Seriously, though, the stuff about demons and God's supernatural power (what we used to call "Advanced Class" stuff) in the last couple of posts made me think. Was ALL of that just crap, or were there really some things going on spiritually? For a while I had concluded that it WAS all crap, but then in more recent years I've come to think that there is a balance even to that. Not all the times people encountered "devil spirits" was bogus, but it was taken to such an extreme that I suspect a lot of people overreacted and said it was all Way Crap. I've seen a few things that I can't blow off though.
Mark, you're right, sorry, I forgot that and read in the forbidden part... hehehe
It was the kind of statement that makes you go, "wow, I didn't even see that, 'Doctor' is really tapped in," when the reality is there is no way to analyze the truth of his statement. Even at the time, I thought he was off the wall, but we had been taught that if we didn't understand something to "hold it in abeyance," and that's what I did.
But Shaz, you must know that revelation cannot be analyzed, only ascertained.
Analyzing the whims of TWI...really!
The "spiritual perception and awareness" seemed to promote more finding a devil spirit under every rock (or in every person) rather than seeing the Godly side (could we say, positive?) of spirituality. Everybody (okay, a little exaggeration) saw devil spirits; how many saw angels or spirits acting on God's behalf?
2 Kgs 6:17 And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.
And that's not because we're "Athletes of the Spirit" now (forgetting Eph 6, of course) - it's that the teaching ceased being focused on God...what you look at, you become...remember that?
We couldn't see God's spirit at work because we were taught that the "gift of holy spirit" that God gave us was now our spirit to operate however we wanted, depending on our believing and renewed mind. The whole focus was on self and not on God or Jesus.
The "spiritual perception and awareness" seemed to promote more finding a devil spirit under every rock (or in every person) rather than seeing the Godly side (could we say, positive?) of spirituality. Everybody (okay, a little exaggeration) saw devil spirits; how many saw angels or spirits acting on God's behalf?
Actually I saw one that I'm certain of once. It was during my infamous LEAD trip. On the way home to Emporia were hitchhiking in the middle of no-where and I'm certain that it was an angel that picked us up and took us down the road. It's a long story and nobody believed me, even my partner who fell asleep in the back seat the second he got in and somehow never heard anything for the next few hours but was automatically wide awake the second we turned off the highway. I stopped telling people about it rather quickly because they thought I was insane (I was in res for crying out loud!). But it was real. I know it was.
But I also saw some other things that have to be chalked up to the other side.
As far as spiritual perception and awareness...i think that only God and the spirit within can truly teach us that, and its not all black and white. There are degrees of evil just as there are degrees of good. I was never one to see devil spirits under every rock. I always figured that most of those 'sightings' were a bunch of crap. But people certainly began to expect us to be able to see them. Even my immediate leaders encouraged me to 'see' things with my spiritual eyes when we were running big classes out on the field. Gotta protect the babes from the attacks of the debil dontcha know!
I tend to think that because people's minds were "conditioned" to think and see things in a certain way...many of them actually "saw things"....things they thought were legitimate spiritual experiences...such as "devil spirits"...
Looking at life through the prism of twi's dangerous and bogus doctrines is bound to produce "interpretations" of various life experiences that would fit with their teachings.
Wearing twi tinted glasses, the guy was possessed out of his mind...whereas to someone else, maybe they had a bipolar disorder or maybe they were just drunk and acting stupid...it all depends on your point of view.
I tend to think that because people's minds were "conditioned" to think and see things in a certain way...many of them actually "saw things"....things they thought were legitimate spiritual experiences...such as "devil spirits"...
Looking at life through the prism of twi's dangerous and bogus doctrines is bound to produce "interpretations" of various life experiences that would fit with their teachings.
Wearing twi tinted glasses, the guy was possessed out of his mind...whereas to someone else, maybe they had a bipolar disorder or maybe they were just drunk and acting stupid...it all depends on your point of view.
