shazdancer

Best wishes for many more amazing and loving years to both of you.

It's like the blind men and the elephant. If you're at the tail, you'd describe the elephant one way, and if you're by the tusk, you'd describe it differently. You have to stand back and view the whole elephant to get the true picture. Sure, there are all different brands of Islam, and different people express their religion in the way that is comfortable to them. I always wanna know: are they better for it? more loving? kinder? Muslim in my area means African-American, because we have a large group of Somali immigrants here who practice Islam. So the dress is different, the language is different, the culture is different than you might think of as Muslim. What most of us don't see is how different some of the subgroups within the population are. There are refugees and immigrants, educated and not, Kenyans and other African nations, and different types of Islam. I think it is a human tendency to try to lump people into categories... ~ Shaz

Aw, shoot, forgot about Ermal. He and Uncle Harry were the first, along with VP. Then Harry was replaced by Howard. Thanks for the memory jog, WW.

Paid? Yes and no. In a 501 © (3) non-profit like TWI, the board members cannot be paid for being board members. However, if they do a job for the organization, they can be paid for that. Wierwille could be paid for preaching, pastoring, and writing articles, for example. But a lot of his wealth was from the perks of the organization: house cleaning, the motor coach, the plane, the gifts. The first board of trustees was made up of VPW, "Uncle" Harry Wierwille, and Howard Allen. Three is the minimum number that can serve. The bylaws of the corporation should spell out how long they could serve on the board. Since they stayed on for years and years, there probably wasn't a mandatory time limit. Wierwille didn't want a board that would challenge him or have ideas of their own. He wanted the minimum number of people close to him who would let him do what he wanted. IMHO, Shaz Edited to add that the first BOT was VPW, Harry, and Ermal Owens. Howard replaced Ermal after he died. Thanks, WW.

I recently had someone apologize to me for something (an ugly rumor) that was not started by her. I knew she wasn't the cause, but she had heard from her supervisor that I was incensed that the perpetrator would never come forward and apologize. I do know who the perpetrator is. We were able to talk, and she told me that the rumor had hurt her, also. It amazed and impressed me that someone would apologize like that on behalf of someone else, even risking my anger at her. And yes, she has a reputation of being kind and self-effacing. Insert parallels to Christ here. ~ Shaz

Wow, thanks skyrider, cool thread. Yes, WTH and oldies, Wierwille said the exact quote, "You can't go beyond what you're taught" many times. (Thank you for the validation, waysider.) The quote from the PFAL book, "no one believes beyond what he is taught," says pretty much the same thing, WTH. (Thanks, WW.) And just to be clear, the phrase from the book is a crock, too. People are "taught" by lots more than The Teacher, or any teacher. They don't have to be "led" in order to formulate a belief system, and more to the point, make decisions on how to behave and what consequences to expect (which is the essence of the so-called "law of believing"). Unless you were raised in a cave, you have been exposed to multiple examples of moral and immoral behavior. Unless your brain or your psyche is so impaired that you can't reason, you choose what to do, based on all the information you have gathered in the past. Some of that information is from "teachers" such as pastors, professors, and parents. Some of that information is learned through observing the examples of others and remembering your own experiences. By the time you are an adult, your brain is pretty much mature enough to start to consciously synthesize what you have been taught with what works for you. At that point, it is your choice if you abandon your own reason and go with only one point of view, whether Wierwille's, your parent's, or your own lusts.

"Lot's of stuff I teach is not original." and the second half of that is... "Putting it together -- that was the original part." Putting it together without proper citations -- that was the illegal part. What was that bit he taught about cisterns? He read a little bit here, a little there, but just when he needed the power, all he had was an empty hole. AND a book and a class that he could make a lot of money on.

Whoa, Rumrunner, "A sidereal year of 365.256363004 days?" Did you know that number, or did you have to look it up? And just when I was going to congratulate myself for getting all 3 answers right.... ;) Shaz

Happy birthday, Maineah! Ayuh.

I am also thinking LCM knew enough right and wrong from childhood to sneak and hide his sexual transgressions. And if he could simply read the Book he supposedly stood for, he could see what he should be doing. When he took on the mantle, he didn't go, "Great, I am now in a postion to make the world/the ministry/my family a better place." Nope, he said, "Great, now I can get MINE!" "You can't go beyond what you're taught" is a crock. We can. We are presented with life choices every day. LCM might have started out as a victim, but when he became a leader, he chose to perpetuate the abuse.

