Tom

Hi Mike, I did dare. I'm not impatient or annoyed with your response schedule. Your response schedule is absurd in the extreme. The extremity of its absurdity begs for sarcasm, the truth of it seeming too hard to come at directly. I apologize, Mike. Sarcasm sucks & is offensive. You seem to strain at a knat and swallow a camel. Your attempts at deeper discussion are liberally peppered with rediculous pronouncements that are blatant contradictions to or in the doctrine you profess. Many have tried in many ways to point them out to you, but you continue to blunder over the stumbling stone in favor of your "depth." That invites mockery, not that you appear the fool for Christ's sake, but that you appear to make Christ look the fool. My sarcasm was my crude attempt to make the obvious more obvious. Silly and mean, I know. I'm sorry. I'll stop. To answer your question about E.W. Kenyon - I don't know. He wrote something called A New Kind of Love I think that was what it was called - and I suspect that was the name of what Wierwille stole and renamed The Love Way. You can find it easily at Amazon.com Speaking of staining at knats and swallowing camels - why bother to read both texts looking for changes as indicators that the "revelation" had changed when Wierwille stole the whole thing either exactly & in its entirety or almost - acting as if it were his own "revelation" from God. Why not recognize the disgrace as the dishonor to Christ that it was instead of continuing to profess, compound, and partake of his dishonesty, hypocrisy, and sin? That's my "birds eye low down on this caper." Oh, and you ought not to ask questions when you don't even know what the question means, "low down on this caper? ...whatever that means." "Caper" is absolutely the correct term. As to its meaning - a caper is "A crime (especially a robbery)," or "A ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and amusement." From Word Web. Please discontinue presenting this caper in the name of Jesus Christ.

Oh my gosh, such pressure on you Mike. And to think you offered to answer my questions if I would just post them again so you don't have to spend the time to look them up. I just can't bear to impose my needs on the greatness of your business. I guess I'll just have to miss out on the grand finale. Dang, & here I thought that I operated manifestations and would partake of the benefits of the Appearance of Christ. Oh, well, carry on Mike. Don't worry about me, please. At least I'm not going to hell. I'm not going to hell am I? UH OH! If I'm not really receiving revelation and don't partake of the Appearing of Christ - dummm dum dum dum DUMMMMMM! Oh well, goodbye cruel world. Mike, take my PFAL books and give them to someone who you see will utilize them according to the greatness of your vision.

Good point, Sir G 2 Timothy 2:19a ¶Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his... Don't fret, Tom

Disclaimer I was definitely joshin, Vickles. Scary, isn't it that on this thread even the most bizarre caricature fits in? I should have put a smiley on my post. Tom

Vickles, I don't care what you were told. What does PFAL say? Opinions come and go, but PFAL liveth and abideth...uh, as long as Mike does.

Takes three, ex. It's a conundrum.

I think the stories are great in a lot of ways. "The True GOD is soooooooooo much better...maybe if we had some really good movies..." How about if parents train their children in the way that they should go? Then not only would Potter movies be a lot of fun (especially in view of the fact that you seem to think that Christians have dropped the ball on producing good movies), but they could be very instructional - IF parents taught their children what was going on.

Seaspray, The thing that I don't get, seaspray, is how you & Mike can reconcile touting PFAL & contradicting it in the same breath. VP was talking about salvation with the Chicago allusion, getting Christ in, NOT getting in Christ. That remark was never intended to refer to PFAL as the only way to get in Christ. It wasn't talking about either "in Christ" or PFAL. Isn't there something in PFAL about all scripture (not that PFAL is scripture - that is YOUR contention) must be interpreted in its context? I keep bringing things like this up to Mike also, but they never get answered. I thought PFAL answered the "tough" questions. Too tough? Hmmph! Seems pretty basic to me. Maybe that's why I've been relegated to the 1/2 of the questions posed that Mike is never going to get to. Yeah, I'm still on break - my more than abundant life hanging in the balance, waiting for PFAL to provide salvation on a practical level (practical level - gosh, I'm glad I know the difference between learning how walk in Christ and going to hell without all heaven being able to help me. I'm sorry, that was really arrogant of me. Please, I most humbly beg you, Mike. Let me be among the 1/2 whose questions you answer - sometime. No, I'm very sorry - I know you're busy. Isn't there anyone else that I can pray to besides you?

