rascal

Well if it wasn`t considered adultery for David to have been with Bathsheba, I don`t think that he would have worked so hard to cover his action. I don`t think God would have gone to the trouble of sending a prophet to straighten him out. Sounds like that dictionary of jewish lore is still trying to make David look good. Thing is...according to twi teachings David was not born again, not of the spirit. That is why they needed prophets and direct intervention from God. As a supposed man of the spirit, wierwille should have been WAY above this sort of thing. A man filled with the spirit of God just wouldn`t have done these things.

Thank you Thomas.

It is more than JUST a message board, friend. Maybe that is why you *don`t get it* ...yet! :)

I have been thinking about this today while I worked. I kept thinking of my wow sister, a vivacious, pretty girl. I read about her after our wow year. How she was promiscuous. The guy telling the story seemed to think it was all good. What these guys who were passing her around didn`t realize was that she had been raped since child hood. She didn`t need more guys just using her and moving on. What she needed was kindness and compassion, She was hurt and needed to be healed...she needed her brothers in christ to love her with the love of God and help her to heal....not to be used yet again. I heard later that she ended up institutionalized. Now...back to the person that we are discussing on this thread..... The thing is...this poor girl looked to vp for the *answers* that he claimed that he could give. How desperately must she have wanted to believe that he could provide what he promised. How must she have yearned for peace...to believe that if she followed his instructions that she could have all of the answers that she was desperately seeking. No young woman with healthy self esteem wants to be an old mans play thing to be used and passed around to his buddies. Even if she were willing, even if no drugs were involved, I don`t care if she was doing back flips naked across the lawn.....wierwille had a responsibility as her pastor to take care of her, to recognize her vulnerability and to minister to her needs...NOT to use her for his selfish needs and destroy what little was left in her to hope. He killed her, and then needed to make her look bad ... so it would minimalise his guilt and culpability.

I think there is culpability in the fact that we were promised all the answeres to life and Godliness if we just followed their teachings and formulas....but when it came to real life and real problems...when the promises didn`t work...the person who was suffering, depending on those answers for deliverance were left high and dry. My tc and friend was despondent after losing his wife and the ministry seemingly going down the toilet...He was just expected to suck it up and renew his mind. Everybody refused to heed the warning signs...nobody got involved. He died :( I think that when you promise people all the answers in return for a life time commitment, you damned well better have some.

Well your comment in the other thread about not knowing what goes through a persons mind that commits suicide would certainly lead one to believe that was the case. I don`t give any credence to a man whom claims that suicide is narcissistic and selfish...shrug My personal experience is all I can go on to understand what would drive a person to the point where they felt suicide was the only option in twi, and quite somply that is at odds with this mans statement. A 13 year old little girl that was in our last theatre production killed herself a couple of weeks ago. All who knew her are at a loss as to understand why she would feel this was her best option, I seriously doubt at 13 it was narcissism and selfishness driving her.

Thanks Ham, I read you completely wrong and am perhaps feeling a bit defensive. Thanks for clarifying.... You are right...when you are beaten down to the point that you don`t have the strength to fight back any more...that IS weak...that is when you need your minister the most, your friends your family. Kind of like if you were drowning, a life guard to help you fight your way back to the shore, to support your weakened body back to the safety of dry land where you could recuperate. A safe place to rest, to regain your strength and heal. To one day enter the water again to swim again with confidence and vigor. Not only did our *life guards* in twi...those who were given the responsibility to over see and protect those swimmers under their care turn their backs when the cry for help came, not only did they refuse to assume their responsibility and go out into the surf to rescue the floundering soul, not to even mention bothering to toss a freaking life ring in the direction of the person drowning.......Even worse than turning their backs on the one suffering....sometimes, those heartless bastards boarded a boat and rowed out to the exhausted spent person and went so far as to place their stinking foot on the head of the one struggling with arm outreached to their rescuer beseaching for help.... and shoved them under....All the while looking the drowning person in the eye, watching callously as they slipped beneith the waves. I don`t have enough words to express the contempt I feel for these posers, these men who claimed to be God`s representatives, who claimed to have all the answeres to life and Godliness, who accepted the position and trust as a minister of God`s people...to represent ones self as speaking for God.... and to then to separate them from the very source that might have helped. Nearly as contemptible in my book, is blaming these poor people who suffered the ultimate betrayal at the hands of pretenders as God`s representatives for being driven to the point of hopelessness and suffering that would make suicide seem their only alternative :(

Oldies, my original comment was about the person that you quoted, and the (to me) obvious lack of understanding. I assumed you were THEN making it about yourself by calling me a liar with the assumption that I was talking about you...shrug. You commented that I was a liar because you yourself had indeed been to that point of of hopelessness and pain that would drive a person to commit suicide.....I thought that comment appeared to be at odds with your comment on the other thread.

