Posts by fiddler

50

If money were no object where would you live?

by usualusername in

jw
friends

my money is on tuscany, italy at the moment..

fiddler

I would be a gypsy traveler and the globe would be my home!

106

WT SHUNNING POLICY: What has it done, or could it do to you?

by flipper in

jw
friends

hi y'all, this is mrs. flipper.

please share your experiences with this, or possible consequences of being outed.. this recent controversy and resulting arguments all stem from people being outed - possibly losing friends and family because most jw's will blindly follow the watchtower's rules to shun them.. among people i know and experiences read here, the grief and loss caused by this is terrible, and maybe now is a good time to put up some experiences here, and put the focus on the worst villians of all - wt policymakers..

fiddler

I wrote a big long story about the ways I've been hurt these past few years over the shunning policy but hit the wrong key and lost it all..............so here goes again.

I am a mother of 4 and my oldest daughter is still JW. I left over 14 years ago but had at least some contact with her although not as close a relationship as we had had. About 4 years ago she found out that her husband was cheating on her and so she left him and moved in with her best friends family in my town. I began to see her quite a lot more and offered her the support of a mother and actually was starting to feel like I had my daughter back again (the religion always put up a barrier between us once I decided to leave). After about a year, her husband 'repented' and begged for her to come back and since she was desparately wanting to get pregnant (and missed sex) she returned to him. Her best friend and many of the JW's disapproved but I just told her that I wished her happiness and tried to be supportive of her.

She went back and immediately got pregnant. Her husband at this time is disfellowshipped but going to meetings working towards reinstatement. This was about when the society started it's stepped up shunning campaign.

During my daughters pregnancy I visited her at her place a few times and my daughter was always adamant.......fearful even.......that I leave before her husband got home. I did but I told her I though that was strange since I had been the only one that didn't diss on him and supported their choice to get back together. I am ever the optimist...........

When the time came for the birth my daughter had complications and had to have an emergency C-section. I was not told and although I had tried to at least get text updates, none were given until my younger daughter texted and asked that they please contact me since I was very worried............Her words were twisted into something just so out of line with what she actually said (I kept the transcript) that I could see then how her husband was trying to manipulate Heather away from her family. It was just crazy.

I saw her and the baby only a handful of times and the last time was (unbeknownst to me at the time) the farewell visit by my daughter. My grandbaby was 6 mos. old at the time. He's almost 2 now.

I tried to at least send an 'I love you' text once a month to my daughter which never was responded to and the couple of times that I was responded to it was with curt unfeeling replies. So unnatural.

Last year I also lost my father..........for good. He died. But before he got sick he had been in contact with me for the past 5 years. Although the religion would come up we always had our 'discussions' and agreed to disagree. My dad was good with that. I might add that contact with dad started when my stepmother left him. It's so strange but they were both JW's going to separate congregations during that time and it was somehow OK.

In January of 2012 I had called my dad hoping maybe he could talk to my daughter and soften her stance a little. He wouldn't go there and said it was her choice............THEN he asks me why it is that I hate the organization so much and why don't I go back to meetings?

Um let me count the reasons! I wasn't disrespectful but carefully tried to speak of things I knew he'd remember......things like back during Rutherford's days and WWii and the general feelings of urgency of those times and also the 'hitler letter............couldn't leave that out'. Anyway, in the end, we again agreed to disagree.

It was in March that he got the diagnosis of stage 4 stomach cancer. He asked me to come out and see him. I was already booked to go to Hawaii and see my son and suggested I drop that and go immediately out to Arizona. Dad told me to go and enjoy visiting with my son and to come out afterwards.

While I was in Hawaii my dad got reunited with my stepmother and I will add here that even when I was a JW, she hated for him to have contact with any of his kids from his first marriage, moi included even though I was the only JW! So..........that attitude was still there and now she was armed with all the latest shunning articles which I'm quite sure she held in front of his face for that first week (for a week was all it took) before he'd acknowleged that he shouldn't be having any contact with me. I still couldn't believe my dad would totally shut me out at a time like this so I got a one way ticket to AZ as soon as I got home. My brother called me just before I was to leave and told me that dad told him to tell me.......................that I wouldn't be welcome at his home since I was 'an apostate'. My brother thought this was all terrible and he and other family members tried to reason with dad but to know avail.

I was down there for over a month and never got to speak to dad or see him once! My mom is down there too as well as siblings so the visit wasn't a total wasted effort but there it is!

Dad died in October of 2012.

