James Thomas Rook Jr.

My uncle used to grow corn on his farm in very rural North Carolina, for him and to sell, and for pigs, and he made cornbread for his hunting dogs.  He had a well made of vertical concrete pipe sections going down, and you got water by pulling up a bucket on a rope.  He would let corn completely dry out, and I would hand crank a device that stripped the hard corn from the corn cob, when I visited him.

There was a bin of stripped corn cobs beside the outhouse, and were used as toilet paper, which required some considerable skill to avoid a ....*coff* ... disaster.

.... and because my sinuses have been damaged by a lifetime of nasal congestion, I have almost NO sense of smell ... so what YOU have is "extra sensory perception".

Don't tell anybody ... or in a fit of stupidity and applied ignorance, and the ability to publish globally ....  I might encourage the naive to start  gathering firewood.

It is my personal belief that "dowzing" has NOTHING to do with spiritual ANYTHING. 

The principles of Quantum Entanglement  or some other phenomena might apply here.

There are many things in this world that are natural phenomena, that we cannot wrap our minds around ... the underlying principles of what makes your cell phone work would have gotten you burned at the stake as a witch  two hundred years ago, for even suggesting what Einstein called "Spooky action at a distance", which has to do with entangled things at a distance, but absolutely NOTHING to do with "spooks".

Of course, many people, to avoid being chastised,  go to great lengths to avoid dozing, and I am one of them.

Sylvia, Sylvia.... Sylvia ...

...sigh .....

Russia is a sovereign nation ... they have any rights they want ... any rights at all!  

Any rights they assign themselves  .... and give themselves .... and ARE ABLE TO ENFORCE. 

The old adage "You have your rights and I have my bayonets" is the rule here.

Policy has absolutely NOTHING to do with what is right or what is wrong, except on very, very rare occasions.

They have the advantage ... they have the enforceable power to declare and enforce what they SAY is "Right".

Nobody believes it ... except those who do not want to be ground up. People will bend their minds into a pretzel to survive ....

They self appoint themselves through political machinations, and propaganda, drilled into people's minds from infancy, and have any rights, interpreted any way they want ... THEY HAVE THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE FINELY TUNED, AND THEY HAVE THE BAYONETS..

In Russia's case, the bayonets are literal .... the best we have been able to manage is extreme shunning and tearing families apart to enforce policy.

In the adage I quoted above there is more ... "You have your rights and I have my bayonets --- Let's see who wins!"

Perhaps Jehovah is preparing to chastise us for our cruelties, the same way he chastised his Name People back in ancient times ... with the Babylonian Army.

In about five years .... we will all know.

The Jews in Poland had homes, jobs and businesses when the Nazis came in. 

Some homes were magnificent, and had been in the family for 600 years or more.

Jews  were rounded up, and murdered.

Those that liquidated everything at 5 cents on the dollar and fled  early with only a stomach full of diamonds, survived.

Those that wanted security starved and froze in the camps before they were burned in the ovens.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Rosalie Barry:

If I remember correctly, the Apostle Peter said that about God's Son, Jesus Christ.

He did NOT say that about any collection of Governing Body in Jerusalem.

There is a very real difference.

6 minutes ago, AllenSmith said:

You just answered what I think about your photo up. Look at it again.

How about that ... I have the answers even before you ask the questions ..... !

That's what happens when you get a blind Jewish Mohel.

18 last minute first class or business class plane tickets from Russia to the United States cost a FORTUNE! Was the plane chartered?

Airlines will generally not let you on an aircraft if the foreign country requires as part of their Visa, a return ticket, especially on a business Visa.

28 minutes ago, Jay Witness said:

If true, it is highly likely that they were breaking the law.

Which is more probable ... he lied to us, or the entire group of 12 or so  highly experienced  Lawyers and experienced world travelers risked a Russian Prison camp?

20 minutes ago, AllenSmith said:

The day “other” religions get the boot like the Watchtower? Then you can say? WeÂ’re all in the same boat. Meanwhile, the Watchtower is on a life raft, in open water, while other religions get to stay, inland even though they are harassed.

Do the "other religions destroy whole families to chastise one errant congregant?

Do the other religions require children to commit ritual medical suicide?

Do other religions have their congregants IN A LIFE BOAT with so many patches it looks covered in post-it-notes?

Inquiring minds want to know!

I suppose it DOES work better for midgets and dwarfs.

That is always true when I use my right to bear arms ....

(... may not translate across languages ... )

.

Unfortunately, as I was swept downstream by the rapids, the river flattened out and I fell over a waterfall into a pool of alligators, and they ate me.

The secret caption is hidden in the file name ....

From the picture above, it appears Jesus shaved his arm pits.

I remember an incident when I was working in the Congo, in 1974.. it was called Zaire then ... and half way between Kinshasa and Kananga  a lion started stalking me and Jim, the Brother I was traveling with, walking on a one lane dirt road next to a rapidly flowing river in the jungle.

I saw it first and yelled "Jim!, lion behind you !" ...   and I ran and made a long  dive into the water. 

