quietlyleaving

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Posts by quietlyleaving

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  41

  How Many People Here Have Been "Disciplined" By The Elders?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  by "discipline" i mean, either private, public reproof, disfellowshipping or something that got you in enough trouble that you had to be counseled by the loving shepherds and it cost you something by not having "privileges".

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  quietlyleaving

  was put on restrictions - couldn't aux or comment at meetings for 3 months. We had to go to different group to save face.
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  121

  Are some of us still judgmental and think ourselves morally superior?

  by nvrgnbk in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  is a certain "uptightness" creeping into our community?.

  should we be scolding one another?.

  especially kids?

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  quietlyleaving

  NVR

  Is a certain "uptightness" creeping into our community?

  Should we be scolding one another?

  Especially kids?

  Didn't we all do crazy stuff when we were young?

  It's kinda bringing me down.

  just wanna add my 2 cents worth

  Don't let it bring you down -

  cos it seems to me that all the posters here have been commenting on different aspects of Mincam's antics at the assembly and there were so many lol.

  So I'm seeing everyone's comment as valid including your own.

  Your question, in my judgement , (are some of us still judgmental and think ourselves morally superior?) is very black or white and doesn't allow for the many different shades)
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  38

  Let me introduce myself - slimboyfat

  by slimboyfat in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was simultaneously compelled and repelled by narkissoss suggestion that it may be healthy to present a story of how we became witnesses that we can now own as former or disillusioned witnesses.

  if we can now own it wouldnt it necessarily be a betrayal?

  whose story is it, mine or a former self or just wishful thinking?

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  quietlyleaving

  re betrayal

  However the idea of betrayal I was using more precisely with regard to how we represent our Witness past. When I was a Witness I obviously had a radically more positive perspective on how I became a Witness than I now have. If you had asked me then how it came about my priorities in explaining the same events would have been entirely different. What I worry about in giving my current ideas about what events led up to becoming a Witness, and what they "mean", is that in a sense I am usurping the right of my former self to cling to the positive story he believed in. Is the perspective I now have true or more realisitc, and that former one false and unrealistic? I don't know. They are both stories that try to make sense of an extremely complex reality. A person who knows me well would probably have a completely different understanding that may be more compelling in some ways as a narrative. In that sense I don't think autobiography contains any more "truth" than biography. Would we accept that Hiter's famous exposition of his own "struggle" has more "truth" than the meticulous constructions of historians for instance? I certainly know that loyal Witnesses would not express my journey in the particular terms I used. And who am I to deny them their story? Just because I am the subject of this particular story does not give me any intrinsic right to extinguish counter-viewpoints whether they come from my earlier self or from other people.

  So to cut to the chase I meant the story is a "betrayal" in the simple sense that constructing this new presentation of events involves denouncing large parts of my previous (Witness)understanding of the course of my life. This is a state of affairs that former Witnesses have to grapple with to the extent they hope to create new meaning for their life story I feel.

  As the author (in some ambiguous sense considering powerful externalities) of my life's course, I don't want to presume the right to set out the definitive terms in which my life is to be "understood". I made that mistake before, I think, and this time I want to be fully open to revisions and reevaluations, and who knows perhaps even reversals.

  I was trying to explain to my husband that I was very unhappy as a witness, but he said, no qtlg I remember you being very happy. Of course I'm seeing it from my new perspective and he from the old. Also he is right because I was happy and I was not happy.

  Seeing things as you've outlined has value as we can allow everyone their narratives

  think I understand the betrayal part. In relinquishing my old way of seeing things they feel like a fantasy that occupied a very small space in time whereas my new life in establishing itself is seeking out its roots in the past and cauterising the old.

  thanks again for taking the time to make things clear.

  qtlg
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  38

  Let me introduce myself - slimboyfat

  by slimboyfat in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was simultaneously compelled and repelled by narkissoss suggestion that it may be healthy to present a story of how we became witnesses that we can now own as former or disillusioned witnesses.

  if we can now own it wouldnt it necessarily be a betrayal?

  whose story is it, mine or a former self or just wishful thinking?

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  quietlyleaving

  Slim, thanks for explaining

  The "fabrication" description I intended to be ironic. I use it to mean two things:

  1. Primarily it is a creation, or a work. In a tangible sense things are made out of "fabric". An account is made out of statements intended to reflect reality collected together to make a narrative, like the lines of thread make up a pattern and a garment.

  2. The more important meaning is the one you pick up on, the sense that a fabrication is necessarily false.

  I believe all stories should be recognised as fabrications, especially "factual" ones for the reason that they largely pretend to be otherwise. If we stuck to the bare facts without narrative we would not be saying much at all. We could have dates, and very sparse descriptions perhaps, but even then we could not escape the pitfalls of using words with connotations never quite matching reality. And as soon as we introduce narrative beyond the bare statement, that involves generalisations, viewpoints, hidden assumptions, subconscious agendas and so on. More fundamentally than that, in order to make any "sense" at all we have to draw upon ideas and discourses that are stictly external to the precise reality we hope to represent. In that sense I think every story is a betrayal of reality, but a necessary one of course. The response should not be utter despair (hpwever one might feel like that at times) at this situation though, it should be a recognition of the enormous challenge in providing any such explanation coupled with a reflexive awareness that is ready to concede superficiality and weakness of description where it can be exposed.