Rottie, I posted something in private topics about a picture that I think you would like, but dont know how to get to you. Check it out. Tom

Dang it if this thread doesn't grab my imagination - as well as a couple of other parts of my anatomy. Oh, it has done so in so many ways. For one thing - no, I can't start counting for this is a forever thread because Mike is involved in a forever task. I said earlier that Mike reminded me of the sorcerers apprentice in the movie, Fantasia. Remember Mickey Mouse having been given his marching orders by the sorcerer to take out the water. Poor Mickey has this little bucket & the water keeps coming in until Mickey is like trying to empty the ocean in a hurricane? I forget what statement of Mike's first reminded me of the sorcerer's apprentice, & I'm not going to go back & look it up - Mike, you're not doing anything, & I'm on break - or have you delivered some knowledge to me now that I'm responsible for, so I'm on the job again? One aspect of your job description seems to be telling others about responsibilities they are not fulfilling, so let me know. Anyway, this latest sorcerer's apprentice allusion is too appropriate. Here is Mike studying the blue book like we all should. Let me get this straight - aww heck, I'm on break, so I'm not going to look it up, but the pint is that Mike said that it would take some number of years - seven maybe? - to really work the blue book, & that there are all those other books and mag articles, and by the time that the seven years was up, that was enough time for the knowledge to already start leaking out. So here is Mike, six years from now, still working the blue book - but what he has worked is already leaking out, & he hasn't even started the other books yet. I'm still on break, on the inhale, Mike doubts he will be able to answer more than 1/2 the concerns posted here, & on the exhale, he hopes he will get to everyone. Now this is totally rich! E.W. Bullinger shows up & certifies that Steve has earned the right to the appellation "O.L.G. extrordinare". The man behind the curtain, the true sorcerer (true sorcerer, hmm) is dead, never having bestowed the appellation "O.L.G. extrordinare" on Mike. The wicked witch hasn't even been identified, nevermind defeated (although several participants in this thread have been accused of being possessed). I'm relegated to the poppy field for an indeterminant time period while Mike attempts to carry the ocean from the household bucket by bucket - seven years + time for leakage + the other books + the magazines + the other half of the questions that will not have been addressed + plus all the questions that will have been posed in all those years. I don't know, Mike, but you seem to be heavy laden. Maybe it is my lazy OLG self, but I think you need to turn in your Lord for a saviour whose burden is light & easy who will give you rest. Hey, what do I know, my leaky self hanging out in this poppy field? Umm, for how long?

