Sheep and Goats

Category: Family Life

  • Pop’s Friends and ‘Agape’ Love

    Pop’s friends were invariably those on his bowling team. Or golf. Or the husbands of Mom’s friends. He was amiable and would get along with most anyone. One of his pals had always been controlling of his wife. After she died, he was wracked with guilt. She had wanted a computer when the devices were new. He flat out refused her. Not for any good reason. He just didn’t want her to have one. “If your mom had wanted a computer,” Pop said to me, retelling the story, “the first thing I would know about it would be to see it sitting here on this table.”

    Maybe it’s Pop’s story that recall two movies for me, both ranking quite high. In both, the husband is initially presented as the seeming star. In both, the facade is little-by-little stripped away to reveal the frauds they are underneath. In both, it is the woman who propped them up and convinced them they were better than they were. In both, those women were taken for granted, sometimes with disdain. Why do I think of that truism made many times in Witness literature that putting another down is the same as boasting, even if it presents differently? In both cases, the relative positions shift the same.

    ‘About Schmidt’ was one of those films. Jack Nicholson played the husband, a big dog at his firm as the top insurance salesman, many awards to his credit. Everyone gladhands him, looks up to him. His retirement looms. He has purchased a gigantic RV in which he and his wife plan to roam the country thereafter. He dreads it. How will he ever be able to put up with the inane woman? Turns out he doesn’t have to. She dies unexpectedly. Perhaps it was a heart attack; at any rate, it was sudden. 

    Thereafter, all his assumptions begin to unravel. Turns out that no one really liked him at the workplace. They tolerated him. He had a certain knack for the job, and so they stoked his ego throughout his working life. His usefulness over, they were all glad to bury his memory and move on. 

    Then, it turned out that his wife, a seeming dingbat he treated with familiar contempt, had been seduced by his best friend at work. Only once. Fists flew briefly when he finds out, but in the end it dawns on him, ever so slowly, that ‘Duh! What did he expect?’ He had treated her as a non-entity. Someone paid her a little attention and it was too new an experience for her to resist. 

    Such is the thread of the movie, as Schmidt’s pure ordinariness is revealed. Aimless, he pilots the huge RV around all by himself to the destinations he dreaded to go with his wife, only now he misses her. Now, he is likewise consumed with guilt. ‘Was I really that bad of a husband?’ he asks of her, atop the parked RV, looking up at the stars. He asks her forgiveness. He takes a falling star as a sign that forgiveness has been granted. It had been granted throughout his life. Now, at long last, a wiser man, it was again granted him via meteorite.

    The theme pops up in many films. It as so in ‘One True Thing,’ with the added ingredient of a daughter who initially idolizes college professor father, despises her mother, but by degrees comes to think she has had it entirely backwards. He would agree. As she deteriorates with terminal cancer, he despairs and repents. She has been the “one true thing” of his life, he realizes too late. He, the revered professor, always in demand, who may even have had a fling or two with some undergrads (roundly condemned today but it was a thing back then), comes to appreciate that he has really just been an empty bag of wind. Like Schmidt, he becomes full of remorse for how he took her for granted. 

    Any student of the Bible knows there are four Greek words for love and that ‘agape’ is the highest one, but it is the one not every marriage comes around to, and some do it too late. Agape is the principled form of love, the one applied to how God loves his people. It is a love that attaches itself to its object and does not let go until it has achieved its aim. Somewhere along the line, marriage has to incorporate this sort of love if it is to weather the decades. It can’t be self-centered. Unlike how God loves his people and stays the course until they come around, marriage incorporates the added ingredient of coming around oneself. It carries the added ingredient of molding two persons, not just one.

    Eventually, Pop’s bowling mate overcame his guilt and grief. He started crooning about this beautiful woman he had recently met and aimed to marry. “How beautiful can she be?” Pop mused. “She’s seventy-something years old.” All very fine, I guess, and much better than the Rod Stewart joke I recently heard. A beautiful and touching experience had happened to him just recently, the jokester related. He was there at the hospital to witness the birth of his next wife. 

    ******  The bookstore

  • They will not put up with the wholesome teaching, but … will surround themselves with teachers to have their ears tickled.” (2 Timothy 4:3)

    There is a speaker who uses his own children to illustrate the verse. He doesn’t use them specifically, but he has several of them, and the application would not likely have occurred to him otherwise.

    ‘Say your child approaches mom for an ice cream bar at 4PM, clearly not ice cream time,’ he says. ‘Mom says no. Unperturbed; the child then approaches dad with the same question. Dad says no.’

    Searching for someone to tickle her ears—tell her what she wants to hear—but so far, her search is unrewarded. 

    He continues: ‘But, if she can find a grandparent . . . ‘

    Ah yes, in that case her search will pay off in spades. 

    The illustration is a favorite with his children and whenever he travels to give a public talk, they want to know if it is the one where he talks about the ice cream.

