Posts by man in black

55

As a JW - Did you See Meetings Continue in Spite of Medical Emergencies?

by flipper in

jw
friends

i was talking the other day with a fellow board member about medical emergencies occuring at meetings and how we both agreed that we ( while jw's ) had never seen a meeting stop or be cancelled due to medical emergencies experienced by a fellow jw.

the wt society trains jw' s to lose their authentic human feelings or any empathy towards others physical or emotional sufferings many times.

so many times at meetings , in spite of someone suffering a serious medical emergency it was " the show must go on " type of attitude displayed by congregation elders.. my first experience at seeing a medical emergency at the kingdom hall was an older sister who had an epileptic attack.

man in black

I just noticed that my earlier comment never made it,,, ( my new windows computer does that sometimes).

Anyway one time during the tms I was giving talk #4, back in the day when we could use different sources in preparation of it. and this teenage girl ran into the bathroom really quickly at the back of our hall. And as I was reading some Bible-related story and my head was down I saw out of the corner of my eye three paramedics run thru the back lobby. They went into the bathroom and came out several moments later with this young girl strapped down on a stretcher with oxygen. Being the "good little dub" I just finished my talk and got down. I got council like nothing happened.

Afterwards the overseer, several elders, and other jw's came up to me and commended me on how good my talk was despite all of the extra "commotion" going on. I was shocked at their callousness and uncaring attitudes.

Now that I look back I just cringe inside when I think of how encouraging people thought my talk was. That girl could have died, and all I heard that night was how good my talk was. I need to go take some asprin now, what a horrible night that was for me.

55

As a JW - Did you See Meetings Continue in Spite of Medical Emergencies?

by flipper in

jw
friends

i was talking the other day with a fellow board member about medical emergencies occuring at meetings and how we both agreed that we ( while jw's ) had never seen a meeting stop or be cancelled due to medical emergencies experienced by a fellow jw.

the wt society trains jw' s to lose their authentic human feelings or any empathy towards others physical or emotional sufferings many times.

so many times at meetings , in spite of someone suffering a serious medical emergency it was " the show must go on " type of attitude displayed by congregation elders.. my first experience at seeing a medical emergency at the kingdom hall was an older sister who had an epileptic attack.

man in black

13

went to a funeral today, somewhat awestruck.

by man in black in

this morning i went to a catholic funeral mass for a priest who inherited, and help grow an orphanage in chicago.

he died from cancer which he had for the past several years.. when he got the orphanage back in the early 70's the church was ready to shut it down for lack of direction, and growth.

but since he took over the reins,.

man in black

This morning I went to a Catholic funeral mass for a priest who inherited, and help grow an orphanage in Chicago. He died from cancer which he had for the past several years.

When he got the orphanage back in the early 70's the church was ready to shut it down for lack of direction, and growth. But since he took over the reins,

it has become a very important stop for thousands of troubled youths.

Anyway (I'm rambling here now),

The mass went on and I thought that it was going to be pretty boring, but several friends got up and told stories about this priests life,

and how much he relied on God to help direct him in this assignment so that the children would be the real winners.

One priest got up and told this story, (most people were quite teary-eyed afterwards): "Father Jim had cancer, and it was staring to develop very quickly, one day when I was visiting him the physical therapist was trying to encourage him to stand up and try walking. The pain must have been pretty bad because Fr. Jim was not in a good mood. When he saw me he lightened up, and I helped the PT try and get him to do a little walking. Well, he stood up and I held his arm and we walked down the hospital hallway . At the end of the hallway there was a big window looking down on the city, and as we came up to the window the sun was starting to set. By a great coincedence, we were facing in the direction of the orphanage and the sunlight was reflecting off of the many windows on the building. Fr. Jim looked at the view and commented "Isn't that just a beautiful view, the sun shining on the orphanage? I grabbed his hand , looked him in the eye and said, " It is just as wonderful inside because of all the work you have put into it". "One of his favorite sayings was There are only two things that we can give our children, one is roots and the other is wings. Today as we celebrate his life we thank him for helping us to root our sense of faith, heritage, and family and for giving us the wings to fly onward knowing that he will always be a part of us. When I heard that I was just stunned, after 25 + years as a jw I never heard anything so encouraging, and honest-hearted at one of their funeral /memorial talks. There were hundreds of people attending, and afterwards they all talked about the good things that this man did, no religious right-wrong discussions, just a very nice gathering. I see how I really missed a lot of honest human interaction during my jw days,

