To the memory of Miles Ryan who must have been as wonderful as his little brother!
ex, I work with a bunch of Vietnamese. It's wild. All the signs in the plant are in English, Spanish and Vietnamese. I can tell people to put their feminine hygiene products in the brown wrappers and not to flush them in three different languages. I also get really good egg rolls and the Christmas and Thanksgiving Pot Luck Dinners.
One had a child born during Hurricane Charlie. Someone asked him if he named his son Charlie after we all came back to work. He laughed and said that would never happen for a couple of reasons. ;) One being the hurricane another the Vietnam War.
Well geez. Thank you all for your kind words about my Brother Miles. I try to be "practical" about it and think; "Well, I'll see him Later", but, it still doesn't lessen the pain. "Shelving it" helps, but then there are always those times when I want to share something with him about Alaska or something (he loved to hunt and fish-and I never got him up here), but, he just flat out "ain't there no more". Yeah, I know this is a de-rail, but my wife and I just came from a freebie St. Paddy's Day dinner at the local bar (corned beef and cabbage), and after a few beers, a couple a shots, and memories of St Paddy's Day with Miles, it's gotten me kinda down...
Anyway, God bless all of every one of you, and if I have ever been an a$$ hole to any of you, I am sorry. I love all of youz...
Jonny Lingo...You're the man...I know how you are feeling as I lost my older brother on the 4th of July a few years back...I know how you feel.........................
It's very informative to hear from those of you who were actually there...I suppose one of the reasons I started this thread is because of the new poster "RumRunner"...he's an old old friend of mine who was clergy and also attended that meeting. He was in the upper echelon of twi and knows a lot of "stuff"...
well, I worry about losing a loved one ... here's my Carnegie thinking ... How to stop worrying thingy ... think of the worst that can happen ... then anything less than that is better ... breathe a sigh of relief ...
How does that apply? It would be easier if your brother had died when he was 4 ... no fishing, no hunting, you never knew him ... none of those great experiences ever happened, no pain from the loss.
Consider that for just a minute ....
Since we all die sometime, I'm thinking at some point the experiences you had with your brother will far outweigh not having them. Consider all that a gift. It's not fair he didn't get another 25 years, but it's great he had those years with you (and others). Anyway, I'm hoping that is a valid mechanism for me to deal with death, and after some grieving I think it works for most. "Better to have loved and lost" as they say. But the pain of such loss is beyond words ... glad you have a family for support ...
sorry if I'm just being an arse ... but I really have thought about this ... I had an uncle i helped care for die, another uncle less close, my mom close to death once ... things that make you go hmmmm ....
Way cool Rhino....Fact is, he was number 31 in the Draft Lottery when he was nineteen. 1970 I think. We all freaked out, Mom, Dad, all of us. He went for his physical, to do his duty and go to Viet Nam, did the honorable thing (my Dad was proud-US Army 1940-1945) but then they spotted a tumor in his chest ex-ray. Turns out to be cancer. They cut it out, He lived until 2004. Lots of wonderful years. with a wife and two lovely daughters included. And so, there were many many years of life and love between he and our Fambly....It was good, and a wonderful extension, which I am sure he knew better than we did....But, I guess on this day, the 17th of March, it hurts a bit. Those kind of pains never change I 'spose...
["]Sorry Rejoice, I don't agree with that statement. There were alot of leaders who really cared and loved the people whom they endeavored to minister to. My LC was one. I know that there were many who were definitely self serving. But many who were not, my LC being one of them...
[/"]
Oops, sorry Johnny! When I made that statement, I was referring to the Corps notes and all the blather from CG and LCM. Lots of reference to "they have issues", but no one ever said what those issues were. Then another reference to "they're still lying because they said they'd change but they haven't," alluding to CG and LCM and the other top leaders having so much "in depth spiritual perception."
My point was that these top guys weren't liars because they hadn't changed yet, they were liars about everything for years.
I knew many wonderful Way Corps believers, and---I was in the Corps too.
You still have the original? If so, send them to me and I'll type them up and post them here.