    As for me, I many times used to explain that if they were to "not put up with the wholesome teaching, but according to their own desires, they will surround themselves with teachers to have their ears tickled” and the verse was written long ago, perhaps it also was fulfilled long ago. If so, that would account for how most church teachings are not found in the Bible, at least not straightforwardly. It is the attempt to read them in that causes people to tear out their hair in frustration.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Mass Uncontrolled Experiment on Children

    You never criticize the young for failing to thrive in the soil where you planted them. When they go to college and you hear they are crying about “safe spaces” you do not ridicule them or call them “snowflakes.” You made them that way.

    When kids enter college they might be in “discover mode” or “defense mode.” If they are in “discovery mode,” there are in 7th heaven, eager to explore the new possibilities. They say to adults, “Stay out of my way.” If they are in “defense mode” they are anxious and look for cliques to conform to. They say to adults, “Protect us.”

    The generation of college students clamoring for “safe spaces” began in 2014. It was due to the rapid expansion of youths in “defense mode,” and the corresponding decrease of those in “discovery mode.” What took place 7 years earlier at their time of puberty? The widespread adoption of smart phones, with 24/7 internet access and front-facing cameras. If you had slept from 2010 to 2015, you would have awoken to find the noisy kids playing had been replaced with silent ones hunched over looking at small hand-held devices.

    A book called “The Anxious Generation” says kids need play to develop—lots of play. All mammals do. It’s how they learn to solve problems. It’s how they learn coordination. It’s how they develop confidence. If they don’t get it, they lack confidence and become anxious. Their social skills suffer.

    It gets worse if the necessary play is replaced with what is in many ways the opposite of play: social media. There, one-on-one “embodied” play (in the body) is replaced with girls posting selfies, obsessed with likes (or their lack) that conveys the instant judgment of peers. Boys get sucked into online gaming, which offer mild benefits in hand/eye coordination, but at the expense of entire body coordination. It’s as though they get drawn into video content about walking that is so engrossing that they never actually get around to practice walking. Children develop mostly through experience, not accessing information.

    The author, Jonathan Haidt, calls it the rewiring of the American adolescent brain. It has resulted in highly anxious kids. He cites studies to the effect that 50% of college students report being anxious at least 50% of the time. Within that number is a significant percentage that reports being anxious all the time. They demand safe spaces in college, whereas college has traditionally been the place to push boundaries—safety be damned.

    The internet pours kids into full-blown uncontrolled rancorous adult exposure that they aren’t equipped to handle because they haven’t developed properly. In a JW context (not that this is in the book) kids are drawn to social media forums where adults nurture seeds of discontent that will surely cause turmoil in their family. They are predators, really, manipulating children to their own agendas. They lure them from a place where they will be cared for, albeit with possible “tough love,” to a place where they will not.

    Haidt begins his book with a “what-if” scenario. What if, 20 years from now, your 13-year old daughter asks if she can go to Mars. Some company at school is recruiting the kids for that end. She has asked your permission—she is a good kid—but she doesn’t have to, and many of her classmates are not. All she needs to do is check a box saying she wants to go.

    You know that Mars is dangerous to adults. That means it is probably more so for children. Harmful radiation is abundant. On earth, the atmosphere filters most of it out, but not so on Mars. Temperatures are extreme; accidental exposure means quick death. Gravity is much less than that of earth. The muscles of adults must be retrained after prolonged experience in space. How will Mars affect the growing muscles, bones, and organs of children? You look through the literature your daughter has handed to you, looking for their research on that type of thing. There isn’t any. No way would you allow your daughter to go.

    He compares Mars to the onslaught of social media that has caused a massive rewiring of the adolescent brain. He calls it the largest uncontrolled experiment on children in world history. To be fair to the exJW grumblers, it’s not their fault that the children are on social media. All you have to do is check a box and you gain entrance.

    After speaking of the internet aspects universally found to be harmful to children—not the anti-JW stuff that I’ve mentioned—Haidt tells of times in history where adults have voluntarily restricted themselves for the sake of children. Don’t hold your breath for that one to happen. If there is one thing people won’t tolerate today, it is a restriction on their freedom. Haidt recommends the limited internet access for teens that used to prevail before smart phones. He recommends the return to widespread play, absent the “helicopter parenting” (that he likes to pit crews servicing their kids for the top colleges). He likes play equipment as “safe as necessary,” not “as safe as possible.” You have to be able to get hurt to learn how to avoid getting hurt. He likes the old merry-go-rounds, where you could get hurt but rarely seriously. Ironically, he says outdoor play is now far safer than most adults perceive it, since the predators have mostly moved online.

     

    ******  The bookstore

  • Just Two Scriptures: Source Material for that 5-Minute Talk for Husbands.

    Just two scriptures listed for the 5 minute student talk last night regarding husbands. Not like the old days, when there might be a few paragraphs for source material. Just two scriptures.

    Colossians 3:19 was the first: “You husbands, keep on loving your wives and do not be bitterly angry with them.”

