Posted by:
charles, buddhist punk
(
)
Date: July 12, 2011 03:23PM
That's what I get for going offline to try and cure myself of RfM and internet addiction. Nevertheless, I've educated myself on the latest word on "she-who-must-not-be-named" and give huge kudos to Susan I/S, owner and admins for sniffing out our ne'er do well author and for keeping the peace in RfMLand.
Now on to my own stories which, fwiw, you are free to take with a grain of salt or other condiment of your choice. No thanks of course to our recently outed day time drama writer in training. I've fallen among TBMs of late and watched or heard about them behaving badly.
An online mini war of words erupted between two TBM siblings in an email thread/conversation. One sibling GA wanna be used his GA writing skills in the exchange, something about Choosing the Right. While I was not mentioned as one who would do that, obviously because I was ExMo, another sibling was offended and threw him off his high horse with a tersely worded retort. It's so much fun to watch self-righteousness blow up in people's faces. As for me, I kept the hell outta the way and remained objective in my responses. Why ruin a good thing, si?
At a dinner hosted by a rabid TBM sister who was once in our ward, I picked up a couple of interesting tidbits from the lives of our struggling, brainwashed, ex-compatriots in the faith. Despite not having a drop to drink, tongues wagged and I learned about a brother, who used to play in a band but traded drumsticks for dental drills, whose life story was interesting to begin with, but was accused of rape a few years back. Now this is a decent guy who would never commit such an atrocity. I would vouch for his person. Turns out the accuser was lying and only wanted money from him. Question is, where were the so-called p'hood leaders when he needed their help? The bishop in particular?
In court. For embezzling tithing funds. Our host mentioned this without batting a lash, like it was nothing out of the ordinary. The host did mention how God protects his own if they live righteously, how the brother survived this "trial" etc. I almost threw a fit. Why would a decent TBM dude have to go through the humiliation and shakedown from the accuser? But I held my tongue, it would be of no use pointing out the obvious to one who chooses to be blind.
Another thing they couldn't see was how one inactive member (a friend of the accused) helped finance the out of court settlement. While they acknowledged that he was doing well in his business/sales, they couldn't get over the fact that he wasn't coming to church anymore like it were his biggest personal failure and he couldn't possibly be moral because of it. Do they not understand irony? Argh!