(((Bow))) I am sorry about your Mom. You are an awsomly strong woman with a huge heart to love and forgive. Watered Garden, I am sorry for what you suffered. Nobody can understand the depths of despair when one feels when convinced that they are so spiritually depraved that they cannot even turn to God. Nice guys these leaders whom managed to convince those they were responsible to teach that not even a compassionate God almighty could possibly care for them :(

Ham, I don`t think that any whom were *weak* ...not when they were driven to that point by those in whom they relied upon to help them grow spiritually. It takes some serious beating down, some serious pain and helplessness, a feeling that there are no other options...What can one do when told by their spiritual leader that they are a stench in God`s nopstrils? Who can one turn to if family and friends and now it appears even God is disgusted and ashamed of you. When your presence poses a threat to the health and well being of all that you love? I don`t like referring to this as being *weak*.

This quote from the Sandra Ann Sulivan thread by you would lead me to believe that you haven`t. *All that goes on in a persons mind before committing suicide, I don't know* I don`t think that you could and make the comments that you do concerning those whom were pushed to that extreme. That isn`t a lie, that is my opinion. Please retract your accusation.

Well...and yet even a 3rd option would be that oldies was quoting a source and I was commenting as to the originator of the comment being quoted. I suppose if oldies is of the same view as the fellow he was quoting, that he could interpret the comment made about his source as directed at himself. That would not be accurate though. Maybe you should retract the comment about me lying friend.

It takes compassion to understand Oldies. I`ll tell you something else too. That sense of self loathing stays with you. I remember the first time that I wrote about this incident...it was 20 years later and the shame, the anxiety returned full force. I re read my then post and felt that I STILL needed to justify, still needed to convince people that I wasn`t possessed, that the woman was just a bitch, still afraid...ashamed...worried that someone reading would smack their head and say *DAMN so that`s why Rascal is such a pia...that tc probably knew what she was talking about*....sigh This stuff is awful when the people we have been taught to revere and regard as God`s spokesmen condemn and destroy. I`ll not hear of blaming the victim of abuse who has been driven to the point of helplessness and pain that suicide is the only option :(

Spoken truly as someone who has never felt that level of hopelessness and pain. I remember when I was pushed to the brink myself.... I remember thinking when the tc`s wife declared me possessed....I was terrified, I was disgusted that I could be filled with such evil, I felt like I was carrying a disgusting disease that I could pass on...I was so ashamed ...completely bewildered ..not understanding how it could have happened ...not knowing how to fix it...Who could I go to? How could I admit to my depraved condition....How ashamed I was to have let down the wonderful loving believers whom had nurtured and believed in me...What if I infected a fellow believer...I was filled with a self loathing and shame that is unfathomable to any who have not been driven to that place. I parked at the banks of the red river and contemplated driving in....NOT out of selfishness...NOT out of narcissism....but out of a sense of utter and complete hopelessness...a feeling of no where to turn...no way to fix it... I felt that I was a danger to any whom I came in contact with in my spiritually depraved state. Better to kill myself than infect someone I loved with a devil spirit :( It is a dark dark place...to be driven there by those whom you trust to guide you spiritually, those in whom you have been taught to obey implicitly.... those who claimed that their view was God`s....is unconscionable. I think that is why reading of these suicides affect me so profoundly.... I came within an eye lash myself... anybody who hasn`t been there..... staring down into that dark abyss ...it`s a pain that one can never understand. The leaders whom promised to guide us ...who then savagely destroyed every bit of self worth and declared us a stench in the nostrils of God....those whom convinced us that that the world would be safer without our presence ... those who drove us so low that we didn`t even dare to turn to God for help....are as damnably culpable as if they pulled the trigger on the gun.

He was her minister, he was her employer, he was her abuser. Poor lonely girl. Where do you turn?

THAT is despicable bnis. It was vindictive and cruel. I didn`t know about that poor girl :(

Yup Waysider...Annanias and Saphira were trotted out as the consequences for breaking ones word to God...lying...if one found themselves wanting to leave the way corpes.... The fear of losing God`s love and protection were the weapons used to ensure compliance. The threat of physical harm is easy to face...the thought of being a dissapointment to God...of having to live life without him???? Unthinkable Peter walking on the water was the example used to show what happened when you obeyed your leaders orders without thought....his sinking when he allowed his 5 senses to distract him from his leaders orders.... The promise of seeing a miracle for obedience to our leaders was dangled as a carrot before us...with the threat of losing our blessing and sinking the goad that prompted us from behind to ensure implicit obedience. Is Donna Martindales tirade against Art Poling when he lost his daughter in an air plane wreck still around here? To say that anybody besides yourself stayed through the horrendous abuse because we liked it or felt it beneficial oldies, is a rediculous assumption on your part...to assign this motive to others is mere speculation and not very honest.

