Watered Garden

We had a 1998 Dodge Dakota that we liked very much. It had the smaller of the two magnum V6 engines they were using at that time, but still got decent milage. It met its end when a 10 point whitetail buck jumped in front of it. That was the end of both of them, unfortunately. WG

Just a note here, something else TWI kind of seemed to gloss over regarding death: An exciting new revelation: EVERYBODY DIES! Oh, another exciting revelation: DARN NEAR EVERYBODY GETS SICK AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER! SOME PEOPLE DIE FROM THEIR SICKNESS. I don't know about God choosing people to suffer and die to His glory, but I will say this: VPW and TWI did an excellent job of oversimplifying God and the Bible. One of the most comforting things that ever happened to me post-TWI was when I was sitting in a church several years ago listening to a minister preach on the Trinity, anathema to TWI. A tiny, still, small voice whispered in my ear: "You don't have to understand EVERYTHING. Quit straining and enjoy life." I was just dumfounded, but profoundly relieved. a THIRD exciting revelation - this one about life on this planet: dang HAPPENS! Just a few thoughts on (and off) the matter. WG

When I was a WOW, Way Productions spent a week in the city where I was sent. Jamie Louis, bless his heart, left most of a fifth of tequila at our apartment, and I, good little WOW that I was, saved it to bring back and give to him. It was safely locked in my car all during ROA and I ended up bringing it to Fellow Laborers of Ohio, which unfortunately and unbeknownst to me, was a dry operation. As I was unpacking my belongings, my house leader and a couple other third year FLO's saw the tequila, their eye bulging with horror. Calmly, I asked if anyone had a salt shaker, wet my wrist, sprinkled some salt, and took a swig from the bottle. "However," I said, "this belongs to someone at Headquarter and I need to take it up there to him first time I go." "Uh," said my house leader, "we don't drink in FLO." "Really? Well, no one told me. I'll just keep this on a top shelf and I know no one will be getting into it then. I'll take it back to Jamie next time I go to HQ." (I was so completely ignorant I didn't realize I couldn't go someplace just because I felt like it.) Of course, when an official visit was proclaimed, I went looking for the bottle and found that my lovely house leader and thrown it out. I was indignant, to no avail, of course. Personally, I think FLO would have been a lot more fun if tequila had been a REQUIREMENT! WG

Gee, thanks so much for sharing, especially the video. At 5'1" I'm vertically challenged a bit, but have learned to cope. WG

A very mooooooooving story! Seriously, I can't imagine hitting a cow. We've lost two vehicles, one a Dodge Dakota pickup, to 10 point buck whitetail deer. One time, I think it was on the WOW field in Texas, I was driving with another person on a back road where a smallish Angus cow was standing in the road next to the fence through which it had just escaped. Knowing absolutely nothing about bovines in general, and unaware of the gender of this one, I hopped out of the car and yelled "SHOO! Get back in that pasture where you belong!" Well the cow sized me up, recognized me for the ignoramus I was at that time, lowered its head, pawed the dusty pavement and said: "MUUUHHHHHHOOOOOOO!" I skittered back into the car and gingerly drove around it. It gave me a very nasty look, but let me leave in peace. Another time, I encountered a couple of loose bovines on the Rome City campus one morning when I was out for a stroll. Someone had forgotten to turn on the electric fence and they were just standing in the path that goes toward that little hill where I think were once portrayed the 12 Stations of the Cross. This time, I didn't bother. Went back to the switchboard, rustled up someone who knew cows and the situation was taken care of. After these two experiences, the only cows I approach are medium rare, next to a baked po' and salad! WG

I cannot imagine the pain these girls and women are going through, especially the younger ones, if the cult is all they've ever known. I expect some will want to go back - better the devil you know than the devil you don't know. My hope and prayer is that they will look around the new world they've been brought into, and see that it isn't so bad, and also that God is much, much bigger than they've ever been taught. I hope God wipes the tears from their eyes and fills them with wonder. I hope they learn to live without fear. I hope they dare to take chances. I hope they see the stars in a different light, the truth in a clear light, and I hope the sun shines on their faces with warmth and love. In short, I hope they dance. WG

Here's one more thought..... I have gotten to the point where I dread anyone teaching out of the Bible, especially a taped class. I used to love hearing good sermons, good classes, etc. I am terrified of confrontation. Even with the ever so kind and patient Mr. Garden, I have difficulty expressing an opinion, if I don't know what his is first, so I can agree. Some of this is directly a result of TWI teaching on the role of the wife. You might want to include how warped the TWI image of marriage was. WG

