Forgive me if this was mentioned before...but isn`t *toughening up* another word for hardening?
I mean if you toughen up your fingers playing guitar...eventually you form callouses so that you don`t feel the strings.
In this supposed toughening....were we not hardened...hardened so that the real feelings of compassion, kindness, patience, charity...
Were not the callouses so thick that they acted as a barrier between us and real emotions, maybe even the very voice of God trying to call us to reason?
Forgive me if this was mentioned before...but isn`t *toughening up* another word for hardening?
I mean if you toughen up your fingers playing guitar...eventually you form callouses so that you don`t feel the strings.
In this supposed toughening....were we not hardened...hardened so that the real feelings of compassion, kindness, patience, charity...
Were not the callouses so thick that they acted as a barrier between us and real emotions, maybe even the very voice of God trying to call us to reason?
I do believe you are correct, boy there is a slew of definitions for the word depending on which instance you use it in.
4. to strengthen or confirm, esp. with reference to character, intentions, feelings, etc.; reinforce.
5. to make hardy, robust, or capable of endurance; toughen.
I believe that these were the intent of the program some might disagree and see other definitions more suitable. Either way from the promotional material it seems clear that you could expect to be challenged and growth was expected.
Excellent posts Sky and Socks - Its a blessing to hear your perspectives.
In some ways, for me, it was hard to take VP seriously about a lot of things. I never liked VP, from my first meeting with him as a "groovy christian of Rye" when we came and taught us in TB's living room. I had an instant dislike of him. My father was an alcoholic, and VP reminded me so much like him. I was able to let a lot just roll off my back. Some of it I thought was normal. So I did with him what I did with my own father, avoided him and ignored him and enjoyed the fellowship of my friends. I went into the 7th corps to learn the Word, and be a better leader. The wonderful people I met were icing on the cake.
By then, the corps has grown to a few hundred people. If it had been a small group, like the 1st through 5th was, and having to live at HQ with the MOG, I never would have gone in the corps. But by then, it was large, we were at Emporia and LCM was running it. As I said, it was the knowledge of the Word I wanted. I still believed, in my youthful naivete that TWI was the only one who had that.
These posts are very compelling and are a good example of how varied the Corps experience was, depending on when you were in it, how old you were, your own personal aspirations for the training, your previous religious experience, who your Corps coordinator was, how close VP monitored your performance, and on and on.
I was in one of those early Corps, the 2nd one. Craig was in that one, too. VP watched us like a hawk. I went in because I wanted to know the Word, because VPW was proclaimed the man of God for this day and time by the people who witnessed to me at ECU (some of whom were also in the first and second and third Corps), and because I figured I could learn more of God's Word and learn it faster in the Corps than anywhere else. That was my idealistic logic at the ripe old age of 19 yrs. That was my "heart." Those things were only reinforced during the training. And stayed that way for 17 years until I left in 1987. I left because I no longer wanted to be involved with Fundamentalism nor believed the Bible was God's Word. But that's another story...
The concept of being "toughened up" wasn't something I expected, but I did find out after I got there. To me it meant I had to be able to take harsh reproof and correction and do what I was told regardless of whether I understood why at the time (no, this did not include sleeping with the doctor, although others were not so lucky I now know). I had to learn to push myself physically - run faster, father, longer down Wierwille Rd. at 5:00 a.m. I had to memorize more scripture, I had to get along with others who were different than me, I had to be bolder when I witnessed to strangers (I hated that.)
Perhaps this adds something to this discussion. If not, oh well...
Either way form the promotional material it seems clear that you could expect to be challenged and growth was expected.
The same could be said of colleges, universities, etc. Growth is expected. As of yet, though, I have NEVER EVER EVER seen any one given student singled out by ANY professor to be a recepient of crushing ridicule and criticism and made and "example" of in front of a class.. or a blind student ridiculed and screamed at because of their unbelief that they could not follow along in the reading.
I've NEVER EVER seen or heard of any fellow students being rousted up in the middle of the night for some kind of emergency meeting.. or to line the driveway to meet the president of the college as he pulls in town in his motorcoach..
in fact, hazing incidents back in the old days at their worst didn't come close to what some people were put through to develop "christian" character.
