cara

Dear Java Jane, I just wanted to say that I think you write really well, conveying a lot in few words, and as a big mystery fan wish you the best with your book. Not sure I can add anything - I never thought of myself as committed, in that I never went WOW or in the corps or gave up on normal relationships with my family and I kept making "non-believer" friends, but then I did stay involved a long time, partly because of the fun I'd had at times, especially in the earlier years, partly because I did keep finding nuggets in what I heard as time went on, but often because I felt I had to show up. Sometimes it was just a relatively undistracted time to read all the other verses on the page while tuning out the speaker. A point was reached fairly early on when I didn't even want to invite anyone because of all the explaining I would have to do later about behavior or jargon, but it took a long time for all the things that puzzled me to add up to my wanting to get away.

Happy Christmas everyone and all the best for the New Year. I enjoyed this time growing up, the candle in the window, the walk in daylight and then hours being snug at home. I spent it with the family as often as I could during the TWI years when I lived far away from them and was always happy to get there and lose the stress of having to behave a certain way when eating with the TWIers. This year we had hours on the couch to watch Leonard Cohen's 2013 concert and "Lover, lover, lover" is playing in my head now - what a song and performance: 'I asked my father, I said, "Father change my name." The one I'm using now it's covered up with fear and filth and cowardice and shame". Ah but lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me, yes and lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover come back to me. He said, "I locked you in this body, I meant it as a kind of trial. You can use it for a weapon, or to make some woman smile." ..... ' and so on .... This is from an earlier year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14lKBKNS6LU (Just wanted to share a little from a great gift)

Others' comments and insights and experiences have definitely helped. The rude and bitter bits I skim through. I just had a quick look through your added article, and the difference is that I read here and find experiences that correspond to mine, insights that make me think about what I observed myself, and comments that I may or may not agree with but can understand. Thanks again to you all.

Hey JJ, you've listed a lot of "red flags." This man sounds dangerous to me.

I first started reading because I googled TWI after hearing that someone had died. It was disturbing reading, but I had no trouble accepting people's stories as they brought up memories that fitted. I've had some really good laughs here, but I check back mostly for food for thought - have to say it's comforting to see so many kind survivors.

Maybe he was just asking him to stop being an adversary or accuser (just checked my brilliant dictionary that gives word roots).? Dear ex-c, sorry about whatever hell it is.

Ohhhh! I've been wondering about complaints I'd heard about this man - the only explanation (without details) I was ever offered was the communist one, which to me did not automatically make him evil. Another of those times when I just didn't think it worth it to keep asking questions, when any "discussion" would end with "it is said (by some higher-up)."

Naten00 wrote "I find it comical I clicked on the link and the first thing that comes up is the Anti- Santa Christmas Jargon same stuff we are discussing on another thread." What I thought was weird was the claim that Santa Claus is a caricature of God - I don't remember hearing that one before, though maybe I just didn't pick up the implications of the different grumblings I heard. Doesn't he know about Saint Nicholas? (Trying to add link to thread: ). Would he ever think of looking something up? I think that he must have watched Miracle on somethingth Street too much, where the Santa character is called Kris Kringle (a mangling of Christkindl, the Christ child) and then got confused. Or am I confused?

I don't think I'm wallowing when I read your post and rejoice that I don't have to go around covered in a veil and subject to all those laws, that I've been just as liberated as a man has, that there is neither male nor female etc, that we have equal access to our Father and that we don't have to take that rubbish. "God doesn't have a problem with men being ..." - my breath leaves me just reading that sentence, picturing again those "opportunistic" randy old goats. Feminists are against SP and MB because they're women? You make your arguments in such broad strokes that I'm not sure what you're saying, and as to your Joe Fair extrapolation, that makes no sense from any angle.

Twinky, that made me laugh. This topic makes my blood boil. When I hear of people who take advantage of their age/strength/authority to force others, I think of them as the vilest cowards who should go off and pick on someone their own size and sickness. I suppose they don't want to look in that mirror.

... do chara. (Trying to change my name but Rumpelstiltskin is not yet approved and I don't want to bug the administrators.)

As far as I remember from what I read, it's a movie with Martin Sheen, made (directed?) by his son Emilio, about a father whose son dies on the walk and who decides to finish it off himself on the son's behalf.

Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure that it's an either/or, think it might be a matter of where our reception is best, could be both - a certain feeling that might have come via a natural sense might lead me to check in mentally, I don't know but I'm not worrying about it. Maybe the fuzziness suits me whereas others need it more defined, think God can work with us all, it's a body after all, not an army, ha, ha. That's what I meant (I think, fuzzily) about the authentic selves, that we're allowed to be different and ourselves, and maybe when we are the reception works best. Of course I could be wrong, but I'm not abandoned. Oh, a picky ps, but to me it's a gut feeling and I'm one of those females - maybe I'm stomach-centered.

I'm looking forward to seeing that movie (about el camino to Santiago de Compostela/Jakobsweg/St. James' way etc) , was recently talking to someone who walked from France on the pilgrim way west and said it changed his life. Think I'd like to do part myself. There's something about being outside and moving that lets conversation ebb and flow easily, and apparently there's lots of welcome and help along the way. People of diverse ages and beliefs do it. Think those ways have been around a loooong time.

About this "original self," I haven't read the book but am interested. Is it possible that this is equivalent to what VPW describes as "what makes you, you," ie the soul? I'm honestly interested, because something that used to bother me was the dismissal any time I brought it up of personality differences (which I admit turned out not to be very often), but I thought it a valid issue. How often was a problem between people due to differences in how they communicated or reacted rather than a doctinal difference that had to be dealt with sharply. Why would people gravitate towards certain kinds of verses or kinds of leaders/leadership? I could agree that the authentic self was suppressed as long as I tried to behave like the people I admired or made myself obey and do things that really, really seemed wrong to me. I can't really figure it out but it seems to me that the authentic self is also included in our spiritual life, in how the spirit communicates with our minds, in whether our "gut feelings" are valid or it's more a cerebral awareness. But I haven't read the book. PS Hello to everybody. I'm still enjoying reading.