Broken Arrow

I guess I'm up. Let's go with, "I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet. A pawn and a king." Not the first line, but a pretty familiar one.

"Reach out of the darkness" or "Reach Out in the Darkness"? I never could completely understand that line. I don't know the name of the group.

I can't believe I couldn't get that one! Good job Bullwinkl!

Where does it stop, though? Too much sugar can cause diabetes, too much fat can cause heart disease. Are they going to monitor how much someone exercises? I used to be a smoker and we were not allowed to smoke in the building I worked in so we went outside by the back door. Non-smokers complained because they didn't like us all looking at them when they walked in so we had to move. Apparently some thought we looked like bunch of ruffians or something even though most of us were attorneys, bankers and other type of professionals. I mean, come on! It's one thing to ban smoking in the building, I can understand that; but ridding the area of smokers because you don't want to look at them? That's ridiculous. Like Waysider, I live in Ohio. When they first passed the no smoking law, they were planning on citing truck drivers who smoked in their cabs while driving across Ohio even if they were from another state. It's true! A commercial truck is considered a workplace, and the new law said that you couldn't smoke in a workplace. They backed away from it. I guess it didn't fit well with their initiative to attract businesses to our state. I'm all for quitting smoking believe me. What I'm against is this paternal, self-righteous attitude on the part of the government and others. By the way, I smoked for about 30 years. Most of that time I was trying to quit. Then one day my heart stopped beating while I was taking a stress test at the doctor's office. I flatlined for 15 seconds and came out of it. I was rushed to the emergency room and eventually was given a pacemaker and sent home. In rare cases patients with new pacemakers may develop a condition called "pericarditis". That is when fluid builds up around the heart and causes pressure. It is very uncomfortable and you become winded with very little activity. Well, guess what? I'm rare! Back to the hospital I went this time in a heck of a lot of pain. They gave me morphine and I said, "God bless the man that invented morphine!" I felt better, soon I felt pretty damn happy...they wouldn't give me any more morphine. I guess I was having way too good of a time so they opted for extra-stength Tylenol...no more fun. Anyway, they put me in a room and that is when I really realized the limits of my own mortality and that some day I would leave this material world. So, as I lie there on the bed staring at the ceiling tile I said a prayer and the prayer was, "This sucks, and I don't ever want to go through this again! So, I quit smoking and that was in February 2005. It's still amazing to me how the human brain works. , I smoked for about 30 years. But when faced with the reality of out of control suffering I had no problem quitting. Any time a thought would come in to smoke I would almost laugh and say, "Yeah, right! Like I want to go through all that again!" Someone who is into Neuro Linguistic Programming would call that "dropping an anchor". That is where the memory of an event or experience trumps a negative habit and/or begins a new, more positive habit. Why couldn't I quit 20 years ago? I guess because nothing happened that was painful enough to counteract the pleasure of my bad habit of smoking. Still, I think it is possible to quit prior to having to go through an experience like mine. If somehow one could connect with the dangers of smoking emotionally as well as mentally, I think the chances of successfully quitting would be greater. I'm not an expert, this is just my own experience. So, if you're someone who is trying to quit smoking let me just say to never give up on quitting. It can be done and you are not alone. Shalom

No! I realized that I was actually going to have to think Seriously, I just kind of got busy and kept telling myself I'd get around to it later. Heck, I thought that was just a few weeks ago, it was December?

What does "operant conditioning" mean? I realize it's probably an entire discipline in itself. I just want to get a general idea of what you're referring to if you don't mind.

"Volunteers of America" by Jefferson Airplane?

Ah yes, Noah! Now there was a guy who really knew how to water ski!

Thank you Soul Searcher. Yes, things did get better over time. There were several events that took place over many years that showed me that the TWI leadership is and was much less than credible. I can't possibly delineate all of that here. It would just take up too much space. But I appreciate your interest. You're right, the POP paper was the beginning of the end. :) Good insight, my friend! And no, if you were referring to me, you haven't ruined my "trip".

I think it may have only seemed that way because it was just a rambling bunch of self-serving crap. Here you'd been around since '72, practically one of the "originals" in your area, and this was hidden from you. How pathetically sad, I guess. Then again, maybe you were lucky, I dunno.

I am impressed! I don't think I would use the word "ancient", however. Perhaps "classic" or "aged", but certainly not "ancient".

Skyrider, for me everything applies on your list except #1. At the time I didn't believe any of the lockbox stuff that was leaking out. I was shocked beyond belief by the POP paper. I got "in" at 17 in 1974. I just thought these guys were all above reproach. I believed that the top leadership operated by revelation and decisions made were unquestionably God's will. I thought the doctrine TWI taught was perfect, the greatest teaching of God's Word since the 1st century. There were no doubts in me. I had committed by entire life, future, and career on "moving the Word" which meant serving the Way International. There was no other purpose for me, and I believed no higher calling. When I heard about the paper, and then heard the paper read, I was just shocked. Is it possible I could have actually been wrong and the critics were right? I just couldn't stomach the possibility that I had built my entire life on a hollow lie. I went through quite a crisis over this. To make matters worse, I also developed cancer and I ignored the symptoms for so long that I ended up in stage 2. So I was haunted with questions about how I, a Way Corps grad, could have let myself develop cancer. Where was my believing? Wasn't cancer a devil spirit? What kind of a person am I if I opened myself up to devil spirit possession? How could I expect to lead God's people. I had just spent 3 years of my life in a training program, another 3 years on the field and now I have cancer? Does that mean I can't lead now? With the POP paper, is there even a ministry to lead in? If not, where do I go now? If it's not TWI leadership, what do I do now? I also had a newborn baby at the time and wondered how I was going to take care of a family since I kept quitting my jobs to attend Corps Week and ROA, so I could "stand" with the Man of God. So yeah, it rocked my world quite a bit. Every part of my world. I'm thankful I got out when I did because from what I've heard it got a lot worse.

