Posts by La Capra

9

The itch of the ascetic

by El blanko in

jw
friends

have you ever had the itch to slim down your possessions to only those that are needed?

.

i get it from time to time, but wonder whether it is part of my neurosis.

I do that too, not every week, or month, but probably every year. I have yet to regret getting rid of anything. I almost got rid of an old "word processor" (Canon Starwriter from the late 80s, early 90s). It didn't sell at the garage sale, and I opted not to take it to charity. I ended up using it on a few law school exams before they started letting us use our laptops. Saved my butt (and got me some high scores).

But if you feel like you might be off balance, go slow. Try this (I think this came from Suze Orman). Find ten things that are no longer of use to you, or to anyone else, and just throw them away. Then find ten things that are no use to you, but someone else could use, and take them to charity. You can do this once, probably painlessly, and see if that's enough of a taste for paring down your existence. If not, try it a few more times. (Suze's theory is that when you see how much money you have spent on useless crap, you will stop spending so much.)

I like not having a lot of crap around. It allows me to focus on my current deal and spread it out as necessary.

Now you got me itching to pare down. It'll have to wait until I finish my last final for this year of law school this Wednesday night (one down, one to go). I think I better cancel my plans for next weekend so I can join you in being off-balance. Have fun de-nesting-I really recommend it!

(I still take my starwriter to law school exams, as my back up in case my laptop crashes)

Shoshana

36

Anyone Here from No Calif?

by love2Bworldly in

does anyone post here who is from northern california?

La Capra

I'm in Sonoma County-been here all my life (except for a two year stint in Marin for a year of the forbidden graduate school and a year of teaching). Shoshana

15

weird reasoning...

by zaphod in

jw
friends

a cousin of mine was married to a brother at seventeen for two years.

they both pioneered and were, evidently, a happy spiritual couple.. my cousin realised that she had made a huge mistake marrying this brother, as they both were hormonally charged teenagers who had followed paul's advice to get married if they could not go without sex.

she just did not love him any more and she felt trapped by the jw stance on divorce.. this was her escape plan:.

La Capra

The JC Df'd them for a 10 year minimum period.

I find this so hysterical and also telling. Why DF anyone for a "minimum" time...Isn't armageddon coming tomorrow? Why give such an extended return date when "deep down in your heart" you knows this system will be over by then and the gamers will be destroyed. This is why I don't think the GB (and writers) believe their own vitriole. If kids knew they had an ever pushed out armageddon date of at least ten years, would they ever get baptized? Wouldn't find it out until you were in this situation, and didn't give a damn anyway.

Shoshana

47

Comments You Will Not Hear at the 4-10-05 WT Study (Marriage--March 1)

by blondie in

comments you will not hear at the 4-10-05 wt study (march 1, 2005 issue)

review comments

will be in black and parentheses ().

La Capra

I never have anything to add to Blondie's wonderful comments you will never hear. But this time I do, and (if I do say so myself), I believe it is additive. As no-fault divorce eventually spread as a legal reason to divorce (irreconcilable differences), the divorce rate began to rise. Before no-fault, marriages weren't dissolved without other legal reasons. Other countries that once restricted divorces have begun to allow no-fault through the last several decades. This is one of the largest reasons the divorce rate increased about 30 years ago. But the answer (of course) from WTBS would be that only in the "last days" (critical times, hard to deal with...) would governments allow such easy divorces. I would say that no-fault divorce certainly makes a critical situation a lot easier to deal with. It wouldn't surprise me to hear that before no-fault divorce, more than half the marriages were loveless, sexless, and generally "bad." There was just no easy way out. Shoshana

16

are congregation revolving around mini-moguls or dynasties of elitist JW?

by cyborgVision in

in your experience, did you ever see congregation being revolved around clan-like, all-influential families?.

i don't know about your experiences, but in my personal experience and basically wherever i went i've seen congregation being influenced by mini dynasties of elitist jw.

in fact their influence goes far beyond of what you'd normally consider "spirituality" and branches down to some absolutely bizarre issues such as what type of car you should drive, what brand of clothing is "christian", what sort of barbeque is appropriate, even what cereal you should not buy since it supports "babylon the great", etc.

La Capra

This happened in my congregation when I was ten or eleven. We had the Sunday morning slot for years, and then it came down that we were supposed to rotate it. At some point, after a year or two in the afternoon, it was supposed to switch again. The BOE put it to a congregation vote to leave it the same (I'm not sure if it was our dynasty that wanted it in the afternoon, or the other congregation's dynasty that wanted the morning). Our congregation voted to move the Sunday meeting to the morning. The P.O. was p.o.ed. He had us re-vote about four times (interspersed with guilt-laced spiels indicating that we would keep voting all night if necessary) until we voted the way he wanted. If a fifth-grader could see the pointlessness of a congregation vote, how could the adults not? I referenced this situation in my disassociation letter eight years later (as evidence they did not have "Jehovah's spirit"). I don't recall there ever being another congregation vote after that debaucle. Just another reason disassociating was easy. Shoshana

20

I need Help on a Research Project

by JustMeNonJDub in

jw
friends

i am currently writing a research paper on why people become jws.

i would greatly appreciate it if many of you fine people could tell me the reason(s) why you joined the jws.

those of you born to jw parents, please chime in also.

La Capra

I was born into it. At the end of 1967. About two years before I was born, my second brother was born and my mother decided to give up her teaching career to raise her children. My mother is a brilliant, well-educated, very articulate person. My father, on the other hand, while quite bright, was not well-educated, and enjoyed simple things like watching television and reading books about history, and is not very social or talkative.

