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I restated my question in another post here. I'm just looking for a simple answer as to what they said about what they were doing, but I get what you're saying. PEACE!

Thanks! So - I'm just trying to get the difference and how it would have been communicated. Word Over the World meant go tell new people, start local fellowships, run classes - that I know and was part of. The Prevailing Word under Craig's reign was......an emphasis on those already in the Way's group.......? and less on getting "new peeps"? And then after Craig got fired it went ... back to .... a form of getting new people again? I'm curious because of the "apparent' contradiction that those who were involved throughout all those periods would have had to deal with - one day, we're gettin' the Word Over the World, go tell someone new that hasn't heard.......then the next day, it's done, the Word Got Over The World and Now We Need to See It Prevail......then the next day, no, it still needs to prevail but we need to go back out and tell new people.........was there any additional explanation of how that was working? Or did they just do it and not really explain it? What I heard from a tape many years ago, that someone sent me a sound bite off of was of Craig teaching one night and saying he believed everyone in the world had had a chance to believe if they were going to believe - God had revealed to him that there was no longer a need to keep trying to reach new people, rather, start working on those who had..."believed"....ie, were grads of PFAL and that also meant a reset, with a new "class", etc. I'm not trying to make sense of it or even understand a biblical or philosophical basis for the flow of madness, just trying to clarify what happened and what was said about it. Any insights are appreciated as I realize this will give me a new appreciation for what those who left recently bought into and supported.

This all reminds me of how it was going when we were there..and the over flow of people showing up for SNS - I remember some of the back trailers could dial in and get a SNS feed using...I think it was through the phones....? and say, while the Children's Fellowship was going, they could get the service there....does that ring a bell? {that was after they got electrical and water ran to them finally) I remember some discussion around getting it to the trailers because in that era before the other buildings went up the BRC was getting packed upstairs and down and using the trailers made sense, especially during the winter months. There was push back though and it never got done on a universal scale at that time, but then it seems like I heard they eventually set it up so that the trailers had the capability to get the meetings held up in the BRC. Ring any bells?

Gene Side question - this guy who just got the boot made me think.... The Way had "Word Over the World" at one time. Then I read later that Craig Martindale decided that they'd achieved that and he set a different goal for the Way's efforts. I never ready anywhere how that was dealt with after he was terminated....what are they doing now, or trying to do in regards to that goal? .......did the Way decide the Word wasn't over the world and went back to work on that? Or is it something else? I also caught a shift into "discipleship"....did that factor into this? I'm just curious how they explain away all of this, not so much if it's right or wrong, etc. T'anks!

I think .... and I don't mean to insult any of them - but I really do think that those who chose to embed themselves in Way culture and work on the "business/ministry" side of the Way for all these years aren't real high achievers, they're not the "A" types they portray themselves out to be nor the real helpful servants that ministerial and pastors pursuits in the church tend to produce. I knew several Corps who saw the exodus in the 80's as an opening up of higher level positions in the Way Tree and on staff and jumped at the chance to "go full time" - before LCM's disastrous buy-out of all the Way Corps grads to paid staff status. Those people were more than happy to step in and take over whatever the new program was going forward - and some of them were happy to be the hit-men and ball busters for any program requirements that Craig instituted. They want along as long as they could and I know a couple that are still onboard. And there's probably a lot more like that from what I've heard - perfectly happy to see Corps leave or get fired and then take their jobs over. Guys like Harve - Ex-Mrs Weirwilles escort? ..... I first met him in '74 when he came into the Way farm for the "Word in Music" week conference we held, a Way Productions effort a la Summer School programs. He was a recent PFAL grad, and I can honestly say he went a different route, very deliberately, to get ahead in the Way. Not the sharpest knife, to be kind but he chose where to put his blade, so to speak. All that Way-For stuff, that's not real high level achievement or great, strong character - it's Peter Principle stuff, the Dilbert mentality, but without any real professional, academic or usable talent or skill beyond doing whatever you're told to do and nothing more or less. So yeah - they'll be unemployable to be sure but they'll find a way to make a buck or get along........which is what it was all about for some of them anyway.....there's a few in operations sides of things who know what they're doing, from what I can tell by my sources but on the business side of the Way - there's a lot of under achievers who are warming the bench and collecting a pay check, such as it is.