    This appears to be a guy thing. There is no reciprocal counsel for wives not to be bitterly angry with husbands. There are other bits of counsel, but not this one. It means that, either women don’t get angry, or guys are so used to people being angry at them that it rolls off them like water off a duck. At any rate, it seems ‘bitter anger’ from a husband wounds more deeply than from a wife, perhaps on account of the sense of betrayal—he being the last person she expects to scream at her.

    Not too long before, in the ministry, I had spoken with a divorced woman. She spoke of her ex as not a bad guy overall, but she hadn’t been able to deal with his “anger issues.” Almost as though she knew about the verse—but she didn’t, or at any rate it never came up. Unknowingly, she corroborated it.

    Then there was the fact that it is not ‘anger’ that Colossians speaks of, but ‘bitter anger.’ It suggests a darker, more enduring quality, something that may have become default mode. A guy takes his frustrations out on his wife, for example. She is not the source of them—his daily trials are, even his own shortcomings—but he takes them out on her. Don’t think of that dust-up between Paul and Barnabas. They got over it. Think of something more lasting.

    Many translations render the Greek word, not as ‘bitterly angry,’ but as ‘harsh.’ In that case, think of Rehoboam, the lout who said his little finger would be thinker than his dad’s hips. Bitter anger or harshness: pick your poison, because both are.

    Then there was consideration of how married men in the congregation may diligently apply all the Bible counsel on smooth interacting with others—summarized and refined into that new brochure, ‘Love People—Make Disciples’—to everyone one they encounter except their wives! They feel with the latter that can “be themselves.” No need to apply any artificial traits. What they miss is that the traits should not be artificial, not for one endeavoring to put on the Christlike personality. The effort should be that they be deep-seated and genuine. The first person upon whom to express them should be their wives, not the last.

    This was a good lead into the second scripture, Ephesians 5:33. “Nevertheless, each one of you must love his wife as he does himself;”

    Even men who are hard themselves will not break a leg and keep walking on it. In the final analysis, men accommodate their needs and learn to be kind to themselves. From God’s point of view, your wife is yourself. He is the one who calls husband and wife “one flesh.” So, brothers have to shape up where they have to. We have assignments. We work hard at assignments and hope to get more. Our wives are our first “assignment.” Flub that one up and nothing else really matters.

    After the meeting, someone pointed out the latest Watchtower (January, 2025) with an article directed at Christian husbands but nothing following for wives. In the past, if one was discussed, the other one would not be far behind. I thought maybe it was like that talk from the new GB member, either he or the other one, and now both have been rendered veterans by two newer ones still. He related the experience of a sister dressed provocatively at the Kingdom Hall, at least in someone’s opinion, and the suggestion that brothers counsel her. “I think that’s husband territory,” one of them said. So maybe if there is not a follow up article directed at sisters, it is for that reason. Christ (in this case the undershepherds that represent him) has direct headship over the man. Not so with the sisters, however. There is a layer in between. 

    Not that I would think they’d let it go over the provocative sister. If she was provocative enough, they might lean into the husband. But what if (gulp) the husband was a non-believer, or if she was single? Then they might put a bug in the ear of an older mature sister, ideally one who does not dress as a sack of potatoes herself and can empathize with wanting to present one’s best appearance.

     

    ******  The bookstore

  • Sigh—Another Reference to How People Hate to Read

    Another observation, this time within the Exercise Patience convention, on how so many hate to read. Such references are frequent. Here, the speaker tries to sell the apparently reluctant brothers on the notion that reading just five minutes a day has a significant positive impact on one’s well-being. 

    Is it only me who finds this discouraging, as though proof that one is a ‘stranger in a strange land?’ I feel cheated if I cannot get 3 hours of reading in a day, and can easily do twice that. I mean, sheesh—five minutes?

    So I get a little lonely, as though a fish out of water.  And I know that the brotherhood is but a cross section of society, and that society itself is  that way. And I know that in the case of Jehovah’s organization, it results in a people who can set up and dispose of Kingdom Halls pretty much as the greater world sets up and takes down Coleman tents. Let’s face it, we are the exact realization of what Paul said 2000 years ago, a people who “live quietly [usually]  and to mind your own business [we do till we don’t] and work with your hands, just as we ordered you.” (1 Thessalonians 4:11) Well, we haven’t been “ordered” to work with our hands, but it does usually work this way.

    IMG_1005Now, if you read 3-6 or more hours a day among a people who must be coaxed to read 5 minutes a day, you begin to think you must be a different kind of animal. Not a better or worse kind of animal; just a different one. It is a gift and, as a gift, you bring it to the altar, rather than start feeling superior over it. Of course if you can bring your ‘gift,’ then it’s a fine thing, but a gift of reading is not necessarily viewed that way, and it’s derivative, writing, is particularly looked at askance. ‘Aren’t there people who are charged to write about God, and those people don’t include you?’ is a prevailing attitude. And just try to sell anyone on the idea that if you read 3-6+ hours a day, you just might know things that the five minute people have not yet come across. Whereas, if I was good at hanging drywall, I’d be highly esteemed. Instead, as a writer on spiritual things, I carry on as though practicing secret sin.

