topoftheworld

I'll drink to that! (safely, of course ) Keep us smiling, Ron. God bless you all for 2006!

One way to get some use out of the old tapes is to compile some of the music on them-there were a lot of performances that never made it onto any albums. Remember when the SNS were on reel to reel? Oh brother, now I'm really dating myself! Anyway, one I recall was a song Stevie Kay did. I wish I could remember all the words, but this is the best I could come up with. Her intro was her being a new mother, and thinking about what Mary thought as mother about her son. I remember your eyes that shined. I remember when you put your hand in mine. I remember your face, so bright, so full of life. I remember when you were so small. I remember that you never cried at all. And your voice so soft, so clear That every word you say would hang on my ears. I remember when they came and took you away I remember that they took my life, that day They hung you high upon a tree So everyone would come and see That this man some called their King would die Like a begger in suffering. Yet on your face was no sign of pain For the Price of peace had died so life could reign And I loved you for the things you've done, But most of all, most of all because you were my son. Remembering some of the old music got me through some bad moments after I left.

Royal, Really appreciate being able to see the video, since this was something completed long after my departure. Not too thrilled about the other options showing on the link: can you do anything about that or is this your only platform at the moment? Thanks.

LOL :D :P :D

"Just because some (or even a plurality) of the leaders in an organization are corrupt and abusive, that gives nobody the right to tar everybody with that same brush. And, even in TWI, there were good people." Well said, Mark.

LOL! Does that classify as an "Oh S&@% moment? Ron, I'm beginning to check in just to see your stories!

Cute! Must be the holidays-lot of drunk stories coming up! ;) ;)

Dying, just dying! :lol:

If you a true die-hard, cowboy coffee is the ONLY way to go! Throw the grounds directly into a pot of boiling water, boil for ten minutes, then strain. Of course, it only really counts if you are freezing your a#@ off in some mountains in New Mexico. No cream and sugar allowed, and a sierra cup that hasn't been cleaned properly in two weeks is a must: that stainless steel taste is flavor enough. No wonder I moved near a Starbucks.

Johny, The LEAD thing. If I'd had a guy like you in my corner, I might have come out alright.

Yeah-the cancer thing bothered me too. About ten years ago a collegue of mine got cancer. She was a sweet, wonderful, hell on wheels, salt of the earth type woman who was a mentor to a lot us. Her only child had died of cancer when he was only three, and she'd been alone ever since. The people on the job were her only family. She was forty years old when she was told that her cancer was inoperable. Ok, so I'd been out for a while and in the real world, moving along in my new profession, making friends and learning to breath. I'd progressed enough (before GS) to know that much of the Waybrain way of thinking was BS. But believe me, as many of you know, Waybrain dies hard. During that next agonizing nine months, my heart was 100% with my friend as she was declining, but I can't tell you how often my stupid brain would wander to the old devil spirit line. I happy to say that I NEVER let that stop me from being there for her, but I felt like I had some dirty little secret I could never share with anyone (yeah, she was great but she must really be a terrible person, being devil possesed and all). Now my friend is gone, and I have learned to tell my brain to SHUT THE HELL UP when that stuff tries to intrude. It was not easy, but I have to separate out the garbage and try to just stick with the truth of the Word and the love of God. I gotta quit looking under the bed for goblins where there are none.

Johny, you're a classy guy!

I know how you feel, Ex. My fantasies keep me up most nights now. ;) I've had a case of the sorries lately, feeling cheated on several levels. I was cheated out of a family since I had the great fortune of being born into an abusive situation. My mother, who apparently was mental, decided that I, of the three brats born to her, was the one to be her punching bag both mentally and physically. I had to run away at sixteen or be dead the following morning. Found myself on the street, but managed to stabilize enough to get a job and finish high school (in between the two times I considered suicide as the best alternative). Being mentally stable (HA), I was ripe to be witnessed to. After three months of hesitation, I took the class, and then began ten long years of wonderful times interrupted times of hell. It ended with (what a surprise) finding myself back into an abusive situation again. I didn't go looking for it, but I sure recognized it when it happened, and I ran. So, here I am, at the ripe old age of 50, screwed out of an earthly family (nor with any real concept of what that means), feeling screwed out of a Godly family, with no desire to find another one, and wondering what the hell I did to deserve feeling like this, unloved and unwanted on both ends. The only thing I have is a collection of notes I keep from people thanking me for things I've done for them over the years. For a while there, I kept enough heart intact to be able to reach out to people occasionally, but more than often I tend to snatch my hand back before anybody else can bit it off.

Translation......?

