GrreatTeacher

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Posts by GrreatTeacher

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  14

  Lonesome time of year

  by road to nowhere in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  cold, dark.

  isolation on top of it this year.

  i am sick of sappy xmas music and tv shows.. i always reflect on what religion has done to my family.

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  GrreatTeacher

  My prescription for the blues:

  1) Think: The shortest day of the year was yesterday. Every day gets a little longer with a little more sunshine!

  2) Do this: Follow the sun around the house during the day. Eat breakfast in a sunny window. Walk to the mailbox during the sunniest part of the day. Have an afternoon coffee break in whichever window is now sunniest. Enjoy the beautiful sunset no matter how early. Lack of sunlight can literally cause depression. Make yourself mindful of the sun and enjoy every day as it gets a little longer.

  3) Do this: Go drive around and look at the Christmas lights after the sun has gone down. This is the reason that people have celebrated with lights during the darkest time of the year throughout the centuries. We feel crappy in the dark and more joyful in the sunlight. Funnily enough, this was even allowed when we were growing up JW. And it was normally during the drives to and from the meetings that we looked and oohed and ahhed!

  4) Remember this: You did the best you could with what you had at the time. Forgive yourself for the way you raised your kids. Regret will eat you up. Consider having an honest talk with your son about this. I'll bet he would be most forgiving. At the least, you could figure out how to make amends. But, I really empathize with wanting to keep giving your kids everything. Mine is in college and is struggling which is its own burden. We're considering having him take out student loans. I'm still worried about his future career. Keep in mind, though, that the greater gift at this point is that the kids shouldn't be burdened with taking care of their parents in their old age. Keeping yourself solvent IS a gift. Hard medicine for me, too.

  5) Do this: Spend time playing with your pets if you have them. They aren't burdened by the past or worried about the future. They love you unconditionally right now, and you are the greatest person in the world to them!

  Best of luck,

  GT
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  17

  Ghislaine Maxwell on trial

  by LoveUniHateExams in

  1. social
  2. current

  ghislaine maxwell is on trial for grooming underage girls for sex and joining in, apparently.. her defence has recently finished, with maxwell declining to take the stand herself because she, in her words, 'doesn't need to as the prosecution haven't proved their case beyond reasonable doubt'.. that's for the jury to decide, ghislaine, lol.

  .

  doesn't it strike you as arrogant that she can't be arsed to stand up and speak in her own defence?.

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  GrreatTeacher

  It's not unusual at all to not testify on one's own behalf.

  Most lawyers recommend against it because it goes sideways so often. People often crumble under cross examination and make themselves look bad.

  She probably did the right thing. She's not a sympathetic figure and being one is the only reason to testify; you want the jury to feel sympathy.

  She's a snotty, privileged woman who ran around with a man who is now disgraced, hiding in the woods of New Hampshire in a mansion until she was caught.

  There's nothing she can say to make the jury like her.
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  14

  Would You Like To Be God?

  by Ultimate Axiom in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  we know there are a few on this forum who think they are, but consider this for a while.

  if you are god, you are omniscient, therefore you have nothing to learn.

  nothing to research, investigate or explore as there is nothing you don’t already know.

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  GrreatTeacher

  Like they say: "It's lonely at the top."
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  6

  Mop and Bucket: A JW minister and Three Incidents

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  three incidents (from my youth).

  in 1972 i had a glorious job as a janitor cleaning fort worth's largest newspaper offices at the star-telegram for $1.60 an hour in the wee hours (midnight to 8 am).. (hold your applause till the end, please).. .

  yes - i was still a jehovah's witness and yes - we young full-time ministers accepted any part-time employment such as mine to survive until 1975 (when the, um, end of human existence would occur; according to watchtower magazine leaders.).

