I really enjoy reading the posts from you folks that were around in the early seventies and before. A lot of the things that you post on from personal recollection are things that I would never hear otherwise, THANK YOU!
I was wondering about Wierwille's well used phrase, "making it you own." from an observational standpoint, I've heard enough to think that Wierwille excelled in what I would refer to as doublespeak. The habit of saying one thing but meaning another.
Now, when I use the phrase,"Making it my own" I mean to study the concept until it becomes part of the inner workings of my mind. When I can rehearse the gist of the concepts in question in my own words as an outpouring of the inner workings of my own mind this is usually the end result of success in "making it my own.
But according to Wierwille's teachings, I am always suppose to remember and acknowledgee Wierwille as the source of my Biblical Knowledge. For most of this is a simple manner of honesty and de.cency
Wierwille was the worst offender of his own rule. In practice he seems to have had an entirely different meaning behind his "making it his own." He seems to refer to OWNERSHIP as the phrase applied to him.
When he Plagiarised Leonrd, Bullinger and many others Wierwille "made it his own" in a selfish way. For the things that he copied he took all the credit.
I NOW PERCIEVE A CORRUPT AND SELFISH MAN THAT ENJOYED MAKING PEOPLE DANCE TO HIS TUNES WHILE PRIVATELY ENJOYED HIS OWN LITTLE SICK DOUBLESPEAK WHEN HE SAID, "MAKE IT YOUR OWN."
I am from da 70's and very likely to continue post bits and pieces of my personal recollections.
Your post, in bringing up the "make it your own", is great. I felt at the time is was in the context of using one own's background, skills, and so on to put the Word out into the world in something other than bible quotations and references. And, I think there are two parts to that, what we say and what we do. I feel my experience in TWI was more along the doing rather than saying, i.e. the old adage that actions speak louder than words.
I do agree the VPW failed, how and where that began, well, that may never be fully known in my lifetime. I say this, I feel, in reflection, that I had some very unreasonable "expectations" of VPW during those years.
I wrote VPW a letter after a miserable WOW year, and asked him for advice. I told him that I was considering a program in Ohio, named the Fellow Laborers, and what did he think.. He wrote me back with a one sentence response "you must make the/a decision", whether it was an "the" or "a", doesn't really make a difference.
What I am getting at was that I was unable at that time, unprepared, unsure, all the aspects of confusion, to wrap my head around what he was saying. That is an example of where I was mentally. I am not meaning to imply VPW was right, wrong, anything like that, with regard to what he wrote to me. What I would say is that his response didn't acknowledge my state of mind. Being a man of God, nowdays I logically think, "why didn't God give him "word of wisdom", but that assumes is was a circumstance that God needed to act in and who knows ultimately and completely the mind of God, or the purposes of God for our lives, except God...so its a dead end.
But I regress. Yes, I agree about "doublespeak", that to me is a whole thread or web site itself. I look at your term, "doublespeak", as "wiggle room", that skill that Bill Clinton and many world class Attorneys have. "Wiggle room", isn't for everybody, it has served me from time to time in legal entanglements, but I agree its powerful stuff and yes, I think VPW used it as a honed skill...regards..michael
I don't remember him saying to remember where you learned the word. I do remember lcm telling the people we were all beholden to twi for teaching us the truth, since we weren't going to find it anywhere else in "this egg-sucking world".
"making it your own" degenerated over time from hiding the word in your heart to memorizing mog teachings. memorizing and never deviating from the "present truth".
I can't even make something my own these days. rather, I incorporate things into my psyche :)
I don't know the context that VPW had in mind when we were admonished to make the scriptures our own, but as a singer, the need to "own" the song to sing it well is the context that I have always operated. When someone "owns" a song, what is heard is the difference between someone who sings songs and someone who uses songs to draw the listener into the experience. The song "owner" puts the self into the song and brings a new result. Just based upon what I observed in the 70s and 80s, that was not what VPW meant by "making it your own." I have no idea what he meant.
I really hope that whatever you "incorporate into your Psyche" works for you. :)
I can understand from the things that I remember of what you shared why you'd hate the phrase "make it you own."
Dear Tzaia,
When you refer it to singing like that it seems to parallel how I think of it.....hhmm.
Dear Waysider,
I guess that if a puffed up minister is cramming an imperfect doctrine down someone's throat that they might use "make it your own" synonymous with "likemindedness."
