Word Over the World: Scene Three

Project in process...
To read Scene One, click here.
~*~

In August 1978, at nineteen years old, I was "commissioned" as a Word Over the World Ambassador, one of about 1000 volunteers that year. Before going WOW, I made the commitment to enter The Way's leadership training program, the Way Corps. My WOW year would serve as my first year of Corps training known as the apprenticeship year. WOW was a one-year commitment; the Way Corps was for life.

I was sent to Milwaukee and was designated a WOW Family Coordinator. Along with overseeing the WOW family, I oversaw our Twig Fellowship. There were four WOWs in my family, all of us barely adults -- myself, Mary, Tom, and Luke. Our family was assigned with six other WOW families which made up a WOW Branch. David, an 8th Way Corps trainee on his interim year assignment, was our WOW Branch Leader.

The first task for WOWs was to secure jobs, housing, and furnishings. Our family found a small, dingy, lower-level dwelling (one of two, stacked) located on an alleyway off Bartlett Avenue on the East Side near the University of Wisconsin. We did our best to brighten it up. Through the year I worked part-time jobs as an office girl, a bus girl at a restaurant, and an ice cream cart driver selling frozen treats at Lake Michigan and around the East Side.

During my first few months on the field, I had lots of doubts and was tempted to leave. I doubted if I was good enough to be WOW or Way Corps, or sometimes even a believer. I'd repeat scriptures over and over in my mind to counter and suppress the doubts. I talked multiple times to Cindy, one of our Limb Leaders, about my doubts and temptation to leave. At our last Carol's-self-doubt-not-good-enough talk, she responded sternly questioning if I really believed Jesus Christ had died for me. I determined then that I had to stay. I couldn't break my commitment; I loved God and believed Jesus Christ was my Lord and Savior. Plus, if I broke my WOW commitment, I'd also be breaking my Way Corps commitment. To break either was shameful, a moral and spiritual failing.

Luke, one of my WOW brothers, was my boyfriend. We had met at the end of Summer Outreach in North Carolina a few weeks before the Rock; it was love at first sight. We sat together through WOW training at the Rock knowing we would be separated for the upcoming year, never imagining that we would be assigned to the same WOW family. It was unhear if for any WOWs to know each other before being assigned together in a WOW family.

We were stunned when we opened our assignment envelopes. How could we serve God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength while living together with teenage love hormones coursing through our loins? Luke was 18; I was 19. I thought that surely God would take care of this and allow a reassignment.

Shortly after all us WOWs had opened our envelopes, we gathered with our WOW Families and Branches in designated sections on the tarmac under the giant big top so we could meet each other for the first time. I privately told David, our WOW Branch Leader, that Luke and I couldn't be in the same family; we were in love.

David took my concern up the Way Tree to higher leadership. The verdict came back. All WOW assignments were by revelation from God. Luke and I were to stay together.

Being in love with Luke and living together made the first months even harder. We couldn't keep our hands off each other. I grappled with how to love God when I loved Luke so much. These struggles only contributed to my self-doubts and feelings of not being good enough, not being able to live up to the standards.

Unlike mainstream Christian doctrine, The Way didn't teach that sexual intercourse before marriage was sinful, but neither did it teach that it wasn't. It was an ambiguous subject, one of those standards that depended upon circumstances and "needs" in the given situation. According to The Way, the word "fornication" in the Bible referred mainly to "spiritual fornication" (loving and worshipping other gods), rather than sexual fornication. 

During WOW training sex was addressed. After all, a bunch of mostly young single people were being put together in mixed genders to live in family units. I don't recall anything from those sex talks at WOW training, other than Wierwille stating something like, "No unbeliever's penis has any business being in a believer's vagina." In other words, keep it in the family.

I was pregnant by October. I traveled to Madison, Wisconsin, where our Limb Leaders lived, to get an abortion. My mom paid for it.

I stayed in the Limb Home for a few days after the procedure. The Limb Leaders were kind, but to my recollection we did not discuss the abortion. I spent a lot of time alone in a guest bedroom, crying and bleeding. Other than Luke and David no one else in the WOW Branch knew, at least that I was aware of. The other WOWs thought I made the trip to the Limb Home for something to do with my apprenticeship Corps training. After my few-days-stay, I returned to my WOW family like nothing had happened. At that time in The Way, abortion was considered as nothing more than removing a splinter; except, you could talk about a splinter.

At Christmas, Luke was reassigned to a different WOW family in the Branch.

All that heartache could have been avoided, if not for "revelation."

The year moved forward and was deemed a success. Our WOW family had built a Twig Fellowship. We were taking new believers to the Rock that year; a few were even going WOW and later would go into the Way Corps. Through the year there were times aplenty of laughter, tenderness, and fellowship; times when I had to call the police due to a couple of assaults; times when we didn't have enough money for food, but God always came through.

