Over a 30 year period, $80-100K. Thought we were supporting the "Kingdom Work". My sister gave them my grandmother's wedding ring. Also had them in our wills to get 1/3 of everything. Trashed the wills and notified them. Too bad we can't get it back for "misrepresentation". I've kept all my cancelled checks from the last 20 years or so. Just another part of the price we all paid. Would be nice to have it in a retirement account. Guess others are enjoying it.
LennyinBluemont
JoinedPosts by LennyinBluemont
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63
Massive donations to the WTS
by greendawn inhave any of you or people that you know such as relatives or friends, made a very significant donation to the wts?
by that i mean property, or money in excess of let's say $10 000. .
enriching an already very rich organisation has to be moronic, they are the ones that should be helping the poor among them the proverbial orphans and widows.
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God help me - Just finished Crisis of Conscience
by Orgull ini don't know whether to laugh or cry.. a friend lent me coc yesterday and i stayed up most of the night reading it.
it took me 13 hours and i skipped the meeting today to keep reading, i couldn't bear to put it down.. i am shocked but not surprised at how closely ray's thinking mirrors my own in some ways.
the part that hit me hardest was.... "conviction, it has no meaning or validity unless it is individual, personal.
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LennyinBluemont
Being released from prison is a good analogy, but it is also literal. The best expression I've come up with to describe the initial feeling of recognizing the WT for what it is, is stepping into the nothingness, because that's what we were trained and indoctrinated to think of life outside the WT. It can indeed be terrifying. But soon you will realize it is not "nothingness", but rather "reality". Grasp it. Make your place in it. Define YOU, and then be YOU.
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do not understand "slow" fade, "controlled" fade, why not just stop quickly
by oompa inonthewayout has a current thread about a slow fade, and i have read many others that are similar.
i do not understand how fading slowly vs. fading very quickly has any different consequences.
and i mean whether an elder or pioneer or not.
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LennyinBluemont
As all of the above posters have stated, it is different for each of us. Lenny told me he wasn't going to attend anymore meetings the week of the co visit, right in the middle of all the activity. I was blindsighted by his action. I knew he was having a hard time, since he had resigned as an elder but never thought he would stop going. My attendance was pretty good at first because of friends that told me I must continue so he would come back! Then, I started to look around at everything going on at the meetings. Lenny was in a fog for a while until he read Ray's book. It opened his eyes. He couldn't keep from sharing with me the wonder things he learned that exposed the wt. I really didn't want to hear all of it at that time. He would slip small tidbits into our conversations. We moved to a new home in the country & from all my associates so it was easy to miss meetings. The meetings were on different days & at different times than my old cong. The drive time was further than before, I am older & don't like to drive at night. I didn't know but a few people & they weren't that friendly (there's strangeness in the country.) I even changed to a cong closer to my home & in the same circuit as my former cong to try to make it work. I began to wake up to what my loving Lenny, was telling me. Guess I am a slow learner. Going to meeting was not helping the marriage it was beginning to destroy it. Since, we have no family jw's, I told a few close ones that I was not going to come back to meetings. The elders did not bother me. Instead they went after Lenny. Since, he had been an elder & requested speaker they wanted to take him down. As for me, his wife a former pioneer & member for over 34 years, it did not make a difference that I was not coming back. It is almost a year & a half that I haven't gone back. So, the fade worked for me. Lenny quit flat out. We will celebrate our 35th year of marriage next year in May. We kept the marriage together & did away with cult. Karen in Bluemont, Lenny's wife
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Swiffers Do you use one?
by Lady Lee ini have one and use it for both wet and dry.
it gets pricey since you have to keep buying the cloths.. a couple of weeks ago i was in sears and they were having a demonstration of a swiffer type mop but you didn't have to throw awy the cloths.
simply remove from the cloth and throw it in the washer.
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LennyinBluemont
I have the "star mop" with the micro fiber washable pads & several of the dust cloths. They are way better for the environment than the toss away sheets. The sheets for the swiffer have chemicals in them & are bad to use if you have pets or children. The micro fiber is just like the guy said it attacks the dust & dirt. I love the mops. The swiffer mop handle wasn't good. These are real tools for the work around the house. I am now going to admit I am a Stepford Wife! LOL
Karen, Mrs. Lenny in Bluemont
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LennyinBluemont
Don't live there but visited several times. Highly recommend the Beatles' LOVE show by Circ de Soleil. Buy your ticket now. For the best buffet, go to Aladdins.