Why, the way my splinter group went they felt free to destroy lives if someone's honest questioning led to them doubting the doctrine. Then they would call the one who refused to be likeminded such things as disorderly, or a heretic. Then because I (er I mean that one) was so reprobate concerning the faith they'd deceive themselves into thinking they had the right to dismantle that one's life through a series of manipulations.
To me, all these things can be dangerous in the wrong hands. It depends on who runs the show.
Jeff: I really think "make it your own" meant "make my [VPW's] thinking your own" - learn to think exactly what VPW did. After all, the 1st century church was exhorted to follow (imitate) Paul; and then as the 1st century church in the 20th we were exhorted to follow (bleah) our father in the Word. He was getting us to indoctrinate ourselves. Find scriptures that supported what he had told us the "whole word" said.
But you know how promptly any dissention, any individual thinking, any "could you explain how this fits with x, y and z" was met - one wasn't spiritually mature enough to understand.
Easiest to say what it didn't mean: don't think for yourself. Don't think anything but what VPW said.
Michael: there are several threads here about Way doublespeak. If you use My Assistant above and enter "doublespeak" it should show you a few older threads which you could pick up and add to, if interested. No need to start another thread.
I don't see any reason to doubt your opinion. I've heard enough on my own and from others' testimony to believe you that what you say is how it went down.
But the thing is is that even I could remember Wierwille saying things that seemed to indicate that it wasn't like that.
Now, I think it was like that and the exhortations for it to not be like that were just lip-service that was not really meant.
If I hadn't have heard differently I would still be ignorantly clinging to the fiction that Wierwille was the man that he was painted to be.
I almost didn't open this thread because just seeing those words "making it your own" made me want to barf. In my experience it meant mindlessly parrotting a huge ego maniac and being too afraid to express an honest opinion.
It was used in the same way "you're not renewing your mind" was if you dared to disagree with said ego maniac.
So if you didn't see it their way, you hadn't made it your own. If you disagreed you weren't renewing your mind.
Good thread but I gotta go barf now and "renew my mind" to all those lovely memories. LOL.
I recall one time I took a principle from the Blue Book, thought about it, and "translated" it into terms I myself might use, visual imagery that fit better for me and for people round me. I got the opportunity to teach this principle at a twig. It was met with bemused or blank expressions, raised eyebrows, pained looks, polite smiles... It wasn't that I got the principle wrong, it was that I wasn't using the required language.
Although nobody said anything, the message I got quite clearly was: stick to the text of the Blue Book. Don't go putting your own "private interpretation" on what's in it. Speak the same language as the rest of us. Don't go thinking for yourself.
As to what principle I was endeavoring to expound - I have no idea now. I just remember the reception. And I wasn't invited to "teach" again.
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mchud11
I am from da 70's and very likely to continue post bits and pieces of my personal recollections.
Your post, in bringing up the "make it your own", is great. I felt at the time is was in the context of using one own's background, skills, and so on to put the Word out into the world in something other than bible quotations and references. And, I think there are two parts to that, what we say and what we do. I feel my experience in TWI was more along the doing rather than saying, i.e. the old adage that actions speak louder than words.
I do agree the VPW failed, how and where that began, well, that may never be fully known in my lifetime. I say this, I feel, in reflection, that I had some very unreasonable "expectations" of VPW during those years.
I wrote VPW a letter after a miserable WOW year, and asked him for advice. I told him that I was considering a program in Ohio, named the Fellow Laborers, and what did he think.. He wrote me back with a one sentence response "you must make the/a decision", whether it was an "the" or "a", doesn't really make a difference.
What I am getting at was that I was unable at that time, unprepared, unsure, all the aspects of confusion, to wrap my head around what he was saying. That is an example of where I was mentally. I am not meaning to imply VPW was right, wrong, anything like that, with regard to what he wrote to me. What I would say is that his response didn't acknowledge my state of mind. Being a man of God, nowdays I logically think, "why didn't God give him "word of wisdom", but that assumes is was a circumstance that God needed to act in and who knows ultimately and completely the mind of God, or the purposes of God for our lives, except God...so its a dead end.
But I regress. Yes, I agree about "doublespeak", that to me is a whole thread or web site itself. I look at your term, "doublespeak", as "wiggle room", that skill that Bill Clinton and many world class Attorneys have. "Wiggle room", isn't for everybody, it has served me from time to time in legal entanglements, but I agree its powerful stuff and yes, I think VPW used it as a honed skill...regards..michael
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JeffSjo
Hi mchud11,
Thanks for the feedback. I hope that the editing that I did during and after your post doesn't ruin how it seems to work for you.
Peace,
Jeff
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potato
"make it your own"... how I hate that phrase.
