Twinky

In the act! I caught Tuxy in the act! Just straddling the back legs and getting comfy on my carpet!! A firm "No!" has her now hiding on a chair under the table...no doubt waiting for me to go to bed so that she can continue. Definitely need to be able to handle these animals. For one thing, Tuxy needs to learn to wear a diaper. Grrrrr!

Now these lovely beasties have a new trick. I just got a new (second hand) carpet. They really like it. They rolled on it and sniffed it and appear to really enjoy having it there. Much nicer than what I had before. They like to lie on it. But (the pests) they (at least Tuxedo) have taken to using one corner for a latrine. Wet only (so far). I scrub it up as soon as I realize but sometimes I don't find it for a day or two (the smell gives it away). I wonder if a previous animal peed on it there? It's driving me crazy and I think soon I will hire a carpet cleaner with special "animal" shampoo and clean all the carpets. I was pleased I'd read a thread here, just before my net connection crashed for 2 weeks, about cat urine and ways to dispose. Tuxedo has also twice taken a dump on my sofa cushions. To do this she walks past the bathroom where the litter tray is. Tray is clean!!! Research on the net suggests it's "separation anxiety" and true, she has done this if I have been out later than usual in the evening. (Not like they pay me any attention when I am here!) Crypto is really coming out of herself now and is very active and agile at chasing the whip (toy). She also stands up for herself a bit more and sometimes smacks Tuxedo back if Tuxy just hits her for no reason. More usually she runs off. Still can't touch either of them.

The perks, yes... Like a lovely log cabin. Not a dorm in Founders Hall. "Given to the ministry"? Well there were lots of collections eg at the end of a class or even for a "gift" for the Prez. A personal gift. For the Prez - not for "the ministry". Of course he owned things. Though I can imagine that bigger items (furniture) might belong to TWI (just like the bunk beds in Founders Hall) - except all theirs in the Chalet definitely was of a different standard (no doubt personally selected by you know who). Probably considerably better than most stuff in the trailers too. Also I recall at least one time in rez that he gave gifts to us. He had so much stuff in his home as gifts from various people that he had collected up a load of smaller items, ornaments and such like, and we got to pick one that we could keep. Couldn't do that if they all belonged to "the ministry".

Purpose of GS? Possibly to drive us all nuts with arguing. Or possibly to drive all the nuttiness out of us by helping us think out of the Waybox in which we kept our thinking ability. I've had no net access for two weeks. I really missed being here!

Small plot, was a lawn till I gave away the turf. Now got lots of well-rotted hoss muck in it. Bit late in the season for doing this so some plants may not like it. New plot currently contains: Runner beans - 2 varieties Rhubarb 3 raspberry bushes (2 of which not showing signs of life - kept in a bucket of water too long perhaps) 1 gooseberry bush (another one in another part of the garden in flower border (!)) Short row radish Short row beetroot Short row salad leaves Short row Little Gem lettuce In seed trays: Lots of leeks - if they all come up there will be over 100 Lots of onions - if they all come up there will be over 100 On window sill: 2 cucumber seeds (threw a cuc in the compost and seedlings sprouted a few days later) Herb garden: Basil, parsley, thyme, lemon balm. The coriander got eaten by the slugs Coming today: 1 chilli Tomato plant(s) Elsewhere: Lots of sweet peas Foxgloves, hebes, grannies' bonnet, rose of sharon, heaps of other plants both flowering and shrubby. Would like a fruit tree (maybe a small apple or a plum) but other things are more pressing at present. Friends are having an extension built over a border which has some nice plants and shrubs in it so I will be uplifting some of those shortly. These are to go in a shrub border which I am currently trying to clear of ground elder but it seems this noxious plant thrives on Round-up. Also in the shrub border are 4 leylandii which I chop bits off periodically. Would love to extract the stumps but no idea how to do that. Seeing what else I can get in the vege line, from Freecycle or from friends.

Also doubles as a vintage motor cycle helmet.

I'm only coming along if I can have some ice skates (so that I can make nice straight lines in the ice)

Shiftthis, how many times did you read about Jesus Christ "screening" people before he would talk with them? One can have a genuine desire to learn about God AND learn about God in places other than TWI. One can ask questions and get considered answers. One can disagree with answers without being marked and avoided or considered possessed by devil spirits. You will find a lot of people here still have a deep (deeper) love for God and a much more outward-going way of showing it than TWI ever had. Wrongly kicked out? Well, if we were, why aren't they knocking on our doors or really working hard to find those people, apologizing, explaining, and asking us back? Shiftthis, you say you have read a lot of the posts here. Have you read the editorials? The lawsuit papers? The tales of abuse over many years? Look below the surface. Is it really different? Really? Stay with TWI if you must but stay there with your eyes open and your heart guarded. And when it all falls apart and you are bleeding from the knife sticking out of your back, you will find the First Aid (sorry Third Aid) box under the Cafe counter near the till. Ask any of the waitresses.