I like Father John! And I think he is right on the money! CS Lewis was a great writer. Now I wanta read that book, "Mere Christianity" myself. (loved the Narnia chronicles). WG

As in a combat situation, different personalities are affected in different ways and to different depths. Mr. Garden has always had a very strong, positive personality. He put TWI behind him, became a high school teacher, and is the treasurer of our little church. He loves the people in the church and is totally nonjudgmental. On the other hand, being somewhat more introverted and emotional to begin with, I was devastated. I actually still have problems with spiritual matters, and have a lot of questions that probably are either unanswerable or have as many answers as there are people to answer those questions. I am very, very suspicious of anyone connected to a religious organization. It takes a long time for me to come close to connecting with another "Christian" and I am very easily put off by anything I can remotely perceive as rejection. I tend to look for evidence of exclusiveness, "cliques" within the church, elitist attitudes. I constantly feel unworthy. I wonder if I'm really saved, and even if so, will I go to hell anyway because I'm no longer associated with TWI. I am sometimes dubious of doctrines that disagree with TWI, yet I know their doctrines were frequently bogus. Hopefully, someday this will all get sorted out. But right now, I go to church with a tight throat and a tense stomach, even though most of the people there are quite wonderful. I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. WG

I would not be surprised if many of us don't have a form of shell shock or PTSD as it's currently called, to some degree or another. I have very strong reactions to anything any minister or teacher says that remotely resembles some of TWI's stranger teachings. Several months ago, our Sunday school watched and then discussed a video class called Secrets of the Vine by a Dr. Bruce Wilkinson. I didn't much like it until the third session where he said that churches are wrong to teach sickness and disease come from Satan, but rather it is God who makes people sick to scourge them for being unfruitful, or some such blather. This triggered powerful reactions in me to the end that I was an emotional wreck and couldn't complete the class. Sometimes I have to hold my tongue when my grandson misbehaves. I still am very upset when my house isn't clean. There's more, but I gotta go......

Sorry, it's all a blur. Our son was not quite into his teens, so was considered a small child and treated like crap. I'm sure you and your brother were nice kids, and I wish you well. WG

And what Highway said: After you take all their classes, faithfully, and I mean every time without exception one is held, attend fellowships, take classes, participate in training programs, you are still very likely to be constantly weighed in the balance and found wanting. We had a rebellious 14-year-old on our hands, and we were told by one socalled "man of God" to take him up into the mountains and take turns hitting him with a 2x4. This same guy suggested we dump him out of the car in the middle of a big, big city and drive away and never look back, forget he existed. Finally we were told to "get rid of him." We got rid of them instead. Brushstroke, these guys will do their best to convince you that they have ALL the answers to ALL of life's problems and situations. In reality, if you have something in your life they cannot solve, they will declare you to be possessed by evil spirits and throw you out on your ear, but only after convincing you you are lower than slime on a worm's belly. They eschew outside help, e.g., psychology, therapy, etc., and some will even discourage traditional medicine. If you get sick it is because your are not "believing God" for perfect health. You can read about "believing" in the blue book. I was diagnosed with insulin dependent diabetes and was REPROVED because they taught that "If you have chronic disease (e.g. diabetes, cancer, heart disease, etc) in your life, IT IS BECAUSE YOU HAVE CHRONIC SIN IN YOUR LIFE." Their second president, the disgraced Rev. LCM spoke those very words on a Sunday Teaching Service tape and they have never refuted any of his doctrines, to the best of my knowledge. If a young person raised by parents in TWI falls in love with and wants to marry someone who will not become a part of that organization s/he is probably going to be cut off from h/her family entirely, maybe not all at once, but eventually that person will be forced to make a choice, whether there are children present or not. Never again will Mom, Dad, sisters, brothers acknowledge that person's existence. I'm serious. It's happened. I would suggest you take the blue book you have received to your priest at your church and ask him for some insight. WG

And of course, if you spend enough time and money checking it out, and listening to their presentations of what they sell as"God's Wonderful Matchless Word, Rightly Divided According to Usage, and Held Forth in the Exceeding Great and Glorious Light of the Present Truth" (as no one has known it or held it forth since the first century), your mind will be so controlled by "WayBrain" that no matter what they say or do to you, you will always think they are right. Oh, but it's your free will and your decision, right? You can walk away any time you want, can't you? WRONG-O KEEBLER! These people are experts at so subtly controlling you, by suggestion, innuendo, cajoling, lies, threats and intimidation, that you are in over your head before you know it, just like the frog in the kettle of water! WG

