With almost 20 years of retrospection now, for me I don't think it was the best of times or the worst of times,
It was just a WASTE of time.
What shoulda been the best years of my life - all my physically "prime" years - ....ed away in a circle-jerk of
arcane, petty theology and playing church. A damned shame, that...
Agreed...stole the years from us when we should have been finishing college - building families and careers - and instead we were duped into part time petty jobs and coughing most of it up in either ABS or attending meetings (read drive 6 hours each way) - paying for refreshments (out of pocket) - and in our spare time mowing the LC's lawn while he and his spouse drank mint juleps on the front porch - getting fired for leaving work early to go line up chairs etc etc etc
Actually I don't agree George - it was not a WASTE of time it was a THEFT of time
Actually I don't agree George - it was not a WASTE of time it was a THEFT of time
Good point ... we could have wasted time getting wasted or playing around ... but we generally worked, except the fruit of our labor was taken by a few elite shysters.
The little training or development we did get was offset by some negative influences.
I guess it was marginally better than being a crack whore.
But I used the best of times, worst of times line several days ago somewhere here. I don't know exactly what the line refers to in the book ... but the best of times was fictional for us ... but it seemed great because we thought we were so special in what we were doing.
The world was our oyster, but it was a bad oyster. :o
I'm gonna say "waste of time" can apply to non-corps... my parents ran a fellowship for most of my childhood-
2 school nights a week i got home, rushed through homework, made sure the house was ready, and ate... by then people were getting there and didn't leave untill bedtime.
sunday would have take untill about 2 unless we had a hookup or door to door witnessing wich took longer... or a trip to hq wich obviously took all day.
im sure all of you know how much time having a class in your house can take.
I guess it was marginally better than being a crack whore.
The world was our oyster, but it was a bad oyster. :o
Rhino, are you (and a few others!) implying that somehow you would have done things differently when looking back at those youthful days in Kansas?? I mean, when the old doc would drive by you at roa on the Indian motorcycle you helped buy, weren't you just standing there in complete awe chowing down on one of those WOW Burgers? All those great moments of contributing to Word Over The World (sounds a bit like Deutschland Uber Alles, doesn't it?) and believing you were part of an earth shattering movement, Way Corps elites, SS frontline Storm Troopers, able to leap tall buildings in a single biblical retemorary bound moment!
Come on folks, it was alive! It was real! You were having the time of your life...that is until someone pulled the lever, and presto change-o the red curtains were open and for the first time you saw the old emperor naked without any clothes!
Maybe, it was just like the next days hangover...did all that REALLY happen!
Who needs oysters, except if you're hanging out in Brittany?
Come on folks, it was alive! It was real! You were having the time of your life...that is until someone pulled the lever, and presto change-o the red curtains were open and for the first time you saw the old emperor naked without any clothes!
Maybe, it was just like the next days hangover...did all that REALLY happen!
Bump
That's a valid point... we WERE having a good time, until we saw the reality behind all our dreams and beliefs was just BS. So, in my opinion it is very much like the next day's hangover --- when you are sober and in pain and realize what a dumb-@$$ you were the night before!!!
For me it was maybe kinda a good time before way corps ... but then it was more drudgery and doing the work of moving the word. Sure there was some fun along the way, but that was not what carried me ... maybe I was comfortably numb at that point.
By the end I was working my real business more, but still the rest revolved around twig and piffle.
Jen-o .. yeah, I finished my degree early on in TWI, but I was also working and ALL my spare time was TWI stuff, and falling asleep in early classes after working thru the night. I should have been really trying to immerse myself in my major. If I had left twi then and gone on to some career, it would have had minimal impact.
For all the talk of how much FUN some had, I wonder if being a real minister is really fun. I'm thinking it is more burden and often tedious to help the oppressed go free or visiting sick folks. I don't think we were taught to do things like that so much. Some of the more kind twig leader types may have done that more than those higher up.
If you're up in front singing or blabbing and people applaud, you can walk away and tell yourself what a great job you did "moving da wuhrd" that hour or two. I didn't have much of that, but I'd guess some still dream they were Gawd's rock stars. I think the TWI Mad Dog 20/20 vision was not that smooth going down, even at the time.
