TrueTomHarley

Sometimes I think we overuse the chariot illustration. 
Recently my wife and I were invited on a KH remodeling project. At my age and non-skill level, I am not going to be any major player in anything, but I appreciated the invitation and accepted a two-day stint along with my wife.
Safety training is required—a lot of it before you even set foot on the project. For one session online that I was informed might take up to three hours—several videos followed by answering questions off the master safety document, I found myself beating back the cynical thought that some too-starryeyed artist might insert God strapped into his chariot in one of the videos. But it did not happen and I could not help but think that the quality of training would be the envy of any construction organization. The way scriptures were interwoven was masterful. Even the verse of the ‘overconfident one who comes to ruin’ was applied to the experienced worker inclined to blow past safety regulations because he is so experienced as to think himself immune. Nobody blows past anything when it comes to safety, experienced or not. You’re dismissed from the site if you do, but I didn’t see anyone coming even close to grumbling over such rules of safety, which are iron-clad. Zero accidents is the goal.
Not just the training, but the project itself. The people skills on display far outshone what would be found on any secular construction site. The abilities of volunteers, some experienced and some not, was harnessed to an astonishing degree. Always, there was a brother with oversight to accommodate any skill level and to break any task into doable steps—and always with the safety and overall well-being of participants placed even ahead of the job itself. First of all, they are shepherds, I am told—that is incorporated into their training. In short, I’ve never seen anything like it—even if the chariot was not on visible display.

No. You did not use the term bankrupt in connection with 1975. You used terminology that meant the same thing—massive upheaval in your life. Whereas you were an engineer for many years and thus are accustomed to being precise, I am not. I am stuck with common sense and knowing a synonym when I see one.
Are you even sure ‘bankrupt’ is the proper word in this connection? Did you file for Chapter 7? If anything, the word would have been more appropriate for your job change back in 75, when it appears you took a certain financial hit.
I’ve no patience for calling this sort of thing ‘tyranny.’ It’s not important enough. Moreover, given what you have written about your sons in the past, they appear to have no issue with it. Save your ‘tyranny’ for occasions in which to resist will cost you more than hurt feelings.
Everyone must pick the hill they will die on. I like the expression not only for its surface value, but also for its acknowledgment that you will die on one. So make it count, son. Don’t die on a stupid hill. Don’t leave your epitaph to say: “Here lies Pudgy. I guess he told those elders a thing or two, didn’t he?”
Exactly. You do these things. You don’t make an issue over such things. You say to yourself, ‘Well, this is dumb,’ if you think it is, but you do them anyhow. Or not. Don’t do them if it is important enough to you, but then don’t cry if this or that privilege doesn’t come your way. 
We forget what stubbornness is. Because people are stubborn, persons are literally sent to their deaths, their lives are actually ruined. Compromises are not reached today in Ukraine and Israel because people are both truculent and stubborn. There they literally die on hills—they don’t just get their feelings hurt.
The entire tort system of law thrives because people are stubborn—1/3 of our wealth ends up in the pockets of barristers because people are stubborn and refuse to compromise. 
You don’t cheapen words like ‘tyranny’ and ‘ruined lives’ by using them in this context. Our ‘tyranny’ and ‘ruined lives’ is child’s play to that of the greater world. All a person would have to do to avoid it (in Xero’s situation) is to shine your shoes. I’ll shine mine as brightly as the expanse of the heavens if I have to; it’s not a big deal—and to make it such says as much about me as it does them. (As it turns out, I don’t have to. I haven’t worn shineable shoes in 20 years at least and nobody cares.)
On the one hand, it all seems pretty silly. The greater world solved this beard issue decades ago: 
And the sign said
"Long-haired freaky people
Need not apply"
So I tucked my hair up under my hat
And I went in to ask him why
He said, "You look like a fine upstandin' young man
I think you'll do"
So I took off my hat and said, "Imagine that
Huh, me workin' for you"
There. Done. Settled. Back in 1990. Whereas, we don’t settle it till 2023. But, in fairness, it ought be remembered that the overall world is going down the toilet and Jehovah’s organization is not.
More than once the Bible says that those drawn to the Lord must become like young children. And indeed they have proved to be that way, not just in the good ways but also the not-so-good. 
Paul said: “Brothers, do not become young children in your understanding, but be young children as to badness.” (1 Cor 14:20) Why did he say this—because they never became young children in their understanding?
So it has proved today, with issues taking longer to resolve than you might think would be the case. Those the Lord can work with are like ‘young children.’ Those whom he cannot are ones too insistent upon their rights to be molded. They are left to the reward of whatever their discord can produce. In short, “they are having their reward in full.”
 

