The Price For NOT Being Disfellowshipped

by Uncanny 11 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Uncanny

  Those two young American girl tennis players and supposed JW sisters have arrived Down Under again for this year's tilt at the Australian Open Championship. Yes, the flamboyant Venus and Serena Williams show is back in Melbourne town.

  After last year when Sr Venus triumphed at this event, I thought it would be hard for any JW sportsperson to top her ecstatic run around courtside with Old Glory. Or the way she stood so solemnly and proudly as her nation's national anthem got played after the big win. But lo and behold, younger Sis Serena's latest peice of 'got it, flaunt it' shennanigans will take some beating.

  Now a rather shameless self-promotor herself, the interview quotes below are sure to raise a few eyebrows within the Watchtower Society's Brooklyn heirarchy/fifedom. Or will they?

  After being photographed draped upon the rooftop ledge of an uptown CBD skyscraper in a racey centrefold type pose, Sister S. Williams was asked to comment on her latest rather revealing and provocative tennis outfit. She answered: "Firstly, I am an innovator. I'm always making a statement. And I never want to be second at what I do."

  Huh? So whatever happened to the 'quiet and mild spirit' or the 'chaste young virgins' young Jehovah's Witness girls are always being admonished about? Actually, I don't mind the Williams sisters. Both are talented and good looking, as well as already having become multi-millionaires. They also add some interest and colour to this increasingly boredom-inducing sport cum grossly over-rated circus which has become international pro tennis. It's just the double standard and out and out hypocrisy which brings out the Irish in Me.

  Yet you can't help feeling sorry for all other rank 'n file young witnesses who are told to behave one way, while these two role models in reverse gallivant around the world doing exactly as they please. When I was a JW, we always scoffed so readily at Christendom's leaders for the way they often winked or looked the other way when its followers were letting the side down by not living up to their vows.

  So strike up another black mark for those tired old hypocrites in Brooklyn and Patterson who, as with whacko Jacko, continue to prefer not to discpline high profile JWs as long as those hefty donation cheques keep rolling in.

  Uncanny

  "You have messed with the primeval forces of nature, Mr Beale,
  and you ... you ...will atone!"
• 

  razorMind

  So whatever happened to the 'quiet and mild spirit' or the 'chaste young virgins' young Jehovah's Witness girls are always being admonished about?

  ...Yet you can't help feeling sorry for all other rank 'n file young witnesses who are told to behave one way, while these two role models in reverse gallivant around the world doing exactly as they please.

  THANK YOU!!! I wonder how much "time" they turn in every month? DOOR-TO-DOOR, that is...[8>]
• 

  Gopher

  naaa...razormind,

  they're spending all their time "in court".

  GopherWhy shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.
  Mark Twain (1835-1910)
• 

  razorMind

  LOL!!!

  .....but "I" can't go to college, because the "system of things" is doomed to destruction at any given instant...[>:(]

  Maybe they just "witness" to their staff/entourage and "count that as time."
• 

  Gopher

  Well razorMind,

  Actually you "can" go to college (or post-secondary education), as long as it is to, let me get this quote exactly right, "support you as you pursue full-time service to Jehovah".

  Of course, you'll be looked down on by the more uppity, pseudo-spiritual people who are getting more time in service than you are, but that's the price you pay for being a member of a society where rules waver, and standards change.

  Oh, BTW, the only "service" that Venus & Rena are interested in is whether they can get their "first service" in, or maybe whether they'll double fault!

  GopherWhy shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.
  Mark Twain (1835-1910)
• 

  LB

  I'm not so sure it's fair to pick on the Williams sisters. After all it isn't conclusive that they are baptized witnesses themselves. I understood that it was their Grandmother that's the witness and perhaps the mom. Venus did thank "her" God Jehovah after a match once, but any kid raised around a zealous witness might do that.

  I've seen Dad smoking a cigarette during a match and the girls have waved a flag on more than on occasion. So, my guess is they are not witnesses.

  They seem to be very upbeat and always give a smile for the camera. I wouldn't dog them too hard. And Serena is done at the Australian Open already.

  
  Never Squat With Yer Spurs On
• 

  Gopher

  LB,

  Richard Williams (their dad) is obviously not a JW.

  However, it has been well documented that the Williams sisters are. Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated wrote a whole page about them and their faith, and how they leave literature in locker rooms (even though nobody has responded to such efforts). That S.I. magazine article is about 3-4 years old now, but they very much are associated with JW's.

  I am not dogging them. I actually root for them whenever I see them play on TV. But the points about the favored treatment (or glances away from their action) by the Watchtower Society is a very valid topic for discussion. Why they and other young, rich JW celebrities can get away with certain actions that would seemingly get other rank and file JW's brought into a meeting room with two elders, seems to indicate a double standard!

