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A few thoughts


pawtucket
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As many of you know, I stepped back from active management of GSC a few years back. I left the management in capable hands.

I had a nervous meltdown. Disagreement turned into verbal battles.

I always wanted this place to be a safe haven for those that left or was in the process of leaving or was thinking of leaving. This would be a place of solace.

Lately, for some, attacking seems to be the color of the day. Why the need to attack? Why the need to call people names. My attitude has been if you are getting in vicious place, step away from the keyboard!

The internet is rampant with vicious bravery behind a wall of anonymity

I only have one word to those guilty of this, Stop! At least on this site.

And as an aside, the hosting company has been double billing me, we are trying to work this out. If the site is not accessible in the next few days, don't worry.

 

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A) Thanks in advance for the notice that the site MIGHT go down temporarily.  It's good to know in advance.

B) I'm glad you're here, and I hope you're feeling better.   I can only speak for me, but I'll do my personal best not to be combative or disagreeable.   It's your show, and it's fair that you set the standards. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

It's back! I saw the site was butzded for a few days there, and this must have been why. I never like sorting out any kind of double billing, sometimes they want to just apply it to your next billing cycle which basically rewards the other party for their error. Hope this was sorted out fairly for you. . 

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  • 2 weeks later...

STOP!

A number of you are sniping each other. NO personal attacks, NONE, ZERO, ZILCH.

There is no Amendment protection to say whatever you want. We have stated rules that you accept when you join this forum.  You can not attack other posters and need to respect their privacy.

I'm tempted to list examples by poster, but won't.

The moderators do the best that they can, they are not perfect, but who is.

I am not going to tolerate this.  I think that the weeks the site was down, were some of the highlights this year of the forum.

I have no problem just closing down the site. 

If you don't like the rules, leave. If you don't follow the rules, penalties will be applied.

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9 minutes ago, DontWorryBeHappy said:

The weeks the site was down were the safest for those who come here to share their deepest hurts and hopes. Sad that’s what it took. Please don’t let it happen again.

What????

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On 7/29/2019 at 8:26 PM, DontWorryBeHappy said:

The weeks the site was down were the safest for those who come here to share their deepest hurts and hopes. Sad that’s what it took. Please don’t let it happen again.

Your intended meaning was unclear. Please clarify.

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It was an insult. 

And we're not going to take the bait.

GSC is here for everyone who wants the truth about TWI.

 

And to anyone who would use the word of God to oppress, to harm, to deflie... you will always have enemies devoted to exposing you.

And we will always be among them

 

GSC will never be your friend.

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We are here to tell the truth. Not to slander.

We are not the arbiters of every individual's walk after leaving TWI.

Some have been explicit in their claim of leadership. Others, less so. We will do our best to protect those who deserve protection and expose those who deserve exposure. We will err. But we will err on the side of privacy.

 

If you were hurt by those in TWi, or those AFTER TWI, WE BELIEVE YOU. But that does not mean we are willing to expose this website or its owners and moderators to the legal consequences of the claims you make. 

Edited by Raf
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Where did you get your training in what constitutes libel and how to avoid it, DWBH?

My most recent refresher session was in June.

Would you like the names and credentials of the attorneys who ran those sessions and whose job is to literally keep ME and my colleagues from printing information that might lead to defamation lawsuits?

Edited by Raf
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Yeh well. 

I will say this now, publicly and before all here, that I, socks, have learned a great deal via these message boards and most specifically WayDale and GreaseSpot Cafe and that includes all of you. (A lot of that has been seeing how communication functions in the online world, and how discussion proceed amongst a peer group networked together to respond to each other in near-immediate time).

Something I learned about myself when I hit my 40's was that while I THOUGHT I  could agree or disagree with someone and love them equally either way, or even let's say just have a level of tolerance that could allow for an equal distribution of whatever shared rights were forthcoming to all involved, I didn't really live that way - and I felt there was a conflict in how I actually lived using the Way Corps "lifestyle" in any form and what I understood the Word to teach. Once I stepped out of functioning in the hierarchy of the Way and the Way Corps I saw very quickly how much of a facade had been built, how many unnecessary layers had been put between myself and the real true simplicity of living "The Word". My last year as a fellowship leader ("Twig") I spent most of it unloading and basically doing a brain dump of teachings to our fellowship of everything I'd learned up to that point that I felt was relevant to "standing on the Word of God" with or without the Way Nash. 

