Ham

I don't know if some really realize where that logic leads, Rascal.. that somehow gawd uses abusive and dispicable evil men to bless mankind.. it's like.. either you have a god who loves to hate, or a god who hates, to love.. and forever the wheels keep turning around and around.. the backside of reality trying to cover the front.. I don't see how a mind doesn't shrink to a singularity, in a cycle like that..

I don't know if I was ever marked and avoided by twi.. I THINK I have that designation in an offshoot however.

makes me wonder.. why is it these "great men o gawd" just HAVE to be scoundrels, or murderers, or extortioners, or blasphemers, or persecutors, or sexual abusers of one form or another, or.. just fill in the blank.. find a sin, and very likely you'll find a manogawd to fill it.. it's almost a "requirement".. maybe they don't know how to do anything different.. maybe humanity is better off.. just put them in a little ivory palace, feed them.. better than them roaming free.. Oldies.. I'll tell you where your "logic" is leading me. If God loved so much as to send one or more of these kind of scumbags to bring us the truth.. maybe he doesn't love like you think he does..

It's only a matter of time. Look what they did to the wife of the first pres.. I wonder how "bitter" and "unforgiving" she's gonna be.. EVERYBODY is "expendable" at der vey. even those who are it's backbone.. the VOLUNTEERS.

so in the end.. he died as a fool. maybe he wasn't "all he was cracked up to be".. maybe he didn't have "wisdom like it hath notter been known since the -3000th century"..

It seems that a lot of us have an on button. It's "just get over it.. sheesh been twenty some years..he's dead, can't do anything about it now.. you're just being bitter.." I would suggest, if one does not want to hear the elaboration over the past, don't bring it up, or don't try to disannul it. Do it to yourself if you want.. but it usually just hits the on button in others here.. at least that I've observed. oh.. the few issues I have left are with are still alive.. in a cozy palace, insulated from any kind of confrontation, outside of legal proceedings. Oh well.. I pity the poor bas*ards.. really. They are worse off than I am. rosie might have more cashola than what she knows what to do with.. but what happens when she's even older than she is now.. can't remember where it's all at really. Unless she has a team of guards (lawyers), and guards to guard the guards (even more lawyers).. they will bleed her dry.. all the estate will go to pay the legal fees me? I'll die broke, barring winning the lottery.. I don't have those kind of worries and donna. when rosie's gone, what's her fate.. next pres of da way? I really don't think so.. I really can't see her having the stamina to go out with a bucket, ammonia, squeege.. and hit the beat, trying to dredge up a few window cleaning jobs for her next meal.. she'd fold inside of a week. In my opinion. and harvey.. maybe he could go back playing licks in bars.. but his years of experience in da ministry.. what's that gonna look like on a resume? Ya know.. they'll check out the corporation he claims to be on the board with.. maybe look at the history a little bit.. It was YEARS of USELESS toil. In my opinion. And they think they are sitting on a gold mine or something.. wait till the dow goes below 2,000.. don't say "never".. my statistics prof says of other similar matters "if it is POSSIBLE, the odds of it happening is 100%" See Johnny.. I've "gotten over it" I've moved on.. made a few friends, gotten a few marketable skills.. though I'll probably have to work till seventy to pay off all the student loans. but like the salmon, I find myself swimming back up to the the little pond here.. :)

That does presuppose that the said person even has or had a heart, to begin with.Same could be said for a conscience, for that matter. But then again.. maybe the old guy was bipolar. The nicest, most tranquil person on the face of the earth, one moment. Then a raging bug-eyed monster the next. I could see how someone could mistake the "down swings" with some kinda peace or something.. and the manic episodes.. "sheesh. he's valiant for da truth.." "man, what a teaching.." I think we were taught not to think. If one can't understand or consider what one considers "negative" maybe one cannot make a sound decision regarding it.. Perhaps these kind of dicsussions are just too painful for some people, and they'd rather shut it out.. wake up in twig somewhere in 1972..

Of course, eighty six percent of those whom actually went through the training won't recommend it to a dead dog..

Happy Birthday! Nice you could share it with us..

Now it looks like roughly three out of four would not go back to the same restaurant..

It's the fourth one that "stands out" from the rest. The first three are merely "synoptic" accounts sowy..

I think it's a matter of perspective. Like the three blind guys trying to describe an elephant.. examining the trunk, one says "an elephant is like a snake" the other, examing the legs.. "naw.. it's like a tree.." the other.. I forget. But I think that's what we have here. One says, "gawd, he was a drambuie soaked a**hole.." another: "he was an abusive and demanding sexual pervert" another: "he was a thief and plagiarist" and the other: "He sure was a man of gawwd.." I prefer to look at the big picture. He was a drambuie guzzling, perverted, narcissistic, thieving intellectual pretender who could put on a fair speech. :) It's like the four gospels. You know, one record doesn't give ALL of the details..