TWI won't even be a blip on the radar screen in 20 years much less in 1,000. Were you "out" by then, or was it all just kept from you? I'm just curious.

Yeah, well you're right, and I accept your "Pffft". I don't know your identity but I could have just as easily been one of those egotistical pharasaical numbskulls who judged people's spirituality by the color of their nametag. I was very elitist and that was, well, evil quite frankly. So, on behalf of all the elitist pharasaical, egotistical numbskull snobs who devalued you, I apologize. A watchman? Yeah right! Watching to see how I could progress up the TWI ladder. I would like to think I've changed.

Good point...I was thinking more in terms of mental aptitude. However, it occurs to me that I'm being disrespectful to ol' Kermit and Big Bird. I therefore withdraw their nominations with apologies to the Children's Television Workship and the Muppets.

Maybe your browser has been hijacked. That happened to me once. I had a tech guy talk me through shutting mine down and installing a new one. It's a thought anyway.

I seem to vaguely recall him maybe doing it once at a Rock of Ages. Someone else posting here would have heard it too if I did. Then again, maybe he had just had a shot of drambuie and he was saying something in German. Then, just like Jackie Gleason he went...WHOOOOOAAA! By the way, it seemed to me that when he spoke in tongues in the class, he was saying the same thing over again. "Lo shanta, ala ma seeta...etc. Gosh, I hope I didn't spell anything wrong in that last sentence.

I've got Stacy Keach playing VP. I can't decide between Craig T. Nelson, Dan Akroyd, Big Bird, or Kermit the Frog for LCM. We would need a stand-in double for scenes from Athletes of the Spirit and that would be Mikhail Borishnikov (sp?). Then again, Dan Akroyd would make a Good Walter C. I think Woody Harrelson would be better cast as JAL. Gene Hackman would play Geer because he is so good at playing a Pompous a$$.

Me too. I think it's because the '89 purge dwarfed them all...at least in my tenure. April '89 LCM sent out the "Who do you stand with" letter. Personally I think he planned the whole thing right after POP was read. LCM began coordinating the Corps in '86 when the paper was read. In 1989 when his letter was sent, that Corps was graduating. They had pretty much been under his thumb for the past 3 years. The only people that were left were those he knew he could trust. So when people either quit or were dismissed he could replace them with his own indoctrinated people. I dunno...just a thought. Maybe he wasn't really smart enough to think all that through.

All hail the almighty class!! Still hot today, eh? TWI must be hiding their numbers.

You can get shot for doing that in Cleveland! That person owes you their life! :B)

I don't recall an exodus in '82-'83. Then again, I was in residence Corps and not exactly in touch with what was going on out in "the field". I do recall that LCM decided that it was Biblical to start naming names of those who were causing division and to avoid them. Like the "shun list" when you were in middle school. At that same time LCM stepped up his anti-homosexual rhetoric. Remember when he had an album released by Tom B^rke, "Mama's Don't Your Babies Grow Up to Be Homos"? A parody of a song by Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. That came out around that same time. But even prior to that, the line was that homosexuality was the "next worst thing to be born of the Devil's Seed." Whatever that means. At least that's what I heard in my cirlces. LCM just took that to a higher level saying things to the Corps like, "We're going to find you out! Blah, blah blah".

Didn't VP recant on this teaching near the end of his life? I heard it was when they were doing the Aramaic Concordance it became evident that "Eli, Eli,...etc." was a question or something like that and that VP said it should be rendered, "Why was I spared?" Now, I'm just going off memory...I could have this completely wrong, but supposidely he said that at (yet another) life PFAL class in Gunnison shortly before the end of his life.

I was in residence at Emporia 75/76 prior to PFAL '77. While H.E. Wierwille would say the new class would replace the '67 version, later in the year Bob W. made a public announcement that it would not. So, going into PFAL '77 it was already decided it would not be a replacement. The reason given, and I'm not saying it's true, was that it was believed they already had something that worked well (in the '67 class) so it wouldn't be prudent to replace it. AFter PFAL '77 at a "Day in the Word", VP mentioned that he didn't think he had the discipline to do another class and that it was hard work. He really did say that in public even, I'm not making that up. If I'm not mistaken I think I remember him saying he wasn't sure if he had the stamina to do it again either. That second statment I'm not completely sure about. I vividly recall the first one, however.

However, as you heard, that was coupled with "The Word is over The World!" I must've been in serious denial! I was there and I do not remember that! My brain must've just said, "He didn't really say that, no way." 1985 itself was a big deal, when vpw died. A number of people honestly expected Jesus Christ to return during victor paul wierwille's lifetime. That was because VP told people he believed Jesus Christ would return in his lifetime. Since he was "The Man of God", he must have had some unique spiritual insight. After all, God did make it snow for him, right?