TrueTomHarley

In writing about the May 2019 Watchtower, I mentioned how opposers would say, “It only happened because of our prodding.” They would claim “credit” for the “clarification.”
So? Give it to them, so far as I am concerned. Everything in life is action/reaction. “Out of sight/out of mind” is the universal human tendency that operates towards any who have gone out of sight, and in the case of former JWs who have suffered abuse from which they have not recovered, these opposers did not permit it to happen. I have no problem acknowledging their role.
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/02/the-reproach-of-child-sexual-abuse-falls-on-the-abu.html
Even if you have to call them out on their excessive vendetta you can still recognize they have spurred on valuable change.

So what are we to make of this comment from Srecko? He yields on his ridiculous comparison of institutional abuse in various religions to abuse in families that happen to be religious. He yields on it because it is ridiculous and he can no longer support it.
So what does he do? He takes a “heads I win/tails you lose “ new argument. “Well, since other organizations have people who sin, and you do too, there is no reason to say you are any different.”
Will he say it of the hospital? “Well, since there are plenty of sick people in the world and also plenty in the hospital, there is no reason to go there.”

In writing about the May 2019 Watchtower, I mentioned how opposers would say, “It only happened because of our prodding.” They would claim “credit” for the “clarification.”
So? Give it to them, so far as I am concerned. Everything in life is action/reaction. “Out of sight/out of mind” is the universal human tendency that operates towards any who have gone out of sight, and in the case of former JWs who have suffered abuse from which they have not recovered, these opposers did not permit it to happen. I have no problem acknowledging their role.
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/02/the-reproach-of-child-sexual-abuse-falls-on-the-abu.html
Even if you have to call them out on their excessive vendetta you can still recognize they have spurred on valuable change.

I do not try to be a jerk to you. I honestly cannot read you and so have no idea how to answer earnestly. That, and a certain innate playfulness, results in the comments that it does. To me, you have a way of issuing veiled, unpredictable, and sometimes unaccountable rebukes. But I have nothing against you, really. I just can’t follow your thinking.
”Come, is not the land big enough for the both of us? I’ll even grant you the greater portion, so that you can keep kicking the stuffing out of JWI and I will do other things.”

