Posts by coolhandluke

36

My nephew is getting baptized

by coolhandluke in

jw
friends

if you got to choose who your children would be, i'd choose luca.

he is all the things that i'd like to be myself.

there is no human who holds more weight for me than him.

coolhandluke

I don’t mean to be negative but business? Seriously? How long do you think his elders/congregation will tolerate that for? What if someone is suddenly “stumbled” by his relationship with you, how will he deal with that kind of pressure? We all know that as long as you’re not baptized you can get away with some things but once you get dunked, things have a way of changing. At any rate, good luck to both of you.

True, you have a point. I am however following the letter of their law. This is my only option save being reinstated which is just a lie. I hate lying, especially to a kid. How would he ever trust me again?

You are one hell of a man. I have followed your posts, and know how much he means to you. You are both so blessed to have each other. He will one day realize this. It is truly rare for anyone in that cult to ever know what unconditional love is!!
shelley

Thanks Shelley. Honestly I really didn't know what unconditional love was until I left as well. Hoping he'll see that before I did.

36

My nephew is getting baptized

by coolhandluke in

jw
friends

if you got to choose who your children would be, i'd choose luca.

he is all the things that i'd like to be myself.

there is no human who holds more weight for me than him.

coolhandluke

CHL,
It was my understanding that you're DFed? If that's so how will he keep in touch with you when we all know he should not be speaking with you? I know that when I was in no matter how much I cared for someone there was no way in heck I'd speak with them if they were DFed. Is there even a small chance that he won't speak to you once he gets dunked?

Yep, I'm DF'd. That is another reason why I'm instituting a reason for him to talk to me - business. We never, ever have to talk about JWism. Business. I can even eat with him - business lunch. So yeah, he might not want to speak to me about spiritual things and I'll never pressure him to but we can discuss business.

Does he at least know that you wish he wouldn't?

No. No negativity. No reason for him to cut me off. No reason for him to doubt my intentions.

36

My nephew is getting baptized

by coolhandluke in

jw
friends

if you got to choose who your children would be, i'd choose luca.

he is all the things that i'd like to be myself.

there is no human who holds more weight for me than him.

coolhandluke

well damn. thank you Rachel. Damn. That means alot.

36

My nephew is getting baptized

by coolhandluke in

jw
friends

if you got to choose who your children would be, i'd choose luca.

he is all the things that i'd like to be myself.

there is no human who holds more weight for me than him.

coolhandluke

Thanks Crumpet. I'm sure you would have been fine had you been in my seat.

I love what you are saying. Is there a way to say this BEFORE his baptism?
I know you have to walk a thin line. I am just wondering.

I'd love to be able to say it before OTWO but not without a great deal of programming bricking in his response. He has already been conditioned to resist "discouragement" and to expect "opposition". If I set myself up as either one of these then he will close the door on me and my chance to free his mind will be over or at best very greatly postponed and hampered. I'm just his uncle. That has little weight versus cool friends that can drive, introduce him to girls in neighboring congregations and can influence him in a way that I cannot, especially that they see him week end and week out, provide him a surrogate family and I am his worldly, long haired, tattooed, disfellowshipped uncle 2000 miles away.

I know where you are coming from, I have a nephew and I've written here about him, very smart kid but is wasting his life in this cult, he stopped attending public school so he can go door to door. When I ask him about college he says that he has other plans for his life, I say what about higher education he says that he wants to go to Bethel, I say don't you think they need smart people at Bethel, he says he will learn everything he needs to know over there. Poor kid, he is already baptized and door knocking, the only thing I can do is just be there when he decides its all a scam.

Some of my worst fears in that statement Andre. I think I have a plan for that part though. Luca can be motivated by money. So today I set up an account for him that I'm going to deposit into every two weeks. When I get paid, he gets paid. What I want him to do is to save part of it, spend some and to invest another part of it in a business. My idea is for him to mow lawns in the warm and shovel walks in the cold. This gets him used to money and more importantly to being the vehicle of his own survival, change and fate. Second phase is to go there when he turns 16 and not buy but invest in a beater of a pick up truck. That takes some of the strain off of his mom, and it helps him expand his territory. Find a used snowblower for the upcoming winter, get a better lawn mower and develop a concrete business structure. I want to develop a repayment plan for his vehicle and tools. After that I want to help him to learn landscape design. Even if he chooses to pioneer or go to Bethel or whatever, these are skills that he can learn and a basis that he can build on. If I can spark his interest in business and landscape design it won't be hard to introduce higher learning at even a junior college level, give him a taste of learning that has practicality and let him get a taste of success with his own hands. He can stay a JW for as long as it takes him to have to take a religion class or a philosophy or critcal thinking course. Let him. I don't want to tell him anything about his religion. I just want to help him to think and analyze it for himself.

36

My nephew is getting baptized

by coolhandluke in

jw
friends

if you got to choose who your children would be, i'd choose luca.

he is all the things that i'd like to be myself.

there is no human who holds more weight for me than him.

coolhandluke

thanks chickpea... that means a lot.

