Not "fake" perhaps, but often very fragile. As you point out, all it took in many cases was some leader saying that you were unwelcome to demolish all the love and camraderie.
It was conditional friendship. Out in the real world friendship dosn't have some third party authority looming over the friends with the power to cut off the friendship.
When we left TWI the limb coordinator (trying to talk us into staying) said we would lose all our friends, and we did, due to the M&A practice.
My love and camaraderie for the marked and avoided did not evaporate nor did I retracted it.
I kept them all still in my life and heart even though they were marked and avoided for various reasons and thought to be possessed; Unless of course they disappeared to parts unknown.
Consequentially, I was marked and avoided and isolated and no one crossed the line as I had.
Some friendships had strong and lasting bonds with a solid foundation, and some bonds were weak and frail and only based on a TWI association. When ostracized they too evaporated Within all Groups and association in this world it is the same this is not isolated and significant to TWI alone
When the Foundational Class in a cult touts the line:
"I have NO friends when it comes to the Word,"
you have a set up for conditional, fragile relationships.
There is no cookie cutter answer here. Some of the marriages that began in twi have survived. Perhaps many friendships weren't fake - but most friendships weren't deep or real for the most part.
I once heard a friend say that most of the people in his fellowshship were people who most likely would not spend any time together were it not for twi. He said that as a good thing at the time. however, once the "glue" fell away, things went back to "natural selection."
i have friends from 30 some years ago, some of whom i was friends with before we got in the way, and then we got in the way, and we are still friends
some i met in the way
some i met here
--
also, there are some i became such good friends with before i left, and i kind of dropped them, because i moved away and suffered. i'm sorry about those due to my fault. and i've done the same thing with non-wayfers
i don't know how to answer this. there are so many people i've loved and love along the way (of life, not The way)
i'm very very sad for lost friends (wayfer and non), even when i'm the reason
In an effort not to derail the Jonny Lingo love fest in that thread, I ask, Who says that what anyone experienced is fake?
I do Love You...You are adorable and I personally invited You Oak to any and all of my future on line love fests!!!
Please forgive me this slight disruption of your thread!!!
One question did you watch the movie??? That alone is worth suffering through my words and edits. I was so impressed I am going to buy it and see the whole hour and 31 mins. Hey the music at my "love fest" is not too bad either...in it's way it is so beautiful!!!
It is a shock when anyone finds out that people that they Love genuinely are more or less pretending even to the point that they have deluded themselves. Kinda sad!!!
Some of us weren't and aren't pretending!!!
Some didn't have hidden agendas or inflated egos or climbing the latter designs!!!
I learned over the years, at least to a limited extant, to filter the genuine friendships in the way, from those that were conditional and 'manufactured'. The latter usually due to the 'committed believers' focused on 'climbing the ladder' ( though no one would ever admit to that term).
I did enjoy some wonderful relationships, as well as too many 'conditional' ones. I would most likely still be friends with several people if not for moving away, time and 'real life' getting in the way. Life in the way often meant annual shake ups . I moved at least 12 times in the 13 years I was involved ( and have now lived in the same place for 14 years , Thank God). With all that shuffling around, you could still look forward to "see you at the Rock", which was a stronger glue for the outfit, than I think they realized.
I still have a few treasured friends from back then, but just like high school and college friends, it takes more work to keep it alive.
A year ago, an old branch leader who I had stayed in casual contact with over the years contacted me. She had just got involved with a marketing group selling phone and internet connection deals. She was going to be at a convention center near me, and we met for lunch. After years of being 'normal'(my term, and opinion), she was suddenly on fire again, with this group that looked cult like to me. She was as excited as a new pfal grad (ha) and tried selling me on the 'program'. I told her I wasn't interested, just was glad to see her, and wasn't interested in joining any new 'cults'.
Over the next month, I got calls from her every week, wanting to know if I'd changed my mind.She had that old Way Corps fire back, only with a new mission. Wouldn't take no for an answer, and making me feel guilty for not supporting her. I finally bought into the least expensive and intrusive part of her package, and felt like I had just been played for a sucker. I didn't want it, I told her that from the start, but I was worn down.
