Bramble

It makes me sad that other stlll live and raise their kids in the mog worship, arrogant, isolationist beliefs of VPW/TWI, where bully characteristics are mistaken for boldness, and obedience to the mog is mistaken for spiritual depth.

We had hail two night in a row, couldn't get everything covered so lots of the garden took a beating. All the herbs took it well, but tomatoes and peppers got hit. Hopefully they will recover! My brother planted a huge garden with all types of potaoes--we'll have potatoes for the winter--blue, red gold etc!

Let me guess! Let me guess! Do they want you to be reconciled to the House Hold of TWI?? Is there an 'OR ELSE' involved--bet there is. Lookey lookey, someone died and you could too! I think we will live longer without all the stress from TWI.

Being out of TWI has been very liberating for me. I've had opportunities to do things, think things, read things etc that I could never have done in the confines of TWI. I've made friends TWI would deem as 'possessed' who I enjoy, I'm invollved in some volunteer work(imagine trying to get TWI approval for a Cat rescue group!) Things I (I!) feel good about and enjoy. I get to choose, not the TWI leadership. When I do think about stuff that happened, it is usually confined to the time it takes to write a post here on GSC, then I go on with my life. I try to focus on what I need to do for myself, my family, my job etc and life is pretty busy with just those things. i have some interests that are pretty absorbing, plus having teenagers keeps life hopping.

In mythology bees were sacred to earth and grain goddeses. There is a myth where three bee priesteses were given to Hermes. Honey meade was connected to divination. Google Melissae.

Like Ham, I deliberately quit speaking in tongues at one point. Heck, my life for years in TWI was crap and I spoke in tomgues all the time. How did it help? Didn't notice any difference in life, except I was no longer so inside my own head making myslf SIT to build myself up etc. But it did take awhile, because for so many years I spoke in tongues at any negative thought or incident. Life is alot less anxious on a day to day basis now. And no one comes to my home unless it's for business, or unless I invite them as a friend. We found we did't need the TWi type authority figure in our business so we wouldn't screw up. How bizarre that lifestyle is. We've made good decisions, bad decisions and no, we don't have any super prediction power about the future, so we do the best we can with what we know in the here and now. None of that 'if you'll commit to this action, you'll reap the benefit, God will bless you' stuff motivates us now.

The last ROA('95) there was a huge number of small children. When you have an RV full of preschoolers, someone can't volunteer, someone can't hit all the meetings and you might bring your own boxes of mac & cheese for meals (I know we did!) I think that was one of the reasons they canceled the ROAs--demographics had changed so much.

When our kids were small but in primary grades they recieved a year,s end reward--tickets to an amusement park--for good behavior and good grades. The tickets were for the same time as HHF, so we reported our plans to not be there but take the kids to the park. Our HFC was adamant about us going to HHF instead. Can you imagine telling three little kids they couldn't have their reward because we needed to get to HHF? Other kids from the school were there at the same time, it was like a party.We went to the amusement park and had rides, cotton candy, the whole deal. That night hubby and I drank a six pack of beer and had the first really long talk about TWI we'd ever had, and a few months later we left. That was a real eye opener for Hubby.

Hey! Vitamin rich kraut and black bread were why the barbarians were able to sack Rome--all those unhealthy Romans eating more refined food! I read it in a book.

The whole 'Confronting the world with the word' type of witnessing didn't draw in the noobs, either. There just weren't scads of people looking to perfect their lives, who would respond with thankfulness to our sharp eyes for seeing any type of imperfection! People don't really give a $h!+ if absolute strangers take them to task about the lifestyle they are living. In fact, they think the stranger is a bizarre idiot busy body. And what's sad, at one time the TWI folk may have had actual social skills--but they traded them in for the "Present truth."

I think it is kind of amusing that they purged out this group, that group, every weakness they could find group, then one day the limb coords or other corps woke up to find they didn't have enough fellowships in the area to be called a limb/branch/poobah. ABS was way down. OOPS. Then it was "Whoa, be nice, be kind. I'm gonna lose my JOB!" And funny how God didn't reward the perfect pure household with scads of new believers to join them in the Household of the Prevaling Word.

Since the internet was so full of devil spirits it was probably uncool to be know as some kind of computer geek--but I don't know that for sure because I hardly knew anyone with a computer while I was in TWI.

I understand what rascal is saying, too. I married in TWI--to one of the wows that got me in the class. Had three kids in TWI. Sure we had good times. But the bulk of those I had good TWI times with did not remain friends for long, just friends in passing. Most moved on away from TWI long before we did. People came and went. Others who I was very close to when my kids were little marked and avoided our family as required when we left TWI...the minister who married us, who we so admired, morphed into an LCM enforcer. We saw our fellowship coord's personality change over the years and not for the better, to a harsh, arrogant man who used others like pawns on a chess board--but at one time he was a buddy of my hubby's-- they had 'good time' in the seventies. Believers we knew and enjoyed left, got M&A or put on probabtion, relationships ended abruptly. Friendships ceased to have any type of stability. In the nineties people quit taking pictures of events etc--you just had to purge them later when people got M&A etc. So good times, sure. I still know my family members in my wedding video. We had personal family events that are precious. But our cherished memories are the family times, not the TWI events we were part of. Lots of tainted memories. Do I really want to dredge up 'good times' of the ROA '94, and all those people who are not in our lives at all now, some who now depise us? Twi was like an illness.Things started out all healthy but it was all downhill after that.