Now let's look at the results of this development of "christian" character..
look at ces.. a bunch of tough, stubborn, neurotic mog wanabes.. and rood's scam of a "ministry".. and the friggin idjuts trying to go live in the woods again, and drag kids along to do the work..
the other "advertisers" on cff's website, running more pfal degree mills.. selling more toilet paper degrees. I'm not sure about the Belezian deal.. they MIGHT be a little more legitimate.. but I wouldn't bet on it at the moment..
but vic produced offspring groups that are no better than scientology. Or SELLERS of kaballah.
reflecting on twi doctrines and practices as it relates to being toughened up for God...in general
it seems we are soaking wet in the aftermath of not having taught many generations of young boys how to become wise compassionate elders
and it shows in our languages, theologies, medicines, politics, business, etc...
in a nutshell...we stopped teaching our young boys how to go on a quest and fail with grace
robbing them of a vital life lesson and rite of passage that keeps them from becoming greedy, vengeful, paranoid, victory-minded old geezers
where weakness and loss and failure is given lip-service...but ultimately treated as a dangerous condition
all this gives rise to false notions that we are somehow entirely products of our own "free will choice"
where suffering and death are somehow earned and deserved
just as prosperity and health is somehow earned and deserved
giving high priority to the "culling of the weak" is a sure sign of this
where losers and quitters are treated as immoral and worth less
"protecting my herd" is another sign...straight from the primal carnivorous daddy self
it gets real interesting to see how ancient thinkers might represent this archetype using imagery such as...
...red dragons chasing pregant women and trying to eat their babies
which is why i think it all relates strongly to the threads on narcissm and tyrannical leadership of twi
cuz how vpw/pfal/twi was created in time when our post-WWII culture had really turned up the volume on our victory-only mindedness
which has now fed our age of high anxiety, our age of terror all around, and our age of running from death
governments and businesses and religions run by cabals of adult men who are unable to lose, unable to weep, unable to grieve, unable to process death
and continue to churn our progress-only models....heaven-only maps...safety-only aims
...
on all levels of life...the drives to seek, to want, to win, to achieve, to succeed, to climb, to reach, to improve, to take, to evolve, to push, to purify, to perfect, to save....
are all forms of a masculine erotic love drive
on all levels of life...to fail, to give, to surrender, to fall, to accept, to discern, to notice, to witness, to see, to hear, to taste, to touch, to feel, to sense, to flow, to be saved....
are all forms of a feminine agape love non-drive
imo, the tough-love only systems (whether religious or not) are the kind of homosexual relationships we are warned against in the bible
as they are the ones that foster war, violence, revenge, slavery, etc...
they are the ones that foster exclusive CULTures based on the prosperity gospel and culling the weak
rather than the deeper older spiritual movements that were based on a balanced marriage of both kinds of love
where sanctuary, solice, solitude, and community of universal grace and understanding abounds
and the discipline we devote ourselves to is not in service to the maps of a tyrannical brat
but to guys like jesus...who are devoted to serving the world
Thanks Sunesis. penworks, you've been there, done dat. :) Appreciate your thoughts too.
I gather we're talking on this thread about:
bullying
yelling
accusing
defending
threatening
screaming
freaking out
And other obnoxious behavior. No dignity, no honor. Just unscripted caterwaulling and snotting around.
Then or now that kind of behavior would be wrong in nearly all situations, even if the reasons were right - meaning an extreme circumstance appeared to require an extreme response. Wrong to me also means inappropriate. In the same way that mooning someone would be inappropriate at work, or in public say at the store. One would hope. Sure, you might push a gun out of someone's hand that didn't know it was loaded and yell at them to put it down. Less appropriate, yell at someone because their nametag's on the wrong side and accuse them of trying to destroy the future of God's Holy Word.
Being challenged is one thing. In groups of people working together, that has to be carefully crafted with responsibility and understanding. Expectations have to be clear - what're we doing, why, what should I expect to happen? What if it doesn't, how do we handle exceptions, what're we really doing here?
