Bramble

After leaving TWI, I reconnected with my sister and several cousins who are near my age. That has been wonderful. It is not based on religious beliefs...several are Catholic, some are nothing...doesn't matter. We try to get together for a weekend here and there and it is just fun. Sometimes all their kids come, and some grandkids. We talk, laugh, play cards, watch movies, play ping pong... I have made a few friendships since leaving TWI, but I have no interest in people who are into a hard drinking or sleeping around type lifestyle. But this is an issue that I work through with my kids, since they are far more susceptible to peer pressure and getting into ugly situations with the wrong kids. I do have a couple pagan friends but while we met through religious interests, many of are interactions are very ordinary--go for coffee, go shopping girl stuff, talk on the phone.

I will interpret the strange tongue: You are bad. I am good.

In TWI 'compelling' people was a way of life, though as time went on it became more of a caste system as to who could compel whom. But I remember the type of pressure we would put on our peers to go to the Rock etc, back in the good old days. Outside of TWI I have seen very little of it. Maybe I just avoid those types without thinking about it much. I do have a co worker who seems very needy and controlling, I try to be nice but not get tied up in her pouting wierd stuff. Since I don't believe anyone must be one religion or another, I don't feel any need to hide thoughts or actions to keep some one else's faith unshaken. I think when people can know in themselves that yes, there are other thoughts, beliefs and practices in this matter, but this is my path, they are in a good place. I think that is much better than isolation from other thoughts etc, as we had in TWI. Like minded we were, but the price was high. But I don't think we all have to be like minded, just in case someone gets confused in their doctrine. They are an adult, let them sort it through.

How could you know that what you say will cause someone to abandon their faith? That seems to imply having a lot of power over someone else. I could see it working with a child or young person who looked up to you, though. If they --an adult--abandon it, maybe it wasn't really theirs to begin with. Maybe there were things going on in their hearts and minds you weren't privy to. I think ex ways can tell when someone is trying to 'witness the truth ' to them to try to change their beliefs somehow. It was a huge part of our Way lifestyle, and a habit pattern for many.

I hope the collective consciousness is moving toward inclusiveness, respect and appreciation of other's beliefs, not the type of exclusion seen in some forms of religion(Like TWI). I don't see people rushing to Paul or to divisiveness, especially the young people I know. But then I don't hang out in that crowd.

Blaming the believer started in PFAL You know what killed that little boy!

What a lovely experience.

I've never said my experience in TWi was pure hell. I was in for twenty years. But much of that time was striving for a false standard of abundant life and never making the mark--or perhaps fleetingly, here and there. Good dog. Here's a treat. And while I was busy going about my little way believer life, others were being subjected to hellish experiences, like some on lead had, much of which I didn't know about until many years later. Though I did know of some pretty ugly lead experiences in the early eighties, which always made me hesitate to go corps. But, see, I'd heard them, and they set a red flag inside. One was my husband--he was a wow in my home town, and apprentice corps. The big dog corps in the area gave him and another apprentice guy a lead-like challenge--to swim the local river--prove their believing. Having grown up in that town I new it was a Really Bad Idea--the river had steep banks because it was deep and fast. Steep banks are not like a nice sandy beach--they are hard to climb to get out of the current. Drownings happened. They were being put in danger. Hubby didn't even try to go to mid river--he was smart. The other guy did--he got swept away but managed to make it to a shallow area a ways down river. Man what great believing. Guess which guy got the slap down and which guy got the praise? And hubby and I bought that for many years. And while I could pat myself on the back for my believing, recount all my great times, the truth , seen many years later with the TWI blinders off, is--I was no better or more beloved than those people were. A few changes of circumstance or a few decisions down the road, and I could have been one of those people--or someone else I loved could have been. There was a pattern of uncaring challenges seen in a dozen different ways ( sell your house!)throughout my time in TWI--which I was too blind to see--Those people didn't didn't believe. It doesn't mean people didn't have good times--but boy howdy, if something bad did happen, there was no help or compassion. That believer was tainted with unbelief. Some got the kick when they were down--it was a pattern, and the law of believing and obeying leadership played a huge part

Gag me. So the young raped ladies, dead man, the injured ,should have believed bigger, like the unscathed did? Condemned by Jesus himself. Because sure, believing can control the unsafe, uncaring actions of others, too!

I'm thinking about it, but haven't gone in for an exam for surgery yet. For years I used one contact--for distance, and my other eye was bare...worked great. The past few months though, I've been having trouble with mid vision--at about 3 ft, which is not good because I assist people at their computers, so I am often working in that distance. Eye doc said I need trifocals, and contacts won't do the job. Sheesh, I've had contacts for over thirty years. I pick up the glasses next week. :( My hubby. who is older than I , only wears reading glasses. He finds it amusing.

I'm not a scholar, but here's what this thread has got me to thinking-- How would a man who never met or knew Jesus in life, who had the after death conversion that no one else has ever had--know more about the Christ than those who were with him day after day, saw how he lived, heard all his teaching...doesn't make a lot of sense.