I have ranged from extreme sadness to anger over these losses but life goes on and generally, I have good family time with my other children and relatives. Still.......I hope that Gandhi's words prove true (saw this on another thread)

"First they ignor you, Then they laugh at you, Then they fight you, Then you WIN!"
I hope so.

25

Is the story of the Garden of Eden simply a Rabbinical puzzle of SQUARING the circle??

by Terry in

1.man's nature as homo sapien is to pursue knowledge for survival.

fiddler

Terry, thank you for your illustration of the 'squared circle'. I had heard somewhere that most Jews understand the Bible to be made up of, let's call them fables, created for educational purposes. Is it any wonder that so many Jewish people are highly educated AND agnostic/atheist? (at least, that has always been my observation)

53

Kidnaper of 3 Cleveland women - his mom a JW

by Gayle in

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/castro-brothers-spend-night-jail-article-1.1338131#ixzz2sjzrxozd.

fiddler

Ariel Castro is an evil scumbag!

I do wonder about his mother's involvement with JW's...........was Ariel ever exposed to the JW element?

For now I feel badly for the mother. What her son chose to do and 'CHOOSE' is a powerful word.............was his choice.

If it comes out that Ariel was raised JW and maybe was abused by a JW............that would present a totally different angle to this conversation. We all know that the

'two witnesses' ruling in the elders manual would protect a child molester and so if the facts come out that Ariel was molested and didn't get proper help then it would add an element to the case................it wouldn't excuse the evil...........but it might put the WT in the spotlight. I bet they are watching this case and probably prompting the members to ber very careful in what they divulge.

.........I don't trust the WT as far as I can throw them as you can surely see.

37

July KM - Jehovah's heart scanner in action

by respectful_observer in

excerpt from july 2013 km article "new initiatives for public witnessing".

4 how the witnessing is done: those.

involved in special metropolitan public.

fiddler

Standing at the table and seeing thousands of people go by each day has impressed upon our hearts the vast work that is being done to reach people all around the world.

They are so not getting it.

Those thousands of people going by........do they look at them? The mothers, and fathers and grandparents? The sons and daughters?

No. What they see are WORLDLY PEOPLE.

The rank and file JW whether they be pioneer or regular publisher refuse to see the general public filing by them as part of the HUMAN FAMILY!

What a bunch of blind fools.

12

Cleveland kidnapper's mom is a JW

by just Ron in

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/castro-brothers-spend-night-jail-article-1.1338131.

down near the bottom of this article, a neighbor of ariel castro's mother reveals that dear old mom is a dub.

bet this won't become a part on a assembly..

fiddler

I just had a feeling that maybe the JW religion would pop up in this case..........yep.

53

Kidnaper of 3 Cleveland women - his mom a JW

by Gayle in

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/castro-brothers-spend-night-jail-article-1.1338131#ixzz2sjzrxozd.

fiddler

Wow! I was wondering if JW's or any religious group would show up in the background of these brothers and particularly the one that did the kidnapping and raping and brutalizing of these three girls.

I am not surprized.

Elisabeth Smart had some interesting comments to make as to how these young women could be held for so long without making any attempt at escape.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/05/06/elizabeth_smart_abstinence_only_sex_education_hurts_victims_of_rape_and.html
In 2002, 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her Salt Lake City home, held captive in the mountains, and raped repeatedly for nine months.* Since her escape, she has emerged as an advocate for human trafficking victims—and recently, a critic of abstinence-only sex education. When Smart spoke at a Johns Hopkins University panel last week, she explained one of the factors deterring her from escaping her attacker: She felt so worthless after being raped that she felt unfit to return to her society, which had communicated some hard and fast rules about premarital sexual contact.

“I remember in school one time, I had a teacher who was talking about abstinence,” Smart told the panel. “And she said, ‘Imagine you’re a stick of gum. When you engage in sex, that’s like getting chewed. And if you do that lots of times, you’re going to become an old piece of gum, and who is going to want you after that?’ Well, that’s terrible. No one should ever say that. But for me, I thought, ‘I’m that chewed-up piece of gum.’ Nobody re-chews a piece of gum. You throw it away. And that’s how easy it is to feel you no longer have worth. Your life no longer has value.”

As Jessica Valenti points out, the chewing gum analogy is a typical tactic employed by abstinence-only advocates to try to scare teenagers away from having sex. And while stunts like those are often delivered to coed groups, the messaging falls harder on girls: If one person is the gum, the other person chews. It’s difficult to add a rape exemption to that kind of visual. In the case that you’re abducted, does God lend you a fresh stick

........(the article goes on. Read it)
True, the victims weren't JW but the perpetrator had some of these sick kinds of analogies maybe floating around in his brain.......or maybe the girs had also had the 'abstinence only' mentality.............whatever the case.......they had their power taken away from them by this sicko. I wonder if he ever attended meetings and got the whole 'sex is dirty' vibes. His kind of sex was surely the worst but I wonder.............
I wonder how much religion plays into this.