Oh Wow highway...that is an amazing comparison...and man am I sorry about your friend. I am reminded of that verse in proverbs about *in vain is the snare set in sight of the prey* It`s like you said ...the mask hides the person inside....the woman would never have fallen for the fella as he really was.....he had to create a persona that would attract her and disguise his true nature. In twi, it was the scriptures that disguised the snare....that hid the deceitful practices of vpw and the people that he taught. It HAS to look good in order to disarms ones suspicions, to get someone to lower their guard...the bait HAS to be enticing in order to lure the prey into the trap.. the predator has to be disguised in order to get close enough to strike....otherwise the prey sees the danger and escapes. I think that it is like oak said, whenever we got into twi...that was when it was *good* and got messed up from there. When we were newbies and being undershepherded, we were being loved and nurtured, the true nature of twi was kept carefully hidden for when we would be older and spiritualy mature enough to handle it.

No comparison??? Beheading for refusal.......Being out from the protection of God denied the fellowship of the family...spiritual death to be followed by physical death for refusal....either way...the person thinks that they are going to die....so yeah, I`d say that the comparison is quite valid. Throw in drugging courtesy of the mog when refused...and that is as forceful as the women whom were dragged off at sword or spear point by the guards.... It is barbaric and cruel, and in either case left the woman without option. In wierwilles case, all the more so because he masqueraded as a minister, and contrary to all rules of decency, character and morality, NOT to mention laws of THIS country in the 1980`s. What a creep.

So many people never knew about the *secret* doctrines until they found themselves in leaderships cross hairs. I spoke with one woman who as a new corpes, was being groomed by her tc, her work coordinator, the people who surrounded themselves around her. She never dreamed that all of the teachings about serving, and meeting the man of God`s needs, all parts of the body being the same, no condemnation etc...was in sexual context. She was mortified to find herself in the mog`s presence with one of her boss` expected to preform in a threesome. Same with forced abortions...or the corpes app was an unbreakable commitment to God, Most didn`t know about the teachings until they were faced with trying to leave. Most didn`t know ... I Have said it before.... If the green card had said that in enrolling in this class one would be expected to give 15 percent of their income for the rest of their lives, submit to any bozo higher on the twi leader than they were, allow them access to ones finances and personal information, be required to allow their children to be abused, if attractive service any mog that took a fancy and abort any embarrassing little repercussions. We`d have run for our lives. Damned right there was a secret agenda. We would have run for our lives.

Pretty easy to be an arm chair quarterback a couple of decades after the fact, estimated prophet...sheeshe.... Seems to me that Mr. D was one of a tiny few with head and heart uncontaminated by vp`s doctrine to number one RECOGNIZE the hypocracy and harm being caused to people, but also the COURAGE to stand up and take action. When the people confronted wouldn`t turn from the evil...he spent the next couple years of his life shouting from the roof tops to anyone who would listen. Geeze, if you didn`t recognise Jesus Christ working in the heart and behind the actions of this man to lead people out of harms way throughout this entire narrative.....I guess that you just weren`t looking, pal.

Dot, My father lost his wife in his late 60s. He kind of figured his life was done, his course was set, that he had experienced it all. Well guess what? He found the absolute love of his life! They fell head over heals in love, every day is better than the last. They have fun if they are gardening, if they are doing the dishes, or on one of the many many trips that they take. He and his now beloved wife both assumed that their lives were complete....never in their wildest dreams did they ever suspect that the best was yet to come...that everything that led up to this point was a pale comparison to the life which they now lead. They are on a get away weekend for their 5th anniversary as a type :) I can only say, don`t give up, that there might very well be a happy ending around the corner....we just can`t give give up...ok? Please don`t smack me for being too optimistic, ok? I just thought it might help to know that nothing is set in stone..

(((Pawtucket))) Thank you seems hardly adequate. How does one express their appreciation for the light shined that draws one back to reality. The instrument through which one is able to reclaim ones own thought processes..that helps us recover to the point where we could again resume our journey...the return to ones actual true self? How can I possibly express my gratitude, my indebtedness for providing the medium that played such a huge roll in not only helping me find *me* and my *voice*, but the courage to express it for the first time in decades? How does one thank the person that has sacrificed their time, finances, and peace of mind to provide a haven for so many, many people needing a safe place to decompress and examine ones self, ones beliefs, ones perception of the very universe...a safe haven to recover from destructive thought processes? I can`t Paw, I can`t offer adequate recompense, I can`t ease your burden, I can`t communicate how grateful I am, or express the impact of personal healing and growth that I have experienced participating here, or how in healing, in growing to be a stronger individual, that has helped me to be a better person, a better wife, and a better mother to my children. I can only humbly thank God for what your efforts have accomplished....for what you have provided for so many thousands of to you nameless faces...for the positive impact that greasespot has had in our recovery processes, and hope that he in turn can provide for you, as he has done for so many of us through your efforts here. Thank you Pawtucket, and all whom have given of themselves to keep grease spot up and running. Cathy

Sorry, I am done.