Posts by Sherri

please forgive me if it has, but i would like to know how many on board are active witnesses, inactive, da/df''d, or never been witnesses.. i am inactive since 2005, black female, separated, head of household, etc.. rsvp.

snowbird.

Sherri

Geez, I've not posted anything in ages! Anyway, I started as a Witness at the age of 10 or so, baptized at 13, married at 19 (husband converted to marry me--now he's still in and I'm out), pioneer, Bethelite, blah, blah, blah. Was a true believer -- none of this double life stuff for me. I was such a straight arrow that even now, after being out for 20+ years, I still have residual guilt. Left the org in 1987, lost husband, friends, the whole nine yards. Started over and have no regrets. None.

49

Your favourite film of all time?

by Spectrum in

mindless fun part (ii) .

.

mine is - west side story followed in second place by the very first star wars.

Sherri

Looked all through this thread to see if anyone picked my favourite, but it looks like I'm the only one:

Harold and Maude

This was a life-changing film for me. It's an old (1971) cult movie which shows up at the cinema from time to time. I originally went to see it back in 1982 because Cat Stevens did the soundtrack, but I fell in love with the film. It's about an almost-80-year-old woman and a 19-year-old man/boy who meet and fall in love. Harold is one messed up kid, and Maude teaches him about life. When I decided to leave the JWs in 1986, I took on board many of the things she said; it actually helped me to leave.

A couple of examples:

Harold (who spends a good deal of the time faking suicides to get his mother's attention), tells Maude he "enjoys being dead." Maude replies, "Yes. I understand. A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they're not dead, not really. They're just backing away from life." So she tells him to "Reach out! Take a chance! Get hurt, even. But play as well as you can....Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room."

Also, "Come on, now, Harold. Everyone has the right to be an ass. You just can't let the world judge you too much."

The "backing away from life" really resonated with me, even though being a JW could hardly be called easy. What WAS easy about it was checking my brain (and my conscience) at the door and allowing someone else to make all my decisions for me. So I had to reach out and take a chance (and boy, did I get hurt) -- but now I've got a hell of a lot to talk about.

31

Marriage and Age

by pratt1 in

jw
friends

.

would you marry someone more than 15 years older or younger than yourself?.

it seems to be somewhat common for men to marry women significantly younger than them selves, but when a woman marries a man much younger, it seems to generate a lot of attention.. what are your thoughts?

Sherri

My husband is nine years younger than me. We've been together since he was 26 and I was 35 (it's ten years later). It's much more common for the guy to be older, but I think it's kind of cool that our age difference hasn't caused us any problems (except in the music arena -- we're generations apart!).

The thing is, we have such a great time together we don't really think about the age difference. Sometimes I worry about what it will be like when I'm a mature, semi-wrinkly 55 and he's in his so-called prime, but life is too short to waste on things like that. He's my best friend and I hope he always will be.

The old cliche of 'age is only a number' is spot-on here. What matters is compatibility, empathy, love.

3

London Bomb Blasts

by lonelysheep in

jw
friends

i hope everyone is ok!

!

Sherri

My husband is in London. He's okay, but all I want is for him to come home. But how? when? It reminds me of when 9/11 happened. I was at home on maternity leave and watching all of it unfold, not knowing whether the whole bloody world was coming to an end. All I wanted was for him to be home. I feel the same way now. What a nightmare.

34

Another question for atheists, spirituality

by IP_SEC in

i'm not talking about deeminz and gawds, or the supernatural here, just the state of being spiritual.

what accounts for it in the evolutionary model?

muchos gracias amigos.

Sherri

JamesThomas said:

We don't need gods or religion to give us what we already are.

(edited to add: religions may have originally used myth and stories to help point to this inner grandeur, but along the way we took the stories to be true, and rather than awaken and enlightened us, they blinded us and put us to sleep.)

I agree with you 100% - we don't need these things. But why do so many of us (the rhetorical us) insist on clinging to them? We're talking about the majority of humanity here -- this inner desire to find meaning in our existence and to express that desire by attaching ourselves to some man-made stories. Is this some kind of flaw in our psyche, our inability to face up to the possibility that THIS IS IT? Or is it some kind of a survival mechanism? A frustration with never KNOWING anything, feeling better because we have an explanation, albeit an unprovable, illogical one? As you can see, I struggle with this. Having known the 'truth' for such a long time, I'm now faced with the fact that I know sweet FA. Scary, but exciting.

29

What did you do over the weekend?

by ButtLight in

jw
friends

i was bad!

we went to our cabin friday night till sunday.

i went through 3 cases of buttlight!

Sherri

We had a great weekend with our boys, ages 4 and 6-1/2. We went in to London on the train (always exciting for them) and visited the London Aquarium. I hadn't really got my hopes up too much about the outing -- thought they might get bored after the first tank or two -- but they both loved it! It was fantastic to see their excitement and enthusiasm as they stopped and gazed into each and every tank, oohing and ahhing over the variety of creatures to be found under the sea. The LA has an open pool where you can actually stroke a ray; we all enjoyed that. I thought they would be smooth like a dolphin or something, but it was like stroking a short-haired rabbit underwater -- lovely, soft fur.

Then it was off to McDonalds (of course) and an ice cream for after, followed by a cruise down the Thames from Westminster (boys both fascinated by Big Ben) to Greenwich.

We didn't do anything particularly earth-shattering, but it was a great day out, and we enjoyed the city in a different way by looking through their eyes -- everything was new and exciting for them. They are at such a fun age now and we're really enjoying the time we spend together.

276

2005 Barbecue Is Definitely On!

by Englishman in

jw
friends

saturday seems to be much preferred over sunday, so this years bbq will be held on saturday, july 9th, commencing around 2 pm.

location is our home in weston super mare.

as usual, the day will be very boozy and proceedings will conclude in the waverley pub.

Sherri

Gadget -- Brownies are on the way!

Sherri

"I bake, therefore I am."

27

Were the elders in your congregation good,bad or indifferent?

by badboy in

jw
friends

?

Sherri

Our elders were okay, except for a couple. One was removed for (I think) telling his wife (the biggest blabbermouth in the cong) about jc's, etc. Another one was a pompous git. After I got kicked out of Bethel (a long story which I have to be quite drunk to tell) and came home in disgrace, I was sitting in the front of the KH, pouring out my heart to this guy. Really personal stuff, lots of anguish (stupid girl). He seemed to be listening intently. When I finished (in tears), he said "Did you know you have some black stuff on your glasses?" What an asshole.

The others seemed sincere and tried to help where they could.

BTW--Does anyone know how many posts I have to do to stop being a danged newbie?