Pat's only got about 16 of the 35 pages. I'd love put it together in something besides PDF, something search able, with an index...
Greasy Tech -- Pm me with a snail mail addy, and I'll send you everything I have from the 1986 era. You may or may not find it useful, but it's your's if you want it.
Ps -- I think I sent Pat all I had on the clergy meetings.
If you can put all of it up here for easy persual, I think it might be a good thing. I have lots of letters from one clergy to another -- from that time period. I'm not sure how relevant those may be, given how things have turned out over these past two decades.
Hey Jonny.......appreciate you sharing some of your heart and thoughts about your brother, Miles. Kinda tough with the memories flooding back on this St. Paddy's Day, and all.
Okay, I've spent a lot of time trying to find Radar's "Night That Will Live in Infamy" Thread and can't find it to save my life. Could someone more nimble with the search functions help?
I have, however, had fun looking through a lot of old threads.
Unless youwere involved and liked twi at the time I really really do not think you can understand how bad it was.
at least in new york , I believe other areas had more of a cover thing and information was not disclosed but here !!!
it was just incredible .
a number of LC 's had found issues with LCM remeber this was BEFORE the lawsuits.
that must be hard for some of you to imagine but their was trouble almost from the day vpw died .. or even before geers freak show.
many just didnt want LCM as their leader ..
and they generated tapes some while still working for the way..
it is true.
I have some.
and let me say this I was loyal to twi at the time but those who had a mission were serious .
Johnny sounds like it was incredible that LCM would accuse of the ministry of INFILTRATION truth is he was right.
absolutely right.
but not every had ears to hear. I know some of you do not get the political mess twi got in and it was political.
we were suppose to be family well DIVORCE was in the works big time.
I never listend to the tapes although I still have them ( is that not a STRANGE WEIRD THING?) HOW MANY YEARS NOW?
it was pick and chose who got these tapes, I got them because frankly I was one of the oldest Memebrs in my town. and I was loved by many.
well it changed for many of us then. sides were drawn secrets were kept and the inner war and I personaly believe it was personal against LCM with some of the older clergy just not willing to listen to a darn thing he had to say about anything.
Mrs weirwille stood with LCM , but the others had power , and say so and many followers of their own.
it was the very beginning of the end. truly you had to be there and amoung those with ears to hear to believe some of the stuff that was happening WITHIN twi to get out of twi..
I know it may be hard to believe for the 90's crowd who got so controlled and dictated but before all that began we really were much more trusting and loving of one another and the reason it got so very bad for your age of follwers was because of what we did as far as causing divsion and making accusation and excuse me just free speech with no one to shut us up.
it was NOT just LCM who was power hungry . after vpw died it was like an open range of who had the power and say so games.
the problem was none of them agreed for very long, and hence we have the splits and the off shoots and the law suits etc.
if you do not get what IM saying I understand it was a very strange weird time and areas and states did not all experience the same thing . some just floated all the way through unaware of what was in the works and what the fall out could be.
Okay, I've spent a lot of time trying to find Radar's "Night That Will Live in Infamy" Thread and can't find it to save my life. Could someone more nimble with the search functions help?
I have, however, had fun looking through a lot of old threads.
This thread was a casualty of the move off EZBoard to the site preceding this one.
Maybe when I have a large block of time, I'll attempt importing them into here. Been toying with the idea, but not an easy thing to do.
Thanks, WW. Those are great, but not the one I was looking for. :) They should be on the top of the list of things for people to read when they first find the cafe, imo. Those are insights into TWI that most of us average folk were never exposed to or privvy to.
GT, ahhhhh at least I'm not imagining things. I probably have it on one of my CDs of threads that I saved through the years. I'll look through those this week and see if I can find it. I can't imagine not saving it. If I can't find it and if there's anything I can do to help with those lost threads - retype them or whatever, just let me know.
I was there. I think I've posted about it before. I'll try to dredge up some memories.
It was around thanksgiving in 1986. The POP had been read at Corps week, I believe that summer and we all were wondering where things were going. All clergy was invited. I even saw Mike Martin who I'd known years before but he hadn't been "standing" in a while. People weren't M&A'd back then they stood or not and usually could come back. Mike left at the first break I believe - too bad. I was hoping to connect with him some more. Would have really corrupted me I guess.
