doojable

Maybe I'm just getting to old for all this sheeeet. I don't really care if every last thing I learned was wrong.. I made a choice all those years ago and I've made different choices since then. Some of them have been amazing - others I'm still unraveling. I can only be responsible for my choices. I can try to make the next choice the right one. If a person in my life chooses to make wrong choices then I must choose whether or not they get to remain in my life. Hopefully I've learned some from the past and I won't repeat the same mistakes over and over.

Is there a way to have an intelligent discussion about this without resorting to namecalling? Once the discussion gets to that point - all this talk about the abuses of the Way Corps go straight out the window. Hey if I was in the evil master indoctrination program and I'm behaving then so can the two of you.

Perhaps God led us to a point and then we stopped following. (I'm speaking on individual terms here.) Some of the very same people that received deliverance turned around and became evil taskmasters. Some - not all. We all have seen this type of thing - and there are even accounts of this sort in the Bible. The man who is forgiven of much who refuses to forgive little. Kings who became heartless and cruel. I just don't believe that there are any easy answers here. Why do these things happen? I dont' know and I"m not going to pretend to have the answers. Life is complex. The main mistake we (and most Christians) make is that we oversimplify life so that it fits in a neat little box of rules that we feel we can control. Then the bottom falls out and we find ourselves looking for another box. Like I said already, life is fluid. People change. They change from year to year and from person to person. The problem with religion is that it involves people. As long as you people involved in something, you're going to have problems. Perhaps that is where the real lessons come. We each are faced with choices daily regarding how we will treat each other and how we will deal with our stuff.

Jean - I dont' think I meant to imply that all WC were bad. Like I said, I knew many fine individuals. The other point I was trying to make..... I think that those WC that lived their life with integrity had people follow them - in and out.

Some of the Way Corps had unreasonable expectations of themselves. Some of it was placed on them by higher ups. Some was self-inflicted. Some of it came in the believers that waited on the WC to walk on water just because they spent two years getting what amounted to little more than an associates degree.

Our friend Groucho makes a point. Rosie can stink up the joint. Her face is not the pretty sort, Her eyes are dead, her teeth are short. What ever where they thinking When they thought she could save the cult from sinking?

The gal Dreamer wins...

Ahhhhhh he creeps in again and teases us with his coy ways... Are you tanned yet Tom?

The Guru of Ham requested rhyme He seeks Rosie to malalign. He needn't worry the task is light For Rosie is her very own plight. So, "Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who is the fairest one of all?" New Knoxville is not the place to look 'Tho queens may rule fools on a hook.

This is a little bit of a stretch - two photos

I knew it!

Here we have a figure of speech Rosie thinks that she's a peach Or we can use a metaphor She munches carpet (not on the floor!) What's that? You want a simile? She looks like a chimpanzee. I've stretched this poem long enough I better go do important stuff.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Yea - Waysider's right..

They're just old.....;)

My thinking on the matter.....I made some real good decisions for the right reasons, I also made some bad decisions that turned out pretty ok in the end. Some of my wrong decisions were for very good reasons - especially because I was ignorant of any alternative. So - does TWI have to be good? Not in my mind. Neither does it have to be evil. It is what it is and it was what it was. Organizations are made up of people. I was lucky enough to have met some fine people - though some of them went on to do some horrid things. There is a fluidity to life. Consider the river that starts out slow and quiet and eventually produces raging rapids. Life can be like that. People can be like that. Hopefully the raging dies down and eventually becomes peaceful again. When Hitler's mother looked down in the crib do you think she saw an evil monster????? I think not. Somewhere along the line he became evil. His evil is real and plain and evident, yet somewhere on the planet at one point in time he was just a kid on the playground. Isn't that true of so many of us in TWI? I'm thinking not so much about VPW as I am about lots of folks that made the organization. Some started out good fine folks and became evil as they became drunk with power. Others just stayed the course. Others still were awful to the "minions" and now are repentent and make a wonderful positive impact. They changed and keep changing - hopefully for the better. Ok - rambling again.......Maybe I should just shut up. Carry on..

