L.S.
I am quite familiar with the Miller situation. At the time of his unceremonious removal, there was a concerted effort made throughout the fellowship to paint his exit as a choice he made in order to engage in other ‘pursuits’. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The treatment he allowed himself to endure at the hands of the leadership bordered on criminal, but being the good soldier he had always been, he believed it was for his ‘own good’. When things finally came to a head, the other shoe dropped and he was stripped of all titles and shown the door without warning.
There was an immediate damage-control campaign initiated to spin his exit otherwise. Since he had really been the hands-on face of TLW sent to put out flare-ups throughout the fellowship for decades, he was the one who had established actual relationships with the folks, and not the highly insulated and far-removed leadership who always conveyed their ‘love’ through cards and emissaries. He immediately represented the most threatening individual to the fellowship since the days of Martha. Since the ‘kingdom was relationships’, Miller had them and the leadership did not.
It took almost a year for the spin to work its way through the fellowship, with Miller in complete astonishment as to how such close relationships that had spanned decades were sh*t-canned in a moment of madness. Those who were still under the spell were forced to choke down another dose of Kool-Aid. There has been some encouraging signs in the past year of people reconnecting on various levels, but we may never see that breach completely healed in our lifetime, unless TLW undergoes a massive implosion that shakes everyone out of the fog in which they navigate.
I am quite familiar with the Miller situation. At the time of his unceremonious removal, there was a concerted effort made throughout the fellowship to paint his exit as a choice he made in order to engage in other ‘pursuits’. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The treatment he allowed himself to endure at the hands of the leadership bordered on criminal, but being the good soldier he had always been, he believed it was for his ‘own good’. When things finally came to a head, the other shoe dropped and he was stripped of all titles and shown the door without warning.
There was an immediate damage-control campaign initiated to spin his exit otherwise. Since he had really been the hands-on face of TLW sent to put out flare-ups throughout the fellowship for decades, he was the one who had established actual relationships with the folks, and not the highly insulated and far-removed leadership who always conveyed their ‘love’ through cards and emissaries. He immediately represented the most threatening individual to the fellowship since the days of Martha. Since the ‘kingdom was relationships’, Miller had them and the leadership did not.
It took almost a year for the spin to work its way through the fellowship, with Miller in complete astonishment as to how such close relationships that had spanned decades were sh*t-canned in a moment of madness. Those who were still under the spell were forced to choke down another dose of Kool-Aid. There has been some encouraging signs in the past year of people reconnecting on various levels, but we may never see that breach completely healed in our lifetime, unless TLW undergoes a massive implosion that shakes everyone out of the fog in which they navigate.