied in the tone of your posts.
I mean people.
For awhile I stopped thinking of twi and websites. but then people would show up, and get inside my head, and trigger weird things, because I had let down the defenses.
twi is people.
so, at the end of it all..
*they* finally found a "loony bin" for me.. kind of..
toss me in as instructor of a class, where likely seventy five percent of the students don't want to be there, and hate math..
maybe it's really purgatory.. or even hell itself. I wonder what the kids did to end up there...
math is important whether you like it or not. 3 acorns under that rock, one behind that bush
they should be groveling at your paws for showing them "the way".
Not everybody was hurt by their association with TWI.
. . .
many are not hurt because they won't face reality. Others can see what twi has done to them. They are oblivious, because they only remember the good times.
trying to attribute healing to twi because of their teachings doesn't make sense. isn't it the bible that teaches healing? twi teaches some bible, right? their version anyway, which includes healing. did they man learn healing from twi, or from the bible? how could twi be responsible for any healing that ever took place, anywhere? genuine healings take place, I hear, all over the place.
once at the RoA I thought I'd been delivered from a devil spirit, and received miraculous healing. THAT was a delusion. there was no devil spirit, and I did get temporary relief from what turns out to be a congenital brain structure defect that causes sleep problems and chronic pain, which is exacerbated by stress. the false high of the fake healing and sense of righteousness of being within god's true household produced chemicals which solidified the delusion.
Let me point out that I'm not trying to minimize anyone's suffering. I had a friend who committed suicide because he got screwed by TWI. But he wasn't screwed by the people in his fellowship; he wasn't screwed by them praying for him; he wasn't screwed by them sharing the Word with him. He was screwed by top leadership who directly lied to him.
As far as TWI's involvement in my other friends' healings, they weren't prayed for in the name of TWI, or in the name of VPW, but in the name of Jesus Christ. And God healed them. But the minister learned what he knew from TWI. Probably in "the good times."
George and Geish, what you've posted makes sense, and adds a much needed section to "the other side of the story".
what the heck is the other side of the story in the first place? What's the story?
. . .
As far as TWI's involvement in my other friends' healings, they weren't prayed for in the name of TWI, or in the name of VPW, but in the name of Jesus Christ. And God healed them. But the minister learned what he knew from TWI. Probably in "the good times."
George
My own birth was supposed to be miraculous. without twi I wouldn't be.
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Tzaia
There were no "good" times. There were a few good people, but even my first visit - a branch meeting - was not what I would call "good". Overwhelming - yes. I was told it would cost at least a dollar
Linda Z
I'm not quite sure what you're getting at, RumRunner. Without naming names, what are you talking about? You can give examples of behavior/types of posts without naming names. I'm really trying to und
potato
I'm glad vpw is dead.
geisha779
This makes so much sense to me. I think people, as they get older, have a tendency to romanticize their youth, even in the best of circumstances. It is human nature.
Hubby and I wander down the "remember when" road a couple times a year. . . we have also traveled the "what if?" road. Funny, that one never gets us anywhere.
Today is my son's birthday. He was born during my sojourn in TWI. . . born while I was sending in my ABS and while I was helping with a classes.
I always bore my kids silly with their birth stories every year. . . how dad tried to put on clothes from the dirty laundry and I made him change twice. . . who was there, who helped. . . and always how much I suffered in labor to bring them into the world. . . :)
It always ends the same way. With the thrill of seeing them for the first time and holding them. . . the thrill of knowing them. They are a true gift. . . . Mine.
Those memories are not tainted for me because of TWI. The fact that my kids were born while I was in a cult is not a great source of pride for their father or me, but it doesn't take away from the joy or happiness of the time.
It is just the way it happened.
It really isn't a slap in anyone else's face or a belittling of their experience while in TWI.
It is not the same memory as the times I was abused, or had a stalker, or the myriad of other things I suffered. It is not the same memory as when my other son was born.
Just different. . . it was a happy "good" time.
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Bolshevik
I used to have to hear that stuff all the time geisha. burning bridges is a long process when the other side won't accept it. acknowledging that twi was a mistake is just far more important to me than hearing that stuff.
just me I guess.
neither set out to hurt anyone, but did anyway.
it's a law of nature we can't get around far as I can tell.
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waysider
Bol
You "kids" were drafted.
You didn't get to make the choice yourselves.
Us old codgers volunteered.
We joined up on our own.
Maybe that's a factor.
I don't know how else to explain why there will always be a discrepancy in various perceptions.
I guess if I had been forced to join The Way like you guys were, I might feel a lot of the same conflicts as you.
