Posts by Etude

17

Letter from Mother: "...go right ahead on death's road and take your kids with you."

by silentbuddha in

so my jw father is sick.

my mother uses the opportunity to try and preach to my 16 year old daughter.

i simply told my mother to: "please refrain from trying to lure *my daughter* in with jehovah's witness questioning.

Etude

It may seem a bit lame. But, I would write a letter to her with the simple words: "Thank You!" and sign it. It may leave her wondering. It seems that in her letter, she was lashing back at you. She may feel differently later on, or at least not as hard-assed. Consider that she may have had coaxing or guidance from someone else. Think that after months or years of not seeing you or the grandchildren, she may still have some love in her. The "Thank You" would be a recognition that has agreed to stop influencing your children. It may also convey sarcasm for the cruel things she said and for her finality on the subject. Let her wonder.

23

Unfaithful spouse

by Worstfear in

my wife and i have been together for 12 years.

married for 6. she was born into the truth, i studied for 2 years before we got married.

we would attend meetings on a weekly basis, go to conventions, and memorial every year.

Etude

I say, fulfill her worst expectation and TELL THE ELDERS! I can't conceive that she could possibly claim that as harassment. Play the religious card. Bring out the fact that she's the egregious one by fucking another guy. She can ignore the consequences of a judicial summoning, but her reputation will be well deserved. Was the separation formal (done via the courts)? If not, you have a lot of wiggle room to walk in the house and take what you want. Preferably, I would have kicked her ass out and go live with the other guy. There are always two sides to a story. But from what you relate, it's apparent she has no regard for you. Show none for her.

22

Is the Bethel Farm in Wallkill Co. still there?

by Etude in

i've been out of this loop (or any other) for a while.

can someone tell me if the bethel farm facilities are still there in wallkill county, ny?

i was there for about a year.

Etude

mann377: We must have overlapped. But at one point, I went outside to the fields picking tomatoes, and peas, etc. I was there when they had a Gilead class attending. There was a couple from Scotland, maybe a couple from Australia, and a few single guys. The graduation took place there at the farm. I had only attended one other Gilead graduation in Queens, NY.

22

Is the Bethel Farm in Wallkill Co. still there?

by Etude in

i've been out of this loop (or any other) for a while.

can someone tell me if the bethel farm facilities are still there in wallkill county, ny?

i was there for about a year.

Etude

I was fortunate that I was inquisitive and allowed for alternative modes of thinking. Bethel had a dual personality. The super-fine Christian side and the business side. I had the mistaken illusion that the Christian side would overcome any procedural or secular problems. Then I discovered there was a third side, the hypocritical side.

Mostly, I could not understand their adherence to some arbitrary rules that they came up with or followed from somewhere else. This is why I had to leave after 2 1/2 years. For example, I wanted to have my blue jeans pressed as I did in Brooklyn (I spent about 8 months there). I would send them down and pay to have them pressed at the dry cleaners; yes, we all had to pay for that. Apparently, Knorr had this fetish that only homosexuals in Brooklyn Heights wore blue jeans. They would not be banned altogether but were discouraged from wearing them neatly outside of work by making you pay.

So, when I asked for my jeans to be pressed at the Farm, I was told I couldn't because the rule was they just didn't do it. They never gave me a real reason besides that in Brooklyn, they were discouraged. So, I come back with the fact that as it is done in Brooklyn, I was willing to pay for them to be pressed. The response was, "Well, we're not Brooklyn!"

So, on the one hand, they wouldn't press blue jeans with the regular laundry because it was not done in Brooklyn but they would not press them if you paid like it is done in Brooklyn, because they are not "Brooklyn." As you can tell, that was an unwinnable situation. Mind you that this transpired after multiple discussions with the laundry "servant" and even after speaking with the home "servant" who supervised the laundry shop.

I didn't give a rat's ass about the jeans really. It just turned out to be an issue because of their infuriating logic of doing things. I still don't understand the reasoning behind that way of thinking and the unwillingness to change. Well, after talking to a couple of nephews that went to Bethel many years later, they informed me that all that had gone away. I hope that in arguing this (along with many other BAs), I was somehow able to influence and contribute to ending the illogic of such rules. That doesn't take away all the shit I went through just to survive in that place.

22

Is the Bethel Farm in Wallkill Co. still there?

by Etude in

i've been out of this loop (or any other) for a while.

can someone tell me if the bethel farm facilities are still there in wallkill county, ny?

i was there for about a year.

Etude

Here you go Diogenesister:

Sorry this is so long and that I may have some names wrong. I guess there’s a lot I didn’t want to remember.

I consider myself fortunate that my parents helped out and provided me with a car while I was living at the Bethel Farm. On one occasion, the car stopped running. I’m not mechanically inclined and couldn’t get other guys (the farm equipment handlers) to help after-hours. They avoided me when I walked into the farm shop.

Meanwhile, there was a provision that one could borrow one of the “office” cars in order to drive to the congregational meetings at night or on weekends. I, along with three other brothers, was attending a congregation in Middletown. They would pitch in for the gas. So, I would call the office and put in a request. The next day, I had to return the car promptly by 8:00 am when work started. So, I waited for the office to open at 8:00 and turn in the keys. This went on for a while as I tried to find out what the problem was with the car.

I reported to the “Trimming” (?) department, where they cut the WT & Awake! magazines into final form. One day while entering my workplace, I noticed that the assistant in charge of the crew (a fairly nice fellow named Curtis) was writing something down. I asked him what it was and he told me he was marking me late. I asked why. He said, "because you’re late". I said that I had to return the car keys to the office so they could use them by 8:00 am. He said he understood but I was still late. Somehow, it had escaped me that he had often asked where I was before I knew he was making a note.

