Belle

Every year, Mama would put a potato and an onion in our stockings to remind us that we weren't that good all year. :P We never had any money for gifts for each other when I was involved, so most of the presents were homemade or from the Dollar Store and it was something a child picked out especially for us with the $1 that she had to spend on each of us. I did get an extremely tacky pair of earrings and a necklace one year, but it was all in good fun. My mother had bought me a pair of the gaudiest, ugliest costume earrings that I had ever seen in my whole life (Mama and I have VERY DIFFERENT fashion styles). I had worn them to fellowship one night as a joke to show them to my HFC. We laughed about Mama's good intentions and how I that jewelry would never see light of day again. The next week my HFC topped the tacky scale and said she just couldn't live with me having the tackiest gift I ever got coming from my own Mama. I loved that lady! She and her husband are still "in" and it just breaks my heart. They're awfully wonderful people...

Prolly my favorite! Thanks, Ron!!

ROFLMAO!!! Y'all are awesome!!!

LOVE IT!!!

Awwwww, that's great! I like it. :) Don't know if Daddy would be proud of my cleavage, though. He'd be more concerned about me NOT sharing any cleavage, I think. ;)

It was possible to skip out on TWI functions?

Whew, I really didn't want to see the title to this thread. Although I've never been corps, I've been on both sides of this and neither side is pretty. My ex is/was like a son to this one couple. The husband and he did everything together. The husband sold his business to go full time WC and then had to start again all over from scratch since they were one of the first ones dropped from WC by Moneyhands as soon as the ROA was over. He was getting increasingly frustrated with TWI and, I believe would have left TWI at that time if it hadn't been for his wife. Anyway, this man and my ex were talking while they were painting about craiggers and what he did all day and how hard it was to get everything done THEY, as husbands, workers, HFCs, etc. had to get done. The husband said something about craiggers having it easy and having other people do all those things for him and that he really didn't have much to do during the day and that his responsibility load was nil compared to theirs. Well, my husband was offended, surprised and angry that this man would speak ill of the MOGFART. He KNEW that wasn't right. We talked it over and he decided the best thing to do was to call our local WC and tell them what was said. It ended up being a confrontation meeting with this couple, us and the WC couple. My ex and I were so serious and so, so....I don't know what we were.....but the couple was moved to another fellowship and not allowed to run another one for a while. Looking back it was nothing. It was just an off the cuff comment that we now know to have been more true than any of us could have imagined. :unsure: I feel like one big tattle tale. There was NO reason why we should have blown one comment up into such a big deal. We were so effen self-righteous it's sickening. It was a private conversation between two people who loved and trusted one another. I can only imagine how betrayed this man must have felt by my husband and then by both of us as a couple. This man calls my ex "the son he never had". How's that for a huge stab in the back?

LOL! The lady who sent this to me has one son in the Air Force and one in the Marines. I'll let her know her son accidentally left off a rule. :P

So good to hear from you!! I had wondered where you were. Do you want to sign up for more time over there?

I thought it was: I hate you You hate me Let's hang Barney from the nearest tree With a knick-knack paddy whack Give a dog a bone....

Mark, I'm racking my brain trying to remember where I got that information. I'm thinking it must be partially from Elaine Pagels Gnostic Gospels and the History Channel as that's where most of my information lately has come from. I'll remember, though, just give me time. :) Didn't Constantine order that the Bible be compiled or something like that? And wasn't it mostly just decisions by whoever was in charge at the time and that's why the scrolls that were more liberating and that didn't fit with what those in charge believed? Why would we just assume that those men were true Godly scholars and not regular vee pee's and martindales out to compile something that would give them more power? (I'm just tossing questions out there - not trying to start a fight - these are really things I think about nowadays)