I saw as I examined my own life in relation to others and specifically my wife and two children, how I was able to love them all. And really specifically with my kids. I never reached a point where i was more proud or involved or disappointed in either of them, I was always close to them and proud and supportive of them. In fact with my wife and kids I was never actually disappointed or let down, ever, no matter what they did or didn't do. They're always AAA Plus Great, to me. Our relationship just was what it was, as it is what it is now. It hasn't changed, despite the fact that not everything we've all done has gone as planned or even as well as any one of us might have wanted. Day after day I am one hundred per cent on their side and for them. 

Buuuut, there's other people, uh uh, not so much. So I saw a conflict of sorts - is that right? I'd separated most people into groups that I parceled my love and concern out to - believers get it all, unbelievers less, "believers who don't know the rightly divided word" were never entitled to as much as others, but if they believed, that could changed. Etc etc. etc. It felt mechanical and wrong. So, back to the Book and much prayer. And I realized I needed to re calibrate, and that would take a reset of sorts. We've all done that to varying degrees. 

What I found were some simple tools to kind of tend the field of life regularly and with a gentle but firm purpose. It's wrapped up in a saying that's a product of the Stoic philosophy and it's wrapped around a core idea that I think is both godly and very much in evidence in the life and teachings of Jesus, as well as that of the Christ centered Christian faith of grace and love. It looks at this new life of ours as a very all encompassing, universal framework of inevitability that moves forward in it's path and deals with everything in that life as a way to live that path, including obstacles and impedences, ie "problems".

A saying goes "the obstacle is the way", meaning that anything that stands counter to my intentions is simply a means of applying my values to it, and so actually provides a way to move forward in my intended path. Stoic philosophy articulated that idea much earlier as, actions can be impeded but our own intentions or dispositions can not be impeded, they're a product of our value and will. Thus if I evaluate, review and reflect regularly on myself, and my own actions and the life around me and how I deal with it, I can learn to bring my core values to the forefront and apply them. In everything. To do "all things, through Christ who strengthens me".

So there's a level of work involved as well as a level of intuitive living. You can think of it as "God working and willing in (us) to both (have) the will and to then do His good pleasure"....the spirit is "willing" and it "constrains", that new life of this so called "new birth" is inclined to be and think and act in certain ways...."by God's will".....and so I can live that way, with both an intuitive subconscious "spiritual-pneuma-hagion" will that is then acted out and upon. 

And this idea is very much supported in the bible, once you put the writings into the context of the writers and their times and what they were living and struggling against. I learned a lot of this in the Way as the "believers-can-do" everything by pushing ahead with "believing energy" and "godly focus" to "achieve my vision" - "more than a conqueror"...........and that's clearly PART of the godly life in Christ, but not nearly all of it as we see in the apostles life and of course in Jesus, that the greatest triumph over the "death sentence of sin" is not that we will never die but rather that we will all ultimately be transformed to something greater where the human perspective of immortality is raised to an eternal standard of life that is "holy", separate, pure, eternal. As Paul stated so clearly, he'd learned to live and retain his core beliefs in times of both need and plenty, in pain and in relief, with or without physical reward, he overcame NOT by getting what he "pictured in his mind and believed for" but by letting his faith rule in even the worst of circumstances. So....there was something else percolating there, more than just "believing" to succeed.

I first glommed onto this idea in the Book of Acts, as it seemed so obvious that the only way to love and work with those we disagreed with even at the deepest levels was by working other parts of our faith into the relationship and letting those be the guide, ie not making "agreement" being the goal but rather a part of a process that ends up in a far greater goal.....NO ONE ever fully agrees, no one's every completely "like minded" if that means they have to think and feel everything exactly the same way because they both "believe" the same things. And people like Craig and VPW illustrated that. 

