For those of you who have been on this board for a long time and have grown tired of the little wars I think there is something that might give you a bit of comfort. In the past few days there has been an exchange between Mark (outonalimb) his wife Julie, Lark, myself and a few others. It stated out with a post by Mark (a fairly new poster 52 posts in all) saying a few things to Larc in an obvious negative vein. The thread was locked.
Another thread was started by Simon to try and defuse this situation and give a warning to what might happen if threads were created to stir things up. The comments in an effort to defend started heating up and Simon for the first time had to lock a thread he himself had stated.
After a few exchanged emails by Julie and I we both brought out points that contained feelings from each of our view points. Julie told me that Mark had made his comments on his own accord and she was not aware he had made them when he did. I believe her. She later showed Mark that his comments had caused a stir on this board and Mark was surprised how easy it was to cause hurt feelings and stir things up on this forum. Mark is a new poster and not aware of how volatile an atmosphere this board can have at times. I pointed out to Julie that this board is filled with many different people who are on many different levels of healing and attempts to simply try and figure out life beyond their JW experience. This breeds high emotion at times and considering what we have all gone though it is extremely normal when viewed in it's entire context.
The emails between Julie and I were direct but respectful. Our individual views of this board are miles apart but the focus was directed at identifying the source of the problem and possibly seeing if it could be rectified.
This morning I received an email from Julie that directed me to a new thread started by Mark titled "Mea Culpa". In that thread Mark shows a lot of class by offering an apologia to Larc in an effort to clear the air. His personal opinion of Larc may not have completely changed but his desire to acknowledge his mistake and make amends came through loud and clear. I hope to see Larc reciprocate in kind.
Even though this all started out as a negative situation that caused a little disturbance on this board the fact that it was recognized by Mark and an honest desire to make amends was offered that should be recognized. The little wars and threads that look like they are made to stir things up get much attention. It is my personal feeling that when a thread is started that tries to invert the wrong and an apologia is given, that thread should receive as much attention as the one that caused it. "Mea Culpa" has two posts.
Mark, Julie, my respect for you has only changed in that has increased. Mark, you showed a lot of character here in you offering an apologia and it is greatly appreciated by myself and I'm sure others. I hope Julie passed on my apologia on to you last night. The more of this kind of thing happening can only help silence the Bethel lurkers and make them have an ounce of realization that we do not need their mind controlling organization to get along and solve problems in our lives.
If more of us can swallow our pride and focus on the big picture in regard to this board we will all get along a lot better.
Or differences of opinion will always remain, the one constant is our unilateral opinion of the organization that has brought us all here.
Mark and Julie, again, thank you.
Take care,
Dave
"You can always judge the character of a man by the way he treats others who can do noting for him at all."
-author unknown