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  GrreatTeacher

  How the hell did he fit all that on his business card?
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  12

  Gog of Magog

  by Truth and Justice in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  can someone explain or produce any information about what the new views are about the subject of gog of magog.

  apparently, it has caused a stir and i like to know a little bit about it.

  especially, when i had a brother who hasn’t talked to me in quite a while, starts talking about gog.

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  GrreatTeacher

  So, a Cryptid.

  I've always known Bigfoot was involved in this!
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  23

  TRICKY WORDS and why not to use them

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  tricky words .

  perfectly good words go unused in writing and speaking.

  their meaning isn't clear and the eye is 'tricked' by similarity to other words or sounds.. .

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  GrreatTeacher

  Yes. I've found plenty of sources pointing to British origins online.

  What I'm not finding is colonial American usage which is what I was taught but there seems to be no trace of digitally.

  I clearly remember being taught this. And, I'm not willing to let this one go!
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  23

  TRICKY WORDS and why not to use them

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  tricky words .

  perfectly good words go unused in writing and speaking.

  their meaning isn't clear and the eye is 'tricked' by similarity to other words or sounds.. .

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  GrreatTeacher

  Titch, that's the problem with the internet sometimes. It obscures previous information and just presents the new consensus.

  I have plenty of old sources and was taught it was, "Here. Here." as in 'over here, this person here, I agree."

  You would use, "Hear. Hear." in a situation such as, "Hear ye. Here ye." when announcing something.

  But, the term for agreement is, "Here. Here."

  The internet is not the only source or even the best source for historical word use.
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  23

  TRICKY WORDS and why not to use them

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  tricky words .

  perfectly good words go unused in writing and speaking.

  their meaning isn't clear and the eye is 'tricked' by similarity to other words or sounds.. .

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  GrreatTeacher

  In my experience, plenty of people pronounce "real" as a single syllable.

  I pronounce realtor as REEL ter. I say it quickly similar to kilter. It would morph from kilter to keelter to reelter.

  As when Canadians don't glide their diphthongs and it sounds like "aboot" to American ears, not all Americans glide the e to a in real. Sometimes it sounds more like rill. And that rilly hurts my fillings. I hate it when my rillter mispronounces things, too. I just sigh and look up at the cilling and pray for his English to have some hilling.

  Regardless, there shouldn't be an "a" before the "tor" syllable.
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  10

  Unitarian Universalist: Anyone Familiar?

  by Darkknight757 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i hope you are all doing well.. has anyone had an encounter with a unitarian universalist?

  my wife has a friend who invited us to their church a few years ago.

  we never went lol.

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  GrreatTeacher

  Yeah. I think Introversion vs. Extraversion can explain a lot about people's preferences, too.

  Extraverts need people around them. Introverts can find them exhausting and need a break from them. Both can be very charming and "social."

  I'm willing to bet a lot of church people are extraverts.

  I'm an introvert. Especially after working all week and being "on," I just need some peace and solitude on the weekend.
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  10

  Unitarian Universalist: Anyone Familiar?

  by Darkknight757 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i hope you are all doing well.. has anyone had an encounter with a unitarian universalist?

  my wife has a friend who invited us to their church a few years ago.

  we never went lol.

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  GrreatTeacher

  Yes. I had a short foray into Unitarian Universalist land about 15 years ago.

  In short, they are very liberal Christians to the point that they're not exclusively Christian or even religious.

  It's mostly a feel good meeting place for agnostics who still like the the comfort and ritual of meeting together at "church."

  The one I visited a few times had Christian groups, Jewish groups, and pagan groups meeting separately. There was a feel good generically inspirational service on Sunday mornings as well as children's Sunday School.

  I only met one person I knew there. After the meeting I saw my sister! We had both left the witnesses a few years earlier. I think it was an obvious step down from JWism to non attendance.

  I now don't feel the need to go to any services and am rather atheistic. I think there was an element of buying in to societal expectations that "good people go to church."

  I'm beyond that now and enjoy my relaxing Sunday mornings at home snoozing in and making homemade pancakes.