Hello. Welcome me! Welcome me! (page 3)

Dansk

WELCOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Why's this thread gone so horizontal?)

Ian

Sunspot

Hello and welcome, Raylo!

Ingrid Bergman was such a classy lady!

It's great to have you here....

hugs,

Annie

raylo

Hey thanks a lot of the welcome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah amazingly more people said hello here than the people did at my last hall..lol

Yeah the Ingrid marathon was wonderful..though I'd seen most of the movies several times before. (btw..MsMcDucket, I'm 29, but I prefer classic movies..they had so much style and sophistication!!...and thanks WasanelderOnce for the Ingrid photo...LOVE IT!)

Ok here is a brief rundown.... Techincally I am still baptized, but I refuse to set foot in a hall or call myself a JW..or acknowledge the fanatics as sane people. I was raised in the religion since I was 5 (By mother as my step-father was not one..and used to oppose until he didn't care any more) My older sister stepped away when she went through her teenage rebellion, but I was always the good child and simply went along though I had no interest nor inclination in my heart for anything of the organization. I simply naturally read a lot and excelled in school, so when I bothered to answer things, people took the detailed answers as interest. (actually I seemed to read better than some of the dim-wits there to the point that if an unfamiliar word came up..from the platform a brother would ask for the mic to be brought to me so I could explain the word) Wow! how sad..perhaps if they allowed people to go to senior colleges...anyways back to my story...LOL.

After my sis basically said F*** this! I continued to go because my mother is sensitive and would dote over me going. I would get tired of her crying and going on and on about her praying that my sister would come back....and since I sooo hate nagging and/or whining I went...and sat ...with no interest. I read the literature because again, I love to read..but I found in comprehension that the materials conflicted quite a bit or simply made no sense, or were simply the OPINIONS of simple human beings whom we were told could laud their opinions over the people in the organization since I couldn't have my own. I like debate, so of course I didn't find that settling..that I could not have an opposing opinion. At 16 when I moved to a hall in MS the people were cold and unfriendly. My mother was told by an 'annointed' elder that it was because most of the people were related to each other and they tended to stick together. It was a piss poor EXCUSE...not a REASON. Well since that congregation only had one other black family until we moved there... they must have felt out of place... lol. The hall was reeming with older people, with only one person close to my age, he being something like 13 ( I was 16). After that I didn't attend for 2 years. The elders came to council, but I told them to save it and council themselves and the rest of the congregation. After I graduated high school I decided to give it another try, so at age 18 I went back. (for those who read the thread about if anyone is divorced..this is when sisters pushed every Tom, Dick, and Harry in front of my face in hopes I would marry them). I literally wanted to see if people really had to be moved by holy spirit in order to be baptized, and if the elders are supposed to be guided by this spirit if they could tell if someone got baptized for the hell of it...so one day before the assembly I announced that I wanted to be baptized and those elders scrambled together to interview me into the late hours of the night just to have me baptized. Damn if I really wanted it or not. I'm not a nit-wit so the questions were a cinch and the following day I was baptized..for no reason. Ah well, my mom was happy. I hardly ever sent out in service, never conducted a bible study, refused to give those demonstrations on the theocratic school (though I have no fear of public speaking), and didn't do my own personal study..but alas I was baptized.......Okay fast forward a couple of years. I start dating someone for quite some while and I guess someone saw us out..and some how or other it got to the elders that we were carrying a "full coupledom relationship", so they actually put us both on private reproof and tell us to stop seeing each other. (Uh huh..of course we said Okay, but do you reaaaally think we let some men tell us grown folks what to do with our private lives?). Okay fast forward again... that relationship is over (that ex moved away because he could not tolerate the elders) and it's a couple of years later and I'm in another relationship. This brother gets excited and tells someone about it and of course the elders come knocking...and this time they DF me and get mad because I show no expression. Apparently it was a mad shock to the cong because my mother's friend said that when it was announced, a collective gasp filled the hall. I must have been the model witness to them. I actually couldn't care either way. I lived my life very conservatively and I still do to this very day. I'm not wild, I don't party, I've never been drunk, I've never had a rebellion, my personal life was spotless, I still do things by the book.....my crime was having a private life. Nevermind that I was like 23 or 24, I guess I wasn't suppose to have one unless I was married. [Evident since both times I had to go before them one of the first things they asked is if I had intentions of marriage with the brother(s)...in which the answer was "Are you kidding me? No! I don't even really like him"] So the people who once paraded me around no longer we allowed to utter a word...ah..okay. Again to prove a point that you don't have to genuinely be repentent to get reinstated...I went to all of the meetings, NOTHING ELSE. No personal study, no anything.....all I did was sit in the library with the guy and girl who got booted the week after I did. After the meetings I would talk to another sis who had been DF'ed for YEARS right in front of the elders. After maybe 1 1/2 or 2 yrs I was reinstated..after again not doing anything to warrant it but say to the JC "I'm not doing anything bad and I want to come back"..though I think I really was seeing someone and excersing my right to a private life. So after reinstatement a line of people formed to come welcome me back and give me a hug....... I simply stated " If you ignored me, diverted your eye contact, and couldn't talk to me for 2 years...don't talk to me now"......... and I left. I always felt that shunning people publically for reasons that the cong as a whole wasn't SUPPOSED to know about (though you know about the gossip) since the council was in private was a bit..well, you know? So what if so and so slept with blah blah? How the hell did that affect me? It didn't bother me...they could have slept with the pope..So what? Why couldn't I say a simple 'hello' ???? Whatever I did in MY relationships had nothing to do with the cong, so that means they can't say hello to me but can to the 'worldy' people they avoid at every other time? I also wondered just what the hell kind of people would say...you're DF so you can't talk to us nor can you talk/associate with worldly ppl... are DF ppl suddenly hermits? Fine, I guess it affect some people who feel shut out and miss the association, but I spoke to whom I chose to whether a witness or not and still do..so I was not at want for their 'exclusive' association......Besides, the scabble and electric slide marathons that seemed to be the only thing ppl in that cong did were not my thing. LOL.

