Word Over the World: Scene Four

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

~*~

In September 1979, at 20 years old, I entered in-residence training with the 10th Way Corps at The Way College of Emporia in Kansas. Though outreach was part of the Corps' "lifetime commitment to Christian service," the Way Corps program was not an outreach program like WOW. It was The Way's "leadership training program;" only Way believers with natural leadership ability were to apply. 

Before entering in-residence training, a Corps candidate had to complete the Power for Abundant Living Class series: the PFAL Foundational Class, the PFAL Intermediate Class, and the PFAL Advanced Class. In order to complete that series, a believer had to complete The Way's Advanced Study Courses which included The Renewed Mind, The Way Tree, Witnessing and Undershepherding, Christian Family and Sex, Basic Keys to Research, and Dealing with the Adversary.

Way Corps training consisted of four years: a first-year apprenticeship, when a trainee served closely with Way Corps on the field or at a Root Locale; a second year in-residence at Way Root Locales; a third year as an interim year, when the trainee served wherever assigned by The Way; and a fourth year back in-residence at Way Root Locales. The in-residence years were work/study programs; trainees helped maintain the campuses while taking courses which were mostly taught by Way Corps. Training was financed via funds solicited by the Way Corps trainee. Those who funded the trainee were called "Spiritual Partners" and agreed to a monthly, or other, financial donation. The Way Corps trainee was to daily pray for and to monthly write to each Spiritual Partner.

Through my Corps years I spent time at three Root Locales: Kansas, Indiana, and Ohio. I spent a couple weeks in New Mexico at The Way's LEAD Outdoor Academy. LEAD stood for Leadership, Education, Adventure, and Direction. It was The Way's wilderness, rock climbing program which I thoroughly enjoyed. I did not spend any Corps time at The Way's Root Locale in Gunnison, Colorado. 

Along with the work/study program the in-residence training years included a few outreach exercises. "Witnessing days" were held at random; trainees would go out in their Root Locale communities and "speak the Word," to find those "hungering and thirsting after righteousness. Once a year in-resident trainees served as Lightbearers: a two-week assignment when trainees lived on the field with Way believers and endeavored to recruit enough new people for the area to run a PFAL Foundational Class. 

Hitchhiking was another requirement; trainees were to witness to those who gave them rides and were to "believe God" to arrive at assigned destinations within given time frames. 

I hitchhiked over four thousand miles while in The Way Corps. On one of my hitchhiking assignments, from Kansas to New Mexico, my partner and I did not arrive in the allotted time; we were four minutes late. Our "believing" wasn't "big enough;" somewhere in route, we "must have missed it." ("It" being God's direction, either by inspiration or revelation.) Otherwise, we would have met the deadline. We had to turn right around and hitchhike back to Kansas. 

I have fond memories of my in-resident training and felt I thrived there. Even though our lives were scheduled for us, and we seldom had to think about choices of how to fill our time, I found it challenging, absorbing, and fun.

I was in a cocoon, temporarily protected from the unbelieving world, so that I could grow and hone my skills. I was a willing participant and mostly obedient follower. I felt and thought I was where I was supposed to be -- learning how to do things right so that I could best serve God's people.  I believed, and still believe, that is why most followers entered The Way Corps -- to serve.

~*~

Scene Five, on hold...

~*~

To swim in her chestnut eyes...

~*~

Phone Note. Logged Monday, 8/17/20, 3:20 PM.

At NRT. FF. Plan is to ride to Allisonia and back.
Been crying most all day. Or on the verge of tears.
Has to do with insignificance. Feeling it today.
Dismissed. Really, really non-existent.
Don't know if anything will greet me on the trail today.
A groundhog greeted me on the road. Stopped. In my lane. Looking at Edward and me.
I had to stop. He waddled off the road. Then a couple butterflies.
But I have no idea why cycling the trail helps any of the animals or the earth.

End phone note.

NRT is the New River Trail. FF is Foster Falls. Edward is my vehicle, a 1999 Ford Explorer.

That morning, I'd had deep depression with suicidal ideation. Sadly this used to be a regular occurrence for me. Fortunately, suicidal ideation seldom visits anymore. But this week, it's visited twice. I'm processing and endeavoring to identify any triggers. I do this to help me in the future. More importantly, I'm coming out of the deep depression, I think. Just that I'm writing this post is proof. I'm opening up, as opposed to staying shut down.