I think that you are absolutely correct in this assessment but I do not rule out that their is a spiritual realm and I honestly believe that there are times that it crosses over into our realm and if we are paying attention or are meant to we see it.
me too Eyes.I had a similair experience hitchhiking in California when I was fleeing from The WayI am gray(meaning balanced spiritually)which reminds me of a grateful dead song called Gray,I would post it but can't figure it out half the time!
me too Eyes.I had a similair experience hitchhiking in California when I was fleeing from The WayI am gray(meaning balanced spiritually)which reminds me of a grateful dead song called Gray,I would post it but can't figure it out half the time!
I think that you are absolutely correct in this assessment but I do not rule out that their is a spiritual realm and I honestly believe that there are times that it crosses over into our realm and if we are paying attention or are meant to we see it.
It's an area of gray for me.
I tend to agree with you. I believe in a spiritual realm...but IMO, twi was clueless and led people away from a legitimate spiritual perception through their religious dogmas and "formula Christianity"...A person doesn't get to know God by affiliating with and following hucksters who are pulling a money con.
This is a very interesting thread – great input! Since I've joined Grease Spot there's been a definite shift in the way I look at anything related to TWI [my years of involvement, doctrine, issues, etc.]. I'm switching from black-and-white-thinking to discerning shades of gray…from a roughshod hurried approach to a much more refined process. Instead of sort by battleaxe it's now sift by a fine-toothed comb. Still working on it – got a long way to go.
IMHO, the TWI mindset is an all-or-nothing process, detrimental to critical thinking. I understand the attraction of this mindset. It offers a false sense of confidence; it's comfortable and easy to follow – regardless of the context or scale. I had the typical TWI mindset to write off the churches because they didn't have PFAL, didn't speak in tongues, taught Jesus is God, or the myriad of other qualifiers TWI used to "separate truth from error." And even on a smaller scale I recall the all-or-nothing thought process being in play when leaders criticized someone for not wanting to take off work for the Rock of Ages – as if the leader's finger was on the pulse of everyone's relationship with God. So one's decision to not go to the Rock is really about how God is no longer first in their life.
When I first joined Grease Spot – I tended to lump everything together. I didn't want to take the time and energy to sort through stuff. But that was a big chunk of my life – and in many ways evolved into a part of my life now – in that those experiences and more importantly my responses shaped me…and continue to shape me as I sort through the mental baggage. Hey, it wasn't all bad for me! And I now enjoy the freedom to look at each detail and see it for what it is.
I don't feel the need to pronounce judgment on whether or not someone was born again, or play Advanced Class grad to explain life – God knows what's going on – and for some reason He's not saying a whole lot – and I'm at the place in my walk where I'm okay with that . Doctrinally, I'm not intent on throwing out the baby with the bath water. Heck, I'm not sure where I stand on a lot of stuff anyway – or whether it matters – but I do enjoy re-evaluating everything with other Grease Spotters and I'm learning to appreciate people as people rather than seeing them as a viewpoint.
But that was a big chunk of my life – and in many ways evolved into a part of my life now – in that those experiences and more importantly my responses shaped me…and continue to shape me as I sort through the mental baggage. Hey, it wasn't all bad for me! And I now enjoy the freedom to look at each detail and see it for what it is.
I don't feel the need to pronounce judgment on whether or not someone was born again, or play Advanced Class grad to explain life – God knows what's going on – and for some reason He's not saying a whole lot – and I'm at the place in my walk where I'm okay with that . Doctrinally, I'm not intent on throwing out the baby with the bath water. Heck, I'm not sure where I stand on a lot of stuff anyway – or whether it matters – but I do enjoy re-evaluating everything with other Grease Spotters and I'm learning to appreciate people as people rather than seeing them as a viewpoint.
Great post T-Bone! I can really relate to the part about how those experiences shaped me. It wasnt all bad for me either, but when it was bad it was really ugly. But that which I experienced is a part of me and it helped shape me into who I am today, good or bad, right or wrong. I also find myself sifting through things as they kind of just show up. I dont do like some people do and try to break down PFAL or specific doctrines because their 'bugging me' or I feel the need to regurgitate it. But as things come up, like believing = receiving, I re-examine the doctrine with everything at my disposal and I reach a conclusion that I can live with. Now that conclusion may change tomorrow but it no longer hovers over me like a dark cloud.
