Twinky

Yeah, traffic circle. Or mulberry bush. Or chasing our tails. Or chasing Mike's tale. Or disappearing into a black hole... ...you know, that might not be a bad option...

Oh heck. Are we going round this roundabout again???

Part 4 of a project by internationally known composer Steven Faux and his son Clem. Steven has been setting the psalms to what he calls "contemporary cathedral" music for some years. This album, fourth in the series, has a more "folksy" feel than his previous works. It reflects "how the eternal Creator relates lovingly to his people, who contrastingly are made from the 'dust' ... and the dynamic between God's perfect holiness and human 'dustness' ..." Went to his opening concert last night, with an 11-piece band of very skilled musicians and singers. Thoroughly enjoyable. The album linked here is a bit quieter rendition of the songs.

I feel for you, At A Loss. Best you show the little lad what real love is, on the few occasions you are allowed to see him. Reassure him. Without doubt when he returns home, he will behave differently and his boundaries will be subtly changed (for which you will be blamed, when he is "out of control" (ha ha)). Obviously you will have some boundaries that he must adhere to, but these will be reasonable boundaries. He will undoubtedly rebel in his current circumstances when he gets to teen years (and able to make up his own mind) and you want his alternative choice to be you, and not the street, or a gang, or drugs. He may be rather strange and act oddly at that time, and that's not just teenage angst. (Most of us had become rather disturbed adults when we "got out;" how much worse for a child?) Be patient; it can take years to overcome the terrors of abuse. Just as it takes years to "destroy the self," so it takes years to "rebuild the self."

Interesting article in Wikipedia about Lake of Fire. Not that Wikipedia is authoritative, but it does bring together some interesting ideas, not least about the Egyptian Book of the Dead. I wonder how that imagery might have crept into the thinking of the tribes of Israel after the long captivity there, in much the same way as ancient Greek and Roman mythology has crept into the Christian church?

Sounds fine to me. There is so much mythology, not just Greek or Roman mythology, that has become entangled with Christianity; not just about heaven and hell (whatever they may actually be), but those are what we might call biggies or eternal, long-term, questions. The RC church chose to take old myths and channel or direct them into their own PoV - after all, it was a useful way to control people. The idea of a loving God consigning human beings (souls? spirits? that's a whole nuther debate) to eternal torment doesn't fit well with a loving God that wants people to love Him for who he is, and that wants people to repent of evil ways. It does fit well with a tyrant who bullies people into doing his will. As Hamlet's last words say: "The rest [grave] is silence." And this, from a man who was deceived by a spirit impersonating his father, in the beginning of the play, setting in motion the tragic events that followed. (Yeah, I know Hamlet is a work of fiction.)

Mmmmmmmmm... I'm Twinky, not TLC.

No, people didn't become legalistic overnight. Fear was instilled from early on in fellowships, sometimes subtly, sometimes more overtly, depending on who was in charge at any given time. It came from the top - from the beginning. Probably based how VPW was raised, in a more formal environment nearly a century ago; and with perhaps an even stricter German adherence to how things ought to be; and then, when the money started to flow in, an increasing desire to retain control. So you take your wannabe leaders (Corps), convince them that being hard on people is "tough love" and is really showing the love of God; instill deeper fear into them because they've already given up a lot to enter the Corps program; bully and intimidate those that you can do this to (and throw out those you can't intimidate enough); make a few scapegoats where you can, using quite petty examples of rule-infraction (those that you throw out are good for this purpose); and then when you've rebuilt your victims, these remaining bullied people, in your own image, you can use them to transmit this "tough love" approach to intimidate those lower down the pecking order. It is exactly how abusers "condition" their victims. It's known as "coercive control." And those victims that managed to survive oftentimes become "twice the child of hell" (Mt 23:15) as their teachers, and meantime the teachers can appear lily-white and say that wasn't what happened at all, and they, the teachers, did everything for the good of the victim. Just like abusers all do. Other bullied people might themselves have had a bullying and/or manipulative nature, and they used this as a strength to help them rise in power, prestige, whatever. T-Bone says that Corps training was like sprinkling Miracle-Gro on our faults. I certainly think he has a good point there.

Sounds like we're about to venture off into Doctrinal. Frankly, I couldn't care less. I'd just like to see people living together and treating each other with a very large measure of respect. I'd say that no matter what "dispensation," knowing God was about empowerment and building people up, both as individuals and as nations. I can't think of where God deliberately puts people down, infantilises them and wants to bully them into submission by filling them with deep fear. From early on, God's message has been "Fear not!" and "Have courage!" and the exhortation has been "Choose you this day..." whether to choose God's path of righteousness, or some other path that leads away from God's righteousness. For those that chose the "other" path, there was always a way back to God's righteous path. Even the first murderer, Cain, was "marked and protected," not "marked and avoided."

They might say "grace administration," but they have become more legalistic than ever, from what I can see, in what they actually "teach." I doubt that, practically, they have the faintest idea of what "grace" means, is, and enables. And as for "graceful" and "gracefulness" ... well, that's okay as long as you do what they say. Don't think about being individual or doing anything different. And whatever you do, don't look at the chains that invisibly bind you to that organisation.

Love it, T-Bone!

