Posts by Lee Marsh

36

Treatment of Those Trying For Reinstatement

by Vanderhoven7 in

what happens when a jehovah’s witness who has been disfellowshipped returns to attending the meetings again?.

mark jones writes:.

if it's the same congregation that they previously attended then, yes, the congregation will remember who they are and so continue to treat them as dead or invisible.. one of the identifying marks a cult is that it uses shame and humiliation to control members, to keep them from leaving and manipulating those who escaped into coming back.. a disfellowshipped person is never allowed to quietly leave with dignity.

Lee Marsh

DFed in 1985. Considered going back around 1990. So I met with one of the elders on my committee.

He said I had to attend all meetings and meet certain standards.

OK

So I went to the next Sunday meeting. The elder saw me. Knew I was there and he was conducting the Watchtower study. so....

He excused the person who was supposed to read and asked me ex to do it. My ex did not know I was there although I am not sure I believe that. his new wife sat there and glared at me constantly.

So I grit my teeth and put up with it - some kind of test.

Then the elder who knew of the abuse my ex subjected me to, knew because my ex told him everything, this elder who I considered a father figure, asked my ex to say the prayer.

Done. I am out of here.

He didn't want me back. The last thing he wanted was for me to be reinstated and start talking about the abuse my ex- who was an elder, had inflicted on me and our 2 children.

They protect their own. To hell with women and children.

No wonder both his sons left the Witnesses as soon as they were grown!

168

Moral responsibility.

by nicolaou in

no subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.

please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.

a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!

Lee Marsh

Iriddle80.

I am glad you found some inner peace. I have traced the abuse in my family at least 4 generations. But it stopped with me. I wasn't perfect by any means. I had to learn from my parent' mistakes and do something different. But I often had no idea what "different' was. But my daughter has taken the next step and improved on what I did. Hopefully her daughter will do even better.

Your sister was a child and some leniency is expected. BUT she is an adult now and like you, nee4ds to accept some responsibility for the pain she caused. But whether she ever does that or not, YOU get to move forward.

168

Moral responsibility.

by nicolaou in

no subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.

please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.

a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!

Lee Marsh

Nicolaou I am Lady Lee. My story is here many many times over.

Beaten almost daily, attempted and finally raped over 4 years, sodomized at least once if not more, as a child under the age of 12. Deserted by my mother who knew what he was doing and just left me to him.

When I finally did go back to her I was dragged to JW meetings, beaten at home, and where my stepfather and 3 uncles took turns with me. My mother went to the elders and was told to send me away. She made private foster care arrangements and told them I was a sex maniac and watch me constantly with the woman's husband and any other man of boy. I was 13! So I lived under what amounted to house arrest for the next 3 years.

At 16 I went back to my mother where I was beaten frequently. Within a year was baptized and another year she forced me to marry a man I didn't like and barely knew. Certainly, never went on a date with him until after our "engagement" (with chaperone). She was in a hurry. I wanted to wait a year. Time from the "engagement to wedding was 5 weeks.

After 15 years of marriage to him I was suicidal from his constant emotional and spiritual abuse. But I didn't want to be dead and "arranged" the end of the marriage by getting disfellowshipped.

Did I pray? All the time.

Did it help? Not one bit.

So constant abuse for 35 years. A lot of praying. All I felt was alone to deal with it all. Abandoned by family and a God who never heard my prayers. Those scriptures posted earlier had absolutely nothing to do with my life. They were nothing but a lie.

I thought often about dying. From about the age of 8 to 35. I came very very close to actually trying. But I am still here. And no, I don't believe God, any god had anything to do with me still being here.

168

Moral responsibility.

by nicolaou in

no subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.

please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.

a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!

Lee Marsh

Hosea 6:1-3
Come, let us return to the Lord;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
2 After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
3 Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth.”

Doesn't do a thing for me.

168

Moral responsibility.

by nicolaou in

no subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.

please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.

a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!

Lee Marsh

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.
But, that might not satisfy people who want solid answers.

That never satisfied me. I was a child and got no comfort. No help. Some would say I wasn't good enough. Or that I was praying to the wrong God. Or going to the wrong church.

I was a child!!! Where was this supposed help?

168

Moral responsibility.

by nicolaou in

no subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.

please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.

a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!