    “And I've never gotten used to itI've just learned to turn it offEither I'm too sensitiveOr else I'm gettin' soft.” — Bob Dylan

    It’s no wonder I am comfortable on Twitter, where reading and writing is a prerequisite and where there are abundant brothers and sisters who do just that. Three out of ten Americans say they spend virtually all their time online. Those people I like to reach out to.

    Ah, just venting. Not to worry. I’m not on the cusp of joining Ahithorolf (who’s been to college!) Striking the shepherd is an unforgivable sin in my eyes. I have found my place and am content.

    From my latest: In the Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction: 

    “‘How come you never taught me to do stuff?’ I had queried my handy dad who’d been raised on a farm. The amiable duffer, long past his taciturn days, replied: ‘I did—but you weren’t paying attention that day.’ I think he had bought into the prevailing mantra that if you go to college you can always hire underlings to do the ordinary things that need doing.”

    ***Says nobody I know: My sons also asked me why I didn't teach them household skills like wiring, roofing, plumbing… I told them that I tried to, but I had to force them to work with me, it was so painful for all of us, that I ended up doing it all myself. 

    Yeah. I’m sure I was that way with Pop, too. I do find it’s crippled me all my life though. Not that I can’t make do after a fashion. But I’m no craftman. No serious complaints, though. He was a very good dad overall. He took me sledding in the winter and miniature golfing in the summer.

    But I did once hear a talk on exactly that scenario, that of fixing something around the house. The speaker considered just that problem: that you could fix it with you child or you could do it yourself in half the time. He advised re-evaluating just what you were trying to do. Were you fixing an appliance or training a child?

     

    ******  The bookstore

  • One Fine Day on Social Media Getting My Head Handed to Me on a Platter

    “Should I be concerned that my first instinct when someone rings the doorbell is to pretend I'm not home?” someone said over Twitter. Within the thread were assorted GIFs, such as the one with the woman inside the refrigerator, pulling the door shut. 

    Me, I just like to help: “Of course not,” I replied. “Sudden appearance of someone you don’t know is always a cause for concern. Just watch out that the yapping dog at the window doesn’t give you away continually looking back as though to say, ‘Well? Why don’t you answer?’”

    I should have left it at that. But I took on another tweet in the thread:

    “I feel like this is the result of boomer parents drilling into their millennial children that all strangers will murder you and you’re never to answer the door or the phone when home alone. Ever,” a woman said.

    Tommy, shut up. You know you should shut up. Don’t say what I did: 

    Yeah. It’s like when teens came to the door and I showed the ‘Be Social Media Smart’ video. Then on a return visit, mom appeared, I said she was the one I’d been looking for, and she said I shouldn’t talk to her kids. Well—I specifically asked them if they thought their parents would care—people are different—and they had said no. ‘Kids will say anything,’ the woman told me.

    Be Social Media Smart is innocuous. Few would be anything but supportive of it, pulling out their hair as they do about kids’ online activity.

    Uh oh: “The fact that you don’t see anything wrong with being a grown ass man having a conversation with children and showing them religious material without their parents present is exactly why millennials grew up not trusting men who knock on their door.” 

    Caution: Disagreement ahead vs ‘children vs teens,’ also ‘religious material vs PSA:’

    The teens answered the door. I wasn’t looking for them. I asked for the parents who weren’t there. The material I showed, after asking if folks would object, was perfectly innocuous, not preachy in anyway, and I have never known any parent, religious or not, to oppose it….1/2

    The fact is, in two or three years, those kids will be in the workworld, in college, maybe the military, where they will meet many a situation more ‘threatening’ than there encountered. Not all parents want their teens to hide. Most realize they will soon enough face the world….2/2

    “You didn’t know what that parent wanted because they weren’t present for you to ask. So instead of leaving and coming back later, you, an adult man, continue to speak to children at the door of their own home when their parents weren’t available.”

    The video is essentially a PSA announcement, hard to believe it would get someone’s dander up so. Were the teens to resume watching TV/internet, they’d see many far more objectionable things. But I’ve no quarrel with you, nor your family rules & would never violate whatever rules you have laid down, or that your teens, were I to encounter them, would tell me about.

    “You could have been going door to door to show them episodes of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. The problem is that you didn’t leave once the kids said their parents weren’t available. As the adult it’s on you to disengage when the parents aren’t present, but you didn’t.”

    Best drop it at this point. You often have to let people get the last word, unless you want to be drawn into a thread that may never end. I even had to look up what Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood was and I was a little concerned it might be some pervert video or other, but it was just an example of an innocuous and virtuous video for small children. (whereas we were talking teens)

    Still, I gotta say, it’s not the most comfortable spot to be in. Does it make me rethink? Times have changed. Best not be a dinosaur when the meteorite hits. Best not think of how it used to be. Think of how it is now. I’m not even sure ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ works anymore, and—let us be honest—even if it does, am I one of that village?

