AnneB

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Posts by AnneB

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  53

  2014 DC: Fewer, but larger venues in the U.S.

  by doinmypart in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in the u.s. there are fewer venues this year, but they will be held in larger facilities.

  as long as i can remember my family travelled no more than 2 hours to attend and in the last few years the dc was local (within a few minutes travel).

  this year my family is driving 6 hours to a major u.s. city.

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  AnneB

  ...doubling up on families in hotel rooms...

  What??? They don't even want people getting too close out in service and now they want publishers to share a bedroom???
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  11

  The Graphene Revolution

  by metatron in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://gigaom.com/2013/07/15/what-is-graphene-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-a-material-that-could-be-the-next-silicon/.

  suppose someone invented a new substance that seems to come straight out of a science fiction novel - a sort of saran wrap that is 300 times stronger than steel.

  suppose they thought up new and astounding uses for it seemingly every month in field after field.. it could change nearly everything and few people are noticing.... metatron.

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  AnneB

  few people are noticing...

  Well, aren't you special!
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  37

  My parents threw me away

  by mzmmom in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  need to put it in writing.

  i think of it every day.

  i know so many of us have gone through this, but it sure hurts.

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  AnneB

  When someone, even close a close family member, won't have anything to do with you, don't look at it as a hardship, rather as a relief for you.

  You may love that person but if they're willing to turn against you then it's a good thing that there will be less of a relationship.

  If and when the time comes that the person has a change in outlook, then you can cautiously reunite, if you decide that's what you want.

  You may find that time away lets you see things from a differrent perspective, and that the person you care so much about wasn't really heart to heart with you even before the separation.

  From life experience,

  AB
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  94

  14 months after printing the "Steve and Selma" article, guess what the Society's latest Awake is about...

  by cedars in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  you guessed it.... .

  http://www.jw.org/download/?fileformat=pdf&issue=201304&output=html&pub=g&langwritten=e&option=trgchlzrqvnyvrxf&txtcmslang=e.

  cedars.

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  AnneB

  sd-7 wrote:

  If you were coming down the same street every day and got beat up by someone, even if they didn't leave any marks, you might decide, if you could, to just take a different route home, or maybe call the cops, or something else rational. But you come home and get beat every day

  Isn't this a description of bullying? Of the interaction between bullies and their victims?

  Is the implication here that WT/JW's sets up its adherents to submit to bullying without recourse?
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  14

  Has anyone ever been asked by an elder if your putting donations in the boxes

  by label licker in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was in the truth for two years and an elder approached me and said i couldn't get anymore literature until he spoke to me about something so six weeks went by and then i confronted him aa to when that meeting would be for i had a study that was waiting for her bt book.

  he said he wasn't finished gathering his information but that it would be soon so i waited.

  and i waited.

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  AnneB

  FYI on the cost of producing a book...it's miniscule. Several years ago I worked for an educational book publisher; you know, the ones who put out those heavy, thick college textbooks that cost upwards of $150. Cost to print? $.51. Fifty one cents USD. When a mistake was made and a wrong or damaged book shipped out, the company didn't even want it returned because the postage was far more than the raw cost of the book!

  That was a publishing company that paid wages and benefits. WTBTS doesn't even have those expenses, so why should they browbeat the congregation into making budget-breaking donations for literature?

  I do remember that WT sent out a letter saying that orders for deluxe Bibles and premium publications such as the Insight books and bound volumes went up when the pricing arrangement changed, and that donations had gone down. Their solution? Withhold extra literature from the congregations until contributions matched the level of literature ordered. That was in 1991 or 1992. I remember it because I was approached and told that my literature orders were not going to be filled until my contributions increased. I was stunned, because I contributed $100 at a time. The elders claimed that no such contributions were ever made in that KH. I didn't know what to think or say back then but now I wonder if the person emptying the contribution box was pocketing the money.

  When I figured out TTATT I threw away the literature...so the whole thing was an exercise in futility anyway.
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  32

  When You Were A Little Kid, What Did Your Mother Say To Get You To Eat Your Vegetables?

  by LoisLane looking for Superman in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i hated peas.

  my mom would say, "the kids in china are starving.

  eat your peas.

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  AnneB

  "Eat it or wear it!"

  I had the healthiest hair in the family!
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  17

  Elder writes a weekly newspaper article

  by man in black in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  hello, lately in our local newspaper i've noticed a weekly column that is written by a current elder.

  when i left 6 years ago he was the po.

  and for some added background info , if he saw someone who was df'ed or "spiritually weak" he would go out of his way, and do his best to avoid them.

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  AnneB

  Methinks the writer wants to prove that he could write a weekly column. (I'd read it!)
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  3

  Four lines of verse from an American poet I'd never heard of . . .

  by nicolaou in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  .