My argument was that if I wanted to attend meetings, I needed a car and since I had that provision, I complied by turning in the keys when they opened. He basically said that I was still late and it was his job to write it down. We went back and forth on this. I finally said that since it doesn’t matter whether I have a good excuse or not, I was not going to tell him where I was and why I was late. He insisted that I must tell him. I refused. He called over the guy in charge; another fairly nice guy named David (?) and related the situation. I stood my ground and said I would not answer any questions as to why I was late because I would still get marked late and it didn’t matter. This all happened in a nice calm manner over several days.

So David had no choice but to call the assistant factory overseer, Dan Myers. This guy worked at being an asshole. I think Dan got where he was by kissing ass. He had a bad streak that made him lust for power. Maybe he was cruel because he was made fun of as a child for having a bad limp. I think one leg was shorter than the other. We rehashed the issue and came to an impasse after I explained I should not be penalized on my record as being late for something that could not be avoided.

This is the famous Bethel logic that I constantly encountered. Dan replied to me that the fact that people are on time means that I can be on time. I replied that then the fact that some people are late means I can be late. I guess I detected his frustration when he told me that the factory overseer and other elders thought badly of me, that they thought I had a poor attitude. That triggered something in me and I saved it for the right moment.

It took a few days but I managed to have a talk with the factory overseer in his office. He asked me to enter and take a seat. I declined and stood in front of him at his desk. He was someone I respected and liked, but I wanted to set the tone of the conversation. So I asked him straight out if he had a bad opinion of me. He asked why and I told him his subordinate Dan Myers had told me that. I could see his countenance change quickly. He clearly had not said that or was that much aware of me. But he was furious that Dan had put him in that position. What the overseer did was come up with an excuse for Dan; that perhaps he was under pressure. That’s when I lost all respect for him. I imagined that later he took Dan over and tore him a new one (in a nice way). But I could never look at him the same way.

It was much later I learned that as a secular factory, whoever is above you is right, even if they are wrong. They feel that for the sake of ending arguments, they will always take the management side. Fuck Christian values, and fuck fairness. If that were the only such example of what I went through, I might even admit that I was a malcontent. But that shit kept popping up over and over. There, I saw cruelty, favoritism, racism, and people who were too afraid to leave because they had nothing to use as skill in the outside world.

22

Is the Bethel Farm in Wallkill Co. still there?

by Etude in

i've been out of this loop (or any other) for a while.

can someone tell me if the bethel farm facilities are still there in wallkill county, ny?

i was there for about a year.

Etude

Thanks everyone. I had the best days of my life and the worse days of my life there. The Bethel bureaucracy took a large part for my heartaches. But, aside from meeting some great people, I encountered some of the biggest assholes created by God.

I was greatly disappointed by well-intended humans for the sake of the rules even though it was obvious to us both they were not fair. While there, the change came to not enforce a 4-year stay but only give promised service for one year. By then I had out in nearly 2 1/2 years. I left bitter and disappointed. I’ll write about some of the issues I face later on.

22

Is the Bethel Farm in Wallkill Co. still there?

by Etude in

i've been out of this loop (or any other) for a while.

can someone tell me if the bethel farm facilities are still there in wallkill county, ny?

i was there for about a year.

Etude

I've been out of this loop (or any other) for a while. Can someone tell me if the Bethel Farm facilities are still there in Wallkill County, NY? I was there for about a year. I've often thought of going by to see what hell I went through.

Etude.

58

No more Questions from MINIMUS

by was a new boy in

jw
friends

minimus former jw, prolific poster on jwn died.. minimus.

joined 19 years ago.

started 4,139 topics.

Etude

I just happened to look and read about the Minimus news. It is always sad for me to learn that a person from this community has passed. For good or bad, I consider it a loss to our common raison d'etre. I have no idea how to find out how, if any, my interaction with Minimus comprised. But, whatever that was, I'm still sad he's not here. He must have left a mark on me.

40

Liberal vs. Conservative mental health study - what do you make of it?

by Brock Talon in

a pew study from 2020 (but one i just now came upon myself) reported that the more liberal you are, the more likely you are to have a mental health condition.

the worst suffering group are white females, ages 18-29 where over 56% have admitted to be described by their own doctors as having a mental health condition.

conservative females of the same age group suffer at less than half that number (27%).. while women tend to have more mental health problems than men (don't be mad at me for saying it, this is what the study reports) it is notable that liberal men have a higher percentage of mental health conditions than conservative women in the same age group.

Etude

Brock Talon: I didn't say conservatives are assholes. I said some conservatives are assholes. There are many good conservatives. I don't understand why so many people insist on making opinions an all or nothing issue. And, your polls regarding what they contribute and how much is very much subject to what they contribute to. I didn't see any indication that they contribute more to causes supporting the poor or disenfranchised. I do have some indication that they would be more religiously conservative and would contribute to anti-abortion causes than most liberals, even though the god of the OT Bible doesn't shit about children, let alone fetuses.

40

Liberal vs. Conservative mental health study - what do you make of it?

by Brock Talon in

a pew study from 2020 (but one i just now came upon myself) reported that the more liberal you are, the more likely you are to have a mental health condition.

the worst suffering group are white females, ages 18-29 where over 56% have admitted to be described by their own doctors as having a mental health condition.

conservative females of the same age group suffer at less than half that number (27%).. while women tend to have more mental health problems than men (don't be mad at me for saying it, this is what the study reports) it is notable that liberal men have a higher percentage of mental health conditions than conservative women in the same age group.

Etude

I'm sensing that many conservatives are assholes. Period.