Watered Garden

I didn't mean to sound so harsh, Twinky. From the get-go (1973) it was strongly impressed upon me that anyone in a program, starting with the Medical WOWs and working up to the WC, were superior in all ways to my little self and must be deferred to. Special meetings at HQ after the Sunday night service, with me waiting outside in the cold, being reproved by Johnny T for stepping on the grass, waiting for the Medical WOW's to finish their elite meeting with someone at HQ so's we could go back to Indy in the middle of the night, being told over and over how spiritually in-depth was the knowledge, wisdom and understanding of these wonderful men and women of God, and I just sort of dumped it on you. I do apologize personally to you and to anyone else at GSC who was WC and a nice person. I feel like the website carries on that attitude of superiority, though, so I just try not to think about it. WG

Kind of reminds me of the elder son in the parable of the prodigal son. you all know the parable: Younger son gets his inheritance, goes off and blows it all, is destitute and comes home wanting to just be a servant. He is repentant and knows he doesn't deserve spit. Father welcomes him home and throws a party. Elderly son, however, has stayed home, done all the right things, worked hard, and never got so much as one small party for himself and his friends. He is outraged. He won't come to the party, even though Dad begs him to join in the fun. "Look at all I've done for you that gives ME the right to what you've given this young wastral! I've EARNED it by WHAT I'VE DONE FOR YOU! If you read in Luke 15 the son never does come in. He figures he's manipulated Dad into owing him. So too these false prophets: They said all the right things, wore the right clothes, were seen in the right place at the right times, and looked and sounded and acted VERY religious. But they don't get to come to the party, either, because their words are false AND their hearts are in the wrong place! WG

I think (and I'm one of those inferior worthless souls who never graduated from the ivied towers of holiness known as The Way Corps, but like Waysider I was in Fellow Laborers of Ohio, which was actually a sort of in-state part time Way Corps, with the exact same five principles (Acquire an in-depth spiritual perception and awareness, run your butt off every morning, yada yada), and after careful consideration, and realizing of course that all you wonderful men of God and women of God who actually did graduate from that exalted program have warm memories of your time there, and whatever else you enjoyed about it, fellowship, leadership position, whatever, I think Thomas Wolfe was right: YOU CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN! And if you want to, you should probably have your head examined. Real life may not be all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows outside the Way Corps, folks, but it does have one advantage: It's REAL! WG Oh gee whiz, Twinky, I'm sorry, too - I forgot you only wanted to hear from Way Corps! My bad. I'll go crawl back into the mud from whence non-WC came. WG

Sheriff is getting investigated by the Federal government - see Fox News website. WG

Thanks, Galen. Nice to "hear" from you!

And what about the pastor who commits a sexually oriented crime, i.e., rape (including statutory) sexual abuse of a minor, etc? Have seen in one situation similar to that and the SOB is in prison where he belongs, leaving behind a trail of tears and broken hearts. He had a family. Honestly, hindsight being 20/20, there were some flags up, not with him but with other members of the family, that all was not well, but the entire church was blindsided and ended up disbanding and being closed. In my view, it's gonna depend on the person, their particular error/sin/crime whatever you classify it, and whether the heart of the individual has truly repented and changed, if it was an actual crime. Which doesn't really address the matter of divorce at all, but is kinda semi-relevant. WG

Would that philosopher Harry Callahan be the same Harry Callahan who said "Go ahead, make my day"? WG

