while i was writing about my time in the "borg", i remembered a time that my mother had been disfellowshipped.
i don't remember why it had happened.
i am not sure that anyone ever told me.
While I was writing about my time in the "borg", I remembered a time that my mother had been disfellowshipped. I don't remember why it had happened. I am not sure that anyone ever told me. I am curious now and it wouldn't make me feel any different about my mom to find out why it happened. She has never told me because I never asked. Do I have any right to ask her about what happened, 22 years later??
Perhaps I should let well enough alone and just forget about it.
B
have you ever been called before one?
were you ever on one?
what happened???
I was subjected to three JC's. I don't remember much about them, truthfully. Different elders each time. Some were understanding, some were assholes.
I see good ol' Sword of Jah is lurking about, so I won't go all crazy and start ranting and raving, because I am not in the mood to hear his/her lips flapping the wind, but Judicial Committees are sick and wrong. Be that as it may, if they were going to change them around a bit, I think they should allow sisters to be on them. Oh man, what I am saying? That would NEVER happen!!!
B
spoilers?
for anybody who knows the story of jesus, it should be like watching titanic---the ship sinks, get over it.
spouse: "nobody in the movie saw the hooded creature.
LT--I did notice that.
RR--Of course!! I should have remembered about the 12 stations of the cross. Guess I was not thinking like a Catholic.
Sirona--Thanks. When I have a mo' I will look up Leolaia's posts about that---she is SO smart!
Guess I should have done my research before I watched the movie.
But, I wonder, what about people who watch the movie who have absolutely no religious background? Not even a tainted one? Is this supposed to get them interested in being Catholic? What about the atheists who watch the movie? Gaaah. Ok. I'll stop talking now.
Bethany
found this interesting.
thought i would post it for those of you who are interested in the purple one.
the passion of the prince.
Found this interesting. Thought I would post it for those of you who are interested in the Purple One.
THE PASSION OF THE PRINCE
The Holy Fuck-Fire and Messianic Fall of Prince
by Sam Mickens
Prince
Wed Sept 1
Rose Garden
One Center Ct.
Once, Prince
was the final solution to American black music's age-old struggle between God and sex. Transcending the Saturday night/Sunday morning dichotomy worked out on the sweaty brows and searing pipes of predecessors like Sam Cooke and Al Green, Prince made the two entirely separable. For him, it seemed the very meaning of life was found in the interweaving and overlapping of these forces. Prince not only preached the gospel of fucking, but also illustrated the orgasmic potential of spirituality.Furthermore, like many before and since (Vaslav Nijinsky, Billy Corgan, etc.) Prince seemed to be instilled with an acute sense of his own godliness--not in the way perhaps every believer does, but as a true avatar. All six minutes and 18 seconds of "Purple Rain" are nothing so much as a proselytizing call to the banner of Prince's messianic grandeur, a beseechment to allow His divine love to rain (or reign) benevolent over the world: "U say u want a leader/ But u can't seem 2 make up your mind/I think u better close it/ Let me guide u 2 the purple rain."
And so he did, from approximately 1982 to 1988. Beginning with 1999, Prince began to establish himself beyond the bounds of his occasional hits and semi-generic synth-funk albums and into the great beyond. He was the rare golden story of the music industry, in which creative genius and chart standings explode as one, a validation of the ephemeral dream of genuine pop music.
Prince's Judas came with the initials WB. Around '87, Prince began to expand beyond the comfortable horizons of his record label, and was immediately and viciously restrained. He had prepared for near-simultaneous release of both a three disc set, Crystal Ball, and the funked-up, emotionally charred Black Album. Both of these jumped off from the weirdness of Parade, his final album with The Revolution, and into extreme stylistic and emotional experimentalism. Warner Brothers demanded Crystal Ball be whittled down to the double-set Sign O' The Times, and the Black Album was shelved for seven years. For an artist not only of such expansive genius, but also of such then-unchallenged commercial clout, this must have felt like a true crucifixion.
A hint of what was lost can be glimpsed on the track "Crystal Ball" from the Prince-released bootleg collection of the same name. At nearly 10 and a half minutes long, it marries stunningly advanced and unusual orchestration to a completely hook-laden yet complex, non-linear song structure. It also carries his fuck-faith all the way to the apocalypse--the song sets a classic Prince come-on amidst riotous social Armageddon, stating, "The only thing u can be sure of is the love we make 2night."
Prince was rapidly accelerating beyond even his own established prodigious potential, leading to a prolonged and messy divorce from Warner Brothers. With ever-diminishing artistic conviction, Prince labored through the rest of his contractually obligated albums for Warner, ending with the slightly pitiful Chaos & Disorder. During this time, he became something of a public spectacle, due to his varied attempts at achieving some form of dignity. The "slave" painting, name changing, glyph adopting--all of these were quietly heroic, pained cries for his well-deserved freedom. And yet, even after he gained his independence, his march through the stations of the cross continued.
A perpetual self-mythologizer, Prince was already preparing for his next storied phase as he departed from Warner. With the triple album Emancipation, he launched the fully independent NPG imprint and finally seemed to be casting off the shackles of his long, painful contractual struggle. He had recently married a beautiful model named Mayte, and would soon become a first-time father. The sprawling Emancipation contained love odes to both his wife and unborn child, and even included his baby's sampled heartbeat on one track. But the baby died at birth, Mayte and Prince split soon thereafter, and without a clear direction forward, the understandably damaged Prince fell into a period of muddled, disappointing work, and a drastically muted public profile.
