See also thread on 'conscience' from last week. Some interesting bits about stumbling over beards, short skirts and even car stickers!
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.asp?id=32029&site=3
So What Was A Cause For Stumbling For You, Then?
by Englishman 17 Replies latest jw friends
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outoftheorg
HIGHLITES IN YOUR HAIR? THAT IS DISGUSTING.
Your post sure dredged up a memory for me. My ex wife still a dub had developed a case of depression. Her sister stopped by "she is a hair dresser" and suggested lets do something with your hair. That should cheer you up. So guess what was done? HIGHLITES IN HER HAIR! I don't know what caused it but this became another source for concern in my ex wives mind. The overfull of himself CO stopped by to pry into my business as to why I was no longer thrilled about going to the very boring meetings or trying to induce my neighbors to go there with me. After some time of me trying to appear somewhat theocraticly correct and still not divulge my disgust with all things JW. my wife blurted out "what do you think about my hair"? This pious bag of nonsense replied "I think it makes you look cheap". As if it was any of his damned business?
Now my ex being the good JW wife would surely accept the advice of the head of the familys "me" good advice. Right? I told her I thought it looked good on her and to ignore his comment. Hell no! She began scurrying around like a demented tree squirrel to get the hair dye and get rid of the CO certified evil. The highlites in her hair. I wish my spell check worked here. I am wearing out my dictionary.
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SYN
I was never stumbled by anything. In fact, I probably stumbled many.
[SYN], of the Naughty Apostate Horndog Heheheh Class.
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plmkrzy
Our PO was married to an "Unbeliever" who HATED witnessess. I wasn't aware of how much or even that she hated witnessess until I got older and my ears got bigger.
My dad was an elder in the cong and also good buddies with the PO.
Antway witnessess stopped calling his home. She ALWAYS answered the phone and would HANG UP on you if you were a witness calling to ask questions when he was off duty per sa' as far as she was concerned. LOL "SLAM!" thats what you got if you called the house. You would just have to wait until after the meetings to corner him and flog him with questions. SHe wouldn't hang up on my mom or me because all we were doing was looking for my dad. LMAO! Everything had to be done at the KH and I spent many KH nights sitting in the car in the parking lot long after the meetings ended waiting to go home, sometimes falling asleep in the car.
E-man your post stirred up some old memories of people I had completely forgotten about.
As for being stumbled?
I don't know where my brain must have originated but I have never considered my self "stumbled" I did how ever consider everyone else "stumbled" LMAO! Probably since childhood.
Edited by - plmkrzy on 18 July 2002 14:10:59
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bikerchic
Ha! Good topic, I prefer to call it ENLIGHTENMENT......(my story....)
Enlightenment #1: Group of sisters meet for self-help in overcomming disfunctional behaviors seeing that a lot of us had common problems in our lives steming from disfunctional upbringing. The Elders (some of the sisters were married to Elders) decided that it wasn't right, wrote Society about it, some of them (Elder's husbands) forbid wives to go......they snuck, it was important we were learning about ourselves! Elder's continued to try to suppress the "group", letter's, phone calls, backroom meetings continued.......we persisted! Finally the Borg decided that we had to meet certain criteria, (thinking we couldn't do it and it would put a stop to it) we met the criteria kept our group going for years, the Borg even sucummed and printed an article in the Awake! based on our "group". LOL
Enlightenment #2: An Elder visit to my family where upon it was "rumored" my daughter was seen at high school hand in hand with a "worldly boy" SHOCKING indeed! My daughter didn't even go to meetings, not a publisher or anything mind you and the brothers didn't seem concerned about her spirituality anyway I knew about the so-called boyfriend and they had already quit "holding-hands", sheese get a life bros! I told one of the Elders there since he had girls approching their teen years to calm down, learn to listen to his children without such severe judgements, these "crushes" come and go like the changing tides in the teen years. He was pretty upset at me, thought I wasn't a very submissive christian....d'oh! BTW this Elder's girls, neither one are in the "truth" and quit long before he did.....it's been "rumored" that he is a crack-head now, gosh I didn't mean get that life bros!