But, I wasn't forced to join. I was 21 at the time. All "growed up". (or so I thought)
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geisha779
I wouldn't think my memories would mean much to you Bolshevik. . . . either way. They don't have to move you. . . but they don't have to offend you either.
Did I say TWI wasn't a mistake? I don't remember writing that, in fact, I wrote it is an insidious cult.
Maybe it is selfish on my part to allow some joy in my life, especially from my past. . . my husband of 20+ years and the kids we had while in TWI. . . the people we still are friends with to this day. . . .
You are right. . . when hubby gets home. . . he is outta here. . . the kids. . . on the streets. . . the friends. . . who needs them. Burning bridges is much more important.
Except. . . I don't want to burn SOME of the bridges. . . they are part of the good in my life.
There is plenty of bad to get rid of. . . time to make up for. . . can I keep the good things too?
Haven't we sacrificed enough at the altar of TWI abuse?
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Bolshevik
I don't know that I told you to do anything. If I did, ignore it. For me, burning bridges has been the right thing to do.
That's not for anyone to answer.
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polar bear
Amen great topic I enjoyed reading what you shared and learned from it.
I always wondered how to handle the good times in my mind.
There were good times no doubt but as you shared it was designed to reel us in. And boy did it work.
Makes me understand why I stayed so long.
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GeorgeStGeorge
Bolshevik,
Not everybody was hurt by their association with TWI. Many learned godly things and about God's love, not just TWI commandments. People were healed, and people are still being healed. Not by TWI, but by the power of God that they learned about. Does that make it any better that many WERE hurt, some quite viciously? Of course not. But it's silly to blame everyone for the sins of a few. It would be like saying that the Wise Men were wrong to leave Nazareth without reporting to Herod. Oh. sure, it worked out fine for Jesus; but what about the forty infants who were killed by Herod? Can you accept any good thing from Jesus, knowing about the suffering of the forty children and their families? Oh, that's right. IT WASN'T HIS FAULT.
George
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Bolshevik
a few?
that's another topic
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Ham
I dunno.. one LONE SINGLE innocent victim is far too much.
*you* can have my "eternal life".. back.. along with te "good times"..
it's not worth it..
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Big Ben
Ham just reminded me of something I thought about a little while back....most posters on here are 'born-again', many of whom 'genuinely' spoke in tongues etc.. some of the aforementioned have now thrown out baby jesus with the bathwater, so to speak, and now vouch for paganism, buddhism yadda, yadda...
I can't help wondering if they STILL retain some form of contentment in a smug, benign sort of way, knowing that if their 2nd choice of spiritual enlightenment is eventually proven to be wrong, false...that, hey, what the heck, I'll still be at the 'gathering together' :unsure:
In case you're wondering...I still preach Christ Jesus
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GeorgeStGeorge
Interesting.
Two of my acquaintances were healed of significant physical impairments within the last month. They belong to a "splinter group," and the man who prayed for them studied healing in TWI.
Will you tell them that they need to "give back" their wholeness because VPW was an a-hole?
George
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brainfixed
this is great discussion going on here and i appreciate it very much because it makes me dig deep and really think instead of just feel the hurt all over again and again. i've never been able to really talk about these things before because the discussion would get so emotional and break down into a family feud, so this venue is doing me a whole lot of good that i wouldn't have gotten otherwise. thanks everybody because i know it takes alot to "put up with" being questioned and stuff, so i'm glad you guys have been so patient with me and this discussion.
bigben said "I can't help wondering if they STILL retain some form of contentment in a smug, benign sort of way, knowing that if their 2nd choice of spiritual enlightenment is eventually proven to be wrong, false...that, hey, what the heck, I'll still be at the 'gathering together'" and ham said "I dunno.. one LONE SINGLE innocent victim is far too much. *you* can have my "eternal life".. back.. along with te "good times"..it's not worth it.." wow! potent very potent things to think about that i never really thought about before and may even deserve their own discussions.
something i am realizing because of this discussion is that i have been very mad at anybody and everybody that ever was in the way because i have felt that if they hadn't been involved and hadn't been feeding the machine then nobody would have been hurt so badly. now i am looking at things differently and am beginning to think that if it wasn't the way international then my mom would have found something else because that's who she is and was and she needed to belong to something to make her feel worth something after the divorce and everything because she lost custody to my dad because he made her out to be a worthless mother. that's a thought i never considered before because it's been too easy to just blame her.
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rascal
I think that you changed what Ham said George, that isn`t fair. Being an ahole doesn`t necessarily equate with losing an innocent. That seems minimalising to the enormous damage that this man did.