Of course once I bought in, the phone calls stopped.
I definitely understand that some folks weren't faking it and had genuine love for those around them. The point of my initial post was that although the fakery was rampant, no one is seriously saying that those who claim real camraderie and love didn't really happen. In other words, I haven't seen anyone challneging anyone else's personal experience.
I definitely understand that some folks weren't faking it and had genuine love for those around them. The point of my initial post was that although the fakery was rampant, no one is seriously saying that those who claim real camraderie and love didn't really happen. In other words, I haven't seen anyone challneging anyone else's personal experience.
Thank you Oak, I may have misunderstood it somewhat! I guess, I got that impression from the a post in another thread.
Thinking about my experiences – I'd say genuine friendships were few and far between all the other relationships crammed into my life by TWI. I think authentic bonds were formed when we'd…I dunno…suspend…or maybe look past those TWI predilections lodged in our heads.
From what I can remember, my other relationships had a manufactured flavor to them...a shallow…superficial feel to it. My wife and I have talked about this same topic a few times – usually wind up saying we let way too many people get involved in our lives just because it was expected of us. I think we lost a sense of boundaries, assumed ministry-jargon & activities were authentic modes of communication and mistook shared experiences for real intimacy.
Thinking about my experiences – I'd say genuine friendships were few and far between all the other relationships crammed into my life by TWI. I think authentic bonds were formed when we'd…I dunno…suspend…or maybe look past those TWI predilections lodged in our heads.
From what I can remember, my other relationships had a manufactured flavor to them...a shallow…superficial feel to it. My wife and I have talked about this same topic a few times – usually wind up saying we let way too many people get involved in our lives just because it was expected of us. I think we lost a sense of boundaries, assumed ministry-jargon & activities were authentic modes of communication and mistook shared experiences for real intimacy.
Good observations there T-Bone. I found that the more genuine relationships I had in twi were based on me ignoring any of the micro-managing stuff propounded by twi.
That said, looking back I had no real friends in twi. There was always the lingering sense that if you screwed up the other person would walk away. That's not a recipe for a genuine relationship.
I grew up with two gals. Our mothers all grew up together and the friendship extended to their kids. During the twelve years that we were all together in the same place there were a lot of arguments. All the same "girl stuff" that pre-teens go through, but we always worked it out. Always. There was never a question of whether one of us would be kicked out of the group. We were family.
Oddly enough, for a group of young girls, we didn't really gossip about each other. (I just remembered that.)
It was - I don't know- just not part of how we were with each other. In fact, we really didn't spend much time talking about much more than the things that interested all of us together.
I ended up going to college with one of those gals. I when I got into twi I tried to get her to join me. She was smarter than I and didn't take the bait. She watched me make one wrong decision after another and never ditched me as a friend. She saw me move all over the city from one bad apt to another that was worst. Still - she remained my friend. When I made the move to Kansas she told me to "click my heels three time if I ever wanted to come home" and sent me on my way.
One of my deepest regrets is that ultimately our friendship didn't survive my cult experience. Years and miles and my attitude got in the way. We connected several times- but only for short bursts of closeness. The last time I saw her was after I had left and was gone for at least a year. By that time our lives had become too different. The last time I talked to her was just after the birth of my younger daughter. Her phone number was unlisted and I lost it - so sadly I have not heard from her since.
That said, I've come to see how I sabotaged that relationship. I did ignore the "don't be unequally yoked" bs line that twi spouted. Sadly, I see it was replaced with "I'll just be her friend and she'll see my life and want what I have" line of bs. That was another form of using people.
O. K. Oakspear, I am busted. I went back and read what I posted and I guess it could be taken as you stated. I can assure you I didn't intend for it to be taken that way. I have a brain problem where the microchip in it gets to twirling so fast the fingers on the keyboard just can't keep up. Sometimes, I must think I am posting to myself. Ha!! Ha!!
Poor choice of words on my part to convey my thoughts to other readers. "Some people" did not refer to anyone on here. I actually had an ex-wayfer who lives here tell me everything we lived, loved and experienced was not real because it was built upon twi.