Oh, the shifting bucket of sludge the Way puts out....bored of directors? How could they not be, reshuffling that deck's got to be getting pretty weird. On this general topic I was chatting with someone about some other stuff, of companies and corporate cultures we'd been part of and I remembered how ungracious the Way Nash could be, as both an organization and a culture. VP would bend over sideways to try and establish some kind of formal "this is how it's done in pro circles" protocol and get everyone hopping and skipping to get everything "right" and just - so......while keeping his good ol' boy outlaw preacher-on-a-Harley personae, pastor with a dog and a yippidee ky yae tip to his JohnDeere cap. And then he'd end up publicly ridiculing someone for the slightest mistake, perceived or real, and embarrassing everyone involved. The man could take the simplest, most elegantly simple thing and make it a shit fest of blame and paranoia. People who want to follow his every utterance today forget that or excuse it, with a "but he just did that because he loved us", or "he just cared about the Word so much he cared enough to" blah blah blah. They don't credit how much patience, love, care and intelligence it takes to maintain an even keel and patiently guide and support people we care about. I've had to separate the Word, the life's lessons and the unadulterated bulls h it from each other. I guess I just get a kick out of the fact that they're still playing musical chairs back there.

It's like that old analogy of the bucket of crabs all trying to get out, "crab mentality ... a metaphor derived from a pattern of behavior noted in crabs when they are trapped in a bucket. While any one crab could easily escape, its efforts will be undermined by others, ensuring the group's collective demise." (wikipedia) Crab's on the barb-bee!

Hi, I'm just poking around and saw this - I first met Geer in 1971, in New York, spent a couple weeks there, during which I spent a few days in and out of his house, or the house where he was staying, I can't quite remember. It was a big house, I remember that and he was living there. Long story short - it caught my eye that you said Geer had Mexican cartel connections??? - mostly because the Mexican cartels weren't built on drug trade and all that Holly-weird stuff we've seen in movies and TV about tons of weed and cocaine and all that didn't really kick in for Mexican crime family/syndicates until the 80's. That doesn't say there wasn't strong border activity then, and being on the east coast it would have been making it's way up the coast. But Geer was a kid, and not exactly a hard ass. Now, I want to be clear - I'm not speaking for or against any others in or out of any drug business that would have been involved and as far as I'm concerned, it's so long ago as to be of no consequence to me - so - just to be clear, I'm just saying I don't think he COULD have been involved in anything like that. Geer was a special kind of thick, and could be a hard case in Way World but he would not have done well in that world. If he was I'd be really really surprised. Wouldn't be the first time today though, hey?

Okay “guys”, have fun! Reality calls! peace!

I missed this first time around - I use a range of tools for study. Versions of the Bible - print = KJV, ASV, Amplified, Bullinger's Companion Bible (mostly for referencing the structure schematas) I have a few others I don't use as much. Digital - several as part of some software I use, including KJV, ASV, Amplified and a few others. I've been getting into the biblical greek and hebrew study since about 1970 and have done some course work in it since the WC 4, where I was introduced to the basics of it through some class work given by Walter Cummins of the Way Nash. I came into that program pretty versed in Bullinger's "how to enjoy the bible" regimen that encouraged reading it, and using basic tools to read and study with - Young's and Strong's concordance, as well as the usual basic historical and geographical over lays, I think Easton was my go to for a long time, not sure what I use now, I found that both online bible and biblegateway have a good range of resources and there's a lot of others of course. I also have an older greek interlinear bible and some other study books, I don't use them all the time or even much of the time, as I have quite a few notes on work I've done over the years. I went through a period of reading when I realized that while I said I "believed the Bible was the Word of God" I hadn't actually read it all cover to cover. I have now. So you know where I'm coming from this might help - I did a brief but tight study on John 1:1 and a series of related verses many years ago, and I used some of the work that VPW had done in his book Jesus Christ is Not God, and I did book end studies positing "He is" and "He isn't" and using the same exact material I was able to make a decent case for both sides of the argument based on the word studies. I did it at the time so I'd understand both sides of it, having been raised on Catholicism trinitarian doctrine which is mostly a theological and philosophical position and not really a doctrinal point drawn from any one part of the earliest scripture. Anyway, the basic research greek studies could go either way - understanding Jesus Christ, the Son of God and what that means is more than an exercise in language. Language is important of course - but ultimately if we're using ancient documents in ancient languages - and we are - then there will needs be translation and indeed, transliteration which will ultimately require an interpretation. Every one doing that kind of work is admonished to not make that interpretation one of their own choosing, but an interpretation will need to be made to get the message to anyone today. VPW stood staunchly against that very idea yet he did it himself in the PFAL series and he knew that of course but he rebranded his work. Once I understood that I became much less concerned about solving anyone else's problems, I focused on my own and my own understanding, to the end that hopefully I would then be better equipped to be of real service to those I speak and help. I don't believe that Jesus Christ is, literally, God, for what that's worth. But I have much better understanding now of how people both blindly accept that as well as get to that conclusion and why it would be important to them because as I'm sure we both know - our fellow man is hurting and in need of help. When people are literally saved from their worst fears and the living death this life can become through Jesus Christ, they don't need or want a dictionary to see who He is, they know exactly who He is. Anyway - file this under TMI. : ))) Short answer - a few.

