Posts by kenpodragon

In the news a lot lately, are thoughts on how magazines are to blame for young woman dieting to the point of death. Not because they are not beautiful, but because they see these thin woman on the covers and think that is the image they need to be. What is funny about image though, is depending on the time period in history, you would see a wide variety of images of beauty. In the 1800's woman with large hips were considered the best wife's, while thin woman would have been considered at deaths door.

So as I thought about image tonight, as mentioned in my other post. I thought about something, does the society teach that obese people are not perfect? Well at first you might say, "no, never heard of it." Yet, did you see it?

Picture yourself back then, when you were a Witness. You were looking through one of the many magazines and books they published and come to a picture of the paradise earth. Look at the people, did any of them have a weight problem? Did any of them have large hips, or a chunkier appearance? No, they were all the same "teen magazine" image of the magazines we see today. Why is this wrong?

Well keep in mind that the society was saying these images were of "perfection." Yet doctors say that weight is not always a indicator of someone's health. In fact, in many cases a little extra weight is healthy. Being to thin can harm your organs, cause birthing problems for mothers, and even affect the development of your body. Contrary to believe, the thin image shown in these pictures as perfect, is not really the perfect body. How can these images affect people though?

Well lets say you are a young woman in a congregation with a weight problem. You look at these magazines each day and see these beautiful people. You see that the "popular" boys and girls in the congregation look like this, while you do not. You then see the pictures from the society more, and soon you start to feel that in the new system your body would need more work then others, because lets face it. According to the societies depiction, you are further from perfection then most. So with that in mind, how do you think that would make someone feel?

Personally, I could see issues with self esteem. I could see issues with depression and even the development of the same eating disorders that the news reports in teens today that want to be as thin as the latest super model. At the same time, as much as we would want to think that only Witnesses make this mistake in showing a godly perfect world as being thin people. I must also mention, that I have never seen a obese angel in any other churches either.

So I wonder something as I write this, did anyone else ever notice this one little fact about the perfect world? If so, how did it make you feel? If you didn't, does it make you wonder more now how it affected your own image of a perfect body?

Just wondering

Dragon

30

Accepting that we are not perfect

by kenpodragon in

jw
friends

like a flower

"you are like a flower.

in that you bloom in the light and hide in the dark.

kenpodragon

Like a flower

"You are like a flower. In that you bloom in the light and hide in the dark. In all though, still a flower and a beauty to be seen, a beauty to be cherished. For what you are at your peak, or what you are at your weakest is the most enjoyable of all natural creation. Whether you are in the sun or in the dark You are in a field of peddles enjoying the radiance of the day and the power of this life."

Accepting that we are not perfect

So many people in this life will go around with the idea that others are better then them. They see the professional athlete and think he or she is better because they have more money, or they have a larger home. They see the movie star and think that they are better because their looks are so exact and so wonderful, yet they look into a mirror and because it is not the same image they feel less balanced to this life. In our Witness days we saw the elders, the pioneers and many others as having things or doing things that put them above us in our minds.

Take a look around you some day, and see who the people are around you. Are these people the rich famous people, are they the beautiful movie stars? Walk down to the busiest street in town and look around, how many of these people are the people you want to be? Are all those woman perfect blondes with thin trimmed bodies, are all those men wearing their hair perfect with a Hercules physique? Soon you will learn that much like yourself these people are the ones to whom you look like. You look like everyone else, you are as normal as the rest of the word.

I remember once, and I will not share the name, I was in a location with several people. We were talking and looking around when suddenly a lady walked into the room and started shopping. The woman looked familiar, but something seemed out of place. We all continued to talk, when suddenly we heard the woman speak and we realized she was a well known movie star. Apparently, to go unnoticed she had put on less make-up then normal and was wearing a less them glamorous outfit. We all looked over and to be honest we were shocked. Here was this famous woman that people always want to look like, and she looked as normal as any other shopper in the store. Not that she was ugly or anything negative like that, but it was a eye opening example of how "Hollywood" portrays a unrealistic image of what people really are.

Men as much as woman have issues with image, we will work out for months and months to get the perfect trimmed body. We will diet and drink some of the most disgusting drinks you could image to build muscle. Yet, if asked we would say that image means nothing and we are doing this for health reasons. The reason is, we do not want people to realize what is going on in our heads. We have those thoughts of, "If I just trim down 5 more pounds I will look like I did in high school" or "When I get all buff, no one will ever guess I was the class nerd."

We all think this way, we all add to our self doubt with each word we say and with each thought that says, "No one else is thinking this but me." Could you imagine a world in which we all set down one day and said only what we were thinking? It might be humorous in some thoughts, but for the most part we would soon realize that our doubts, are the shared doubts of others. We all think and accept that others have it better without even knowing the name of the other person, let alone their inner thoughts and habits.