    It is a pretty rare scenario in these parts but it does happen. You never press any teen, but is it the rule now that you don’t talk to them at all? I certain youngster I chatted with briefly, he being the only one home and assuring me nobody cared if he exchanged a word or two with a visitor. Upon leaving, there was his mom driving up the driveway. “I asked your son a couple of questions and he answered intelligently,” I told her. “You should be proud of him.”

    Several years ago—what, maybe 20–I worked door to door with Elena, newly arrived from South America. A child answered the door—this time it was a child, not a teen. I handed a tract with instructions to give it to her parent. As we walked away, Elena said, ‘I would have witnessed to her.’

    Of course. She wouldn’t do it today. But where she came from, it was quite common for Witnesses to speak with children. Parents had no problem with it, and in fact, many were quite pleased that some would be learning the Bible. But something even then told me we’re not in San Kansas anymore. No way in Western lands do I ever speak with a child so young other than a ‘give this to your mom’ kind of thing.

    And here I was speaking to Davey-the-Kid about the difference in kids. Youngsters in the Latin American countries take on responsibilities early and thus mature early, whereas in the States there are 30-years olds as silly as adolescents.

    ***And—best not ignore the elephant in the room. The reason parents are on hair trigger alert more than even 20 years ago is the fear of pedophiles. Nobody is above suspicion. Just last month a pedophile school principle, who called children into his office to sit on his lap, was sentenced to prison. Call it another sign of the times.

    From Tom Irregardless and Me:

    “For example, a former coach of youth sports, Bob Cook wrote: “The most upsetting thing about many child-protection rules is they assume any adult is capable of doing something bad. If you think of yourself as a good person, and the people around you as good people, you can’t help but be taken aback. You can’t help but think a wall has been put between yourself, the children you coach, and the families you deal with. It’s a wall that seems patently ridiculous when, in the case of the Catholics involved in my Virtus meeting, were tight-knit, south side Chicago parishes where families had known each other for
    generations.”

    No sense fighting it. You’d better adapt. ‘We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.’

    ******  The bookstore

     

  • Tweeting the Meeting—Week of March 1, 2021. I Reconnect with an Old Friend.

    Weekend Meeting

    I am Zooming to Georgia for the meeting today. A friend’s son is giving his first public talk. Last time I saw him the boy was 10 and his parents were leaning on him to keep up with his homework and saxophone lessons.

    There are a number of people I know here, &haven’t seen in a long time—from many places. Zoom makes that possible. Most friends say they look forward to Kingdom Halls reopening, but I have heard some say they don’t care if they ever see a Hall again—Zoom enables that streamlining

    “Friends are like buttons on a elevator,” the kid says. “Some will bring you up and some will bring you down.” #WeekendMeeting

    It is no surprise that the kid has iPad rather than print Bible—most young people do, and even adults. But it is especially apt for him. His dad is a high-tech honcho for a Fortune500 company. When we flew down to visit, he tracked us every inch of the way via an app.

    No surprise, too, that the young man has a pure blue background, probably virtual. First I have seen other than on jw.org. Usually, as with newsmakers, there is a home background. …1/2

    One bro would take down his distracting baseball pics, but you could still see the hooks. Apparently he’d put them up again after the meeting….2/2

    Look, this talk is very very good. He is from a family of high-achievers. And yet it lacks nothing in warmth and affability. Is it too stereotypical to say that the family is Asian?

    Congregation is on the ball. Everyone has a blue background. Maybe the KH is opened for the purpose. And field service to commence in a breakout room 5 minutes after mtg. I’ve never seen it. Usually, chatter continues until someone pulls the plug and dedicates the rest to service.

    I am atypically not prepared at all for the Watchtower study. Things happened last night. Nothing severe, just unanticipated. I have to skim ahead during the meeting, & I prefer not to do it that way.

    Ah. It is refreshing that this together congregation is, like the rest of us mortals, experiencing minor Zoom problems. #watchtowerstudy It is almost like, “Rise, for I too am a man.”

    Yikes. There are six pages here. It will not be a slam-dunk to get in a comment here. Maybe just as well, given my lack of prep. I would not be surprise if a HUGE number were visitors come to see my friend’s son’s first talk—he is very supportive of his family.

    This is the Watchtower study that focuses upon the new year text, this year “Your strength will be in keeping calm and showing trust.” (Isa 30:15) It is in keeping with the overall there of coping with anxiety. One pic has someone holding the verse, as though a note reminder

    Since I type my life away, I am not as given to anxiety as I might be at other times—writing is a coping mechanism in itself.

    Yeah. I tried. I raised my hand but there are too many here to choose from. There is also very good participation

    What I would have said is appreciation for how Acts 5 simplifies it. They felt they “must” preach, not could they or would they. Even in times of upheaval to normal routine, (like now) it can be possible to find a way and means, even devising one.

    This is one together congregation. I tell you, there is no one here that is likely to have a cat walking behind them.

    I raised my hand then lowered it. Someone had just said much the same. With so many people here, you don’t want to blow time with parroting something already said.

    In this study on anxiety, Jesus’ pithy “Stop being anxious” is not quoted. I like the verse for introducing the notion it is open to attitudinal influence , but there have been anxious ones discouraged at any suggestion it is a switch that one can readily be flipped off.