I think that states my understanding and thoughts on it, from the "bottom line", WW. It would account for the shift of days over history, too. As Christianity moved away from it's "homeland" of the middle east and the roots of Jewish history and religious practice days could certainly shift, Saturday to Sunday, to Wednesday, to any day of the week for that matter. There really doesn't appear to be a clear order for the new church to maintain their past religious practices over time. I don't put a lot of weight on what they DIDN'T tell the Gentiles if the idea is they didn't because it would already be known or an assumed practice, because if they were Gentiles like ME, they wouldn't have known ANYthing about any of it. One of the things that strikes me about the way the revelation of Christ and the understanding of it developed is that it .... seems .... like it ended up requiring the passage of time and events in order for it to be fully hmmm...."realized" by the Church. I mean - while under the direct immersion of the Jewish faith, near or in Jerusalem, surrounded by history of the Jews any move into a "new" body of called out believers would naturally be influenced by the Jewish roots as you're pointing out WW. It only makes sense. Then that changed in ways that perhaps they never envisioned - Constantine converting? Roman prominence in the establishment of the new church? There were some unprecedented events that moved it away from being a persecuted cult to being essentially a state religion of Rome. Some baggage came with that and not all the changes over time were good but it DID under score the essential basics of Christ and in ways that it would have been difficult to embrace in the years or Peter and Paul. I think that adds to the incredible insight they DID get and their ability to change according to what they believed God was showing them. Many of the things that Paul reproved and instructed the Corinthian church on correcting read very much like the kinds of things that could develop in a social and political caste system that moved away from the fundamentals.of Christ, the servant leader, Messiah and emphasized seniority, heritage, position, etc. waxit, I think you make some very good points and we'd probably meet in the middle - if you go with Saturday over Sunday there's a basis for that just as there could be for Sunday over Saturday. Whatever the Jewish history was would certainly have a place of prominence because it's the history up until Christ. The coming of the Messiah formed a new era, one that was not anticipated as it came to be in the form of the "church" of the called out followers of Jesus Christ.

Hi - thanks. 1. Fulfilled, and as it is said, a new covenant required a new priest. Matthew 5:17–18 - Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 2 Corinthians 1:20 - For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. Romans 10:4 - For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. And of course as Hebrews covers - 9:12 - He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.....and....7:23–24, The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. 2. No. In Acts 15 they essentially came up with a compromise of sorts for the Church, a determination that freed Gentiles from needing to observe the Law, going forward. It was their decision as to how to proceed and for them it left the topic of the church as a whole and specifically Jews still under discussion. In the teaching of the epistles however we see that there was - is - neither Jew nor Gentile and all believers in the faith are part of the same body and have the same Lord, Jesus Christ. So today there are not separate rules for each - 's'all one Church. My point in bringing that into the discussion is that it makes it easier to see what was really going on and to see the struggle they had in learning and accepting it, in a very human way that I get because by the Old Covenant I AM A GENTILE, and coming into the Christian faith in Jesus Christ I have none of the Jewish religion that I observe, just as Gentiles then didn't either.....so I wouldn't automatically assume any of it because I'd have to be taught it first. They recognized NOT to do that, and in time learned it applied to them also - one God, one Lord, one Body, and one salvation in Christ. Again, its just an easy way to understand the doctrine of the NT if I put myself into their shoes and nothing does that better than seeing the two groups of Jew and Gentile - one is God's called nation of people and - the other is "everyone else". I am in fact a Gentile from that viewpoint. But not in the "New covenant" of Jesus Christ through which all become one body, one Church, one group of called out people's. And in that new covenant Jesus Christ does not require me to be circumcised (although I am in heart separated and cleansed in this "new man" of Christ), or to tithe to the temple (although I can give and share freely of all that I am and have, in recognition of God's grace towards me) or to observe the Sabbath as a required day of "rest" and devotion (although I can now devote all my time and life, and everything I do, to God through Jesus Christ, "lord of the Sabbath") Sunday? Saturday? Hell, I was raised Catholic, pick one, I can do one day a week with a bunch of convoluted exceptions and work arounds, standing up, that's easy time. In Christ, I'm on the clock 7 days a week, forever. I set aside time everyday for prayer, meditation, devotion. I need it. Charitable giving, on call service ministering - cell's off the hook now. I've gone from death to life, from condemned to celebrated son. I'm in the family business now and it's personal AND it's business. It's a way of life. ----------------------- Based on the revelation of Peter, Paul, the witness of others at the council and the reminding of the O.T. promise of the Gentiles becoming part of God's people, it became very clear to them that Gentiles were receiving salvation through faith in Jesus Christ without any observance of the Law, and certainly circumcision which had brought the issue to a head and led to their meeting to discuss. This clarifies all of the practices of the Law - if I were a Gentile at that time, it would not have meant I would STOP doing some or all of the Law (because I wouldn't have been observing any of it, not being Jewish), it would have meant I wouldn't START doing ANY of it. The few things they did cite in their letter to the Church at that time appears to basically be a call out to the pre-Mosaic law "laws" or standards of Gods', and there's clearly no tie in to the role of such things being a part of the "new" faith, rather the inference that they are a reflection of their new lives, in Christ. I do think that gives a logical foundation for what I read later in Paul's epistles, that the spirit of God was leading them to understand the long arc of history. The decision of Acts 15 reflects a thoughtful Church leadership and growing members who were balancing between the old and the new - some had known Jesus face to face, followed Him, heard Him, knew Him. Others had heard the testimony of those people and then others and believed. Others like Paul had their own direct receipt of the message of Christ. All of the original group and the first generations of converts were Jewish - and now they see the message expanding out by God's direction and revelation. From my perspective today, it would seem reasonable in the narrative of Acts that the experience of Pentecost ushers in the "new covenant" of Christ in dramatic fashion and it grows from there. What it meant appears to have been a rolling out of their own knowledge, awareness and understanding.