I feel like the many people who died as a direct result of following twi root teachings on healing and believing etc. should quite definitely be a consideration when we want to give credit to twi or vpw or whether what was taught in twi was spiritually sound.
Could it be that your aquaintances were healed by God because he was asked, not because of any special mumbo jumbo hocus pocus practiced by the one petitioning?
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geisha779
Bolshevik,
Fair enough. In the grand scheme of things, the past, good or bad, has a nasty tendency to rear its head in some form or another in our lives. . . . and visiting an ex-cult site and speaking daily about the past is not really burning bridges.
It can be a healthy thing.. . . . but it does not exactly lend itself to a true disconnect with the past.
I would venture to guess you still have those you love who are involved in TWI to varying degrees. Even if it is just the mindset.
What exactly is it you are advocating as bridge burning?. . . because if I were to take a stab at guessing. . . I would come up with accepting nothing good about anything concerning TWI tenure. Including, but not limited to, family and friends.
We all pick and choose which bridges to burn. Apparently you too. Continuing to speak of TWI, even in warning to others, is a bridge to the past.
If some of us choose not to burn some people up in the process, it does not mean we don't know what TWI is, or haven't come to terms with what we were involved in. . . how do you make that leap? Although not stated. . . it seems implied in the tone of your posts.
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Ham
it isn't my call.. it's theirs. But I think If they came to find their offshoot leader to be a drambuie soaked, kool short huffer with a propensitiy of drugging women and such, I think the answer would be obvious..
just for me.. I've abandoned every last bit of vic/twi related material. For me, personally.. I don't think any perceived *good* I got from twi was worth what others paid.
You may feel differently, I just don't. I know of cases in offshoots where their promised "healing" methods failed to materialize.. *significant* health *issues*..
and apparently the "green light" that is always on was burned out at the moment or something.. they probably spent the next six months trying to analyze why *doc*'s miracle potion did not work..
and I have seen some supposedly healed physically, but hobbled for life spiritually..
mistaken or not, those are a few personal observations..
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Ham
and I haven't even begun to tell people here what the *ministry* really cost me, personally, professionally, financially, emotionally, mentally, spiritually.. physically. Those who know me may know a little bit of this..and I'm sure if they are honest, they can see the same thing in themselves..
the more I look at it.. I see most of the good I realized had a heavy price tag.. and I only claimed a little bit of the good.. others claimed a lot more..
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Ham
so, at the end of it all..
*they* finally found a "loony bin" for me.. kind of..
toss me in as instructor of a class, where likely seventy five percent of the students don't want to be there, and hate math..
maybe it's really purgatory.. or even hell itself. I wonder what the kids did to end up there...
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Bolshevik
I mean people.
For awhile I stopped thinking of twi and websites. but then people would show up, and get inside my head, and trigger weird things, because I had let down the defenses.
twi is people.
math is important whether you like it or not. 3 acorns under that rock, one behind that bush
they should be groveling at your paws for showing them "the way".
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Bolshevik
many are not hurt because they won't face reality. Others can see what twi has done to them. They are oblivious, because they only remember the good times.
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potato
trying to attribute healing to twi because of their teachings doesn't make sense. isn't it the bible that teaches healing? twi teaches some bible, right? their version anyway, which includes healing. did they man learn healing from twi, or from the bible? how could twi be responsible for any healing that ever took place, anywhere? genuine healings take place, I hear, all over the place.
once at the RoA I thought I'd been delivered from a devil spirit, and received miraculous healing. THAT was a delusion. there was no devil spirit, and I did get temporary relief from what turns out to be a congenital brain structure defect that causes sleep problems and chronic pain, which is exacerbated by stress. the false high of the fake healing and sense of righteousness of being within god's true household produced chemicals which solidified the delusion.
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GeorgeStGeorge
Let me point out that I'm not trying to minimize anyone's suffering. I had a friend who committed suicide because he got screwed by TWI. But he wasn't screwed by the people in his fellowship; he wasn't screwed by them praying for him; he wasn't screwed by them sharing the Word with him. He was screwed by top leadership who directly lied to him.
As far as TWI's involvement in my other friends' healings, they weren't prayed for in the name of TWI, or in the name of VPW, but in the name of Jesus Christ. And God healed them. But the minister learned what he knew from TWI. Probably in "the good times."
George
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socks
George and Geish, what you've posted makes sense, and adds a much needed section to "the other side of the story".
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Bolshevik
what the heck is the other side of the story in the first place? What's the story?
My own birth was supposed to be miraculous. without twi I wouldn't be.
but the good times can still suck it.
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socks
I already gave you my take on that Bolsh so I'll assume your question is rhetorical.
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