by minimus 81 Replies latest jw friends
I think the only one I would like to tell off is the elder who studied with me. While I was studying, he would do anything for me. He gave me a set of stereo speakers. I heard after I moved out of my parents' place, he came and asked for the speakers back. Apparently, they weren't free.
If I ever encounter him again, I will call him on his conditional love. He's also getting on with age. He must be in his eighties. If he dies before I get a chance to speak my mind, I'll be just as happy.
BTW, it is possible to tell an elder off respectfully, without swear words and raising your voice. Jesus told off the Pharisees using the scriptures. They said he was wrong, just wrong for pointing our their errors.
Blondie
Aside from the last visit I received from the elders, in which I told them (through my apartment building intercom, no less) not to return to my home, I haven't told any of them off.
I've been practicing what I might say, though, for ten years. Some day my opportunity will come. :)
I've never actually "told off" an elder off but I have had words with a couple. There are some that if I had things to do over again from years ago, I would stand up to them and take no crap from, but it's too late for that. Most of the elders that I have known were actually decent, well-meaning men. Not always as tactful or merciful as they should have been at times, but trying to do what they had been told was right.
However, there is one elder who I have zero respect for, as an elder, as a man or as a human being. He is a total piece of $#!+. He is an over-righteous, pompous, know-it-all bully who I have seen mistreat and abuse people constantly. From the first day that he joined our congregation when he started immediately kissing the presiding overseer's ass(who saw right through him) to the last time he spoke to me, at my house on a sheparding visit, I have never trusted, liked or respected this individual. At that sheparding visit at my house he crossed the line and he got rise out of me then. I basically told him that nobody comes into my house and talks to me the way he just did. The discussion ended badly and I haven't spoken to him since. The other elders later apologized for him, but he never did. If you can't apologize for yourself in person, then you obviously weren't apologetic to begin with.
It seemed that other elders had to always apologize for another's ill timed or incorrect comments. We had 1 elder that always either lied or said something to a person that could never be verified, that we would have to apologize for. Many over the years left the Hall due to him. He got deleted after being an elder over 25 years!
Yes for consistently going over time in meetings -- suggested he was ignoring society directives on timing - AND YES IT FELT GOOD
I have yet to tell one off. But there is one I would pay good money to tell off.
When I was growing up, this elder was feared in the whole area. He was brutal, and no one got in his way. The way he treated my family, though we were good little witnesses, was horrible. My dad was an elder even, and this other guy thought he was a god. Of course I had the luck of having him in my hall.
...it felt wonderful...and I did'nt get struck by lightning!
Blondie said: BTW, it is possible to tell an elder off respectfully, without swear words and raising your voice. Jesus told off the Pharisees using the scriptures. They said he was wrong, just wrong for pointing our their errors. Blondie
I agree with you Blondie. This is what I said to a Ministerial Servant in the Hall at the Sunday Meeting after he treated me disrespectfully:"You are speaking to me this way because my husband in not here - if he was present, here, you wouldn't speak to me like this! And I walked away. Hours passed after this incident, and he called me to apologize, and he agreed with me on what I had told him at the Hall - he said:" had your husband been present at the Hall, I wouldn't have made that remark". He told me he loved me as a sister, and I believed him. After that, whenever he would see me at the Hall, he would look at me - then ignore me. AAF
NOW.....if someone told me that I was EXPECTED to talk to the elders, I would tell them in no uncertain terms that they had no control over me in any way!