They say that you cannot outrun a lion, and that is true ... as I was being swept downstream I looked back and saw the lion had caught Jim.   To this day I believe Jim would have also made it to the river,  if he had not been wearing his lucky ham.

Could be worse ..... after an especially good meeting ... a speaker that REALLY knew his stuff... I stood up and excitedly said to an elderly Sister sittin' in the row behind me " Wasn't that a HELL of a good talk?".

Queen Esther:

It is OK by me .... it's YOUR thread ... and I do realize its a long rambling story ... but tried to tie-in WHY I told that story, at the end.

6 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Perhaps the Russians are right ... and we are wrong ... in requiring of our Bretheren things God does not, and which civilization in general has the "high moral ground", and in addition to destroying families by shunning, we are destroying families by actually causing them to medically suicide.

This is a VERY REASONABLE definition of "extremism".

Perhaps it's a good thing to take the signs off of the confiscated buildings.

The connection makes sense to me ... but I am a guest on your thread.

At the same time that I risked my life before a triple bypass heart surgery, about 9 years ago, and insisted on no blood or blood fractions ... and had to be taken by ambulance to a hospital 30 miles away, kept alive en route by six VERY BUSY EMT technicians, to get the operation without blood, I was beginning to understand that unless an animal, or a human actually dies ... the blood does NOT represent his life.

The soldiers who got water for King David RISKED their life to get it ... and the water represented their life, and LIKE blood, he refused to drink the water.

In ancient Israel, NO ONE drank live animal blood, and when the animal was slain for food, the blood was properly returned to God, BECAUSE the animal died. 

BECAUSE the animal died ... its blood represented its life .....

NOT BEFORE.

If the ancient Israelite Priests had drained blood from animals for sacrificial use, sprinkling it on the crowd, etc., and not killed the animal, allowing it to heal up ... would THAT blood have been proper for sacrifice to God?

NO ... because the animal had not been sacrificed ... only wounded.

If when as a young carpenter someone accidentally injured Jesus, and he had almost cut a finger off, would THAT blood have redeemed mankind?

NO.

When Jesus was killed by punching holes in his body, he bled ... and AFTER he died ... his blood represented his life.

NOT BEFORE!

Further, if he had been executed by drowning, or strangulation ... yes he would have died, but no sacrificial blood could be offered to God for that LIFE!

KNOWING what I know now, would I still insist on no blood for myself should I need more surgery?

The LIFE belongs to God ... and when life dies, specifically for hemoglobin carrying air breathers  (not fish, as an example), Jehovah has ORDERED the blood returned to him "on the ground", or in specifically approved ritual sacrifice.

The human blood would have NO sacrificial value unless it was blood from a cadaver .....  ANY MORE THAN A BLOODY NOSE AND SWALLOWING THE BLOOD UNTIL IT STOPS, HAS ANY VALUE WHATSOEVER.  And I have not quite figured that example completely out.

People used to eat blood saturated animals they had strangled ... the animal was DEAD. 

The blood, representing THAT LIFE, was ordered returned to God, from whence it came.

The blood had value to God, THE ANIMAL HAD DIED, and God demanded its return to him out of respect for his being the force behind ALL LIFE. 

In  some African tribes, they cut a cow and drink the blood, sometimes mixing it with milk.

The Jews did not do this, the very IDEA was totally abhorrent.

The New Testament admonitions specify keeping away from "... blood ... and things strangled ..."

                           FROM ANIMALS ACTUALLY KILLED .                                       

KNOWING what I know now, would I still insist on no blood for myself should I need more surgery?

Yes ... Jehovah, as an example,  ALLOWS pacifism, even though it is not required ... and many, many other things not required.

It's called FREEDOM.

People that believe in FREEDOM, often will sacrifice their lives ... for reasons that make no sense to someone else ... because they believe In certain symbols, and ideas.

I would bind myself with that restriction ... but I would not bind YOU.

To the best of my understanding at the present time. I could be wrong, and am completely open to other reasonable interpretations. I suppose I bind myself .. just in case I might be wrong, which is unlikely, but possible.

... but then again ... I have been at death's door many dozens of times without turning the knob, and am USED to the idea.

Not everybody is.

Perhaps the Russians are right ... and we are wrong ... in requiring of our Bretheren things God does not, and which civilization in general has the "high moral ground", and in addition to destroying families by shunning, we are destroying families by actually causing them to medically suicide.

This is a VERY REASONABLE definition of "extremism".

Perhaps it's a good thing to take the signs off of the confiscated buildings.

In about 5 years,  about many, many things .... we will all know.

.

Thanks JWI for better insight !

That is the difference between two skilled surgeons .... you with a scalpel and bandages, and I with a chain saw and a mop.

And to think ... I used to think a "conundrum" was a wide belt  worn with a tuxedo ....

13 hours ago, Bible Speaks said:

Remember: “An Elephant ? Never Forgets”

 

beautiful pictures of magnificent animals ....

I betcha Bible Speaks regrets having opened THIS Pandora's Box.