Oak, For what it is worth, I'll assert that Wierwille ruined it all when he made his power plays to take control of these areas and movements by things like the WOW program, centralizing the abundant sharing, and the Way Tree. Many movements around the country and around the world were started by people who moved there because God told them to go there. Long Island was started that way. New York State was started that way. I think Kansas was. When Wierwille put the WOW program into operation, he said that it was because God was telling people to pack up and move to areas to open the Word up, but people were afraid to act on the revelation (BS - that's major bs). He said that it was only going to be for a brief period, a few years, until people developed the boldness to act directly on the revelation that God was giving them (more BS, obviously). Before he centralized it, Wierwille complained that people were abusing the abundant sharing. He said he had no method of keeping track of it so that he could hold people accountable (bs). That summer, at summer school, the branch coordinator and his assistant from Long Island - a couple of very sharp people - presented Wierwille with an accounting system for the abundant sharing. Wierwille said he wasn't going to go with it. He said that people weren't mature enough to handle the money (BS - how can you responsibly handle the spiritual matters of people's lives if you can't handle the physical money. The Word says in no uncertain terms that you can't. Besides, what the heck ever happened to doctrine, reproof, & correction on that one?) Wierwille said that the centralization of the abundant sharing was only going to be for 1-3 years until the people matured enough to handle it, then he was going to turn it back over to the people (BS: The BS doesn't get any deeper than that folks). The Word moved wonderfully with signs, miracles, and wonders following in the early '70s because it was a genuine move of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ was the head of these movements, and the parts worked in holy spirit coordinated symmetry. The Way Tree was simply Wierwille's power play. The Way Tree was his move to incorporate the body of Christ. It is a simple leadership power structure. You can't concretize the body of Christ that way. The body of Christ comes with its own joints and bands of ministry. The Way Tree takes those out & replaces them with Wierwille ordained leadership. It severely cripples the functioning of the body. It is anti Christ. Maybe, like Craig said, you can't sell soap without the type of agreed upon loyalty between men that Wierwille introduced and Craig just made worse - BUT soap has no life. I know the idea is scary and seems hopelessly optimistic and dellusional to those who grew accustomed to the Way Tree, but the body of Christ really can operate with Christ as the head. "Yes, but don't we..." I hear people saying. No, we don't need... The move of the Word went better in NY, CA, KC, other places around the country - South America, Europe, places around the world with signs, miracles, and wonders following BEFORE the Way Tree than after it. It was simply Wierwille's bid for control. After Wierwille took control of these areas, they continued to exponentially increase in numbers for a while because of the math of the way the Word moves and because it was still driven by oldies who wanted to see the original purity of the thing again - but it was NEVER the same. So went the woe of the way. Matthew 23:15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. Wierwille was a Pharisee, a hypocrite, and Craig was a disciple he found whom he made twofold more the child of hell than himself.

Mike, a simple question - really. What the heck is "combo wise?" KJVS are the same version of the bible. That's why it's called a version. Again, what the heck is "combo wise?" Please don't tell me it's one of YOUR code words to get to Dr.'s code words. Enjoying breaktime, Tom

That's cool, Mike. Please excuse the uncruciality of the details of my concerns. I thought that my more than abundant life was in the details. But, I understand. I AM allowed to understand things, right? Just not as well as the first century believers - and you. You're busy. My more than abundant life can wait. I've gone 54 years without a knowledge of the Word like it hasn't been known since the first century. I can certainly go on for...oh, there's another good question - how long. Maybe you'll get to it sometime. I'm just glad I'm not among the 50 % of the people who never get their questions answered by you. Or am I? Now that's a scary thought. What would I do then? It reminds me of Craig's teachings where he said that it was inevitable that some people would fall through the cracks in the body of Christ. Think of that. Isn't that just one cold freakin' shot? Man, Jesus would roll over in his grave to hear that - if he were still there. What if the response to your posting was like the day of Pentecost? Man, wouldn't that be a ... Listen, Mike. I really do understand. You've got a lot of responsibility, & only so much time. It's a conundrum. I really do understand. You've set for yourself and impossible task. Moses had a similar problem. And so did Dr. Wierwille. Now seems like a good time for Jethro to show & suggest that you set the people in order - you remember - leaders of 10s, & leaders of 100s, & leaders of 1,000s. But I have a problems with that. For one thing, this is not the old testament. Moses' word (read VP's word (read Mike's, aka PFAL,s word)) is not law. That revelation (the Way Tree) worked for VP and kept his word as law only long enough to bring TWI down. But, we don't have to worry about that. You don't have millions. You don't have leaders of 10's. Heck, you don't have 10. You estimate you can't get to half the people now, but hope you can get to all of them later. And you want US to do the math? This is tough, Mike. Man, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes. Okay, look. Maybe Jesus Christ can function in the body in a bigger way than you realize. Maybe we are competely complete in HIM. That would be, you know, that would work, but where would that leave PFAL. Okay, look. I know this is really very far out, but you said that you have spoken to Jesus Christ. That's cool. I'm not arguing with you. Maybe you could get him to take PFAL. Then he could be the head of the body, really, & it would all work. Well, we'd have to get rid of things like the Way Tree & the MOG concept (Jesus Christ being the MOG & all). Hey, what do I know? I'm just playing around - really great benefit of being on break. You're... Right, you're working the ministry (I almost said you were the MOG - feels really cold in here without a MOG - almost like you're naked) Surely SOMEONE has to bridge the gap! Okay, somebody got a smoke? Anybody want to pitch quarters?