I totally believe that only God has the true 'formulae' for spiritual perception and awareness and He's gonna teach it to whomever he wants to. The Huckster got a lot of money, time, energy, love and just years and lives from a lot of good Godly people. But I feel that I learned from it and I moved on with my life and today I love God and have my own walk with Him.
Rascal, I actually wrote it all down when I wrote my autobiography a couple of months ago. If you like I can send you that chapter. I'm not publishing the book until next January. I didnt want to overlap Kris's book in any way.
Artists often describe their creativity as "coming" to them. They work and they produce, and there are moments of inspiration, clarity, awareness, illumination.
Likewise the idea of a "muse" - a sense of someone or something that informs what we do.
While these terms and ideas have been commonly labelled "possesso" by WaySponders and non-creative types, I think they deal with the same concepts as the SPA stuff. Where a person applies themselves towards an endeavor, works and develops their capabilities and in their efforts finds what I loosely term a "Third Track". It's just a term of my own but one that I use for my own imagery sometimes.
Basically, a gestalt-ish kind of thing. Where the sum of the parts come to equal more than their normally known value or weight. A "spiritual", indeed "godly" level of life that we are a part of but less aware of, outside of these moments. My own experience has been somewhat consistent with what "TWI" taught on this, at least at the stage that VPW elaborated on it. The term "knowing", where you "just know", or become clear on something. A "flow", of ideas, information, inspiration, etc.
That "Third Track" is that part of our lives that we develop that's less tangible than what we practice and learn by rote or repitition, yet it's there running down the middle of the "two tracks" we run along day after day. It becomes clearer as we go along, or can become clearer. It's always there, anyway, whether we see it and rely on it or not. It's another way of viewing that part of our lives that's "spiritual", and in a way that doesn't separate it - as in "god's out there somewhere" - but includes it, as "god's in here, right here".
Socks that is an interesting way of looking at things. And I understand it.. :blink: Perhaps my own 'third track' being recognized?
Twinky, that's actually not a bad idea. I have to go and take care of my car right now but perhaps later tonight I will have the opportunity to start such a thing.
Dunno if this fits with the topic but I'm gonna throw it out there.....
We had a guy in our area who went by the nickname "Rudy" and, after many really ugly confrontations with Pau1 Brook$ and Moneyhands - we were told to never call him "Rudy" again - that there were devil spirits hiding behind that name. We had to all start calling him "Bill", his real name.
The poor guy was put on probation quite a few times and kept coming back for more.... He was still in and had just gone 'Way Disciple' when I left.
"SP and A" has certainly been a playground for the Way over the years, Shaz. Given that the def. of "discerning of spirits" was a spiritual knowledge, not knowable by the 5 senses, I think we saw a consistent and probably predictable move towards expanding that to rely more on what a person gathered by their "5 senses" versus what they gathered by "spiritual" means, that was truly that kind of information. When the spiriitual know-dat is in short supply, waddya do? If I feel compelled to know that I know that I know when I don't know - yeah, black and white reliance on what I think I do "know".
It's reasonable I think to put two and two together, and get four. What that really means, is a whole nother question. "Judgment" is easy, anyone can say anything and come up with a reasoning for it. Is it right? Nother matter.
I was just thinking about this the other day - the only way we can really KNOW about someone is to look at the fruit of their lives...
The flip side of finding devil spirits in everyone was the lauding of the leadership as being above reproach. While we were taught to look at everything and everyone suspiciously as if they were under the control of the devil, we were also taught that everything the mog said was perfect and did not bear any questioning.
Wow, did that every screw us up. Everyone else is evil, but this select group, who can do no wrong... and they were the ones committing the biggest atrocities!
Artists often describe their creativity as "coming" to them. They work and they produce, and there are moments of inspiration, clarity, awareness, illumination.