The recent suicidal ideation. I don't feel like sharing the details. But, I've been on that desperate, isolated island often enough to know what to do to navigate the elements. It was a hard Monday.

~*~

Earlier on Monday.

I am crying in heaves. But I make myself call Hubby. He's at work. He answers. We talk between my heaves.

I go through the motions of the morning and midday. I pack my biking and food needs and load them into Edward. I hadn't pulled out or packed part of the suicide gear, the pistol.

On the drive up the mountain, my insides are closed off. If I allow myself to open too much...well I just can't do that. It's too painful. So, I shut down. I'm sure it's a coping mechanism. I've lived with this gremlin since the mid-90s. It's not new.

But, I'm not completely shut down.

Feelings of valuelessness.
Isolation. So very, very alone.
Dismissed and misunderstood.
But it must be because of my inability to communicate well. So why try.
Abyss of pointlessness.
A hollow pit.
I have nothing worthwhile to share.

Then the groundhog encounter, which has never happened before. It's rare I see a groundhog on the road, and if I do, it runs. I've never had to stop. The encounter lasts about ten seconds.

Then I pull into the State Park and park Edward. I write my note in my phone. I think about not biking; but rather, just lying down in the back of Edward and taking a nap. Or taking a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. But I know biking will help.

Will anything of significance happen on the trail? Stop Carol. Have no expectations. If you have no expectations, you won't be disappointed.

I begin my ride, heading north on the trail.

The trail parallels the New River most of the trail's 57 miles. There are old, now-closed lead mines along the trail and river. It's a rail trail; at one time railroad tracks and ties lay here carrying an iron horse through this section of the Blue Ridge. The railroad ties and tracks were removed, and now there is a dirt and gravel trail, wide enough still for a locomotive. Only authorized motor vehicles, like Park Rangers and a few locals' golf carts, are allowed.

I stop at Lone Ash, my 5.3 mile mark. No people are on the trail. I text Hubby a photo and message, "..Pretty empty up here. Empty of humans..."

I ponder, Maybe I should just ride back to Foster Falls. But that'd only be 10ish miles. I really ought to ride the full 24.

I continue north on my 24-mile ride.

I hadn't gone a mile when a doe with two fawns are in my path. I slow down. Typically deer run when I approach. But they aren't running. When I'm about 40 feet from them, I stop. I don't dismount to the side; that will scare them off. Instead I slowly slide off Bleu's saddle and stand balancing her between my legs. I don't pull out my phone to take a picture; that too will scare them.

Our eyes meet, the doe's and mine. And we gaze within each other. Her eyes. So peaceful, even trusting. I am mesmerized swimming within the dark chestnut, deep windows to her soul. Then, she nods her head as if to say, "Hello." I slowly nod to her, acknowledging and returning the greeting.

Her eyes seem to shift, like she sees something behind me. I slowly turn my head to look over my right shoulder. I see nothing but trail and woods. I turn back to my new friend.

Again, our eyes meet. And, we pick up where we'd left off. Then, she takes one-and-a-half steps toward me.

This doesn't seem real. But, it is.

My forearms are resting, palm-sides down, on Bleu's handle bars. I turn them to palms-side up, still resting them on the handle bars. My palms are open.

So, what are you going to do? I ask the doe in thought.

Then I hear it. She does too. A fighter jet approaching. It arrives in a second above us, and is gone the next. They are so fast and loud and low. She and her fawns take off in a dart through the woods.

The contrast is startling. The encounter profound. Tears trickle down my cheeks.

No wonder the deer run from us.

I feel anger at the human war machines. Humans and our wars.

The whole encounter felt like an eternal moment. In reality, it was probably only fifty-five seconds, maybe seventy-five.

I finish my ride, 24.5 miles, back to Edward. I encounter more deer, who behave like deer, and some rabbits and butterflies and birds and squirrels. I only see seven humans on the trail and those within a half-mile of my starting and ending point at Foster Falls. One couple walking and one cyclist at my start. And a family of four at my completion.

For twenty-three miles, no humans.

"..Pretty empty up here. Empty of humans..." 

~*~

8/27/20

A few days after posting this piece, I wondered if maybe the doe I encountered was Cove. I'm sure she wouldn't remember me specifically, but she was raised by humans after they rescued her when her mom drowned. She grew up with them about 15 miles south of my 8/17/20 encounter.
John and I met Cove while biking the New River Trail on August 26, 2017.

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.