You help your mom and those few other sisters, or you and those few other sisters help your mom? The wording is not clear. 
It does remind me, though, of a local situation of an elderly sister who moved in with family that built an in-law apartment for her. She has never fully integrated with the congregation and I’m not sure why. Somewhere there is a disconnect with her unbelieving family who say, in the person of a daughter-in-law that they want to help spiritually (there is no question that physically she is cared for) and yet somehow there is no follow through. How hard can it be to physically get her connected with Zoom meetings, and yet somehow it doesn’t happen. Believe me, I personally have tried, and I am not the only one.
Complaints filter down through that daughter-in-law that the congregation does not do enough. That daughter in law tells me she studied with Witnesses in another country for several years but the friends here are not loving like they were there. While that may (or may not) be true, I told her, that is not why someone pursues a relationship with God. It didn’t help when a local elder went to visit and got bit by one of several yappy dogs on the premises. 
The elderly sister has the beginnings of Alzheimer’s. Even when she did not, she was very reserved and not easy to get to know. A local couple would pick her up for meetings. Something about the situation eventually wore them out, particularly as they began to cope with the ill health of their own parents. 
I’ve visited this sister. The house is massive and new, with as many as six cars in the driveway. When the sister took a fall and broke an arm, the congregation provided meals for several months, at the suggestion of the daughter-in-law. It may not have occurred to them otherwise because plainly she lives among relatives that physically care for her. My wife coordinated that campaign. It seems like it might have run on forever, far longer than with anyone else, until my wife said ‘okay, glad that we have been able to relieve pressure, give the family a break, etc, and no doubt you can take over again as before.’ It is possible that we were being “used,”—it is not nothing to provide meals every day, particularly when it is not clear why family can’t do it themselves—but that’s not the important thing. I can even picture unbelieving family muttering about “cults” and so forth, but it has never been to our face, so it is just a possibility.
She gets some phone calls, some cards, she is connected on Roku, I’ve been there to see that, but somehow things do not gel. I don’t know the answer. We do what we can do, but cannot do everything. Whatever family interplay there is was established long ago in another area, and there is only so far you can go in unraveling the oddities. There is a believing daughter that visits from time to time and hopefully alleviates matters.
This is the only situation I know of, but it is reasonable to think every congregation has one or two parallels. On the other hand, there are also several old ones not tech savvy who have come up to speed with Zoom, usually with help, but it has happened. One who was never much in the physical ministry has blossomed in the virtual one. In short, I don’t think anyone has been “left behind” any more so than what would have happened prior to Covid.
If you have @Araunaoffering to call all the way from Albania, Matthew, sounds to me like you should take her up on it. You, too, have some dysfunctional background, I recall. Didn’t you say your folks fought like cats and dogs and shouldn’t have had children? It’s to your credit that you provide for her, that being the case. Not all children do.
This may be so, or it may be your interpretation of what is so. You say you don’t read the current material. If you did, you would notice at the latest midweek meetings how such a fuss was made over “there at Chebar a vision came to me,” with application that even if far removed from the physical organization, one is not removed from God.
I’m not sure we do know this. I’ve heard several old-timers say they don’t care if we ever go back to physical meetings. It saves massive amounts of time and energy, which is not boundless at their age, and you can do nearly as much on Zoom as in person. I think pandemic is harder on young people than on old. As for me, I have unchained my inner hermit and he is doing just fine.
You act as though the organization forsakes physical meetings because they care not about anyone’s concerns than theirs. Forgive me for saying it, but this smacks to me of the complaining victimization spirit of the day. When circumstances change, you have to adapt. The reason KHs are closed is, not as a personal affront to you or your mom, but because it is thought, and authorities continually advance the view, that it saves lives. Forgive me again for saying it, but if the KHs were open I can picture you complaining  how the organization doesn’t care if members die. It is kind of what you do, and I would be happier if you didn’t.

Well, you DO raise an excellent point here.

Well, you DO raise an excellent point here.

I do not try to be a jerk to you. I honestly cannot read you and so have no idea how to answer earnestly. That, and a certain innate playfulness, results in the comments that it does. To me, you have a way of issuing veiled, unpredictable, and sometimes unaccountable rebukes. But I have nothing against you, really. I just can’t follow your thinking.
”Come, is not the land big enough for the both of us? I’ll even grant you the greater portion, so that you can keep kicking the stuffing out of JWI and I will do other things.”

I do not try to be a jerk to you. I honestly cannot read you and so have no idea how to answer earnestly. That, and a certain innate playfulness, results in the comments that it does. To me, you have a way of issuing veiled, unpredictable, and sometimes unaccountable rebukes. But I have nothing against you, really. I just can’t follow your thinking.
”Come, is not the land big enough for the both of us? I’ll even grant you the greater portion, so that you can keep kicking the stuffing out of JWI and I will do other things.”

Oh mother, tell your children,
not to throw away their decorum
Spend your life in sheer lunacy
On the World News Media Forum

I like this question. It is a variation of “If you could solve any problem of the world, which one would it be?” It is given more import in that you ask it when people actually are trying to solve one of them. I like it a lot, as well as the logical followup: Given that we have only so much time, where do we get the most bang for our buck?

Others didn’t? Maybe they also had wives to “make excuses” for them.
Look, I accept that your husband was a caring man. What “strikes a nerve” is how you assume that nobody else was.
Your husband was a good man. You describe yourself as a “good elder’s wife.” (I am surprised you did not capitalize the ‘good’ in your case,) Still, he apparently wasn’t able to solve the problem. Why does everyone else have “blame” and he does not?
It’s not so terrible for people to make their own arrangements when they know they present challenges (like bringing along several small children). As stated, I would sometimes put myself into such car groups. But it wasn’t always possible. Not even your good husband was able to fix it.