  GopherWhy shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.
  Mark Twain (1835-1910)
• 

  LB

  Gopher I had not read that article. Do you know if it's somewhere online so I could take a look at it? Not that I don't believe you, but, it could be helpful for me down the road. Since I'm an inactive pagan these days.

  
  Never Squat With Yer Spurs On
• 

  Gopher

  LB and all,

  The link to Rick Reilly's article about Venus and Serena being active JW's: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/1998/weekly/lifeofreilly/0921/

  ______________________________________________________________________
  
  

  A Ringing Endorsement

  by Rick Reilly

  Posted: Tue September 15, 1998

  There's the damn doorbell and you're still in your hangover and you just know it's those annoying Jehovah's Witnesses. So you fling the door open to ask them if they'd mind coming back next century, and who do you see standing there but Venus and Serena Williams, their beads bouncing, their braces gleaming, wanting to know if you have a minute to chat about the Lord.

  "At first people are a little shocked," says Venus and Serena's mother, Oracene, who has taken them door-to-door since they were babies. "They want to talk about tennis, but we'd rather talk about the Bible."

  You don't normally get the world's No. 5- and No. 19-ranked women tennis players leaning on your buzzer, but these are the Williams sisters of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., and they haven't been within a shuttle flight of normal in years.

  How many world-class tennis players were kept out of junior tournaments by their father? How many millionaire sisters have only one friend—each other? How many wear skintight, cutout tennis dresses that could make an abbot snap a rosary? How many can say they speak French and are learning Russian and Portuguese? How many sit down at a press conference and challenge reporters to look up the derivation of words? (Last week's word: ghetto.)

  The Williams sisters are cocky and insular. They're also gorgeous, rich, smart, polite, gifted, well-spoken, huge and improving like mad, and they'd definitely like to get you some reading materials, if you're interested. "We go to rich neighborhoods, poor neighborhoods, everywhere," says Oracene. "People slam doors on us," says Serena, "but that's their problem. We don't take it personally."

  They do take it seriously, 4 1/2 hours every week, including the time spent writing letters and cold-calling people. At last week's U.S. Open, Venus, 18, made it to the semifinals and Serena, 16, won her second Grand Slam mixed doubles title in a row, but the work they think is most important is serving up the ways of the Witnesses to other players, coaches and their families. They rush the locker room with their pocket-sized Witness books, pamphlets and copies of The Watchtower magazine. If the player doesn't speak English, they get her a book in a language she does speak.

  So far, they haven't won a point. "I'm not aware of any I've converted, no," says Serena. But as their mother always says, "They might slam the door this time, but next time it might stay open."

  Witnesses don't sing the national anthem, say the Pledge of Allegiance, accept blood transfusions or celebrate holidays, including Christmas, or their birthdays. They believe that Christ died on a stake, not a cross, and that exactly 144,000 people will go to heaven. They believe that the man is the head of the household and the woman is the "weaker vessel," a belief that gets a little shaky when you see 6'2", 168-pound Venus blow her women's-record 125-mph serve by some shivering Slovak.

  The only problem is that the head of the Williams household, Richard, isn't a Witness, which helps explain why he smokes like a tire fire (a definite Witness no-no) and worships graven images (himself, whom he calls King Richard). "Well," says Serena, "everybody's different."

  Some people in tennis wish the entire Williams family would fall down a very deep well followed closely by a very snug lid, but the truth is, the Williams family is the best thing to happen to women's tennis since the scrunchee. Women's tennis has always had more victims than a Red Cross shelter. It's full of young girls with great backhands and facial tics. Mary Pierce needed a court order to keep her dad away. Jennifer Capriati's father threw her to the pros at 13. Just last week, Croatia's Mirjana Lucic showed up at the Open after fleeing her homeland just to escape her allegedly abusive father.

  Not the Williams sisters. The Williams sisters may be a lot of things, but they're not victims. I wouldn't become a Jehovah's Witness even if its only spiritual requirement were facing toward Hershey, Pa., and eating Milk Duds, but I admire the way they're unafraid to stand up for their religion. Also the way they're unafraid of tennis's virtually all-white press, tennis's virtually all-white locker rooms and, come to think of it, virtually all-white tennis. They say what they want, say it well and hate to lose.

  In other words, don't answer the door.

  GopherWhy shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.
  Mark Twain (1835-1910)
• 

  freeman

  I for one admire the Williams sisters. Sure they are playing with fire, from the WT viewpoint anyway, but it’s wonderful and refreshing to see someone in this organization living their life fully and not being an emotional cripple because of the cultic requirements of the Borg. As I see it, they are using their celebrity to live a much more free life, and perhaps at the same time thumbing their noses at the old farts in Crookland. Unfortunately this is something impossible for most witnesses to do.

  Freeman