Sure, there were some good times in TWI, but I agree, much of it was a waste. We stayed too long at the fair. Our youth given over to the shyster VP's organization.
When I left, I went to NYC and spent 10 years playing thrash and hardcore metal with various bands in clubs from CBGB's to the Kat Club - all the big NYC clubs, hanging out with Chris Stein and Blondie, meeting other bands, seeing "underground" performance art, living in the east village, and jamming at Dan Lynch's playing blues on the weekends, making "natural man" friends. It was the '80s, I had the time of my life - stuff I should have been doing in my 20s. Making up for the lost youth.
I always kept that verse in mind, God will repay you the years the locusts have eaten.
does this "waste/theft" of time generally apply to ex-corps folks...
cuz as a leaf, i went to college (got my 2nd degree)... had a good job, later got married and had kids, etc.
i always had outside interests and friends... and no one seemed to have a problem with that...
twi was just a part of my life; it never consumed the whole thing...
Well, I guess you were just a little bit smarter than a lot of us then. Lucky you.
I spent years where all my spare time was spent taking classes, going to "fellowships", "Advances", "Weekends with the turd", and numerous other mindless events and programs. Never mind the two years absolutely tossed in the toilet going "W.O.W" and all the summer vacations wasted at the fetid, hot and sticky (and not in a good way) farm in Ohio.
So you didn't get sucked in as far as lots of us did? Good for you, you dodged a bullet.
A lot of the rest of us weren't blessed with your (apparently) well-honed abilities...
does this "waste/theft" of time generally apply to ex-corps folks...
cuz as a leaf, i went to college (got my 2nd degree)... had a good job, later got married and had kids, etc.
i always had outside interests and friends... and no one seemed to have a problem with that...
twi was just a part of my life; it never consumed the whole thing...
I would have to say that your experience was a good deal out of the ordinary.
It seems like the farther away you got from being a "mere" twiggie(leaf), the more demands were exacted on your commitment.
In FLO, we lived in a commune of about 50 with 6 or 7 per apartment. We were required to work 40 hours a week at a secular job(which we were supposed to use to witness and promote "the class"), ABS, sponsor a Corps person, pay into a rent fund, pay into (and work at) a food co-op, pay into a household fund (for the individual apartment utilities, etc.) and spend just about any time we weren't at our jobs doing FLO requirements such as working in the garden, painting, cleaning the BRC, etc. There was a 5am fellowship every morning followed by a short mile run before you got ready for work. There was also a half hour fellowship every night between the required work time at limb hq and the midnight "lights out". You had to request special permission just to go into town on a Saturday morning to go to the post office or bank. And, since there were 49 other people who were not being granted that luxury, you didn't ask for it often lest you rendered envy. Of course, we did get Sunday afternoon off. Doing laundry together on Sunday was like a FLO "date". :(
During the 90's I knew a few people who weren't involved that heavily due to school, work, etc, but they were always considered to be 2nd Class wayfers, uncommitted, doncha know. It wasn't the norm, by any stretch of the imagination, but they existed. The degree to which casual involvement was tolerated depended greatly upon the personality of the individual leader. By the late 90's we got some hardcore recent Corps grads as leaders and people like yourself were driven off.
Yikes Waysider !!!! You make my time in the Corps program sound like a cakewalk.
Well, on the bright side, there never seemed to be a shortage of familia or wheat berries.
Actually, here is kind of a funny twist. For two years, I was a breakfast person. That meant I got breakfast ready for the "house" I was in (6 or 7 people) either preset before "lights out" at midnight or before morning fellowship. It was a preset menu and was always stuff like familia, oat groats, wheat berries, mush, steel cut oats and some kind of fresh fruit.(plus set the table.) So now I get a kick out of getting up early on Sundays and making stuff for my family that I could have never made in FLO. Stuff like bacon, sausage, fried 'taters, French toast, pancakes, fresh cut fruit salad, melon, etc. There is no set table or time frame. Eat whenever you get up. And the best part is I can make whatever the heck I want without having to follow the preset menu provided by Manna(the food co-op). No pre-soaking wheat berries or apple-icious. I know that sounds crazy but I do it because I don't have to.