You got that right. Maybe that's why people are not concerned about how you are thinking right now. Sure, I'll cut you a break. Let me know when you want to answer my questions & objections. It's called communication. Till then, it's officially break time. I suspended disbelief for over 25 years, and my inaction allowed evil to move unchallenged. Now, you want me to suspend critical thinking till you finish your shpeal? How silly of us! To base conclusions on all the evidence at hand. How 5-senses! Not going to fool you Mike. If my fading memory serves, Jesus was amazed that the people could read the signs of the weather, but couldn't tell spiritually what was going on (apparently Jesus didn't see the dichotomy). He might be amazed that you might understand anything spiritual since you can't even utilize your 5-senses properly. Go inside out of the rain, Mike. Ah, it's the silent majority. And this is supposed to give us confidence that you can offer us something? Actually, Mike, there are a lot of things that I'm thankful for from PFAL. But if you worked PFAL for 5 years, I have been thinking through what was true from the Word, what was the evil doctrines in PFAL & TWI that allowed such evil to prevail. VP taught us that continued wrong practice has to develop into wrong doctrine. And it did. That's what I would call The Ubiquitously Hidden Teaching of VPW. You've certainly absorbed its character. It would be nice if you were open to honest discussion in the presence of the body of Christ as the Word directs you to submit yourselves one to another in the fear of God, so that you could hold fast to the good and hold the evil far off from you. But the pride (hidden under false humility) you've inherited from your "father in the Word (I should stick a finger down my throat)" prevents you from that just as it did him. Instead, you turn off your critical thinking processes and swallow the whole load. And you do so without shame, but with the vacant smile of the religious or political zealot. And ask us to do the same. A little bit of leaven leavens the whole lump. It is the leaven, the doctrine of the Pharisees, that eventually leavened the whole lump of TWI and brought it down. It is the leaven that is in PFAL. But, contrary to the direction of the Word, you won't listen. Willfully blind, you ask us to be blind also. Ditch diggers anonymous

Well, he is just here to serve, BUUUT... Actually, that is not his concern. If the OLGs do not heed the call, he will say that it was necessary that the gospel first be preached unto you, but since you have counted yourselves unworthy of eternal life, Lo, (Lo is short for LOL) I turn to the unLOGs. Sorry, Mike. I tried to meet you on your own ground several times, but you weren't there.

No thanks. I tried to meet you on your own ground, but you weren't there.

Second take :)--> I understand that second defintion of the Word, Mike, "modern 20th century writings of PFAL," and I have little problem with it per se, nor do I have a problem with ascribing the appellation "The Word" to the writings of others with the distinction that Dr. Wierwille made between his own writings and the "Word" in definition one. Dr. Wierwille taught us that the Word that came down to us in the compilation known as the bible - as corrupted as that might be - was a complete whole and nothing was to be added to it. Dr. Wierwille told us to study his writings. But he had that distinction in mind when he did. It was his professed goal and the goal of PFAL to get back to the original Word in definition (1). BTW, my memory is better when it comes to the Word than when it comes to the people from the early 70's. I don't think I knew Ken Barden personally. I wonder if I knew Plot. If I could be sent back to teh 70's and see you somewhere, I would probably know you, but I can't place you now. Don't take it personally. It's me :(-->