Diazbro: My cut and paste efforts inadvertently gave you a headache: my apologies. My comment was intended for jkboehme on the comments he made, not you. I will be more careful in the future. Lifted Up: Thanks for the correction, and yes, it was a boo-boo on my part. jkboehme: I stand by my point, which was the use of the word "Alleged"-the report itself makes it clear the the "source" had not been determined to be credible: if it was determined at some later point to be credible, and there is something to the story, where is the follow-up? So far, all they had was a description of the Rock. Yes, there were potentials for bomb's to be created, but not the "Nuclear" kind.

How do you know we aren't? Oh-I forgot-if you think you're possesed you're not.think The devil made me do it.

HA HA HA! I wonder if Hawaii has a pineapple coffee? :blink:

Thank you, Templelady-that was sweet! Hope you and yours have a very merry Christmas!

Diazbro: My two cents is this: There is a difference between what people were told out in the field and what was being taught (at times) in the Way Corps. The intensity of fear increased if you happened to be with a Corps person who took all this stuff to heart and made that the motivation behind your actions. I experienced this in 75-76, being WOW with a Family Corps BL who thought the world was coming to the end any minute and we needed to spirtually behave the same way. After the Rock, for 76-77 I settled into a college town a thousand miles away, and the Corps leadership was just the opposite. Loving, encouraging, supportive, but not fanatical in the least. It is a difference in people and how the message was spread, or how the Corps people interpreted and then acted on the information they were given. It wasn't until I went into the Corps a full two years later that I heard any of this again, and again, it was a short time thing that went away. I guess part of my point is that there was an awareness that all was not right in the world, and some people in the ministry took it to heart: but it was not an overriding issue. We taught the Word in fellowships, not survival skills.

OK: nuclear weapons??! That is going way beyond any line I know of-at least before 1982. Come on! Yes, there was some wackiness in the seventies and early eighties. There was a huge push in the Tenth Corp one block where we had to stockpile food, water, weapons, and odd survival gear: I remember it clearly because I couldn't find enough people out in the real world, even my sponsors, who could pony up the extra money we each needed to get the supplies, I never heard any of the conspiricy talk directly from VPW, only from the Corps leadership. Nobody liked us-we were the ememy-we would be the targets in any attempted takeover by a foreign government, etc., etc. Our weapons training amounted to shooting a rifle and a shotgun at a practice range. After that wild ride-and yes it was scary at the time-nothing seemed to come of it, and things returned to normal(?) soon enough. Was all that part of the Corps training as advertised-no. Was it written down somewhere-no. Did it happen-oh, yeah. But the emphasis was on training in the Word-not starting a war. Let's not make VPW as a warmonger: whatever his faults (and they were there, I will conceed) he was not the insane cult leader you're try to make him out to be. If anything, he was responding-or his people were overracting-to the situation of the times we were living in.

To each his own-I consider my coffee doo-dads comfort food. I even have a special cup for Saturdays ("One more cup and I'll be on my feet!") The real pollutants are powered cream-UGH!! Now there is a real crime. And for the record-I LOVE pineapple on pizza-my idea of heath food!

Thanks, Raf! Cream and sugar. Lifted up-no more Corps coffee-enough was enough! You could float a battleship on that stuff! Now that I can surround myself with earthly possesions, my coffepot and I are joined at the hip and I can make it my way (with a little cinnamon for that extra Sunday treat.) The only real battle we fight is the aging factor (the pot, not me!) To scrub, or not to scrub-that is the question. Any thoughts?

Thanks for the "Captain" chorus, HWC. Looking forward to the web site, WhiteDove. The whole country was cracking up that year: I don't think Way mentality was exclusive. There was a presidential campaign going on, at the tail end of Watergate and Vietnam, and everybody thought their way of thinking was the one to "Save the world". Remember Carter? He was the "Saviour" of the country. In 76-77 I was a college WOW: I took an American Experience class and as part of our final grade had to make a team presentation. I talked my group into a performance of "Jimmy Carter, Superstar" and got the point across. I tried to do my final thesis on "God's plan for America", but my college professor nixed it (closed-minded little twit!) I was absolutely affected by the Way push to save the country, but it was just a natural "solution" to the current issues of the day-nobody else was coming up with anything better, and prayer and turning people to God was as good a way as any. We were all so young!

Hey, Doojable- I was in Houston with Mark & Holly 80-81 interim year. Don't remember a whole lot, since I had the WOW family from hell, but do you remember Tom Windham, the painter? I always wondered what became of him. What part of Houston were you in? I still have my Gilley's T-shirt: can't quite make myself get rid of it-I hade to ride the bull to earn it!