9

Blasphemous pictures

by darth frosty in

you see what the title says so dont get offended i find these amusing.. .

.

man in black

really funny pictures

13

WT: "A sport is objectionable if too many people like it"

by cedars in

if i may, i would like to offer another glimpse into the strange minds of the writers of the more recent watchtower study editions, this time on the topic of sport.. no doubt like many of you, i enjoy playing sport because (apart from anything else) regular exercise stops me from becoming fat and unhealthy.

during my time as an active witness, i often had the opportunity to play sports with other brothers, although i became increasingly frustrated that this was not (in my case) organised on a more regular basis by those in my congregation; rather, games of my particular sport were organised less and less frequently until they became virtually non-existant.. things have improved considerably since i became inactive and was improperly shunned by those 'brothers' i used to play sport with, because i have begun playing my particular sport with so-called "worldly" people in my local community.

apart from allowing me to get back into some semblance of shape (thereby keeping mrs cedars happy) i am also able to keep in touch with my neighbours and be more sociable with those who live near me.

man in black

you have a great writing style, I really enjoyed your take on the nasty world of sports .

Looking forward to your future comments !

14

Service Leeches

by man in black in

i remember that in my old hall there was a single pioneer sister who lived in the kh basement.

she did not drive, (22 years old) and she was.

such a "spiritual example" .. but now i remember going out in service with the group on a saturday morning, and she would be part of the group that was in my car.. we would do about an hour of service door to door, and then return visits for an hour or two.

man in black

I remember that in my old hall there was a single pioneer sister who lived in the kh basement. She did not drive, (22 years old) and she was

such a "spiritual example" .

But now I remember going out in service with the group on a Saturday morning, and she would be part of the group that was in my car.

We would do about an hour of service door to door, and then return visits for an hour or two. Suddenly she had several urgent things that needed to be taken care of, "going down highway 14,,, I need to do some banking can you stop off so I can get this done? Or "Jewel has a big sale on apples, let me pop in and grab several while we are here". Oh look, there's my insurance agents office, stop and let me talk to him for a minute".

This was quite a regular thing with her, and looking back I feel that she took advantage of the whole "brotherly love and concern" thing that is so popular with the witnesses.

I remember that cargroup members would talk about how much time could be recorded for service, was time spent waiting in the insurance agents parking lot valid, or would that be recognised as breaktime ?

Was this something that was an isolated thing from my area, or did this type of behavior happen in other areas ?

49

Did YOU Feel Abused By The Elders?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i know some here have said they pretty much hated the elders.

did you personally feel the elders were abusive men?.

man in black

XBEHERE, I seem to have a difficult time understanding the reasoning behind individuals who are active in their local congregations and postpost here.

I can't wrap my mind around this, could you explain why ?

I don't mean to hijack this thread, so if needed could you pm me ?

This is not a sarcastic question, I personally could not do both and sit at the meetings listening to all of the jw stuff every week.

Thanks,

2

Would you let your child die for the Watchtower ?

by Hairyhegoat in

jw
friends

i know if the hla showed up at the hospital i would batter them with a base ball bat since i have changed my family health records on the main frame nhs computer.. here is a real life quote from a active jw family..from a while ago but it is still what the governing body require of active jw's now.. .

my grandfather became a part of the watchtower society in the early 1900s, and my father is an elder at his local kingdom hall.. i started serving as a full-time pioneer in 1971 after dropping out of high school with the encouragement of the brothers.

in 1973, i was invited to go to the world headquarters in brooklyn to be part of the vast staff of workers who produce the literature.. after leaving bethel, i married a good jehovah's witness girl, and we set out together trying to please god the best way we knew how.

man in black

When one of my sons was about ten years old he fell on one of those aluminum window-well supports and split his spleen in two.