How many? No more than anywhere in the overall population, and probably much less. It is almost always rank and file, in contrast to all other institutions on the hot seat whose leaders themselves were the abusers, and no mechanism even exists for tracking the rank and file.
What I much appreciate is HF’s righteous indignation that this vendetta from exJW’s redirects rage from child sexual abuse towards what is essentially a non-factor, or even a mitigating one, just to satisfy their hate. Thus, those exJWs serve to short-circuit legitimate efforts to curtail it, diverting resources. In pursuit of their greater goal, they actually show themselves friends of CSA.

How many? No more than anywhere in the overall population, and probably much less. It is almost always rank and file, in contrast to all other institutions on the hot seat whose leaders themselves were the abusers, and no mechanism even exists for tracking the rank and file.
What I much appreciate is HF’s righteous indignation that this vendetta from exJW’s redirects rage from child sexual abuse towards what is essentially a non-factor, or even a mitigating one, just to satisfy their hate. Thus, those exJWs serve to short-circuit legitimate efforts to curtail it, diverting resources. In pursuit of their greater goal, they actually show themselves friends of CSA.

If just cracks me up when someone downvotes a comment that undermines whatever they harp on—as though without a downvote, nobody would have any idea they might disapprove. 
It’s even more so when people downvote insults to themselves. Duh.
I think I’m going to collect a few insults and upvote them all as a subtle means of ridicule.

Alas, this fine thread has devolved into a cat fight. But I’ll bring it back on topic, thus redeeming myself in CC’s eyes. I’m not entirely sure how I fell from his good graces.
This is pretty much the standard in the land in which they live. They by no means are out of place. I think one reason no one gets too serious about clamping down on “fatties” is that the causes are difficult to quantify. 
I have known people to eat like hogs. It’s no surprise when they get fat. But I’ve also known people to eat sparingly and still put on weight. Moreover, cutting food does not necessarily make them lose weight. You would think it would but it doesn’t.
There is an acronym of SAD, “Standard American Diet,” which is sad in that it virtually assures packing on the pounds. Look at any TV show of 50+ years ago and note how rail thin the backdrop characters are as opposed to today. The processed foods, meat and potatoes, high carb, high sugar diet is conducive to overweight even without overeating, even with moderate exercise. Add a sedentary lifestyle, which comes with the job for some of these guys, and the waistlines start to swell. 
Alas, there is chicanery in the food industry. Fast food will make you bigger than a house. But even regular sold food will point one that way... Google and you can find how that campaign to go low-fat was actually started by the sugar industry in order to deflect damage from their own offerings onto someone else and sell more stuff. Starchy, sugary food is very addicting yet is not on the list of what anyone would call gluttonous. Everything is high sugar, even things you would not suspect, such as ketchup.
I think some weight campaigners cease being such when they reach a certain age and find that, even though they eat no more, even though they were once thin, they start to pack on the pounds with the same diet as before. 
 

Oh mother, tell your children,
not to throw away their decorum
Spend your life in sheer lunacy
On the World News Media Forum

If just cracks me up when someone downvotes a comment that undermines whatever they harp on—as though without a downvote, nobody would have any idea they might disapprove. 
It’s even more so when people downvote insults to themselves. Duh.
I think I’m going to collect a few insults and upvote them all as a subtle means of ridicule.

If just cracks me up when someone downvotes a comment that undermines whatever they harp on—as though without a downvote, nobody would have any idea they might disapprove. 
It’s even more so when people downvote insults to themselves. Duh.
I think I’m going to collect a few insults and upvote them all as a subtle means of ridicule.

