Hi,
I've read a lot of posts over the last month or so and seek some advice. Although I was never a JW, I had some good freinds who used to be and still seem to be recovering from the influence. Not long ago, I ran into a different JW I knew from a previous job. I think she looked up to me at least as being a somewhat good person. She "backslid" and got caught up into some worldly guys there, though at the time I wasn't sure she did at all, and I was seating her away from certain people she felt was talking about her (I was a supervisor at a call center), and she seemed really paranoid (and is currently on some type of meds, too, but she's intelligent--doing great in school!).
Well... I ran into her for the first time in years just at the beginning of Fall, and we talked via e-mail about 2-3 times per month, but I got a couple strange replies from her that seemed to be scolding/going off on me over nothing. One was for sending her a story I wrote that had a woman kicking some butt trying to save her husband, and the other e-mail was for wishing her a good Christmas.
As you can already see, I was still somewhat ignorant of some WT teachings/beliefs. I felt really weird about responding harshly or with too much of my own viewpoint, but I sensed she was berating me possibly. She went off a while about Jesus saying to celebrate His death rather than His birth (almost like to someone who'd never heard of the Bible or something--seems like just right out of an Awake mag to me now~) but surprised me at the end by inviting me to a Memorial or something. After about a week, I responded in a nice tone with how I believe it's fine to either celebrate or not celebrate Christmas, that it was never commanded not to do so, and that Jesus did command us to do good deeds and that a lot of helping the needy and spreading the gospel happens on Chistmas. I then kinda' went into some non-related "just wishing her well" stuff and that was it.
But I never got a reply and was unable to send e-mail to her for a while (blocked?!). Then I got one through but no response. Hadn't heard from her in a month but never got any negative mail saying we were through talking or anything. Is this normal? I'd wondered about putting together a last e-mail and sending it from my other account to make sure it gets through, but I'd read where things can be taken in such a way as to strengthen a JW's resolve in their organization, and I don't want to do that or seem mean at all but also have a really hard time feeling I shouldn't at least say something.
What do you awesome previous JW's think? Any advice would be great, and I hope you can tell I really do care about her -- which is why I hate the thought of her life being run/ruined by the society like I'd been reading about! I'm really glad to read about all of you freed up now, too!
Leo