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  AnneB

  Forbearance is a word that sums up the poem.
• 
  16

  Did You Ever Experiment At A New Kingdom Hall By Sitting In the Back, Or Wait To Be Greeted?

  by ÁrbolesdeArabia in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  there is much frustration from jws who attended other kingdom halls because the jws were not friendly and actually smug!

  social experiments on jw good manners and the "love that identifies the true christians" did you find it?.

  it does not exist because they do not love each other unless they are authorized to from the wts..

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  AnneB

  The worst thing I ever saw was in Burbank, California. For some unfathomable reason I decided to attend a meeting there, walked in early, and the first people I saw were a Gilead couple, home on vacation from their assignment on another continent. I had known them years before they were even married; never expected to see them in CA.

  There were about 30 people already in the KH, talking in their little groups. No one even noticed that I had come in, much less greeted me. Worse, the wife of the Gilead couple (a really lovely young woman, always liked her!) was perched on the armrest of an aisle seat completely across the Hall from the locals...alone! No one paid a bit of attention to her! The husband, who had family in that congregation, was likewise alone, standing at the back of the hall.

  Of course I went up to the sister immediately and her face lit up when she saw me. She brought me over to her husband and he was glad to see me as well because no one was talking to him either! Remember, these were Gileadites, and wonderful people as well, visiting their "home" congregation!

  The sister and I talked right up to the minute the meeting started, and then we sat together. Not a soul in the Hall had spoken to either one of us. Her husband gave a little pep talk during the Service Meeting which was greeted with a yawn.

  I didn't stick around too long after the meeting, but during the time that I was there, no one approached me or them, not one single soul.

  I am still shocked and this happened a good ten years ago.
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  42

  Can you help me encourage Reopened mind.

  by TotallyADD in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  as most of you know we got a very angry letter from our oldest son.

  it hurt her very much.

  i feel so bad for her because he attacked her for what i feel was very unfair.

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  AnneB

  From one mom to another: Kids do this, even the ones raised with the best of parents.

  It's NOT YOUR FAULT. Good parents are up against a bad environment; people and enterprises who have their own motives for undermining parental responsibilities and authority. Emotion aside, what are the odds that the child will stick with the parent through thick and thin? The very best children (and mine were the very best, good hearts, good motives) can be turned aside just because there are more of "them" than "us"; our voices get drowned out in the cacaphony. Sometimes it happens while they are very young, other times after they are grown, but it happens...it doesn't mean you've failed.

  Do not lose heart. This is temporary. Your son will be thinking, observing, and remembering, even though you won't see any signs. The worst thing you can do right now is to cower down, to buy into the notion that you did something wrong. Sure you made mistakes, every parent does! Whatever those mistakes may have been, it doesn't matter and you don't owe anyone, even your child, an apology. Everything you did was done out of love and in the best interests of the child *as you understood things at the time*. We learn as we live, and maybe you would have done some things differently if they had come up at a different stage of your life, but that doesn't make you "wrong". You handled life as you understood it at the time, and there's nothing reprehensible in that.

  You will grieve, probably for a long time (as in years). This isn't a situation that will resolve quickly. Take it from one who knows...and believe me when I tell you there's no way you'll come out the loser on this. The parent-child bond is one of the strongest things there is. No matter what outside force tries to break it, it will remain intact. Grieve, because you are going through a period of deprivation, because your concern for your child seems like it can't penetrate the "wall", but at the same time, remember....he's YOUR son. You're his mom. That bond is still there, underneath, while your child is "unconscious" (not-conscious) of its strength. He'll say and do things that you never could have anticipated, but that's because he is caught in a malestrom only partly of his own making. Ride it out, never give up on him. He's thrashing around like he's delirious (he is), but he will come out of it. You wouldn't take offense, or try to reason with, or punish, someone for what they do when they're delirious, would you? Take that same attitude toward whatever he does now; bear the anguish, and fight to remember that it's not "him" that's doing these things, that something external to his own thoughts and heart is affecting him.

  Little by little you will get your son back. Hold on. Give it all the energy you would have given if something had happened to him as a child. Put on a brave face for the world (defend him when people denigrate him) then cry your heart out in the privacy of your home. Whether you can "see" it or not, there are people who know you didn't do anything wrong. There are also people who have been through this very thing, had their own seasons of despair, who are now seeing things turn toward the good. Once that happens you won't remember how bad it was, you'll only feel gratitude and relief for having your son back.

  It's going to be rough for a long time but he WILL return to you. Let that reality hold you steady through this time of turmoil.

  From one mom to another with love and tears,

  AB