We had to pay our way there but we were housed in the dormatory - I think by corps. We were assigned seats in the BRC - alphabetically. I remember 'cuz I couldn't sit with friends. I think it lasted over a weekend. Maybe all day saturday and sunday AM.
My recollection gets a bit fuzzy -but I think it went something like this. First session Chris Geer spoke (taught I think was what we called it then) and yelled a bunch. Then next session we watched a bunch of clips from the advanced class - VPW teaching but they were a whole lot of short video clips - kinda spliced together.
Next session it was announced that Geer had left to go back to England - but he had had the first session taped while he was speaking and he wanted us to hear it again. So we sat and listened again to what we'd just heard while he went back home.
Then I remember we had some Q&A with the board of trustees. Can't remember if Johnnie Townsend and Ricardo Caballero had been put on the board yet or not. There were not a lot of specifics said about what the actual problems were or what was in place to correct them -it was all pretty vague like "not living up to the word" or "spiritually selling out" not concrete like stole $100,000 or killed someone. And of course the sex was not mentioned. I guess too many people in the room were guilty.
There was not a huge split between Craig and Geer - it seemed to me Geer had put those guys down and they agreed but instead of stepping in and taking over he said "I'm going back home [with the rights to publish VPW's work in Europe] and you guys call me if you get your stuff together. "
A lot of attendees were left wondering "how do we get back to the orginal? We want to stand on the word - who's got it?" stuff like that.
Me, it made me wonder why I even thought the bible was ever was "the word". And I realized it was because some guy from Ohio (now dead) had told me it was. Other than that I had no evidence of same. So I decided to go back to my original (un)belief and reject the bible until I got more evidence. [update - to this day I never have].
I don't know how much it affected my decision that I went to high school with Chris Geer and got into the word with him. So I wasn't under any illusions about him walking on water or anything.
All in all it was a pretty bizzare meeting. I was expecting a power grab and it was set up like one - but then the grabber went back home.
To corroborate your time line Tom, it was indeed around the week of Thanksgiving because our LC had to cut out of town to attend instead of performing our wedding ceremony on Nov. 21 st. (GREAT news to recieve on monday when you have 100s of guests flying in from all over the country for the wedding on saturday )
So if it was on saturday and sunday...that would place it on Nov. 21, 22, 1986 (that will make it 20 years ago this nov)
I know also that John Townsend and Ricardo Caballero were all ready in place as new bot members because JT had left our state as a LC to take up his responsibilities the previous spring while I was a wow in Ks.
Yeah - I was there...and it was pretty insane. People had lives and careers threatened. One clery said to me that I was no different than the VC. Quite the brotherhood/sisterhood eh? Chris Geer wasn't judgemental - he was/is insane. I left early, along with two other clergy from LA and reported back to folks what we had seen and heard - then told them they had to make their own decision. Results? Long before M&A was a catch phrase I was announced in a SNS that I was seed...funny that I got ordained and was later announced as seed...
Chris Geer wasn't judgemental - he was/is insane.
What record do you have of his insanity or that he was judgemental.
To say he was insane is judging Chris Geer for yourself so we could say you are judgemental. The way I see it, is that only one can judge and that is God. When God judges he will decide if Chris Geer is insane. But I will think the very best of him (as it says in ICOR 13:5) thinketh no evil, he has served God to the best of his ability.
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thank you jonny
and i'm so very very very sorry
may i toast to dear miles ryan's honor ?
love, ex
perhaps insane people tend to be paranoid about insane people
my last comment was to you jim
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Belle
ex, I work with a bunch of Vietnamese. It's wild. All the signs in the plant are in English, Spanish and Vietnamese. I can tell people to put their feminine hygiene products in the brown wrappers and not to flush them in three different languages. I also get really good egg rolls and the Christmas and Thanksgiving Pot Luck Dinners.
