Posts by humbled

20

How did you spend your Saturdays?

by MissConfused in

it's been 3 weeks and every weekend is so much fun, spending quality time with real friends who dont pretend... last week was bbq, this sat was potluck, next one is long weekend away from home... all in all love my life again.... how was your saturday?

:).

humbled

Good morning! Saturday is when I sell a week's worth of spoon carving at the local Farmers Market. It is a beautiful setting on the old town square here in the Ozark mountains.

Since I am house-sitting in town this week (why I have the internet now) I slept in til 6:30 am, rolled out to a morning cool for August but with bright sun. Old car pre-packed, coffee in hand, in 5 minutes I was setting up umbrella, spoon-bench and tools at 7 sharp.

I love the market. Many friends were there for me and strangers stopped to watch a spoon grow out of a tree and talk "spoons" with me. (I learned definitely how to discern what kind of winter we'll have by splitting open the seed of the wild persimmon tree). I saw old JW friends who I liked so much whose eyes dragged past me and whose feet flashed past me. I wish we could have talked.

I missed the young busker whose fiddle makes my kitchen spoons clatter against my knee and dance in my fingers while I should be carving. But instead I heard the melody of a saxaphone and a bass fiddle--lovely.

I had children stop for a long time loving the noisy mess I made and loving the hatchet and gouges. Other vendors asked about my health, we joked and encouraged one another. One friend's cancer is back, she was reluctant to tell me so as not to discourage me--but we talked at the end of market as she helped me clean up my chippy mess. We are resolved to enjoy each day of life and not count the days with sadness. she is such a good woman.

After that my youngest son bought a lovely take out-of lasagna for us to share and we split a large Guiness from the package store. My day wound down to just me and the cat in the house I am "sitting" til Tuesday evening.

Thank you, friend, for asking. It is good to share what we DO with a Saturday now we are not tormenting ourselves and others with a sale's pitch from Brooklyn.

Maeve

29

My August Update

by OnTheWayOut in

jw
friends

i don't really have a purpose in this thread, but wanted to share my thoughts and updates.. fading has, at least for now, totally stabilized.

my jw wife doesn't discuss jw things and, as difficult for me as it is, i haven't been discussing anything directly against jw policy.

oh, i slip in comments when she tries to judge people or groups based on her jw training- things like gay marriage, medical marijuana, pedophile news stories.

humbled

I am just impressed at the tenderness of your responses to your wife. You could use many of the moments when she is vulnerable to criticism through her inconsistent actions to sling zingers at her. But you don't. And it is evident that she trusts you emotionally. I am happy for the both of you.

Maeve

39

A hello!

by Oogie in

jw
friends

hi, i'm newly awakened and just needing reassurance that the wt is indeed a mind-control cult.

i have two lovely children (under 5) and a husband who is currently asleep..

humbled

Welcome--and YES you will get over the guilt you feel for disobediently reading the lable of the poison they have been spoon-feeding you. Maeve

50

Satan must have directed me here

by Miss.Fit in

i was telling my jw friend about the condi law suit.

the first thing she asked was how did i even hear about it because it was news to her .

( i was 't expecting that reaction.

humbled

Dear Missy,

It does make us sweat when our well programmed buttons get pushed: Jehovah's Witnesses are always to follow the direction of the loving sheperds and the Faithful slave who tell us to never talk to apostates. So a comment like your friend's will make a shiver run through you---Did Satan lead you to this site?

When I was waiting for Bethel to respond to a matter I had addressed to them and to the local elders I didn't doubt that Jehovah's Witnesses were the foremost christian outfit. I didn't read apostate literature and only discovered by accident the Ray Franz book Crisis of Conscience on the web. I only allowed myself to read reviews of it in Amazon but not the book itself. The hundreds of thank you notes Franz received intrigued and horrified me.

I say this to encourage you. It is a hard thing to really look for the truth--to not be driven by fear.

There are times when I have felt this site has been bad for me. We are vulnerable when we don't have all the answers, aren't we? That isn't because Satan has come in the door-- it is because we do have to find how to address life for ourselves and what can we know now with certainty?

I have no sense that I am "special" yet I am convinced that there is a Goodness that lives and warms the world. And there is a world of horror as well. I do not believe the JWs have it sorted out and they have no right to forbid us to look, to knock, to ask saying that Satan is waiting for us when we do.