36

My nephew is getting baptized

by coolhandluke in

jw
friends

if you got to choose who your children would be, i'd choose luca.

he is all the things that i'd like to be myself.

there is no human who holds more weight for me than him.

coolhandluke

If you got to choose who your children would be, I'd choose Luca. He is all the things that I'd like to be myself. There is no human who holds more weight for me than him. He is the shiniest person I know. I talked to him yesterday and the person in my company listening to my half of the conversation asked, "How did he sound?" I said, 'Like a man'.

He's not a man though. He's still a little boy, swayed by the need of all people but even more so by teenagers - to be accepted. His younger sister got baptized recently and his friends are older than him and baptized. Not that the kid hasn't come a long way in 'knowledge' (read indoctrination) over the past year. He has. My main concern is that at this age it is impossible to know the far reaching implications of your decisions. It simply doesn't work that way in a 15 year olds mind, at least not this one. The happiness in it occurs to me because this is the first time he has chosen to make a decision... really about anything. He can be lazy and undecided. I choose to see this as progress.

So what is my plan? I'm going to just encourage him. I'm going to remind him that I'm always here for him. I'm going to get dressed up, fly to New York and be there when he gets out of the pool. I'm going to hug him and tell him that I'm proud of him. I'm going to take every opportunity I can to help him to learn to think, to examine critcally and I'm going to be there when the house of cards around him falls. I'm going to draw him to my chest when he cries about his great grandmother not speaking to him. Im going to hold him when he realizes that he's eaten his last meal with his sisters, when he knows that his grandmother will no longer call him to just talk, when he is certain that all of the friendships that meant so much to him are conditional. I'm going to love him not on my terms, but on his... unconditionally. Really, that is all I can do.

32

Panhandlers

by TJ - iAmCleared2Land in

jose and carlos are panhandlers.

they panhandle in different areas of a southern california town.

carlos panhandles just as long as jose but only collects 2 to 3 dollars every day.

coolhandluke

I have one:

This joke takes place in the south. There are two little black boys going from one small town to another small town. They are riding one bike with one of the boys on the handle bars. The bike pops a flat and so they have to decide if they should go forward or back. Since they are about half way they decide to press on. They tell stories and jokes along the way.

A short time later along side of them pulls a semi truck. The driver says in a thick southern accent "Hey! You boys goin ta the next town?"

They looked at each other a bit confused and then told the driver that they were.

"Well, I'm haulin a load of bowlin balls, but you guys can put 'cher bike back there an get back there yer selves and I'll carry ya over ta the next town."

So they get in the back. This guy then starts driving like a maniac. He gets pulled over. Two cops get out. One is really angry with this guy. He takes protecting the highway seriously. So he starts yelling at him. His partner says he's going to check the load. Not a minute goes by and the cop returns from the back of the truck looking like he's seen the most horrible thing ever. He interupts his partner and tells him to let the guy go. He insists.

"You're lucky my partner is feelin real lucky mister. You take whatever the hell it is you're haulin and you get the hell off my road and you better not let me catch you bein a danger ta other people."

The driver pulls of carefully. Cop says to the other cop, "Okay, now you better tell me why we let that guy go."

Cop swallows hard and says, "Look, he was haulin a load of negro eggs. Two of em already dun hatched and one stole a bike."

86

E-mail to JW Ex-Wife: What You Can Learn Researching the WTS in 3 Hours!

by Seeker4 in

i posted a thread earlier this week about a conversation i had with my jw ex-wife.

the next day i sent her this e-mail.

one should never be afraid of ideas.

coolhandluke

Nice! I might steal this one day for my mom.

13

its gnawing at me

by coolhandluke in

jw
friends

i work in it.

there are days when i truly love my job.

i enjoy teaching people to surmount their ignorance and overcome their fears of technology.

coolhandluke

thanks for the advice.

Andre, expect a package wrapped in non descript brown paper

Primitive, that is a super idea. I think I'll do that from now on. I honestly didn't want to get the guy in trouble and he seems to be taking it well, at least I hope he is.

The reason I handled it this way is that if it comes back on me that I warned him, its my head.

13

its gnawing at me

by coolhandluke in

jw
friends

i work in it.

there are days when i truly love my job.

i enjoy teaching people to surmount their ignorance and overcome their fears of technology.

coolhandluke

I work in IT. There are days when I truly love my job. I enjoy teaching people to surmount their ignorance and overcome their fears of technology. I love hard problems that multiple people cannot resolve... head scratchers. One of the parts of my job that I don't really care for is monitoring peoples files during file transfers. I don't go out of my way to see if they've got questionable material but if in the course of my regular duties I find it according to company policy I have to report it... lawsuits and all.

I was helping someone that I consider to be a mild acquaintance. He lives next door to my building in a hotel while awaiting an assignment. I've had to go there to do work on his system. He always has a cold beer ready for me. We've talked about family and other things. A bit beyond niceties. I like the guy genuinely. He is always smiles and always shakes my hand warmly. We usually share a laugh about something.

I'm not a prude. Far from it. I think I have a healthy sexual appetite. The problem is that in the basics of my job I found a bunch of porn on this guy's system. I had to go to HR who told me to go to my supervisor who then went to his supervisor. About 10 minutes later I get a call and this guy asks me if he can borrow his system for a sec. I know what happened is that my boss told his boss about it and he told him to get rid of it. Part of me feels guilty. Part of me feels like I ratted someone out. The moniker of "its my job" isn't helping...