Posts by lancelink

71

Wow i do not reconize this religion anymore...

by _Morpheus in

had the misfortune of stopping by the "regional" convention yesterday.

i promised my daughter i would come to sunday afternoon so she wouldnt have to ride home with her mother.... holy crap it was weird!

im sure all of this has been covered on the forum but to actually see it.... just wow.

lancelink

These stories are just mind blowing .

I hope that there will be more like this .

34

7 day conventions?

by HereIgo in

did any of you attend the old school week long conventions?

i have heard stories and it seems like these were mostly in the 70's and 80's before my time.

i couldn't imagine.

As a teenager I attended an assembly in Billings Montana wit several friends, and here most everyone camped out. For showers we used the sheds where the farmers washed their animals. Entering those areas would remind me of the gas chambers from the Concentration camps.

41

Some prayers really annoy me

by stillin in

i realize that prayer is a really personal thing, but representing a group in prayer has become so full of cliche's that i just want to vomit sometimes.

co week almost every prayer has the phrase "special week of activity" in it.. then there's "please look after the sick and afflicted.".

not so much anymore, "please bless this food and the hands that prepared it.".

lancelink

Those people who would act like they were reciting their own version of the Gettysburg Address stressed me out.

17

KISS - Knights In Satan's Service

by Funchback in

growing up as a jw, i was told that kiss stood for knights in satan's system (or service).. i just did a google search and learned it's not true.

it's actually not an acronym for anything.. to be honest, apparently it's not just the jws who believe it means something related to satan.. http://www.snopes.com/music/hidden/kiss.asp.

one day paul [stanley] and peter [criss] and i were driving around, brainstorming for new names.

lancelink

When I was a teenager, several witnesses went to see KennyRogers in the Chicago area.

from what I heard it was a great show, and during it he would toss T shirts and frisbee's out into the audience.

Well, several weeks later there was a big camp out at Devils Lake park in Wisconsin.

People were talking around that campfire, laughing and having a good time.

Enter the guy with his K. Rogers frisbee, it was being tossed around the campfire to everyone. Scott, the person who caught it at the concert really did not want it, so he dropped it into the fire to watch it melt. It did not melt, it just softened up a little.

After that their was a story circulating in the hall, circuit that K. Rogers was associated with satanism, and people believed it wholeheartedly !

to me that was a WTF moment.

11

Do we attack the Topic or the Person?

by stuckinarut2 in

i was just thinking that most witnesses can not approach a controversial topic without turning it into an attack of the person who raises that topic.. as we all awaken to ttatt (the truth about the truth), they simply can't discuss the actual facts or issues we discover without turning it into an attack of us as "apostates" with all the negative connotations that word entails.... how truly narrow minded and sad!

.

they would rather attack the person than the topic..

lancelink

An excellent thought !

Yes I remember that happening all the time, cut the person down before they can express their idea, whether it be good or bad.

13

Hearing voices, not always caused by demons.

by lancelink in

jw
friends

my wife and i for the past three months have been caring for a teenage girl who was abused by her parents.

she stole a car to get away, and living in prison was a welcome relief for her.

she was in prison for four years, and the state was going to release her, but she would not go back home.. a co-worker teacher that my wife knows told us the situation, and we agreed o help the girl get back on her feet.. well, she dealt with abuse from all aspects 😔, and is pretty messed up in the head from all of that.. but by being in our home, she was safe and was learning how to deal with her problems.

lancelink

Thank you very much for your comments, and esp. For pointing out that they're NOT caused by demons.

that was a perfect example of the religion still having "splinters in my mind" 😜

13

Hearing voices, not always caused by demons.

by lancelink in

jw
friends

my wife and i for the past three months have been caring for a teenage girl who was abused by her parents.

she stole a car to get away, and living in prison was a welcome relief for her.

she was in prison for four years, and the state was going to release her, but she would not go back home.. a co-worker teacher that my wife knows told us the situation, and we agreed o help the girl get back on her feet.. well, she dealt with abuse from all aspects 😔, and is pretty messed up in the head from all of that.. but by being in our home, she was safe and was learning how to deal with her problems.

lancelink

My wife and I for the past three months have been caring for a teenage girl who was abused by her parents. She stole a car to get away, and living in prison was a welcome relief for her. She was in prison for four years, and the state was going to release her, but she would not go back home.

A co-worker teacher that my wife knows told us the situation, and we agreed o help the girl get back on her feet.

Well, she dealt with abuse from all aspects 😔, and is pretty messed up in the head from all of that.

but by being in our home, she was safe and was learning how to deal with her problems. But over the past two months she started hearing voices, they were telling her how worthless she was.

enter social workers, psychologists, and therapists. It seems that voices are caused from past abuse, and it is a very real mental condition that is being treated now by drugs.

i was thinking last night that if we were still witnesses, she probably would have been asked to leave, based on the religions view of voices. Or else she needed a bible study.

I find it amazing how things that the witnesses are terrified by, can actually be a mental cry for help.

i hang my head in total shame for treating people years ago like they were possessed by demons, when in reality they just needed a listening ear and medical help.

72

Favorite/least favorite CO's and DO's

by HereIgo in

i posted this thread sometime last year but thought i would revive it due to the new ones on the board, and to change things up a bit.

my favorite?

bro murikami, from hawaii, very humble, kind bro.

lancelink

Northern Illinois .

Paul Illingsworth was a nice guy.

there was also a guy named Steve ? Who had a wife that was really sick in the mid 80's, I heard later that she died.

The reason I liked him is that he actually spent time going around to the young children in the hall, talking one on one with them. And instead of telling them to do more service, he would listen to their concerns and encourage them to hang in there.

39

How do you get over all the things that you missed? The stuff you can't get back

by JW_Rogue in

look my life is not bad but sometimes i just think about all the normal things i missed out on.

and no i'm not talking about christmas and birthday parties.

i'm talking about your first kiss happening in your twenties instead of your teens.

lancelink

I feel your pain partner, but I came to the conclusion that I was going to move forward and do things that I enjoyed.

for a number of years I actually had trouble enjoying anything, but I cracked that ceiling and was able to move on.

I heard a saying that really helped me, it's not perfect but hopefully The point comes across :

" windshields on cars are much larger than the review mirrors because you need to focus on where your going, once in a while glance backwards to see where you came from"

52

What "Rules" Did The Elders In Your KH Make?

by minimus in

jw
friends

some congregations were known as liberal and others were considered very conservative.

back in the 1970s a nearby congregation made all speakers who gave public talks a white shirt to wear.

if a speaker came in wearing anything but white they were brought into the library and were given a white shirt!

lancelink

In our hall, there was a lady who was bi polar and had trouble going to meetings regularly.

one summer, she planned to do a small, backyard bible drama with a handful of the kids from the hall. It was a lot of work for her, but several mothers helped out.

Doing this really helped this sister to feel good about herself, and the play was wonderful !

then she had a small get together in her yard afterwards with families and everyone felt good.

But an elder by the name of Renfrow ? Came down on her and that was the last time she did anything nice for the kids.

The kids from the hall would also get together once a week on Friday afternoon's to play softball at a nearby park. There were several adult males that actually took time off work to help the kids play fairly.

One week Renfrow attended, complaining that this time would be better spent going door to door. Two weeks later a local needs part pretty well put the hammer down on our games. And guess what ???? Suddenly where was a new service arrangement that was organized for Friday afternoons.

All of the kids were so crestfallen, I felt so bad for them.