    Ah. There is a footnote that says anxiety may be a medical condition. As to stopping it, if you can’t do it you can’t do it. Don’t worry about it. Of course, those precise words were not used.

    As the words to closing song are displayed, the speaker’s box and only his is displayed as thumbnail, as though presiding. I didn’t even know that was possible. I am told 8 pages of instruction come with Zoom meetings, largely to thwart trolls, but also for general appearance. …1/2

    Most congregation struggle with too many and some botch them all. This one didn’t miss a trick, I think, and may have added a few….2/2

    Oh my goodness! The breakout rooms are named for scriptural themes! I have never seen anything other than #1, #2, #3, etc

    Whoa! The 21-year old speaker (his first talk) is deluged with praise, and for the first time looks a little uncomfortable. It WAS a near perfect talk, & few give public talks at 21.    1/2

    I’ll write to tell him not to let it go to his head—no doubt unnecessary as he is from a terrific family and seems well-grounded, but it can’t hurt and will be good pretext for getting reacquainted.   2/2

    When you give a talk and people mob you to gush on how you have knocked it out of the park, it is a very awkward moment. There are only so many times you can say, “It’s not me, it’s Jehovah.” I learned to just say “Thank you,” and change the topic to them.

    Of course, I never had this problem. What they would say to me is, “When I hear you speak, Brother Harley, I marvel at the wisdom of God’s organization in cutting public talks from 45 minutes to 30.”

    When I first met my friend, he was himself about 21. A Vietnamese refugee, he loaded trucks for UPS and I believe it was they who were putting him through college. I recall him telling me that, having just left the bank, he was held up, I think it was at gunpoint. He would not relinquish his rent money! “I am one of Jehovah’s Witnesses,” he told the robber. “I don’t care about money. You can have all of it except what is for rent. I need that.” Way to get himself killed! However, he did emerge the victor of his “negotiations!” The thief did not get the rent money. He was insistent on that point.

    After graduation, before departing for his new IT job with the firm he had loaded trucks for, he married the last single pioneer sister from a family of ten. At the wedding reception, I could tell his refugee sponsors were not entirely thrilled about it. They were gracious, of course, and you had to drag it out of them—they didn’t go around muttering. I know how this works with career-minded college people when you marry into a family with no college. I know this because my own grandmother had grilled my prospective wife as to whether she was “good enough” for me. She is more than good enough, thank you very much. And my friend’s wife is more that good enough for him. If he is like me, he has turned the question around to say, “Am I good enough for her?”My grandmother was certainly not a bad woman, nor was she stuck up. She just wanted the best for her grandson, and I as firstborn was her favorite. (A wise choice, as the second-born is the brother with whom I play bi-weekly games of Scrabble, and he always cheats.)

    I studied with this grandmother (actually a step-grandmother, no blood relation, though you would never know it) after my graduation from college—I had learned the Bible during my junior-senior summer break, and I almost didn’t return to school. My mom was so distraught at this, not speaking to me out of tears—and believe me, my mother not speaking was as unlikely as Trump not speaking with tears or without—that I knuckled under and returned for the final year. It was a little silly, after all, to go three years and not to completion. The brother studying with me offered to set me up in the other city, and for whatever reason I said no. I was studying the Bible with the aid of.a book, and if there was one thing a college student knew how to do, it was read a book. Besides, I liked him well-enough, but maybe the person he sent would be a nut. Like the born-again nut that had approached myself and two buddies on our camping trip that had us stopping from here to Washington DC and back.

    He came out of nowhere into our campsite. “I just wanted to know if you boys knew the Lord,” he said. He rambled on for the longest time and I don’t remember all he said but I do remember we all thought he was a kook but we also respected him (and God) for mustering up the courage. He ran himself out of words after awhile and we spent the rest of the week composing songs of mockery—one friend had a guitar and all of us could sing. I mean, it was God, and we all respected that, but he wasn’t saying anything that appealed to the head. His emotion alone didn’t do it for us.

    I did study on my own back in college, but only for a short while, for I was soon immersed in college life. In time, out of discouragement at where college was leading (or not leading) and at how I had been convinced I had found something of spiritual substance, I looked up the address of a Kingdom Hall and walked in. Therein begins another story and I’ve probably told it somewhere, but if not maybe I will.

    The grandmother I studied with—she may have been my first Bible study—would have me over for dinner every week, or maybe it was every two weeks. Again, I was her favorite. After homemade cooking, we would study out of the truth book. She went to the Baptist church, and I learned later that my dad thought her a religious fanatic, but then, anyone bringing up the Bible was a religious fanatic to him. I think the Second World War was a big turnoff to him. Oh, and it didn’t help when the priest said he could not marry my Protestant mom unless she converted. Forget that!” he said, and they never saw him again.

