Oakspear

Catcup: Who said that you DON'T have the same rights to post as anyone else? Do you REALLY think that Song is talking about literal drivers licenses?

Well said CW. Perspective can easily be lost when we are propounding something that we care about.

Martindale justified wearing a WOW pin because he ran the WOW program one year. Don Wierwille used to wear a junior WOW (or was it mini-WOW?) because he went with his dad & mom to India.

That's right, it WAS "strongly suggested" that we not wear WOW pins - old wineskins indeed! I had been wearing that pin on my collar or lapel for fifteen years, and then we had to pretend it didn't happen. What b.s.

Wow! The moderators can view posts as they are being composed? What power they have, if they only KNEW it!

I think if you went in egotistical, cold, power hungry, manipulative, etc, you learned how to be more effective in those things. People with a real heart for God learned how to be better at serving. Those on the fence probably got pushed into the first category.

The WOW pin is the only thing I saved from my Way days. Dove lapel pins, my silver leaves-and-dove ring, all gone. But I WORKED for that WOW pin!

There's a general difference between men and women, in my opinion, that only gets wider as we get older. Women expect men to be able to pick up all the non-verbal cues, and figure out that there is a problem without being told. "If you can't see it yourself, then I'm not going to tell you" is a familiar refrain. Men expect women to be able to outline for us exactly what the problem is, in detail. If you don't mention it, then it's not a problem. If you do tell us, and we take action that we think fixes the problem, if you don't tell us, we think it's fixed. That's part of the reason that it sometimes all hits the fan in the 50's. The woman is tired of dropping hints, and thinks her husband is an insensitive clod for not picking it all up, and the man is mystified that there is any problem at all because his wife hasn't sat him down and explained it all.

Guyana is on the northeast coast of South America, Belize (formerly British Honduras) is on the east coast of Central America.

Jim Jones was in Guyana

johniam: Well, yeah, I DO think I am smarter than a god who would lay down rules that his "kids" couldn't possibly follow, blame the "kids" for asking for the rules, and then claim credit for saving them from those same rules. Before you accuse me of blasphemy or something, my point is that I don't believe that a loving, all-knowing, all-powerful, wise, and merciful god was behind all of what went on in the OT. I believe it was men, who passed the buck to their deity to rationalize their barbarity.

just loafing: As I recall, salary was on a "need basis", which translated from wayspeak means "whatever the RC can squeeze out of TWI, balanced by how much TWI thinks they can screw the RC"

In the past few years, the changes in assignemenst took place at or near the "anniversary" in October, a little earlier for folks who had to get their kids enrolled in school.

I know quite a few people who went back, most (maybe all) are back out. My family and I left in 1983 and went back in 1990, I left again in 2001, my ex-wife left within a year. A family who had been involved since the late seventies left after moving to an area that had no active TWI fellowship, but DID have an offshoot fellowship. When they moved back to Nebraska we ran into them and they came back to TWI. They were thrown out and M&A in the late 90's. A guy who had run fellowships in one of the smaller cities in Nebraska just stopped going after he got divorced. He came back in the mid-nineties. He may still be "in", I'm not sure. A couple from the same small city just kind of drifted away in the mid-eighties when there was no active fellowship in their city. They came back in the nineties. The wife was so appalled at LCM's WayAP class that she never went back. The husband stuck around, but left after the lawsuit was announced in 2000. He asked the "leadership" why I was put on probation for actions that were a heck of lot less serious than what LCM did.He never came back. A half dozen other folks came back, but left after less than a year. I don't know of anyone who came back that left during the Martindale era. All of the people mentioned above left for personal reasons, not for doctrinal disagreements, or for disgust with the way the top leaders were running things. Most left before Geer read the P.O.P., or at least before things were REALLY hitting the fan. Most, if not all, held to TWI doctrine during their absence.

I counted 11 states that don't have their own Limb Coordinator, that's up from 10 when I was kicked out in 2001. I wonder how many of them have NO organized fellowship. When I left there was only one anemic fellowship in Nebraska which they considered an outlying area of the Kansas City branch. It may be gone by now. I counted only 2 regions where the region coordinator oversees 3 limb coordinators; 5 regions where the rc is over just 2 other lc's; 7 where the rc lords it over only ONE other limb guy, and of course Ohio, which is it's own region.

"Whatever arrangements you two have made are none of my business" Hah! That was a game that they played both sides of. EVERYTHING was their business when they wanted it to be. But they'd step back when you asked for help.

Okay, I'm not married yet, but I have learned one important thing (rather WE have learned it) in dealing with emotions/baggage/etc between my lovely soon-to-be-wife and me: Don't assume the worst When a situation comes up that could have more than one explanation, we just assume the best, and then ASK. One of the things that killed my first marrige was assuming the worst. One of us would say or do something, and the other would assume the worst possible interpretation and then let it stew, so that it upon reflection it looked even worse than at first. When it was finally brought up (usually in anger over ANOTHER incident) the initial words or actions were so encrusted with anger and speculation that it was difficult, if not impossible) to discern what actually occurred.

God didn't want that kind of law...the people did! Didn't Saul get his comeupance for using that excuse? You would think that the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the whole universe (including the suburbs) could have gotten it right the FIRST TIME!

Too boring, huh? I guess every thread can't be all things to all men (and women). Let's jazz things up a little, so that excathedra will be better entertained ; - )

I haven't thought about Ken Figliozzi in years. Bought a hat from him on Long Island once. I think I shared a almost-flooded tent with him at ROA '79.

The last I heard Joe Fair and Ralph Graham moved back to Long Island. They are both listed in the "thanks" section on Rose Falcon's 2003 CD.

Yeah, LOTR II & III are in a different category, since the books were written as one story, broken up into three sections, rather than self-contained books.

I would agree that its a start, and thinking you have all the answers would definitely be a PREREQUISITE for culthood. After all, if you are open to competing beliefs, you can hardly require conformity.

Aaaaw...what a merciful god...the aliens, widows and poor were supposed to be cared for...unless they thoughtlessly worshipped another god. What does worship of the loving and merciful god of the Old Testament demand? Worship me or I'll kill you!

Thinking you have all the answers doesn't constitute a cult, IMHO, but acting to enforce compliance with that mindset through fear or intimidation. I know plenty of folks who act as if THEIR take on spirituality is the only valid one, and put down those who think differently, but they DON'T have a big organization backing them up, so it's just their opinion.