I think there was a REAL problem equating fruit of the spirit with "operating da manifestations" as we were taught. I really think "fruit comes by the operation of the manifestations" + "heck, I sit.." does not imply "I have da fruit". I think it was another unwarranted assumption made by the mogster. Just because someone can spew out gibberish that sounds something like Swahili.. doesn't give them a free ticket to sin and expect forgiveness.. "see? I'm a BROTHER(?).." I've heard people speak in tongues.. and it sounded more like peeping and muttering.. yeah, there's an old testament reference I'm alluding to..

The proportions on the last question are pretty significant.. eighteen out of twenty-three would not recommend the product to a friend or neighbor. Usually that's the "last but not least" question.. I'd imagine that's what a manfacturer would be most interested in.

That's even more interesting. How many of us were like that.. the quiet types, hanging around, thinking that was what life was supposed to be all about. It took me a long long time to wake up and take an honest look at what I'd been observing for years, and to take an honest look at what I had become. It can be frightening. Into one's forties, few real developed social skills.. few developed and documentable professional qualifications in anything.. a handful of alienated, though distant relatives, whom I had not seen for over twenty years. the comfort on one side of the caged window isn't worth the price.

umm.. the ones I'm speaking of are still alive.. at least they look that way.. maybe dead inside, who knows.. ya know, it's impossible to "forgive" a dead man.. understand him maybe, why he did what he did.. try to forget- but "forgive"? see.. there is nothing I can personally think of to make the situation "right" between you and him. there is still a chance for the living. At least in this particular life..

well.. "forgive them brother.. take da suffering.." I don't know if you stopped to think.. they don't WANT your or my forgiveness. Probably never will.. ok.. letsa take you up on the kind "exhortation.". Let them come to my door. I won't turn them away, and I'll say, face to face.. "I forgive you for being the lying, scumsucking weasel dirtbags who let down your bretheren and let them get pillaged, sold stolen merchandise, plundered, raped and worse, just to be filled with a piece of bread.." the only thing I'd add: "if I can possibly have anything to do with it, you are not going to do it to anyone else" then again, I dunno. Maybe they committed the "unforgivable".. "naw.. they SPEAK IN TONGUES.." I don't buy the s.i.t. proof and all.. anybody can babble incoherently given the proper motivation. Some can even do it without the right kind of motivation, all by themselves.. :) edited to add "dirtbags". sounded right..

Might want to try Iron Out. They say it is good at removing pesky blood stains.. don't know what it'll do to the rest of the scroll

I dunno.. if one must scrape three layers of blood and guts of the victims off the scroll, it still may still be rather difficult to read.

Then again.. rosie might fit the role of nurse Ratched quite admirably..

Other recent topics got me thinking of this. So much of the twi experience toward the end of my involvement reminds me of kesey's description of the patients in One flew over the Cuckoos' nest. He describes the young acute patients as being nervous, afraid to laugh too hard, afraid that a team of "docs" would try to figure out why they were happy.. really.. that was "us" here. If one was really happy, the branch guy's wife would insist on finding out WHY.. and then there's the Chronics. The culls of the ward.. look at donna, rosie.. some of the others.. they couldn't function in real society if their life depended on it.. even loy- I think he wouldn't have survived unless they kept treating him as an outpatient. donna probably wouldn't last a week.. so they sit, depending on others to feed, clothe, and bath them.. the lawyers probably have free reign.. they know the meal ticket quite well. Just keep litigating.. keep the organization afloat one way or another.. maybe they have some kinda legal conservatorship or something..

I think when a lot of us were "put out on the street".. the vast majority made a few adjustments.. figured out how to fit into society.. build a career.. get an education.. try to build relationships outside of the few one-sided ones where "communication" is defined as "you better listen to me, ah've got da anwers".. perhaps there was some withdraw. But I think most here got through it. Then there's the other part of the group.. the "chronics".. the "culls of the ward".. can't really function without someone feeding them, clothing, bathing them.. can't function without vociferously promoting an organization, i.e., "moving the word"..

perhaps. But eventually, the drugs wear off.. or they should. I think we all were kinda nuts.. perhaps two kinds of "patients" came out of twi: 1. Those who were merely doped up 2. The few they gave a lobotomy. The effect may be he same, just in one case, it doesn't wear off..

If it makes any difference, when I left the ministry, the same could be said of me. It took me a couple of years for the insanity to wear off, and ask the real hard questions..

how much longer they're gonna be a decaff version is up to debate, if "leaders and workers" get sent in among them from somebody's "training" program..