The term "knowing", where you "just know", or become clear on something. A "flow", of ideas, information, inspiration, etc.
That "Third Track" is that part of our lives that we develop that's less tangible than what we practice and learn by rote or repitition, yet it's there running down the middle of the "two tracks" we run along day after day. It becomes clearer as we go along, or can become clearer. It's always there, anyway, whether we see it and rely on it or not. It's another way of viewing that part of our lives that's "spiritual", and in a way that doesn't separate it - as in "god's out there somewhere" - but includes it, as "god's in here, right here".
Socks, I think things do just come to us. That's what creativity is or inspiration, imo. It happens with a lot of teachers to help students--to teach them something in a certain way so they can understand the material. I've always hated jobs that require no creativity or inspiration--"just do A,B,C, and D, and do it this way" has always turned me off. I'd go home at the end of the day exhausted feeling completely depleted of strength from doing work that had no meaning (for me anyway).
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WordWolf
I think the legitimate supernatural incidents are hard to find when they're surrounded by
so many overinflated claims that were the product of exagerration and a desire to find
SOMETHING to label as supernatural.
In case I was unclear, I'm saying that was the case with twi.
It's no longer the case, IMHO, since virtually all the genuine Christianity has been
bleached out, so the current twi has no legitimate claims to mix in with all
the exagerrations now.
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dmiller
Same here. :)
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Twinky
Mark, you're right, sorry, I forgot that and read in the forbidden part... hehehe
But Shaz, you must know that revelation cannot be analyzed, only ascertained.
Analyzing the whims of TWI...really!
The "spiritual perception and awareness" seemed to promote more finding a devil spirit under every rock (or in every person) rather than seeing the Godly side (could we say, positive?) of spirituality. Everybody (okay, a little exaggeration) saw devil spirits; how many saw angels or spirits acting on God's behalf?
2 Kgs 6:17 And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.
And that's not because we're "Athletes of the Spirit" now (forgetting Eph 6, of course) - it's that the teaching ceased being focused on God...what you look at, you become...remember that?
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Mark Clarke
We couldn't see God's spirit at work because we were taught that the "gift of holy spirit" that God gave us was now our spirit to operate however we wanted, depending on our believing and renewed mind. The whole focus was on self and not on God or Jesus.
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JustThinking
One has to wonder how Adam, Moses, etc. ever got along without TWI.
JT
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cheranne
I almost "spit" all my coffee on the screen as I read this!!!
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Eyesopen
Actually I saw one that I'm certain of once. It was during my infamous LEAD trip. On the way home to Emporia were hitchhiking in the middle of no-where and I'm certain that it was an angel that picked us up and took us down the road. It's a long story and nobody believed me, even my partner who fell asleep in the back seat the second he got in and somehow never heard anything for the next few hours but was automatically wide awake the second we turned off the highway. I stopped telling people about it rather quickly because they thought I was insane (I was in res for crying out loud!). But it was real. I know it was.
But I also saw some other things that have to be chalked up to the other side.
As far as spiritual perception and awareness...i think that only God and the spirit within can truly teach us that, and its not all black and white. There are degrees of evil just as there are degrees of good. I was never one to see devil spirits under every rock. I always figured that most of those 'sightings' were a bunch of crap. But people certainly began to expect us to be able to see them. Even my immediate leaders encouraged me to 'see' things with my spiritual eyes when we were running big classes out on the field. Gotta protect the babes from the attacks of the debil dontcha know!
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GrouchoMarxJr
I tend to think that because people's minds were "conditioned" to think and see things in a certain way...many of them actually "saw things"....things they thought were legitimate spiritual experiences...such as "devil spirits"...
Looking at life through the prism of twi's dangerous and bogus doctrines is bound to produce "interpretations" of various life experiences that would fit with their teachings.
Wearing twi tinted glasses, the guy was possessed out of his mind...whereas to someone else, maybe they had a bipolar disorder or maybe they were just drunk and acting stupid...it all depends on your point of view.