Marine Corps Rules: 1. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one. 2. Decide to be aggressive enough, quickly enough. 3. Have a plan. 4. Have a back-up plan, because the first one probably won't work. 5. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet. 6. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun whose caliber does not start with a "4." 7. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive. 8. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (lateral & diagonal preferred.) 9. Use cover or concealment as much as possible. 10. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours. 11. Always cheat; always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose. 12. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived. 13. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating your intention to shoot. Navy SEAL Rules: 1. Look very cool in sunglasses. 2. Kill every living thing within view. 3. Adjust speedo. 4. Check hair in mirror. Army Ranger Rules: 1. Walk in 50 miles wearing 75 pound rucksack while starving. 2. Locate individuals requiring killing. 3. Request permission via radio from "Higher" to perform killing. 4. Curse bitterly when mission is aborted. 5. Walk out 50 miles wearing a 75 pound rucksack while starving. US Army Rules: 1. Select a new beret to wear. 2. Sew patch on right shoulder. 3. Change the color of beret you decide to wear. Air Force Rules: 1. Have a cocktail. 2. Adjust temperature on air-conditioner. 3. See what's on HBO. 4. Ask "what is a gunfight?" 5. Request more funding from Congress with a "killer" PowerPoint presentation. 6. Wine & dine 'key' Congressmen, invite DOD & defense industry executives. 7. Receive funding, set up new command and assemble assets. 8. Declare the assets "strategic" and never deploy them operationally. 9. Hurry to make 1345 tee-time. Navy Rules: 1. Go to Sea. 2. Drink Coffee. 3. Watch porn. 4. Deploy the Marines

By the time I got involved there wasn't much youth and cuteness left. "Class explanations" were just one big sales pitch and there was no pretending they were anything else. If there was someone you were "working with" but who hadn't signed up for the class yet, you were to bring them to a class explanation where the local WC would "close the deal". It was very high pressure, but I consider using God's name and his protection on your life as high pressure and spiritual blackmail. M@tthew H@rmon was really good at it, but not really good at keeping people around. When we had coffee houses they weren't for fun, they were for signing people up for the class. We all knew it. There wasn't any secular anything allowed at these things, which I suspect really turned people off. "What are all these God freaks doing? Is that all they talk about? Do they really think those skits are funny? OMG, that is NOT how I want to live!" One girl I worked with came to fellowship with me (I brought a lot of people, but they usually only came once). She looked at all the bottled water the guys had all over the house and overflowing in the kitchen with the rest of their Y2K supplies - laughed - and said, "What are y'all? Some kind of cult?" LOL!!! Of course we tried to explain to her about "preparing for the worst, but praying for the best" - she would hear none of it - kept saying we were some kind of doomsday cult..... I shoulda left with her. I remember, too, witnessing door to door under M@tthew H@rmon's watch. Of course HE didn't go, HE had to stay at the contact point so that HE could meet us when we were done. He wanted us to quit wasting time and do away with the niceties. Just knock on the door and when they answer, tell them that we run a home based biblical research ministry and ask if they're interested. If not, don't waste your time and move on to the next house. We were expected to get five contacts within an hour. How well do you think that went over? Think any of us got our five contacts? What would you say if someone came to your door like that? I was with D@n Briener. Poor guy was the nicest man but terribly shy. He tried so hard and felt so bad when we didn't have any contacts. I felt bad for him because he felt so horrible about letting Matthew down. The only fake and misleading things we did was to avoid telling people the name of our group and that we spoke in tongues until they came to their first meeting. Oh, we also acted like everything was all lightness and love in the group. That usually only lasted a few weeks, though. Then you were expected to listen to the STS tapes with one of us and sign up for the class. :blink:

Digi, I think that the reason some of those scrolls aren't completely translated is because of the time it takes to do so and the eagerness to get out to the public what they HAVE figured out so far. Also, the scrolls weren't in pristine condition and, as in the case of the Nag Hammadi, they were beside a stove and being used to start fires, so some parts were possibly destroyed during that time. Others are completely translated. Many have been studied and have documentation and proof that they were widely distributed and read during the early years of Christianity. The thing that I keep in mind is that the Bible was put together by politicians and politically concerned church leaders of the time. They voted on what was kept and what was tossed, regardless of the popularity and understood value of the particular scrolls/books. Most of the books of the Bible that we have always taken forgranted as being given by revelation were actually known to NOT be by revelation, nor were they written by the author ascribed to them in the Bible. Scholars couldn't just say, "we don't know who wrote this" and have it carry any weight or authority. Whereas some of the books that were left out are known to be written by respected people in early Christianity, such as John, Mary of Magdalene, etc... Following times of wars the victors re-write history and the earliest days are no exception. BUT, one has to acknowledge this from a logical, factual perspective and that can be scary and distasteful to someone who has always put the Bible on a pedestal as the end all and be all of their beliefs. What gets my goat is that many books that weren't included in the Bible were revered and regarded as just as important, if not moreso, than some of the books that DID make it into the Bible. They were read, studied and believed by many. Why has Christianity suppressed these books and why weren't we given them with the ability to make up our own minds? Why were others allowed so much power of the information we were to have? Why? Because THEY wanted to control what we believed; what we did; how we lived. Not really much different than the things that we experienced in the TWI I was in. Information control. The Apocalypse of Peter or the Apocalypse of James (I can't remember which one) says that every person - every single individual will eventually be saved - no matter how awful they were in their life. Everyone repents and is forgiven by God and welcomed into the kingdom. Fits with the parable of the farmer who paid all workers on his property the same regardless of how long they worked that day, doesn't it? Fits more appropriately with the all-loving, all knowing, all caring God we like to believe exists, does it not? Leadership did not want people to read, know and believe those things. They said it would give people license to live however they choose to live with no fear of eternal consequences. Control - Manipulation - Cult-like decisions by people who have no right to do so! We don't use God's forgiving nature as license to sin, but to hide truths like this from us remove the ability to make an informed decision. Would you want to lie to people to get them to do what they should be doing according to their own conscience? The leadership who pick and choose what goes into the Bible did - so far as I can tell. Sorry if this sounds harsh. It's not directed at you. I just get so worked up and so peeved that I was so deceived and so stupid that I was intimidated into ignoring and not looking into these things earlier because TWI said it was a waste of time. I've always been interested in reading the Dead Sea Scrolls and fascinated with the history of religions, but TWI forbid us from reading non-TWI publications and kept us so busy that we couldn't.

A true pioneer in comedy! "Silverstreak" is my favorite! :D :D Hopefully, we'll see a resurgence of his movies. Raf, I hope He doesn't wash his mouth out. I would kinda like to hear encore performances live and in person. ;)

I LOVE the tiara!! Does he charge extra for that?? Can we take turns wearing it and playing "Queen"??

LOL! Out There, you just reminded me of something Mama used to say when we were having little pity parties for ourselves about something stupid (or something stupid we got caught doing).... She'd say, "If you want Sympathy you can find it between Sh1t and Syphilis in the dictionary." Maybe I'l throw the cleavage one in for good measure. :D Love the link, George!! My Daddy and uncle will get a kick out of these! Socks, that's beautiful! I love that Mayer song, too.....One I don't mind running through my head. :) Act2, those are priceless. Thank you! Chef, I love the puppy tail poem!

Please do, Chef and please pray for us who are trying desperately to justify and to protect loved ones from doing those things we know to be wrong...particularly for those of us how try hard to stand up for our loved ones who enabled and recruited for vee pee.

Personal attack and rumor removed by the moderator

Ya know, Guys, I'm just not totally convinced that this is totally naughty and I think a night with a, say, Jim Belushi type guy,might be able to help me better answer your questions.....Of course close seconds, thirds and fourths to that type - funny,great sense of humor type guys with some meat on their bones....may help me make up my mind............

Has anyone ever heard RFR speak in tongues?

I'm putting "Everyday" Jars together for my parents and my grand parents. Each one gets their own jar and there will be 365 slips of paper in each jar. Each jar is especially made for that individual - quotes and all. Each slip of paper will have a quote, a Bible verse, a trivia fact or something from me about that person that I admire or remember about our time together - Like the time Mama cried with me when I came home from school upset because "everybody hates me" and her telling me that she hurt when I hurt. I'm having more trouble than I thought coming up with quotes about being a Daddy, Mama, Grandma and Paw Paw. Or maybe just quotes about how important and special family is. What are some of your favorite quotes? How about some individual, personal ones that you wouldn't mind me quoting you in my "Everyday" jars. :)

Yeppers, Skyrider, I've heard that, too. I'd love to see it happen! :P I don't have a leg to stand on if there was a lawsuit, but I know enough and could help document enough and provide witness statements for many people in my area if they were to participate in one. Heck, I'd contact some of the people to let them know there was a lawsuit and encourage them to join in if it were to come to that. Most of those people could also win slander suits very easily. "They love money more than they love God." was the common insult thrown out about those folks among other things.... I also still have tapes of craig from STSs going off on people who refuse to sell their homes.

I love the Offencr@ntz family! I hated it when they moved. Phyllis was always such joy to be around. I heard they got a really bad rap after being moved to HQ. :( Great folks, they are. I do and did like Lind@ McDuffie and pretty much all the WC Alums in my area....and....lessee, pretty much any other great WC folks I met were the ones I met here on GSpot and at WayDale. :wub: