Bramble

Heehee-Exxie--myspace is full of disrespectful youth and liberals! I would know--I have over 500 friends and I don't much attract the consevatives.

1. When the Bible is being discussed among your (non-TWI) friends, do you continue to believe that you know more than anyone else about the subject? No--my non TWI friends don't dicuss the Bible., adndI don't discuss religion etc with co workers or aquaintances(except on GSC) 2. Do you still think that people who believe in the Trinity are "idolatrous" and therefore have forfeited their chances for eternal life? No. I don't believe eternal lihe is earned. How about their "crowns in heaven"? No. 3. Do you hang on to the idea that all negative things come from the devil? No, I don't believe in the devil. I do believe there is constant balancing and rebalancing of order and chaos in all of life, even in people, and chaos can cause unforseen negative events. Also, people can give in to their chaotic impulses and do negative things. But chaos isn't evil--good can come from chaos too. 4. Do you avoid wearing a cross around your neck or having one as a wall decoration in your home? Yes 5. Is your first reaction to a difficult situation to speak in tongues - silently, in your mind - rather than to immediately pursue a solution to the problem? No, but I had to consciencely stop because it was an unthinking habit. 6. Do you think environmentalists are nature-worshippers? No, but i think nature worshippers are environmentalists. 7. Do you use a wooden spoon as a "rod of correction" on your child? Not any more. I use them for cooking. I use methods other than pain to correct my children. 8. When you experience failure, do you begin to re-trace your recent past in order to identify where you "blew it" spiritually? No, but i do think it through to see if there is away to do better. 9. When considering whether an idea or event is valid, is the Bible your ultimate reference point for truth? No 10. If you encounter a mentally ill person, does you "diagnosis" of that person include the name of a devil spirit? No. I think the person is ill--the brain is an organ, it can get sick. 11. When you pray, does each sentence of the prayer begin with ... "Thank you father"? No, I converse or meditate and listen. 12. Do you believe that when a Christian husband and wife disagree, the wife should submit? Christians can do what they want, but I don't believe gender makes anyone spiritually superior. 13. When someone is very very very successful at what they do, do you consider that this might be because of an affiliation with the Adversary? No 14. Do you find yourself rejecting any perspectives from other religions? Any? No Some--yes. 15. Do you believe that babies are not alive until they take their first breath? I believe a fetus has as much human life as anyone, they are just far more fragile, just like a small child is more fragile than an adult, and needs care. 16. Does it still matter to you how many were crucified with Christ? no 17. Is your life patterned more after the Epistles than the Gospels? No

In middle school my kids babysit and do yard work/shovel snow. One has a regular babysitting job that pays $30 for one night's very easy work. All the paper routes around here require a vehicle. One kid is going to be painting the Latin teacher's house later this summer, with several other kids--I think they are getting $40 for a day's work. They also take turns babysitting the English teacher's nine year old now and then. The hospital here hires 15 year olds to deliver and pick up food trays--for $8 an hour! My oldest is trying to get on there but competition is fierce! During the school year--my kids have so much homework I don't know how they would hold down a job and keep their grades up. Serious homework, a couple hours a night, easy, and more during end of semesters. I didn't have that kind of homework every night back in the day. The fast food restaurants here are not full of teens like when I was a kid--they are full of adults who don't want a job that does drug tests. At sixteen my kids can audition for a competitive drum and bugle corps that travels the nation doing competitons every summer--they get paid for this. This is a huge goal, --kids of high school/college age from all over the country audition. My kids participate in a 'feeder' marching band in the summer--practice two hrs a day, 5 days a week, with a trip almost every weekend to march in parades around the state, so jobs have to work around this marching schedule. The feeder band does not make the competrtive corps a given, but it is very likely, since their band director is deeply involved in the drum corps and knows their standards.

How sad, Ajern. Your story just makes me want to cry. I wish you strength on your journey!