Like I said. Semiotics of various sorts. Some are externally worn, some are evident by the things they worry about. I'd rather worry myself about the Bible, Bible history, Biblical archaeology and various apologetics.

On the other hand my wife likes Project Runway and I've seen every episode.

I remember having to tell a young woman that her dreadlocks weren't in keeping with the field ministry, that it was associated with Rastafarians and all that related to the same. She wanted to get baptized and the body left it up to me to explain to her the whole thing. I was annoyed at having to deal with being the congregation fashion coordinator on two counts: 1st that people couldn't read the room and conform to somewhere in the middle and 2nd that I had to enforce something that was a personal choice people were making. I did it thinking to myself that these kinds of people would likely have argued with Moses about circumcision, when there is zero explanation in scripture as to the reasons for it being a requirement other than Jehovah saying "because I told you to". I see both sides of these things. On the one hand, it's nice to have an external sign of people who could be troublemakers, on the other hand "Really? I have to deal with beards, and other fashion concerns? Don't we have bigger fish to fry?" Then I see it all as some kind of useful social exercise. It forces me to think about the benefits and hazards of conformity, and what standards to use, and balancing the differences. When we choose to look different from those we have social bonds with, we are sending messages. There's a whole social science dealing with these "semiotics". Are we Jehovah's Christian Witnesses? Then what does that look like? How does it act? Does it look like seeking it's own personal advantage? Does it look like lording it over the brothers and sisters in telling them what to do with regard to personal matters? Nature identifies juveniles by the way that they look when they are young, vs when they become mature. What do mature people look like? Do they wear themselves out over fashion? 
I remember one elder before my appointment asking me whether I wondered why I wasn't appointed as an elder yet seeing as how I'd been a regular pioneer and servant for almost ten years then and was regularly giving talks outside the congregation. My response was "I imagined it was because Jehovah decided it wasn't the right time". I never asked, because I cared, but I didn't care either if you know what I mean, it's not like I didn't have things to do. The only things I didn't have to do looked more like the annoying things like judicial committees with people who can't take hints from the Bible about how to behave themselves. His reaction was a bit surprised, but then I could see that he needed to give me some counsel so I relented and he went on. It turned out my answers in the meeting suggested I relied on "Worldly Wisdom", my shoes weren't shiny enough and I walked funny when I went up to the podium.  So I thought to myself that I want this elder to feel good about this counseling session so I asked him to watch me at the meetings and let me know if I was slipping in these areas. I told him that when conversing w/the friends I would mention where in the Societies pubs I read whatever it was I was commenting on, so they wouldn't get the idea I was pushing some novel idea unique to me as well. He seemed pleased with my responses. My thoughts were that as an elder you can do some damage, so if I make this elder happy about giving counsel he'll do a better job with the next publisher.
 
Anyway, I'm rambling now....