PEACE man! Thanks.

Thanks, and to clarify - I don't think there's a contradiction and that may be your point, but to be sure - they're not in conflict. Breaking it down - - Galatians 3:28 - There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. - Ephesians 2 - (the "new man in Christ" and the body/church of God isn't an expanded Israel, it's a new entity of both "Jew and Gentile") 11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens,[d] but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by[e] the Spirit. - if I had been a Gentile in the era of Acts 15, I would not have been asked to dive in and learn and observe the laws and rites of the Jews. I would have been instructed to NOT do that, and given direction to line up with the earliest "laws of Noah" and give or take - live in peace while knowing that anything and everything I might want to know about Moses and the teachings of the Law was more than available pretty much everywhere there were Jews. - If i'd been a Jew OR a Gentile at and following the time the epistles were written I'd have gotten essentially the same message but with a GREAT DEAL of additional detail being taught as it was revealed and understood by the writers, none of which steers me to adopt the practices and traditions of the earlier Jews. - Paul never addresses any kind of apparent contradiction in a way that makes me the reader feel like...hey....I should be learning how to be a good Jew....shouldn't I?....so I can be a good follower of Jesus Christ....? ... don't I need to decide which day to observe the Sabbath?....don't I need to decide how I'm going to cleanse myself and my house through my tithes and offerings....?..............Rather he teaches the joining of Jew and Gentile and all mankind from God through Christ into a new body of people. It's not just an emotional change or a strictly academic change, although both are involved - it's a basic, fundamental change in how my relationship with God and Christ is to be conducted. EVERYTHING I do has to reflect the greater "spiritual realities" if they're to be valid - no building or artifice in which God dwells or meets with me, rather a living tabernacle in a living temple...................no offering of the life of an animal through it's blood sacrifice - rather a trust in the sacrifice of the life of Christ and my offering of my own life through that, to God, for my wholeness. - It appears obvious but I think a re reading of Acts, Romans, Galatans and Ephesians specifically point to the grave concerns that Paul DID have - that the simple message of Jesus Christ and salvation by faith, not works, and the new Church of and in Christ ,could be easily diluted and changed....so much to the point that when push ever came to shove he didn't want to break the church up over arguments of do-this-or-do-that, he wanted us to remember the "higher ground" of our faith in Christ alone. PEACE.

Hi - here's my thoughts on the topic - going back to Acts 15 and the first Church "Council" of Jerusalem the leaders that met in Jerusalem discussed the expansion of the church to Gentiles, and exactly what their obligations and responsibilities were in the faith. They very deliberately carved out a place for them that did not include the circumcision nor the vast array of Mosaic laws. As to the circumcision it now makes much clearer sense than it might have to those Jews living at that time - circumcision identifies the circumcised with Israel. Salvation in Christ identifies the saved with Jesus Christ, where circumcision is truly "of the heart". That council's decision was to minimize the obligations of the Gentiles to the earliest and arguably simplest and broadest commandments of God to mankind, while letting them know that "Moses" was held forth and taught in ample supply for them to learn, should they wish to. So there's clearly - very clearly a difference being set forth between being subject to the law, "under it" and the encouragement to them of simply studying it and learning from it. (and Christ as the fulfillment of the Law for salvation applies to all) And we see throughout the New Testament writings this difference being clarified for ALL the members of the church, both Jew and Gentile - that the Law isn't a thing we can pick and choose from to keep some parts of it and not others in relation to our faith in Jesus Christ - if we keep some of it for the sake of righteousness, we are obligated to keep ALL of it and in so doing, we will negate the salvation of Christ, by grace. SO the net result of it all is simple - learning the law of Moses would have value to God's people, as both history and an understanding of God's relationship with His people but as we enter the faith, in the Church, we are no longer Jew OR Gentile, but new people in Christ and as such have this "token" of life today as the sigh of the totality of our new and future lives in eternity. This all filters down to mean less emphasis on the rites and rituals that symbolize our relationship with God and instead living a new life of total immersion, complete relationship, 24X7, forever. We're no longer limited to one day a week or a few hours in a week of communal time with our Father, we are living it and therefore any observations, rituals and traditions have to reflect that new sense of reality as part of it. The Sabbath is therefore less a matter of Sunday or Saturday, regardless of how you want to decide the day. The idea of following that pattern of devotion towards God is the important aspect of it, that in our physical lives in this day and age we set aside a time to God, to honor Him and this life keeping it mind that we are under a far greater obligation to give honor to God in everything we do, at all times, and in all ways.