Wacky! You finally bought your dream home. Congratulations! :)

Thanks, Ted. I have mostly moved along as well, but I think many people have unresolved questions about their experience with The Way International, Inc. I don't want to hype the problems up to be more than they were, but I don't want to make them out to be less, either. Let the truth set them free. -- Shaz

Thanks, Ted, I'm glad you are weighing in. I would love to hear more about, "most of the pressure in the beginnings of Way Prod. came from leadership on the west and east coast," because you were involved in it and I was just on the outside looking in. What I saw ('71-'72) was musicians who had learned their craft before The Way inspired to sing about their Christian experience (and often, their PFAL experience). What was going on behind the scenes, particularly when it came to choosing who was onstage and who wasn't? (edited to fix the dates)

Tzaia, I would say that music was at least 50% of what made TWI in its heyday. Rock 'n roll loving baby boomers looking for stability heard about God in their own musical language. The Way East was a weekend destination for hundreds of rich suburban kids who felt disaffected in the '60s. The perfect hook for its time. The highlight of the whole year was the Rock of Ages. It wasn't the musicians' fault, they were just practicing their craft and expressing their hearts. But you can't put inspiration in a box. And when Wierwille tried to control it all and be the center of attention (like when he used to upstage the performers while they were working, sheesh), he warped the language. The music stayed the centerpiece for as long as it did because the musicians were that good, and they tried to make a merger between what the MOG wanted and what they knew they could deliver professionally and personally. When the talent left, all TWI had were empty directives, no soul. IMHO, Shaz

Whoa, socks, you told a pastor to go stick it??? Too bad I wasn't there -- I woulda sold tickets. :D

I answered my own question -- it has a creative commons license. http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/documentary-f...fair-y-use-tale I am so using it! The video I borrowed last year was an "explanation" of how technology works...

That is the most hysterical tutorial on copyright I have ever seen! No wait, every tutorial I have seen has been incredibly dry and boring, so that is not much of a compliment. Hmmm...well done! Now I want to get permission from them (for their idea in a fixed form) to show it at work for staff training day. Thanks, sirguess!

Shellers!!! Happiest Birthday. Hope it's the best, and most peaceful, ever. -- Shaz

Aww, best thing I heard all day. Congratulations, and welcome, Leonardo!

Wonderful, simply wonderful. All the best to you and your new family. -- Shaz

It was from Post #224 in this thread, and I see you found it and started another thread. Here it is: Note also Mike's tendency to say, "I answered this already." He hopes that we forgot. WordWolf didn't forget, nor did I. Sorry Mike.

Learning a musical instrument is one of the best brain exercises out there. Go for it! GSG, one of my kids is finishing her PhD in chem. She wanted to go for inorganic, but got involved in some work her professor was doing in drug-eluting stents. She developed something with polymers where the drugs break down at a predictable rate via a new hybrid thermoplastic polyurethane system. Sheesh, I love it when my kids know so much more than I do.... :D As for me, I had wanted to be a dancer for pretty much all my childhood. Sometimes I wanted it more, sometimes less, but it was always there as the natural progression of things. I started dancing when I was 4, just to get out of my mom's hair for a bit, then got more serious when I was 8, taking 3 classes a week. By high school, it was 5-6 days a week. And I never stopped for anything but a small vacation since, until May of last year. That's when I fulfilled another dream of mine: to get my master's degree. Now I'm pursuing the next phase of my life, and new dreams. -- Shaz

From Mike... Uh yeah, Mike, and I didn't buy it then either. Mike had said that God needed a renegade type of personality, someone who would buck the tide of popular opinion, which is why He chose VPW to write PFAL. Never mind all the scripture verses that say what kind of man God chooses. God wanted an adulterer, child molester, drunkard, liar, and narcissist to teach PFAL because only he would have a mind free enough to dare to plagiarize, er, re-arrange the words of others to make them into God's holy PFAL. And Mike? That stuff where you said those who were hurt by Wierwille would have been hurt some other way if he hadn't been around was about the lowest. If VP hadn't raped those women someone else would have? Sorry, the scripture I read, and there is nothing so-so in the texts about it, says something entirely different about how God thinks about child molesters and adulterers. Something about a millstone around the neck, and "go and sin no more." You also sort of forgot my answer back then, which was that God didn't work with people while they were living in sin, but rather when they were doing His will. Even you acknowledge that Wierwille was steeped in debauchery throughout the time he was writing those books and running TWI. -- Shaz

From Mike, No, those tracts were still being made available at ROAs through the '70s. I bought a slew of them there or at The Way East over the years. If "that which was greater" had come, why wasn't the "lesser" being done away with?Besides, can you imagine Paul sending out the Ephesians letter as a first draft, to be amended later after they'd perfected it?

NowISee, The phrase "rule of faith and practice" is from the catechism, going back hundreds of years. Wierwille may have used the phrase, but he didn't invent it. Googled it Mike, I knew that the critical Greek texts were based on authors' comparisons of older texts, and that they didn't agree with each other, back around 1974-5, when I bought an interlinear New Testament in New York. I was in high school, and had been a grad for about 3 years. So no, I never "left it to others" to tell me what to think. But most differences between the various texts are minor spelling variations. Very few are on the magnitude of the added text on the end of the Gospel of Matthew, for instance. (The Old Testament is also highly accurate because of the Massorah.) Wierwille wanted us to use PFAL to help us understand the Bible. He never thought it should supplant the Bible. What did he say was the greatest secret in the world today? Frankly, Mike, as messed up as Wierwille was, he'd a kicked your tushie if you'd gone to him with this new religion of yours. You're just doing the same thing that we did back then. We were so enthralled with being "spiritual" that we tried harder and harder to find "truths" that nobody else had found. Religions everywhere do this. On the one hand, they try to find something unique, the "answer" that nobody else has. On the flip side, they tend to ritualize the personal experience. Nothing new. Shaz