In 1969, a loooong time ago, I did my student teaching at a high school on the fringe of towntown Indianapolis. The principal's name was Richard and the kids just called him "Big Daddy". BD was an assistant superintendent and the school was Harry E. Wood High School, replaced by a new building farther out from the city and given a new name. It was an old building and the powers that be were considering tearing it down when BD intervened and begged to start a junior high for the kids who lived in the neighborhood. That summer he himself scraped and painted the hallways, scrubbed and cleaned and inventoried. Any wandering youth was invited to help out - this is your new school, kid! He was actually written up in Readers' Digest once for his work at Wood High School. By the time this wide eyed innocent suburbanite arrived, there was a high school, junior high, developmentally disabled wing, and 12 trade schools. Not every kid was going to college, see, but they should be able to at least earn a living; shoe repair, car repair, body shop, cooking school to name a few. They still had to keep up academically with the requirements, but they helped cook the school lunch, which for some of their peers was the only meal of the day. Big Daddy saw to it that "his" kids had at least one hot meal and got the funding for it wherever he could. Some of those kids would come in and for a dime a scoop buy mashed potatoes and gravy; two scoops was all they could afford. but it was comforting to have that. I weighed 90 pounds and looked younger than most of my hulking high school students. My critic teacher was not much bigger. I saw her yell at a young man for wearing his black beret inside the building; didn't he know better than that? Grumbling to herself, she asked rhetorically, "Why do they wear those stupid black berets anyway?" "Oh, that's the Black Panther insignia." someone else told her. Yikes! Big Daddy was a strict disciplinarian but entirely fair. One time, I was trying to explain to a class of kids the difference between slang and standard English. "Now," I said, "if you talked for example to Big Daddy in the same slang you use when you talk with your friends, he might not understand you..." "Oh, no ma'am, no ma'am!" one young lad exclaimed. "Big Daddy always understand you! He might beat your butt, but he understands!" Big Daddy, like so many innovators, was not popular with the school board of Indy and moved on to be superintendent of some school system in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. WG

throwing money at a problem will not make it go away. There actually is an old motion picture titled "Teachers" starring Nick Nolte as a teacher in an inner city, dying school, who cares and decides to fight the system. It is a good illustration of the garbage that goes on. There is this one business teacher who never speaks to the class. He reads the "Wall Street Journal" all day. On his desk are two stacks of paper, one stack where the student comes in and picks up the day's worksheet, and the other where the student places the completed worksheet on his way out the door. Well, one day after three or four periods, with the students coming in, taking their worksheets, filling them out and placing them in the appropriate stack on the way out, one kid comes up, peeks behind the Wall Street Journal, and lo the teacher is graveyard dead, in full rigor as I recall, and has been sitting there dead with no one noticing because he never did anything while he was alive to indicate any difference. WG

Hold your hand shaped like a duck bill? What dingbat had that idea? Never mind, I can narrow it down to two. WG Actually I can't even visualize that, but them I'm sure no musician. WG

The kids with learning disabilities who take software aps at the school Mr. Garden teaches at get him for that class. He is proud of them; he is always telling me how well they are doing. Even back in the dark ages when I was in high school there was this cookie cutter mentality. Sometimes it seems to me that people have children and forget why they had them, or had NO idea what a chore it can be to raise one. Sprout gave me MinSprout for an overnight!!!! He comes over with medication and instructions; he has been having fever, nausea, and vomiting. Mommie Dearest took him to the ER and he has a bottle of Phenergan (promethazine). It's a liquid but when I looked it up on WebMD I got chills: Don't give to children under 2 and in children over 2 only for prolonged vomiting with a known cause!!!! I've taken this stuff and my oh my will it knock you on your butt! I'm gonna lose this stuff. It would be way too easy to give a child a dose if he was annoying you and it is a RESPIRATORY DEPRESSANT! No way is Mommie Dearest getting this dang back to quiet him down with. And Mrs. Daddy I agree with you all the way, especially about the NEA. WG

Where Mr. Garden teaches is pretty cool! However, in the summers he works with his brother-in-law, who is self-employed as a landscape architect. For several summers they worked on the landscaping of the woman who was in charge of the State Board of Education under our former (yucky) governor. Mr. Garden told me he always wanted to leave a note on her door, asking her didn't she think it was ironic that he made more money cleaning out her flower beds than he does teaching. WNW, I don't think that teacher should be allowed anywhere near a classroom. The Gov. of Ohio is wanting to address that problem, too, but probably will meet resistance from the OEA. And I think if teachers teach longer in the year, they should get paid more. You definitely did the right thing pulling your son out! Sounds like he was smarter than the socalled educators there. WG

Extending the school year is on Gov. Strickland's agenda and Mr. Garden heartily agrees. Especially in years like this one, where they have had 7 calamity days (Hurricane Ike and then ice and snow later), the continuity of the class gets interrupted. He teaches introduction to business, accounting, business law (aka "street law"), software aps, and probably something else I can't remember. Especially the business law gets crunched. I agree it's multifactorial and I agree it's imperative as a nation we get this stuff resolved. Everyone in this country needs to buckle down and get it right. WG

