by JH 21 Replies latest jw friends
How did you like being called brother or sister, when you were in public. I remember once I was inside a bank waiting in line, and all of a sudden , a brother also waiting in line, said to me quite loud, hello brother X . I felt like a jerk, being called brother in front of everyone there. These things should never be said in public. Did that happen to you?
Edited by - jh on 6 December 2002 12:21:19
I was never comfortable with that. I had been a union member for many years. We all called each other brother at the union meetings. Then go out on the job and stab each other in the back. So I guess it's the same for JW's???
It just seemed phoney.
I once had my daughters babysitter pick her up from my job. Since we were having a pot luck I asked her to stay for a while. The whole time she is calling me Brother Diamond. She knows some of the people on my job and she is calling all of them by their first names or Mr or Mrs. It just sounded so weird. Some of my co-workers even started calling me that as a joke. That Brother stuff is fine at the Hall and at gatherings but not outside of that it just sound strange.
Diamond
There's always some birdbrains that don't know when to shut up. I was sitting in the rental board's waiting room which was full of people when 2 "brothers" walked in. As you can guess the room was real quiet, but the "brothers" turned up the volume to ministry school levels. They couldn't remember my first name, so called me "brother" then went on to ...what's happening in your cong. ... it just got worse and worse. On top of it they were dressed to let out the dog.
What also killed me was being stuck in a restaurant with someone who seems to have to have a real long conversation with "J" before diggin-in. One time the waitress wanted to ask this guy something about his order and stood at the table for what seemed 5 mins. while bro spiritual finished his thanksgiving. She gave me the 'is he o.k.' look so I said he's o.k. just come back later.
What made me uncomfortable was when they started calling me brother and I was only a book study and not a member of the church .I would hate that myself if I was going about my personal business and someone out of the blue in public announces my last name and thus invading my privacy.
Rarely happened in my hall - everyone was pretty much on a first name basis except when you were being called on for commenting during the meeting. But I would have been mortified if it had ever happened in public!
What also killed me was being stuck in a restaurant with someone who seems to have to have a real long conversation with "J" before diggin-in. One time the waitress wanted to ask this guy something about his order and stood at the table for what seemed 5 mins. while bro spiritual finished his thanksgiving. She gave me the 'is he o.k.' look so I said he's o.k. just come back later.
I was thinking about praying at meals in restaurants the other day. Even when active I usually did not make a visible showing of praying before meals at restaurants. I had kinda forgotten about it until I ran into a couple from the local cong. and they were sitting at a table nearby and they made it a point to hold hands and he prayed aloud for both of them when the appetizer arrived. That looks righteous over much to me. Even if you feel the need to pray at every meal, why make a scene about doing so. Why not do it silently without bringing attention to yourself. I hate that showy super righteous act whether it's JWs or any other religion.
I always hated it, but was raised in a very old fashioned household that did not allow me to address adults by their first names anyway. On the same subject, when you run into an active dub now, what do you call them? Since my family is still in, I sometimes run into older people whom I have only known as brother or sister such and such. I have taken to avoiding calling them by any name, but sometimes it gets a little awkward.
This happened when my parents were studying with the dubs, but neither was baptized yet. They had been studying "on the sly" - that is, they put my brothers and I to bed before the study started every week - so we only got to know the couple who were conducting the study after my parents were convinced it was The TruthTM and were seriously sucked into the Org. They introduced the couple to us as "Brother" and "Sister" So-and-so (I won't use their real name here, for obvious reasons), and that is how we were expected to address them as far as our parents were concerned.
Anyway, Brother S owned a second-hand store, and every so often we'd go and see what kind of cool stuff he had there. That's where my first bicycle came from. Anyway, the store was never really very busy, and we'd always say "Hello Brother S." when we went in. This one time, we went into the store and Brother S's back was turned to the door and my brothers and I yelled out "Hi there Brother S!!" He turned around with a HORRIFIED look on his face - as though he'd been caught standing over a dead body with a bloody axe in his hands - and we saw that there was another customer standing directly in front of him, whom we hadn't seen when we came in the store. He excused himself quickly and rushed over to us and SCOLDED us. He told us that from now on, we were only allowed to call him "Brother S" at the KH, and otherwise we were to call him "Mister S".
That's the first time I remember ever feeling embarrassed, but over 30 years later, I remember it like it happened yesterday, even the way the shop smelled.
Love, Scully
I remember as a child being scolded for NOT calling an adult "brother" or "sister". Us childen were not allowed to call an adult by their first name. Couldn't say "Hello, Tom" or "Hi, Peggy". It had to be "Hello, Brother Smith" or "Hi Sister Jones". We were also supposed to stand up when adult JWs that were visiting came into a room. Something about that rising before gray hair(or sumthin like that) thing.
