Opinions Please on Family Letter (page 2)

outoftheorg

I have nothing to add. It has all been said. I would do the same thing. It still brings some sadness to me that people (families) have to resort to such moves to protect themselves from a silly religion. I hope this will have some positive effect on your child. Good wishes for the best for you all.

Francois

Patio, I think that's one of the best letters I've ever seen dealing with this agonizing subject. You deftly put the onus for this situation exactly where it belongs - on the JWs themselves. If they have a problem with xyz, and you've got xyz in your home, then it's their problem, not yours.

I had a terrific accident four years ago. I agreed to take blood because I desparately needed immediate surgery but couldn't have it because my hemoglobin was at 8 when it should have been at 16. I did my agreeing and my acceptance of the needle in my arm with JWs sitting in my room. Their attempts to make their beliefs my problem didn't even come up.

Great letter. I'm gonna print it out and put it in my JW file.

Thanks for sharing that.

Francois

belbab

You know that your religious beliefs are hard and cause problems for people who do not agree. As evidence, the disfellowshipping/shunning policy is not something you would present in service or casual conversation because it is perceived to be very harsh to the public-at-large nor "unbelieving" family members, such as the (family members) in ******.

Patio

I love your letter. Why play the game their way? The quote above from your letter is an excellent point. They are ashamed of their df policy. Let's rub their noses in it every chance we get.

I would like to briefly tell of one of my experiences. I was disfellowshipped for saying JWs worshipped an organization. My wife, became my wife after I was df, she was never disfellowshipped. A witness friend of hers sent the CO and his wife to visit her. I came back from town, and found them in our home. He opened the conversation angrily with, I know who you are, I know you are disfellowshipped, I am not going to allow you to speak to me, we have come here to talk to Lady J (my wife). I said fine, and went outside to do some chores, walked about fifty steps and stopped and said to myself, Whoa, what the hell am I doing. My house, my wife, and I can't stay there. So I walked back in and sat quietly at the kitchen table, and just listened. Finally when they started to give LadyJ a rough time, I spoke up. and the brief conversation ended with my saying, As far as I am concerned you can leave anytime. So they up and left.

I do not know if I totally grasped all the details of your letter. But my feelings are that you should if it is your wish, allow him space to break the rules of WT shunning policy. Ask him whether he intends to follow them to the letter. You can tell him that many families within the org. do not follow WT stringent rules. The evidence of this is many posts on this board where it is shown that families are disreguarding the rules.

One last point, your post would be far easier to read if you assign names to the persons, not necessarily real names, but something like Sam Shunned, and Hank Harddub .

Also to turn of the red printing when you want to, in the tool bar there is a small icon that looks like a roll of toilet paper, next to the paper clip icon. You click that when you want to stop some format. But put a space in between your cursor and the highligtened text, otherwise you will undo your highlight that you want to keep. That also appies for any other format, such as bold, italics, yellow highlight etc. It took me a while to figure that out myself. You can still go back and edit correctly if you choose.

Hope this helps, belbab

patio34

Francois, thanks for responding to my letter. It's great when we can all brainstorm on the same subject. Ain't this Net thang great (as James is wont to say). I appreciate your statements, especially since you are a writer!

Outoftheorg, so glad to have direct communication with you as I believe this is the first time. Thanks for the support. It wasn't easy to come to the decision to exclude him, but the alternative seemed too damaging to tolerate. When I said we could have a major event, I meant that I may blow up and then there would really be irreparable damage.

Belbab, woe is me, I thought I could take off the red, but it didn't work. I'll try again later. Thanks for the suggestion to insert names in there. I'm doing this in a hurry as I'm at work so didn't get the Harry Harddub--will later. LOL!

Your experience with the arrogant CO epitomizes the attitude, doesn't it? I'm happy you caught yourself before you accepted the jerk's behavior! Thanks for sharing that with us.

BeautifulGarbage

Hi Pat,

I was also struck my the same quote that belbab highlighted. It's so dead-on!

When I first read the scan of the Aug2002 KM my first thought was "Uh oh". My Mom has just recently been visiting with her JW sister after 20 years of almost no contact. Plus, there are other assorted JW relatives that we have had recent contact with after many years.