The Way was, is by all accounts - short on skills and interest in handling things that way. It's more acceptable to just smack out some boozey plan, lay it out in general terms and point and say "go thatta way".
And gauge success, not by any solid standard or metric that can be clearly articulated, but by how fast someone runs out the door to go thatta way. Cus "if you don't go, how can you know?"....
In the "early years" I felt like it was a chance to participate in building something. As time went on, something got built. Y'know - like, if it was a house you're building and at some point you stand back and the roof line's crooked and the doors are where the windows should be and everytime you ring the doorbell the toilet flushes and you can't find the General Contractor onsite for seems like days...whattya gonna do? :)
No dignity, no honor. Just unscripted caterwaulling and snotting around.
What a mind picture that conjures, lol... so very very accurate.
In the "early years" I felt like it was a chance to participate in building something.
Yeah, I think that sums it up for a lot of us. We wanted to LEARN something, we wanted to DO something, we wanted to be a PART of something really GOOD and GODLY and HELPFUL. And that's what we thought we were doing. ((sigh))
"Toughening up" was sold to us like strength-training; wisdom-building; endurance-conditioning. All of these would have been good things. But I agree with those who have said what it really became was a hardening of the heart. We were taught to ignore the obvious and abide by the law no matter what. Sometimes that worked. And it seems that those who were helped by this procedure cannot see that most of the time it didn't work. Most of the time it did the opposite. And then we were trained to ignore that... yeah, socks is right: it got built alright...
I went into way corps 6 because (at the time) we had to join the corps in order to play in way productions. I never wanted to lead anything. But learning the word did appeal to me.
The more that I read posts here, the more I find that the individual experiences were so different. I was really young (I wish that my school counsellor had been able to talk me into going to college instead). How did LCM ever get picked to lead? He was, imo, one of the most insecure -not comfortable in his own skin- people I've ever met. But he did have enough of a class clown / class bully mix to skirt that issue.
The closest thing to "toughen you up" that I can relate to on this thread was the challenge to not lose the word. I suppose that some of the arguers at GSC feel that they are doing just that (holding on to the word). I say let it go. Because vp taught what he wanted to teach, whether he could find it in the bible or not. As far as he was concerned it was still the word. And there is a lot of the bible he told us not to bother with, ya know - not addressed to us? Oh what we have missed! VP tried to talk tender, but he was a hard man.
Yeh, I knew him too. If he were alive today, I don't suppose that he'd be inviting me for any more pie at his kitchen table; now I've written this.
And other obnoxious behavior. No dignity, no honor. Just unscripted caterwaulling and snotting around.
socks......I s'pose "caterwaulling and snotting around" covers the gamut of sordid bullying and all,......but thought to be clear, I'd add some more to my post (#39).
Yelling and screaming have a place in this sports-fanatic world.......indeed, I've been around my share of coaches who yelled or got-in-my-face during the intensity of some games. No biggie.......BECAUSE we spent hours and hours TOGETHER in practices, in pep-meetings, in pre-game strategy, etc.
IMO, the corps program was a totally different set of parameters.........and would include the following:
public humiliation
generalizing & stereotyping
extreme belittling
a caste system of "overseers"
spiritual elitist bullying
derogatory labeling
character assassination
In so many ways....the first couple of months were information-overload.......pfal re-hash, retemorize this, study that, learn the dale carnegie principles, know the definitions of the manifestations, learn every corps person's name, mark all this stuff in your bible, review corps night teachings, etc. etc. etc. Every day was different.......every person who held the microphone had "god's word for you to do today"........like being in a boxing ring, tag-teamed by a bunch of schizos.
And.......some of those work details??? You kidding me??......pull weeds on the south side of kenyon hall for the next 4 hours. Oh, yeah........THAT is really helping me to be a spiritual man. NOT. Or, the time we were assigned to move to another dorm.......and it's happening today.........in a FREAKIN BLIZZARD..!!!