Thanks, I've been working on this idea more and it really had a lot of angles and sides to it. I wrote a line in my study notes that I'm trying to flesh out more, as it seems to be a very prominent concept in the bible's storyline of people - .........."if God did only one thing, one way, all the time, we wouldn't have the universe we do............. "the more God works in each of us, the more we see the diversity of God".......(a questions then)......"if God "is" a thing, like Love, is the act of creating such diversity a reflection of His true nature then...?"........ Was thinking of the 12 tone Western music scale...and how 8 of those give us the majority of material to work from. From the basic material we have - Handel's "Messiah" Paganini's 24 Caprices Eddie Van Halen's "Eruption" Hank William's "I Saw the Light" Sarah Hale's "Mary Had a Little Lamb" Hendix's "Wind Cries Mary" And so on.... It wouldn't be sufficient to even just say they're all different. They're very different uses of the same material. And that's just music, and just a collection of audible frequencies. How much more - everything else.....? as God works in a realm above, beyond, the imagination of mankind, one of His creations..........?

The idea of a tree being a means of getting the organizational framework of the Way built was decent enough for it's own sake, and at the time VPW was surrounding himself with a bunch of barely-20-somethings but was really kind of claustrophobic to stick to, Remember "like a tree that's planted by the wa-ater, Lord, I shall not be moved!" Psalm 1:3-That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither..... THAT PERSON - it's individual. As a simile, they are LIKE that tree, planted and yielding fruit. In the Way it was all about getting, being and staying planted. Deep roots to the root, a real be-leafer. IN THE GROUP. The Treezee-ness was all about these little green leaves growing in these tender little twigs, awwww, so perdy, in these healthy branches of limbs being run by an army of entitled gardners, and all growing from THE MIGHTY ROOT! Success in the organization was to stay in the organization. That's not really what the Bible teaches at all - it's an additional layer on the Body of Christ of Ephesians and it's certainly not how ALL fruit will yield. Now that we've all grown up through and into our lives since then, I have to say in my best "oh you sure did go get yourself all smart didnya!!?" way that there's other organizational models that would work really well to serve the teaching of Ephesians. Come to think of it, I do remember VPW talking about AA, and it's history, but again not specifically referencing the Way Tree schemata. Maybe he did, he talked a lot. A lot. I checked with a couple people from my era who were around all those years before I wrote that, because I wanted to add it IF it was correct, knowing it was but I like to plan ahead. In and of itself, it is. I'm sure there are many things, many stor-eez that fill out the years of that time. Lotsa things, kids. PEACE homies! Stay fresh!!

Imagery, function, now a tree "works". It's all part of the same thing. "If you pick it, it'll bleed" - an old tip for guitarists who spend half their time twicking away all night trying to get in tune. The "truth"? Well, for those able to HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!! it's all part of that great swirling mass of scante that was.

My point in bringing this up was to at least make it part of the searchable record - what VPW said it was and where it came from. VPW did in fact say he was shown it as a revelation, while looking at the big oak tree on the property. Whether that was true or not is another topic but for me a moot point for me today. It did have a huge impact on how the Way's organization got set up after that though, at that time. He may have also talked about it being from AA, I don't remember that specifically but there's a lot I'm sure I don't, as well.

