Ham

Mike, don't take this wrong.. I'm not being malevolent or anything.. but what if in a moment of time, you found everything you thought you believed, or rather, everything you conditioned yourself to believe to be wrong..

Mike, was it raining in your living room?

and maybe it's just a place for some to decompress..

I'll volunteer. "O, heya hoya, hmm ho hey ho.." don't knock it. It's the closest thing I'll do that resembles speaking in tongues anymore..

my meeting with the counsellor guy.. I just couldn't come up with something else believable at the spur of the moment. Next time I get a question like that, I'll say "how much time do I have for the answer?" I wouldn't rate the twi experience a total loss. I did end up with two kids I wouldn't trade the world for. And they are somewhat smarter than the old man.. what do you think people are doing here, just sitting on their thumbs?

Umm.. I thought that's how it was marketed. So simple a *fool* can't err therein.. easier than falling off a log backwards. vic practically guaranteed answered prayer with his little five step "program". He underscored the word "ANYTHING". Yes.. to receive ANYTHNG from God.. Here's my shopping list.. I want a polo pony, a mercedes.. a fifty million dollar mansion. Energy efficient, I am environmentally consious. a sixty inch new hd tv and computer in every room.. fifty acres of land, fenced in so my cats can run free.. I can get my "needs and wants" at the proper balance if need be. So what's da big deal? See.. I didn't say "anything", vic did. Then we get what is supposed to be the "real deal".. "be thankful if you have a healty body, sound mind, food and clothes on your back.. kinda like.. "go away kid.. don't bother me. We'll never admit the scam doesn't really work.."

The version I heard was that Grahm spoke in tongues. Whether the vicster had anything to do with it, I can't remember that much of the "stowrie". Apparently, Grahm "copped out". Otherwise, he'd be on the main stage with herr vicmeister.. maybe someone can remember this better than I. Undocumented as far as I can tell. It was from an ancient manuscript. It slithered down the mountain one day. "first, thou mustest collect the skins of several hundred snakes.."

Don't count on it. I've heard a couple people claim they got hit again, within a year of the first strike. If it's a high enough metal object, like a vertical antenna, you can see the pits where it has been repeatedly struck. If it's a fancy fiberglass antenna, a strike almost vaporizes it, leaves bits and pieces of it strewn on the roof. they make special surge and lightning protection gear that absolutely guarantees no damage to your equipment, but it often costs five times what it is protecting. :) http://science.nationalgeographic.com/scie...ng-profile.html

I think when the vicster hacked with the dull knife, sometimes kinda missed and lopped off the guy's conscience. That's what I observed in the first limb leader I met. I wonder if it ever grew back.

When I enrolled in the four year university here, I had a little meeting with one of their guidance counsellors. He asked me.. "how come you didn't get your degree like.. twenty some years ago?" I told one guy.. "well, I whizzed away all that time thinking I was making some kind of difference in a second rate *religious organization*. ever hear of The Way International?" "Ah.. yes I have.."

At the university I go to.. as of yet I haven't seen a single professor flaunt their doctorate in front of the students. Some of these guys come to class wearing a pullover shirt and blue jeans.. As of yet I have not observed the unreasonable FEAR that da debil is gonna steal math like it hasn't been known since 3 b.c. from the students minds because the chairs are not strung, the oil spots in the parking lot outside are cleaned up.. cigarette butts outside picked up, walls washed.. everything set PRECISELY to the teacher's specifications. one professor here.. every time he comes, moves a particular lecturn away from the front of the class, HIMSELF. No complaints.. no hour long rants because "setup" didn't "get it right". vic and loy's teaching about fear is kinda calling the kettle black, do you think? I think we were trained to be neurotic..

I wonder what gave the vicster the idea that "fears are ALWAYS negative". "Always wrong". Maybe HIS were.. doesn't necessarily make it so for the whole rest of the known world. Maybe he mistook intimidation for fear. "For years, I was afraid.. of people in high social circles, high political circles.." perhaps he felt that he was out-classed.. still some second rate bumpkin from a little place in a cornfield in the middle of nowhere.. why else would he want the prestige that holding a doctorate purchased from a degree mill would bring him from the unwary? Maybe he found it "better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven"..

well.. I suppose I have a good number of unresolved issues with these buffoons.. but I've come to terms with the thought they may NEVER be resolved. I can live with that. Partly because I think I understand their nature. Now, when the third generation picks up the ball, ignoring practically everything that came of vic's handiwork, it's a whole different story.

I always wondered why they didn't include a book or syllabus or any *real* kind of documentation with that class.. now we know

I don't think he was exactly a good surgeon either. *holds rusty pocket knife* "now hold still.. this won't hurt a bit.."

I remember this vividly.. one of my friends explaining to his dad that he was righteous.. basically that it didn't make a heck of a lot of difference what the "old man" did.. and some pretty nasty stuff at that. The dad countered.. "it sounds like you are using the bible to go to hell.." the reaction? "Rowwwwwer, hisssssss...."

It's like the old story.. the little girl who had a curl, right in the middle of her forhead. When she was good, she was very good.. but when she was bad she was horrid..

I kinda am of the opinion that "righteous is, righteous does". But this "scientifically precise" scriptural dividing of body/soul spirit, old man/new man.. standing/state..isn't it kind of, well, unusual? You'd think that one would want wholeness. To unify their being. Not divide it off into "good guy, bad guy.." Doesn't it merely give the "bad guy" a supposed righteous reason to roam free? The good guy covers his back. "don't touch MY righteousness". No matter how people may scripturally justify this.. it still looks convoluted to me..

The fact vic could speak something that sounded like Swahili or something really doesn't impress me any more. The mere fact that we needed practice sessions would suggest to me that the experience was largely contrived. I read der vey living in lust before I took pfal.. I remembered vic's description of how when it "really came" it was like fire.. so fluent, speaking in more than one tongue.. and by session twelve, he seemed to have enough trouble spitting out a half dozen words or so. I thought.. what's THIS? What happened to the fire, and fluency I read about.. It seemed so contrived at the time. The coordinator prancing about, tears in his eyes over the "greatness" of it all.. I went along with the "gag".. by session twelve there didn't seem to be any turning back. all that teaching.. how vic's version of sit was "proof beyond a shadow of a doubt" of supposedly what is the "new birth".. I think we were slowly trained to scam ourselves.. I heard an old branch coordinator call people "low maintenance believers". Just hold our own leash, keep speaking in tongues hours on end, when in "twig" listen to what the voice of God (the ramblings of another "low maintenence believer"), keep yourself convinced that you've got the greatest goods since the earth cooled, keep putting fifteen percent or so in the horn.. show up to meetings five minutes early.. run classes.. keep trying to rake people in.. So, I cast my vote once more, if that's legal here Bow.. "no, I do not think he was born again". At least by vic's requirements. Or definition. I just don't think someone could experience something supposedly so significant, and just go back to living life worse than before. I asked the same thing of a friend I knew back then.. "if you're so this and that.. how comes ya don't live any better than that bum down the street.." The answer? "Don't you DARE touch MY righteousnesss.." sheesh.. I'm not touching it, you're doing it to youself.. providing you have it to begin with. :)

I thought the little sign said "dang, you'da better know a little geometry or something".. :)

I wonder if they asked for the key back..

Like they say in some bars.. "last call for alcohol"..

friend.. I think we always knew.. one way or another.. Now.. why can't we just have a party.. the whole problem.. if I went back to 1961.. I'd probably still be a five year old snot nosed kid.. I dunno.. if I'd want to take what I know now to back then.. they'd probably be carving my brain up trying to figure me out..

yep.. I remember flipping the one little chart which showed the little sin which he apparently forgot.. :)

the way he describes this little incident from an omniscient point of view suggests the former..