So many assinine things......so many hours of ridiculous ramblings.......did every student have to be the next aramaic scholar?.......when corps couldn't even stay awake, didn't they realize that it was time to stop the mind-numbing nonsense and take a LONG BREAK? And, there were times when someone would call a meeting before the corps meeting.....because there will be no time later, because then there will be the after-glow meeting. uuuuggghh.
And, wierwille.......I never did see the biblical significance of calling someone a cop-out. <_<
Was this REALLY how the school of tyranneus was run?????
Today I see it as "the vision thing". What's the vision - what's in my mind's eye when I'm working on something, how do I see the finished effort looking? The old "what does success look like?" thing.
If I'm "toughening up", what for? What am I expecting to use all that Toughie Time for? How tough do I really have to be? What's the Toughness Test, the Standard of Toughicity that needs to be met? The ability to sit through yet another boring drone session by Someone With Important Things To Share-That-I've-Already-Heard-A-1000-Times? That's the worst part of it all - having to listen to verbal fish wrap from someone who, if asked a single question, would go catatonic in their inability to maintain their concentration! Who if they heard a cough or sneeze at the wrong time sensed the presence of Satan himself? That's what sucked the most - insisting that others be tough enough to endure pointless dissertations on their current state of "mind" while being unable to effectively regurgitate yet another rendition of the Blue Book if their glass of water has finger prints on it???
I was one of those youngsters who'd been raised by the Iron Dad. My Dad was a funny guy, personable, someone who'd give the shirt off his back if you needed it. Many good qualities. He worked all his life for the Railroad, starting - as he told me many times - as a young guy out of the service, loading 100 pound sacks of grain into box cars 10 hours a day. Ripping rail, building trestles, working his way from the bottom up. He was a quiet force of nature who didn't asked for, and seldom got, a break he didn't earn.
My wife's Dad was a Tugboat Captain, lived all his life on the water and died on his boat working, at the age of 72 saving the lives of the crews of his boat and the boat that struck his. Despite the fact he never spoke in a tone of voice loud enough to hear 10 feet away, on the water he was The Captain, where "tough" would be an understatement. Still, everyone who worked for and with him cried at his memorial.
In their day, neither one of these guys was someone who'd curse in public or hesitate to open a door for a woman, or say "thank you" and please. They considered unseemly inappropriate behavior unacceptable and wouldn't stand for it.
Looking back as a young man I probably wanted to challenge myself too, prove myself, live up to the images of our parents and grandparents we'd grown up with. But to those men, being an obnoxious azshole was the shortest route to trouble. They excused themselves from that sort of thing, knowing they were better than that regardless of what anyone else might think.
Now looking back, those are the kinds of roots I see that have grown, the standards that others are measured against. I don't see all of this nutty stuff experienced that we're talking about here as "tough" and certanly not honorable, it's just best left behind, learned from if it can be and seen for what it was.
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rascal
Forgive me if this was mentioned before...but isn`t *toughening up* another word for hardening?
I mean if you toughen up your fingers playing guitar...eventually you form callouses so that you don`t feel the strings.
In this supposed toughening....were we not hardened...hardened so that the real feelings of compassion, kindness, patience, charity...
Were not the callouses so thick that they acted as a barrier between us and real emotions, maybe even the very voice of God trying to call us to reason?
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WhiteDove
I do believe you are correct, boy there is a slew of definitions for the word depending on which instance you use it in.
4. to strengthen or confirm, esp. with reference to character, intentions, feelings, etc.; reinforce.
5. to make hardy, robust, or capable of endurance; toughen.
I believe that these were the intent of the program some might disagree and see other definitions more suitable. Either way from the promotional material it seems clear that you could expect to be challenged and growth was expected.
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cman
A hardening of the heart and narrow mindedness was not a selling point.
They retermed this and more into other phrases from the bible they don't understand.
Adding meanings that were not and still not applicable to these things.
twi did not nor does it now acknowledge any thing close to truth in the bible or in their practices.
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Sunesis
Excellent posts Sky and Socks - Its a blessing to hear your perspectives.
