Mark Clarke

I saw Robert Wilkinson last year at Vince Finnegan's yearly get-together. He and his wife are doing well and have apparently been keeping in touch with with Vince.

Yes I made the mistake that so many have made and still make. We used to place more importance on the words of Paul than the words of our lord, under the false belief that Jesus Christ's words were only addressed to Israel. I have since repented of that foolish practice. Paul's words can only be correctly understood in light of the words of Jesus Christ. And Paul consented to his words according to I Tim. 6:3-5, "If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings,Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself." Jesus frequently said we must believe his words, one example being John 12:47, 48, "And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." This is why I say you should be studying the words of Jesus Christ with the same minuteness with which you're studying a man's words. [This message was edited by Mark Clarke on April 03, 2003 at 22:32.]

Mike--- Who's your Lord? VPW or JC? You ought to be examining Jesus Christ's teachings with the minuteness that you're using on the writings of a man. A man, by the way, who always said, "Don't take my word for it-- read the Bible." Regardless of what anyone thinks about VP and his teaching, he always told us to go to the Word, and some of us who have actually done that have found that much of what he taught was wrong. But most of us spent years studying the Word of Wierwille instead of the Word of God, and as a result got sucked into believing the wrong doctrine. If you really believe that "the Word of God is the Will of God" you need to study IT and not the word of any man. PS, The whole idea of a dichotomy between the physical and the spiritual comes from Greek philosophy, not from the Bible. Check your church history. [This message was edited by Mark Clarke on April 01, 2003 at 9:19.]

I was born and raised in Rye, and after my family moved to Peekskill I got involved with TWI. Remember the "Groovy Christians of Rye, NY?" Took PFAL in 1971 in Toni Cornwall's basement. Anybody remember that name? Chris Geer ran my first class. Went WOW in 1978-79 to San Francisco, College Division at WC of E 1980-81, lived in Chicago 1982-83 and went WOW again 1983-84 to Providence, RI. I lived in RI for 14 years, but now I'm a Noo Yawkah again, albeit upstate (Syracuse). I have some great memories of those days. Steve Heefner before he got canned...Pressed Down before they went "country"...Remember Brian Bliss in Daystar?...How about the Rock of Ages '72 film with Pastor Bishop from the Rye Presbyterian Church..."God bless you, and may your tribe increase!"...Johnny Townsend was Limb Leader for awhile too. He was one of the good ones. I Remember on the ROA '71 album, he said, "What if the whole Way ministry goes down the tubes and you're the only one left standing? Who's your strength? God!" At the time we thought he was speaking hypothetically...who'd'a thunk it? Yes there are good memories, probably because I was young and naive then. But even the bad stuff, God can turn into a learning and growing experience if you let Him. Mark Clarke

As soon as I heard that the new party leader's name was Hu, I knew it was just a matter of time before we heard something like this! Thanks for the laughs! Mark

I can relate. I'm a terrible procrastinator. Someday I'm going to do something about it!

I remember VPW saying something to the effect that John Lennon was personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people that died of overdoses because he had promoted drug use. Of course there is such a thing as personal responsibility for your actions, but what would TWI leaders know of that? ******* I also remember the first time I heard that John Lennon had been killed. I was in the College program at Emporia and some Corps guy (I don't remember who) stuck his head out of a door in the dorm and said "John Lennon was shot...dead!" At first I thought he had said John Lynn. That was bad enough, but when he repeated "John Lennon" he was laughing and made some callous remark along the lines of "Serves him right!" I didn't say anything at the time because I felt like I wasn't supposed to feel bad about the death of an "unbeliever." Eze 18:32 For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye. Eze 33:11 Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? It's not my place to judge a man's heart, and I still liked his music. It was in December and I still get a lump in my throat when I hear "Happy Xmas (War is Over)."

At a family reunion I went to in May, the husband of my niece Debbie (who is blonde) told this story, and had us going until the punch line. Debbie was out taking care of the horses in the barn when a fire accidentally got started. It flared up quickly before she could stop it, and soon the barn was in flames. She ran to the house and called the fire department. "You've got to come quickly," she said. "My barn is on fire and it's burning out of control and the horses are in there!" The man from the fire department asked, "How do we get there?" Debbie replied, "Duh! The big red truck!!!" That line became a running joke all weekend.

