HesterPryne

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Posts by HesterPryne

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  10

  Explaining 'Religion' To 5 Year Old

  by HesterPryne in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hope you all don't mind my barging in here like this..haven't posted for a long time.

  yes i am of the lurker class..lol.

  now what i a hoping you all can help me with:.

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  HesterPryne

  Thanks to everyone for your responses.
  My main goal with my grand daugter is to answer her questions honestly and without warping her in regard to religion. I don't want my own beliefs to influence her in her spiritual choices. I also want to instill in her respect for the beliefs of others while establishing the fact that each individual has a right to his or her choice in such matters.
  My grandaughter is very bright and a never ending well of questions. I would much rather be the one answering religious questions versus my devout JW mother. For now she is satisfied with my explainaton of what religion is
  
  SixONine
  I have had the book about the Lakota for years. It is a childrens book about Native Americans. I save everything...lol
  Patio34
  I see my grand daughter everyday. We are very close. She has been curious about what is going on with my mom and I for about a year now. She remembers when she and I use to go to my moms and visit. She started out asking about why I didn't visit my mother. I can't just brush her questions aside. That would make me like my parents. I want to answer my grand daughters questions about everything. Week before last it was periods and tampons. I love those TV commercials...lol My daughter loves my mom and doesn't want to argue with her. It is getting more difficult for my daughter to visit my mom. Mom has gotten a lot pushier with her JW crap in the last few months. On this occasion my mom was told to put a sock in it.
  Unfortunately I can't tell my mom anything....I am 'shunned' woa is me......not ~HP~
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  10

  Explaining 'Religion' To 5 Year Old

  by HesterPryne in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hope you all don't mind my barging in here like this..haven't posted for a long time.

  yes i am of the lurker class..lol.

  now what i a hoping you all can help me with:.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  HesterPryne

  Hope you all don't mind my barging in here like this..haven't posted for a long time. YES I am of the LURKER CLASS..lol

  Now what I a hoping you all can help me with:

  Last week my grandaughter, who is 5. went to my mothers and began singing Away In A Manger. This led my mother into her rant about how Christmas wasn't Jesus's B-day, it was Pagan...blah...blah. Turned into a scene.I have tried to answer my grand daughters questions honestly and smple enough that she can understand. Tonight she ask me "What is a Jehovah's Witness. I told her it was a religion. So....now I am explaining religion to her. We started with what I had on hand.....a short story on the beliefs of the Lakotas. What I need is a book that tells children that age about the different religions of the world. So....can any of you help me out? Is there such a book?

  Thanx......~HP~
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  21

  Disfellowshipping Doesn't Sever Family Ties?

  by tergiversator in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  "disfellowshipping does not sever family ties.".

  or so claims the watchtower's official faq.

  so, i would like to take an informal poll: how has being disfellowshippid/ disassociated/ inactive/ just having doubts affected relations with your family?

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  HesterPryne

  I have no contact with my parents.It is confusing ....my mom still sends me 'care' packages.... clothes. antiques, family pics,magazines (not JW mags).
  My mother sent word via my daughter today that if I need to borrow any money, just to let her know. Boy do I need money!! I have a busted water line. (It's underground and I have to hire a backhoe) Anyway...as much as I could use the loan I can't stomach the thought of accepting cash from my parents who won't even speak to me when I encounter them at Walmart. A part o me says take the money....take it for all the bulls*** they've inflicted on me and mine....but I can't do it. I'll eat grass before I borrow from them.

  I wonder if this is how JW's can say, with a straight face, that they don't sever family ties. Send your DF'd family members bags of cast offs and offer them loans.....but don't acknowledge that they are your living relative. My mother told me the day they offically started shunning me that we were to have no contact.....and so it is....
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  76

  Question to shunned persons

  by HesterPryne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  hello everyone,.

  if your jehovah's witness relatves came to you and said..... "praise jah, there has been 'new light" and we can associate with you again!".....

  what would you say or do?

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  HesterPryne

  Had Enough,
  
  Thank you for the information.

  Shunning is a part of JW's whether they admit it or not. They are so good at their double talk and requiring that people read between the lines in their literature. It was made perfectly clear to me that I am to have NO CONTACT...no phone calls, no letters. In the same breath I was told I was welcome to have a study and that there is a sister in the congregation here who is anxious to study with me....hope she isn't holding her breath. It would be so easy to just have a study....my family would be back to 'normal¿'. Nauseates me to think about it.

  On your CDROM do JW's address the issue of at what age children can be baptized? I have been curious about this. I was 9 years old when I was dedicated. It doesn't seem right to allow a child to make a decision that they don't understand fully. At 9 I thought JW's were the real religion....what do 9 year olds know. If you find anything on the topic of children and baptism, maybe you should post it in a different thread....sorry I have gotten off topic. I just feel that if I hadn't been allowed baptism as an INFANT I would still have my family....as would my brother. He was 10 when he took the plunge. I hope they have made some rules about this since the early 60's.

  Thanks again......
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  76

  Question to shunned persons

  by HesterPryne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  hello everyone,.

  if your jehovah's witness relatves came to you and said..... "praise jah, there has been 'new light" and we can associate with you again!".....

  what would you say or do?

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  HesterPryne

  Had Enough,

  Is the article you mentioned on-line anywhere?I looked at the site where I found the 1956-57 article, it wasn't there. The least JW's could do for those of us who are shunned is give us a little going away package with the articles explaining their actions. As I've mentioned in other posts, I stopped attending meetings when I was 14....now 47. I haven't looked at any WTBTS publications in 34 years!

  JW's don't actually use the word 'shunning'.At least I have never heard one. Do they have a have an official term for the action of ignoring people? I have always used the shunning term. I live in Amish country and that is the term they use.

  As for the LIE on the webpage...they are being TROOTHFUL
  Remember...we are all invited to the KH this morning where we can sit in the backrow and enjoy the good fellowship of people who can't talk to us....pedophiles, abused spouses and sad children...
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  76

  Question to shunned persons

  by HesterPryne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  hello everyone,.

  if your jehovah's witness relatves came to you and said..... "praise jah, there has been 'new light" and we can associate with you again!".....

  what would you say or do?

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  HesterPryne

  Its ok to lie to wolvesa.....
  a.k.a.....non-jw's...says so right here. (this is from of my webpage.
  'A Journal To MY JW MOTHER')
  
  Watchtower 1956-57
  I have been trying to understand what you were taught about JWs in 1956 so I have been looking at back issues. I came across an article from 1957 that gives witnesses permission to LIE if they can justify it by claiming it protects Jehovah's organization somehow....I always wondered how you could lie and not bat an eye.You know... like how you decieved my brother about why I hadn't been to visit you and dad....you allowed him to think it was MY decision and that I was neglecting my aging parents. Do you see him as a WOLF? I really hate to call you a liar mom....I guess we'll just call them little un-truths in the name of the TRUTH. Do you recall this article from your 'formative' years? (see attached articles)

  1956 "The enemies [here identified as those who resist or persecute Jehovah's Witnesses] did not deserve to learn the truth to the hurt or endangerment of Jehovah's servants. In wartime it is proper to misdirect the wolfish enemy. .. It is proper to cover over our arrangements for the work that God commands us to do. If the wolfish foes draw wrong conclusions from our maneuvers to outwit them, no harm has been done to them by the harmless sheep, innocent in their motives as doves." {WT Feb 1 1956 80/86} {Lying is acceptable - see next quotation]
  1957
  1957 "Trust Your Proved, Faithful Brothers.. Showing respect for Jehovah's organization really resolves itself down to our attitude toward God's visible channel and the trust that we place in our proved, faithful brothers. If we have become thoroughly convinced that this is Jehovah's organization, that he is guiding and directing his people, then we shall not be unsettled by anything that happens. If something comes up that we do not understand we will wait patiently until it is made thoroughly clear to us. If we feel sure something is wrong we will 'keep the commandment' of our Father and take whatever theocratic steps are open to us and then wait on Jehovah. We will not 'forsake our mother's teaching' by immediately beginning to criticize and find fault. We will realize that Jehovah knows what is going on in his organization, and if he is willing to permit it, who are we to insist it should be different? If we really have faith, we will know that if it is wrong he will straighten it out eventually, and we are far safer inside his organization even with these minor difficulties than we would be on the outside where only chaos and destruction await us.. [We must] show our respect for Jehovah's organization, for she is our mother and the beloved wife of our heavenly Father, Jehovah God.. A Witness of Jehovah was going from house to house in Eastern Germany when she met a violent opposer. Knowing at once what to expect she changed her red blouse for a green one in the very next hallway. No sooner had she appeared on the street than a Communist officer asked her if she had seen a woman with a red blouse. No, she replied, and went on her way. Did she tell a lie? No, she did not. She was not a liar. Rather, she was using theocratic war strategy, hiding the truth by action and word for the sake of the ministry." {WT May 1 1957 284-5} [Do not criticize the Organization, and Lying is commendable, as for 1956, 1960, 1988, 1993]
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  76

  Question to shunned persons

  by HesterPryne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  hello everyone,.

  if your jehovah's witness relatves came to you and said..... "praise jah, there has been 'new light" and we can associate with you again!".....

  what would you say or do?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  HesterPryne

  ZazuWitts,
  I was fortunate that it took my parents nearly 18 years to start shunning me.
  It is really odd to me that the congregation here changed how they handled relationships with shunned ones at about the time you say a Watchtower article came out on the subject (1981)
  One family hadn't spoken to their son for over 15 years and started seeing him again in 1981....as of June,2000 he was shunned again. I'm glad I have only been shunned once....couldn't take it twice.
  My only explanation for having been able to see my parents for so long is that...maybe the congregation here has low reading cmprehension skills...duhh
  
  RR, Crossroads,

  At this time I m leaning toward the kiss my A** direction....but if the time came I'm not sure how I would react.....

  Mommy,

  I would like to hear your comments. I would always worry that things could change again.
  It's changed once...
  In 1981 I was told that if I didn't come back I would be df'd. I was also told that if I ask to be removed from the roles of JW's that I would be da'd but that I could still associate with my parents. I wrote a letter to the Society asking to be removed. I didn't hear anything else about it until 11 months ago. It's strange....during that time I sat in my parents home and visited JW's....even pioneers from Bethel who stayed with my parents for a summer and a couple of different overseers. Maybe none of them were aware of my status. I know the locals were and it didn't seem to make any difference.....then

  stephenw20

  That song has memories....it was a favorite of a former abusive boyfriend of mine....he quoted it often.....
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  76

  Question to shunned persons

  by HesterPryne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  hello everyone,.

  if your jehovah's witness relatves came to you and said..... "praise jah, there has been 'new light" and we can associate with you again!".....

  what would you say or do?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  HesterPryne

  Hello everyone,

  If your Jehovah's Witness relatves came to you and said....

  "Praise Jah, There has been 'New Light" and we can associate with you again!"....

  What would you say or do?
• 
  3

  WHATS GOING ON?

  by anglise in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in the last 24 hours i have heard of two instances where the jw parents of disfellowshipped children have been willing and seemingly happy to have association with them ie having them visit and for meals.

  both say that there were topics to be avoided during conversation but that it was a major improvement on the way things had been.. in both of these situations the adult children are married to non believers.. is this just a coincidence?.

  has there been 'new light'?.

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  HesterPryne

  hi Prisca and Anglise,

  I'm begining to think the rules for shunning depend on your locallity.
  I was da'd in 1981 and enjoyed the company of my parents until 6-2000. At that time there was 'new light' that came out at an assembly. Prior to that witnesses here had associated with da'd ones as usual but didn't talk to them about religios issues. At this time my parents can only talk to me if there is a family emergency. According to their rules. However I am making rules too and I say if I am shunned....so be it....no exceptions.
  I am interested in learning if there has been more 'NEW LIGHT'.
  It hasn't been a year since the last time that damn light went off for the shunning issue.
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  23

  Is the Organization really free from racism?

  by dedalus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  one of the claims witnesses like to make is that they are color-blind, that their religion transcends matters of race and culture.

  by and large, i think most "apostates" accept this, though it's all too obvious that witnesses are bigots when it comes to all non-members.. but how true is the claim that witnesses escape racial stereotyping?.

  i attended an inner-city congregation with mostly black brothers and sisters.

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  HesterPryne

  Waiting,
  Just wanted to say hello from the Hoosier State. I'm in one of the 'little' towns you mentioned. 30 miles south of Ft. Wayne. I think Indiana is Mecca to rednecks....lol