40

Do you go to Kroger/Publix/Wal Mart?

by Iamallcool in

jw
friends

i usually shop for most things at wal mart but i have learned some things at publix and kroger are cheaper than wal mart.

if you are conscious shopper, tell me what things do you buy at each store to save some money!

i am thinking about being a member of bj, if you know of any good deals at bj, let me know too.

fiddler

After reading all this I figured I'd add to my list..........

I shop a lot at Winco as well.......used to work there in bulk foods in the 80's when it was Waremart. The bulk foods has some pretty awesome savings, too.

I also sometimes go to Grocery Outlet. I love it when I find things that were from New Seasons for huge discounts! They also have some great specialty cheeses sometimes.

I have a Costco card and shop there maybe once a month.

Trader Joes is just a fun place to shop and yes they DO have great chocolate!

Last but not least, summer is coming and in summer I try to get all my fresh veggies at the farmers market. Fresh is best!

40

Do you go to Kroger/Publix/Wal Mart?

by Iamallcool in

jw
friends

i usually shop for most things at wal mart but i have learned some things at publix and kroger are cheaper than wal mart.

if you are conscious shopper, tell me what things do you buy at each store to save some money!

i am thinking about being a member of bj, if you know of any good deals at bj, let me know too.

fiddler

Fred Meyers is part of the Kroger chain and I've had two kids (one still is an employee there) working for Freddies. I've met so many of the employees through my kids and even attended a 5 year anniversary dinner as a guest of my kid and I got the feeling that it was a very family like company.

I shop there and because of my kids have been informed of some really great sales ~ 70% off sometimes! ~ on various things like Sketchers shoes and also electronics items. If you hit the sales, there are usually some great deals on name brand items. They have a great nutrition center and carry foods for those of us who are trying to eat more healthy at a usually better price than say New Seasons.

I have only shopped at Walmart when I'm out of town visiting my family mostly because it is in walking distance to my mothers place. I don't shop at the Walmart near me because it is just down the road from the Freddies where my son works.........loyalty thing. In Arizona, Fry's is also a Kroger store and they also have the best in fresh veggies (IMO) better by far than Wal-mart!

Guess that's pretty much a vote for Kroger!

71

MIL letter to my wife

by AggieNostic in

background: my wife and i are inactive, we stopped attending in 2005. raised as jws, were pioneers, i was elder etc... .

our kids are in college, also inactive but are baptised.

my wife went back to college, getting her degree this month at age 48!

fiddler

I have read through all 4 pages of this thread. The fact that it has accumulated 4 pages in such a short period of time speaks loudly that this is a very common problem for a lot of us.

With the advent of all the electronic means of communication, texting and such has become the preferred way of communication and although I love the new technologies, it sure has allowed our JW families to 'hit and run' at times with this emotional blackmail stuff.

I'm glad that your family member is still communicating with you and hopefully you will be able to take the high road and show through your own life and conduct how real family love is shown.

The one thing that I have found that makes it so hard to respond to JW family and friends is their fall back on the name of Jehovah. The initial letter you received had a few points I noted but the first and most conversation stopping point was:

"the most important part of that was teaching you the truth about Jehovah"

I would personally love to be able to challenge that statement with documentation from people who've devoted their lives to studying ancient peoples and their religions as well as the translating of books like the Bible...........actual scholars........people with more than a high school level of education. How many of the current (or even past) members of the governing body have educations that would qualify them to teach 'the truth about Jehovah"?

None, I dare say.

That poor lady taught you all what a Bible publishing agency told her to teach............not truth. Jehovah is their corporate logo for all intents and purposes.

I still believe that there is a higher power out there but I don't for one moment believe it is the angry, psychopathic god of the ancient Israelites, Jehovah. If that god was put through a battery of psychological test I'm quite sure he'd come out as a very 'mentally diseased' god!

Then there is the problem JW's have with equating in their minds that Jehovah=Watchtower=governing body=their own personal identity. To say anything against JEHOVAH just blows them completely apart. Someone here has an avatar from the movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"

Such an apt depiction of a JW's reaction to saying anything even slightly against their precious god.

I learned that the very hard way.

Good luck with your family and congrats on your wife's degree. Well done!