Enlightenment #3: My experience with my then husband and his drinking, shirking family responsibility I though maybe a visit with the Elder's would help our family, or rather help him see the errors of his drinking. Wrong, lesson learned, never talk to Elder's who can out drink you under any circumstances and think they will be of any help.
Dialog of meeting; ELDER: What do you think is your problem Bros with drinking? HUBBY: It's that I may have a couple of beers at the shop (all the bros stop by the Elder-owned shop after work for encouragement) before coming home, it's a meeting night, by the time I get home I'm relaxed and just don't have the energy to get ready and go to the meeting, or study, or conduct family study, ect....ELDER: Well here is what I suggest, that you don't go to the shop on meeting nights, but instead go directly home don't drink any alcohol and then you will have a better mindset and energy to attend the meetings. ME: Let me ask you this Brothers, if his problem was lets say smoking pot, snorting coke, injecting herion or you name the addiction.....would your advise be the same, JUST DON'T DO IT ON MEETING NIGHTS? ELDERS: (almost in unison) No, those are illegal drugs, alcohol isn't illegal! This is a true experience..........I left the room, in a daze! BTW I left the hubby too, but he still has his bottle to keep him warm and the respect of the elders!
Enlightenment #4: The crap I went through when I took my errant husband back after an affair with one of the elder's wives, learning he wasn't her only victim, err, sorry conquest, how they pittied her due to her circumstances, seems she didn't understand what "flirting" meant, and meant, and meant....(get a clue!) I found out it's good to have husbands in high places, you can get away with almost anything! When I realized the whole "commitee" was handled wrong and tried to get one of the involved elders to stand up and do something his response was...."I'm only one man, I can't go against the body." Even though he knew it was wrong, he knew it needed to be corrected, he was as he said just too weak to stand up to the whole body of elders.
Of course all the situations mentioned were much more involved that stated, but the time it took to deal, sort and figure out was very enlightening to me to say the least. I recieved a great education in who exactly is behind the elder arrangement and more importantly "who" isn't! That was about it for me, it took a couple of years of inactivity for me to finally leave it all behind. I want to thank the elders for making my leaving the borg possible, for stumbling me, or rather enlightening me so well. Sometimes the job you do isn't the job you set out to do..........
bc
"Life is like a ten speed bike, we all have gears we never use." Charles Schultz
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teenyuck
Watching my father, sister and mother get DFd definitely made me think something was wrong.
Seeing the back stabbing, back biting, lying, covering up, etc. of so many things really made me realize that they were a bunch of hypocrites.
I actually did many more "bad" things than the rest of my family. I never got DFd. I fell off the radar and that was that.
I did try to get a JW friend to drink. We went to see Charlie Daniels (Chicago, late 70's...Devil Went Down to Georgia was HOT) and I brought a 1/2 gal jug with some liquor mix in it. She and her 13 year old brother really got into the booze. She got wasted and did a lap dance on some poor soul who was there. He felt her up and gave her his phone and address. Her brother passed out. (we all agreed to tell the parents it was the hot dog he ate)
The next weekend we drove to the lap dancee's house, unannounced, so she could try to hook up with him. The poor guy lived on a farm (now new hosuing subdivision) and his mother came to the door. She said he was in the fields and could not come in from plowing. Honest. (this dub was desperate for a man...she was 21 without a boyfirend)
We had some lemonade and drove off. She never heard from him and I was labeled as a party animal. She was afraid to go out with me after that. I frightened her.
She did not date for years after that and just last year got married. She is 43.
I like to think I tried to stumble her; along with a few other young people. I tried to show them the "dark side" and they did not bite.
The funniest part is that her dad was an elder and that song "Devil Went Down to Georgia" was very popular in our KH and at her house. They loved Charlie Daniels.
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blondie
I can think of 3 reasons
The lack of love
The lack of love
and
The lack of love
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minimus
hmmm, didn't jesus stumble people???