I never bothered to DA myself because I felt it amusing that I can literally still be a JW but know that it is an organization fueled my HUMAN opinion filled with flaws... The GB warns against ex-JWs who have sites such as this one..but I'm techincally still one..so I can pose the greater danger since I can go out in service..or do other things as a JW and say what I have observed if I so chose to..People expect ex- JWs to not agree with the organization, but it would throw householders for a loop since techincally as a JW I can call it preaching, field service, or study and count the time..but I'm simply not interested enough to do so... I don't give enough of a damn...and I don't really refer to myself as JW now. Usually i simply say I'm spirtual, but not religious.

So here I am......and since the movies on the classic movie station didn't catch my eye today, I figured I'd write ..and amazingly it's the condensed version..LOL.

Raylo

nsrn

Raylo--welcome! Wow, how's your relationship with your mom now? Is your sister around?

Gilberto

Hi Raylo.

I, along with a lot of others here, am also not da'd or df'd. It is probably agood thing as it means your mother is free to associate with you.

raylo

Yes. my mother and I are very close..even though after last year's hurricane I had to move to another state. We talk weekly. Actually even when I was DF'ed she never cut off communication in the least bit.

Where as just a few years ago, I would hold back letting her in one some things from my life...now I say whatever and she accepts that I have my own mind. Of course she asks if I go to the hall here, or asks if I will come back..or if we're in conversation she brings up the 'friends'. I actually now promptly say.. "I'm not thinking about those people" and she leaves it be..

Just a couple of years ago she'd damn near have a heart attack of anyone of the male persuasion called..Now she says nothing if I mention several males in a conversation. And she actually used to be cutting because I date outside of my race. But now when I just told her yesterday that my younger, white bf (whom I had to move away from after that same storm) wants me to move back to MS and move in with him...she simply leaves it at " Well you know I'd rather hear you and your sister mention marriage.....but Okay, well how's Brandon doing? Tell him Hello" ..and she leaves it alone. My sister and I seem closer now..She was never baptized but I'm not sure how she stands with the JWs though. I mean she now celebrates all holidays, lives with her bf, has 2 children with him, used to smoke,etc...but I don't think she harbors ill will. I myself hold no resentment, I just don't give a damn about the organization or the people actively in it. It seems that any time they open their mouths, I can catagorically pick out the hypocrisy, but I never do because it's just not that important to me. Let them think whatever they want to...or more accurately, whatever they are told to.

raylo

sass_my_frass

Hiya there. Welcome to us. We love new people; we tend to speak for each other after a while.

Hello. Welcome me! Welcome me!

KW13

Dansk

Life Is Grand

xjwms

Sunspot

raylo

nsrn

Gilberto

raylo

sass_my_frass

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