Please clarify. This post sounds like a horoscope--full of deep meaning until you think about it. The body can reach ahead or behind, reaching ahead is much easier. What does that have to do with memories? Athletes skills really don't translate well into my life. I'm not part of a team trying to win the Big Game. Reaching back to grab a football is something I have never done even once in my life. (But I'm great at ping pong--a game where you rarely reach back!) I don't think people can discard memories, the brain doesn't work that way. Even with stop! thought! renewed mind! get busy on a bible verse!, the memory is still there. If it is a troubling memory, not thinking about it won't make it not troubling. So I don't really understand how lessons of the past are best forgotton...because they are still in the memory, even if unspoken, and unfaced. And aren't the lessons of the past , understood, how we gain experience and wisdom? How do you understand them if you refuse to examine them? Does the Word of God erase memories? Not that I'm aware of. I guess reaching back with our arms is supposed to be a lesson about our past memories--it is easier to reach forward--the future? Or something like that? Are you trying to say quit thinking about the negative past? Or quit posting about it? Boy, that would be a new one for GSC!(I'm being sarcastic here) Reaching for the future--humans, whatever their spirituality, are lousy at predicting the future. We live in the NOW. We plan for what seems the likely future...but we never know for sure what it will be.

I was very much raised to be sweet, compliant, obedient, helpful etc., which I think was common with girls raised in the sixties and seventies. I was also shy and didn't like to get into trouble, so I was an easy kid, good behavior, good grades, brushed my teeth, was in by curfew. Then I went away to college. Guess what--all those honed 'skills' were picked up by boyfriends or roomies, and I'd be doing what they thought I should do...and while in college I got into TWI. No wonder it seemed familiar. What is funny is that it was my TWI hubby--one of the wows who got me into the Word--who pointed out to me that sometimes I just needed to say no and let someone else stay up late and bake the cookies. I had honestly never thought it through until that time, but I realized that one of the things I really loved about my marriage was that I wasn't always jumping up to wait on hubby etc--I could relax. He could take care of himself! Of course, TWI didn't think that was a good husbandly quality!

Wow, Abigail. I had no idea that is what kosher was all about-- I am very ignorant of Judaism. One of the things that drew me to my current beliefs was the connectedness, respect for animals, nature etc that is found in earth based beliefs.

Hell moved. Instead of being in the afterlife, it came here to earth. If you walked out on God(TWI) you got possessed, your family got possessed, your marriage/health/whaterever got destroyed--you know, the 'Greasespot by midnight' threat. As far as PFAL, I am not a Christian, I believe there is life after death--not heaven for the good and hell for the bad, but a spiritual life... As far as the trinity--I think Jesus is a Deity. People worship him, pray to him and get answers...Whether he is the same one as God, I don't know. But I view trinitarians as having one god with a duo( or trio) nature, and non trinitarians as having duo gods, though they don't know what to to with Jesus--but still somehow they all have one God...and the holy Spirit is some nebulous, hard to define spiritual entity or energy or something...either part of God or not a god...

Shifra, I had a Presbyterian minister, fresh out of school, say nearly the same thing. Perhaps you might find some on the topics on liberal/progessive Christian sites. Sheesh, I can almost remember the name of the college she came from.

I had never thought of it that way--we WERE TWI. So true. We didn't just attend--we worked our minds and lives into TWI and became it. Funny, I left a Presbyterian Church at one point because all of a sudden they wanted me to run this program--and the Pastor was thinking about starting a daycare, and could I help there too, with the set up? Totally freaked me out, the thought of devoting hours and hours in service. Yet, many non TWI folks I know devote hours to their church youth groups or summer camps or choirs etc and enjoy every second of it. Hubby and I have a difficult time in any organized group. There's a gardening club we've thought about joining, but... And Kathy--grammar nazis are just plain not welcome! Haven't we lived with enough nazi s? What good did it really do people, anyway? And you write just fine.

The dying/resurrecting fertility god was a savior to his people, making the land and people fertile. As far as I know, the concept of the people needing a savior due to their sinfulness wasn't part of it though. There are some theories that the dying god beliefs lasted into the middle ages--the high priest or priestess taking the place of the king as substitute--Joan of Arc, Thomas a Becket, and a king, William Rufus, William the Conqueror's son. Modern Wiccan/pagans have the dying/birthing god as part of their yearly calendar.

What seems so odd to me now is that rudeness, arrogance,anger, tantrums etc became somehow elements of taking a real stand for God...and that obedience to leadership was so, so important. And why some of us didn't see red flags...

Isn't there some sort of dna breeding project with Asian elephants? But it will take like sixty years to really produce one or something--and I'll be dead and gone. Durn it!

??? Wasn't the 'trial' period a compromise? Sure looked like it to me. Both of you had to give a little, right? To do the trial period? What's not a compromise about that?

Not all the predictions are doom. There is the idea that as the sun enters the center of the universe--cosmic womb--there will be a rebirth of humanity. Some connect that to the Age of Aquarius, the waterbearer pouring spiritual enlightenment upon mankind. The hundreth monkey folks think that is when the scales will tip... Some think human Dna will change due to magnetism or something. But my favorite dooms are the 1.demons from outerspace who will devour us, and 2. the Yellowstone Park volcanic area blowing up 3/4 of the US and throwing us into dust cloud winter...how does one prepare for those?! Oh--there's the Atlantis rising again thought...

I never suggested you should turn you back on your God, Kathy. I just think it is a little self righteous and consescending to paint all those who no longer believe as you do as 'tossing God in the trash.'

Compromise was a dirty word in TWI. See, when a decision was before a couple, God was supposed to zap the exact right victorious thing to do to the husband, because that is why he is the head--chain of command, just like in the military. The wife's job was to obey. And how can you discuss and/or argue with "Thus saith the Lord"?

I so love that term adult moment!