Oakspear

I was a NYer who got involved in the late 70's - Mr. Fallon and I were in the same Foundational Class together - although I never went back after leaving to "go WOW" in 1980. It always seemed to be growing those first few years before I moved. There were a couple of branches in each of the counties on Long Island (3 for a time in Queens) and a small Spanish language branch as well. There were regular classes and Twigs scattered over a pretty wide area. The Way Home that I lived in used to pack 'em in for our Sunday 10:00 Fellowship (which we perversely had at 10PM! But, and here's the big but...few or no Way Corps grads. The Area (later called a Territory) was run by an interim Corps couple and later Corps grads, but all 8 or 9 branches were run by non-Corps, and in at least one case, by a non-Advanced Class grad. Can't say much about what happened after, but rumors reached me out West that it just wasn't the same when more control from above in the form of Way Corps started taking over the branches and later the twigs

That was what I saw (in hindsight of course)TWI did teach us to question, to analyze, to think, but only outward, never at what TWI was teaching

The only people who I ever observed living the "abundant life" (defined from a physical/financial perspective) were those who had mad etheir pile before getting involved in TWI, or inherited wealth. Our local Twig Fuehrer inherited the fully paid-for house that he lived in when his parents died in a horrible car crash and then lectured the rest of us on how easy it was to own your own home without going into debt. Another guy owned a bunch of rental properties and then sold them all off when he took the PFAL class. The rest of us didn't see too much abundance. While I'm far from rich right now, I've seen more "abundance" since I left TWI in 2001

I agree with you.It never made sense to me why we were "celebrating" Christmas without calling it Christmas

I can still recite John 10:10 in Spanish...

Christmas in The Way If we weren't to be observers of days or seasons and Jesus wasn't born in December why did we do anything for December 25th?

Ah...spiritualizing sports, always a good one, especially if the mini-MOG was in an y way athleticly inclined.Got screamed at during a game of kickball because I questioned an illegal move

I understood not celebrating Christ's birth in December when he was (according to Wierwille) born in September I understood not perpetuating the pagan obsrrvances I understood that we were not be obsrrvers of days of seasons but... The Way pretty much did everything everyone else did except calling it "Household Holiday", all the while hectoring people who said "Merry Christmas" and mocking "inaccurate" Nativity scenes. Way people often had trees and decorations, gave gifts and took the day off from work. What about it was a "household" holiday? And "Happy Ho-Ho" just sounded stupid

The use of the term "ABS" annoys me even more than the term "Abundant Sharing" in that it is using not only the made-up Way Int'l term, but the blue financial form abbreviation. But that's just me. I stopped handing my money over to The Way Int'l when I was kicked out in 2001. I immediately began to see my finances improve. In fact I eventually stopped believing that the Bible was in any way divinely inspired and continued to see my finances improve. Not only was tithing and going beyond tithing mandatory if one wanted to remain in good odor within The Way Int'l, but during the Martindale years there was frequent pressure to increase the percentage of "sharing". Our Way Corps leader was leaning on me at one time to jack up my percentage - I didn't do it - he thought I did and I didn't correct him. My wife and I bought a car and he gushed about how we had been "blessed" due to my increased giving. I corrected him and told him that I had not in fact increased my percentage of giving. He sarcastically said "So you were able to afford the car merely by savings and budgeting?" As if there were something wrong with that

Some people worship sports figures and "love their teams" no matter what. Kind of like religion!

There was only one of the foursome whose face I could clearly see during the whole ceremony and he looked very uncomfortable. The other man is one of a handful of Way people whom I would feel justified punching in the face! It was a good experience for me; I did my usual professional job. It would have been interesting to hear post-ceremony remarks, but I was not at all interested in mingling with this bunch afterwards

For the last eight years I have been a wedding officiant in the Midwest. My wife and I have officiated at close to 400 weddings during that time, including for one of my Grease Spot buddies in 2012. We advertise locally and on the internet and are occasionally pleasantly surprised that someone we know calls or emails us about performing their wedding ceremony. A few months ago I agreed to do a wedding for a young man whose parents had been in The Way when I was. His mother had taken PFAL in my house in 1981 and she and her then-husband had been in the same Twig as I during the 90's. I knew this guy since he was a toddler. The wedding was today. At the rehearsal last night the groom's mother and her new husband were there - she was very nice to me - I did not ask her if she was still involved in The Way, although I think she is. At the ceremony today I spotted the local Twig Coordinator, his wife and another couple who had been involved when I was kicked out in 2001. They did not see me...until I walked up the aisle with the groom...the looks on their faces were great! Shock...surprise...changing to frowns as I read a service that was "off the Word" in so many aspects. I left immediately after and did not interact with them at all. Sometimes it's just great to be me!