I was proud I'd made it through the year without deserting my post; proof that I wasn't a spiritual failure. But neither was I genuinely confident.

I was now twenty years old.

~*~

Click here for Scene Four.

Word Over the World: Scene Two

Project in process...
To read Scene One, click here.

~*~

Word Over the World
Scene Two

The Way was structured like a tree known as The Way Tree. It consisted of a Trunk, Limbs, Branches, Twigs, Leaves, and Roots. The Trunk represented a country, such as the Trunk of the USA or the Trunk of Canada. Limbs were states, such as the Limb of New York. Branches were areas within a state and were typically composed of about seven Twigs. Twigs were small fellowships held three to four times a week in Way believers' homes. An individual believer was sometimes referred to as a Leaf. Two terms not related to parts of a tree were a Region, which was composed of several states, and an Area, which was smaller than a Branch.

The Roots of the Tree represented the research of God's Word stemming from Wierwille and the Research Department at Way Headquarters in New Knoxville, Ohio. Headquarters is located on the old Wierwille farm, property once owned by the Wierwille family and deeded to The Way in February, 1957. In the 1970s and '80s The Way purchased other training locations in Kansas, Indiana, and Colorado which were collectively called "Root Locales." After The Way experienced a huge exodus of followers in the late 1980s and early '90s, the Indiana and Kansas campuses were sold.

In the early 1990s the concept of The Way Tree faded, and the term "Twig" was replaced with "Household Fellowship." The Way owns no church buildings. It's main gathering place is in the home where believers meet in small groups. A common phrase in the 1970s and '80s was, "Life is in the Twig." For larger meetings, conference rooms are rented.

From the early 1970s through the mid 1990s, The Way's main outreach program was Word Over the World Ambassador, or WOW. The WOW program was promoted as being mainly for the individual's spiritual growth. Part of the reason, if not the main reason, a person went WOW was to learn to hear God's voice more clearly, to learn to operate "all nine all the time," referring to the nine manifestations of the spirit listed in I Corinthians 12. Wierwille said that when a believer went WOW, he or she would "grow ten years in one."

WOW volunteers were sent out in groups called "WOW families." A typical WOW family consisted of four to five believers who were assigned together by Way leadership whom followers believed were directly inspired by God. Except for married couples, and their children if they had any, it was rare that members of a WOW family knew each other before going WOW. They met one another and learned where they were being sent during WOW training at The Way's week-long festival, the Rock of Ages, held each August at Way Headquarters.

The Rock was a huge yearly gathering of Way believers from all over the world. They gathered to "welcome home," with great fanfare, the incoming WOWs from their year of service and to witness the "commissioning," also with great fanfare, of new WOWs as they embarked upon their year of service. The week was filled with fellowship, music, food, and teachings. Most people would camp on grounds in tents or RVs. Others would stay in local hotel rooms. It was like a giant family reunion, complete with a petting zoo, and was deemed a "mini-gathering together," referencing the future time when believers, alive and dead, will meet Jesus together in the air. A common saying through the year between each gathering was, "See you at the Rock!" The Way sold bumper stickers that said the same. At its peak, around 16,000 believers attended the festival. In 1995, after twenty-four years, the Rock of Ages and the WOW program were discontinued.

All WOWs served for one year, from August to August, wherever assigned by The Way. Each WOW was required to work a secular job twenty to thirty hours per week and to do the work of the Ministry forty hours per week. We were to tithe, a tenth or more, from our income to The Way. We were to take one day a week off from our secular job and ministry work. We were to be in bed by midnight each night and up by 6AM to begin each day with at least thirty minutes of prayer and reading the Word. Except for a death in one's biological family, a WOW was not to leave the field during the year of service. One's marital status could not change while on the WOW field, and no births were allowed. The WOW Handbook outlined most of these, and more, guidelines.

I still have one of my WOW Handbooks. On page three it asks: "Who is a WOW Ambassador?"
And it answers: "You as a Way believer make a one-year out-and-out commitment to give yourself as an Ambassador for God on special assignment to hold forth the integrity and accuracy of God's Word. As a WOW Ambassador you are ready and willing to serve in any area you are needed. Share with others what God did for you and what God will do for them also."

At the bottom of that third page, I handwrote a note, a quote from Dr. Wierwille during WOW training: "The only way to get you out of your [WOW] family, is to kill you and carry you out!"

 
He didn't mean that literally, of course; it was figurative driving home the gravity of our commitment. We were sold out, "bond slaves for the Lord Jesus Christ" to stay faithful to our WOW commitment for one year, no matter what.

To desert the WOW field was a spiritual and moral failing.