Several years ago I found a long lost way friend via another ex-wayfer. How we lost contact is another crazy story. Holy moly, we loved each other, loved each others families, babies, children. Did make a move without consulting each other. Spent weekends together. Took vacations together. We lived life in the trenches and on the mountain tops together. We shared all things.
She told me the life we lived was a lie because it was built around twi...VPW this and VPW that. I said, what? You have got to be kidding?!?!! I never felt that way. Still don't to this day. Geez, a lot of the stuff we did was criminal according to twi rules. Our families would take off for the weekend and not tell anybody, have weekend long spend the night parties at each others house. Gosh, we even nursed each others babies.
They live fairly close to me and I was salivating at the thought of taking up where we left off. Talk about having the wind knocked out of ya. I still have a wrinkle in my heart over that one. My love was real.
I can say that as a kid, I had plenty of friends growing up. I didn't get along well with a lot of other TWI kids, but mostly because we were well behaved, while others in TWI seemed content to raise spoiled, insolent brats. As a teen, I made a few friends, although they were only in TWI because of their parents. When I went to the Advanced Class, I made some great friends there, but in the 90's and 2000's prior to TWI's recent image softening campaign, I didn't want to get too close to someone in TWI. It was pretty easy to do.
I can say that yes, there was some genuine care for me in TWI and vice versa. However, I would say that after LCM took over, the attitude changed, and close connections were rare. I remember as a little kid how close people were in TWI. I would say the defining moment for when that all fell apart is when we were lectured by some hotshot local MOG that we (well, the adults mainly but I was a kid hearing all of this) were not to tell people, "You're the best!" or anything like that if they were not 100% walking according to TWI. It was the final straw in the paranoia that replaced the genuine concern at that time. You went from viewing your fellowship as your bretheren to the next possible closet homo or the next possessed person who was going to make you fall off of your walk. Either that, or if you were beat down and only 99.9% devoted to TWI, the person sitting next to you at fellowship could be the one that would turn you in or have revelation that you chose to go to a baseball game instead of sitting at home listening to the latest mandatory SNS like the HFC demanded.
Thinking about my experiences – I'd say genuine friendships were few and far between all the other relationships crammed into my life by TWI. I think authentic bonds were formed when we'd…I dunno…suspend…or maybe look past those TWI predilections lodged in our heads.
From what I can remember, my other relationships had a manufactured flavor to them...a shallow…superficial feel to it.
(snip)
I'd say a good number of friendships I had in twi were genuine friendships.
I's also say a "good" number of friendships I had in twi were manufactured,
present in a technical sense but not in any emotional tie beyond twi membership.
I think one of the top 10 favorite phrases VPW popularized in twi was, "You have no friends when it comes to the Word." I believe "the Word" was defined by VPW, so if you disagreed with that you were WRONG.
When I left HQ in '87 after 17 years of involvement in twi, several people that I thought had been my closest friends, chose twi and its doctrines over remaining in touch with me...one told me to my face I was deceived by the devil.
But a few stood by me and are still my friends today.
Anyone ever been a regular in a bar for a long time? That's how I look at it, like the "barroom family". They're your best friends in the whole world, as long as your spending money, and everyone is having a good time.
But when the chips are down a little, all of a sudden your "family" doesn't even know you anymore.
Bluzeman.....your scenario made think me of Ed and Karen.
They were pretty hard core biker rebels. They were witnessed to. They said they had been thinking about God in their life and wanted to settle down and get serious about life and wanted God, wanted more in their life, fellowship in their life. This is a short synopsis. They committed to a church and were seriously hot and involved. They were judged because of what they wore or hair or whatever. They did the same with another church. And another.
Karen told me, "We were treated better by our biker friends at the bar."
The real stuff for me was with the folks in my first fellowship. I still thought well of them even when they left twi and I stayed in. And after I left I looked them up and we still got along great.
The fake stuff came later... with my last twigs; the ones that were basically set up by the local leadership (when folks were no longer free to choose which local fellowship to attend). And let's face it, it's hard to bond when everyone is just a plastic veneer. No one trusted anyone enough not to rat them out to leadership if they let their guard down and revealed that they might actually have a ((gasp)) problem.