God wanted a word with me and, as was normal in The Way, He delivered it second-hand. One of His ordained clergy pulled me aside, parked his red, apoplectic face inches from mine and, in between streams of spittle and froth, brought forth a loving message.
Apparently God was ....ed. It seems finding and training middle management is an expensive and time consuming celestial activity. Despite being a hand-picked, loyal ambassador my numbers were down. Recent trends revealed that my salt had lost its savor. Weekly reports indicated my light was hiding underneath a bushel. Bottom line I was a non performer.
In my most elderly wisdom I gathered my brothers and sisters-in-arms and pleaded that a revival was in order. We needed faith. We needed commitment. We needed our quota. Although God still loved us, I lectured, He was probably disgusted. Our lukewarm spirituality put us danger of being spewed out of His mouth in Revelations fashion.
“What should we do?” they asked.
“Tomorrow we go door-to-door,” I said.
As the time of our offensive arrived it was hot and dank. The air stank as bitter kudzu simmered in the air like greens in a cauldron. The four of us made our way up the street, each of us stewing in personal kettles of contrition, randomly ringing some doorbells and walking past others. Pastel houses seemed a little friendlier. We avoided ones that looked too manicured. Pristine lawns and freshly painted fences belied a family too entrenched in the pleasures of this world.
“How about this one?” sweet little Wanda asked.
We rang the doorbell and stood in the sweltering heat hoping no one would answer.
As a good ole’ boy in his late fifties opened the door four kids on a hot Alabama porch launched into their penance. “Do you know what the greatest secret in the world is? Look at this card and circle what you are interested in. Do you need apparent Bible contradictions explained? Do you want more harmony in the home? ”
He listened courteously, waited for a pause, then innocently asked, “Do you kids believe in prayer?”
“Yes, sir, it says rights here that if we ask anything according to His will he heareth us and we know that we have the petitions we desire of Him.” Prayer was our stock in trade. It said so on the brochure.
“Can you pray for my wife?” he asked in desperation. “She has cancer. I’m not much of a prayer. Can y’all come in and pray for her?”
As he led us to the living room it was apparent the whole house had been turned topsy-turvy to accommodate a makeshift bedroom. A bureau had been plunked next to the couch, the top lined with pill bottles and liquids. An IV stand stood silent guard - dripping…dripping. A walker was strategically placed next to it. On the floor was a dirty bedpan. Piles of clothes dotted the whole house and the kitchen counter was covered in TV dinners, pizza boxes and beer bottles.
Dwarfed by all these reminders of a life rearranged laid a yellow, shriveled, broken woman with a scarf on her head. The man gently leaned over her and said, “Honey, these people have come over to pray for you.”
She looked up at us and slowly stretched out a quivering hand. Through tears she whimpered, “I’m so weak I just can’t think about getting better. I’ve tried and prayed and I just can’t do it anymore. I hope you can you help me because I can’t help myself.”
As her little mummy body laid before me, I mentally recapped the impartation manifestations I had studied in the Advanced Class . I tried to recall the keys and principles of Biblical records I had read and reread. I rehearsed the stories with phrases like “thy faith has made thee whole” and “Lazarus come forth” and “take up your bed and walk”. I wondered what it would feel like if I did this right. An Oral Roberts-esque warmth in my hands? A sizzle of electricity? I wondered if God would put this order on high priority. Did my regular season record merit participation in this championship event?
I put my hand in hers and began to pray according to form, expecting some action to report. I felt only the desperate clench of an emaciated hand revealing the baked terrain of this woman’s soul - it’s only remaining puddle teeming – not with the well earned satisfaction of a rich life but with guilt that she was in this condition.
There she lay in the clutches of shame, aggressive invader of all joy, her heart clogged with slimy strands of shame and spongy chunks of regret. Guilt had metastasized into all the healthy tissue of pleasure. Malignant tentacles had pervaded the cells of one who lived to be good and decent.