Jesus wasn't afraid to step out of line--and we must not be afraid either.

Take care. Maeve

17

Thank you LoisLane Looking for Superman

by TotallyADD in

jw
friends

my wife and i ran up against a brick wall trying to find out imformation on our search of finding my half brother.

will loislane pm me and offered us her service in finding him.

found us some very good leads but surprise, surprise she came across someone i totally forgot about from my childhood.

humbled

Lois is as warm and kind as they come. Big hug from me, Lois.

Maeve (House-sitting for a week and have the internet!)

50

Well I gotta go......

by punkofnice in

jw
friends

...i might drop in every now and then but i hope you all enjoy life, escape the watchtower(r) and live prosperous lives.. i can't say i contribute much here anyway (and i'm not attention seeking).. i'm just going to get on with life away from the constant reminder of the mistakes i made being a jw zombie drone.. i guess i'm just going to fade.......rather quickly.. of course i didn't need to make any posts here to disappear but i thought it'd be polite and very british to bid you all a fond farewell.. see you all sometime.....maybe.....maybe not.....maybe....... bye!.

ps.

don't pm me as i won't be checking the pms.. .

humbled

Hello, Punkofnice--

Just got into town and onto my son's computer and !!!!!!!!!!!-----you are gone!

I wish you were near. Then I could say "Come on over and learn spoon carving. Very therapeutic it is and you can make a bit of cash."

You have a real blight in your life right now--i hope you soon find a better time.

Truly--If I could I'd send you my little info guide for making spoons--It has been a healing occupation many a day for me, Punky.

Chop, chop, chop goes the ax and a load gets a little lighter for one day. And another day. then another. Time can be healing. But it is the days in between the then and the later that can be hard to get through. Jesus was a carpenter? I understand.

as others have said, I too, have learned to know a bit of you through your posts and liked you. I wish you well.

Please drop a line.

and do think about spoons, Punky.

Chop chop. Maeve

10

Getting ready to pull up stakes again--have to sign off at the end of the month.

by humbled in

jw
friends

i'm starting to pack.

gotta get out of here by the end of the month.

i'll loose the internet.. it's stange to pop in and pop out of the lives of others' like this.

humbled

I'm starting to pack. Gotta get out of here by the end of the month. I'll loose the internet.

It's stange to pop in and pop out of the lives of others' like this. I came to "visit" in March after a few years away and have to leave again. On this JWN forum we open up and shut down our lives and our ideas in a place where we don't see one another. The good news is also the bad news: we are able to control, to conceal and reveal with text alone--and who knows what else is behind the words.

I wonder about all of you. All the conversations--all--meant so much to me.

I have had a lot of friends and family in my life in town. But the people and the topics--the ARGUMENTS that struggle to be a discussion( and vice versa) have been a critical part of my last few months in town. It has done more than entertain me. I have thought, read, researched and -with renewed awe of the unknown--prayed.

When I first posted here In March I had just left our farm in the very rough rurals (no running water!) for cancer treatment. some of you may know that. A friend bought me the internet connection and I could not work for a long time and spent a lot of time checking "Active Topics". But now I am getting on with life --the cancer is in a category where I can consider it a nuisance factor instead of a life-threatening one. and I do have a lot to deal with.

I resumed my old occupation of spoon carving which has always been good for bread and butter and was also looking for conventional work that could help provide more for my medical bills--but those efforts ceased as of three weeks ago. That was when my step-daughter had come for a visit. She called from the farm to tell me to dial 911 after she checked on my husband. His heavy team ran away with a wagon, hitting a gate post and catapulting him through the air.

Though he does this at nearly regular intervals it is always horrible and painful of course for all--of course for him in particular. But even so, he has never seen any reason to have a plan "B" for our sickness or old age.This time, 11 fractures where he hit on his left side and shoulder, he is at last pensive--because he'll be 80 in September and, tired of getting hurt, he is hanging up his "spurs". At least somewhat. We will move together to a little property closer to town--with only TWO horses. That road is paved. Still an outhouse--but there is a hot shower!

This is Plan "B" for us at last.

And an end to internet for a long while.