Rascal, I think that's true in a lot of situations, especially one of my old favorites, women in the church. I just betcha Jesus did not intend for women to be dirt under men's feet or have their mouths stopped in the church or anything else like that. He was actually NICE to women! Imagine that! WG A tad bit but you get the picture! WG

I just saw a newsclip of Sheriff Joe on Doctor Phil. They round up deadbeat dads on Valentine's Day and throw them in tent-jail until they pay a $10,000 bond. Now I ask you (and please don't think I am excusing nonpayment of child support) how is the guy supposed to pay off the late child support if he just lost his job because he got tossed in the slammer? They do that here, too. First, they take away his driver's license so he can't get to work. Then he loses his job and can't go anywhere to find another, and he gets tossed in the graybar motel and the child support just keeps on mounting. I know a lot of people are stupid about paying, but some of them, my kid included, have problems getting a job because of a lack of training/education, lose the job or get laid off, can't afford to hire a lawyer to get it reduced, and are probably behind the 8-ball by that time. The advocate for dads on Dr. Phil called it a "political stunt." I tend to agree. Twas up to me, I would find a job for these guys with a fair wage, make them work it as long as they were in arrears, bus them to it and take as much of their paycheck as I possibly could in order to pay off the child support. We got a lot of bad roads up here and think how much money they could make and how they could benefit the state/county by repairing them, maybe even learn a trade. Sprout has a job now. He has a new wife and child. He owes back child support, however, and guess how much of his income tax return his ex-wife gets in child support? 100%. She lives with three to four other adults, makes good money herself, and spends very little money on MiniSprout. She wouldn't even take him for speech therapy, saying that he would be in kindergarten and that way she wouldn't have to use extra time to fill out the paperwork to get him FREE speech therapy where he would even ride a bus rather her having to drive him. I know, but Sheriff Joe did get me started!!!!! WG

I'm sorry I missed that. I agree so strongly with that and I hope and pray we can follow through and make that vision a reality. I seem to remember hearing that in some state or other, parents can be fined if they skip these meetings. It might have been at least a proposal somewhere in Ohio, but I'm not sure. I actually think I heard it on Fox or read it on some conservative website that was having a snit fit about it, but if money is so important the parents feel they have to hang on to theirs and not help finance their child's education, it might be the only way to get their attention. And this is not entirely a new problem: Back in 1969-70 during my brief stint as a teacher, I had a 15 year old farm boy student who sat in the back of the class, turned his desk around, and started out the window. The reason: His dad had announced that the day before his 16th birthday was his last day of school. He needed him to help work the farm and thought edjakashun was stoopid. The principal and I tried to talk him out of it to no avail. The man had nothing but contempt for the concept of a high school degree. So Bubba sat in the back for the room for a few months and stared out the window and flatly refused to do anything else. I think he is one of the very very few kids I failed, and maybe the only kid. I felt like the real failing grade went to Dad. WG

To answer Potato's question about David and Bathsheba: This lie originated in the foundational PFAL class. VPW taught that David's sin was NOT in having sex with another man's wife, because (he said) "all of the women in the kingdom belong to the king." He stated that David's sin was in arranging Uriah's demise because Bathsheba was pregnant with David's child. The adultery didn't matter. David was, after all, a man after God's own heart. The implication is perfectly obvious: You can have sex with anyone you wish to and still be a man or woman after God's own heart! "Oh, people, if you could only read it in the original!" What a crock of organic fertilizer! WG

It's gonna be interesting to me when I get to heaven to find out what the Scriptures really said "in their original." I'm betting some of the folks who did the subsequent versions, like TWI, added or subtracted to promote their own agendas. I just try to stick to what is glaringly obvious; love God, love your neighbor, and don't hurt anybody if you can help it. WG