A poster called Oakspear has an interesting signature line. It goes, "In theory, there is no difference between theory & practice, but in practice there is." This reminded me of a theory I devised a number of years ago... CLARKE?S THEORY OF EXCEPTIONS There is an oft-quoted rule that says that there is an exception to every rule. If this is literally true, then there is no rule that has no exception. This being the case, the very rule that there is an exception to every rule is itself without exception. But if it is without exception, then it is the exception to the rule itself (that there is an exception to every rule). Since it is the exception to itself, it actually does have an exception (i.e. itself) and therefore the rule that there is an exception to every rule is proven true, and is without exception. However, being without exception, it is the exception to the rule itself and therefore the rule, having this exception, is not an exception to itself. Since even the rule itself has an exception, there is no exception to the rule and thus the rule is without exception. The rule being without exception, however, makes it the exception to the rule itself (that there is an exception to every rule) and therefore the rule is without exception, making said rule exceptionless. But this exceptionless rule is automatically the exception to itself, and so the rule has no exception, and this being the case, the rule is the exception to itself and therefore is without exception, for it is not the exception to itself if it has no exception, but since there is no exception to the rule itself, then it is itself an exception to the very rule itself, thus making it without exception and therefore the exception to itself??etc. etc. etc??. Wrap your brain around that one sometime and you?ll understand why I can?t sleep at night. (Actually it?s because I work third shift, but that?s beside the point!)

Galen wrote: "Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell: SNL made fun of Cosell many times, I did not know that Cosell hosted one SNL, kewl." Actually it wasn't the SNL that we know. Not many people remember it, but the same year NBC premiered SNL (1975) ABC also had a show called Saturday Night Live With Howard Cosell. Because of this, NBC's show was officially called "NBC's Saturday Night Live." ABC's show was a very poor variety show that aired earlier in the evening, but because it had a big name, people thought it would do better than those unknown upstarts over at NBC. It didn't. It was gone before the season ended. It scares me that I remember this... Mark Clarke

Just though I'd let anyone who read this know I found out the cause of the problem. I have a "pop-up stopper" software that prevents pop-up ads from coming up when I'm on the web. It was preventing the pop-up windows for my address book and file attechments in Yahoo from working, as well as any other places where Java Script calls for a pop-up window. File that one under "Duh!" Fortunately I can turn the pop-up stopper on and off with just a click of the icon. Goey, Thanks for the reply. I'm glad I didn't have to resort to reinstalling Windows, though. I wasn't looking forward to that! Mark

Whenever I click on anything that has Java Script code attached to it, it does nothing, and on the status bar at the bottom of the browser window, it says "Error on Page." I started noticing it when I tried to add addresses to an email from my address book, or attach a file to an email. (I have Yahoo email.) Both these functions used to work, and then they suddenly stopped working. I have double checked that Java Script is enabled in my browser, several times in fact. I am not aware of any other changes to my system that would cause this. I even tried enabling the Display Error function in the browser, to see what exactly the error was. It gave me the following message: Line: 1120 Char: 3 Error: The callee (server [not server application]) is not available and disappeared; all connections are invalid. The call did not execute. Code: 0 URL: pose?YY=15786 I wrote to Yahoo's online support, explaining the problem and pointing out that I had verified that Java Script was enabled. They wrote me back what seemed to be a form letter, saying to make sure Java Script was enabled on my browser. They said if I still had problems, to upgrade the browser or try a different one. I tried both. I tried it on Netscape, and I downloaded the latest version of Internet Explorer. I had the same problem with both of them. I also discovered that it happened on other webpages that used Java Script. When I wrote back to Yahoo support and told them all this they sent me another form letter saying I am having trouble with my web browser (even thought the same problem had occurred in three different browsers). I tried contacting Microsoft to see if they had any suggestions regarding Internet Explorer, but kept going in circles on their web site, and never got anywhere. I tried JavaScript's support but they mainly address problems that JavaScript programmers are having with their own programs. They did have a "fix" for JavaScript running on Windows Me (msjavx86.exe), but after downloading and installing it, it still did not solve the problem. JavaScript just doesn't seem to run on my computer, no matter what browser I use. Does anyone know what would cause such a problem? Or can anyone suggest where I might get answers? Any help would be appreciated.