Anyway - then I saw it in the writings of Henri Bergson, a French philosopher who wrote some very cool stuff about time and what he described as "duration", where life is not viewed as a series of incremental steps but more a flowing cognitive exercise similar to a river of water. And on and on and along the way I picked up on the Stoic stuff which to me describes a process more than an outcome, comparable to the Buddhist idea of life being like the space in a bowl, and not the bowl itself. Which can also be put as having "treasure in earthen vessels", etc. etc. etc. Gestalt baby, it's a gestalt thing. 

Anyhoo - I disagree with a lot of y'all, about a lot of things, but I don't hate you or think you're bad. I might think some people are stupid or foolish but that falls into a different category - if there's something I can or should do about that, but honestly in many cases there isn't. So, do I hate everyone because I think they're stupid? No. I would hope others would try think of me the same way if that were the case. Ultimately being stupid becomes something else anyway. But to be honest, the best and easiest way I know of for any of it is to start from the "new life in Christ", and then thoughtfully deal with each other as best we can. 

Other than that - you can all go to hell in a go kart anytime soon. :biglaugh:  Just remember though, should God come back to me and do a survey, I'm on your side, on principle alone. Please do the same for me if given the opportunity.  God knows better than any of us, this life can just absolutely suck dog sh it sometimes, so the more rope we can give each other and the more help along the way, the better. I really really do believe God expects us to do that as part of His Plan. 

And thanks for getting the board back up! 

 

Edited by socks
so...nicotine kills and vaping is bad. But cigarettes are okay, as long as you pay a lot for them including the tax to fund programs to tell you not to buy them.....is that how it goes?
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7 hours ago, socks said:

Yeh well. 

I will say this now, publicly and before all here, that I, socks, have learned a great deal via these message boards and most specifically WayDale and GreaseSpot Cafe and that includes all of you. (A lot of that has been seeing how communication functions in the online world, and how discussion proceed amongst a peer group networked together to respond to each other in near-immediate time).

Something I learned about myself when I hit my 40's was that while I THOUGHT I  could agree or disagree with someone and love them equally either way, or even let's say just have a level of tolerance that could allow for an equal distribution of whatever shared rights were forthcoming to all involved, I didn't really live that way - and I felt there was a conflict in how I actually lived using the Way Corps "lifestyle" in any form and what I understood the Word to teach. Once I stepped out of functioning in the hierarchy of the Way and the Way Corps I saw very quickly how much of a facade had been built, how many unnecessary layers had been put between myself and the real true simplicity of living "The Word". My last year as a fellowship leader ("Twig") I spent most of it unloading and basically doing a brain dump of teachings to our fellowship of everything I'd learned up to that point that I felt was relevant to "standing on the Word of God" with or without the Way Nash. 

I saw as I examined my own life in relation to others and specifically my wife and two children, how I was able to love them all. And really specifically with my kids. I never reached a point where i was more proud or involved or disappointed in either of them, I was always close to them and proud and supportive of them. In fact with my wife and kids I was never actually disappointed or let down, ever, no matter what they did or didn't do. They're always AAA Plus Great, to me. Our relationship just was what it was, as it is what it is now. It hasn't changed, despite the fact that not everything we've all done has gone as planned or even as well as any one of us might have wanted. Day after day I am one hundred per cent on their side and for them. 

Buuuut, there's other people, uh uh, not so much. So I saw a conflict of sorts - is that right? I'd separated most people into groups that I parceled my love and concern out to - believers get it all, unbelievers less, "believers who don't know the rightly divided word" were never entitled to as much as others, but if they believed, that could changed. Etc etc. etc. It felt mechanical and wrong. So, back to the Book and much prayer. And I realized I needed to re calibrate, and that would take a reset of sorts. We've all done that to varying degrees. 

What I found were some simple tools to kind of tend the field of life regularly and with a gentle but firm purpose. It's wrapped up in a saying that's a product of the Stoic philosophy and it's wrapped around a core idea that I think is both godly and very much in evidence in the life and teachings of Jesus, as well as that of the Christ centered Christian faith of grace and love. It looks at this new life of ours as a very all encompassing, universal framework of inevitability that moves forward in it's path and deals with everything in that life as a way to live that path, including obstacles and impedences, ie "problems".

A saying goes "the obstacle is the way", meaning that anything that stands counter to my intentions is simply a means of applying my values to it, and so actually provides a way to move forward in my intended path. Stoic philosophy articulated that idea much earlier as, actions can be impeded but our own intentions or dispositions can not be impeded, they're a product of our value and will. Thus if I evaluate, review and reflect regularly on myself, and my own actions and the life around me and how I deal with it, I can learn to bring my core values to the forefront and apply them. In everything. To do "all things, through Christ who strengthens me".

So there's a level of work involved as well as a level of intuitive living. You can think of it as "God working and willing in (us) to both (have) the will and to then do His good pleasure"....the spirit is "willing" and it "constrains", that new life of this so called "new birth" is inclined to be and think and act in certain ways...."by God's will".....and so I can live that way, with both an intuitive subconscious "spiritual-pneuma-hagion" will that is then acted out and upon. 

And this idea is very much supported in the bible, once you put the writings into the context of the writers and their times and what they were living and struggling against. I learned a lot of this in the Way as the "believers-can-do" everything by pushing ahead with "believing energy" and "godly focus" to "achieve my vision" - "more than a conqueror"...........and that's clearly PART of the godly life in Christ, but not nearly all of it as we see in the apostles life and of course in Jesus, that the greatest triumph over the "death sentence of sin" is not that we will never die but rather that we will all ultimately be transformed to something greater where the human perspective of immortality is raised to an eternal standard of life that is "holy", separate, pure, eternal. As Paul stated so clearly, he'd learned to live and retain his core beliefs in times of both need and plenty, in pain and in relief, with or without physical reward, he overcame NOT by getting what he "pictured in his mind and believed for" but by letting his faith rule in even the worst of circumstances. So....there was something else percolating there, more than just "believing" to succeed.

I first glommed onto this idea in the Book of Acts, as it seemed so obvious that the only way to love and work with those we disagreed with even at the deepest levels was by working other parts of our faith into the relationship and letting those be the guide, ie not making "agreement" being the goal but rather a part of a process that ends up in a far greater goal.....NO ONE ever fully agrees, no one's every completely "like minded" if that means they have to think and feel everything exactly the same way because they both "believe" the same things. And people like Craig and VPW illustrated that. 

Anyway - then I saw it in the writings of Henri Bergson, a French philosopher who wrote some very cool stuff about time and what he described as "duration", where life is not viewed as a series of incremental steps but more a flowing cognitive exercise similar to a river of water. And on and on and along the way I picked up on the Stoic stuff which to me describes a process more than an outcome, comparable to the Buddhist idea of life being like the space in a bowl, and not the bowl itself. Which can also be put as having "treasure in earthen vessels", etc. etc. etc. Gestalt baby, it's a gestalt thing. 

Anyhoo - I disagree with a lot of y'all, about a lot of things, but I don't hate you or think you're bad. I might think some people are stupid or foolish but that falls into a different category - if there's something I can or should do about that, but honestly in many cases there isn't. So, do I hate everyone because I think they're stupid? No. I would hope others would try think of me the same way if that were the case. Ultimately being stupid becomes something else anyway. But to be honest, the best and easiest way I know of for any of it is to start from the "new life in Christ", and then thoughtfully deal with each other as best we can. 

Other than that - you can all go to hell in a go kart anytime soon. :biglaugh:  Just remember though, should God come back to me and do a survey, I'm on your side, on principle alone. Please do the same for me if given the opportunity.  God knows better than any of us, this life can just absolutely suck dog sh it sometimes, so the more rope we can give each other and the more help along the way, the better. I really really do believe God expects us to do that as part of His Plan. 

And thanks for getting the board back up! 

 



Kewl mahn! Btw, I dig "The Obstacle is the way." I never gave any thought to Stoic philosophy until this summer... then I read a book that made a lot of sense... titled, The Obstacle is the way (by Ryan Holiday). Cool book. :beer:

Edited by Rocky
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