In some ways, for me, it was hard to take VP seriously about a lot of things. I never liked VP, from my first meeting with him as a "groovy christian of Rye" when we came and taught us in TB's living room. I had an instant dislike of him. My father was an alcoholic, and VP reminded me so much like him. I was able to let a lot just roll off my back. Some of it I thought was normal. So I did with him what I did with my own father, avoided him and ignored him and enjoyed the fellowship of my friends. I went into the 7th corps to learn the Word, and be a better leader. The wonderful people I met were icing on the cake.
By then, the corps has grown to a few hundred people. If it had been a small group, like the 1st through 5th was, and having to live at HQ with the MOG, I never would have gone in the corps. But by then, it was large, we were at Emporia and LCM was running it. As I said, it was the knowledge of the Word I wanted. I still believed, in my youthful naivete that TWI was the only one who had that.
Excie - keep it coming!! :)
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penworks
These posts are very compelling and are a good example of how varied the Corps experience was, depending on when you were in it, how old you were, your own personal aspirations for the training, your previous religious experience, who your Corps coordinator was, how close VP monitored your performance, and on and on.
I was in one of those early Corps, the 2nd one. Craig was in that one, too. VP watched us like a hawk. I went in because I wanted to know the Word, because VPW was proclaimed the man of God for this day and time by the people who witnessed to me at ECU (some of whom were also in the first and second and third Corps), and because I figured I could learn more of God's Word and learn it faster in the Corps than anywhere else. That was my idealistic logic at the ripe old age of 19 yrs. That was my "heart." Those things were only reinforced during the training. And stayed that way for 17 years until I left in 1987. I left because I no longer wanted to be involved with Fundamentalism nor believed the Bible was God's Word. But that's another story...
The concept of being "toughened up" wasn't something I expected, but I did find out after I got there. To me it meant I had to be able to take harsh reproof and correction and do what I was told regardless of whether I understood why at the time (no, this did not include sleeping with the doctor, although others were not so lucky I now know). I had to learn to push myself physically - run faster, father, longer down Wierwille Rd. at 5:00 a.m. I had to memorize more scripture, I had to get along with others who were different than me, I had to be bolder when I witnessed to strangers (I hated that.)
Perhaps this adds something to this discussion. If not, oh well...
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Ham
The same could be said of colleges, universities, etc. Growth is expected. As of yet, though, I have NEVER EVER EVER seen any one given student singled out by ANY professor to be a recepient of crushing ridicule and criticism and made and "example" of in front of a class.. or a blind student ridiculed and screamed at because of their unbelief that they could not follow along in the reading.
I've NEVER EVER seen or heard of any fellow students being rousted up in the middle of the night for some kind of emergency meeting.. or to line the driveway to meet the president of the college as he pulls in town in his motorcoach..
in fact, hazing incidents back in the old days at their worst didn't come close to what some people were put through to develop "christian" character.
Now let's look at the results of this development of "christian" character..
look at ces.. a bunch of tough, stubborn, neurotic mog wanabes.. and rood's scam of a "ministry".. and the friggin idjuts trying to go live in the woods again, and drag kids along to do the work..
the other "advertisers" on cff's website, running more pfal degree mills.. selling more toilet paper degrees. I'm not sure about the Belezian deal.. they MIGHT be a little more legitimate.. but I wouldn't bet on it at the moment..
but vic produced offspring groups that are no better than scientology. Or SELLERS of kaballah.
You really can't SELL what's holy..
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waysider
It adds a great deal to this discussion.
Thank You
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doojable
BINGO! You can't sell what's holy... but you can sell information.
Unfortunately it's not the information that makes the difference - it's the person seeking and the reason he or she goes on the quest.
Perhaps this is another circle of life...or a merry-go-round... in any case, when they're dizzy enough they'll decide to get off and throw up.
