Oakspear

I thought you were straining at a wasp? :lol: But seriously, it's not straining at gnats when one wants to honestly make sense out of spiritual matters. In your illustration, God gave you revelation, or information, or whatever you want to call it, when you needed it. You didn't have to will to receive it or anything like that. And who says that that's what Word of Knowledge and Word of Wisdom are anyway? Neither are defined in the bible. One can make suppositions or inferences that such-and-such record is "Word of Knowledge", but then you're circularly making the illustration of the definition fit the definition, which is based on the illustration... Are you seriously suggesting ("To me, the Word of God makes absolute sense, fits like a hand in a glove etc..and I'm sure as hell thankful a man 'plagerised' works to make it known.") that God couldn't have showed you the wasp and told you what to do about it without PFAL? I doubt that you intend to, but that's the message that your words convey. From your posts you seem like a guy who accepts what God has to give him, sees signs, miracles and wonders, and lives life in a fairly uncomplicated God-centered lifestyle. But that's not what Vic Wierwille taught. PFAL was all about formulas, and definitions, and putting the minutia of "the Word" before simple love. Heck, he taught for hours in the Advanced Class about distinctions between Word of Knowledge and Word of Wisdom. Who gives a rat's foot? You don't appear to, but this is the guy who you're so thankful for. Just some semi-random thoughts

the active wayfers were a pitifully small group here in Nebraska when I left in 2001. I think I'd know the innies.At the time of POP there were several wayfers with window washing companies, one at least was doing an offshoot twig at least up through the late 90's

I have some familiarity with this kinda stuff :B)

A regular customer approached me today and asked me if I was a PFAL grad. He's been coming into my store for several years, and he's always looked familiar. His wife had been in my twig back in 1981; he had not been active at the time. He got back involved in 1983, just when I was leaving the first time. He left after the demand for loyalty by Loy, I got back in in 1990. We chatted a little bit, he was completely ignorant of anything that happened after he left The store's plumber was also in TWI when I was. Every time I see a window washer, I'm sure that he's ex-Way

Me too! Is it significant that he is from another country? I mean, does he point out that the way things were done in his previous country are THE way to do things and that American ways are inferior? How does this affect you? Other than thenatural revulsion that comes from working with someone like this. What kind of lies? Are the lies believed? And well they should, if they have no evidence of wrongdoing. If they have proof that he is stealing, he can be fired, no matter what his race, gender, etc. as far as coming in late, does anyone else get away with the same thing? Even five minutes late?

There we disagree my associate from the Southern Hemishpere

So what did the guy do? Other than be gay? Maybe I should try that fist-slamming-on-the-desk thing to get rid of intolerant, bigoted, a-holes who demand that their god fire people at my job. Worth a shot

Craig co-opted the good ol' days when it met his purposes, he put the old days down when that met his purposes.

...and why something being "for our learning" precluded it from also being "to us" was something that didn't make sense.

Nope, in fact, I never heard a "tongue" that really sounded like a language at all. In 15 years of doing the nonsense, it never happened. I heard quite a few that sounded incredibly similar, though. I can go along with that. While allowing for the possibility that there might have been a structure or linguistic pattern in a "tongue" that I didn't perceive, most, if not all, tongues that I have heard in TWI and in churches, were just a string of the same sounds repeated over and over.

The nametag in and of itself? No. The nametag as a symbol of what classes you took or what program you were in? You betcha. Why have different nametags for Corps, WOWs, Advanced Class, etc if it didn't matter?

thanks Kit

How about the minimum number of people to run a class? I'm sure that in some areas there were enough people regularly signing up that it wasn't a problem, but in some areas, coming up with seven people was tough. During the last year that there was a WOW program there was a rule that WOWs and non-WOWs couldn't mix, other than at special Limb functions. There were 4 WOW families in our city and we hardly ever saw them. Anyway, part of this rule was that if you had less than 7 signed up for a class, and the WOWs also had less than 7, you couldn't combine them into one class! One of my kids had been sign ed up for a year for PFAL and was not allowed to take the class at the WOWs that was less than a mile from our home.