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GeorgeStGeorge
Not "fake" perhaps, but often very fragile. As you point out, all it took in many cases was some leader saying that you were unwelcome to demolish all the love and camraderie.
George
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Bramble
It was conditional friendship. Out in the real world friendship dosn't have some third party authority looming over the friends with the power to cut off the friendship.
When we left TWI the limb coordinator (trying to talk us into staying) said we would lose all our friends, and we did, due to the M&A practice.
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Ham
Maybe a lot of it wasn't "faked" more than it was "manufactured".
Myself- I was looking for a connection like a real family. I lost both parents before I graduated from high school.
The rest of my family was basically divided and scattered to the wind.
I really think the promise of being "family" is too much to offer, and too much to expect.
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waysider
Some of the love and camaraderie was very real--------and some was dreadfully fake.
The real stuff is what bonded us together, not the organization or its twisted doctrines.
I suppose one could draw some sort of analogy to a friendship that is forged in prison.
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RainbowsGirl
My love and camaraderie for the marked and avoided did not evaporate nor did I retracted it.
I kept them all still in my life and heart even though they were marked and avoided for various reasons and thought to be possessed; Unless of course they disappeared to parts unknown.
Consequentially, I was marked and avoided and isolated and no one crossed the line as I had.
Some friendships had strong and lasting bonds with a solid foundation, and some bonds were weak and frail and only based on a TWI association. When ostracized they too evaporated Within all Groups and association in this world it is the same this is not isolated and significant to TWI alone
I see both ends of this!
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doojable
When the Foundational Class in a cult touts the line:
"I have NO friends when it comes to the Word,"
you have a set up for conditional, fragile relationships.
There is no cookie cutter answer here. Some of the marriages that began in twi have survived. Perhaps many friendships weren't fake - but most friendships weren't deep or real for the most part.
I once heard a friend say that most of the people in his fellowshship were people who most likely would not spend any time together were it not for twi. He said that as a good thing at the time. however, once the "glue" fell away, things went back to "natural selection."
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coolchef
i still have dear friends from over 30 years ago
no thanks to twi but the love we found with one another!
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excathedra
interesting topic really
i have friends from 30 some years ago, some of whom i was friends with before we got in the way, and then we got in the way, and we are still friends
some i met in the way
some i met here
--
also, there are some i became such good friends with before i left, and i kind of dropped them, because i moved away and suffered. i'm sorry about those due to my fault. and i've done the same thing with non-wayfers
i don't know how to answer this. there are so many people i've loved and love along the way (of life, not The way)
i'm very very sad for lost friends (wayfer and non), even when i'm the reason
i'm also sad for when they're the reason
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RainbowsGirl
((((Oakspear)))),
I do Love You...You are adorable and I personally invited You Oak to any and all of my future on line love fests!!!
Please forgive me this slight disruption of your thread!!!
One question did you watch the movie??? That alone is worth suffering through my words and edits. I was so impressed I am going to buy it and see the whole hour and 31 mins. Hey the music at my "love fest" is not too bad either...in it's way it is so beautiful!!!
Love you, RG
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Oakspear
I saw the movie at "twig" in the 90's in pseudo-camraderie with all the people who pretended to love me <_<
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RainbowsGirl
Oak,
It is a shock when anyone finds out that people that they Love genuinely are more or less pretending even to the point that they have deluded themselves. Kinda sad!!!
Some of us weren't and aren't pretending!!!
Some didn't have hidden agendas or inflated egos or climbing the latter designs!!!
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hiway29
I learned over the years, at least to a limited extant, to filter the genuine friendships in the way, from those that were conditional and 'manufactured'. The latter usually due to the 'committed believers' focused on 'climbing the ladder' ( though no one would ever admit to that term).
I did enjoy some wonderful relationships, as well as too many 'conditional' ones. I would most likely still be friends with several people if not for moving away, time and 'real life' getting in the way. Life in the way often meant annual shake ups . I moved at least 12 times in the 13 years I was involved ( and have now lived in the same place for 14 years , Thank God). With all that shuffling around, you could still look forward to "see you at the Rock", which was a stronger glue for the outfit, than I think they realized.
I still have a few treasured friends from back then, but just like high school and college friends, it takes more work to keep it alive.