One had a child born during Hurricane Charlie. Someone asked him if he named his son Charlie after we all came back to work. He laughed and said that would never happen for a couple of reasons. ;) One being the hurricane another the Vietnam War.
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J0nny Ling0
Well geez. Thank you all for your kind words about my Brother Miles. I try to be "practical" about it and think; "Well, I'll see him Later", but, it still doesn't lessen the pain. "Shelving it" helps, but then there are always those times when I want to share something with him about Alaska or something (he loved to hunt and fish-and I never got him up here), but, he just flat out "ain't there no more". Yeah, I know this is a de-rail, but my wife and I just came from a freebie St. Paddy's Day dinner at the local bar (corned beef and cabbage), and after a few beers, a couple a shots, and memories of St Paddy's Day with Miles, it's gotten me kinda down...
Anyway, God bless all of every one of you, and if I have ever been an a$$ hole to any of you, I am sorry. I love all of youz...
JL
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GrouchoMarxJr
Jonny Lingo...You're the man...I know how you are feeling as I lost my older brother on the 4th of July a few years back...I know how you feel.........................
It's very informative to hear from those of you who were actually there...I suppose one of the reasons I started this thread is because of the new poster "RumRunner"...he's an old old friend of mine who was clergy and also attended that meeting. He was in the upper echelon of twi and knows a lot of "stuff"...
...How about it RumRunner...anything else to add?
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rhino
well, I worry about losing a loved one ... here's my Carnegie thinking ... How to stop worrying thingy ... think of the worst that can happen ... then anything less than that is better ... breathe a sigh of relief ...
How does that apply? It would be easier if your brother had died when he was 4 ... no fishing, no hunting, you never knew him ... none of those great experiences ever happened, no pain from the loss.
Consider that for just a minute ....
Since we all die sometime, I'm thinking at some point the experiences you had with your brother will far outweigh not having them. Consider all that a gift. It's not fair he didn't get another 25 years, but it's great he had those years with you (and others). Anyway, I'm hoping that is a valid mechanism for me to deal with death, and after some grieving I think it works for most. "Better to have loved and lost" as they say. But the pain of such loss is beyond words ... glad you have a family for support ...
sorry if I'm just being an arse ... but I really have thought about this ... I had an uncle i helped care for die, another uncle less close, my mom close to death once ... things that make you go hmmmm ....
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J0nny Ling0
Way cool Rhino....Fact is, he was number 31 in the Draft Lottery when he was nineteen. 1970 I think. We all freaked out, Mom, Dad, all of us. He went for his physical, to do his duty and go to Viet Nam, did the honorable thing (my Dad was proud-US Army 1940-1945) but then they spotted a tumor in his chest ex-ray. Turns out to be cancer. They cut it out, He lived until 2004. Lots of wonderful years. with a wife and two lovely daughters included. And so, there were many many years of life and love between he and our Fambly....It was good, and a wonderful extension, which I am sure he knew better than we did....But, I guess on this day, the 17th of March, it hurts a bit. Those kind of pains never change I 'spose...
And so, that clergy meeting really sucked!
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Rejoice
["]Sorry Rejoice, I don't agree with that statement. There were alot of leaders who really cared and loved the people whom they endeavored to minister to. My LC was one. I know that there were many who were definitely self serving. But many who were not, my LC being one of them...
[/"]
Oops, sorry Johnny! When I made that statement, I was referring to the Corps notes and all the blather from CG and LCM. Lots of reference to "they have issues", but no one ever said what those issues were. Then another reference to "they're still lying because they said they'd change but they haven't," alluding to CG and LCM and the other top leaders having so much "in depth spiritual perception."
My point was that these top guys weren't liars because they hadn't changed yet, they were liars about everything for years.
I knew many wonderful Way Corps believers, and---I was in the Corps too.
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dmiller
Greasy Tech -- Pm me with a snail mail addy, and I'll send you everything I have from the 1986 era. You may or may not find it useful, but it's your's if you want it.
Ps -- I think I sent Pat all I had on the clergy meetings.
If you can put all of it up here for easy persual, I think it might be a good thing. I have lots of letters from one clergy to another -- from that time period. I'm not sure how relevant those may be, given how things have turned out over these past two decades.