At that instant I became filled with rage and hate at the predicament it all. This woman had nothing to be ashamed of. She had run her course with honor and dignity. What did I have to give to her? Power For Abundant Living? This elegant, strong and proud woman had powerfully reigned as the woman of this house, attacking soap scum and pruning geraniums with vigor. Abundantly she had applied frosting to birthday cakes and kisses to grandchildren. Living she had loved and loved well
There was no sizzle. No tremors. No dancing or phone calls. A sweet dying lady received her last rites from a self-absorbed. tattered Ambassador for Christ as they reached up for grace on a hot Alabama afternoon. They had pooled their scavenged trust and in very good faith offered their last mite. They had done their best and that would have to do.
We walked home without a word. We knew she would die. We had failed but we were not ashamed. We would never be ashamed again.
Three days later I stopped by to see how she was doing. Her husband, just back from her viewing, proceeded to drink more vodka than I’d ever seen anyone drink before. I stayed with him well into the evening. No report was filed.
Recommended Posts
chockfull
My that sounds like the opening to Charles Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities - "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times..."
Link to comment
Share on other sites
George Aar
With almost 20 years of retrospection now, for me I don't think it was the best of times or the worst of times,
It was just a WASTE of time.
What shoulda been the best years of my life - all my physically "prime" years - ....ed away in a circle-jerk of
arcane, petty theology and playing church. A damned shame, that...
Link to comment
Share on other sites
RumRunner
Agreed...stole the years from us when we should have been finishing college - building families and careers - and instead we were duped into part time petty jobs and coughing most of it up in either ABS or attending meetings (read drive 6 hours each way) - paying for refreshments (out of pocket) - and in our spare time mowing the LC's lawn while he and his spouse drank mint juleps on the front porch - getting fired for leaving work early to go line up chairs etc etc etc
Actually I don't agree George - it was not a WASTE of time it was a THEFT of time
Link to comment
Share on other sites
rhino
Good point ... we could have wasted time getting wasted or playing around ... but we generally worked, except the fruit of our labor was taken by a few elite shysters.
The little training or development we did get was offset by some negative influences.
I guess it was marginally better than being a crack whore.
But I used the best of times, worst of times line several days ago somewhere here. I don't know exactly what the line refers to in the book ... but the best of times was fictional for us ... but it seemed great because we thought we were so special in what we were doing.
The world was our oyster, but it was a bad oyster. :o
Link to comment
Share on other sites
jen-o
does this "waste/theft" of time generally apply to ex-corps folks...
cuz as a leaf, i went to college (got my 2nd degree)... had a good job, later got married and had kids, etc.
i always had outside interests and friends... and no one seemed to have a problem with that...
twi was just a part of my life; it never consumed the whole thing...
Link to comment
Share on other sites
nick
I'm gonna say "waste of time" can apply to non-corps... my parents ran a fellowship for most of my childhood-
2 school nights a week i got home, rushed through homework, made sure the house was ready, and ate... by then people were getting there and didn't leave untill bedtime.
sunday would have take untill about 2 unless we had a hookup or door to door witnessing wich took longer... or a trip to hq wich obviously took all day.
im sure all of you know how much time having a class in your house can take.
so yes, expended time was a factor.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Bumpy
Rhino, are you (and a few others!) implying that somehow you would have done things differently when looking back at those youthful days in Kansas?? I mean, when the old doc would drive by you at roa on the Indian motorcycle you helped buy, weren't you just standing there in complete awe chowing down on one of those WOW Burgers? All those great moments of contributing to Word Over The World (sounds a bit like Deutschland Uber Alles, doesn't it?) and believing you were part of an earth shattering movement, Way Corps elites, SS frontline Storm Troopers, able to leap tall buildings in a single biblical retemorary bound moment!
Come on folks, it was alive! It was real! You were having the time of your life...that is until someone pulled the lever, and presto change-o the red curtains were open and for the first time you saw the old emperor naked without any clothes!
Maybe, it was just like the next days hangover...did all that REALLY happen!
Who needs oysters, except if you're hanging out in Brittany?
Bump
Link to comment
Share on other sites
TheHighWay
That's a valid point... we WERE having a good time, until we saw the reality behind all our dreams and beliefs was just BS. So, in my opinion it is very much like the next day's hangover --- when you are sober and in pain and realize what a dumb-@$$ you were the night before!!!