That's fine, Mike, but quite beside my point. If you believe in his words, why don't you do as he said when he said that the Word was to be our only center of reference for learning and not what men wrote about it, including himself? He was very plain about that point and reiterated it plainly often. No number of aspersions about "loose decades old memory of PFAL" can change that. You shouldn't accept or teach points that are hidden or obscure or "subtle things" that contradict points plainly made a number of times. That is a basic PFAL (copped from Bullinger) principle of interpretation as well as a basic principle of how readers read. What you say is not "consistent with a very close reading of PFAL," but a flat contradiction of its basic premises. Your thinking is unhinged from reality, Mike. I wasn't talking about, nor was I thinking about "KJV, NIV, Critical Greek texts, and ancient fragments." In an attempt to communicate with you, I was referring to the "Word" as Dr. Wierwille said he referred to the Word, not any version of the bible, but the original Word as it was God-breathed originally before it was ever copied in any way. That was the Word that he said he dedicated his life to getting back to, and that was the Word that he said we should be getting back to when he contrasted it with man's words, including specifically his own. I think your grip on his words is as loose as your grip on mine, all your studying notwithstanding. It is the way you think. Fine, maybe. You don't know what I know and what I don't know, yet you fly off with this statement - another example of your ungrounded thinking habits. I remember very well these two meanings of "the Word" to which you refer. RE: (1) the first definition of the "original first century writings," this is not intrinsically a "highly abstract item." It simply involves higher order, sometimes abstract (yet real nontheless) thinking processes to get to. And that was what he exhorted us to do. RE: (2) I may be wrong here since my memory is so faded :)-->, but I believe that Dr. Wierwille taught that the part of the Word that he taught that hadn't been known since the first century was the great mystery revealed. The greatest truth was the first to be lost and the last to be regained. Obviously, the vast majority of what was in PFAL had been taught by others in modern times. I don't mean to be offensive, Mike, but I find many of your claims about PFAL, and about people and things in general, to be without foundation. It's about the way you think. Let me illustrate. I remember doing a paper about the five kinds of love from Timothy LaHaye's (?) book on marriage, Love Life for Every Married Couple. After writing abut each of the five kinds of love, I concluded, as did LaHaye, that every marriage could be saved even if only one of the partners wanted to save it. The professor was kind in his treatment of the paper. He said that the substance was very interesting and informative, but that it simply didn't add up to my conclusion. I don't want to get sidetracked into a discussion of the keys to biblical interpretation, but it is my belief that there is nothing there is nothing there that is not just part of a logical description of how to read - assuming that the text you're reading fits logically. It is just pretty much how to think logically about things. Anyway, one of the things that Dr. Wierwille brought up about the keys was that you needed to use all of them. If you only used some of them, you would wind up with a towering structure that looked beautiful to you and made perfect sense to you, but you would be wrong. You just can't leave out obvious things that VP wrote and think you will come up with an accurate conclusion about where he was coming from anymore than you can think that you know what people are thinking on this thread and what they know if they haven't told you and think that you are communicating value back & forth.

How can you read PFAL, nevermind study it, not to say master it, & not realize that the above statement is a close paraphrase to what VP said about giving up all other writings except God's Word? Dr. Wierwille said that the Word was to be our only center of reference for learning and not what men wrote about it, including himself