Should have required warning labels: "WARNING! Consuming this nasty-tasting, disgusting, green mystery food, which actually tastes as weird as it smells, is hazardous to your overall health! It can permanently damage your olfactory mechanism, taste buds, tongue, esophagus, upper and lower digestive tract, and above all is proven to be deleterious to your heart for eating in general." Where these folks came up with this stuff is beyond me. My mother used to make wilted lettuce, using leaf lettuce and a hot mixture of vinegar, minced onion crumbled bacon, bacon grease and I think hard boiled egg, but she at least served it as a side dish. When we were served wilted mustard greens, this was THE dish you had for supper. Nothing else but water. We also had a version of ratatouille (sp?) once time our second year. One little girl was heard to loudly exclaim: "Im not eating THAT! It looks like it's already been eaten and thrown up!" She was promptly escorted outside for a severe thrashing, and then forced to gag down some of it. It wasn't too bad, like maybe tomato pudding or something. I think there is eggplant in it. FLO was always very very moderate with seasonings unless you happened to sit at the table where the food had been cooked by someone more adventurous and generous with the seasonings, like Mr. Garden. I, alas, worked in Columbus and never got to cook supper. On Saturdays, we could pitch in and make chili or something at our own expanse sometimes, but usually if we could possibly manage, we just wanted to get off on our own for a bit. wG

One of my frustrations during our brief time at Rome City was that Mr. Garden and I can both cook like fiends. Some of the stuff was good, but there was never enough of it, and to make things worse we were there early so our son could start school and volunteered to work in the canning shack to can tomatoes, something we had done before and were very good at, if I may say so. However, according to the chick in charge, we didn't know beans from barium. First of all, there was NO hot water, so we were washing them in bone-numbing cold water, not very sanitary considering we kept animals on the farm and I expect there was a lot of organic fertilizer ("poop"to you city kids) poured on the gardens there. Then we were REPROVED for cleaning the tomatoes, i.e. taking off the stems and cutting away the rotten parts. We were commanded to throw the whole shooting match into the big pots and cook it all down together. We were treated like idiots for thinking people might not want rotten tomatoes in their sauce. Which of course we ignored. This was followed by the now-famous LCM salsa at the end of the week. It was sadly, a saltless, garlic-free and onion-free taste of what was to come.

I never understood the homemade mayonaaise thing. What was wrong with Kraft? Nowadays the raw egg would probably kill us.l Real Waldorf salad has apples and pecans in it, along with I think celery? It's not so bad if you use a tiny amount of real storebought mayo. Mung bean sprouts are like eating unborn plant children - and alfalfa sprouts - perhaps you remember the cute, if unprintable name Mr. Garden had for them. I grew bean sprouts a few times after I was married, until we got to that point of honesty to admit they might well be extremely healthful and high nutrtitious - but we both had to admit we just didn't like them! WG

Well, no one knows the time or the hour, but I for one would be absolutely delighted if the Lord returns in 2012! That's my idea of a new earth. wG

And worst, wilted mustard greens or some other glop was served without warning. And you HAD to eat what was served, like it or no. The only excuses were major illness or death. I remember one sweet little thing who managed to find out in advance that liver and onions were on the evening menu. Now she knows two things: 1) she HATES liver and onions, and 2) she is pretty sure she can flirt her way out of eating it. So she goes out to eat and has a big, big lunch. Comes to the dinner table and sits next to the FLO coordinator, an old pal from the Cleveland area. (NOT Waysider). Cocks her pretty head, bats her pretty blue eyes, and says, "I just hate liver and onions. I ate a big, big lunch so I wouldn't have to eat this stuff, because I just truly, truly HATE liver and onions. You're not going to make me eat this nasty stuff, now are you?" (Blink, blink, smile).... And he calmly said, ....... ....... scroll down....... scroll down some more....... "YEP! You have to eat it like anybody else." Best thing I ever saw him do. She managed to choke some down but she was unhappy about it. I didn't like it much either, but usually tried to sit wherever the future Mr. Garden's household had parked their contribution, because Mr. Garden smothered it with garlic, cooked it in butter until tender, and added sauteed onions. And sitting at his table made it taste actually pretty good. WG

Phil, I am so sorry I totally didn't think about your girlfriend. There are actually people who have posted here that they were declared "mark and avoid" which means The Way kicks you out and no one from that organization will ever again acknowledge your sorry existence, because their posts were monitored and traced back, via personal information they posted, to them. Your girlfriend is very likely not even supposed to be online, let alone doing any online dating! We may sound a bit paranoid, and I can't remember the posters who went through that, but it has happened more than once. I agree that TWI is a cult, not perhaps a doomsday cult, but very self protective, and demanding of its associates' absolute loyalty and unquestioning obedience. There are those who will strongly disagree, but they either remain steadfastly clueless as to the mechanisms of mind control, or just like to argue. I wonder if your girlfriend may not be a bit disenchanted to even be online as you have described. PS: The conception of Jesus Christ thing is something I never understood either. Most people bust out laughing when I try to explain it. I'm not sure where it came from. Possibly someone's imagination.. It's pretty incomprehensible to most Christians. Waysider, I saw that picture! It was YOU who stole the FLO lunch baskets! WG