I was exhausted Tuesday night and went to bed in the middle of the President's speech, but I hope those of you who listened to it in its entirety tell me he also addressed parents of school age children. Most if not all of us take (or took) an interest in our child's education. We strove to help them do well, and knew our kids and their needs as best we could. What got me to thinking about this was Waysider's post about problems with the system; no busing, school lunch programs, other programs being cut. Here in Ohio, school districts are funded by state money but also by levies. There often isn't enough money to go around, and sometimes in my opinion it's not always proportioned equitably. Mr. Garden teaches in a primarily rural district; the majority of his students are farm kids. He is required to stay after school on parent/teacher conference nights. How many parents do you think show up to discuss their children's grades, progress etc.? Usually none. If one or two do make an appearance, they are the ones whose kids do well. Parental involvement ain't what it used to be, and as often as not, if the child misbehaves, the parent is outraged - at the teacher, not the child. As far as the levies are concerned, we have several school districts here whose levies haven't passed. They are hurting. I can understand that this year, but not three or four years ago. It took three times on the ballot for our last levy to pass, and then only because there was a huge snowstorm the night before they voted, and the people who voted it down, in one tiny area of the district, got the worst of it and were stuck at home. The levy passed by 6 votes and the kids still have aides and ride buses. (I really think that is one instance of divine intervention). The governor has a new education plan that I hope passes the legislature and works. It sounds really good and well thought out, eliminates the Ohio Graduation Test, and will also require higher standards of teachers. I hope we get it. WG, who has voted for every school levy in every district she has ever lived in, whether she had a kid in school there or not!

Depends on the kid, really. Some kids finish high school or get a GED and still do poorly, because high school was one big social event, or they had an unrecognized learning disability, or they just didn't give a rat's nose. My son, whom you know I love dearly, graduated Golly How Come from high school. He never did homework in high school that I can recall. He just didn't care and told me so; he went for the social life or he would just drop out. He works 12 hour shifts in a factory, doing hard hard labor, a job he had to work one year as a temporary to be able to get on as a permanent employee. He would be the first to tell you that he should have studied and gone to college and learned something useful rather than socialize, join the Navy, get married and divorced by the time he was 24. I'm talking about MY kid, not anyone else's. Mr. Garden teaches high school business, accounting, law, and software aps, and he tells his students high school is NOT ENOUGH! Not necessarily college, but some type of training to earn a living if you want to live in a nice house, drive a nice car, etc. It may not be fair that people look at how much time you spent in a classroom, but it still happens. As far as education = patriotism I find that hilarious. I got a college degree because my parents made me, and I'm thankful they did, because honestly, I've gotten several jobs as a secretary because I graduated from college. Weird, people think secretary is a synonym for flunky, but the doctors I worked for thought it took brains to go get the coffee! WG Oh, I just remembered something that might help explain why the President said what he did: In some countries, education IS tied in with patriotism, and I am thinking that Japan is that way, anyone? George? WG

Actually this is a pretty good example of someone using the publicity they get to their own advantage. I've heard of the guy, even back here in the Midwest, but Rocky actually lives in the same county, so I would think he would be much more likely to have the inside story than I would. Never heard anything negative about him up here in the cold and freezing Midwest. WG

I'm sorry to hear that, Rocky. WG

Had this guy ever been with TWI? Or is this a different bunch of bananas entirely? As far as a small communal fellowship, what we then called twigs were the same in TWI if you were under the gun, so to speak. Especially loved it when you walked in a room filled with fellow "believers" and it suddenly fell silent. Anything you said to anyone was promptly reported to the leadership, even if you thought it was in strictest confidence. WG

Well, yeah, I don't disagree with that. Not at all. But rehabilitation suggests there was wrongdoing in the first place and I guess what I object to is the concept that the criminal him/herself is a victim. That may be true in some instances, but the guy who stabs an 80-year-old woman on the street to get her purse and leaves her bleeding I don't see that much as a victim. There's a fairly obscure book I read and still own: "Let's Take Back Our Streets" by Reuben Greenberg. Mr. Greenberg is retired now, but he was chief of police of the City of Charleston, SC for many years. He was the first African American police chief there, ever. He was Jewish, Texan and had two masters' degrees. He cut crime dramatically from day 1 with imaginative techniques and was very popular, even featured on "60 Minutes". It's a pretty neat, easy read. WG

Actually in the state where I live there is smoking in prisons but they have to buy the cigarettes or have someone give them cigarettes. They do, however, receive free treatment at a fine cancer hospital for the lung malignancies and other side effects of smoking. People who are not imprisoned but have no health insurance or money are usually not treated at this hospital, or if they are, they are hounded for the money until they probably think dying of cancer would be easier. I do realize hospitals cannot refuse treatment to a patient, but they CAN and DO refer them off somewhere else where treatment is less than optimal. I have absolutely no sympathy for felons; they made a bad choice and got caught. Most but not all of them are indeed victims - of their own stupidity. Just my opinion. And while prisons are under state control, jails are under the control of the sheriff of that county. WG