I look at the controlling rigidness of the first movie as sort a religious hierarchy and some of the things happening in the second movie as more of how the body of Christ operates. In the first Matrix, there were obviously distinct categories. There were the controllers, the controlled, and the freed. But in the reload, I think the categories are starting to overlap. For example, I'm not sure that the Oracle is a controlling entity. I'm not even sure that she is what the man in the white coat - the self-professed designer of the Matrix claims she is, nor that he is all that he claims himself to be. The Oracle doesn't seem to be a directly planned entity at all, but an inevitable, necessarily independent entity in a complex mechanical, yet organically evolving matrix. Some program has to be around whose sole objective purpose is to try to foresee future developments. And, as I said, to do its job well, such an entity would have to be objective (non-partisan). You can't take as gospel everything that the man in the white coat said. He is not infallible. After all, didn't he say that if our hero chose the door to try to save the girl that he would be too late to save her anyway? Okay, technically she died, but still the "designer" seems definitely to have his own agenda and not to be trusted. Another example of the blending of people and machines is the one who keeps duplicating himself. Something happened to him in the first movie when Neo, a human, entered into him at the end of the movie. He was freed from the controlling matrix entities and took on some human characteristics. Finally, and this might be stretching it (Dang it, where's the Oracle when you need her), but at the end of reloaded... Okay, let me back up here & get a running start. All the freed people developed remarkable abilities by the use of their believing minds with the help of machines - computer programs. The One even became better at it than the computer entities themselves while he was plugged into the Matrix. He might not be becoming a machine, but he is definitely showing what were heretofore abilities only manifested by computer-generated entities - AND he learned them through their tutelage. Now, at the end of reloaded, these abilities start to overflow into the real world. He senses the machines coming and stops them with power energized from his believing mind the same way he once knew how to do it only within the computer generated matrix. He is evolving to be able to do in the real world what once only computer machine generated entities could do only in a computer generated matrix - and he is continuing to develop beyond that. I think we have to say that we can no longer look at the Matrix as a Borg-like collection of uniform entities (without any trace of futile resistance and consistently antihuman). The Matrix has anomalies. The more complex it becomes, the more anomalies it has; thereby, exponentially opening up the number of possibilities in its evolution - and further increasing its complexity. I think the "designer" will be surprised, and humans and machines will evolve into an integrated organic system with a vast and complex network of communication and information across all boundaries energizing the life of the system. This picture fits with Quantum theory, and related systems theories of chaos and complexity that are currently working their way into all the physical and social sciences. The man in the white coat, while advanced, is still somewhat of a throwback to the type of thinking that started with Newton and saturated our philosophy, business, and everyday thinking in the industrial age. He will be bypassed as the system evolves beyond his vision. I'm not sure who the hell the guy in the white coat really is, but I betcha the story basically develops the way I've said. Wanna bet, wanna bet? Tom

I don't know, Oak. Like you, I will have to see it again, but I'm not sure it would be correct to call those things part of the Matrix's control mechanism - the operant word being control. In the first Matrix, there were obviously distinct categories. There were the controllers, the controlled, and the freed. But in the reload, I think the categories are starting to overlap. For example, I'm not sure that the Oracle is a controlling entity. I'm not even sure that she is what the man in the white coat - the self-professed designer of the Matirix claims she is, not that he is all that he claims himself to be. The oracle doesn't seem to be a directly planned entity at all, but an inevitable, necessarily independant entity in a complex mechanical, yet organically evolving matrix. Some program has to be around whose sole objective purpose is to try to foresee future developments. And, as I said, to do its job well, such an entity would have to be objective (non-partisan). You can't take as gospel everything that the man in the white coat said. He is not infallible. After all, didn't he say that if oiur hero shose the door to try to save the girl that he would be too late to save her anyway. Okay, technically she died, but still the "designer" seems definitely to have his own agenda and not to be trusted. Another example of the blending of people and machines is the one who keeps duplicating himself. Something happened to him in the first movie when he was entered into by a human at the end of the movie. He was freed from the controlling matrix entities and took on some human characteristics. Finally, and this might be stretching it (Dang it, where's the Oracle when you need her), but at the end of reloaded... Okay, let me back up here & get a running start. All the freed people developed remarkable abilities by the use of their believing minds with the help of machines - computer programs. The One even became better at it than the computer entities themselves while he was plugged into the Matrix. He might not be becoming a machine, but he is definitely showing what were heretofor abilites only manifested by computer generated entities - AND he learned them through their tutilage. Now, at the end of reloaded, he these abilities start to overflow into the real world. He senses the machines coming adn stops them with power energized from his believing mind the same way he once knew how to do it only within the computer generated matrix. He is evolving to be able to do in the real world what once only computer machine generated entities could do only in a computer generated matrix - and beyond. I think we have to say that we can no longer look at the matrix as a borg like collection of uniform entities (without any trace of futile resistance and consistently antihuman). The matrix has anomilies. The more comlex it becomes, the more anomilies it has; thereby, exponentially opening up the number of possibilities in its evolution - an further increasing its comlexity. I think the "designer" will be surprised, and humans and machines will evolve into an integrated organic system with a vast and comlex network of communication and information across all boundries energizing the life of the system. This picture fits with Quantum theory, and related theories of chaos and complexity that are currently working their way into all the physical and social sciences. The man in the white coat, while advanced, is still somewhat of a throwback to the type of thinking that started with Newton and saturated our philosophy, business, and everyday thinking in the industrial age. He will be bypassed as the system evolves beyond his vision. I'm not sure who the hell the guy in the white coat really is, but I betcha the story basicaly develops the way I've said. Wanna bet, wanna bet? Hey, if you want to read an exciting, easily read book that deals with the application of Quantum theory to computer generated organic multiprogram biosystems, read Michael Crichton's latest best seller, "Prey." He even starts the book with a convincing four or five page little research paper complete with the names of very current and respected scientists that does a convincing job of showing that these realities are on our near horizon. Specifically, he avers that by (I think it is 2050 or sooner), if we don't put safeguards in place now, our technilogical advancement in these related areas will grow past our ability to control it. I didn't intend to say all this. I have to go be normal now :)-->

