learning true tolerance .
by joel engardio .
weekend edition sunday, november 25, 2007 i was raised as a jehovah's witness.
I heard he was going to do a "This I Believe" essay for NPR. What I find so astonishing is the one-sidedness of this. He exhorts us to be tolerant of them while completely ignoring the hate-filled rhetoric towards anyone who doesn't agree with the dubbies. I'm all for tolerance, but I also believe it should be reciprocated.
brunn
this morning i started this topic: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/7/147355/1.ashx.
now i shall post the follow-up.. as i predicted, my mom would come with elders in tow to have a conversation.. actually, she threw me for a loop at first.
no elders with her.. she had them wait a half an hour then she let them in.. thus i couldn't reject the whole lot of them at the door, she was their way in.. secondly, she brought the elders from the nearby hall, not the ones who know me.. the whole time i thought she would go for someone who she knows can dominate my thinking, but instead she went with the unknown.. .
Metaspy, they can't deny that the WT settled for $14 million with victims of child abuse. That happened. It's public record. You'll find all the backup you need to remind and reassure yourself you had good reason to leave. Don't get caught up in trying to convince them though. There's none so blind as those who WILL NOT SEE. Hold tight.
brunn
i got my car from an elderly sis from my congo and it only had 52000mi and its a subaru gl-10 wagon '88 it looks just like this.
.
I inherited my parents 1976 Datsun B-210 - please note that mine was a FOUR door - had to be usable for field service, after all! Nevermind that you couldn't fit one grown adult in the backseat with a crowbar, let alone two for a real "cargroup"!
brunn
powerful words by carl sagannovember 15, 2006 in smartkit all posts by rk.
if you look carefully at the nasa photo below, you will see a little white dot.
this minute speck is earth seen from the voyager 1 spacecraft as it exits the solar system, nearly 4 billion miles away.
I'm taking Astronomy this semester, and everything I've learned has only underscored how trivial and inconsequential we really are when compared with the vastness and beauty and complete indifference of the universe going on around us as it did before us and will do long after we are gone. Beautiful - so glad you shared this, nvr.
brunn
do you know of any current witnesses who smoke marijuana, even rarely?.
did you ever smoke weed while you were still a witness?
do you smoke it now?.
I was too good a little dub to even consider smoking it while I was in. I've tried it a couple times since I left and got sick both times. My brother says its because he gave me too much and it hit me really hard but now I'm kind of leery of trying it again...
brunn
....and it was all that i expected.. she and i were extremely close at one time, but we sort of lost touch with each other over a year or go or so, not getting to talk to each other much within that time frame.
she's a very hardcore pioneer as i once was.
i think that's why we got along so great.
All the old friends that I've spoken to, except for one, have all said the same thing - "I'm always here if you want to talk" but what they really mean, and what was born out by the conversation, is that they're always here if I want to listen to THEM talk and explain to me why I'm so wrong and sadly misguided! The last thing they intend to do is to openly and honestly LISTEN to why I left.
brunn
when you attended your last meeting ever as a dub, did you know it was your last?
did something happen which made it clear in your mind you were 'never going back' (not to be confused with nvrgnbk)?.
the last meeting we went to was the memorial in 2006. we only went because we knew we were already pegged for the elders' unwanted attention, so we had to go to keep them off our backs a little longer.
My last meeting was also Memorial of 2006, exwitless. I had gone to get my husband to leave me alone because the elders were nagging him about me not attending. I told him before I went that was the last time I was ever going to attend a meeting. He knew I had pushed myself as far as I could. I sat in the car afterwards shaking and nauseated and crying. I'm so unspeakably grateful I don't have to put myself through that anymore. No matter how stressful my life is since I left, it's nothing compared to what I endured while part of the Borg!
brunn
conversation with jesus.
many times when i am troubled or confused, i find comfort in sitting in my back yard and having a vodka and cranberry along with a quiet conversation with jesus.
this happened to me again today after a particularly difficult day.. i said "jesus, why do i work so hard?".
ROFLMAO!!! I totally fell for that!
brunn
there are a number of people that have been "out" of the organization for years yet they almost seem to live for the "old days".
they might still be bitter , angry or depressed because of their past.
but in a strange way, it seems like they never really want to get back into reality, into the real world.
hmmm, I was seeing a therapist for something else entirely when I left the dubs, or so I thought, but after a couple of years I've come to realize that it was all part of the same thing. I would never have been able to leave the dubs and stay gone if it hadn't been for the things about myself that my therapist helped me learn, like, being an intelligent, articulate woman who wants an education is a GOOD thing! It's not for everyone, seeing a counselor I mean, because the bad ones can really eff you up, but the good ones, well, it changed my life.
brunn
having almost gotten over my jw ex-best friend telling me she could no longer be my friend, handing me back my spare keys, sending a note and present to my kids with not even a 'dear sam', shunning me in the park, etc, etc she now sacks her immigrant cleaner (who became her cleaner due to my recommendation a year ago) by text message.
cleaner phones her to check out what's going on and she tells her you can no longer clean for us as you work for sam and my husband wants us to have no connection whatever - you may tell her things about us and we don't want that.
charming, another kick in the stomach for me and a great witness to the cleaner (who ironically we found out a few months ago has a father who is a witness!).
And likely she feels so smug and sanctimonious about being "submissive" to her husbands wishes to have no connection to you! Talk about priorities being upside down! ARGH!
brunn
