Posts by Open mind

9

Interview with an apostate: Hortensia

by Hortensia in

tell us a little about yourself and your family.. divorced, no children.

two sisters, various cousins, aunts, uncles.

none of them jws any more.. were you a born in or a convert?.

Open mind

Thanks for sharing your past here Hortensia.

I'll be sure to tell my wife about the Chinese Boob Test!

Best regards,

om

17

Interview with TD

by TD in

i'm not an 'apostate' in the technical sense, but many of these questions did strike a chord:.

tell us a little about yourself and your family.. grandparents were contemporaries of russell.

one pair liked what they heard and were loosely associated with the bible students.

"What exactly is his world view? from Cofty I see nothing but, anti-life, anti-love, anti-hope"

by cofty in

villagegirl's question on another thread was probably supposed to be rhetorical but i want to respond to it.. many times people of faith express similar misapprehensions about those who don't share their views on eternity.. i want this to be a positive thread.

an opportunity for atheists to share what moves and inspires them.

what do you live for, what gives your life meaning and purpose?

Open mind

Great post cofty.

Just want to echo a theme already stated here, but with my own personal experience.

About 15 years ago, I used to listen to a Jazz radio station in the SF Bay Area and at the end of the show, the host would always conclude with the following line:

"And remember, Life is not a dress rehearsal."

I heard her say this dozens of times and as a pretty-much true-believing JW, I always remember discounting it in my mind with this thought:

"Uh, no, Life actually IS a dress rehearsal. This is not the REAL life. We've got to jump through the WT hoops properly now so that in the future, we can enjoy the REAL life."

Having left all that behind, I find it very refreshing to fully embrace those words now.

LIFE IS NOT A DRESS REHEARSAL!!

Best regards Cofty,

om

30

Tea

by Hortensia in

jw
friends

i was raised on lipton tea.

my mother saw tea as the solution for everything.

no matter what the problem, she'd suggest a cup of tea.

Open mind

Hey there Hortensia!

If you ever make it down to the San Francisco Bay Area, we'll have to take you to this place on Clement Street.

http://www.aromateashop.com/store/

The proprietor's name is Haman and he's got this fancy marble tea table/bar thing for making tea in the "Kung Fu" method. He says Kung Fu actually just means "great effort" or something similar. Anyway, he puts on quite a show and you can try out tons of teas for free before buying some to take home.

Take care,

om & wife (she's the tea addict in our house)

97

First post

by thedog1 in

jw
friends

this is a very strange thing for me to do.

i have been an active witness for over 25 years.

i currently serve as an elder and i conduct the watchtower study.

Open mind

Check your PMs in a minute. They can be a little tricky to access the first time you try it depending on what browser you're using. Click on the little envelope and when you click on a PM topic, sometimes it doesn't come through right. Then you have to use the "back" button and try it again before you can see the private message.

om

97

First post

by thedog1 in

jw
friends

this is a very strange thing for me to do.

i have been an active witness for over 25 years.

i currently serve as an elder and i conduct the watchtower study.

Open mind

Welcome to JWN thedog1!

You said: "I don't know how I could explain it to others, and when I have to conduct he upcoming study clarifying the 'this generation' teaching, again, what will I do?"

Here's a couple of options for conducting the WT study:

1. Call in sick. If the content of what is in the upcoming WT is so repulsive to you that you can't bear to conduct it, don't. You can only use this card selectively in the months ahead though.

2. If you can stomach going through with the conducting, just conduct the WT study in a fairly lackluster manner. If you're following the Branch guidelines for WT conductors, you're not supposed to be saying very much anyway. Just let your local fellow elders do the unpleasant task of parroting the latest "new light".

As far as explaining it to fellow JWs in a one-on-one setting, how does this sound?