Link to comment
Share on other sites
rhino
For me it was maybe kinda a good time before way corps ... but then it was more drudgery and doing the work of moving the word. Sure there was some fun along the way, but that was not what carried me ... maybe I was comfortably numb at that point.
By the end I was working my real business more, but still the rest revolved around twig and piffle.
Jen-o .. yeah, I finished my degree early on in TWI, but I was also working and ALL my spare time was TWI stuff, and falling asleep in early classes after working thru the night. I should have been really trying to immerse myself in my major. If I had left twi then and gone on to some career, it would have had minimal impact.
For all the talk of how much FUN some had, I wonder if being a real minister is really fun. I'm thinking it is more burden and often tedious to help the oppressed go free or visiting sick folks. I don't think we were taught to do things like that so much. Some of the more kind twig leader types may have done that more than those higher up.
If you're up in front singing or blabbing and people applaud, you can walk away and tell yourself what a great job you did "moving da wuhrd" that hour or two. I didn't have much of that, but I'd guess some still dream they were Gawd's rock stars.
I think the TWI Mad Dog 20/20 vision was not that smooth going down, even at the time.
Edited by rhinoLink to comment
Share on other sites
Sunesis
Sure, there were some good times in TWI, but I agree, much of it was a waste. We stayed too long at the fair. Our youth given over to the shyster VP's organization.
When I left, I went to NYC and spent 10 years playing thrash and hardcore metal with various bands in clubs from CBGB's to the Kat Club - all the big NYC clubs, hanging out with Chris Stein and Blondie, meeting other bands, seeing "underground" performance art, living in the east village, and jamming at Dan Lynch's playing blues on the weekends, making "natural man" friends. It was the '80s, I had the time of my life - stuff I should have been doing in my 20s. Making up for the lost youth.
I always kept that verse in mind, God will repay you the years the locusts have eaten.
Years later, looking back now, I believe he has.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
rhino
WOW Sunesis ... you became a REAL rock star, and drank the good stuff ...
Link to comment
Share on other sites
George Aar
Well, I guess you were just a little bit smarter than a lot of us then. Lucky you.
I spent years where all my spare time was spent taking classes, going to "fellowships", "Advances", "Weekends with the turd", and numerous other mindless events and programs. Never mind the two years absolutely tossed in the toilet going "W.O.W" and all the summer vacations wasted at the fetid, hot and sticky (and not in a good way) farm in Ohio.
So you didn't get sucked in as far as lots of us did? Good for you, you dodged a bullet.
A lot of the rest of us weren't blessed with your (apparently) well-honed abilities...
Link to comment
Share on other sites
waysider
I would have to say that your experience was a good deal out of the ordinary.
It seems like the farther away you got from being a "mere" twiggie(leaf), the more demands were exacted on your commitment.
In FLO, we lived in a commune of about 50 with 6 or 7 per apartment. We were required to work 40 hours a week at a secular job(which we were supposed to use to witness and promote "the class"), ABS, sponsor a Corps person, pay into a rent fund, pay into (and work at) a food co-op, pay into a household fund (for the individual apartment utilities, etc.) and spend just about any time we weren't at our jobs doing FLO requirements such as working in the garden, painting, cleaning the BRC, etc. There was a 5am fellowship every morning followed by a short mile run before you got ready for work. There was also a half hour fellowship every night between the required work time at limb hq and the midnight "lights out". You had to request special permission just to go into town on a Saturday morning to go to the post office or bank. And, since there were 49 other people who were not being granted that luxury, you didn't ask for it often lest you rendered envy. Of course, we did get Sunday afternoon off. Doing laundry together on Sunday was like a FLO "date". :(
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Oakspear
Jen-o, when were you involved?
During the 90's I knew a few people who weren't involved that heavily due to school, work, etc, but they were always considered to be 2nd Class wayfers, uncommitted, doncha know. It wasn't the norm, by any stretch of the imagination, but they existed. The degree to which casual involvement was tolerated depended greatly upon the personality of the individual leader. By the late 90's we got some hardcore recent Corps grads as leaders and people like yourself were driven off.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
T-Bone
Yikes Waysider !!!! You make my time in the Corps program sound like a cakewalk.