What then, has precipitated his current media-approved resurrection? Perhaps his well-publicized conversion to Jehovah's Witness provides some of the answers. Prince's religion of old always seemed highly personalized--wrapped up in eroticism and his own megalomania, it seemed a faith that held himself almost as highly as God. He even ended Around the World In a Day (possibly the apex of his maniacal creativity) with a stern argument between himself and his creator (both voices, of course, provided by Prince). His new role as a Witness demands an intense humility, even taking him as far as the door-to-door trademark of his faith. This humility may be the method by which Prince has regained his public stature. He has dimmed his fiery genius to return to the fluorescent glare of the public's love. Just as Prince is now a servant to--rather than a vital expression of--his god, he's also a servant to the dictates of pop consumption rather than a vital, shaping force.
His "comeback" album, Musicology, smacks of this downsizing of vision; it's undeniably able, workman-like funk-rock, but betrays a lack of reaching that one could never have accused the former Prince of. In recent interviews he has alluded to this gentle lessening of himself in various arenas, including on stage, saying that he now exerts far less control over his band, allowing things to develop more organically. Perhaps this is indicative of an artist's maturation, but it's impossible to imagine this more lackadaisical Prince ever producing work of the caliber of his glory days.
Once upon a time, every aspect of the man--his unabashedly sexualized guitar playing, his hyper-balletic dancing, his endlessly vulnerable yet masterfully theatrical singing--reflected a ferocious artistic hunger wed to unnerving discipline. It may not be too late for Prince, but if his current arc proves the story of his life, this new, gentrified persona may overwhelm the memory of what he once was: a true artist perpetually striving for a more dizzying, more terrifying purple mountaintop.
Good article. Doesn't say much about him being a dub, but it says enough. The Dj's on the radio station I listen to were discussing his dubness and it was kind of funny to hear them.....well, kind of make fun of this "new" Prince and him being a JW. Maybe I am wicked and cruel.
Bethany
from time to time we like to share some good reads with each other on jwd, and now might be a good time to share with you what i'm reading this week.
it's "the gate" by francois bizot which tells of his experiences as the only western prisoner to survive the khmer rouge in cambodia.
in 1971, on a routine outing through the cambodian countryside, the young french ethnologist francois bizot is captured by the khmer rouge.
Ozzie,
That sounds like a very good book. I can think of two people right now to whom I will recommend that book.
I am reading "Lost Light" by Michael Connelly, a mystery. I am also listening to "The Probable Future" by Alice Hoffman on cd in my car (I get tired of the radio).
I like this thread. I am always looking for good books to read. I took the summer off from school, and I have read many many books this summer .
Bethany
spoilers?
for anybody who knows the story of jesus, it should be like watching titanic---the ship sinks, get over it.
spouse: "nobody in the movie saw the hooded creature.
HD,
Naw. It was probably me, being presumptious again. I figured you weren't referring to my post, I just felt the need to give you my $.02. And I am by no means an "expert" poster. I have read some of your posts and have enjoyed them.
It's hard sometimes, on the internet to convey emotions ,even with the use of emoticons.
No hard feelings, oK?
Bethany
spoilers?
for anybody who knows the story of jesus, it should be like watching titanic---the ship sinks, get over it.
spouse: "nobody in the movie saw the hooded creature.
HappyDad,
Gosh, now I feel bad. I think I am v. tolerant of other people's beliefs. I was sort of setting aside those beliefs and merely discussing the movie and its portrayal of Jesus . Like I said, I wasn't trying to make light of what the movie was about--I watched it with an open mind. All I was nitpicking about was the manner in which these happenings to Jesus were put forth in the movie---In my opinion, they could have made it less....Hollywood, I guess
Bethany
my dad and i spoke over lunch the other day about our religion.
he told me that he bumped into two of my cousins who are pioneers at the auburn congregation..he told them he was disapointed and was not invited to their party...after he told me his conversation with them he repeatedly kept on saying "the truth".
i finally corrected him and told him that was one of the ways to suppress him buy using words like that to inflict guilt and that there is no other truth when there is.
When you do hear people say it, can't you just kind of hear the capital "T" they use when they say "the Truth"?
A few years after I escaped I was discussing some beliefs of the JW's with a friend and I accidentally said, "We believe......". Gaaaah. I made sure to back-pedal out of that one!.
Bethany
spoilers?
for anybody who knows the story of jesus, it should be like watching titanic---the ship sinks, get over it.
spouse: "nobody in the movie saw the hooded creature.
Hmph. The more I think about it, the more I think you could be right, Freewilly. I said I thought it was "powerful and moving", and maybe I was just projecting my own feelings onto it, but when I said that, you know which parts of the movie I was thinking about? The parts with his Mother and younger brother and that other chick, not the part where Jesus was being beaten to ribbons or when he was carrying the cross and kept falling down in slow motion. Mel Gibson, so I hear, is an extremely religious person. There is a ton of catholic imagery in that film, as Preson mentions, and that was pretty obvious to me---the scenes where Jesus is talking to his Apostles. He is so clean and sparkly and that hair is just parted so perfectly and I would not have been surprised to see a faint halo surrounding him.
"minus the midget baby scene, WTF was that?"
Exactly what I was thinking!!
Maybe we are just too cyincal??? Well, I will speak for myself, maybe I am just too cynical.
spoilers?
for anybody who knows the story of jesus, it should be like watching titanic---the ship sinks, get over it.
spouse: "nobody in the movie saw the hooded creature.
Preston,
Good point. I wondered about the "baby"--what the point of that was. I think I understand it now. Thanks.
Bethany