The doctors tried everything to get us to allow him to have a blood transfusion, but being the good little jw's that we were at that time, both my wife and I would not allow it.

The hospital even went so far as to wake up the hospital chairman ( 12:30 am) and had him come in. One after another the hospital sent someone in to talk to us, the anethesiologist even went as far as to get on his knees and literally begged us to allow blood.

At this time several elders arrived and stayed in the background and supported us and our decision. I don't think the liasion commitee was around back then ( 1988).

That was the most emotionally draining evening I ever had, I felt like I was in a dream most of the time.

Finally our regular family doctor came in and looked at the x-rays and he said since the spleen was in two pieces, giving blood would have

done nothing, it would have just run out and pooled in the abdomen, so he spent over two hours going in, and stiching the good piece shut.

Looking back, our motives were viewed totally 100% thru the wt rose colored glasses. But afterward as I thanked God for the good outcome, I really felt that

his method of "trying" us was a bit overboard.

So back to the original comment, yes I did almost allow my son to die, but because of an intelligent Doctor who looked at the available information

with an educated viewpoint this did not happen.

I do not believe that the wt has the correct viewpoint regarding blood at all now, but at the time of this accident I wonder what would have happen if we did allow blood.

17

Watchtower Door to Door Work...what an incredible waste of time.

by I quit! in

jw
friends

yesterday morning while driving heading for the grocery store i saw four jw women out in "service".

they were walking very slowly on a street where there were no people out and about.

i observed them for several minutes.

man in black

Wow that woke up some really dormant braincells !

The witnesses walking past an apartment building ?

In my old hall we had something called telephone territory, or letter writing territory to be used on:

1) rainy days, groups would meet and write letters all morning. I did it once in the early 80's and it was a complete waste of time I thought.

2) handicapped, or ones with medical problems could take advantage of it .

These were usually apartment buildings, or locked-gate communities, the elders thought that these methods would have better results than the usual door to door monotony.

From what I heard ( and I was the territory servant for several years) these methods created by the elder body were just as useless as the normal door to door shuffle.

10

Are there any songs that remind you of being a jw ?

by man in black in

.

this afternoon the song music box dancer came on the radio and i was instantly transported back to 1978 when my best jw friend got married.. this was "their" song ,, they are now divorced and one of them left the religion and is remarried.. another song that makes my skin crawl from a jw standpoint is mambo # 5.. there was an elder from my old hall, j. renfroe who always was telling the young people what music was acceptable for them to listen to.. and this guy was just so opinionated regarding everything.. so one time at a wedding this song comes on and he starts dancing almost uncontrollably.

it was agony to watch, and i ( and many others felt embarrassed for him because of how he was dancing and how his self rightous opinions seemed to be thrown to the wind this evening.. any other examples of music that became tainted from a jw experience ?.

man in black

This afternoon the song Music Box Dancer came on the radio and I was instantly transported back to 1978 when my best jw friend got married.

This was "their" song ,, they are now divorced and one of them left the religion and is remarried.

Another song that makes my skin crawl from a jw standpoint is Mambo # 5.

There was an elder from my old hall, J. Renfroe who ALWAYS was telling the young people what music was acceptable for them to listen to.

And this guy was just so opinionated regarding everything.

So one time at a wedding this song comes on and he starts dancing almost uncontrollably. It was agony to watch, and I ( and many others felt embarrassed for him because of how he was dancing and how his self rightous opinions seemed to be thrown to the wind this evening.

any other examples of music that became tainted from a jw experience ?