Now I realize that many people will say, and with good reason, that much of what they are thinking comes from childhood up bring. Perhaps they had hateful parents who told them negative things about themselves for years. They accepted them in time and soon became what they were told to become. I know a woman who was never all that heavy when she was growing up, who was told so many times that she was fat, that in her adult years she became very obese and soon hand health problems that put her life in danger. When I spoke with her family, they saw it all as genes and her eating habits. What they never realized was how their words were adding to her inner self and her life became one large poisonous potion that soon had her at the brink of death. Words can be some of the most unbuilding things at times to add to our life, yet in the same breathe they can be the poison that will one day kill us.

Accepting that we are not the perfect person, our minds has developed, it a important step. The next step, however, is more important. It is when we actually develop a realistic person that is reachable that we want to become, or that we already are.

Do you know who you want to be yet, now that you have left the organization, or are you still letting others tell you what to become to be "perfect?"

My thought

24

Thank You All!!!!

by kelsey007 in

jw
friends

this board has been a wonderful experience.

first i would like to thank everyone for tolerating my relentless criticisms.

and i also do appreciate all the criticisms that were returned.

kenpodragon

I agree, a very nice group of people.

Did you know in ancient China they would take a block of metal and heat it over and over and bound on it over and over, folding and putting it into the fire and then hammering it more and more. In the end, a beautiful sword appears from something that was once only a lump of metal.

Thus, what we are. A sharp sword at the hands of much heat and punishment. Yet sharper and more eloquent in life, in our current state!

My thought

Dragon

Edited by - kenpodragon on 6 October 2002 21:21:43

Edited by - kenpodragon on 6 October 2002 23:19:48

21

TO LURKING JW ELDERS- THE LIST

by jst2laws in

jw
friends

here is the current list of former (some present) elders .

for over a year i lurked as an elder on h2o and this board.

for some time i feared i was the most evil appointed servant in the history of the organization for lurking here.

kenpodragon

You can mention my wife "dragonlady" ...

Only title I have now in the house is "hudband" and soon "dad"

Take Care

Dragon

18

Would you throw a pebble at a boulder

by kenpodragon in

jw
friends

would you throw a pebble at a boulder.

in my contact with my witness family i am often confronted with several subjects that make me want to bite my lip and say to myself "don't bother!

" as i realize they would never listen to my thoughts anyway.

kenpodragon

I think the best pebble's you can throw is by succeeding in your personal and/or family life without the borg. They expect you to completely fall apart without their guidance, and when you show that you are stable without them it starts to put doubts in their minds.

When you do this, it is like setting a piece a dynamite at the boulders base. When it blows the boulder roles away nicely, or blows into so many pieces. It does not matter any more.

Thanks for the added thought

Dragon

6

Kenpodragon

by Granny Linda in

jw
friends

dragon, i've noticed lately that a number of your posts and/or replies refer to "anger.

so, whatssup .

granny, who is of the nosey class.

kenpodragon

(Double posted on accident)

Edited by - kenpodragon on 6 October 2002 2:44:44

6

Kenpodragon

by Granny Linda in

jw
friends

dragon, i've noticed lately that a number of your posts and/or replies refer to "anger.

so, whatssup .

granny, who is of the nosey class.

kenpodragon

Linda

I thought you might have had it from a while back, many ions ago. When I had my own board up for awhile. You were one of the regulars and for some reason I thought you e-mailed me once. Memory must be failing me.

Anyway, I have noticed a emotional roller coaster over the last 8 months or so of the pregnancy from both me and my wife. In the end though, a life started in love with always be surrounded in love.

Take Care

Dragon

PS : It kind of scared me this evening when I saw a post with my name on it. I did not see it was from you and I was worried someone was going to read me the riot act. Oh know, I was being paranoid.

3

"Looking for signs"

by kenpodragon in

jw
friends

"looking for signs" .

when i was in high school i hated every day.

i was the quiet child, the one who no one hardly knew they went to school with.

kenpodragon

"Looking for signs"

When I was in High School I hated every day. I was the quiet child, the one who no one hardly knew they went to school with. The kid that belonged to that religion with all the rules and always out of the mix with the rest of the group. Tall and skinny, I was happy to be invisible and not like some who were faced with ridicule for being different. Although I was quiet, it was impossible to go through 12 years of school in a small town and not get to know certain people. As I aged, friends came and went and we were able to keep in contact in class throughout the school years, if not social on the outside of school time. A few friends divided up my elementary and High School years, but a couple stood out more then others. One in particular was a boy named Michael Hastings. He was kind of one of those friends you could not forget, and the kid who was into everything and liked by everyone. By being his friend and spending time with him, you had a chance to get to know and talk to others who would have normally left you alone. As High School started and we ended up in different classes and groups, we still talked from time to time and always stayed casual friends.

Like all things in life, High School ended and life moved on. Although I spent a few years riding the fence between being a Witness and not being one, in my mind I never let go of the religion and I just left the friends of my youth behind. In time days became years, and soon I was moved out of my hometown and within 2 years of High School graduation I had no contact with anyone from those days. Next thing you know years became a decade, and we arrived at the time that people normally do their ten-year reunion. I would normally not have gone, as Witnesses shun such practice, but I was not a Witness anymore and I wanted to go back and show these people I was something different. Well at least that is how I felt in January, but that soon changed.