So, now, we are wondering, "What are they going to do? Are they going to adhere to the party line"? Though my Mom was never baptisted, she was shunned along with my other Aunt that was DF'd 37 years ago. At this point, we are just playing "wait and see". We went 20 years without them, we can certainly can do it again. Having a relationship with a JW is like standing on quicksand, the "ground" is not very stable.

BTW, good letter. Well stated.

Andee

JT

Joke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This letter is DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

i loved it- I rarely agree with anyone on sending a letter to a jw family member due to the indoctrination of the avg jw is one of COMPLETE SHUT DOWN so the effort to write is often met with complete rejection

but the angle that you took this letter in is GREAT

hey I love it

teenyuck

Hi Patio,

As someone who has JW's on my mom's side, including her, I think your letter was very good.

This is not a small matter but one of grave consequences. I am trying to respect the dignity of each person. Of course, you are free to pursue your life and beliefs, but not to bring them into my and Shunned Sam's home and cause harm. It is your choice to willingly participate in JWs shunning of family members, but it is my choice and right to say what goes on in my home and how members are treated in my home. "Your right to swing your foot ends with my knee."

This is a powerful paragraph. Your trying ot respect the dignity of each person says alot about your character....all of it great.

Your closing was really nice. Asking that e-mail be used, rather than the telephone, really makes someone think before they let their thoughts out of their head.

I am not in this type of situation with my mother. I can only imagine how hard it is for you to send this to your son. My mother recently accepted my DFd sister into her home and while she did not feel bad about breaking the "rules", she brought up how no matter what, a mother will love her children above all else. Having to make a choice between what is perceived as the "truth" and your child is very difficult.

I don't know what I would do if I were told that I could not see/talk to/e-mail my mom. She drives me crazy with the dub stuff, however, I love her deeply. If she cut me off, I would be devestated.

I think it is a wonderful letter. You put all your cards on the table.

Tina

edited to add: I copied the paragraph and could not shut off the color.

Edited by - puffsrule on 18 July 2002 20:44:7

Hmmm

Pat,

I'm not going to quote you, because it seems that red type is like Scarlet Fever... you can't get rid of it, you can only let it run its course.

Anyway. I meant to mention earlier; did you plan the family picnic because of Hank's visit, or for other family members? If the picnic was not specifically in Hank's honor, I would consider having it anyway. Otherwise, his hardline stance is still causing a family fuction to be cancelled. If Hank is the only person visiting from out of town, and the picnic was basically for everyone to see him, then I think you made the right decision.

Hmmm

waiting

Auggggggggggggggh!!!!!!!!

This thread keeps eating my posts!!!!!!!!! I think you're letter is great.......and JW Jim (imho) will most likely behave just as you imagined imho. Shunned Sam and Momma Mia have rights and personal dignity too. You go, girl.

warped waiting

Edited by - waiting on 18 July 2002 21:39:35

Edited by - waiting on 18 July 2002 21:42:15

patio34

Hi Andee, your line:

Having a relationship with a JW is like standing on quicksand, the "ground" is not very stable.

That was great! You can't trust them to react as a "normal" person would as it seems they dance to the puppetmaster, WTS, which, as we all know, changes it's stance every once and again! Thanks!

Hi JT, thanks for the supportive statements. I agree that the complete shutdown is the usual reaction from dubs. I hope my letter to "Hank Harddub" prevents further "meltdown." Nice to see your posts.

Hi Puffsrule, this letter was hard to write, but would have been harder not to write and let him domineer everything. I'm glad your mother is more of a reasonable type. When I was a dub, I feel I was a bit more reasonable too. But Waiting may have a different perspective!!

Hi Hmmmm, I think I may have this red-thing down "pat" now! I did plan the family picnic for Hank's visit in his "honor," so now maybe he'll see his attitudes aren't so worthy of that. But, it'll probably be perceived as persecution . . . sigh. Thanks for all your good suggestions.

Speaking of Waiting, thanks for the post, sis! I'm glad to see that you think JW Jim will behave as I imagined, no dreaded. I'm sorry the thread kept eating your posts! Glad you were persistent. Momma Mia! That's a good one for me!

Love,

Pat

Opinions Please on Family Letter

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