    Nobody else ever thought Nana a fanatic. She wasn’t a Bible-thumper. I can’t recall her ever preaching to anyone. She just went to church. Anyway, we went through several chapters of the Truth Book, and she was a very good student, but she also became troubled. “I see what this is saying,” she would tell me, “and I see how the scriptures support it, but it is just so different, she said.” I will never forget how troubled she was to think I had rejected the Trinity. But it turned out that by trinity, she just thought that their were three parties, and Witnesses must be denying that. When I explained about co-equal, co-powerful, co-eternal, co-this, and co-that, she said that she had never believed that—she just thought there were three close parties, so there was really no conflict!

    Between school and courting, I don’t think my Vietnamese friend had too much to do with the fledgling Vietnamese group that was forming. That was largely Erna, a pioneer who had rented homes to some of them, had offered them studies, and two had accepted. This will be interesting she said, for she didn’t know a word of Vietnamese. But Erna was staggeringly resourceful. Her dad, whose home building business she had probably helped launch from one-house-at-a-time to lucrative, put her through law school and she emerged a commuter lawyer for Bethel. Some ne’er-do-wells online were carrying on once about how Witness women must have a horrible time always kowtowing to men. “I don’t know,” one of them said, “I knew Erna at Bethel and she wouldn’t put up with that crap for a moment.” So he does know Erna, I smiled. As congregation secretary, I had drafted her letter of recommendation to Bethel.

    Though there were high and mighty Vietnamese, as there are those sorts everywhere, the ones we came in contact with arrived as boat people, They were remarkable. They would arrive with nothing, on welfare and food assistance. Within two years they were homeowners growing their own food, and bartering at the market. Venders of chickens had to come to grips with some of them being purchased for sacrifice. Another was rushed to the hospital when the mushrooms her family picked in the local schoolyard turned out to be poisonous toadstools—I guess that problem didn’t present back home. Each family member would work a job, sometimes more than one, almost always for minimum wage, but the income added up. I spoke with Anh once about demons. Did they know much about them where he had come from. Oh yes, he said matter-of-factly. They were always to be found in the woods, were apt to cause trouble, and sometimes his peasant neighbors would go hunting them down, which was not easy work and was fraught with danger because they could be nasty. Many years later I thought of that woman doctor from the Caribbean who had championed the anti-malarial drug that Trump advocated. Media felt obliged to discredit her, so they made mockery at similar statements she had made regarding demonism—it is not an “educated” Western concept even if it is an unremarkable fact of life for many lowly people today.

    Oh, there is plenty more to the story, and I must get to it someday. Possibly, I already have and it is buried in posts somewhere. I really do need a massive overhaul in my filing system, but will probably never get around to it. After I die, in the unlikely event anyone tries to unravel this stuff, they will say, “Huh! The old buzzard must have said this 15 times if he said it once!”

    And here is from the mid-week meeting. I usually do these first, but reconnecting with my old friend took precedence this time:

    A new ‘translate’ button has appeared and it was explained it was for members of our foreign language group. Someone asked if it would work for.Charlie’s Brooklyn accent. #midweekmeeting

    That zealous sister who suffered the heart attack is back. Someone asked her if the territory of Upstate Hospital is now completely covered.

    “Way to fit a 5 1/2 minute video into a 5 minute part, the presiding elder said to the one conducting it? Was the “Organizational Accomplishments video really longer than the time allotted for it?

    The local needs speaker built his talk, geared toward the young, around Isa 41: “Do not be afraid, for I am with you. Do not gaze about, for I am your God. I will fortify you. ..For I…am grasping your right hand…saying to you, ‘Do not be afraid. I myself will help you.’

    The new Zoom settings enable personalized hands. Some black friends have brown hands, some white have tan hands. Were I Irish, would I choose a green hand, or if Native American, red? I have the default yellow, which apparently is not reserved for Asian.

    Spurred on by Covid, there are many museum tours offered virtually from afar. The “disgusting idols,” even “false gods” that “competed” with Jehovah and triggered not-so-hot conduct are on display, and the guides are always more than ready to explain them. #Ezekielstudy

    A new Zoom function was employed for the first time, allowing participants to come and go and switch breakout rooms at any time. But I didn’t like it. I feared it might be a revisit of school gym days where everyone was chosen for dodge ball before me.

    …..Visit Smashwords bookstore.  Also available at Amazon & other ebook retailers

     

  • Tight Pants, Wide Ties, Volkswagen Buses, and Holding the Watchtower

    When Anthony Morris, at the 2016 Regional in Atlanta, spoke of coming down south, and his sons had asked him ‘What is a redneck?’ he replied that they “would know them when they saw them.”

    He was having fun with his opening remarks. Everyone….well, almost everyone….took it in that spirit. In case there was someone who did not, in a subsequent talk he walked it back, referring to the gentle “folk wisdom” of the south.

    He speaks off the cuff sometimes. Rise, for he too is human. He probably regrets that remark about the tight pants, because various soreheads have made it their year text ever since. 

    It is very difficult counseling a huge and diverse group of people One will say: “Thanks for the new RULE!!” and his companion will say: “Huh? Did you say something?” I think he and those of his group just don’t want to find themselves in the shoes of Lot, whose sons-in-law thought he was joking.