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sirguessalot
being a 27th way corps drop-out
reflecting on twi doctrines and practices as it relates to being toughened up for God...in general
it seems we are soaking wet in the aftermath of not having taught many generations of young boys how to become wise compassionate elders
and it shows in our languages, theologies, medicines, politics, business, etc...
in a nutshell...we stopped teaching our young boys how to go on a quest and fail with grace
robbing them of a vital life lesson and rite of passage that keeps them from becoming greedy, vengeful, paranoid, victory-minded old geezers
where weakness and loss and failure is given lip-service...but ultimately treated as a dangerous condition
all this gives rise to false notions that we are somehow entirely products of our own "free will choice"
where suffering and death are somehow earned and deserved
just as prosperity and health is somehow earned and deserved
giving high priority to the "culling of the weak" is a sure sign of this
where losers and quitters are treated as immoral and worth less
"protecting my herd" is another sign...straight from the primal carnivorous daddy self
it gets real interesting to see how ancient thinkers might represent this archetype using imagery such as...
...red dragons chasing pregant women and trying to eat their babies
which is why i think it all relates strongly to the threads on narcissm and tyrannical leadership of twi
cuz how vpw/pfal/twi was created in time when our post-WWII culture had really turned up the volume on our victory-only mindedness
which has now fed our age of high anxiety, our age of terror all around, and our age of running from death
governments and businesses and religions run by cabals of adult men who are unable to lose, unable to weep, unable to grieve, unable to process death
and continue to churn our progress-only models....heaven-only maps...safety-only aims
...
on all levels of life...the drives to seek, to want, to win, to achieve, to succeed, to climb, to reach, to improve, to take, to evolve, to push, to purify, to perfect, to save....
are all forms of a masculine erotic love drive
on all levels of life...to fail, to give, to surrender, to fall, to accept, to discern, to notice, to witness, to see, to hear, to taste, to touch, to feel, to sense, to flow, to be saved....
are all forms of a feminine agape love non-drive
imo, the tough-love only systems (whether religious or not) are the kind of homosexual relationships we are warned against in the bible
as they are the ones that foster war, violence, revenge, slavery, etc...
they are the ones that foster exclusive CULTures based on the prosperity gospel and culling the weak
rather than the deeper older spiritual movements that were based on a balanced marriage of both kinds of love
where sanctuary, solice, solitude, and community of universal grace and understanding abounds
and the discipline we devote ourselves to is not in service to the maps of a tyrannical brat
but to guys like jesus...who are devoted to serving the world
:mellow:
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waysider
As usual, SirG, you have set a table that is filled with food for thought.
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socks
Thanks Sunesis. penworks, you've been there, done dat. :) Appreciate your thoughts too.
I gather we're talking on this thread about:
bullying
yelling
accusing
defending
threatening
screaming
freaking out
And other obnoxious behavior. No dignity, no honor. Just unscripted caterwaulling and snotting around.
Then or now that kind of behavior would be wrong in nearly all situations, even if the reasons were right - meaning an extreme circumstance appeared to require an extreme response. Wrong to me also means inappropriate. In the same way that mooning someone would be inappropriate at work, or in public say at the store. One would hope. Sure, you might push a gun out of someone's hand that didn't know it was loaded and yell at them to put it down. Less appropriate, yell at someone because their nametag's on the wrong side and accuse them of trying to destroy the future of God's Holy Word.
Being challenged is one thing. In groups of people working together, that has to be carefully crafted with responsibility and understanding. Expectations have to be clear - what're we doing, why, what should I expect to happen? What if it doesn't, how do we handle exceptions, what're we really doing here?
The Way was, is by all accounts - short on skills and interest in handling things that way. It's more acceptable to just smack out some boozey plan, lay it out in general terms and point and say "go thatta way".
And gauge success, not by any solid standard or metric that can be clearly articulated, but by how fast someone runs out the door to go thatta way. Cus "if you don't go, how can you know?"....
In the "early years" I felt like it was a chance to participate in building something. As time went on, something got built. Y'know - like, if it was a house you're building and at some point you stand back and the roof line's crooked and the doors are where the windows should be and everytime you ring the doorbell the toilet flushes and you can't find the General Contractor onsite for seems like days...whattya gonna do? :)
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excathedra
i see it more as watching something get torn down....
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excathedra
redundant i know
but i would like to dedicate this to veepee
http://youtube.com/watch?v=WtVZdvoGIR0
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Ham
Socks, that reminds me of a contractor here, who managed to lose his license.