Over the last several decades the maximum length of "this generation" has gradually increased. "Generation", as defined by the F&D Slave was at one time a little less than a human life span. (At least some Armageddon survivors had to be alive and old enough in 1914 to understand the import of world events.) Then it grew a bit longer to an entire human life span. (Some Armageddon survivors just had to be ALIVE in 1914. ) With this latest understanding from the F&D Slave (make sure to throw in lots of F&DS references) "generation" now has grown to longer than a single, very-long, human lifespan. It's one of those deeper Bible truths so I don't think I would recommend trying to explain it to a brand new Return Visit unless they brought it up.

Best of luck on the road ahead.

om

26

Service Meeting Part about Sisters Wearing Head Coverings

by TTATTelder in

this week's service meeting had another part about women wearing head coverings.there's already been a post about it, but i would like some thoughts from the forum on the scripture referenced.

11: 3-10. i want to focus on verses 4-6. it says this (nnwt):.

"4)every man who prays or prophesies with something on his head shames his head; 5) but every woman who prays or prophesies+ with her head uncovered shames her head, for it is one and the same as if she were a woman with a shaved head.

Open mind

Hmmm. I'll have to make sure my rebellious wife calls in to the KH tonight so she can mend her Jezebel ways!

On second thought, maybe we'll just catch up on old episodes of Sons of Anarchy instead.

om

p.s. check your PMs in a minute

33

Nugget's Latest work in progress (pen and ink)

by cantleave in

still a fair bit to do but i thought it is worth posting.

this is all done with dots no lines at all.. .

Open mind

I have a feeling "Wow" is going to be the predominant word on this thread, for very good reason.

Please give nugget a big high five from all the OM famly. (We're sitting around enjoying a gorgeous Sunday morning sans WT.)

Wish we could afford to fly across the pond next summer, but I think it's going to be at least 2 years before we can afford something like that.

Best,

OM family

75

Got Accosted by 2 JW Women While Pumping Gas Yesterday - Weird

by flipper in

jw
friends

absolutely weird.

minding my own business while pumping gas - this 60 year old short jw lady with fluffed bun styled 60's hair and her 30 year old attractive 5 ' 10 inch jw lady partner came straight up to me as i'm pumping.

they picked the wrong hombre .

Open mind

First off, big ol' High Five to Flipper!!!

So, after reading this, I tried to put myself in the shoes of those JW ladies. The one thing that I would suggest for future use is to actually grab a pen and a piece of paper towel from the gas station and WRITE DOWN "Candace Conti" and hand it to them. Then just say, "If you Google this name, the VERY FIRST hit will be an article in the Huffington Post that tells all about it. Not some website trying to attack the elders or the Watchtower, just the good old mainstream Huffington Post. Think of it as TIME magazine online."

Again, a Grande Cinco Alto to Senor Flipper!!

om

88

Today's WT Study (Who is the FDS - Sep 2013)

by ohnightdivine in

please share how your wt study went today...

Open mind

I had a JW from our former congreation approach me at the supermarket today all wide-eyed with enthusiasm. He wanted to know if I had read "the latest Watchtower". (I'm sure he's heard that we no longer attend meetings and wanted to make sure I was up to speed on the latest "New Light".)

I replied something along these lines: "The latest? Yes, I've read it, but I'm guessing you probably mean the Watchtower "we're" studying right now, am I right?"

(Dude had to re-think his terminology and realize that this week's Watchtower has been out there online for about 4 months now.)

So, to kick-start his memory banks I said, "You mean the study article that re-defines who the Faithful and Discreet Slave is, right?"

JW: "Uh, yeah. Wasn't it great how they explained how everything comes together?"

Me: "Sure. You mean how the Faithful & Discreet Slave went from 10,000 to 10 overnight?"

He just kind of did a deer in the headlights expression for me and then shuffled off.

Later on, I told my wife about it and said I should have said: "Oh, you mean the article where they admitted that they were wrong about who the F&D Slave was for the last 100 years?"

*om retracts his JW "snarkotron" and heads for the checkout line*

Cheers!

om