  I see what you are saying and I agree with you.

  wouldn't it be good if we could spread out the garment of our lives and be able to look at the whole every now and then and see where each thread weaves itself and why - but I guess that's where the idea of God comes into the picture in a metaphorical and intuitive sense, we trust that he has the whole picture and is holding it for us while we grapple to make sense from our limited perspective.
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  18

  Things I don't need to be reminded of about myself !

  by 5go in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i already knew it.. 1 : i am crazy.

  yeah i know and would get treatment but because i live in america i can't afford it.. 2 : i am stuipid.

  me not know that me thought that you smart.. 3 : i do not know what i am talking about.

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  quietlyleaving

  I thought you handled yourself very valiantly 5go, on the 9/11 thread. You battled on courageously. I haven't done that yet but I sense with forboding that the day will come
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  15

  Am I being dumb?

  by bluebell in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  i really and truly believe that my father did not abuse either of my two younger sisters, just me.

  my one sister was abused by my brother, which makes me think he was abused so as to act like that.. i left the jw's after finding he could get responsibilities again and because i realised that i would always be viewed as bad association no matter how hard i tried because i just didn't fit in.. i never wanted to take it any further than the congregation because i did not want to rip my family apart.. but if i had a child i would not let him alone with them.. can someone just abuse one victim (maybe two if my bro was abused as i think he was)?

  or do they always abuse more?.

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  quietlyleaving

  (((((((bluebell)))))))

  Can someone just abuse one victim (maybe two if my bro was abused as I think he was)?

  My answer to you is yes an abuser can abuse just one or two children in a bigger family. They can form a 'relationship' with a favourite child and only abuse that one.

  Or do they always abuse more?

  not always but usually imo.

  don't have any statistics though.
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  38

  Let me introduce myself - slimboyfat

  by slimboyfat in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was simultaneously compelled and repelled by narkissoss suggestion that it may be healthy to present a story of how we became witnesses that we can now own as former or disillusioned witnesses.

  if we can now own it wouldnt it necessarily be a betrayal?

  whose story is it, mine or a former self or just wishful thinking?

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  quietlyleaving

  Slim

  I was simultaneously compelled and repelled by Narkissos’s suggestion that it may be healthy to present a story of how we became Witnesses that we can now “own” as former or disillusioned Witnesses. If we can now “own” it wouldn’t it necessarily be a betrayal? Whose story is it, mine or a former self or just wishful thinking? Since every story is a fabrication, isn’t one we can “own” simply a more unashamedly convenient telling?

  excuse me for questioning you but I really want to know in what sense you consider every story a fabrication. Fabrication as in creation or as in devise falsely (had to get the dictionary out for that hahaha)

  Also I don't understand why it would be a betrayal to own one's story.

  I may just be reading it wrong - unfortunately quite natural for me but not always I hasten to add.
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  38

  Let me introduce myself - slimboyfat

  by slimboyfat in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was simultaneously compelled and repelled by narkissoss suggestion that it may be healthy to present a story of how we became witnesses that we can now own as former or disillusioned witnesses.

  if we can now own it wouldnt it necessarily be a betrayal?

  whose story is it, mine or a former self or just wishful thinking?

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  quietlyleaving

  Hi Donald, thanks for sharing part of your story. Very deep, gonna read it again later as I'm just about to go out.
• 
  56

  Adventures in Meditating......

  by freedomloverr in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i know a lot of you do meditation and i thought i would share a recent experience with you all.

  it's been almost 2 years since i left the mental bondage of the org.

  and it's been a journey with lots of twists and turns.

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  quietlyleaving

  Yesterday my hubby and I sat under an old oak tree and watched the sun setting - we both lapsed into a quiet meditative state. A couple of birds joined us and sat very still gazing at the sun, a slight wind ruffled the leaves.

  It was an amazing experience - time seemed to stand still - we could have been 100 yrs in the past or in the future. It felt sacred and divine, the earth a mother and the sun a father. I felt overwhelmingly grateful for such gifts. Going back this evening.
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  16

  If this were true, do you think a BOE or the WTS would stoop this low?

  by R.F. in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a few of years ago at a circuit assembly the district overseer said that in another area that there was a 3 year old that wanted to be an unbaptized publisher.

  the boe said that he needed to know how to read, so his parents helped him fine tune his reading skills and he qualified as a publisher at the age of 4.

  4 years old!!

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  quietlyleaving

  snowbird

  What gets me is that, there we were attending our adult meetings and taking our children along cos these were their meetings too and of course like sponges they absorbed everything. Now I too can't reason with him and he will very likely start shunning me soon.

  Good news that your daughter is on her way to uni