Oakspear - I really like your new avatar...Grant looks like he's doing sort of a Rosie Perez head-bob move.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
rhino
yeah, but please slow Grant's head down ... I'm getting epileptic fits when I look at him too long ...
Link to comment
Share on other sites
waysider
Well, on the bright side, there never seemed to be a shortage of familia or wheat berries.
Actually, here is kind of a funny twist. For two years, I was a breakfast person. That meant I got breakfast ready for the "house" I was in (6 or 7 people) either preset before "lights out" at midnight or before morning fellowship. It was a preset menu and was always stuff like familia, oat groats, wheat berries, mush, steel cut oats and some kind of fresh fruit.(plus set the table.) So now I get a kick out of getting up early on Sundays and making stuff for my family that I could have never made in FLO. Stuff like bacon, sausage, fried 'taters, French toast, pancakes, fresh cut fruit salad, melon, etc. There is no set table or time frame. Eat whenever you get up. And the best part is I can make whatever the heck I want without having to follow the preset menu provided by Manna(the food co-op). No pre-soaking wheat berries or apple-icious. I know that sounds crazy but I do it because I don't have to.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Yanagisawa
Excerpt from my memoirs:
God wanted a word with me and, as was normal in The Way, He delivered it second-hand. One of His ordained clergy pulled me aside, parked his red, apoplectic face inches from mine and, in between streams of spittle and froth, brought forth a loving message.
Apparently God was ....ed. It seems finding and training middle management is an expensive and time consuming celestial activity. Despite being a hand-picked, loyal ambassador my numbers were down. Recent trends revealed that my salt had lost its savor. Weekly reports indicated my light was hiding underneath a bushel. Bottom line I was a non performer.
In my most elderly wisdom I gathered my brothers and sisters-in-arms and pleaded that a revival was in order. We needed faith. We needed commitment. We needed our quota. Although God still loved us, I lectured, He was probably disgusted. Our lukewarm spirituality put us danger of being spewed out of His mouth in Revelations fashion.
“What should we do?” they asked.
“Tomorrow we go door-to-door,” I said.
As the time of our offensive arrived it was hot and dank. The air stank as bitter kudzu simmered in the air like greens in a cauldron. The four of us made our way up the street, each of us stewing in personal kettles of contrition, randomly ringing some doorbells and walking past others. Pastel houses seemed a little friendlier. We avoided ones that looked too manicured. Pristine lawns and freshly painted fences belied a family too entrenched in the pleasures of this world.
“How about this one?” sweet little Wanda asked.
We rang the doorbell and stood in the sweltering heat hoping no one would answer.
As a good ole’ boy in his late fifties opened the door four kids on a hot Alabama porch launched into their penance. “Do you know what the greatest secret in the world is? Look at this card and circle what you are interested in. Do you need apparent Bible contradictions explained? Do you want more harmony in the home? ”
He listened courteously, waited for a pause, then innocently asked, “Do you kids believe in prayer?”
“Yes, sir, it says rights here that if we ask anything according to His will he heareth us and we know that we have the petitions we desire of Him.” Prayer was our stock in trade. It said so on the brochure.
“Can you pray for my wife?” he asked in desperation. “She has cancer. I’m not much of a prayer. Can y’all come in and pray for her?”
As he led us to the living room it was apparent the whole house had been turned topsy-turvy to accommodate a makeshift bedroom. A bureau had been plunked next to the couch, the top lined with pill bottles and liquids. An IV stand stood silent guard - dripping…dripping. A walker was strategically placed next to it. On the floor was a dirty bedpan. Piles of clothes dotted the whole house and the kitchen counter was covered in TV dinners, pizza boxes and beer bottles.
Dwarfed by all these reminders of a life rearranged laid a yellow, shriveled, broken woman with a scarf on her head. The man gently leaned over her and said, “Honey, these people have come over to pray for you.”