A year ago, an old branch leader who I had stayed in casual contact with over the years contacted me. She had just got involved with a marketing group selling phone and internet connection deals. She was going to be at a convention center near me, and we met for lunch. After years of being 'normal'(my term, and opinion), she was suddenly on fire again, with this group that looked cult like to me. She was as excited as a new pfal grad (ha) and tried selling me on the 'program'. I told her I wasn't interested, just was glad to see her, and wasn't interested in joining any new 'cults'.
Over the next month, I got calls from her every week, wanting to know if I'd changed my mind.She had that old Way Corps fire back, only with a new mission. Wouldn't take no for an answer, and making me feel guilty for not supporting her. I finally bought into the least expensive and intrusive part of her package, and felt like I had just been played for a sucker. I didn't want it, I told her that from the start, but I was worn down.
Of course once I bought in, the phone calls stopped.
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Oakspear
RG:
I definitely understand that some folks weren't faking it and had genuine love for those around them. The point of my initial post was that although the fakery was rampant, no one is seriously saying that those who claim real camraderie and love didn't really happen. In other words, I haven't seen anyone challneging anyone else's personal experience.
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RainbowsGirl
Thank you Oak, I may have misunderstood it somewhat! I guess, I got that impression from the a post in another thread.
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T-Bone
Thinking about my experiences – I'd say genuine friendships were few and far between all the other relationships crammed into my life by TWI. I think authentic bonds were formed when we'd…I dunno…suspend…or maybe look past those TWI predilections lodged in our heads.
From what I can remember, my other relationships had a manufactured flavor to them...a shallow…superficial feel to it. My wife and I have talked about this same topic a few times – usually wind up saying we let way too many people get involved in our lives just because it was expected of us. I think we lost a sense of boundaries, assumed ministry-jargon & activities were authentic modes of communication and mistook shared experiences for real intimacy.
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doojable
Good observations there T-Bone. I found that the more genuine relationships I had in twi were based on me ignoring any of the micro-managing stuff propounded by twi.
That said, looking back I had no real friends in twi. There was always the lingering sense that if you screwed up the other person would walk away. That's not a recipe for a genuine relationship.
I grew up with two gals. Our mothers all grew up together and the friendship extended to their kids. During the twelve years that we were all together in the same place there were a lot of arguments. All the same "girl stuff" that pre-teens go through, but we always worked it out. Always. There was never a question of whether one of us would be kicked out of the group. We were family.
Oddly enough, for a group of young girls, we didn't really gossip about each other. (I just remembered that.)
It was - I don't know- just not part of how we were with each other. In fact, we really didn't spend much time talking about much more than the things that interested all of us together.
I ended up going to college with one of those gals. I when I got into twi I tried to get her to join me. She was smarter than I and didn't take the bait. She watched me make one wrong decision after another and never ditched me as a friend. She saw me move all over the city from one bad apt to another that was worst. Still - she remained my friend. When I made the move to Kansas she told me to "click my heels three time if I ever wanted to come home" and sent me on my way.
One of my deepest regrets is that ultimately our friendship didn't survive my cult experience. Years and miles and my attitude got in the way. We connected several times- but only for short bursts of closeness. The last time I saw her was after I had left and was gone for at least a year. By that time our lives had become too different. The last time I talked to her was just after the birth of my younger daughter. Her phone number was unlisted and I lost it - so sadly I have not heard from her since.
That said, I've come to see how I sabotaged that relationship. I did ignore the "don't be unequally yoked" bs line that twi spouted. Sadly, I see it was replaced with "I'll just be her friend and she'll see my life and want what I have" line of bs. That was another form of using people.
UGH! I hate this...
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kimberly
O. K. Oakspear, I am busted. I went back and read what I posted and I guess it could be taken as you stated. I can assure you I didn't intend for it to be taken that way. I have a brain problem where the microchip in it gets to twirling so fast the fingers on the keyboard just can't keep up. Sometimes, I must think I am posting to myself. Ha!! Ha!!
Poor choice of words on my part to convey my thoughts to other readers. "Some people" did not refer to anyone on here. I actually had an ex-wayfer who lives here tell me everything we lived, loved and experienced was not real because it was built upon twi.