Geez...

The invisible dragon is not in my garage, it's in my bathroom.

Well no, because you can't prove a negative. And maybe it is Jesus behind all those warm feelings and prayers, although I doubt it and I see no treason to believe that it is. I'll not address the "faith based" comment because Raf, who actually gets paid to string words together coherently, did it quite adequately.

One thing that about believers who "know" that their beliefs are true - and this includes believers of every stripe, not just Christians - is a pretty fuzzy definition of "to know" From what I have seen, unexplained feelings, coincidences and things just going right are interpreted in light of the preferred belief system Somebody prays and gets a warm feeling and they "know" it's Jesus

Kudos to you Raf, for being ballsy enough to speak freely about your atheism and to question "Da Word". The derailment of this thread is one of the reasons I gave up on GSC several years ago...anytime I even thought about questioning the underlying assumptions of Christianity, or was skeptical about some miraculous event, I was assailed with personal attacks and a chorus of "I just know it's true"

Martindale made an announcement (in the 90's) that the Word was over the world.

There are many reasons why people stay as long as they did, or who got out as soon as they did, and the differences are as many as there are ex-TWI-ers. Maybe it was a spouse who didn't see the problems, or other family members who were stuck in Waybrain. Perhaps it was a belief that "The Word" wasn't being taught "accurately" anywhere else. Sometimes it was a mindset that TWI could be changed from within. In my years posting on GSC I noted a tendency for many of us to view those who got out after us as deluded; who were just blind to the error, the abuse and all the rest - how could they miss it? Of course we were involved before the crap hit the fan, or at least before it was obvious. Those of us who left when the lawsuit was announced couldn't understand why those who stuck it out stayed in. The folks who left after POP couldn't fathom why we were still wayfers. The people who got out in the seventies were amazed at the people who trudged along through the eighties, and so on. A lot of us thought that the moment we got out was the perfect time to jump ship!

In retrospect it was obvious they didn't really care about the people involved, just how it would reflect on "the ministry". I look back in amazement that one of us idiot WOW's wasn't injured or worse when they sent us naive, untrained kids in to "confront" your hometown right in the middle of that mess.

I was never in the Way Corps, but could see some of what socks describes out in the field; newly graduated Corps showing up to run branches that only existed on paper, single guys being assigned to run an area full of old married people with kids... I remember a Limb leader pushing us to split all the twigs in our city; took 5 twigs that realistically should have been three and split them into ten. New Corps show up thinking that we had a branch and a "twig area" and all kinds of growth...

Yup L.U. is on the list of the GSers who I have met in person over the yearsI don't think I'll ever retire...don't think I could afford it!

So I stop back at the old tavern and the same ol' barflys are here! I opted out of Grease Spot a couple of years ago...but the Grease Spot years were good ones. I've kept busy though. I went back to college. I'll be done with my associate in business/accounting focus next Spring. The annual college publication that compiles student poems, short stories etc will be publishing my essay Making a Snowball this coming Spring. Added a grandaughter to the family: Lily Kay Nice was born in January 2011 and lives in western Nebraska. My wedding business, Beyond Illusion Wedding Officiants is doing well, we are averaging over 50 weddings a year. I completed a 5-year course of spiritual study and function as clergy in the local pagan community. I saved up some cash to buy a camera and have amused myself by taking pictures of local musicians at work/play...a couple of them use my stuff on their Facebook profiles...one of my pictures was the front page of one muiscian's website for about a year. I write a blog reviewing various kinds of beer (oh yeah) Ill-Gotten Booty Beer Reviews And this month I will have been out of The Way for eleven years!

Makes sense; I think rascal's husband might have been involved...

Within the last year a woman who was the daughter of a divorced couple; dad was attending an offshoot and mom was active TWI, came to talk to my wife & me about performing her wedding. She ended up going with another officiant in the area. I think it would have been a hoot to see all those wayfers and ex-wayfers sitting in the audience as I officiated! What turned out to be funnier was that the woman who ended up doing the wedding was a friend of mine, and the High Priestess of a Pagan group here in town!