i mentioned i was cleaning the forum archive when i bumped this thread by oompa:.
damm i miss jwd...this place will always be jwd to me.... rather than turn that into a discussion of the archive, i'll answer slimboyfat's concern here.. the things i'm clearing up are either:.
time specific and non jw related (e.g.
this means you'll probably delete most of my threads -- OK by me! I completely agree that most of my threads are trivial and I'm not so in love with every word I write that I want you to save them! I'm the queen of fluff.
BTW has anyone tried to find threads through the wayback machine? I've found stuff that way, stuff that has otherwise disappeared. I even found some old JWS stuff that had been saved by the wayback machine.
i have been lurking here for months now, and i just decided to post here and actually interact with this community.
i have a very specific/unordinary life, so i will not divulge too much information to protect my privacy.
i am a baptized publisher who is under the age of 25 who attends college, and i do have responsiblities within the congregation.
Hi! You're on a good path -- education, that is -- and I hear you about loneliness. You're living two separate lives, college with the outside world, and the KH and your adoptive family. I don't know why you shouldn't start to develop a relationship with someone at college. Just don't do really stupid things, like getting someone pregnant. Choose someone quiet and thoughtful like yourself, and when you have developed a relationship, tell her about not rocking the boat until you graduate. Then get the hell out of Dodge. Forget officially letting them know you are leaving the religion. It's not their business, and anyway, screw them.
as i continue to post these letters just to let people see what they can expect through a fade, i hope they are not annoying anyone.. if so please let me know and i will no longer post them.
however i think these letters help you to see how cultish and crazy this religion causes people to become:.
evening <name removed>,.
The thing to do with guilt is to refuse to accept delivery.
"Thanks for the new rant, mom. I didn't actually read all of it. Too long, and too much the same old garbage."
i was thinking if i acted a little off but not too far off the elders would tell me i'm not welcome in the door to door work.
i wonder if this would work.
there is a watchtower or awake article somewhere saying that a mentally ill person may be excused from the meetings and field service if his illness affected others.
Stand up on your two feet, look the elders in the eye, tell them to screw themselves, turn your back, walk away.
ive had many single sisters (even the hot ones that horny brothers like to circle around during intermissions at assemblies/conventions) come to me recently asking if im single, what my spiritual goals are and how high in the ranks i am.
i just tell them that im not interested in relationships at the moment and that my focus is on other things.
they usually get the message and leave me alone.. but i lie.. .
asking if I’m single, what my spiritual goals are and how high in the ranks I am
Ugh. Do you feel like a piece of meat in a grocery store? They're not looking for someone they like and can get along with, but someone who fits some damned JW idea of spiritual. Yuck.
and it makes me sick.
i mean, i watch this big, black woman on youtube sing with this incredible voice and all i think is sadness cause i feel like she abuses her kids.
that's so awful.
well, all teasing aside, if you feel terrible about it, then you're not a terrible person. It's a learned attitude, you can change it. Just keep working on yourself, the way we all have to keep working on ourselves to change bad habits, wrong ideas, false beliefs.
Here's a song from 1949 sung by Mandy Patinkin that was remarkable for the time-- about prejudice
so, we have a buddhist abbey in the woods near here.
lots of americans with shaved heads,wearing tibetan buddhist costumes.
they do a walk around town once a month with begging bowls, pretending they are sadhus.
Plus, I think it's everyone's obligation to try to carry their own loads. Get a job, pay your bills, pay your taxes and so on. If you have something to spare, don't give it to actors pretending to be spiritually special. Give it to people who genuinely can't help themselves. The idea that they deserve handouts because they are walking around "blessing" everyone is very shallow. It also removes them from the community -- and I think community is important. They remind me a lot of JWs.
so, we have a buddhist abbey in the woods near here.
lots of americans with shaved heads,wearing tibetan buddhist costumes.
they do a walk around town once a month with begging bowls, pretending they are sadhus.
The Buddhist mindfulness techniques are clinically proven to help with depression, pain reduction, and control over obsessive and anxious disorders. (Happiest Man on Earth) But do we need to take on all the trappings of the religion to obtain those benefits? Perhaps not.
That's the point. I know/have known lots of American Buddhists and it's interesting to see how they have to have all the trappings -- robes, scarves, rituals, meditation pillows, beads, blah blah blah. It's more like a shopping catalog than a religion. When I see them playacting in the street, with their shaved heads, costumes, bowls and so on, it makes me think of kids and dress-up games.
there's a conservative element that is yearning for an ideal that never was; the nuclear family with mom in the kitchen, pop putting in his 9 to 5, and two-and-a-half children.. .
the closest america got to hitting this "ideal" was in the fifties.
families move out in to suburbia, college-educated women set aside career ambitions in search of domestic bliss.
My husband thought a wife would be like his mother. I had to correct this notion.
I remember once after working all day I came home and my husband asked, "what's for dinner?" I said, "I'm having a sandwich. I don't know what you're having." He thought that was awful and said I was a terrible wife.
He kept buying avocados, would put them in a bowl on the counter. When they spoiled, he would throw them out. I watched that with interest, I didn't know why he bought the avocadoes if he wasn't going to eat them. One day as he was throwing out a bowlful of avocados, I heard him muttering, "I keep buying avocadoes but nothing ever happens to them." I asked him what he thought would happen and he said, in tones of real frustration, "I thought guacamole would happen!" After I quit laughing and picked myself up off the floor, I told him guacamole doesn't just happen, someone has to make it. Then I showed him how, and after that he made his own damn guacamole.
It was the same thing with laundry. I asked why he never folded his clothes when he got them out of the dryer. He said when he lived with his mother folded clothes just appeared in his dresser on a regular basis.
so, we have a buddhist abbey in the woods near here.
lots of americans with shaved heads,wearing tibetan buddhist costumes.
they do a walk around town once a month with begging bowls, pretending they are sadhus.
BTW, I am sick as a dog. Coughing constantly, and every cough hurts all the way down to my toes. Fxxxing pollen count. I know in the larger scheme of things this is only transitory and I shouldn't complain but I am feeling very sorry for myself.
[Edited for language, guideline 3 - jgnat]