Several years ago I found a long lost way friend via another ex-wayfer. How we lost contact is another crazy story. Holy moly, we loved each other, loved each others families, babies, children. Did make a move without consulting each other. Spent weekends together. Took vacations together. We lived life in the trenches and on the mountain tops together. We shared all things.
She told me the life we lived was a lie because it was built around twi...VPW this and VPW that. I said, what? You have got to be kidding?!?!! I never felt that way. Still don't to this day. Geez, a lot of the stuff we did was criminal according to twi rules. Our families would take off for the weekend and not tell anybody, have weekend long spend the night parties at each others house. Gosh, we even nursed each others babies.
They live fairly close to me and I was salivating at the thought of taking up where we left off. Talk about having the wind knocked out of ya. I still have a wrinkle in my heart over that one. My love was real.
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Mister P-Mosh
I can say that as a kid, I had plenty of friends growing up. I didn't get along well with a lot of other TWI kids, but mostly because we were well behaved, while others in TWI seemed content to raise spoiled, insolent brats. As a teen, I made a few friends, although they were only in TWI because of their parents. When I went to the Advanced Class, I made some great friends there, but in the 90's and 2000's prior to TWI's recent image softening campaign, I didn't want to get too close to someone in TWI. It was pretty easy to do.
I can say that yes, there was some genuine care for me in TWI and vice versa. However, I would say that after LCM took over, the attitude changed, and close connections were rare. I remember as a little kid how close people were in TWI. I would say the defining moment for when that all fell apart is when we were lectured by some hotshot local MOG that we (well, the adults mainly but I was a kid hearing all of this) were not to tell people, "You're the best!" or anything like that if they were not 100% walking according to TWI. It was the final straw in the paranoia that replaced the genuine concern at that time. You went from viewing your fellowship as your bretheren to the next possible closet homo or the next possessed person who was going to make you fall off of your walk. Either that, or if you were beat down and only 99.9% devoted to TWI, the person sitting next to you at fellowship could be the one that would turn you in or have revelation that you chose to go to a baseball game instead of sitting at home listening to the latest mandatory SNS like the HFC demanded.
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WordWolf
I'd say a good number of friendships I had in twi were genuine friendships.
I's also say a "good" number of friendships I had in twi were manufactured,
present in a technical sense but not in any emotional tie beyond twi membership.
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penworks
I think one of the top 10 favorite phrases VPW popularized in twi was, "You have no friends when it comes to the Word." I believe "the Word" was defined by VPW, so if you disagreed with that you were WRONG.
When I left HQ in '87 after 17 years of involvement in twi, several people that I thought had been my closest friends, chose twi and its doctrines over remaining in touch with me...one told me to my face I was deceived by the devil.
But a few stood by me and are still my friends today.
Cheers!
penworks
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Bluzeman
Anyone ever been a regular in a bar for a long time? That's how I look at it, like the "barroom family". They're your best friends in the whole world, as long as your spending money, and everyone is having a good time.
But when the chips are down a little, all of a sudden your "family" doesn't even know you anymore.
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doojable
I thought this was an appropriate discussion to add to a thread concerning love and camaraderie:
Compassion
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kimberly
Bluzeman.....your scenario made think me of Ed and Karen.
They were pretty hard core biker rebels. They were witnessed to. They said they had been thinking about God in their life and wanted to settle down and get serious about life and wanted God, wanted more in their life, fellowship in their life. This is a short synopsis. They committed to a church and were seriously hot and involved. They were judged because of what they wore or hair or whatever. They did the same with another church. And another.
Karen told me, "We were treated better by our biker friends at the bar."
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TheHighWay
The real stuff for me was with the folks in my first fellowship. I still thought well of them even when they left twi and I stayed in. And after I left I looked them up and we still got along great.
The fake stuff came later... with my last twigs; the ones that were basically set up by the local leadership (when folks were no longer free to choose which local fellowship to attend). And let's face it, it's hard to bond when everyone is just a plastic veneer. No one trusted anyone enough not to rat them out to leadership if they let their guard down and revealed that they might actually have a ((gasp)) problem.
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