He stared them down.
Seriously. I think that’s what happened. Stared down the local elders, that is, not the GB who apparently didn’t have a problem with it, willing to completely defer to the local BoE, though it may have been a Branch thing. 
It was not in the Bible. It never appeared in Watchtower print. (other than many examples of ‘shaving one’s beard’ listed in the changes made on the road to baptism) The reasons for it, association with beatniks and hippies, disappeared decades ago. We’ve had articles to the effect that we don’t do rules, but primarily principles. And yet, no rule was a firmly enforced as the unwritten no-beard rule.
But—with no documentation behind it—you could stare them down. That’s what I imagine this Kelly beard brother did. I did sort of the same thing with blogging, which may be why I see it this way. He stared them down, not defiantly, but by being such a good example that, even while holding his ground on this matter, they couldn’t tell him no.
If an entire Update dedicated to beards being now okay seems like overkill (it did to me), one might recall that they tried underkill and it didn’t work. From the Sept 2016 Wt: “Does Your Style of Dress Glorify God?”
What about the propriety of brothers wearing a beard? The Mosaic Law required men to wear a beard. However, Christians are not under the Mosaic Law, nor are they obliged to observe it. (Lev. 19:27; 21:5; Gal. 3:24, 25) In some cultures, a neatly trimmed beard may be acceptable and respectable, and it may not detract at all from the Kingdom message. In fact, some appointed brothers have beards. Even so, some brothers might decide not to wear a beard. (1 Cor. 8:9, 13; 10:32) In other cultures or localities, beards are not the custom and are not considered acceptable for Christian ministers. In fact, having one may hinder a brother from bringing glory to God by his dress and grooming and his being irreprehensible.—Rom. 15:1-3; 1 Tim. 3:2, 7.
This paragraph was a big deal at the time, at least in my area. I never look at articles until just before we are to cover then at meetings (unlike when the magazines came in the mail and I read them through promptly), but this paragraph I knew about up front because brothers were talking about it seemingly the day after it was written. When that Watchtower Study finally came, that paragraph was like the elephant in the room that everyone was awaiting, and then Yessss! paragraph 17 finally arrived and you could talk about it. Some congregations spent extra time to ‘explain’ it.
I thought that would be the end of it. I thought at long last the issue had been laid to rest. I thought beards would soon be showing up—at first in publishers and then in MS and elders. Instead, it seemed like congregations doubled-down, as if with the attitude: ‘Well, okay, they can wear beards if they insist, but no way will they ever be appointed.’ A few publishers grew them, but nothing more.
’Look, we don’t have an issue with it,’ is what the GB finally said in this latest Update. It’s not new. It’s what they said 7 years ago only it didn’t take. This time, to make sure it wasn’t another misfire that didn’t take, they made it a big production, brought in bells and whistles, the chariot, and disclaimers for guys like those here who say, ‘It’s about time!’ and for the more rigid guys who drew a line in the sand and are now aghast to see it erased.
Old habits die hard. It may be that circumcism was once biblical whereas no-beards was not. The two customs don’t parallel in that regard. But in the regard of ‘old habits die hard,’ they parallel exactly. 
For me, it is like when the man who invented AI died. ‘Restaurant in peace’ the obits read, though there were a few harsher ones that said, ‘May he rot in hello.’
 
 
 
 

I would have liked to have met your mother.

Oh yeah, it happens all the time. A thread will deteriorate into a bunch of ‘treading water’ remarks, then a new wave comes along and everyone washes off in a new direction—must to the consternation of The Librarian (that old hen) who cries about her card catalogue and how it exists to keep separate topics separate. 
Sometimes a thread even deteriorates into, ‘You’re stupid!’ ‘No, you’re stupid!’ ‘When you were born the doctor probably slapped your mama and not you!’ and so forth. You come along with your shovel to bury the thread, then it catches another breath and it is Game On again in a new direction.

Oh yeah, it happens all the time. A thread will deteriorate into a bunch of ‘treading water’ remarks, then a new wave comes along and everyone washes off in a new direction—must to the consternation of The Librarian (that old hen) who cries about her card catalogue and how it exists to keep separate topics separate. 
Sometimes a thread even deteriorates into, ‘You’re stupid!’ ‘No, you’re stupid!’ ‘When you were born the doctor probably slapped your mama and not you!’ and so forth. You come along with your shovel to bury the thread, then it catches another breath and it is Game On again in a new direction.