So - for those who may not know - The idea of the Way "tree" was a vision that Dr. Wierwille said God gave him about the Way Ministry, a revelation one day when he was out and about and he was looking at this big oak tree on the property. He said God revealed it to him as a way of understanding both the Way ministry's growth as well as it being a way of understanding how the Body of Christ works, as described in Ephesians. My impression from hearing VPW talk about it was that he explained it as a way to - move forward, as in, here's how we're going to set up now. I "think" it was also described as being somewhat how the Way Nash was working already in certain ways. Prior to that in 1969 and 1970/71 the fellowships in places like California were individual ministries loosely affiliated with the Way through PFAL and an interest in learning from VPW's materials. The Way Tree "revelation" was a core platform for the organization of the Way's capacity, facilities, outreach, growth and the supporting philosophy of it's business model. To me by the late 1970's there seemed to have been a progression of events that culminated with PFAL's filming and establishment as the core offering of the Way's teaching ministry operations, through to the outreach to the east and west coasts, and the Way Tree's introduction as the functional and working model for the future of the growth of the way which held the growth of the Way Corps program as the real "core" of the ministry. (I'm differentiating functional/organizational and business as - functional was how the way worked, the management and leadership structure, the Way Corps, staff, WOW programs, etc. Business is the teaching of the Bible, the classes, the products and services the functional organization delivered.) One thing that was completely absent from the Way's imagery and descriptors though was "fruit". The Way's whole thing was green - well, say green and brown, a "tree". But no fruit was used in the logo or other images in the Way's brand. I once asked a world-class marketing expert what they though of the Way's logo - the green tree thingie. I showed it to them and turned it around and upside down and they said "whoa!" - I wanted to see if they'd catch it - try turning the old green Way Tree logo upside down and you'll see it looks like a sad grimacing face, almost freddie kruger-ish. They didn't get stuck on that for long though but did note that something like a book decal or bumper sticker would be seen from different angles and that should have been considered, from a subliminal "vibe" perspective. Other than that they thought it looked pretty plain, we word-clouded it and came up with words like work, flat, cold, greenhouse..... Interestingly green is a coolish color and doesn't convey warmth. I might invoke or embed that into it by my own perception but as a color on a blank slate it's not on the warm side. No fruit though, no big red apples or oranges or sweet peaches.

On the deathiness of that death - Look at Gen 1:26 and the surrounding record. Man is made in the "image" of God, after" our likeness". Both Hebrew words have similar meanings, image being something that looks like something, a "likeness", and likeness meaning like in quality, a visible or obvious comparison that the two things are hmmmm...alike. All of the "thou shalt surely die" and die language has to match up against that then - If man is EXACTLY LIKE God in a way that makes him visibly like him and obviously fashioned like God is, then his death - well, it would be impossible. 1. God doesn't die, God is eternal. God is "life", pneuma hagion that is called out in many ways in the Bible, the "word of life", in His son WAS life, the light of men, etc. etc. 2. God's life is pneuma hagion, creates by will and produces physical things. 3. God's life is compared to many things on earth that signify abundance and uninterrupted activity - "fountain", river, etc. Man was formed from materials that already existed and "made" a living breathing thing, by God. When Christians or True Believers in any one religion separate themselves out from everyone else I see that as extreme denial of the root meaning of our humanity. That's one of the great strengths of our country's founding formal documents, knowing that all men are "created equal", and exist on a level playing field where their basic rights are self-revealing, where the essentials of our humanity can be ignored or denied but not destroyed as long as we are alive. There's a lot of other information we find out about God in the Bible's records and one of the overwhelming constants is that man describes God in very effusive, grand ways, THE grandes of ways. God is All THAT and everything we can imagine plus everything we can't plus everything else PLUS AND THEN God is greater than THAT. Etc. Etc. A lot of that is gratitude and recognition of a reliance on the benevolence of the Creator but a lot of that is also a very human effort to make sure the reader understands that the Creator is the everything of our lives, the beginning end and all in between. So it looks like we could use a simple logic method with understanding what that "death" was, a 1 + 1 + 1 kind of approach. Man didn't end physically, like "you disobeyed! Peter, you other guys! get the blueprints and coffee we're starting over! These two go in the archive!" Man's days became "numbered" though, man's physical resemblance, likeness to God ended in what way - ? .....................1 + 1 = what changed? Fast forward to the New Testament - Christ, "eternal life", the "hope", not sorrowing for those who die and knowing that in Christ's next coming will be gathering of His followers that will bring us all together under God's grace for - eternity. From a state of what - ? For many it's death, all those who "died" are dead, gone, deteriorated physically to the point there's nothing left "Like" anything else to reconstruct or rebuild. This all then goes into another host of topics but for me, the Genesis records are pretty simple to understand. There's a lot not spoken of and the idea of them being metaphorical also applies, as I get the sense that there's a LOT that doesn't get covered in the storyline, lots of detail. So yeah. PS: The idea that man "without" the spirit of God has absolutely no, zero, no "likeness" to God can't be entirely true, by simple logic. If there is no resemblance left after Adam then I can accept that yes, but it's not understandable, so I would just have to leave it stacked against other contradictory statements of truth, and set them aside as being "that way" and be done with it. I don't think that's the case here though, even though Romans 7 talks about man having "no good thing" for "to will" is present but man doesn't always do what he knows is the right thing to do - and he can't change that inherent capability to have free will choice and still make the wrong decision.....which is in fact the same condition that ADAM AND EVE WERE IN, "in the beginning"......and we generally accept that they God's holy spirit/life was in them at that time........................................................................................................................................................................so.... I would describe the "death" of Genesis as a reduction, a loss of MAN'S CAPACITY TO BE LIKE GOD AND IN HIS IMAGE.....ie, "pneuma hagion", which is eternal life "spirit". Man's capacity went from 100 per cent to 30 per cent, because he was now going to die relying on psuche/life - but it doesn't appear that a lot changed about the "man" - he knew God's will from the outset, he went against God's will at a certain point and outside of having substantially less birthday's to look forward to was very aware of what had just happened afterwards. Mankind tries to love, care, forgive, share, provide, work, earn, procreate, build, be. He also fails, errs, goes up and then down and then down again, lives in valleys when mountains are climbed, views eternity but chooses a moment of hate, day after day - We're like dented cans. We're never going to be right without the light being born again in us, without the eternal fire re lit in our souls. Even if we deny it later, once it's come and illuminated even for a moment, we remember what we saw, what we felt. The "new birth" is so much more than a certificate of completion or license to live....it's the imprint of a new reality on our souls that redefines everything. It would take a 1,000 x a 1,000 lifetimes to grow up and in and around that - an "eternity". In that way, it all makes such wonderful sense.