There were exceptions to guidelines depending on revelation or inspiration from God working within the believer, especially within leadership. Revelation never went against the written Scriptures; it went beyond. Even though there was only one proper interpretation of Scripture, there was latitude within that interpretation. It was like there were at least two standards: a written standard, and an oral standard which changed according to circumstance. Whatever the standard, it was always to be undergirded by the love of God. We were taught that "things are to be used; people are to be loved."

This freedom-in-Christ, adjustable-according-to-need doctrine was one characteristic that drew people to The Way. It appeared genuine; not artificial, like religion. Grace (God's divine favor) and mercy (God's withholding of merited judgement) were wide. Yet, at the same time, that grace and mercy were confined by Way jargon and a rigid, yet ambiguous, doctrine.

~*~

Click here for Scene Three.

Ninety years later...

I'm working on a writing project. Something I've thought about for a couple years. I've finally begun.

The project?

• Refine my story narrative I first wrote in 2008, which I've expanded since then.
• Select memoir pieces, refining them as well, that go more in-depth (than the narrative) into certain life events.
• Print out the narrative and select pieces so I have hard copies, which I will place in three-ring binders.

I think of the two different writings (narrative and memoir) like a bowl.
The narrative is the rim.
The memoir pieces fill the bowl.

I'm to the second part of the narrative. And it's getting hard. Just plain hard.

One (there are more) of the hard things is that I want to be accurate, but memory isn't the most reliable source. I know people know that. And that is part of memoir -- knowing that some things might be disremembered. It's not that the narrator is dishonest or making things up; but rather, the way our brains work, filtering and categorizing. Some memories are vivid, but still might not be accurate. Someone else might remember the same event differently. Other memories are vague, but might be more accurate than the vivid ones. Other memories are stored deep in the memory banks, and maybe forever filed away.

*~*

6/28/20

I meet with Marta tomorrow.
Carol, you've got to work on your story.
But I need to find Mrs. Wierwille's book to get that one section done.
That means I need to go through the boxes. Uugh.

I hired Marta as my mentor. We meet via phone every two to three weeks. I read to her whatever I've reworked in my story. She gives me feedback. Hiring her also gives me a follow-thru incentive; she's like an accountability person.

Maybe you shouldn't be doing this project. You've been dragging your feet.
But you know if you start typing, you're feet will pick up pace.
But what difference does it make? It will probably never be read, except by me.
Maybe the kids will be interested when they are 60.
And maybe not.

Go find Mrs. Wierwille's book.

As I rummage through the stacks of boxes, I come across all sorts of memorabilia. Even some of John's paystubs from jobs he had while in high school. That was funny.

But I can't find Mrs. Wierwille's book.

Damn it. I hope I didn't loan I it out and it went down the black hole. That's a signed copy, with a personal note from her. There's a whole story around that. A significant story. Dang it.

As I continue to rummage, feelings of discouragement lurk about whispering, What difference does printing out my story make?

I open another box.
And staring at me is Memories of the Civil War. A loose leaf, nine-page, typed memoir piece written by my great aunt, Drucilla Watkins Cotner, in 1930 when she was seventy-six years old.

Wow, I'd forgotten about this...

I pause and flip through the pages.

Wow....
What a find. Especially now during our current civil unrest.
I'll read this tomorrow, or at least this week.

I gotta find Mrs. Wierwille's book.

I finish looking through the boxes in the stacks. No Mrs. Wierwille book to be found.

As I walk away searching my brain, wondering where the book could be, I see a large box under the table. I'd moved it there, away from the other box-stacks, when Covid started to make room for a grocery-sanitizing station.

I open the box and there it is, Born Again to Serve by Dorothea Kipp Wierwille.

It was the easiest box to get to, but the last place I looked.

But if I hadn't rummaged through the other boxes, I'd never have found the treasure.

The next day I read Aunt Drucilla's words.
Ninety years after she penned them...

Bane in my quiver...

I used to be challenged with thinking I was unintelligent; I still am at times. It's been a bane in my quiver since at least my high school daze.

"Bane in my quiver." Is that even a thing?

A quiver holds arrows. A bane is something that causes distress. Archaically, bane is something, typically poisonous, that causes death.

I guess a quiver could hold arrows of ideas. And the bane of thinking one's ideas are unintelligent can stop 'em dead. Poison.

One way I used to counter this bane was by thinking of my husband. He's intelligent. Why would he marry someone who is unintelligent?

Too many times I've given the benefit of someone else's knowledge/opinion/intelligence over my own, even when I know the subject well. I still catch myself doing this, and it irks me. Perhaps it's one reason I so enjoy the company of animals and trees.

~*~

I read political and current-event news; I seldom listen to it or watch it. I endeavor to partake in limited doses, but I still overdose too often.