I know another contractor who witnessed his "handiwork".. he said they literally built houses like the three stooges..
a wall went up, a wall went down. Plumbing got put in, plumbing got ripped out..
heating ducts got ripped out, the wall removed, the wall put back two feet further, where it actually belonged, and then.. the ducts went back in.
They considered his operation a laughingstock.
Maybe I'll start a new thread.. loy the "contractor"..
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excathedra
this is kinda' where i was in my teenage brain when i joined up
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excathedra
i must have confused veepee with christ (the love i always wanted)
but hey what do you want from a catholic girl ?
pope, etc.
ps. there's nothing tougher than a bad priest
(i said BAD)
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waysider
Ya know----
I'm startin' ta think youse guys ain't so "tough", after all!
(And that's a good thing----a really, really good thing.)
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excathedra
mwah waysider (yes you got that right wherever that was posted)
love you
i don't think people here are "tough"
in spite of the way ha ha ha ha ha
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TheHighWay
What a mind picture that conjures, lol... so very very accurate.
Yeah, I think that sums it up for a lot of us. We wanted to LEARN something, we wanted to DO something, we wanted to be a PART of something really GOOD and GODLY and HELPFUL. And that's what we thought we were doing. ((sigh))
"Toughening up" was sold to us like strength-training; wisdom-building; endurance-conditioning. All of these would have been good things. But I agree with those who have said what it really became was a hardening of the heart. We were taught to ignore the obvious and abide by the law no matter what. Sometimes that worked. And it seems that those who were helped by this procedure cannot see that most of the time it didn't work. Most of the time it did the opposite. And then we were trained to ignore that... yeah, socks is right: it got built alright...
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wing
I went into way corps 6 because (at the time) we had to join the corps in order to play in way productions. I never wanted to lead anything. But learning the word did appeal to me.
The more that I read posts here, the more I find that the individual experiences were so different. I was really young (I wish that my school counsellor had been able to talk me into going to college instead). How did LCM ever get picked to lead? He was, imo, one of the most insecure -not comfortable in his own skin- people I've ever met. But he did have enough of a class clown / class bully mix to skirt that issue.
The closest thing to "toughen you up" that I can relate to on this thread was the challenge to not lose the word. I suppose that some of the arguers at GSC feel that they are doing just that (holding on to the word). I say let it go. Because vp taught what he wanted to teach, whether he could find it in the bible or not. As far as he was concerned it was still the word. And there is a lot of the bible he told us not to bother with, ya know - not addressed to us? Oh what we have missed! VP tried to talk tender, but he was a hard man.
Yeh, I knew him too. If he were alive today, I don't suppose that he'd be inviting me for any more pie at his kitchen table; now I've written this.
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skyrider
socks......I s'pose "caterwaulling and snotting around" covers the gamut of sordid bullying and all,......but thought to be clear, I'd add some more to my post (#39).
Yelling and screaming have a place in this sports-fanatic world.......indeed, I've been around my share of coaches who yelled or got-in-my-face during the intensity of some games. No biggie.......BECAUSE we spent hours and hours TOGETHER in practices, in pep-meetings, in pre-game strategy, etc.
IMO, the corps program was a totally different set of parameters.........and would include the following:
public humiliation
generalizing & stereotyping
extreme belittling
a caste system of "overseers"
spiritual elitist bullying
derogatory labeling
character assassination
In so many ways....the first couple of months were information-overload.......pfal re-hash, retemorize this, study that, learn the dale carnegie principles, know the definitions of the manifestations, learn every corps person's name, mark all this stuff in your bible, review corps night teachings, etc. etc. etc. Every day was different.......every person who held the microphone had "god's word for you to do today"........like being in a boxing ring, tag-teamed by a bunch of schizos.
And.......some of those work details??? You kidding me??......pull weeds on the south side of kenyon hall for the next 4 hours. Oh, yeah........THAT is really helping me to be a spiritual man. NOT. Or, the time we were assigned to move to another dorm.......and it's happening today.........in a FREAKIN BLIZZARD..!!!