She looked up at us and slowly stretched out a quivering hand. Through tears she whimpered, “I’m so weak I just can’t think about getting better. I’ve tried and prayed and I just can’t do it anymore. I hope you can you help me because I can’t help myself.”
As her little mummy body laid before me, I mentally recapped the impartation manifestations I had studied in the Advanced Class . I tried to recall the keys and principles of Biblical records I had read and reread. I rehearsed the stories with phrases like “thy faith has made thee whole” and “Lazarus come forth” and “take up your bed and walk”. I wondered what it would feel like if I did this right. An Oral Roberts-esque warmth in my hands? A sizzle of electricity? I wondered if God would put this order on high priority. Did my regular season record merit participation in this championship event?
I put my hand in hers and began to pray according to form, expecting some action to report. I felt only the desperate clench of an emaciated hand revealing the baked terrain of this woman’s soul - it’s only remaining puddle teeming – not with the well earned satisfaction of a rich life but with guilt that she was in this condition.
There she lay in the clutches of shame, aggressive invader of all joy, her heart clogged with slimy strands of shame and spongy chunks of regret. Guilt had metastasized into all the healthy tissue of pleasure. Malignant tentacles had pervaded the cells of one who lived to be good and decent.
At that instant I became filled with rage and hate at the predicament it all. This woman had nothing to be ashamed of. She had run her course with honor and dignity. What did I have to give to her? Power For Abundant Living? This elegant, strong and proud woman had powerfully reigned as the woman of this house, attacking soap scum and pruning geraniums with vigor. Abundantly she had applied frosting to birthday cakes and kisses to grandchildren. Living she had loved and loved well
There was no sizzle. No tremors. No dancing or phone calls. A sweet dying lady received her last rites from a self-absorbed. tattered Ambassador for Christ as they reached up for grace on a hot Alabama afternoon. They had pooled their scavenged trust and in very good faith offered their last mite. They had done their best and that would have to do.
We walked home without a word. We knew she would die. We had failed but we were not ashamed. We would never be ashamed again.
Three days later I stopped by to see how she was doing. Her husband, just back from her viewing, proceeded to drink more vodka than I’d ever seen anyone drink before. I stayed with him well into the evening. No report was filed.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
bliss
(((((((holy cow, Yanagisawa)))))
That was beautiful. Your writing style that is. Should be in a book.
Arrogant, we were. We thought nothing of flaunting ''our power'' around.
Thanks for sharing that touching account.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Yanagisawa
Thank you Bliss.
I have shed many tears in the last twenty some years remembering this afternoon in Alabama.
I've had apprehensions about releasing these memoirs but figure they might do someone some good.
Mostly I write so my kids will know something about their dad.
I labor so intensely over the stuff...I don't know how someone could write a novel. It would take me 500 yrs.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
jen-o
yanagisawa,
you really do have a way with words!
very descriptive...
and very well done...
i would encourage you to write more...
you are an author...
peace,
jen-o
Link to comment
Share on other sites
jen-o
and sometimes i feel a little bit out of the loop because of it...
waysider & oak, i never really thought that my experience was all that unique until about a week ago... (while posting something here at the gs) oak, i was in twice...81-87... and 94-97
(but the college degrees were in the 80's)
i even did the wow thing (81-82)
but i must admit, there were no way corps in my family...
we were the only wow's in the town (and very isolated from all things twi)
and we only saw the limb leader 3 times all year!
early on, we called him to ask for advice, and he told us to go ask God (actually that was great advice)
so we didn't bother him after that...
we were pretty much on our own...
and this was the way all my years went...
up until 1997...
my very last year... and yes, we got one of those new hardcore recent corps grads for a limb leader...
who tried to micromanage everybody's lives...
it was like having the gestapo in charge...
i continued to run my life as usual...
which evidently was causing them some distress...
(at the time i was clueless about this though... LOL)
but i guess they finally had enough of me, and kicked me out...
of course, you know they did me a big favor... :P
peace,
jen-o
Link to comment
Share on other sites
jen-o
p.s.
i only had the privilege of stringing chairs one time...
(at a large function during my wow year)
and i remember thinking at the time: how b-i-z-a-r-r-e is this!
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Yanagisawa
thank you.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.