Twinky

How I feel, too. If anything, I feel sorrow that they care(d) so little. Whether still the same, I don't care to find out. And I feel anger at the abuse so many suffered in so many ways. But my focus is not backwards but forwards. People are still being abused in similar ways, and in other ways, and I prefer to draw on my own experiences of abuse to relate better to others I reach out to help. I can empathise so much better. Some might call that making lemonade from the lemons.

You a stripper in your down time, Chocky?

Riu Riu chiu, ha! Singing that at the carol concert my new choir's putting on in 2 weeks. It's all about keeping the wolf from the door. Not very Christmassy, but fun.

Came across this by accident. No idea who the anonymous pl0nker is who posted it. He's slagged off most of the regular posters. Have a laugh. He obviously has issues. I suspect one particular ex poster. https://onebaddecisionawayfromhomelessness.wordpress.com/tag/greasespot-cafe/

Waydale was nothing to do with The Way. It was very anti Way, a d in no small measure has contributed to its decline. Greasespot Cafe is also nothing to do with TWI and apart from one poster, is vehemently against The Way. TWI does its best to take these sites down. It's only in quite recent years that TWI has sussed that a website might be helpful to it. They grabbed a load of domain names just to stop others grabbing them. Their first website was so static and boring that it'd be a wonder if anyone bothered to look at it more than once. There wasn't even a Contact Us button. You had to write, snail mail, to get in touch. They've updated that now. But it's still an ultra boring website. Just like TWI is ultra boring.

It was a draw, WW. What happens now?

There's been some surprising results so far. And it's got rather political, with the sideshow row about armbands and rainbows and suchlike. Apparently the match to which you refer is tomorrow (I just googled it). Celebrate away, if you wish! No mountains or forests in Qatar. So nothing much to interest me. Though I had a friend (now deceased) who lived there for a few years and enjoyed it.

LoL, not so many visit nowadays but the conversation can be lively.

Think this is right. "Ministries" are the things that, actually, you don't even realise you have - you just feel compelled to do certain things along Godly lines. You want to care for people (pastor them), or preach (evangelise), or expound (teach). Some people just seem to know the right Godly direction (prophets, perhaps). Apostles? Not sure there. Who really are our apostles today? Are there any? (I can tell you someone who definitely wasn't one!) Disregard anything you learned in TWI about HS/hs. Relax into knowing God, just knowing; and then you'll find peaceful understanding. Not confusion.

Makes me wonder what kind of process VPW went through before he went to theological college and then got ordained as a minister in whatever church it was. What sort of selection process did he undergo? Surely at the least, references would have been sought from his home church. And then, interviews, at least one or two, with others in the church hierarchy? Or did he just take himself off to theo college, without church support, and offer his services to a local church afterwards - in some sort of capacity though not necessarily as an ordained person. As I understand it, he was actually ordained as a church minister and fulfilledthat role for a period. But then - that might be a big lie, too. He tells tales about that church in his film PFAL. But then, he tells many tales. Has anybody actually seen any kind of ordination certificate? Perhaps he was only ever a probationary minister of some kind. So if he never went through any kind of selection process, not surprising that there was no proper procedure for selecting candidates for Way ministerial roles. Much more than "heart" is required, and very much more than being nice to people a few times and reading the Bible once or twice. Even if one could recite the entire Bible from memory, it wouldn't make for being a good minister. In fact, likely exactly the opposite.

Gimme your address, I'm inviting myself!

You folks will be coming up for Thanksgiving dinners soon. What's cooking? I was over there one year for Thanksgiving, spent the time with Ex10 and her family. Awesome time.

STL, that sounds really calorie-high. The cream cheese I'd like but dream whip - ugh. A cheesecake with most of those ingredients would be much more to my taste. Nathan, a Christmas cake is a heavy fruit cake. A celebration of the richness of imported vine fruits, developed at a time when people didn't have much. (Of course, such are very easily obtainable now.) Commonly these cakes are iced. First the fruit cake is covered in marzipan, then royal icing coats that. Royal icing is a hard icing, principally sugar, mixed with a small amount of glycerine to make it workable, and water. (Commercial icing can be purchased, to be rolled out - it's disgusting.) Then the top of the royal icing is decorated. I dislike marzipan and hard icing, and my cakes are uncovered but decorated on top with almonds and (though not on this occasion) glace cherries. Made like a wedding cake might be, not the increasingly-common sponge-cake variety, but a "real" cake.

In the oven now. Smells delish.

You're all going way off topic now. Isn't there already a current trinity thread?? Interesting for a discussion later, though.