Is this that same BG Leonard? Founder of Christian Training Center of Brownsville, Texas? Them as runs a "Gifts of the Spirit" class? "Rev. B.G. Leonard’s full two week Gifts of the Spirit Course. The revelation of which God gave to Rev. B. G. Leonard over 80 years ago. The understanding from God’s Holy Word and also how to properly apply these truths unto the fulfilling of the ministry that God has ordained every believer on the Lord Jesus Christ to walk in and fulfill." http://130.211.175.175/~ctcoftex/wordpress/index.php/about/ It's not a brilliant website, lots of grammatical errors, but it's an interesting site to root around. See how many similarities you can spot in the titles of classes/courses you can spot, mostly attributed to the late BGL! (All tapes/MP3 available for "donations," of course.)

Wow, I wish he'd actually asserted his copyright. Could've stopped VPW in his tracks. Could've saved a lot of us a lot of grief. But I know God can turn lemons into lemonade, and we can benefit now from what we can accept at BGL's work - and be thankful for BGL (as opposed to plagiarisers). Looks like BGL was concerned at two aspects: (1), unauthorised copying and flagrant passing off of written material; and (2) "others" making audio and video tapes. Maybe more than just VPW was plagiarising. Thanks for posting that, Rottie.

"Sporting" can certainly have sexual connotations: Isaac was seen "sporting" with his wife Rebekah - some versions use "caressing," another says "hugging and kissing" and another again: "making love." The hand on (or under) thigh certainly has a long history in Jewish /rabbinical teaching to mean hand on genitals, and the word for "thigh" is (apparently) also a (or the) word for "shaft," a word sometimes used today with a sexual connotation. Did we need to know this? Maybe, maybe not. Did we need to be taught this, in astounding detail, by a lecher whose outlook was not "love of God" focused, but "love of (lust for) women" focused? No, we did not. It's someone else's work he pinched, and passed off as his own, with his own particular emphasis.

Skyrider's initial post contained the above. And it appears to me that that severance of ties in community continues right now on this forum. The spat between DWBH and ShiftThis, and the way others are siding with one or the other (usually with DWBH), surely demonstrates the heinous VPW's continuing effects. Speak nicely, people. Don't "honor" VPW by treating others with the disrespect that he treated all his peepul.

Two spent forces - join forces? The sooner they trickle into the "Dead Sea" of their imaginations, the better for all of us, their barrenness obvious to all.

All you never wanted to know about life in all its fullness.

I sing in a little music group leading the singing in church. The list of what we'll be singing is circulated a few days before. When I saw this song was on it - just the title - my eyes popped out and shivers ran along my spine. Not in a good way. Eh heh, I gave the song my best shot. Another dragon slain!

A bit of amusement for you. NOT what the title suggests!!

Got any suggestions about how to stop Win 10 bloody well trying to synch to OneDrive? I don't want that, resent it enormously, and it's caused me to lose a whole lot of documents and photos. And when I've restored from the OD Recycle bin, it's stuck items any bloody place it feels like, nothing like in the original folders. I NEVER like NEVER want to synch anything. In fact, I don't want any of my private data anywhere near any remote location. Except in my pen drive which sits in my desk drawer.

Always sad when there is a premature death. Doubt it was anyone at TWI but maybe she'd been hitching to or from HQ. Found myself wondering how the newsies got permission for the shots of the fountain - the reporter appeared to be actually well on grounds. As to the road sign, well, it's at the roadside.

Okay, thanks, I have got my stuff off the cloud, well, some of it. Not all, some seems to have disappeared, and some has appeared in folders other than those in which it ought to be. Maybe I will find some of the lost stuff in inappropriate folders. Or maybe it is gone forever. I still have a lot of work to do, in moving into this laptop. Thank God I also backed up my Work folders onto a pen drive as well, because the folders for the last two financial years are incomplete and my Excel spreadsheets are nowhere obvious. As a self-employed person, these are vital for working out the income tax I have to pay, and I fancy the Revenue would take a dim view of my excuse that my income and expenses documentation had disappeared into a cloud. One somewhere over the rainbow, presumably, LOL. I had an HP laptop previously. This one is a Dell. Function keys work a little differently, but I guess everything is here, somewhere, somehow. I bought MS Office 2010 when I bought the HP; now it seems I can get MS Office online. Which, of course, only works when I can be online; no internet access for the last few days has been a bit of a pain.

A bit off topic, but I'm beginning to wonder if the word "study" had an ancient meaning that gave a different nuance. We all know that AV [KJV] is written in 1600s English, and some words have changed their meaning somewhat. A bit like the word "practise/practice." Now, we often mean it to learn a skill - say, piano playing. We practise scales, etc by doing that repetitively. But doctors, lawyers, architects - and musician - etc, "practise" as they work repetitively at the same sort of tasks, and they're very skilled already while they do those tasks..

Now if you actually had the videotapes for the class, you'd find that "twiggetry" (love it!) and tapes make great bonfires. Welcome back to the Café! you made it just in time.

As you can tell, I seem to have forgotten how to type on my "newe" toy. Hey, maybe that's what I'll name this device. Nevé (as in the French pronunciation - ne-vay). Case colour is "sparkling white."