This cliche' may get oversaid, but it is much like the Eagles song Hotel California where you can "check out any time you like, but you can never leave." My husband was DF'd last month. We have been inactive for about 7 years and have only stepped inside the local KH for a couple of memorial services. Most of the community knew we had stopped going to the KH, but when asked we usually just told folks we were 'slackers,' as we have mostly JW family and wanted to avoid dealing with the shunning business. It took only mentioning the SilentLambs issue to one person to get the elders riled up. So yes, inactive does not stop them.
mrs rocky2
JoinedPosts by mrs rocky2
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Can inactives be D/F'd?
by tabbycat incan inactive ex-jw's be disfellowshipped?
i've always been interested but can't ask my mother (still a jw) for fear of upsetting her.
if i was d/f'd, would it really mean that even my immediate family would 'shun' me?
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CRUEL toward children!!!!
by chuckyy inmy 6 year old daughter was best friends with another 6 year old witness girl and they go to the same school.. since our disassociation it has been difficult for them to see each other.to get around this, we have recently used my mother (who is not/never been a witness), to take the two girls out to play together.
however, two witness mothers at the school noticed that this was happening and proceeded to harrass and have a go at the other witness mother for letting her daughter associate with the 6 year old daughter of parents who have left jehovah.there has been no trips out together for the two girls since.. this to me is so cruel!
after all, there was never any contact with us.
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mrs rocky2
I am so sorry for the way you and your daughter are being treated. My youngest, now 21, had 3 other witness girls in her class in grade school. We thought it was going to be wonderful that there were 4 JW girls to play together. Unfortunately, this was not the case. They were all so cruel. They would tell my daughter that she shouldn't play with the worldly children at school. So she would ask to play with them. They told her no. The parents weren't much help at all. It broke my heart then and breaks my heart now to see such cruelty to these innocent children.
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Elders
by sammielee24 injust curious - it seems like there are quite a few ex-elders around the site....how many are you?
i enjoy reading stories from the inside...
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mrs rocky2
My father is an elder but I wasn't a sister elder's daughter. He was (and still is) such a huge gossip! When I turned 19 and decided to move to another congregation (one closer to home - he was helping a congregation in need on the other side of town) he told me that he was sorry we weren't in the same congregation because he wouldn't know what was going on with me gone! Needless to say, I quit talking to him about anything except the weather.
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WT response to your letters?
by Smiles inhave you ever sent letters to the wt society and if so what was their response to you?.
did they send you an informative reply?.
did they send you a smug reply?.
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mrs rocky2
Rocky wrote a letter 10/18/94 about the application of Luke 9:62. He clearly stated in his first paragraph that he was writing a viewpoint as a farmer, not a prophet. He was giving them the farmers viewpoint of the application of Jesus words regarding plowing. At the time, we were naive and still believed that the FDS was somehow connected to God. We received a three paragraph letter from them 11/09/94, rather quickly we thought. The bottom line was that his "observations as a farmer are of interest" and that the information would be passed along to those who "must decide what is to be published in the future." Here's the kicker. They wrote, "Of course, you realize that, until something may be published in the future, it is best to continue to use what we have already published on this verse regarding its meaning." As far as we know, the application of Luke 9:62 has not changed. We have not spoken about this to anyone. But now we have nothing to lose as Rocky was DF'd last month.
We also sent a letter 08/31/97 for which we have not had a reply. In this letter we expressed our concern about the Kingdom Hall Construction in the US and the Int'l KH Construction based on information in 08/97 OKM and what we were experiencing locally with our KH remodel plans. We (and a few others) felt we should minimize costs locally so we could send the excess to the wroldwide KH building fund to use "uselfishly" in places overseas where they were meeting in the woods, no chairs, etc. Especially since the KH here at that time was no even 20-years old. It was in need of quite a bit of maintenance. We suspected this maintenance had been put off because of the desire of several of the body of elders to have a brand new KH. Bottom line - no answer. We finally called Brooklyn and were told that we could not donate through HQ specifically for other countries but that we could send the money directly to another country only if we knew someone who could receive it in that country. If we sent the money to HQ they would disperse it to the general KH Building Fund. (This could be its own separate topic.)
Needless to say, it was about a year later we stopped going to meetings.
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Inactive ones - new light.
by unique1 ini didn't go to the district convention this year.
my mom however did and she sends out a daily text email every day.
she asked all members of the email group to share their favorite part of the convention.
