I love the story. It reminds me of one of the only times I remember ever feeling really happy back when I was a JW was when a family took me with them on their vacation where we drove down to Mexico. We were in San Fransisco and we did Alcatraz, and it was all beautifully foggy. Everyone was trying to cram in where it was warm, but I sat out on the deck hugging my knees to my chest and just smiling because it all felt so good, and I felt so free, even if just for a brief moment. I was cold and soggy when we got in the car, but it was SO worth it.
Ilovebirthdays
JoinedPosts by Ilovebirthdays
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Ilovebirthdays
I guess this thread really celebrates our differences in preference. I've always been in love with the rain. It is invigorating, and I just seem to have more energy when it is here. I was in AZ once in October, and the Phoenix area just about killed me. I have fond memories of Sedona and the Grand Canyon, but pretty much spent the entire time in Phoenix running between those cooling stations that sprayed water on you.
I will never, ever tire of the gorge. I don't know how many times a year we go, but it never gets old, and I hope my children have the same love for it when they get older.
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Ilovebirthdays
I've lived here all my life, and sometimes I easily get tired of living here, but it is threads like this that remind me that this really is the place to be.
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34
Do You Do Crossword Puzzles?
by compound complex ini put up inter-connecting words and a latin phrase a few days ago in a different thread.
do you know the missing letters?.
amor omni_ vincit love conquers all.
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Ilovebirthdays
Big lurker. Little poster. I can't remember exactly what but you did a thread about the beauty of the Pac. Northwest or Oregon, (can't remember which) that I loved, as I live in the Portland area. It is beautiful here now. For some reason the leaves are more brightly colored than usual, and I think we're rivaling the New England area this year for putting on a show of the changing of colors of the leaves. (Which I happened to see in person a few years ago as we were there for the display.)
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34
Do You Do Crossword Puzzles?
by compound complex ini put up inter-connecting words and a latin phrase a few days ago in a different thread.
do you know the missing letters?.
amor omni_ vincit love conquers all.
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Ilovebirthdays
Didn't see this until now. Thanks for the link. I bookmarked it. I'm a big crossword puzzle geek. I figure people can laugh at me now, but when I'm old and my mind still works, then who will be having the last laugh?
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46
Contribution of Franz books on your decision to leave?
by Damocles inthe recent resurrected topic on franz' books got me curious.. how much did his writing contribute to your decision to leave?.
for myself, it was another brick in the wall but not more important than any other.
i was a little different than most in that i regularly read anti-witness stuff from the very beginning and never stopped.
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Ilovebirthdays
I didn't know of their existence until less than a year ago. I left the JW's 11 years ago. So no impact on me whatsoever, but CoC was still a great read.
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38
If The Organization Wants U 2 B Financially Insecure How Does It Help Them???
by minimus inthe organization teaches you to rely on jehovah god.
don't worry about the anxieties of this system, just modestly care for the necessities in life.
don't plan for retirement.
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Ilovebirthdays
I agree with Lady Lee and Scully. It doesn't take a whole lot per publisher per month to add up to a tidy sum.
I came from a very "working class" congregation. But it wasn't all janitors and window cleaners. There were a few welders. They lived in a trailer park, and never took vacations or did much to spend money, and they managed to make fairly decent donations every month. My mom and sisters live in an apartment that is about the size of my kitchen and living room put together (and it isn't like I have a big house), and I know that my mom was putting in at least $100 per month years ago when I was in. We had an older couple who died, and they acutally owned a house, because they bought in the 1940's, and they donated the proceeds of their house and what little they had to the Society, and it was talked about for years, because it came to just over $100K. Their daughter was married to a heavy machine worker, who died in an accident at work due to the fault of the company. She received a multi-million dollar settlement and was quite conspicuous about the large amounts of money she donated, and made a big deal in telling everyone about how she donated the money from the proceeds of the sale of her house (which they weren't able to afford until she got her millions) to the Org. when she decided to move to Mexico. And then you had the granparents of my best friend growing up. They lived in the trailer park with about 1/2 the other JW's in the hall. He wore thrift-store suits and they struggled along. His wife had mental problems, and saw a psych -iatrist or -ologist, not sure which, and ended up leaving her husband for the psych. She got DF'd but eventually left the psych, repented, and got back together with her former husband. She ended up getting a windfall from the psych after suing him for improper conduct, and now the entire family lives in a compound and still wears thrift-store suits, and donates a large amount of money each month, I'm guessing out of guilt and to erase her reputation. And then you have the majority of the poor, who always managed to put something in the box every month.