I’m on it. It will be a fine successor to ‘TrueTom vs the Apostate!’

Ha..your older than me…

Nominally, he was. I didn’t get the impression his heart was in it. The mom certainly was and I was there as much to support her as her son. Sometimes people just like an ally, regardless of how things go down.

Adding to Thinkings list, of which each item is different, so that I think that would have answered your question, is just plain ‘ol human error. Anyone who has ever worked in healthcare (my wife is a retired nurse) knows there is plenty of it. 
In my area, hospitals laid off nurses who would not accepted the Covid shot. This led to collapse of the hospital system, as there were a lot of them, not easily or affordably replaced, so largely not replaced, making the remaining staff take up the slack over which they protested and went on strike. Do you think this worked to increase the safety of transfusion protocol?
Just recently local hospitals were found to be in severe violation of a law that they must not be understaffed. It’s a LAW—how could that have not fixed the problem? It’s as though administrators say, ‘If our nurses quit, the very stones will take care of you!’
Everything is collapsing. And whereas JW’s stand on war, tobacco, alcohol and drug abuse, and compliance with safety laws, place them BY FAR among the safest religions out there, you keep flailing a on a number so relatively tiny that neither Thinking nor myself can think of an example we personally know of. And neither of us are youngsters, especially Thinking.
In a revolving population of several million you are going to find countless examples of anything. But there is such a thing as focusing on the trees so minutely as to not see the forest.

Adding to Thinkings list, of which each item is different, so that I think that would have answered your question, is just plain ‘ol human error. Anyone who has ever worked in healthcare (my wife is a retired nurse) knows there is plenty of it. 
In my area, hospitals laid off nurses who would not accepted the Covid shot. This led to collapse of the hospital system, as there were a lot of them, not easily or affordably replaced, so largely not replaced, making the remaining staff take up the slack over which they protested and went on strike. Do you think this worked to increase the safety of transfusion protocol?
Just recently local hospitals were found to be in severe violation of a law that they must not be understaffed. It’s a LAW—how could that have not fixed the problem? It’s as though administrators say, ‘If our nurses quit, the very stones will take care of you!’
Everything is collapsing. And whereas JW’s stand on war, tobacco, alcohol and drug abuse, and compliance with safety laws, place them BY FAR among the safest religions out there, you keep flailing a on a number so relatively tiny that neither Thinking nor myself can think of an example we personally know of. And neither of us are youngsters, especially Thinking.
In a revolving population of several million you are going to find countless examples of anything. But there is such a thing as focusing on the trees so minutely as to not see the forest.

Next, I will ask the Librarian how she feels about algebra. (that old hen)

How do you feel about tacos?

I have never heard this before? Where did you?
”Where did this pooch get his wisdom? Is this not Pudgy, who we used to walk every day?”

I prefer enchiladas.

Maybe. Maybe not. The Jews of the Hebrew Bible did not necessarily consider Jehovah to be an invisible Spirit the way we do. They considered Jehovah to have a body that could see and hear and EAT and SMELL. (FWIW, ancient Jewish rabbis had no trouble agreeing that Jehovah was circumcised!!!) The idea that smoke from "incinerated" meat created a kind of smoky incense that ascended upwards toward heaven was likely an indication of this consumption by God, leaving only a few ashes. And this idea was spelled out even more clearly in other nearby cultures.
When the Jews would be scattered, they would have to serve gods that were not real and therefore could NOT eat and smell.
(Deuteronomy 4:27, 28) 27 Jehovah will scatter you among the peoples, and just a few of you will survive among the nations to which Jehovah will have driven you. 28 There you will have to serve gods of wood and stone made by human hands, gods that cannot see or hear or eat or smell.
(Leviticus 26:31) . . .I will give your cities to the sword and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell the pleasing aromas of your sacrifices.
 
