by minimus 41 Replies latest jw friends
What do you consider "discipline"?
If you mean, reproof, restrictions or DFing, then I didn't receive any.
But, if you mean constant reminders about every little thing, like grooming, dress, cars, music, movies, etc, then yea, I was disciplined quite a bit. I've been called into the back room for numerous little things. Oh, but it was always in the spirit of loving concern on their part.
In a congregation far, far away, in a time long, long ago, I was disciplined for the length of my sideburns. I was an MS at the time and I was approached by a couple Elders about it. They put up a really lame argument like how a while back there was a sideburn-trend and they didn't want all the kids to get ideas again. So I was like "sure I don't want to cause a problem." And that was it. Later that week I was talking to one of these very same elders (he was a close friend of mine), and he said "eh, I wouldn't worry about. Theyre just a bunch of old fogies..." So that week I had a #1 talk and I show up and I am informed that an elder will be giving my talk for me. So I asked this elder why he's giving my talk for me and he's like "uh, I don't know actually. Brother Old-Fart asked me to do it." So I go ask Brother Old-Fart, the PO, about it and he calls two other brothers (including my close friend) over to chat with me. They take me outside and give me this 15 minute lecture on obeying the elders and crap and I just take it in the ass like I was always trained to do when recieving "counsel."
Needless to say, it pretty much ruined my friendship with that one elder, even though we had some really good times together at Bethel. But that's what serving in the WT congregation is all about: betrayal over sideburns 1/2 inch too long.
I was quiet and stayed off the radar because my Dad was an elder, but I did get in some trouble once. I sprinkled tacks in the chair where the Sunday speaker sits and waits to be introduced before his talk. He hopped up pretty fast when he sat on them, and Dad knew it was me.
My punishment was to sit in the back and not speak to any of my friends before or after the meetings for a month, to see what it felt like to be disfellowshipped, tho I wasn't. Well, guess what? Now they don't have to worry about where I sit, because I DON"T sit in their silly Halls anymore, in the back, or anyplace else, haha!
Two reproofs for talking against the FDS even though of course the points were perfectly valid to them what counts is not if your points are valid but if you are talking against the FDS.
Elders ARE such nitpickers!!!!!! They LOVE bringing people into the "backroom" to counsel.
Elders ARE such nitpickers!!!!!! They LOVE bringing people into the "backroom" to counsel.
They only succeeded in getting me into the back room on two occasions. Every time after that I made them talk to me in the main hall. It reduced the sessions to two or three sentences, often with me telling them to mind their own business and walking away.
W
counseled in the back room for not wearing a tie at every meeting and reproved privately for "loose conduct" and "debauchery".
FF, I LOVE IT!!
I feel as though I should also add in that I wasn't a trouble maker, I was always trying to please people and do the right thing, and when I did get into trouble it was because I felt the right thing to do was go forward and turn myself in.
Several times they said they had to make an example out of me, even though they felt I was repentant, others who knew what I had done would be stumbled if I wasn't DF'd. When I got reproved, it was a HUGE FAVOR they were doing me. I suppose the explicit talk they gave about my wrongdoing the night I was reproved was also a favor to me.
But no one cared if I was stumbled.
What a chump I was! My younger sister (who herself walked out unbaptized at the young age of 15 and never looked back) always got so angry with me when I would turn myself in. Now I know why. It's not their business!!!!!
My husband was brought into the back room for wearing his hair too short. At the time it was a flat top and someone who was to remain unnamed was offended by it-felt it was too military looking. My husband told them that was too bad since he wasn't going to change how he wore his hair. What do you know, the next thing almost all of the brothers were wearing super short cuts with suspiciously flat tops. Even two of the elders. Pretty stupid, but at least many of them finally got decent haircuts for a change.
I also just want to add that I don't really believe anyone was actually offended by his hair. I think that was an excuse made by the elder so he could assert his authority over us when we were "new in the truth".