That would be your call. :)
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skyrider
Hey Jonny.......appreciate you sharing some of your heart and thoughts about your brother, Miles. Kinda tough with the memories flooding back on this St. Paddy's Day, and all.
Nothing quite like the loss of a special brother.
Take care, my friend.
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CWF
So this is the 20th anniversary of the Death of The Original Way International!
Blessed I wasn't 70 years old at that time.
It's been a great 20 years without denominational religion.
Personally, that's all I ever wanted, just got a little side tracked.
I have my brother to thank for sending me a copy way back when.
Most of the commoners were left in the dark.
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Belle
Okay, I've spent a lot of time trying to find Radar's "Night That Will Live in Infamy" Thread and can't find it to save my life. Could someone more nimble with the search functions help?
I have, however, had fun looking through a lot of old threads.
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WordWolf
Was this the subject you wanted, Belle?
I know someone at some point asked about suicide at hq...
http://www.greasespotcafe.com/editorial/dr...-to-suicide.htm
It might have been concerning the Passing of the Patriarch.
I found a reference TO such a thread, but not the thread itself.
But I CAN link to that document itself.
http://www.greasespotcafe.com/waydale/misc/pop1.htm
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pond
Unless youwere involved and liked twi at the time I really really do not think you can understand how bad it was.
at least in new york , I believe other areas had more of a cover thing and information was not disclosed but here !!!
it was just incredible .
a number of LC 's had found issues with LCM remeber this was BEFORE the lawsuits.
that must be hard for some of you to imagine but their was trouble almost from the day vpw died .. or even before geers freak show.
many just didnt want LCM as their leader ..
and they generated tapes some while still working for the way..
it is true.
I have some.
and let me say this I was loyal to twi at the time but those who had a mission were serious .
Johnny sounds like it was incredible that LCM would accuse of the ministry of INFILTRATION truth is he was right.
absolutely right.
but not every had ears to hear. I know some of you do not get the political mess twi got in and it was political.
we were suppose to be family well DIVORCE was in the works big time.
I never listend to the tapes although I still have them ( is that not a STRANGE WEIRD THING?) HOW MANY YEARS NOW?
it was pick and chose who got these tapes, I got them because frankly I was one of the oldest Memebrs in my town. and I was loved by many.
well it changed for many of us then. sides were drawn secrets were kept and the inner war and I personaly believe it was personal against LCM with some of the older clergy just not willing to listen to a darn thing he had to say about anything.
Mrs weirwille stood with LCM , but the others had power , and say so and many followers of their own.
it was the very beginning of the end. truly you had to be there and amoung those with ears to hear to believe some of the stuff that was happening WITHIN twi to get out of twi..
I know it may be hard to believe for the 90's crowd who got so controlled and dictated but before all that began we really were much more trusting and loving of one another and the reason it got so very bad for your age of follwers was because of what we did as far as causing divsion and making accusation and excuse me just free speech with no one to shut us up.
it was NOT just LCM who was power hungry . after vpw died it was like an open range of who had the power and say so games.
the problem was none of them agreed for very long, and hence we have the splits and the off shoots and the law suits etc.
if you do not get what IM saying I understand it was a very strange weird time and areas and states did not all experience the same thing . some just floated all the way through unaware of what was in the works and what the fall out could be.
new york was insane.
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GT
This thread was a casualty of the move off EZBoard to the site preceding this one.
Maybe when I have a large block of time, I'll attempt importing them into here. Been toying with the idea, but not an easy thing to do.
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Belle
Thanks, WW. Those are great, but not the one I was looking for. :) They should be on the top of the list of things for people to read when they first find the cafe, imo. Those are insights into TWI that most of us average folk were never exposed to or privvy to.
GT, ahhhhh at least I'm not imagining things.
I probably have it on one of my CDs of threads that I saved through the years. I'll look through those this week and see if I can find it. I can't imagine not saving it. If I can't find it and if there's anything I can do to help with those lost threads - retype them or whatever, just let me know.