Lenny
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Describe Your Feelings When You KNEW It Wasn't The "Truth" After All
by minimus inwhen it finally registered that you did not really have the "truth" after all, what went thru your mind?
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when things "clicked", what was your emotional state and what did you about it?.
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LennyinBluemont
Confusion:
My deeply ingrained, WT-defined personality, developed over the course of decades - who I was - suddenly evaporated, as I realized who I was as a person was completed defined in being a JW. And being a JW, I now was horrified to realize, was a false reality. I no longer knew who I was, or why I was. Or what I believed. It truly shakes you to the core. It's like you can't think. You don't know where to begin. The whole outline of your life that was so neatly in place based upon thousands of WT articles was now gone. Who am I? How can so much of my life be gone and wasted? What do I do now? I must re-define who I am and what my life is about. My life is an empty slate. Pretty scary stuff, to face all alone.
Disbelief:
I have likened this "awakening" to realizing you have just been the victim of a con game. Following the confusion, there is disbelief, or denial. "How could someone I trusted so implicitly have lied to and deceived me for so long? How is that even possible?!!"
Anger:
"They knew what they were doing! The bastards!"
Shame:
"I can't believe I was so easily taken in. For decades of my life! I've thrown away the very stuff of life by my foolishness. How could I have been so stupid?"
Sadness:
Feeling horrible for all that has been lost forever. Realizing that in a moment I have gone from having many I truly regarded as friends - to no friends at all. It's as if all the people I loved in my life were on the same airplane - and it crashed, killing all of them. I know they will never even talk to me again.
Erosion of Self-Confidence:
"What does this all say about my ability to make good decisions and judgments in life?" "Can I still trust myself to use good sense, or will I soon get caught up again in another scam?"
Re-Definition:
"OK. I still have some life left. I must first define who I am, what is important to me in life, and establish purpose and meaning in some way. Religion? No f**king way!" "Must come to terms with my mortality. Must reach out to other people to begin to build a circle of trusted friends to replace the vast wasteland I have been left with."
Move forward.
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Ever been completely embarrassed by the householder in field service?
by fedorE ini recall i was in service with ken little, the canadian branch committee overseer, and he took the first door.
the magazines were talking about nuclear war and its impending disaster.
so ken little introduces himself and says "good morning sir,did you know that every minute they spend millions of dollars on the manufacturing of weapons......" the homeowner looks straight at him and says "yeah?
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LennyinBluemont
As pioneers Lenny & I spent many days out in service by ourselves. I can remember being by myself in street work, with my friend across the street, the middle of the city. I hadn't been out in street work in a long time. So I wasn't prepared to talk with those walking by, as two people came by I just told them, hello, without even having my magazines out. I did this for at least the first few going by before I got ready to say anything about why I was talking to people I didn't know in the city!
On one hot summer day, I remember knocking on a screen door, but no one answered. Then, on the sofa to the side, I saw a man & woman together, naked. They didn't get up so I acted like I couldn't see them. My friend didn't see them from her angle. She wanted to know why I wouldn't leave anything in the door. Then, I told her what I saw.
Lenny had a door once that the guy told him he was GOD! That was a big joke with all of us at lunch later. I think it freaked everyone out! Has anyone else met God?
Karen & Lenny in Bluemont
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Stay Alive to '75 - MP3 Talk
by AlphaOmega ini have been e-mailed another watchtower talk .
it is the famous "stay alive 'to 75" talk by charles sunutko given in 1967.. it is entitled "serving with everlasting life in view" (final spring 1967 sheboygan, wisconsin).
it has left witnesses that i played it to silent.
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LennyinBluemont
Anybody know what the speaker's position was? DO, CO, local elder?
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Were YOU Raised In "The Truth" or Did You Convert???
by minimus ini was raised a witness.
(so i have some excuse).
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LennyinBluemont
Converted from agnosticism in 1973 at 22. Escaped in 2001. Finally figured it out in 2002 with the help of Ray's books. Back to agnosticism, 30 years later. Amazing what a well-executed con game can take away from you. Compared to all the years and emotional energy, losing even a million dollars would seem like nothing.
For those of us who converted, I think it is a bit more humiliating when you finally figure it out. Being raised in it really is an "excuse", cause you didn't have a choice. We did. And we chose it. Egad! I need to go think about something else. Could somebody roll a joint?
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favorite movie lines
by bigdreaux inmine is from animal house: .
over!?!?!?!!?
was it over when the germans bombed pearl harbor?!?!?!?!?!
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LennyinBluemont
Cher in Moonstruck after slapping Nicolas Cage: "SNAP OUT OF IT!"
Karen "Trixie"