You see, to me High School conjured a lot of thoughts of past pain. Remembering what it felt like to be an outcast, a nobody, and in ten years I had overcome that to be a well-known businessman and success in life. Not bragging, but saying I was not the person who set at lunch quiet anymore, I was now the talker and the leader. I was the person I wanted to be then, and so I did not see any need to return and revisit a life long gone.

Well some how the person in charge of the reunion got my home number and called me to ask if I was coming, and I said "no thanks." They did not say much; other then if you change your mind just call or write for some information. I took the contact info, and then set it down and looked through my high school yearbook and laughed at how dumb we all looked. Yes it was the 80's, and the fashions were high bangs on girls and that hair sprayed hair for men. We looked like fools, but we all thought we were cool. Well I took the address and put it in my yearbook and put it on the shelf, I was convinced not to go and that was it.

Three months went by and I had given no thought to reunions, did not really care. One night I had the oddest of dreams, I was sitting in my house watching television and the front door opened and a guy walked in. It was my friend Michael Hastings, of course looking like he did in 1989. He was acting like I always remembered, way to excited and telling me I needed to go to the reunion. Telling me it would be fun and that I would have a blast. Michael was the type of guy that would have handed me a beer at a party and force me to drink it, even though I knew it was wrong and I was a baptized Witness out of his element. He just wanted everyone to have fun and nothing was going to stop him. Plus, he liked being the center of attention and that made him well known as well. Well in the dream he would not give up and I finally gave in, like I would of at 17.

I woke the next day, and I had the dream on my mind. I thought about the reunion again and I decided to give the woman in charge a call to see if I could make it. By this time it was only one week away. I could not remember where I left the note with her name and contact information, so I got online to a reunion site and got it. I called and she was all happy and told me how to pay and when the times were for each event. So it looked like I was going to something, even though I said I wasn't. My wife was excited, and she went and bought a new dress. I had told her about the dream and she wanted to meet this guy, as she said he sounded like someone she knew in High School as well. Always the leader and always the one getting things going.

Well we drove the three hours back to my hometown and I was nervous, all the thoughts returned of that insecure teenager inside this man who was nothing like that. I checked into the hotel, and we started to get ready for the reunion. My wife looked beautiful in her new dress and I was kind of excited about showing her off. I put on my suit and looked in the mirror ... yes the man was there, but the teenager was too. A person who had been put to sleep for a long time, and now it was kind of popping it's head out to say "I am still a part of you."

Well we entered the reunion and their were faces that looked familiar on the table. These were the name badges of the reunion, with our year book picture on them. Oh God! If I knew this thing would haunt me for 10 years, I should have at least smiled better. None the less, I put it on and entered. As we entered we walked by a table of memories from my High School years. The newspaper, the yearbook, the photos and the other things that were 1989. Then at the end their was a memorial table for those who had been lost, those who died since are moment of leaving those high school days behind. As I approached it, a old friend saw me and shock my hand. He set there in shock, he could not belief it was me. We laughed and chatted and it was awesome, the whole time he kept going "you have changed!" and then someone came in and interrupted him. I knew we would talk more, so I continued on and looked at the memorial table.

As I approached it, it seemed we got lucky and only one of our classmates had died. My sister had lost 15 in her class, and I thought we might be about the same. I looked at the picture to see who it was, and there he was "Michael Hastings." Died in a motorcycle accident in 1992 in San Jose California. Oh crap! That was all I could think. How was it that out of the blue that one person drew me to this place, yet be the one person who was dead? I teared up for a moment, and kind of thought about the years I had that he never did. Then I showed him to my wife, and in a weird way I felt like I was saying "Michael this is my wife, wife this is Michael" to a photo. I just felt he knew I was saying more then the words that came out. (I do not refer to my wife as "wife", I just do not post her name online)

The reunion went on, and it turned out to be a great up builder to my life. Yes there were still some clicks, and people I did not talk to. On the other hand there were tons of people who could not believe how I looked and what I became. I was so proud to say I was not a Witness and to see their reactions of "thank goodness!" and to see how much they were happy to see me. I was happy to see them too and it meant something to have those few hours to see that I really had changed from being a depressed teenager to a man who liked life.

Later that night we got to the hotel and my wife wanted to see what some of these people she met looked like in High School. As staring at there nametag seemed a little uncomfortable. We opened the yearbook and looked at these past photos, when we came to the page with Michael Hastings, guess what? This is the page that had the piece of paper with the contact information on it, that I had misplaced months prior. I realized that this whole time, there was something being said in my return to these people. I looked up into the mirror in my room again. Did I see the teenage boy again? No this time I saw the man, that man who now knew that there was another side looking after him. All he had to do was remember to read the signs and pay attention, and his road would always lead to moments of happiness. I thanked Michael for the invite, and went to bed with my beautiful wife ... happy!

My thought

Edited by - kenpodragon on 6 October 2002 2:32:56