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Eyesopen
I think that you are absolutely correct in this assessment but I do not rule out that their is a spiritual realm and I honestly believe that there are times that it crosses over into our realm and if we are paying attention or are meant to we see it.
It's an area of gray for me.
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cheranne
me too Eyes.I had a similair experience hitchhiking in California when I was fleeing from The WayI am gray(meaning balanced spiritually)which reminds me of a grateful dead song called Gray,I would post it but can't figure it out half the time!
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cheranne
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GrouchoMarxJr
I tend to agree with you. I believe in a spiritual realm...but IMO, twi was clueless and led people away from a legitimate spiritual perception through their religious dogmas and "formula Christianity"...A person doesn't get to know God by affiliating with and following hucksters who are pulling a money con.
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T-Bone
This is a very interesting thread – great input! Since I've joined Grease Spot there's been a definite shift in the way I look at anything related to TWI [my years of involvement, doctrine, issues, etc.]. I'm switching from black-and-white-thinking to discerning shades of gray…from a roughshod hurried approach to a much more refined process. Instead of sort by battleaxe it's now sift by a fine-toothed comb. Still working on it – got a long way to go.
IMHO, the TWI mindset is an all-or-nothing process, detrimental to critical thinking. I understand the attraction of this mindset. It offers a false sense of confidence; it's comfortable and easy to follow – regardless of the context or scale. I had the typical TWI mindset to write off the churches because they didn't have PFAL, didn't speak in tongues, taught Jesus is God, or the myriad of other qualifiers TWI used to "separate truth from error." And even on a smaller scale I recall the all-or-nothing thought process being in play when leaders criticized someone for not wanting to take off work for the Rock of Ages – as if the leader's finger was on the pulse of everyone's relationship with God. So one's decision to not go to the Rock is really about how God is no longer first in their life.
When I first joined Grease Spot – I tended to lump everything together. I didn't want to take the time and energy to sort through stuff. But that was a big chunk of my life – and in many ways evolved into a part of my life now – in that those experiences and more importantly my responses shaped me…and continue to shape me as I sort through the mental baggage. Hey, it wasn't all bad for me! And I now enjoy the freedom to look at each detail and see it for what it is.
I don't feel the need to pronounce judgment on whether or not someone was born again, or play Advanced Class grad to explain life – God knows what's going on – and for some reason He's not saying a whole lot – and I'm at the place in my walk where I'm okay with that
. Doctrinally, I'm not intent on throwing out the baby with the bath water. Heck, I'm not sure where I stand on a lot of stuff anyway – or whether it matters – but I do enjoy re-evaluating everything with other Grease Spotters and I'm learning to appreciate people as people rather than seeing them as a viewpoint.
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GrouchoMarxJr
T-bone...great post!...black and white?...hardly!
Life is made up of layers...all sorts of shades...it's not as easy as it once was...but at least it's honest.
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rascal
Eyes, I`d like to hear your angel story some time :)
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Eyesopen
Great post T-Bone! I can really relate to the part about how those experiences shaped me. It wasnt all bad for me either, but when it was bad it was really ugly. But that which I experienced is a part of me and it helped shape me into who I am today, good or bad, right or wrong. I also find myself sifting through things as they kind of just show up. I dont do like some people do and try to break down PFAL or specific doctrines because their 'bugging me' or I feel the need to regurgitate it. But as things come up, like believing = receiving, I re-examine the doctrine with everything at my disposal and I reach a conclusion that I can live with. Now that conclusion may change tomorrow but it no longer hovers over me like a dark cloud.
I totally believe that only God has the true 'formulae' for spiritual perception and awareness and He's gonna teach it to whomever he wants to. The Huckster got a lot of money, time, energy, love and just years and lives from a lot of good Godly people. But I feel that I learned from it and I moved on with my life and today I love God and have my own walk with Him.
Rascal, I actually wrote it all down when I wrote my autobiography a couple of months ago. If you like I can send you that chapter. I'm not publishing the book until next January. I didnt want to overlap Kris's book in any way.