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Radar OReilly
x10, GT and Belle,
That thread is also on the Waydale CD. I only know a few people that had copies ( Catcup, HopeR, Zixar come to mind.)
I hope you find it.
ror
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GT
I have it. Just trying to think of a way to bring it in while preserving who posted what in an organized manner. It's about 50 posts long.
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Sudo
GT,
Interesting how to do that, huh?? Could just cut and paste, 'ya know. Maybe offer to e-mail it to folks who are interested maybe?
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ex10
I have the Waydale CD too, somewhere.
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GT
The thread was post-waydale, during the 1 1/2 years when GS was on EZBoard
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My3Cents
I was there. I think I've posted about it before. I'll try to dredge up some memories.
It was around thanksgiving in 1986. The POP had been read at Corps week, I believe that summer and we all were wondering where things were going. All clergy was invited. I even saw Mike Martin who I'd known years before but he hadn't been "standing" in a while. People weren't M&A'd back then they stood or not and usually could come back. Mike left at the first break I believe - too bad. I was hoping to connect with him some more. Would have really corrupted me I guess.
We had to pay our way there but we were housed in the dormatory - I think by corps. We were assigned seats in the BRC - alphabetically. I remember 'cuz I couldn't sit with friends. I think it lasted over a weekend. Maybe all day saturday and sunday AM.
My recollection gets a bit fuzzy -but I think it went something like this. First session Chris Geer spoke (taught I think was what we called it then) and yelled a bunch. Then next session we watched a bunch of clips from the advanced class - VPW teaching but they were a whole lot of short video clips - kinda spliced together.
Next session it was announced that Geer had left to go back to England - but he had had the first session taped while he was speaking and he wanted us to hear it again. So we sat and listened again to what we'd just heard while he went back home.
Then I remember we had some Q&A with the board of trustees. Can't remember if Johnnie Townsend and Ricardo Caballero had been put on the board yet or not. There were not a lot of specifics said about what the actual problems were or what was in place to correct them -it was all pretty vague like "not living up to the word" or "spiritually selling out" not concrete like stole $100,000 or killed someone. And of course the sex was not mentioned. I guess too many people in the room were guilty.
There was not a huge split between Craig and Geer - it seemed to me Geer had put those guys down and they agreed but instead of stepping in and taking over he said "I'm going back home [with the rights to publish VPW's work in Europe] and you guys call me if you get your stuff together. "
A lot of attendees were left wondering "how do we get back to the orginal? We want to stand on the word - who's got it?" stuff like that.
Me, it made me wonder why I even thought the bible was ever was "the word". And I realized it was because some guy from Ohio (now dead) had told me it was. Other than that I had no evidence of same. So I decided to go back to my original (un)belief and reject the bible until I got more evidence. [update - to this day I never have].
I don't know how much it affected my decision that I went to high school with Chris Geer and got into the word with him. So I wasn't under any illusions about him walking on water or anything.
All in all it was a pretty bizzare meeting. I was expecting a power grab and it was set up like one - but then the grabber went back home.
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rascal
To corroborate your time line Tom, it was indeed around the week of Thanksgiving because our LC had to cut out of town to attend instead of performing our wedding ceremony on Nov. 21 st. (GREAT news to recieve on monday when you have 100s of guests flying in from all over the country for the wedding on saturday
)
So if it was on saturday and sunday...that would place it on Nov. 21, 22, 1986 (that will make it 20 years ago this nov)
I know also that John Townsend and Ricardo Caballero were all ready in place as new bot members because JT had left our state as a LC to take up his responsibilities the previous spring while I was a wow in Ks.
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dmiller
The date (at the top of the 1st page) from the Clergy Meeting Notes is,
November 22nd, 1986 -- and yes-- that was a Saturday, that year. :)
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ckmkeon
What record do you have of his insanity or that he was judgemental.
To say he was insane is judging Chris Geer for yourself so we could say you are judgemental. The way I see it, is that only one can judge and that is God. When God judges he will decide if Chris Geer is insane. But I will think the very best of him (as it says in ICOR 13:5) thinketh no evil, he has served God to the best of his ability.
CK
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