Wow--I never thought about the tree leaf imagery--leaves are disposable before. But it's true, leaves could drop all over and not hurt the Way Tree.

My brother and I had a nightcrawler and cucumber stand( we lived in the county) when I was in grade school. Had a sign on our fence. Sometimes we'd have asparagus, too, because it grew wild all over the neighborhood. We'd walk through our yard at night with flashlights and catch the nightcrawlers. Baby sat a two year old girl 5 days a week the summer I was 13. The next summer I set flats of annuals and perrineals for a landscape business where my mom worked, did that for several summers, then got a job at Mcdonalds--but would try to get two weeks off during cherry season so I could work 12 hr shifts culling cherries on a conveyor belt--really good money for a kid for two weeks work.

...Rascal, could their stalking be more obvious?...sheesh For myself, they Way was a life changing experience, and not to a better life. I have looked back at decisions made due to my way beliefs, and actions I took, with regret. I saw good people--including myself, hubby and children--put in ugly, stressful situations by the demands of so called men of God who had no care or concern beyond their own image within TWI. Being here helps me ferret out thoughts and practices I developed by being in TWI most of my adult life. Some may think that is not okay, but I don't see how whitewashing by never thinking or speaking about negatives and telling myself how marvelous those years were would be of any value to me. What value is it to lie to yourself? Been there, done that.

Makes you wonder if some people who are in and really like being IN don't have a sadistic streak--and the beliefs of the ministry give it a nice righteous cover.

Not learning how to fail--we still struggle with that as adults! Be perfect or don't even attempt... We left at the end of the nineties and my kids were in elementary school at that time. In their classes, they were the smartest, the best behaved etc, which is great except no one can be perfect all the time. They had big problems with any small failure. One of my kids got a stomach aches at math everyday, simply due to nerves(in second grade) because they had missed some instruction and didn't understand something--and they went to a school that didn't do regular grades. Add that mom was a school teacher... It is hard for all of us to find balance...it is okay you didn't get an A...but you could have gotten an A...but relax, no one gets a's all the time...well, some kids do...It okay if you're not first chair...Arg. On and on. I know if the bar is set too high they will get discouraged...but this is something i always have to think about--I can't trust that I'll make the best decision on the fly.

I was told it was a simple mistake dure to VP's many years as a trinitarian. As far as revelation went--MOG revelation always trumped personal revelation in the TWI I knew. Autonomy wasn't an important quality--meekness and obedience to leadership were.

In TWI we didn't try yo communicate with Jesus Christ, only with the Father God. praying to Jesus was a Trinitarian thing, and idolitry. Jesus CHrist might be the head of the body in TWI, but he communicated with the leadership/ MOG if with anyone--trickle down revelation.

I remember a really bizarre teaching I heard in TWI about women and the Church. It was in the mid to late 90s, and I can't remeber who taught it, except it was a high mucka muck, not in the fellowship. Maybe LCM on some delusional rant. Anyway, homosexuality was rampant in the early days of the Church(so the story went) in Rome. Women wanted to have sex with their husbands and have babies, but the husbands were all busy doing other men. They got tired of hearing the women and having the women try to run things, so there was a back lash against women...sex with women became 'dirty'... I kid you not I heard this taught. I remember at the time thinking--homosexuality must be like a virus...

Thanks Abigail. That is very interesting. It does seem like the verses used for the obey and submit to the husband doctrine are all in the epistles. Distinctive roles, but equal in value is not something I have a problem with... it is practical. When I think about women like my grandmothers, who lived on farms in remote areas, both had 4 kids before they were age twenty one, no nannies or servants...when you think about the sheer time it took to nurse, diaper, launder, feed, teach...it would be hard to even get out of the door! Even when my children were small, I was a nursing mom, and child care--if I wanted to work--would have been my whole salary. So I stayed home and took care of business. I never felt weird about it until Way Corps started insisting I ask my husband if I could babysit etc.( Husband was like, Huh? I have to decide this? Didn't I marry a grown up?) It would also be hard to live the weird submissive way of TWI of the 90s or some other groups, where all decisions are taken to the husband etc. I would think that is a product of our modern times and affluence--a hundred years ago those farmers would be up before dawn, working until late...no time to check a 15 min schedule. Just some rambling thoughts, and probably amok!