About a year before I was born, my mother miscarried her third pregnancy, and I can only guess at her devastation-and all the self-loathing that goes with a failed pregnancy. She must have been depressed, and feeling very unimportant-just a mom with two toddler boys at home, and a husband who didn't challenge her intellect.

Then one day (probably about the time she got pregnant with me), an old man with not only a Swedish accent, but a speech impediment, knocked on her door, while she was up to her nose in dirty diapers and Cheerios, offering her a paradise (where miscarriages never happened) of perfection, and a pseudo-intellectual pursuit to fill & sustain her mental cravings. They got her when she was weak, insecure, and feeling unappreciated. I am sure she was love-bombed. And she was educated-a real catch for the dubs back then (and probably still now).

A few months after I was born my mom got baptised and is still, to this day, fully ensconced in the cult. I have one brother who is "sort of" in, but my other brother and I are out. My dad never joined. And for all the times he could have left us and gotten himself a normal life and family, he stayed. What character! I know that was a true parental sacrifice on his part - not to leave - when leaving could have been so easy.

And as for my mom, because she is married to an unbeliever, she will never be in "the in crowd" that she so longs to join, nearly 40 years, never being good enough. What a waste.

Shoshana

12

Need Ideas - Parenting Problem/Question

by exjwshell in

jw
friends

here's a question to all of you parents out there.... do any of you, especially those who were born and raised as a jw, have trouble parenting your non-jw children?...

i've been "out" for 18 years and since then have married and had two children.

i find it incredibly difficult to not parent "witness style".

La Capra

"Mom, we are not witnesses. You are trying to raise me like you were raised."

Baby, he's got your number. He may be right on point this time, but other times it could be a classic teenage manipulative technique (JW or not).

I have worked with thousands of teenagers - it is their job to know what to say to best push a parent's buttons to get what they want. It's your job to see through the manipulations and distractions, and to be able to tell the difference between genuine concern and your prior conditioning.

Good Luck with the teen years (and you thought your own were hard for you...)

Shoshana

71

Should I go sit at the kh next thurs when they announce my DF

by cindykp in

jw
friends

i could get there early, and save you all some seats!

at least i would have someone to talk to after the meeting

La Capra

I have not been to a Kingdom Hall since August of 1987. My life plan was never to go again-not even for my mother's memorial service. But-I would happily attend any disfellowshipping or disassociation (or soon to be "no longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses") announcement, to support and congratulate the newly liberated (margaritas immediately following!).

Of all the actions we take to discourage others from making (or continuing to make) some of the mistakes we have made, I think this could be one of the more compelling. At a point where the individual is supposed to be at his lowest, most desperate, getting cut off from his love and community, the message that this person is not being cast out into nothingness would, in the least, aid the person leaving. At its best, some of the younger, unbaptized ones, might see that there is a whole universe of support outside the Kingdom Hall.

I'll go anywhere in the San Francisco Bay Area to lend my support and congratulations.

Shoshana

45

The Supremes Abolish 4th Amendment

by Amazing1914 in

jw
friends

just a couple of days ago, the us supreme court ruled in a case that has demolished the 4th amendment which states:.

amendment iv: the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

previously, you were secure in your person, including your cloths, car, house, etc.

La Capra

Ah, c'mon Jim, you gonna make me do this.....

Police can detain and ultimately search (exception to the warrant requriement-exigent circmstance, the dope was about to drive away...) if there is reasonable suspicion to believe there is criminal activity afoot (articulable facts). There was no search inside the car until after articulable facts arose. The dog sniffed an odor outside the car. Once the dog indicated drugs, there is your articulable fact. There has long been a "plain-sniff" exception (as well as plain-view exception) to the warrant requirement as well-even though this doesn't quite apply, since the dog was sniffing outside, where it had every legal right to be.

We criminal defense law clerks discussed this at break in Con Law tonight. This is not a new infringement on the Fourth Amendment being carved out. Now get that cop for making an unecessary stop in the first place, and then we can talk Fourth Amendment violations.

Shoshana

23

Note-Taking at Meetings: What's the Point?

by Room 215 in

the last time i was at a meeting, i was struck by how many jws -- mostly women and pre-teenage kids were assiduously taking notes.

i mean, what is the point?

do they really believe the guy on the platform is saying anything that can't be found -- and reiterated -- dozens if not hundreds of times in their printed material?

La Capra

I developed a theory around the age of 11 (when it completely hit me that there was a glass ceiling at about 3 1/2 feet for the female types in the WTBTS) that the note taking was posing, rather than meaningful. None of the men took notes....why? Because they held the power, and didn't need to jockey as much for position. The women had no power so they did the one thing they could in front everyone to show how important they were, they took notes. The only women who held actual power (not position, like pioneers, who got dumped on more than listened to) were the elders' wives. And lo and behold, they rarely, if ever, took notes. I did a case study on two couples, when I was in my teens. When the husbands first started to reach for "privileges," the wives started to answer more and take notes. When the husbands were appointed MS, the wives took notes furiously. When the husbands became elders, the wives toned down the notes, and within a few months quit taking notes altogether. But the wives sure lorded their position over everyone else. I felt really bad for one of the couples, because when they first started coming around, they were a really nice, down to earth couple, with a couple of wild little kids. The kids turned into robots and the wife eventually slipped into a very sad and meloncholy state.

Don't know why I remembered tracking those two couples, but, like everyone else, I was bored at meetings and needed something to do. I followed the power shifts.

Shoshana