Sometimes instead of reading the news, I watch it. My husband, John, and I don't watch enough TV to justify paying for cable or satellite. With an indoor antenna we don't get any news channels, which is nice. We could watch programs from those 24-hour news channels online. But we don't (though sometimes I watch clips).

When I watch the news, I like the PBS News Hour. I especially enjoy the David Brooks and Mark Shields segment, when I catch it. John likes it too.

On a side note: David Brooks looks like my father, now deceased. Mark Shields looks like, from what I can remember, my Old Testament History college professor at Montreat-Anderson whom I liked a lot, Dr. Newton, also deceased.

When we can, John and I like watching NC Spin and Front Row with Marc Rotterman, both on PBS, UNC-TV. The dialog and debate are respectful. Sometimes it gets a little heated, but we've never witnessed anyone go so low as name calling or treating another condescendingly or assuming the other's motives originate from ill-will.

John and I regularly discuss current events and politics. John lands in the Libertarian camp. I'm somewhere in the middle of the right/left categories. Ideologically I'd be very liberal if I thought it could work -- no borders, no guns, the lion and the lamb living in harmony. Practically, I know that will not happen, at least in this heaven and earth. Some of our species murder and maim and steal and treat our own with complete contempt, as if the "other" isn't worthy of the air they breathe. Many of our laws and regulations are needed because some of our species take advantage of the vulnerable. If we walked in love, we wouldn't need as many regulations and laws. If only life were that simple.

Anyway...I endeavor to educate myself on current events, on history, on cultures and peoples, on ideas from various angles. How much do I retain from what I read? Not much, probably. But I at least get it in my noggin.

In October, 2019, I think it was, I signed up for a newsletter that was just being launched at the time, The Dispatch. I liked it so much that in January I paid money to continue to get full access to their reporting. I look forward most everyday to The Dispatch newsletter in my inbox. It is conservative leaning, though some on the right would say it's not conservative enough. Some in the Trump camp would probably say it's not conservative at all; but rather that the contributors are "RINOs" (Republicans In Name Only).

~*~

The terms RINO and DINO (Democrat In Name Only) remind me of The Way and sticks.

Used to be that Way Home Fellowships were called Twigs. In the late 1980's when The Way began to experience some major exoduses, some of the people that left The Way started their own ministries with their own home fellowships. We folks still in The Way at the time called those fellowships, "Sticks." Unlike a twig which is alive and can bare fruit, a stick is dead. Any Christian outside The Way was considered an "unbelieving believer." A true believer stood with The Way, God's (true) household.

I guess a Way believer could say those "unbelieving believers" and "stick" people are "BINOs." "Believers In Name Only."

~*~

David French is a Senior Editor at The Dispatch. (And yes, I know he's an evangelical and, if I recall correctly, was part of the Christian Right in politics.) Every Sunday I look forward to David's Sunday piece, which focuses on Christianity and current events/news. He always includes a Christian song that has been posted on YouTube, and I most always listen to and watch it. Even though I no longer fall into the Bible-believer camp, I enjoy David's sharings and usually the music.

At the end of reading this morning's piece, America Is in the Grips of a Fundamentalist Revival -- But it’s not Christian, well...I was unsettled. It wasn't new news to me; this "fundamentalism" in the US cultural and political camps.

I have observed on media outlets and on (a)social media similar to what I experienced in the "cult" (ie: The Way) and then in the "anti-cult" movement. It was like two sides of the same coin. We're right; they're wrong. We're good; they're bad. Our motives are pure; their motives are evil. Black; white. No room for nuance or consideration that the "other" may be right, at least about some things?

I have lots of thoughts about the subject, and feelings which waffle about. At times I want to try to put into writing these thoughts and ponderings and observations. And sometimes I do, in my journal. But to put something together to post in public...well...I just don't want to put my energy there. This piece is probably as close I'll get.

The ever-widening gap in the USA? I just don't fall into either side. And I don't want to.

While reading David's piece this morning I thought, Isn't there a rising middle?

And then, "Middle" isn't the right word.... It's more like an oasis between the two fiery extremes.

That's the camp I want to be in. That oasis.

And I thought of some authors/pundits/folks I've discovered the past few years who are part of that oasis - Greg Lukianoff, Jonathan Haidt, David Brooks, Bo Winegard, Charleen Adams, John Woods Jr. and folks with Braver Angels, Scott Barry Kaufman, folks at The Dispatch, Brant Hansen, and others. (Hmmm...those are mostly men. Think I'll keep an eye out for more women.) I thought of John and our kids. I thought of friends, 2D and 3D. I thought of my Twitter connections (the only social media platform I'm on), most of whom have a deep love and respect for nature and her variety of species, including humans.

And I realized that that oasis does exists and may be larger than I realize.

I, for one, sure hope so...