I know how the forum is a hit and miss place, and I am certainly not soliciting a farewell party when I am not really "leaving forever" and really not even closing my computer until the last minute-- I'd like to continue adding my 2 cent's worth any time I can get my fumble-fingers to tap--but realistically between packing, moving and spoon carving, I probably won't get to visit much more. and, well, I just wated to say this.

Thank you all. I very much appreciate each of you and wish you well until I can drop in again

Maeve

Ps--Have I said how inspiring you all are? Well, I have now. Keep it up. We have to love one another, don't we?

62

This is my first time. Please be patient.

by Miss.Fit in

i have never posted before.

i have been lurking for a few days and have decided to give it a try.

the subject of child abuse caught my eye.

humbled

"Missy"--that name is a good move. You are coming out and going away from an old skin.

Maeve

444

The music that moves you....

by FlyingHighNow in

once when i was profoundly sad for too many days, my brother in law sent us a mix tape.

he named each song after a person in our family.

this is the one he named heather.

humbled

Bonnie Raitt's "Baby Mine" makes me cry every time.

Ps. Thanks for the song you posted a while back, caliber, on another thread. "Straight from the Heart"

257

The President addresses the Nation

by designs in

in a speech that is considered one of the most personal given by the president, or any past president, president obama speaks about treyvon martin being him 35 years agoand- violence, prejudice, the reach and limits of the states and the federal government, and the soul searching to follow.

.

he, the president, invokes martin luther king's- 'the content of character' quote to spark a healthy debate in this country.. www.cnn.com.

humbled

The long break-up of black community life and family life continued past slaverly. The ability of a man to marry and protect his wife from insult and attack is historical before and after slavery. Indeed, to call a woman "wife" was often only a yearning for a slave when an owner granted no legal recognition of the right to marry betwen slaves-- slaveholders often being too "Christian" to sell off a man from a REAL wife, a REAL husband.

Until the 1940's there were forms of convict labor that began post-civil war in the U.S. that sent men--mostly black men into the dreadful convict leasing systems in the South. You can access this history easily and see how hard-working blacks had no recourse from renewed slavery even when they were innocent of any wrong-doing whatsoever. It is eyond belief that you would not warn your children to avoid crossing the path of white men wanting cheap labor.

I have too say that I am disgusted at the statistic that indicates that black women are not nearly the victims of rape by whites as white women are by blacks. The Credibility Gap is so different for the two sides. Simply whistling at a white woman in years past would get a young man castrated and lynched, yet the rape of a black woman would never be reported. The great singer Eartha Kitt was concieved by rape. The civil rights activist Daisy Bates grew up in smalltown Hutting, Arkansas without her mother who was murdered resisting rape by three white men. they were never charged and her father could not bear living there so she was raised by another black couple. Black women are raped by whites. Who cares or believes if a black woman is sexually assaulted? I ask in genera for reasonable minds --when will a woman of any country or race report a rape to an authority that will only make matters worse for them?

As an Army brat child in Hanau, Germany the American school had soldiers' children of all races learning together. Nevertheless, the same year that To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960--about a black man falsely accused of the rape of a white woman, I heard the foundation lesson for a white girl was not changing from the long mythos of southern chivalry: watch out for the black boys. A girl by the name of Delgado especially let me know this on the playground one day "because they(my black playmates that day) all they want to do is grab your crotch!". She and I were all of 9 years old.

Two of my daughters have lived in "black" Washington D.C. One owns a house there, another rents nearby. What is there to say? Black and white is an issue in the U.S. because there was and is a difficult history.

It is good to read Zora Neale Hurston's (1891-1960)essay: How it feels to be colored me" because she was raised in an intact home, her parents wereboth former slaves. But the town was Eatonville, Florida. Entirely black incorporated. And there she wasn't "black"---she was just a person. until she left and entered the "white" world. Bad dynamics in white world?

Read Sydney Pointier's interview with Oprah Winfry. He was raised on Cat Island in the Bahamah's where there were only two white people. His family was poor, bur he didn't feel Black was = to inferior. But moving to florida at age 15 he learned that U.S. communities didn't value him the same way. Black there had to clue him in. He wasn't one to buy it--but it definitely affected his life. Bad dynamics in the white world?

The book Americanah (2013)by the Nigerian woman Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche tells how she had to learn to be "black" when she came to the U.S. I read that in her native country she didn't realize she was black---she fit that description only after she landed in America. Bad dynamics in the white world U.S.?

Maybe? Maybe.