Hi, Phil. Welcome to the Spot. The first mocha Latte' is free! There are a lot of folks here more learned and eloquent than I in explaining TWI's somewhat unusual beliefs. I will address what I remember about the teachings about Jesus Christ. The Way International teaches that there is One God. They teach that Jesus Christ is completely human, but is God's only BEGOTTEN Son. They teach that God placed soul life (nephesh kai) in the fallopian tube of Mary as she was ovulating, that this soul life was in the form of a sperm cell that held all perfect genes, and thus Jesus's conception was without sex and without sin, because the life of the flesh is in the blood and the blood comes from the father's genetic contribution (which may yet be disproven via the human genome project). Thus, while Jesus was human, he was also the son of God, and thus had supernatural powers. As far as the holy spirit, God is Holy. God is Spirit. Whenever this is capitalized in the Bible it refers to God. When not, it refers to the gift of holy spirit which God gives every individual at the moment the confess Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. Now, that may not be a good explanation, and I don't want you to think it in any way reflects my personal beliefs. Victor Paul Wierwille, founder of TWI, once wrote a book "Jesus Christ is NOT God" which someone may sell you on E-Bay. Other than doctrine, they are rather exclusive in their attitudes toward other Christians. My experiences that caused me to leave are rather extensive. Some of them you can find by simply clicking on my name to the left of this post and reading some of my former posts. Ditto about everyone else in here. Browse around the site. There are some good articles. Enjoy the latte'! WG

My husband's cousin/stepbrother's wife, who is a witch, was all excited about the Hale-Bopp comet when it came around, because there was this giant spaceship, three times the size of earth, that could be seen weaving in and out of the comet's tail. When it arrived, it would be filled with aliens who would collect all their relatives, who have living among us unbeknownst, and take them home somewhere. She was all glassy-eyed and excited about this. I just thought she'd had too much LDS back in the sixties. But didn't the Heaven's Gate cult do themselves in as a result of a similar belief? WG

Thanks for the replies. She is in fact developing cataracts. Our other dog was 16 years old and both blind and deaf, but he slept a lot and was a quiet little guy. The sedation does seem to be working. Pond, I will try giving her something of mine to lie on next time she goes bananas on me. She mostly does this at night, sort of a "Sundown Syndrome" like elderly humans get in nursing homes. Like a lot of older folk, she occasionally has to get up in the middle of the night to go pee. She is very housebroken and whimpers until someone gets up to let her out, then get a drink of water, then back to beddy-bye. Usually it's my husband. She weighs 60 lb and I can't get her upstairs. The stairs in fact aren't carpeted, so it would be curtains for both of us, I'm afraid, if I even tried. I was not crazy about putting the "office" up here for the very reason of her insecurities. But, she won't be with us forever. Right now, she is sleeping peacefully and I need to get to work. Thanks again, WG

I am NOT short; I am vertically challenged! WG

Sophie, our Labrador retriever, is getting old. Actually, she will be 15 in June. She has really bad arthritis and needs help getting her rear end up and moving. Her front legs aren't in good shape, either. Here's the problem: Since we moved the office upstairs and I have to be up here typing a lot, she has gotten quite weird and upset whenever I'm not downstairs with her. I got some Tamadol, a mild synthetic opoid, from the vet, and sometimes it will make her sleep, but tonight I haven't been able to get anything done because she barks, whines, moans and howls when I'm not in the same room. It almost seems like she has a canine version of sundowner syndrome. Anyone else ever encountered such a problem, and if so, what did you do about it? She's feeling a bit better now with the weather sort of warming up, and we really don't want to put her down, but I am going to have to work my butt off tomorrow morning to get this marblemouthed surgeon's transcription finished. WG

I guess I feel the way I feel at last in part because I was never around VPW or really LCM on a personal level. Other than a thankfully brief stint in FWC and two years in FLO, I was just Susie Peon Believer. I guess I could spend my remaining few years in grief and regret, bemoaning 23 wasted years from age 28 to age 51, but ya know, regret won't bring back a single minute. Here's a little 4 line poem from the Rubiyyat of Omar Khayham: "The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on. Nor all your tears shall lure it back To cancel half a line; Nor all your tears wipe out a word of it." WG