Alas, this fine thread has devolved into a cat fight. But I’ll bring it back on topic, thus redeeming myself in CC’s eyes. I’m not entirely sure how I fell from his good graces.
This is pretty much the standard in the land in which they live. They by no means are out of place. I think one reason no one gets too serious about clamping down on “fatties” is that the causes are difficult to quantify. 
I have known people to eat like hogs. It’s no surprise when they get fat. But I’ve also known people to eat sparingly and still put on weight. Moreover, cutting food does not necessarily make them lose weight. You would think it would but it doesn’t.
There is an acronym of SAD, “Standard American Diet,” which is sad in that it virtually assures packing on the pounds. Look at any TV show of 50+ years ago and note how rail thin the backdrop characters are as opposed to today. The processed foods, meat and potatoes, high carb, high sugar diet is conducive to overweight even without overeating, even with moderate exercise. Add a sedentary lifestyle, which comes with the job for some of these guys, and the waistlines start to swell. 
Alas, there is chicanery in the food industry. Fast food will make you bigger than a house. But even regular sold food will point one that way... Google and you can find how that campaign to go low-fat was actually started by the sugar industry in order to deflect damage from their own offerings onto someone else and sell more stuff. Starchy, sugary food is very addicting yet is not on the list of what anyone would call gluttonous. Everything is high sugar, even things you would not suspect, such as ketchup.
I think some weight campaigners cease being such when they reach a certain age and find that, even though they eat no more, even though they were once thin, they start to pack on the pounds with the same diet as before. 
 

This might help:
“Out of nowhere a scholar has appeared who talks dispassionate sense on the subject of child sexual abuse as it relates to Jehovah’s Witnesses and is unswayed by secular jingoism. Are/were you a Jehovah’s Witness who was abused as a child? That is very bad, Holly Folk agrees, but she cautions such ones that they must be on guard not to be abused a second time. It may happen at the hands of those who mostly feign interest in their trauma so as to enlist them in their greater goal of taking down a religion they hate. “All I ask is that you consider, for a moment, that you might be being used again, by people who care little about achieving justice for victims,” she says.”
More... https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2021/02/holly-folk-speaks-to-child-sexual-abuse-among-jehovahs-witnesses.html

This might help:
“Out of nowhere a scholar has appeared who talks dispassionate sense on the subject of child sexual abuse as it relates to Jehovah’s Witnesses and is unswayed by secular jingoism. Are/were you a Jehovah’s Witness who was abused as a child? That is very bad, Holly Folk agrees, but she cautions such ones that they must be on guard not to be abused a second time. It may happen at the hands of those who mostly feign interest in their trauma so as to enlist them in their greater goal of taking down a religion they hate. “All I ask is that you consider, for a moment, that you might be being used again, by people who care little about achieving justice for victims,” she says.”
More... https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2021/02/holly-folk-speaks-to-child-sexual-abuse-among-jehovahs-witnesses.html

Here is one in which Trump is the greater Moses:
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2020/03/moses-addressing-the-israelites-trump-style.html

Why did he not notice it himself, so that “eventually” you had to do it? Did you not say he, too, was good?
Did he? How?
Look, if you come on with bitter tirades, and Lord knows you do, you should offer a few specifics.
If this is the case, then why is there a problem?
For whatever it’s worth, when I served as an elder, I would not work with other elders when there were other unattended publishers around. I do know that situation of some who “team up” and I don’t particularly like it. Still, I don’t take a flamethrower to the Christian organization because of it. It is a very challenging situation should sisters show up with small children that they hope others will help with. Practically speaking, it is a great challenge to integrate them—separate some kids and you’ve got 4Jah breathing down your neck—and beyond complaining, you did not offer a better way.
Okay okay, maybe I could reword that.
Of which YOU have appointed yourself spokesperson, constantly bringing up the subject (and little else). It is one of those “let the reader use discernment” situations.

Yes. This is why I am nothing but hugs and kisses for Alan, Witness, and even that insufferable 4Jah.
Exactly. This is why you do not pay undo attention to the individuals. They are as actors in a play. Take one out and another who knows all the lines immediately steps into his place.
This is true even with the good guys, though they are more pleasant to dwell upon and might be dwelt upon for just that reason. It is the play we are watching. One need not know the names of the actors to follow the play. It can even be a distraction if we do