Nice stuff, T-Bone. Thanks for what you posted, I'll be checking it all out. I read TOOT (I like the acronym) , and moderately familiar with the track he's on. He reminds me that Bergson and Einstein were somewhat at odds - well, they were at odds by their own choice, but from my little cat perch seat I found a strong middle ground to kind of nest in. I think Rovelli's statement "we can see the world without time".....sums it all up. Its less important to me now whether or not it exists as a tangible component or artifact of life. Existence, consciousness, my self awareness is the only fork I have at the table, it's the starting point but more importantly is arguably the end point. So sure, I think therefore I am - but that's a little like asking the nail if it needs a hammer...to what and how do I pin my existence on so as to view it from another angle so that I can judge it or value it? So the measurement of life is like using a mirror - how does it look today? but the mirror isn't me, it's a reflection. Etc etc blah blah. That there "is" God and a larger reality of the pneuma is an absolute truth for me. So I never work from the position of "what if there's no god" or "maybe in this scenario I am god and I create the myths".....I get that llne of thinking and maintain several paths of inquiry that work from that kind of premise but I do that to better understand what I'm missing, what I don't see, what is still "really there" when I take everything I assume or believe away. Under it all - maybe more in it all - how to put this....? - I'm not trying to figure out what "it all is" or isn't or if there's "a God" or not anymore - my own sense of reality is of the relationship I have with God, which is very real, it's not a mental construct, or set of rules or just beliefs. Things happen in my timeline that interrupt, intersect, my perception in ways I now know aren't of my origin, aren't reflections or products of my own but are real confluences from within what I might call the 'greater reality' in which I, we all live. I could describe it easier by just saying "I am never alone", or "I am not forsaken" or even "God is always with me"....the same sentiments expressed by others in the Bible. It's not wishful thinking or a self-fulfilling declaration. So for me it's not all moot or a mental exercise or like in the past, well, I'll just study the Bible and that'll tell me everything. It doesn't - but it tells me everything it's intended to as a history of God's dealing with His creation and there are clear signposts, pointers, guidance and instruction. It is NOT everything that God has ever done or will do or can do anything else like that but it's a start in that it is mostly a statement of what HAS been and a view into what WILL be. What it really does for us is give us place from which to live and learn in our own "fleshly tables of the heart" this life we have with God and each other. My 2 cents, plus a quarter for the meter. : )