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socks
Artists often describe their creativity as "coming" to them. They work and they produce, and there are moments of inspiration, clarity, awareness, illumination.
Likewise the idea of a "muse" - a sense of someone or something that informs what we do.
While these terms and ideas have been commonly labelled "possesso" by WaySponders and non-creative types, I think they deal with the same concepts as the SPA stuff. Where a person applies themselves towards an endeavor, works and develops their capabilities and in their efforts finds what I loosely term a "Third Track". It's just a term of my own but one that I use for my own imagery sometimes.
Basically, a gestalt-ish kind of thing. Where the sum of the parts come to equal more than their normally known value or weight. A "spiritual", indeed "godly" level of life that we are a part of but less aware of, outside of these moments. My own experience has been somewhat consistent with what "TWI" taught on this, at least at the stage that VPW elaborated on it. The term "knowing", where you "just know", or become clear on something. A "flow", of ideas, information, inspiration, etc.
That "Third Track" is that part of our lives that we develop that's less tangible than what we practice and learn by rote or repitition, yet it's there running down the middle of the "two tracks" we run along day after day. It becomes clearer as we go along, or can become clearer. It's always there, anyway, whether we see it and rely on it or not. It's another way of viewing that part of our lives that's "spiritual", and in a way that doesn't separate it - as in "god's out there somewhere" - but includes it, as "god's in here, right here".
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Twinky
Eyes, I'd like to hear your angel story too. Would you like perhaps to start a thread on Angel Awareness? Others may have good stories to add too.
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Eyesopen
Socks that is an interesting way of looking at things. And I understand it.. :blink: Perhaps my own 'third track' being recognized?
Twinky, that's actually not a bad idea. I have to go and take care of my car right now but perhaps later tonight I will have the opportunity to start such a thing.
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Belle
Cool post, Socks. :) Makes sense. Thanks!
Dunno if this fits with the topic but I'm gonna throw it out there.....
We had a guy in our area who went by the nickname "Rudy" and, after many really ugly confrontations with Pau1 Brook$ and Moneyhands - we were told to never call him "Rudy" again - that there were devil spirits hiding behind that name. We had to all start calling him "Bill", his real name.
The poor guy was put on probation quite a few times and kept coming back for more....
He was still in and had just gone 'Way Disciple' when I left.
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JavaJane
In the name of VP, I cast thee out, foul RUDY!!!
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socks
Thanks y'all. Glad it makes some sense.
"SP and A" has certainly been a playground for the Way over the years, Shaz. Given that the def. of "discerning of spirits" was a spiritual knowledge, not knowable by the 5 senses, I think we saw a consistent and probably predictable move towards expanding that to rely more on what a person gathered by their "5 senses" versus what they gathered by "spiritual" means, that was truly that kind of information. When the spiriitual know-dat is in short supply, waddya do? If I feel compelled to know that I know that I know when I don't know - yeah, black and white reliance on what I think I do "know".
It's reasonable I think to put two and two together, and get four. What that really means, is a whole nother question. "Judgment" is easy, anyone can say anything and come up with a reasoning for it. Is it right? Nother matter.
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JavaJane
I was just thinking about this the other day - the only way we can really KNOW about someone is to look at the fruit of their lives...
The flip side of finding devil spirits in everyone was the lauding of the leadership as being above reproach. While we were taught to look at everything and everyone suspiciously as if they were under the control of the devil, we were also taught that everything the mog said was perfect and did not bear any questioning.
Wow, did that every screw us up. Everyone else is evil, but this select group, who can do no wrong... and they were the ones committing the biggest atrocities!
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waterbuffalo
Socks, I think things do just come to us. That's what creativity is or inspiration, imo. It happens with a lot of teachers to help students--to teach them something in a certain way so they can understand the material. I've always hated jobs that require no creativity or inspiration--"just do A,B,C, and D, and do it this way" has always turned me off. I'd go home at the end of the day exhausted feeling completely depleted of strength from doing work that had no meaning (for me anyway).
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