i went to the grocery store today - no that's not your fault.. it's 103 degrees today, not bad.
there were three people sitting in the shade in front of the grocery store.
there was a middle aged woman, an older man in a wheelchair, and a thin man whose frozen smile screams "elder.
you rock!
i gave up smiling and saying hi to jws on the street, they'd always ignore me b/c they're so focused on workin' them not-at-homes.
when i was "in" and out in service, i would always say hi to people walking by without offering them anything, just to be nice, just to be that one guy to put positivity out there about us jws since "we got such a bad rap in general".
i found this on beliefnet (public post that you don't have to be a member to view):.
i just read the article and unless we're reading two different articles, what i understood isn't exactly what you understood.
let me expand on that:.
what's the url for beliefnet?
i went to beliefnet.com and it doesn't look like a wit site, then belief.net, and that errors out.
btw, we should start a bowling league, jw discussion forum vs. beliefnet...mainly b/c i just want a bowling shirt that says, 'apostate' across the back, and the logos would be a lot of fun to play with.
uh oh, actually good idea, time to find quotes on printing a small bowling shirt run.
what do/did you see as more important?
there has been so much emphasis of late (for quite a while really) on meeting attendance.
if you miss a meeting, it's a big, big problem, yet if you miss field service for a day, or a week or even a fortnight nothing is said as long as you get that 1 hour in / month.
i've been out for a while, what are they saying about meeting attendence?
and isn't it knocked down to 15 minutes a month you can put in for field service? which is obviously to keep the active publishers 'continuing to grow', since it's a lot easier on the conscious to fudge 15 minutes than a whole hour....
[i must have talked to somebody about the bible for 15 minutes last month, wait, i posted on that discussion board, and thought about the post for 29 minutes before writing it, so i'll just put down 30 minutes last month....oh, and that's the second time i posted on that board, so ONE return visit]
but i bet anyone putting 15 minutes on their slip is mostly trying to keep the pressure of the elders off their backs.
i reminded how often they emphasized that it's a 'volunteer orgnanization', like there's no pressure if you don't want to do something their way.
i should make a short horror film called 'the back room'.
i got dragged to the convention with my folks again because i got a court order stating i have to be with my mother at all times.
so tomorrow, i'm playing a prank.
only a few people on this board know what that prank is.
so what was it? did i miss your post on what the prank was?
ok all... i was in a store looking for bedroom furniture and in walks this former elder with his new woman - they too are shopping for bedroom furniture.
he got df'd like 5 years ago so he has no idea i'm df'd.
recently, i've been thinking about how, when i got df'd, i would sit in the parking lot of the kh waiting for the meeting to start, and so would other df'd people.
fjtoth, it always amazed me how quickly the elders acted on 'sins', but when it came to asking for real help on real issues, a snail could out pace them.
it's so great to continue to hear these experiences, although painful for most of us who had to deal with them, it just reinforces that the society has no concern for the individual, one of the main teachings of christianity, it's all about imposing rules on an organization....and if an individual is damaged by that, so be it.
thanks for reinforcing my faith, not to have faith in this dogma pounded into me for over 25 years.
ok all... i was in a store looking for bedroom furniture and in walks this former elder with his new woman - they too are shopping for bedroom furniture.
he got df'd like 5 years ago so he has no idea i'm df'd.
recently, i've been thinking about how, when i got df'd, i would sit in the parking lot of the kh waiting for the meeting to start, and so would other df'd people.
"WBT$ staircase of shit"
Outlaw, that should be a band name. :)
i originally owned just one website with a few friends called winxperts but recently we've started to branch out in the hope of getting more hits, more content and more people around.. we decided to buy http://www.thetechcommunity.net and make that a head network site which will eventually give a description on all our sites, will provide updates on site status, latest staff positions (volunteer basis of course) and latest content.. your thoughts?.
nothing is really finished, its all works in progress.
we own more domains we intend to give links to from that page too when they are developed.. .
are you using a content management system for the backend of the linked sites?
just curious, b/c i need to buckle down and get my sites together for easier encoding...i'm stuck in y2k, practically editing my html in txt files and using tables, etc.
btw, web 2.0, what's the buzz word mean?
ok all... i was in a store looking for bedroom furniture and in walks this former elder with his new woman - they too are shopping for bedroom furniture.
he got df'd like 5 years ago so he has no idea i'm df'd.
recently, i've been thinking about how, when i got df'd, i would sit in the parking lot of the kh waiting for the meeting to start, and so would other df'd people.
i think you did the right thing and if he response seemed judgemental, no reason to invite him into your life.
but, i'd wouldn't let this encounter discourage you from saying hi to others who are df'ed who you might think are cool....that would be letting him make the choice for you b/c of his actions.
my philosophy is, stay open, but if i sniff psychoness or a gut feeling about someone, i cut them off fast. it has worked well over the years....and whenever i don't listen to my gut about someone, it usually turns out my gut was right all along.
i got dragged to the convention with my folks again because i got a court order stating i have to be with my mother at all times.
so tomorrow, i'm playing a prank.
only a few people on this board know what that prank is.
"It involves the contribution boxes, that's all all i have to say."
actually gives me some ideas, b/c the volunteers assigned to look after them seem to try not to notice how much you're 'giving to jehovah', so wrapping something in dollar bills might be some fun....like rotting fish, or a condom full of dye that would be hard to get off the other money in the box....what's something that's small that can spread quickly?
i just knew the gb would find a way to keep on going when the end never seems to come.
well, new light shining brightly we all recently learned that the 144k are still being selected.
no more need to "graft" new ones onto the broken branch.
coaster, you bring up a funny thing that i see at every memorial...the big display to pass the emblems to the speaker, where he actually has to touch the plate and then give it back.
it always cracks me up b/c you're right, just having them there on offer after the talk the 1/1000 of the person who partakes in each hall can discreetly partake...but there's no reason that everyone has to touch the glass and the plate. next year, i'll keep my hands down and make sure the people on either side of me pass it to each other...i'll give it a cosmo kramer type wave off like i don't want to touch them.
i'd love to hear more of your personal experience if you're comfortable with that, like your reason for joining the board, things that made you start to question, etc.
and if you're not comfortable w/ that, that's cool as well. personally i think it's great that there are still active jws here, we can score scanned KMs if we wanna read them and i think the most important thing is information availability and exchange, which the wtbts has shown itself not to be too forthcoming in their failings....the other day a relative said, 'sometimes the brothers get it wrong' and my reply was, 'yes, but they don't apologize and/or take responsibility....when i was still IN, the minute i went to the wrong concert or saw the wrong film i was instantly given a sheparding call and held accountable for my supposed faux pas'.
just like the 'new light' on df'ing, where the elders are supposed to lighten up the length of the time some people are out of the borg....it's all worded like the elders have been doing it wrong and need correction when the original teaching was straight from bethel.
again, compare that to a person who acted the same way w/ double talking and not apologizing for when they error and that person is usually an abusive asshole.
oops, rambled. :)