"<I mean that pretty much puts the kibosh on critical thinking. And in my opinion critical thinking is pretty much the cornerstone or foundation of how mankind still continues to fill the earth and subdue it. In my opinion asking questions...challenging ideas are all part of the critical thinking process for any discipline - theology, philosophy, the sciences. Even in matters of faith the intellect has its place.II Corinthians 5:7 says we walk by faith and not by sight. It does NOT say we walk by faith and not by reason...I go back and forth - sometimes it's faith in pursuit of reason and sometimes it's reason in the pursuit of faith. oy vey !>" That seems to be the most likely way to understand our current state and status - I was struck by the ideas of a relatively modern philosopher Henri Bergson who did a great deal of work presenting an understanding of time. He described it as duration...although human comprehension may tend to look at time as a way to measure our existence as we experience it and as a long connected stream of events, duration would be more like water. Water in a river running into another river and into an ocean that feeds the river, etc. forever, has been used as a metaphor for "time" and that's one way of understanding it - that we live and exist "in" a state of consciousness that has movement and change but primarily ENDURES and exists as it's most natural state. Things go on that can be measured but our primary means of understanding time as something that "passes" or moves in a direction is through our own physical experience....and without the faculties to remember and anticipate we would simply be in a "now" state - which by human standards wouldn't be a great existence....in fact it can then be postulated that to live in the "now" of a moment is to 1. increase our store of memories and 2. collectively build our understanding of the future. "Learning" by another word. So again, back to basics - Bergson disagreed with Einsteins definition of time as only a physical piece of existence and considered it more perceptual. Their positions most clearly clashed in the consideration of two things happening at the same time -"simultaneity".....and on a practical level I would back out of it all and just say that time is existence, measured by consciousness. If there were no self awareness there would be no concern for the idea anyway, of course. So to me, covenant and dispensational theories are somewhat similar in what they're trying to do - but without a self aware human being living and learning in it's own lifecycle they're meaningless. If I read the Bible the changes in time became self-revealing, it puts them forth in it's own story BECAUSE it's a story and not a set of measured, expected events. In "eternity" our timeline story is actually an impossibly small slice of everything that can't even be seen without getting closer to it....a year in eternity isn't even as big or as "long" as a drop of water in the ocean, .....again, back to basics - that gives a way to understand how God would view it all, much much much much much different than I would or can I have to assume because God is both eternal and now, as seen in God's interactions with humans in our history - assuming that God doesn't move in and out, further and nearer, earlier and later....then He is just "here", "now" and "forever"....and that's pretty much what the Bible tries to say about Him.

Well, my life's cause was and is as "noble" as I thought it to be. I will go to my grave saying exactly what I did and was trying to do my whole life with the message of God and Jesus Christ. I've done a lot of things, partnered with a lot of people - hell, today I pretty much did zip other than pray for some people which in and of itself is no small thing, to me, but I don't spend every day with the best efforts expended or doing them with the best or right people for that matter. My life is what it is - but I am a HELLA lot better for what I've done and learned than if I hadn't. In the big circle of life that sucks some ways and rocks in others - mostly it rocks. If I face my Creator at some point and He says I've been weighed and found wanting, I'll accept that - what else is there to do? In the meantime, I'm full speed ahead until you hear otherwise.

Yeh, millet is one of those things I look at and think "now what can I do with this?"....it does have a huge positive affect on my gut, which I loved when I discovered it. I was born with a stomach ulcer condition, at least it's one of my earliest memories as a toddler - my stomach hurting terribly suddenly for no apparent reason - course I was all of about 3 at the time, so what did I know? Diagnosed as "gastritis" then as a peptic ulcer I had to be careful in the 50's and 60's what I ate and I learned calming and meditation techniques before I was 10, anything to deal with the ups and downs of the condition which could curl me up into a ball for hours when it acted up. I turned to drugs in my youth for the usual social reasons but found pot and methamphetamines took the edge off and a blend of the two could normalize me under almost any conditions. My friends from that era that are still around all have a story or two about how I stayed "high" all the time, and it wasn't until I was prayed for and healed following an auto accident, that I came around. Self-medication of the worst kind - and years later when my kids were getting into music I cried on the floor with them when Kurt Cobaine ("Nirvana") killed himself with a shotgun to the head...they really liked his music and I'd come to appreciate his unusual chords and lyrics and we'd connected on his music, but he suffered from stomach ulcers and god knows what other conditions and it was known the pain he was in sometimes and his use of heroin. I completely understood where it had taken him and and how he'd chosen to end it, anyone who's been down that path knows what it's like to just want the pain to stop and to know how to do it but you just don't want to do it anymore..... It made me so incredibly thankful for the deliverance God and Jesus Christ brought into my life and I told my kids about my own experience with it..........and millet? Millet still has a very settling affect on my stomach, of "well being"....I feel great when I eat it, and of course it's bio-nutrition is good for acting against stomach peptic ulcers.............I get why most people don't like it, but it's one of those foods that does so much good for me I had to figure out how to cook the dammed stuff so it would eat better. Funny how stuff can be so different between different people. I appreciate your candor and effort ms penworks. I told someone recently to check out your book first hand, and that you are entitled to your story and your insight - it's YOURS and provides a view from your vantage point that no one else has and that's important. There are things we may not agree on and I often find myself the odd man out with a lot of people because I am a fully feathered and nested Christian and my faith is for and with no one but God and myself, and those close to me. I value honesty. I find over and over through the years that whether others believe the same as I or I with them is less important than if we love life and live our lives to the best truth we know. I'm really glad we still share a friendship - the wife and I send our best.