Thanks Kit, You always remember. Remembering is an especially godly quality. There is and will be justice because He remembers. There will be mercy because he remembers His son. We have eternal life because, long after we've returned to dust, He remembers us. 2 Timothy 2:19 ¶Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his.

Xix, Glad to see you are still into good books. I called the library to see if it was in. They said they had many copies, but they were always out & they couldn't reserve it because it was on the best sellers list. I asked her to hold it - said I lived 4 minutes away. She said she couldn't hold it & it would probably be gone when I got there. I raced to the library & got it. I also read it in one sitting - sort of. I read, fell asleep, woke up & kept reading - until I was done. Science or no science, it is a good story teller reader's story. Tom

Just saw it - thanks for the recommendation. Loved it. I'd say more, but Blade Runner just came on 10:30 EST 7/17 - Catch it if you read this soon. It is on USA. Tom

...carrying a bowling ball with a birthday cake on the top of it, fully intact, and followed by Satori who was is a state of bliss and couldn't quite fit his vocabulary through the door. "Hi everyone," says Chuck, "I'm sorry I'm late. Satori and I were bowling, and he was in the zone, bowling continuous 300 games and solving many a koan. It's a magical night. Just as I arrived this birthday cake came from nowhere and landed on my bowling ball." Litwin, breaking himself free from his worshipful monologue, exclaimed, "There it is! Proof! Incontrovertible, irrefutable. Chuck came here without a birthday cake and one fell from the heavens. It's a bonafide miracle!" geo, veins bulging, screamed almost incoherently, "DAMNIT MAN! Ryebred, her foot, your hand, you silly blatherer, the table, the birthday cake flying ... flying ... flying ... flying....flying....flying....the open window." Litwin replied ly, "Whether the window flew or not, I don't know, but this I know, that whereas Chuck was cakeless, now that cake doth stand before you whole." ExCathedra was hurt. It was, after all, a party. "Why can't we all just agree on something tonight?" Everyone chanted together, "I follow the middle road." "No," Litwin & geo intoned in unison, "what the middle road is means something different to everyone. It is not really agreement!" Then they both stopped and looked at one another. Had they both actually agreed on something? But then Litwin broke the stillness, "I don't know about you, geo, but where I come from..." "YES!" ExCathedra exulted, "the book! Where do you come from Litwin?" Litwin hesitated, then, "Wow, where do I come from? Heavy! I know I ate a strawberry once, and it sent me on a horizontal elevator rocket ride through a tunnel. At the end of the tunnel was a bright light. I knew that if I travelled past the light it would take me to a previous life. BUT, I punked out, and said that I had enough, and the elevator stopped at a party that I had when I was three. We all had cardboard fireman hats on covered in red cellophane." "But where do I come from? Why, that's simple. I think; therefore, God is. And that's where I came from." But Litwin looked around and no one was listening. It was as if he was invisible, just a voice without audience - the voice of one crying in the diner. ExCathedra swooned at Chuck's precense. Ryebread had broken out of the hypnotizing character of of Litwin's siloquey as it resonated with Satori's satisfied, "Na na na na na na na na na wa wa wa wa wa wa at the sound of the word "party," and gone over to where Chucky was and breathed on him, "Surprise, Chucky." The lights came on, and everyone started to sing, "Happy birthday...