I agree that the intent of Leviticus 3 and similar passages was probably to identify ALL the major fatty places for sacrificed animals. It can also be read as: "Don't eat any of the fat, sacrifice all of it, and this INCLUDES the fatty pieces of the inner organs and intestines." That's why I quoted the passage about animala that died naturally or were killed by another animal. In that case, it was NOT about a sacrifice or a priest's portion. 

That’s why Cain was terrified of being banished …. outside the Garden the whole world was filled with proto-people that were not direct creations from God … “the land of exiles”, where life was hard and dangerous, and NO ONE lived forever.
They would naturally want to kill Cain on sight, because his family would have lived forever in a protected Paradise …. and they did not.
A modern day example is “everybody” hates and wants to kill the Jews because they suspect they might REALLY be God’s chosen people, and suspect that they, themselves,  are not.
Grrrrrrrr ….
 

Nominally, he was. I didn’t get the impression his heart was in it. The mom certainly was and I was there as much to support her as her son. Sometimes people just like an ally, regardless of how things go down.

First she gets perceived condescension from MM, and now you are going to give her a superiority complex.

Nominally, he was. I didn’t get the impression his heart was in it. The mom certainly was and I was there as much to support her as her son. Sometimes people just like an ally, regardless of how things go down.

Adding to Thinkings list, of which each item is different, so that I think that would have answered your question, is just plain ‘ol human error. Anyone who has ever worked in healthcare (my wife is a retired nurse) knows there is plenty of it. 
In my area, hospitals laid off nurses who would not accepted the Covid shot. This led to collapse of the hospital system, as there were a lot of them, not easily or affordably replaced, so largely not replaced, making the remaining staff take up the slack over which they protested and went on strike. Do you think this worked to increase the safety of transfusion protocol?
Just recently local hospitals were found to be in severe violation of a law that they must not be understaffed. It’s a LAW—how could that have not fixed the problem? It’s as though administrators say, ‘If our nurses quit, the very stones will take care of you!’
Everything is collapsing. And whereas JW’s stand on war, tobacco, alcohol and drug abuse, and compliance with safety laws, place them BY FAR among the safest religions out there, you keep flailing a on a number so relatively tiny that neither Thinking nor myself can think of an example we personally know of. And neither of us are youngsters, especially Thinking.
In a revolving population of several million you are going to find countless examples of anything. But there is such a thing as focusing on the trees so minutely as to not see the forest.

Oh, it is hardly proof positive, but both have been around for a long, long time. Both respond to me in more or less the same way. Both are avante garde about respecting the GB’s wishes—MM has made it clear, and the Librarian just for hosting such a site. Both have a fixation on order—concerned when a thread wanders. Both respond to challenges with snippets about food—‘I like tacos’ for the Librarian, ‘pass the popcorn’ for MM
I mean, I wouldn’t stake significant sums on it, but no way is it an absurd speculation.

Adding to Thinkings list, of which each item is different, so that I think that would have answered your question, is just plain ‘ol human error. Anyone who has ever worked in healthcare (my wife is a retired nurse) knows there is plenty of it. 
In my area, hospitals laid off nurses who would not accepted the Covid shot. This led to collapse of the hospital system, as there were a lot of them, not easily or affordably replaced, so largely not replaced, making the remaining staff take up the slack over which they protested and went on strike. Do you think this worked to increase the safety of transfusion protocol?
Just recently local hospitals were found to be in severe violation of a law that they must not be understaffed. It’s a LAW—how could that have not fixed the problem? It’s as though administrators say, ‘If our nurses quit, the very stones will take care of you!’
Everything is collapsing. And whereas JW’s stand on war, tobacco, alcohol and drug abuse, and compliance with safety laws, place them BY FAR among the safest religions out there, you keep flailing a on a number so relatively tiny that neither Thinking nor myself can think of an example we personally know of. And neither of us are youngsters, especially Thinking.
In a revolving population of several million you are going to find countless examples of anything. But there is such a thing as focusing on the trees so minutely as to not see the forest.