    Even at the Watchtower study last Sunday, the conductor gave an aside about the tight pants, observing that they must have to be put on when wet, so as to allow the fabric to stretch over the feet. Strictly speaking, (even loosely speaking) it is not necessary. But an 80-year old can be forgiven for a few seconds (it was no more than that, and he is universally regarded as a man of integrity and good judgment) of scratching his head and expressing bewilderment at the world that is today.

    This is the same Watchtower conductor whose lifelong secular work was that of a Porsche dealer mechanic, and who quit in disgust when Porsche began manufacturing SUVs, as though an elite art museum commenced displaying that painting of the dogs playing poker. It’s not true, he tells me. He was about to retire anyway, but he does nothing to counter the crotchety-sounding meme that others have spread around. 

    This is the same Watchtower Study, on how the wisdom of Jehovah is superior to the wisdom of this world, in which I thought the artwork was wrong. The VW bus is one from the 70’s, whereas it should have been one with a funky grill that was from the 60’s. The impeccably dressed brother with the hat is from the 50s—hadn’t dress hats pretty well faded out by the mid-60s? And don’t get me going about the “hippy” conversing with him, who no doubt took off his wig and clothes thereafter and resumed his place analyzing a computer spreadsheet at Bethel.

    And while I am on the topic of that Watchtower:

    My daughter is in town for a few weeks. At the study observation of how some say God-given sexual desire argues for promiscuity, she said: “Well, that’s stupid! God made me to have to pee, too. Does that mean I should pee my pants?”

    “That’s my daughter!” I told the family gathering, as she related her remark. Frankly, I wish I had thought of it.

    But back to the tight pants. They were tight in the early 60s, too, and I can remember battles with my [non-Witness] Dad because I wanted to wear them and he had a fit over it, though I gradually won out. Even the “spray-on” descriptions are from the past. I wore clamdiggers, too, cool pants that came in pastel colors, had a stripe down the side, and ended mid-shin. I wore them when visiting my uncle who lived way way out in the sticks, and he said: “What are you doing wearing peddle-pushers? Those are girls’ pants!!” They weren’t peddlepushers, you hillbilly. They were cool clamdiggers.

    It’s not just pants. Ties widened in the late 60’s as well, regaining the status they previously had given up. I remember Brother Park giving a talk about how the Bethel brothers were very concerned for Brother Knorr, who showed up for meals day after day with very wide ties at a time when the styles were changing—I think he said they ultimately became as thin as a pencil. Those brothers were so worried about him, because he was “not in style.”

    “BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED?!” he gasped. Ties began to reverse and became wider and wider—and now Brother Knorr is “in style!”

  • Skirmish #282244 – “I would like to get on the phone with Bro. Anthony Morris III (AKA “Tight Pants Tony”)…”

    AKA "Tight Pants Tony"

    You bring this up so frequently (and HOW old are you?) that I have become curious over something:

    Please post a full-length photo of yourself.

    If, as I suspect, it shows you wearing spray-on pants, that will explain a lot.

    (He did post one—of himself back in the day leaning on a fancy car. He was rather dapper back then. Whatever happened? No tight pants, however.)

    So. You don’t wear tight suit pants yourself. You probably agree with everyone else that they look ridiculous. You also probably agree that they are ‘manipulative’ — they are the product of a highly sexualized fashion industry that seeks always to highlight sensuality. When these ones turn their attention to children, they put them in clothes that suggest they are hookers. Mothers—and I do not mean just Christian mothers, I mean just protective ones—have to buy boy’s gym shorts for their daughters so as to make them not a target for pedophiles.

    And yet you giggle on like a adolescent about “tight pants Tony.” What’s with that?

    9A24B1B5-D5F6-462B-A85C-27089336DFE3

    photo: Blue Jeans – Emanuelle Tortora

  • Sex and the Two-Mile Strand of Spaghetti

    Scientists identify four fundamental forces of nature: the strong and weak nuclear force, gravity, and the electromagnetic force. For 99.9% of the earth’s population, these are irrelevant and there is only a fifth that must be understood: the force of sexual attraction. God didn’t want to revisit Adam and Eve after a few hundred years, discover them on a barren planet, and hear them say “Oh, we were supposed to do that? I guess we plumb forgot. Sorry.”

    Sexual attraction is the most crucial force to understand, even if it is not of the Four. Pursue the four if you like—and it is good for human knowledge that some do. However, the typical youngster will never approach a black hole of outer space to see the four forces interact.

    He or she will approach the black hole of sexual attraction that his seemingly overcautious parents have probably told him about. Intrigued by an awakening of desire, he gingerly approaches. All seems inviting, tantalizing—what is this fuss that the old people have carried on about? He edges closer and closer until its sudden irresistible pull grabs and stretches him into a two-mile strand of spaghetti.

    From Dear Mr. Putin – Jehovah's Witnesses Write Russia

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    photo: "spaghetti" by Rene something something

    Image Attribution