Abigail, a question for you because I'm curious. Does Judaism view women in the role of submissive similar to some Christian doctrines? Are women to obey their husbands?

I think he left around the loyalty letter time.

Lava lamps remind me of the evil blob.

Ugh that song--at first I was so glad not to be listening to the Singing Ladies. Then the words started to sink in...

Thanks, Belle. I'll book mark the PBS one. What the Bleep was over my head, too, though I found it interesting. I think the science and math gene got left out of my DNA.

I need a pyhsics for Dummies book. Pagans are always talking about string theory and quantum physics in relation to spiritual stuff, and I'm--Huh? I took physics once. It was all about torque and resistance and wedges and stuff. Tools, mainly. I remember doing fun experiments with slant boards and marbles etc. Algebra--yeah we had algebra in there too. Am I showing my age?

I do have one great memory about cleaning for people--Joe Guarini.When When they sold the big limb home in Illinois, Joe said at a meeting that he didn't need a big place that took 4 men an entire Saturday to maintain. He didn't need a live in helper to help with the kids. Get him into an ordinary house and he would mow his own grass, and his wife would take care of their kids.

Parental love/agape~ While we were in TWI we saw the huge contrast between how my parents treated my mentally ill brother, and how mentally ill were treated in TWI. My brother lived with my parents for most of his adult life. Even with medication he couldn't quite manage a 'normal' life. As my parents saw it, the alternatives were to institutionalize him, or take care of him at home. The one thing they didn't want was for him to be one of the mentally ill who wander the streets as homeless people. In TWI they would have been encouraged to kick him out, or to institutionalize him. Instead they gave him a loving home. His psych once told my sister(off the record of course) that my brother was one of the most severly ill patients in his care--but that his quality of life was much better than so many. A testament to my parents we strive to live up to.

A thought about reincarnation that I've seen in pagan groups/forums etc: The reemergence of goddess beliefs is because there are so many people now, older souls are beingbe born, and those were souls that knew goddess beliefs.

I get it Jean. You want me to: A--think like you or B-- shut up I'm not going to do either. I think you are boundary jumping, which I DO NOT respect. What ever you Iams get out of the Bible, it is sure not social skills. Since you can't seem to get beyond me not basing everything on your interpretastion of the Bible--which I'm obviously not required to do--you are going on ignore like your spouse. I lived through TWI of the nineties. Once was enough.

pond ~ Heehee, yup only on GSC! Like Wordwolf said, we forgot we were dealing with humans, not twibots. And how weird is it we both get picked on on the same thread by the same people, when we are usually on the opposite sides of the fence?! Only on GSC, Oakspear ~ I'll be in touch the next time I need to get proclaimed. You take paypal? Java Jane ~ No worries. I can stick up for myself--finally, at the age of 50, after some hard lessons learned-- but I actually prefer good manners and civility! Wordwolf ~ Thanks for mentioning that people were witnessing on this thread. Good insight that I missed, explains alot.

There are plenty of posters on this thread who either agree or disagree about definitions of agape. I'm not the only poster who believes all humans, not just born again humans, can experience, recognise and give agape love. Jeaniam isn't the only poster who thinks only the born again have the ability to agape. However, Jeaniam has not singled other posters out --even though they aren't using Bible verses. I came to the conclusion that it wasn't my words that upset her, but who I am that got her all excited. How does my behavior fit into my definition of agape? Simple. I don't have to eat others peoples $h!+, sit back, smile, and say "Bless you, honey. You are so right. I'm a worthless crumb and you know how to fix me. Tell me how I can change myself to please you." Not any more.