I don't remember him saying to remember where you learned the word. I do remember lcm telling the people we were all beholden to twi for teaching us the truth, since we weren't going to find it anywhere else in "this egg-sucking world".
"making it your own" degenerated over time from hiding the word in your heart to memorizing mog teachings. memorizing and never deviating from the "present truth".
I can't even make something my own these days. rather, I incorporate things into my psyche :)
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Tzaia
Jeff,
I don't know the context that VPW had in mind when we were admonished to make the scriptures our own, but as a singer, the need to "own" the song to sing it well is the context that I have always operated. When someone "owns" a song, what is heard is the difference between someone who sings songs and someone who uses songs to draw the listener into the experience. The song "owner" puts the self into the song and brings a new result. Just based upon what I observed in the 70s and 80s, that was not what VPW meant by "making it your own." I have no idea what he meant.
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waysider
I find myself wondering how "making it your own" fit with "likemindedness".
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JeffSjo
Dear Potato,
I really hope that whatever you "incorporate into your Psyche" works for you. :)
I can understand from the things that I remember of what you shared why you'd hate the phrase "make it you own."
Dear Tzaia,
When you refer it to singing like that it seems to parallel how I think of it.....hhmm.
Dear Waysider,
I guess that if a puffed up minister is cramming an imperfect doctrine down someone's throat that they might use "make it your own" synonymous with "likemindedness."
Why, the way my splinter group went they felt free to destroy lives if someone's honest questioning led to them doubting the doctrine. Then they would call the one who refused to be likeminded such things as disorderly, or a heretic. Then because I (er I mean that one) was so reprobate concerning the faith they'd deceive themselves into thinking they had the right to dismantle that one's life through a series of manipulations.
To me, all these things can be dangerous in the wrong hands. It depends on who runs the show.
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Twinky
Jeff: I really think "make it your own" meant "make my [VPW's] thinking your own" - learn to think exactly what VPW did. After all, the 1st century church was exhorted to follow (imitate) Paul; and then as the 1st century church in the 20th we were exhorted to follow (bleah) our father in the Word. He was getting us to indoctrinate ourselves. Find scriptures that supported what he had told us the "whole word" said.
But you know how promptly any dissention, any individual thinking, any "could you explain how this fits with x, y and z" was met - one wasn't spiritually mature enough to understand.
Easiest to say what it didn't mean: don't think for yourself. Don't think anything but what VPW said.
Michael: there are several threads here about Way doublespeak. If you use My Assistant above and enter "doublespeak" it should show you a few older threads which you could pick up and add to, if interested. No need to start another thread.
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JeffSjo
Hi Twinky,
I don't see any reason to doubt your opinion. I've heard enough on my own and from others' testimony to believe you that what you say is how it went down.
But the thing is is that even I could remember Wierwille saying things that seemed to indicate that it wasn't like that.
Now, I think it was like that and the exhortations for it to not be like that were just lip-service that was not really meant.
If I hadn't have heard differently I would still be ignorantly clinging to the fiction that Wierwille was the man that he was painted to be.
SIGGGHHH...
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finallyunderstand
I almost didn't open this thread because just seeing those words "making it your own" made me want to barf. In my experience it meant mindlessly parrotting a huge ego maniac and being too afraid to express an honest opinion.
It was used in the same way "you're not renewing your mind"
was if you dared to disagree with said ego maniac.
So if you didn't see it their way, you hadn't made it your own. If you disagreed you weren't renewing your mind.
Good thread but I gotta go barf now and "renew my mind" to all those lovely memories. LOL.
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Twinky
I recall one time I took a principle from the Blue Book, thought about it, and "translated" it into terms I myself might use, visual imagery that fit better for me and for people round me. I got the opportunity to teach this principle at a twig. It was met with bemused or blank expressions, raised eyebrows, pained looks, polite smiles... It wasn't that I got the principle wrong, it was that I wasn't using the required language.
Although nobody said anything, the message I got quite clearly was: stick to the text of the Blue Book. Don't go putting your own "private interpretation" on what's in it. Speak the same language as the rest of us. Don't go thinking for yourself.
As to what principle I was endeavoring to expound - I have no idea now. I just remember the reception. And I wasn't invited to "teach" again.
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JeffSjo
Hi Twinky dear,
So in your case even though you did what I generally consider "making it your own" it wasn't good enough for the pollyannas.(sp)
What a mess.
Dear finallyunderstand,
:) I'm so sorry about the involuntary wretching. :D
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finallyunderstand
No prob. LOL.
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