Shellon

Thanks, just thinking, compliments like that make me want to stick around maybe. :)

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Elie Wiesel

I would agree that it's easy to be self-delusioned and yeah, that is honest, but I'd also add that because we're human, we can understand now that our human-ness is ok. And the shi+ that happened in our lives won't happen again, that's for damn sure. So there is something to that, isn't there? Some comfort of experience, even if painful in the getting. TWI and others, including the group in which you found yourself, played on that human-ness, that vulnerability, they used us, Jeff, abused our intelligence, our human capacity for logic, took advantage of our very lives, spouses, our children. I don't see that as schmuck properties, I see that as realizing now that you're pi$$ed off ! and that's what has to happen and be maintained in order that no one is allowed to do so again in our lives, to our children, to those we love. I speak often and openly about grief and understand it's not just the loss of a person in our lives to death that requires us to go through the process of grieving. It's also the loss of a job, a home, a marriage and yes, even a religious organization we believed in, supported, believed. We have to go head first into the stages and I, personally, prefer the final anger and have ever intention of maintaining it where people like this are concerned. Stay angry, stuff gets done. :)

Jeff and others who have perhaps not read this, following is the link around here to read all about this in more specific detail. THE CHARACTER OF THE PROPHECIES Please refer to all 10 pages for even more details.

I think the biggest regret I have now is that I didn't take care of my great aunt's rosary beads that she wanted me to have when she left the convent. She wanted to give them to me since I "obviously loved God". She's gone and I can't apologize for treating such a prized possession so poorly. I was sure that someone in TWI would accuse me of allowing devil spirits into my home, blah and blah and puke. What a shame, eh? But yeah, it has been very wonderful to take care of other things, clear the air on past behaviors and to receive the love, so graciously, from people. And Aunt Augusta would frown disapprovingly at me and say something like "why didn't you just say so, I would have kept the rosary beads until you came to your senses" :)

To me, the irony of him even having a job at Home Depot is just too much perfection, be his job title President or Greeter. Wasn't a Home Depot somehow involved, allegedly, in the lawsuit we first learned about at Waydale? The lawsuit that sent him off TWI grounds, carrying little more than a tampon and a toothbrush, on his own for the first time, yeah that one. I'll look it up, but I'm pretty sure...... (edited to say "a" Home Depot, since the Co itself shouldn't be implied by me to have been involved)

Hi Mark, I'd agree, it does paint a certain stain on the person that shouldn't be there when the bottom line is they need care, period.

Thoughts of your wife, Kevin, will keep you all in prayers. My maternal grandmother had breast cancer and my mother has breast issues that keep her cautious so I, of course, pay very close attention to my own health in that regard and I'm thankful for the ability to make informed decisions when needed. My daughter had most of her cervix removed 2 years ago (she was only 25) and of course that now requires extremely close monitoring of cancerous cells again as well as her daughter's attention for the rest of her life, too. If my daughter hadn't kept up with her annual Gyn exams.......... I get on a soap box and yell kinda loud at men, specifically, who don't tend to their health, won't go to doctors for physicals, won't listen when their body is saying something because of "ah, it's fine, nothing is going to happen to me" Bullshi+ We do, indeed, have to consider both sides of our genetic make up and value ourselves enough to not just "believe" and/or not just assume.

We do what we do until we don't and maybe it really is that simple. I prefer my life now where I get to choose if I do something really stupid and I get to choose when and/or if I change that, when I do, how I do and with whom I make different choices. My four year old grand daughter pounds the air with her little fist and hollars "This Is America ~!" and argues about whatever it is she doesn't want to do that her parents are insisting on. She's right, though. So long as I am upright and sucking air, I want to remain thankful for those that love me and forgive me for the stupid things and hang in there with me. That's pretty much as good as it gets. The human condition also thrills me (most of the time) in that we humans do accept another's faults and shortcomings pretty well when we understand that we, too, are just humans as well and I think it behooves us to not forget that. It's a strong man or woman who can accept an apology, understand the situation to the end s/he can forgive and keep going into better things. As stong as the man or woman who has the courage to own their wrong and do something about it. Why not? Things are sure better after, no?

Prayers for your dad, Tommy, please keep us posted. :)

Love that ! My parents and brothers, o lordy bless their patient hearts..........yeah.

And bravo to you, too, it sounds.

Yeah, I think they can be that far North, just not very common. A friend lives in Illinois and he, too, got creamed by one of those buggers, lost three fingers by the time all was said and done. The popup camper we used had been closed up for about a year and although we had cleaned it out quite well, I think we missed a spider home. Also it's possible that the nasty thing was in my clothing, too, since we lived in Arkansas and of course they'd be so much more common there. Where ever it originated, it sure messed up my world for a long time.

Amazing stories ~! I love the learning for me of 'it's the small stuff, really' in that being involved with TWI gave us such a broad stroke in regards to dealing with those that love us and have to witness our arrogance, but so much more those we may have been intimately closer to; dear friends and certainly our family who raised us and never bailed on us when we were acting out of that or just plain being butts. I'm also struck with how bendable the human relationship(s) is when it comes to humility and forgiveness so much of the time. When someone truly loves us, really loves us, they seem to hang on, even if it feels like they aren't, 'til the proctologist locates our head.

:) taxicab

Hee Hee Hee I learned to say assface from the best ! Yeah, we sucked, but yeah now we can know and not suck, thankfully eh?

I spent most of my afternoon going through a couple of old boxes of letters, cards, pictures, memory things that I had put off for a very long time, anticipating painful recollections. A time in my life has come full of wonderful changes and plans and it was time to purge some stuff that kept staring at me from those boxes. I laughed at some pictures of 'back in the day', cried at some that signified loss but the most painful was some of my own notes. A condolence card from my brothers wife when my husband died. She shared how he was in a better place now and how God would use him in Heaven. A lovely card with her sharing her heart to me and my children. Then I read a note on the side of the card stating "sent a thank you and a correction to her poor doctrine" O M G how f'in rude was I ! I instantly called her and apologized, 12 years too late and after we spoke, I was overwhelmed with thankfulness for her forgiving heart but still sorrow-filled at my own self righteous attitude to correct her poor doctine in an extention of her condolence to us ! As I dug deeper into the old cards, many of them had little notes on them of similiar rudeness and thoughtless acts; me a better than them cultassface throwing back their love and kindness. I've made alot of phone calls this afternoon.