Absolutely stuffed full of vine fruits: sultanas, raisins, currants. Also dates, cherries, pineapple, prunes, and of course mixed peel and glace ginger. All soaked overnight in orange juice and brandy. Not called "heavy fruit cake" for no reason! Today, there'll be the cake mix with butter, flour, various spices, black treacle (you might call it molasses), eggs and the usual stuff that goes into cake making. Finally, will get turned into one large round tin and three smaller loaf tins. I make a pattern on top with nuts and cherries, because when finished, I don't ice them, don't like icing. Then the cakes are baked for 4 or more hours. The house smells wonderful for the rest of the day, and when I get up next morning. And then, when I can turn them out, next day or whenever, they get pricked with a toothpick and the holes filled with brandy. They'll get soaked in brandy every week until Christmas. I keep the big one, and the smaller ones I give away as much-enjoyed gifts. Eaten in small quantities (because it's very rich), and - well, my big cake will last a couple of years. I still have a bit from last year; and finished the one made 2 years ago some time in this summer, some 18 months or so after being made. It was as delicious as when first cut; better, maybe. The smaller ones, however, are quickly and enthusiastically eaten by the recipients. Are you hungry yet?

It's 4.30 am and I am in the kitchen. Making my Christmas cakes. Well, actually setting all the dried fruit to soak. Will beat up the batter and bake the goodies later today, Sunday. Who is in the kitchen at such a daft hour? Early risers? No, those who don't get to bed at a reasonable time!

I'm pondering whether to start a new topic in Doctrinal, T-Bone, that I think you'd find interesting. Kinda follows from my "Consider the Evidence" thread, and links well with your above post. As it's gone midnight now and I was tired a couple of hours ago, now is not the time to start something that could be controversial. Maybe tomorrow. Watch that space (not this one, LOL).

Yaaaawwwwwn zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

That always bugged me. The "more than abundant life" has never ever been about money or things. Should have seen this as a red flag for a materialistic set-up, and walked out straight away.

You said it before I said it. There are some good things in PFAL, but that's because they were pinched from someone who'd put thought in, and who may himself have been inspired by God. Also some good things in the RHST part - for the same reason. The trouble is trying to sort out the truth from the fanciful, reconciling the conflicting messages and versions of whatever "the class" says, etc. Not being able to sort out truth from - from what isn't - is confusing and distracting. It's a poisoned apple (from a poisoned tree). Not all of the apple is poisoned, but you don't know which bits are and which bits are safe to eat. Best thing to do is discard the lot. Heck, for all I know, the confusing bits were deliberate - to confuse, to distract, from the other garbage that we were supposed to take in subliminally. If you're still trying to reconcile "all without exception" with "all with (or without) distinction," you're missing some other perhaps more serious junk.

Thought some of you might enjoy (?) this book review of a recently released book by an escaping Sea Org scientologist. I think some of us can so relate to what he felt when he left - hiding in doorways. (It's a free article, and you don't need to "register" to read it.) ‘At 52, I abandoned everything, every friend, every family member’: the top official who escaped Scientology | Scientology | The Guardian

Whatever the picture is supposed to be, it looks like appallingly bad, "talented amateur," but stiff, art work. Wouldn't want anything like that on my wall.

@OldSkool : I was terrified, too. Embarrassing how afraid of people I had become. Oh really ... what kind of "Christian" organisation leaves people full of fear? Took years to "escape" from myself (!). Glad to say, I have a much more sound mind now. It's taken real Christian love; thoughtfulness and care from non-Christians; GSC (!!!), and much reapplication of thinking ability. Not for nothing does 1 Thes 5:21 exhort: "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." God clearly expects us to consider all the evidence, test (or "challenge") everything against what God says. Get that? Test against what God says, not test against what some denomination says. Or even what some other type of culture says. And test against "common sense," too. Lotsa that in the Bible.

OldSkool, what a very honest post. I would never have thought you'd've been fearful. Bravo for facing reality and moving on. I do think that a large part of the value of GSC nowadays is trying to beat out ideas, beliefs, with those who really understand where we're coming from, without risk of sounding weird. Exploring our own ideas and beliefs with others who have been through the same processes, sometimes with different results, can be very enlightening. Quite often, not just in the "belief" side, I find I don't quite know what I'm thinking or planning till I discuss with a friend, who might say, "But how will that work? What about...?" and then I can clarify to myself what I really mean, flesh out the details. Well, y'know. Iron sharpens iron. It's good to try our thinking processes against those of others, to help us get rid of the burrs, and to take our plans and ideas from nebulous theory to something firm enough to walk out on.