Wisdom and understanding are commonly mentioned together. Brushstoke, TWI teaches that wisdom is "knowledge applied," ie, doing something with it, not just head knowledge. Very interesting just looking quickly at a concordance at the scriptures mentioning "understanding" and how it governs our actions (or should do). There are two forms of effort required: one is to get the knowledge in (by reading, study, or listening to/ observing/ following a teacher or more experienced person); and the other effort is thinking it through (meditating thereon) to the point you can apply it accurately to any situation in which you find yourself. TWI suborned our critical thinking ability and replaced it with crippled thinking ability. It called use of our God-given ability to use our brains as "leaning to our own understanding" if we "understood" something differently from what the leaders there wanted us to think. Crippled thinking ability meant that we could not think things through to the point of applying them accurately. We lacked wisdom and understanding and empathy by seeing things too simplistically. Thank God, He can teach us anew and give us fresh understanding of those things that we "learned" inaccurately. In vain is the net spread in the sight of the bird.

Oops attached wrong photo before, of Tuxedo with the cat toy. Don't think Crypto is annoyed, more a bit scared. She tends to gaze with eyes half lidded, perhaps because a wide-eyed cat is seen as a threat and she is too timid to want to be a threat to anything. But she's getting a little better with chasing the whip. She emerges rapidly to play (or at least watch) as soon as she hears me flipping it around.

Found a book in the local library which looked interesting so I took it out and have flipped through it. I found the following extract. I am not very impressed by what this book says on much that is recorded in the Bible: but then, it does say, Jewish Lore & Legend, not Jewish truths. Nonetheless, there may be traditions that have been handed down that throw some light on the customs alleged in the second paragraph. I have split the extract into two, the first part being what is recorded in the Bible and the second part being apparently pure PI but I'm just wondering if some of our Jewish cafe society (Abigail?) can offer any comment? Extract from "Dictionary of Jewish Lore & Legend" (Pub: Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1991) "Bathsheba: Favourite wife of King David and mother of his successor Solomon. David fell in love with her when he glimpsed her bathing and had an affair with her. When she became pregnant, he arranged for her soldier husband Uriah the Hittite to be sent home so that he would regard the child as his own. This ruse failed, and Uriah was posted to the front line so he would be killed in battle. Nathan the prophet upbraided the king for his evil doings in taking away another man's wife (II Sam 11,12). "Despite the Bible's negative portrait of David's relationship with Bathsheba, the Talmud maintains that he did not in fact commit adultery. All soldiers in the king's army had to give a conditional get, or bill of divorce, to their wives in case they never returned from the battlefield. Thus, Bathsheba was a divorcee, and David's affair with her was not an adulterous one. She was in fact a very young girl at the time of her first contact with David and still a virgin, for Uriah had not consumated the marriage. Even when she eventually gave birth to Solomon, her first child having died in infancy, she had still not reached her teens." I can't see what possible basis there might be for suggesting she was a virgin at the time of David's first naughty deed. David at the time was no spring chicken and this makes him out to be some particularly nasty old lecher with serious paedophile tendencies. But then again he did have a young maidservant to warm him in his last days.

Okay, I'm putting this on the other thread about All the Women in the Kingdom.

Well, I finally captured them both on camera today - see attached. Tuxedo/ Tuxy/ Sedo (Tillie) usually runs a mile and Crypto/ Heidi (Tallie) has never been around long enough. Nice view of the underside of my table too. You can see Tuxy's cute markings (bib and feet) and might just be able to make out Crypto's little circular mark just under the chin. Had the kitchen window open just a little today. Tuxy made a definite bid for freedom. She is sooo keen to explore outside. If only I could catch her or at least handle her occasionally maybe she could be allowed out. Maybe. Tuxy loves the toy in the photo and attacks it with enthusiasm. It's wound around with string which is completely ripped off in places.

Try removing soil with a mixture of enzymatic washing powder (like Ariel) - don't get it too wet, scrub with a brush and use clear water to remove washing product. Pat dry with towels or other clean material. Also you can use WHITE vinegar to remove any residual smell noticeable by animal noses but not perhaps by human noses. (Don't use ordinary brown vinegar because it may stain the carpet.) Splash a little onto the area or onto a damp cloth and rub over the area (be careful if the way the pile goes).

Jesus? Isn't that the name of some big fat devil spirit? Oh! You meant Jesus Christ? Oh, not sure he's here today. (BTW no chapter and verse was ever presented for saying there was a big fat DS named Jesus.) So has the "secret agenda" moved on now, from considering adultery to considering the disappearance of Jesus Christ?

ie, the ministry was blown about by every wind of doctrine and happily funneled these to all the followers. Never any end to the busy-work that they got everyone doing. Never any time for quiet contemplative time.

"Study to show yourself approved unto God" should have the emphasis on making (our walk) acceptable to God. He has predestined us to good works (Ephesians). We are to work out, figure out, how to do those good works. The study isn't poring over books because we are in mid-course for our BA or some other tests. The study is learning to walk the walk, which is by understanding the heart of the scriptures and following the example set by trusted leaders. It includes exercising the sword of the spirit to rightly divide the word, ie, our walk, into what we are doing senses-wise and what we are doing from the heart.