Sometime in the mid nineties LCM wanted us to witness to people with cars, jobs and all their teeth. Our fellowship did lots of door to door in upscale neighborhoods for an entire summer. We didn't get one person to come to fellowship. I don't remember an exact year though. All those mid nineties years all just blur together, hectic times trying to juggle family needs and fellowship demands ( you couldn't really say no.) My little kids were always paired up with men in the fellowship for door to door--to "soften them" because they were cute.

We live across the street from a small church, and even they have to make nice with the neighbors about parking. People who park in front of their homes get really irritated when a church person gets in their parking spot forcing them to park up the block. The church sends its ushers outdoors on busy holiday Sundays and directs traffic to the empty gradeschool parking lot. Its further away but keeps the neighbors happy. Their consideration for the neighborhood is appreciated. Most Wiccans and Pagans I know meet in the home around here, though big group events might be on state forest land, which has plenty of rules for proper use that must be followed. Crap is sure to follow any problems w/a pagan or Wiccan group meeting and pagans and Wiccans are aware.

Cognitive dissonance? Holding the "truth" in your thinking, but in the background you're thinking, "Huh? How does that make any kind of sense?" But you donacknowledge or examine that background thought. until you come to GSC!

This is kind of embarrasing, but hubby and I didn't go out on a date night for probably six years while our kids were young in TWI. There were only a couple people we would even consider asking to babysit our kids during those years, during an emergency, and those all had young kids, too, and like us were always under scrutiny for our disobedient children. We never discussed it--but what a red flag. All the people you know, see weekly--and you would never consider having your children alone with them! I used a wooden spoon, but my kids were never beaten. Still, the standard was perfection, and when we had kids in gradeschool, perfection was a real issue. I had a kid who would get a stomach ache if their math paper wasn't perfect. The perfect or nothing standard took a long time to get over. We quit using the spoon before we left TWI, and used the school bedtime excuse to keep them away from fellowship most of our last year in TWI. We just didn't have the stomach for having our kids involved by that time. Funny how we knew something was desparately wrong but weren't sure just what that was.

Yes, think so. In our humanity we only experience, understand the part of what is in us. The Bible verse about seeing through a dark glass always made sense to me.

Supreme being...that is more a Christian concept I think, the omnipotent God, all powerful almighty... I tend to see/experience more of a 'wise elder, loving kin' type god, more of a partner god than authoritarian. Another part of diety--our part. Are we part or separate? In my viewpoint we are part...we are children of the goddess, all connected in my beliefs, not depraved sinners separated by sin etc. But then in my beliefs the world is not fallen, nor is man, no savior was sent. Troubled man, yes, but not without hope of growth and health. In my view point, the further we separate ourselves or others from the supreme being /God/diety then the less we value ourselves and others, the worse we become as a people.

cman, you bring to mind an often heated topic of discussion in pagan/Wiccan forums. Soft polytheisim, all god/goddesses are manifestation or aspects of one supreme being/creator. The facet analogy--the supreme being seen through a crystal prism, each facet different yet part of the whole. Why all doctrines are both true and false. All part, none the complete.

That's how I see it, too. LCM was not a rational man, he worked by 'revelation'--whatever wild hair tickled him was straight from Gawg Almighty. He wanted the outward appearance of prosperity(abundance=money in TWI). He wanted good looks. Perfection was important, but it was outward perfection--any underlying crap didn't matter as long as it was hidden. Those people were valuable for marketing. The old, troubled or poor folk had no place in the one true household. As far as background checks etc...for rank and file, would they have access to fingerprints and social security numbers? Jobs that require background checks require those.

Ninties: For a mini mog wannabe, finding fault was godly--it showed how very sharp they were. To be the first to hop on a person with fault--illness, marital problems, money problems--whatever--gave you mog points with your higher uppers. it made your underlings and peers cautious around you--power. Bullies were rewarded. Weakness was anything they could ferrit out, and it was with the blessings of the heirachy. Weakness brings down strength. All those people who were kicked out or fled were somebodies coup.

Have a great summer. I will miss reading about your post-TWI journey but think your life will only get better.

My elderberries have purple foliage, very pretty and lacy. We were told by a local gardening group that we couldn't grow asapargus here, but I grew up in Montana and remember that it grew everywhere, and the climate where I grew up in Eastern Montana is very harsh with really frigid winters. My parents would send us collecting up and down the county road we lived on, but to leave every 10th one to go to seed. Ours is in the fourth year but we harvested some last year.

We got plants and seeds in the ground finally. We have to keep a sharp eye on the weather because we can have hard frosts or even snow into the first week of June. We have tarps and rocks ready for cover, and I have straw around many of my little bedding plants My columbine is getting ready to bloom, we ate our first side dish of asparagus, the black lace elderberries look good and I'm trying those Moulan Rouge sunflowers AGAIN. Maybe this year will be the year. I find the garden to be relaxing and try to spend some time there every evening. After years of garden chores, my teens are starting to appreciate it. Time!