One of the things that TWI instituted in the 90's was heavy oversight of teens and young adults who were in college. This included young adults running every major decision by their parents and "leadership". Part of this was submitting a detailed schedule every week. (Funny how when we were in our teens and 20's, we were encouarged to turn our backs on everything our parenst taught us, to go WOW, to enter the way Corps, despite our parents' objections) These "suggestions" came about when the Martindale's elder daughter started college - Donna Martindale talked about how they "oversaw" their daughter - leadership expected us all to do this. My oldest son, who was in his early 20's, resisted and resented this. he had been living on his own or with room mates for several years, and felt that he was adult enough to make his own decisions without clearing everything through us. In my heart I agreed with him. My own parents trusted that I was able to make good decisions (despite evidence to the contrary), but were always available for advice and counsel (they still are!) As good wayfers, my ex-wife and i were under pressure to oversee him, and he was under pressure to be overseen. The stuff really hit the fan in 1999. My ex-wife and I had been put on probation for six months. We were prohibited from interacting with any Way folks for that time. Our two oldest sons, who were 20 and 22 at the time, were allowed to attend Way functions, our youngest, who were all under 16, were prohibited as we were. (The 20 year-old lived with us, the 22 year-old didn't) What complicated matters was that we were told to "oversee" our two oldest as always. So, added to our oldest's already being resentful ofbeing treated like a child, he was having to take direction from his parents who were unfit to be allowed to fellowship with "the household". On more than one occassion we would give our two cents worth, but find that the local Twig coordinator had given opposite counsel. Since we were not permitted to talk to the Twig coordinator, much frustration ensued. Toward the end of our probation period, there was a blow-up between my ex-wife and our eldest son. we tried to get him to come over to our house to get it resolved, but he refused. When we asked him why, he gave reasons using language which was obviously supplied by the twig coordinator. We called the Limb Coordinator, the only Way person other than our sons who we were permitted to communicate with and asked him to intervene. We had a three-way conference call with my ex-wife & I, my son and the Limb Coordinator. Everybody gave his side of the story, and the result was that the LC told my son that whether was right or wrong, he should still listen to his parents, and that being on probation was not an excuse to show disrespect. So far so good. My son apologized to his mother and it looked like the situation was resolved. The next day we got a return call from the LC. He had talked to the local Twig Coordinator, and said that he now believed that the whole situation was the fault of my ex-wife and I. We had "provoked him to wrath" and were not "overseeing" him properly. From that time onward the TC was to "oversee" our son in place of his parents! My son, who had been convinced by that time that we were the problem, happily went along with this. Of all the abuses that were heaped upon me during my time in TWI, this is the one that I consider unforgiveable. Thankfully, I have not run into either of these men since leaving TWI. Within a year, my son saw that the interference was worse from the TC than anything his parents could throw at him, and left TWI in anger; the first of our family to do so. For a long time we didn't talk, but at Christmas 2004 we reconciled, and have gotten along ever since. (We ran into each other downtown last Friday night, and he bestowed a big hug upon his old dad!) This is by far not the only interference by The Way into my family, but it's the one that gets my blood to boilin'

Always a big question: if God "gave the utterance", how could they in any way be limited?

Maybe you should have specified that you were talking about running PFAL classes while still in The Way, then perhaps Galen wouldn't be so amazed that there were "rules". Of course if you're running a bootleg class you can do whatever you want, but Twi had plenty of rules and expectations involved in running PFAL classes

Where do you get the "completely for oneself" part?

No reason why not...I just don't see it in the purported written records of his life. The comment that I am asking about characterized him as "funniest of all".

Don't know how it was south of the equator, Allan, but up here, frequently "leaders" would take off on their own side road, which may or may not have been what Wierwille actually taught. Wierwille himself was also not totally consistant with what he said. Seems like you're implying that some folks here weren't actually in TWI. Some weren't, most were. I don't understand why you feel that it is incredible that people who were in an organization that spanned the globe, and was different in character from one decade or one MOG to the next might disagree on what went on while in it.

Well said. In many religious traditions, accepting the (seemingly) contradictory and the paradoxical is part of enlightenment. This is difficulty for the modern western mind, trained to look for linear, "rational", fits-like-a-hand-in-a-glove theology/cosmology.

One can speak in tongues and still not believe that it is what TWI said it was, or even what other Christians say it is. Speaking in tongues is practiced by non-Christians, usually, but not exclusively, as a sign of religious ecstasy. I can easily imagine that speaking nonsence syllables would lull one to sleep. As far as speaking in tongues = rest to the soul, here's the verses: Isa 28:12 & 13: For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is] the refreshing: yet they would not hear. "stammering" = le'eg, can be translated barbarous or foreign which some say refers to the foreign tongue of the Assyrians. "lips" = generally refers to a langauge. Read the whole context

He's painted as kind of serious in the gospels...funny...for example...?

That's "your holiness" to you

Is this the frith one or the sithx?

It is interesting that the record of the original Christian speaking in tongues experience has people speaking a language that is understood by the listeners. The second record in Acts 10 (VP's suggestion that "what Peter saw" in Acts 9 is speaking in tongues is speculation IMHO) has the Jewish Christians (they of the circumscision) "hearing them speak in tongues and magnify God". How would they know that they were magnifying God if they couldn't understand them? One argument might be that they heard them speak in tongues, therefore, since speaking in tongues is magnifying God, they assumed that magnifying was going on, since speaking in tongues was going on. The third record is Acts 19 simply states that after Paul laid hands on them they spoke in tongues and prophesied. Is this saying that the prophesying took place within the speaking in tongues? I can see speaking in tongues being a "sign to them that believe not" if an understandable language was being spoken, but what unbeliever would be impressed with babbling?