Granted, PFAL did not have time to go into the history of "how we got the Bible" other than some cursory half-sentence some place. However, later classes might have covered it. Certainly it should have been a part of Corps training if we are looking at Christian leadership (which is what the WC was "sold" as). History of how we got the Bible was perhaps studied or at least touched on in early Corps but post-PoP was also post-everyone who could have given any half-way considered history. That's if anyone still had a mind to ask questions like that. We might also consider that there must have been many other documents both in OT and NT times which are not included in the Bible. Paul was a prolific writer who kept in touch with his budding "church plants" around the Med area. Were those letters not "God breathed"? The congregations who sought his advice would have expected them to be! One letter from the church in Jerusalem is recorded in Acts; does that mean that none of the elders there ever wrote anything else? No letters back to Galilee, for example, to any "church plants" they may have made there (if any)? "Scripture" means that which is in script, ie, written. "All" scripture? So straight away we have the PFAL definition, "all without exception or all with distinction." Hey, I didn't write the book and I didn't choose the contents of the book. I'm just saying that not everything that has ever been written especially within the context of the new Christian church of Acts, the first century etc, is included within "scripture" and there's "wiggle room." So where within the PFAL definition us "scripture" defined?

Groucho - your last words made me laugh loudly and startle my cats. What to do with the ABS...huh, that's all they care about? Jeff - they moved your wife and babe out and nobody not even your wife let you know????? Copenhagen - hard when the whole family is still stuck in the rut. Try tucking the wrappers from GSC's Fairtrade coffee amongst their belongings. Give the spies something to condemn them for (as if they need an excuse!)

I gave some skincare products to a woman who works with a homeless project. I wondered if she used Freecycle to locate items that the homeless might need (clothes?) - especially if they are trying to help them back to more normal living (with furniture). Belle, it is nice to choose the recipient (if you get more than one taker), and the pleasure in giving and meeting a need really is enjoyable in itself. Having finally got rid of my lawn today, what do you know but someone is freecycling a load of topsoil. Just exactly what I need so it is now in bags on the remains of my garden path.

Adultery Bedside manners? Is that ABs? "The benefits of adultery..." (LOL) Dunno about you, but I don't want to do anything that would make VPW "proud" of me (shudder). But I really do want to do a lot that will make JC and my Father "proud" of me. Like, "listen," and "do" (or not do as the case may be). (tongue in cheek) Did I not read some place (like Exodus): "Thou shalt not commit adultery"?

Wow, same-old, same-old but more vicious. Some of the last words are really vicious. THW, Oakspear - you had some presence of mind, good for you! You seem to have escaped without too much wallowing in self-condemnation. Lindy - the usual rubbish WG - bizarre, I think on top of the teaching (?) you mentioned that's the weirdest thing I've heard Shellon - not putting you on a guilt trip, then. Did they offer to drive the motor car that ran the kids over? mstar1 - interrogated to go to twig? (Freely availing oneself of fellowship, then...) Worst of it is, some of us were so Waybrained we believed this rot, or at least didn't dare to disbelieve.

Jen-o, you will find yourself on moderation for just a little while, till you get the hang of it. They want people to share, not just take (fair enough). Sometimes you come across "dealers" who collect stuff they seem to intend to sell at a garage sale or market stall. Those people aren't very popular and it is against the ethos of the site, although really no harm done, the "seller" gets rid of something they don't want and the "taker" keeps it from being landfill. My lawn looks nice in its new location a couple of miles away, well at least the half that's gone looks nice; the rest will go tomorrow. Tonight I disposed of an old mirror that must have been in an old wardrobe door. The silvering is a little crazed and there is quite a bit of discoloration there. The taker is really pleased with it. No idea what he intends to use it for.

On another thread someone said they could still remember the words that were said to them when they left. It was along the lines of God's hedge of protection being removed from you or some such similar garbage. What was said to you (if you care to remember and care to say it)? From one strong but kindly (?) male I got: "Be careful" in a sort of ominously threatening tone. Subtext was, we're kicking you out and you will be outside God's protection. From a higher-up I got: "You need a rest from us. Well, we need a rest from you. Call us in 6 months if you're still interested in moving God's Word." Like a fool I did... I got screamed at violently: "Get away from her, you lesbian!" (this was because my WoW sister and I had hugged on greeting. As we had done for the whole WoW year. The first put me in terror of doing anything in case "the Adversary" got me. Frozen like a rabbit in the headlights. The second put me in serious condemnation. The third shocked me beyond measure, I think because of the utter venom in the spoken words, which were completely untrue and he knew it (having spent months not-so-subtly undercutting me and turning my fiance against me).

One day we will look back on all this and laugh about it...how silly we all were, to get sucked in. Till then, there is still a lot of pain and heartache to be eased. What a great follow-up to RD's interview it would be if Paw could get an interview with John Sch-heit.