That was in a very lower class congregation. I'm betting most congs. have several odd circumstanses where people have a fair amount of money (at least by JW standards) and one or two people who have semi-decent paying jobs who contribute decent sums, if nothing else for the prestige it gives them. You know even if they don't tell others what they do, the story of how much money they give will get around. And we all know that while they encourage their followers to stay out of evil places like the stock market, that the society doesn't take their own advice in that regard. And as has been said before, they don't have huge outputs in paying people for their labor or do anything in regards to charity work as most religions do.
I totally agree it is a control method, too. How many financially well to do or well-educated people join? (I guess unless you count Brother Prince. How much do you think Brother Prince donates a year? I bet he gives up a decent chunk of change.) You will far easier keep, recruit, and retain the downtrodden than the people with an education, sense of purpose, a decent self-esteem or otherwise fortuitious circumstances. The Org. has been able to keep itself going for upwards of 130 years on the backs of people like this, in a fairly comfortable manner. I think that especially in these financial circumstances, donations might well be down, but I bet the Society has a decent amount of money to live on for awhile. I'm betting that they're not dumb, but maybe a little set in their ways and comfortable with the fact they've managed to have a good existence in the past, so it will be interesting to see what happens in the future with them in this regard.
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69
Are You Surprised That Some "Intelligent" People Still Are Witnesses?
by minimus ini know some very sharp men and women that remain as jws and that perplexes me at times.
i even know of a jw whose daughter got molested by her jw ministerial servant uncle and she still believes this is the "truth", even though she took her family member to court and won!.
i don't get it..
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Ilovebirthdays
My husband says the same thing about my family, especially my mom. They're very book smart, and he can't believe that she can still doggedly follow something that has so many fallacies and inconsistencies. I told him he still doesn't quite understand the brainwashing aspect of it all.
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Is Being A Snitch A Popular Activity In The Kingdub?
by Yizuman inhow often do dubs hear someone snitch about a wrong doing from a brother or sister?.
how often do you hear of a snitch going to the elders to stir up a lynch mentality against a brother or sister?.
is there some points being earned for all this or do they think jehovah will reward them for being a snitch?.
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Ilovebirthdays
Um, yeah. When you have a set of rules that imperfect humans are doomed not to be able to live up to, it creates a culture in which pointing out others "wrongs" thrives, since the more you snitch, the more those in charge are looking at others and not you.
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21
Did You're Being A Witness Influence You Regarding Marriage or Being Single?
by minimus indid you get married or stay single because you were a jehovah's witness?.
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Ilovebirthdays
Hmm, good question. I know it influenced me in the way that I had 4 broken engagements before I finally married DH. I didn't get married until my mid-20's, which, as you all know made me an old maid in Witness terms. I was horribly unhappy, and looking to get out from under my family's iron rule, and would be flattered with the attention from a Witness boy, and get excited about the big emotional high from getting engaged, and pretty much turn around the next day and be physically sick from the realization that not only did I not love the person, I probably didn't even like him much, and certainly didn't respect him, and knew I'd just be trading one bad situation for another if I married them.
I guess it was quite the emotional rollercoaster at the time, but I really feel quite fortunate in the fact that by the time I got married, I'd finally gotten enough courage to leave, hence marrying a non-Witness, and not having to deal with the enormous problems of leaving and still having a spouse and/or children still in "the Truth". I have immense respect and empathy reading the stories from people on here in that situation, and can't imagine having to deal with that. I know I would not have been strong enough to deal with that also. Plus, I got the added bonus of having a wonderful, loving, caring husband who has helped me through a lot.