Rascal - I guess I wasn't clear. I'm not accusing anyone of not moving forward, or trying to do better, or helping others. I know some real life folks in some of those categories - but I discuss this type of thing with them - in real life. Mostly, I was speaking about myself and my endeavors to move ahead. I never meant to imply that there aren't many others with the same mindset. Again, I don't paint things with a broad brushstroke. I'm fairly adamant about not making sweeping generalizations.

Rascal said, "Our selfless love, our innocent enthusiasm was what lent an air of legitimacy to twi." I don't usually quote Scripture - but isn't there something about love never failing? I have to believe that whenever I did something right -whether I understood it or not - that I ended up making a difference. Sure, I may have helped to legitimize the cult - but when I left that endorsement left as well. So, because I gained the trust of a few people they may have joined the cult but they also followed me when I left and didn't let the door hit them on the .......

Rascal, If you're talking about each and every leaf on the Way tree - then every person could be both victim and abuser. I don't know quite how to state what I'm feeling here - but it's something to the effect of "that's life." So many of us were looking and searching for something more. We thought we found it. For many of us, when it became apparent that the man behind the curtain was really not a wizard at all - we left OZ, ruby slippers or not. It is what it is. I feel for those hurt, and I have tried to help who I can when and where I can. I'm fairly sure that's true for a lot of people. We made mistakes - sure. And yes, I know that some folks liked the power that came from being in the inner circle - but I'm not one to paint this with a broad brush - that just seems like something the MOG's did. I'm not heartless nor am I naiive. I just would rather move ahead and do good rather than lament what I didn't do because I didn't know any better. I can only be responsible for myself - so it's difficult for me to take responsibility for someone who did take advantage of others and abused what little power they could garnish from all this. (NO I never covered for anyone, though I know of many non-corps who covered a lot for some real seedy characters. They did it twenty years ago and are continuing to do so today.) The vicious circle has to stop somewhere. I started my tangent over twenty years ago. Some people are starting their's today as they learn how to change their walk from a lockstep to a stroll. So - did the WC help vpw? - Yes - for a time. They also helped take twi down when they left en masse. There were many who were never Corps that were yes men and did far worst. I'm not sure I've made a point here - but I have at least put these thoughts down and presented them. We can flame each other for eternity - what good will it do?

My Mother the Car

How did he get in your pajamas????? ;)

I entered the Way Corps just one year after taking PFAL...so I was young, and pretty innocent. I actually never knew of the sad and sadistic inner workings of the MOG's. I guess I wasn't cool. That's why P*t L*nn said I'd never amount to much as a leader. OH WELL!! I left when I received the decision paper from LCM... I pretty much had my foot out the door anyway by that point. I never stopped trying to help people. Maybe that made me a decoy. It's been a long time and another lifetime ago. I'd like to think I did serve God and that somewhere in all that mess something good came of it.

Just to qualify - I never said, nor did I mean to imply that a woman would need different qualities to hold the office of President. If you look at my posts, I keep asking for a list of characteristics and qualities that we feel are necessary to serve as President. I'm fairly certain that the more defined this list is, the easier it would be to see the right person for the job should he/she decide to run.

That sounds like a subject for the Politics Forum....But I have no problem with anyone holding that office as long as they are qualified. Race, gender, religion, shouldn't enter into it. I know that some would have a problem with certain religions... I try real hard to look at people and see them - not the labels that are given to them.

I'd just like a good President and I think that discussing the necessary qualities for the job would help determine the outcome. In lieu of that, perhaps we need to figure out what area of authority we are interested in discussing. I mean -Authority can be conferred, deferred, neglected, and just taken or taken for Granted. I'm going to repeat that I never jumped on the feminist bandwagon. I just feel that people need to be respected in general. Bias should never come into play. Now this all gets sticky when we have two equally qualified people going for the same position. Is that worth discussing. Someone might need to duck eventually. Can we leave the personal slams for the PMs??? Puleeeezzzzz!?