So many assinine things......so many hours of ridiculous ramblings.......did every student have to be the next aramaic scholar?.......when corps couldn't even stay awake, didn't they realize that it was time to stop the mind-numbing nonsense and take a LONG BREAK? And, there were times when someone would call a meeting before the corps meeting.....because there will be no time later, because then there will be the after-glow meeting. uuuuggghh.
And, wierwille.......I never did see the biblical significance of calling someone a cop-out. <_<
Was this REALLY how the school of tyranneus was run?????
:blink:
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excathedra
thanks wing
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waysider
Skyrider
Your sports analogy hit home for me.
I was never involved in sports, though, in high school, the coaches were constantly chasing me to join the wrestling team.
( It was difficult to find recruits in my weight class.)
I was, however, involved in theatre.
I even worked with some professional companies.
Wouldn't you know it, though.
They actually expected me to have more talent than gumption.
Go figure.
Anyhow, it's pretty much understood by professional actors that they are at the directors beck and call when they are on stage.
During rehearsals, the director will belittle you, insult you, scream at you and find any little fault there is to find.
WHEN YOU ARE ON STAGE DOING YOUR JOB!!!
As an actor, you have to learn rather quickly that the director is not criticizing you as an individual, he or she is criticizing
your performance.
You have to learn to not take it personally because it truly is not.
It's part of how the whole process works.
Once you are off stage and not in rehearsal, the director has absolutely no right to behave like they did in rehearsal or criticize you as a person.
And they don't.(If they want to continue directing.)
Most directors come from an acting background and know when they are about to "cross the line".
In The Way, though, the "directors" seemed to think that every waking minute was a rehearsal and that gave them a right to freely criticize at will.
Maybe they were simply taking The Bard out of context and privately interpreting him when he said," All the World's a stage."
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socks
Ham, that's a whacky contractor. :)
Today I see it as "the vision thing". What's the vision - what's in my mind's eye when I'm working on something, how do I see the finished effort looking? The old "what does success look like?" thing.
If I'm "toughening up", what for? What am I expecting to use all that Toughie Time for? How tough do I really have to be? What's the Toughness Test, the Standard of Toughicity that needs to be met? The ability to sit through yet another boring drone session by Someone With Important Things To Share-That-I've-Already-Heard-A-1000-Times? That's the worst part of it all - having to listen to verbal fish wrap from someone who, if asked a single question, would go catatonic in their inability to maintain their concentration! Who if they heard a cough or sneeze at the wrong time sensed the presence of Satan himself? That's what sucked the most - insisting that others be tough enough to endure pointless dissertations on their current state of "mind" while being unable to effectively regurgitate yet another rendition of the Blue Book if their glass of water has finger prints on it???
I was one of those youngsters who'd been raised by the Iron Dad. My Dad was a funny guy, personable, someone who'd give the shirt off his back if you needed it. Many good qualities. He worked all his life for the Railroad, starting - as he told me many times - as a young guy out of the service, loading 100 pound sacks of grain into box cars 10 hours a day. Ripping rail, building trestles, working his way from the bottom up. He was a quiet force of nature who didn't asked for, and seldom got, a break he didn't earn.
My wife's Dad was a Tugboat Captain, lived all his life on the water and died on his boat working, at the age of 72 saving the lives of the crews of his boat and the boat that struck his. Despite the fact he never spoke in a tone of voice loud enough to hear 10 feet away, on the water he was The Captain, where "tough" would be an understatement. Still, everyone who worked for and with him cried at his memorial.
In their day, neither one of these guys was someone who'd curse in public or hesitate to open a door for a woman, or say "thank you" and please. They considered unseemly inappropriate behavior unacceptable and wouldn't stand for it.
Looking back as a young man I probably wanted to challenge myself too, prove myself, live up to the images of our parents and grandparents we'd grown up with. But to those men, being an obnoxious azshole was the shortest route to trouble. They excused themselves from that sort of thing, knowing they were better than that regardless of what anyone else might think.
Now looking back, those are the kinds of roots I see that have grown, the standards that others are measured against. I don't see all of this nutty stuff experienced that we're talking about here as "tough" and certanly not honorable, it's just best left behind, learned from if it can be and seen for what it was.
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