Lee Marsh

I wouldn't let an animal suffer never mind a person

168

Moral responsibility.

by nicolaou in

no subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.

please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.

a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!

Lee Marsh

Meanwhile people suffer

For what?

168

Moral responsibility.

by nicolaou in

no subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.

please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.

a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!

Lee Marsh

Ok so let's say I am God and my creation makes what I consider a grievous error. Not only do I punish them but every single person that came form them for thousands of years, so billions of people. Just to show them a lesson!

Up they won't learn much because they died. All their offspring suffer endlessly because of what their ancestors did.

You call this just? Fair? Loving?

If I can do the right thing to save someone, why can't God do the same thing? When I see a problem I can take action to help others, lessen their pain, saved some from death even. Why doesn't God do that? he sits around and waits and lets people suffer.

I have a neighbor who prays constantly. I can't see how that helps.

As a child I prayed constantly for help that I never got.

As a young wife and mother I prayed constantly for help that I never got. If I had stayed in that situation, I would most likely be dead now.

It seems ridiculous to me to say well, God helped you be strong. That isn't what I needed. I needed the beatings to stop as a child. I needed the emotional and spiritual abuse to stop as an adult. That isn't what I got.

I was strong but I doubt that had anything to do with God. I was strong because I had no choice. Not only was I trying to protect myself but also 3 little boys and a baby girl. No one else was protecting them from their own parents.

You might say God gave me strength to leave the Witnesses. Nope. That was pure fear that got me out. I didn't want to be dead.

To me, the instinct to survive is what saved me. The instinct to protect those who are smaller and weaker pushed me to help my brothers and sister. God gave me the instinct? Every living thing has it.

For me, God has seriously failed his "creation". I would not do that to one child, never mind generations of them. Billions of them!

168

Moral responsibility.

by nicolaou in

no subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.

please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.

a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!

Lee Marsh

If I see it and do nothing I AM morally responsible.

I have heard things many times and although I might not be able to intervene myself I have called the police and let them know the situation was urgent. The police always came within a few minutes and one case put a man under arrest immediately.

In all cases there was the threat of violence. I am not trained for that so called the people who were trained to deal with someone who was potentially violent.

Although I have interceded once before the police arrived to get an innocent bystander out of a situation that could have resulted in him being attacked. What amazed me was that the staff who deal with those people on a regular basis and knew both men, had no idea how to rescue the innocent man without endangering a dozen other people. But it ended well once the police finally arrived.

Our moral responsibility has nothing to do with any god. it has to do with my personal decision to help others when I can. That doesn't even have anything to do with how I might feel if I did nothing and a person got injured.

It is a matter of doing what is right and moral and ethical in the immediate moment without thinking or considering the cost

49

a pet peeve of mine

by enoughisenough in

jw
friends

putting this under "friends" because i couldn't figure out where to put it.

it is very often on here and in ex jw videos, ect that people like to undermine some of those who once we would have called friends.

there seems to be a view that window washers, plumbers, cleaners, construction workers are somehow less intelligent than those who may be college educated.

Lee Marsh

I have the degree. I had a lot of very well educated teachers/professors. Some knew only their subject and little of anything else. Some knew their subject but they had no idea how to pass the information on to the students. I spent a whole year in one prof's class. No one understood her. They would pass me notes or tap me to explain. I would have to be as tactful as possible to ask the question that would get her (or me) to explain what she was talking about. "So, if I understand you correctly, then when "a and b" happens then we can expect this kind of response? Then I would see heads nod in the call that they now understood. It was tedious. The prof caught on to what I was doing and started to ignore me in class so people would come to me after class.

No doubt that the prof had gotten an education and passed enough classes to graduate but.... NOT a teacher.

On the other hand I have met some brilliant people with little to no education that are smarter than some of those professors.

My father had a grade 2 education. But he worked at the same company his whole life building combines. He could take a car apart and rebuild it. Fix almost anything. He was a wicked sick man but I have to give it to him, he could put almost anything together and make it work.

Being uneducated is NOT the same as being stupid. Being educated is not the same as being intelligent.

But uneducated people should not be handing out medical or mental health advice or punishing people who are ill. That is ALL JW elders are trained to do. - punish perceived "sin".

Sadly, too often that results in worsening condition for the person and sometimes suicide - too often.

Yup I am a trained mental health practitioner.