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mrs rocky2
Hmm, interesting. I am inactive, my husband is DF'd. No calls from the elders or anyone else in the congregation, including hubby's brother, my brother, my dad. They didn't even bother calling to tell me my hubby was DF'd. I guess I must have a reputation for an "apostate state of mind" or maybe I just faded away into oblivion.
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The next cover-up or scandal?
by kwintestal inmy personal thoughts are this.
with the population aging and with jw's becomming incresingly poor, there will be a lot more elder abuse, and i don't mean congregation elders, but elderly people.. does anyone know of this taking place in the congregations?.
kwin
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mrs rocky2
I know of a couple in Oregon who have given a lifetime of full-time service to WT. They have no retirement. Their children all followed in their footsteps working part-time or in low paying service jobs. A few winters ago, this couple needed new tires for their car. They couldn't afford to buy them, their children apparently could not help either. This couple is well into their 70s. While this is not direct abuse I feel it is an abuse of sorts. People at this age should not have to worry about whether they can afford tires for their car. Oh, did I mention they are still working? They can't afford to retire yet.
As for elderly abuse, I have seen only verbal abuse and know of one specific case. The wife is slightly older than the husband. He is an elder. Her health is declining. He has no patience for her needs. Anything that goes wrong is her fault. What's really sad is that the adult children can't do anything to stop the verbal abuse because this guy doesn't listen to the kids either. Breaks my heart!
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JW are such Liars
by Es inmy friend told me today that she had passed on to her friend my story bout being a jw and how now i dont have any support since leaving the borg mainly coz im marrying a "worldy" person and how my parents dont really have alot to do with me now.
anyway jw's came to this ladies door this week and she plainly stated that she is not interested but they kept hounding and so she said im not interested in a religion that can shun family members for not marrying in your religion, or not believing in the same thing, thats not what a loving god does.
so these jw said "oh you must have the wrong religion we dont do those things"!!!
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mrs rocky2
Lies? it's not lying, it's Theocratic Warfare!
Trevor - we too put a letter to the editor in our small town after we were quite publicly shunned away from Rocky's nephew's graduation reception. This little town's population is only about 1500 people. The step-nephew is not a JW. His date that day was my non-JW best friend's daughter. They were quite surprised we didn't attend and asked why. I don't think the community will put up with lying in this case. Many in the community are not going to be receptive to the JWs knocking on their doors!
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Can't wait to see that judgemental blank look on my parents face
by misguided inwhen i tell them my daughter got the letter in the mail yesterday that she's been accepted to that spiritually-killing, immorality-laden place called the university of british columbia for fall studies!
she's so excited, as am i!.
rose
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mrs rocky2
Awesome! my cousin's daughter, who is from Tokyo, Japan, is starting her second year at UBC as an international student. Best wishes to your daughter!
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Putting on the new personality
by mrs rocky2 ini remember sitting through countless meetings, convention, and assemblies and having the scripture about putting away the old personality and putting on the new personality hounded into us repeatedly.
in retrospect, it appears wt wanted us to give up any personality or individualism and conform to a new personality based on wt mandates and become a mindless drone.
i am so happy to be free to be me and no longer driven by guilt to conform to a mans interpretation of god.. when we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free.
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mrs rocky2
One thing to keep in mind, this change is a common thread among cults. It is always in the form of mind control, built on a platform of acceptable behavior and is kept in check with fear.
I believe the 'putting on of the new personality' is part of the reason life after leaving the dubs is so difficult. To leave is to reclaim ones own identity, and individuality. ;It takes time to discover who you truly are apart from the b0rg and let one's creativity flow.
So true - it is so insidious that this brainwashing is done under the guise of pleasing God. I know I didn't see it as brainwashing. If I had, I wouldn't have remained a loyal JW for so many years.
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Elder says: Young People don't want to flip burgers to pioneer
by truthseeker ini approached an elder last week, and asked him if the society was against higher education because of the comments brought out in the drama.
he said the society disapproves of higher education.. .
he privately told me he disagrees with the view the society has on education - he said it should be a personal choice.. .
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mrs rocky2
I would imagine there is a lot of conflict in some areas where brothers have been let go due to downsizing from what they thought were secure jobs. In the State of Washington a person can only stay on unemployment for so long. If he/she is considered a displaced worker, then the State will send that person to school, usually community college, to be retrained in another field. If he/she refuses to participate, unemployment compensation is discontinued. (My 40-something JW brother-in-law and my sister's best friend, also a JW and 40-ish, both have recently completed AA degrees from a community college, 2-year full time programs). So JW youth are getting mixed messages about education. It's ok to go to school if you are going to lose social benefits, but not ok if you are just starting out in your life.