Anna

Brilliant advice!

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 

Ah—now we are on to something. Did he suggest like any old person floating a possibility? Or did he SUGGEST like Trump, that all was not well in Congress?
Gasp! That’s why Trump was impeached! @The Librarianwas running the House! It was off with Butler’s head one day, Trump’s the next!

I think a lot of JW's are losing their minds right now. Expectation is making the heart sick. I get it.
I look at Christendom and see that their scripturally incorrect views give them an advantage of sorts insofar as these believe, in the main that death leads immediately to a resurrection. This is a lie, of course, but if you believe the lie, you then aren't really waiting for anything. Armageddon and the ultimate righting of wrong becomes a nebulous idea so far off so as to cause them to take no notice. They just get of with living.
W/JWs...The frustration I see comes from all the not knowing. Many believed at one time or another that they really knew. I was worried when I started pioneering that I wouldn't be able to get enough hours under my belt before the end came. Clearly I was wrong. Then I thought about it all and researched all the groups who really believed the end was close at hand. There have been many. It's hard to be in a state of readiness if you really believe that some super important thing is going to happen this takes a toll on both your body and your mind. You can get into a sort of PTSD. People have differing reactions too to information given. No one listens to a talk or reads a publication without creating a narrative or movie, filling in the gaps with themselves. The anxiety can build up in people and then like a human immune system it may select a target to attack. Many are focused on the GB or anointed or these kinds of things. I get it. These things are not the real reasons. The real reasons come from all the not knowing while being in a state of stress.
This is where you have to go back. Pump the brakes and pray. Jehovah is in charge. Jehovah created this universe (through his Son) and his son said "take courage, I have conquered the world". Read carefully the book of Job. Keep studying. Don't stop living. Don't go towards hating on the world, hating on apostates, hating on the GB, hating on anything. Understand that the real enemy is in the spirit realm. Understand that you yourself can be your own enemy with your own thinking and obsessions. Meditate on what it means to wait, what is it doing to you.
I jumped out of a plane by myself once with only a morning's worth of training. It felt like suicide. During the training (over a high jump pit) we were told how to spot and deal w/a parachute malfunction - how to discard the tangled chute and deploy your reserve. The bikers running the jump site freaked out the guy in front of me and he didn't jump. They joked "You'd be lucky to get a malfunction - you get two rides for the price of one!" But they also told us once we got a chute to be sure we got lined up properly for a landing and relax and look up (don't look down) when you're one your way to a landing, otherwise the landing would be too hard as you'd stiff up and maybe break a leg. (we used old Vietnam era chutes, not the fancy kinds). So to me the illustration is to be sure you have yourself lined up right, and when you do relax and look up (not at your bro/sis/GB/world) and you'll stick the landing.
If you're feeling anxiety, you're in good company. Just make sure while you feel trapped you don't chew off your own leg or the legs of those around you. The trap isn't your bros/sis's/elders/gb... it's this world under Satan's influence. You fight the trap by following as closely as you can the patterns set  which lead to faith. Just be sure that when you see another human that you imitate faith based on the promises in the bible.
Eat right, get regular exercise, find something to do which you enjoy and do what you can and learn to ignore the ones who imagine they know you and what you can do better. (I'm still working on all of this too)

Someone really anointed or really Invited  would not promote or make it known on line ...it’s as simple as that..a really humble one ..would allow them selves  be wronged..as Jesus did and as the apostles did..
PRIDE makes them have the need to be known.....

He was removed for calling for physical harm to the extreme upon a member of the GB if I remember correctly.

John Butler was removed for suggesting that the GB might be removed and replaced. 
Then Billy the Kid twisted it that John Butler was threatening the GB. That upset some JW Elders here and it was taken as fact without any proof being required. 
John Butler was not even given one warning. He was just removed.  But this is all totally off topic. 

That's utter rubbish. Please @The Librariantell us, why was @JOHN BUTLER removed?

He was not removed for that reason.
Look, nothing has changed with this new identification of the GB with the faithful slave. Before that was made the situation was the same. Headship came from a small group of under a dozen who, for practical reasons, physically gather together. Should they need a replacement, they look into the ranks of anointed worldwide, and select one. It was that way before. It is that way now. 
Who do you think they are going to select? Someone who just recently began to partake, or one who has done so for a long time? Someone with relatively little experience in the Christian preaching work, or one who has specialized in it full-time for decades?
This is not hard to answer. Even before this arrangement, anointed within the congregations knew, were content with, and deported themselves, that their assignment was to rule in the new system, not now. But it has apparently become the thing that there are now some anointed, whether for real or “self-promoted”  I know not, whether associated with a congregation or on the outside I know not, who want to be NOW seen as having authority. It has never been that way. 
As far as I am concerned, Witness’s non-response to my request that she arrange the car group says it all. She bitterly complains on how sisters with many children are “ignored.” When I ask how would she handle the situation she herself presented she is silent. Yet she is not silent on everything. She continues to chime in about her being “cheated” out of her anointed status.
Someone really anointed, someone really concerned with the sheep, would not ignore the scenario she presented herself as a complaint. She would tell how it is solved. She may have been like that at one time. But she appears far too interested in self-promotion” these days for her to be so now.

What are you talking about? Nobody is saying anyone should avoid the anointed.
 
You can accept the anointed without inquiring about their anointing surely? Or do you need them to talk to you about their anointing before you accept them? As for talking to them about how they feel about the truth, why on earth should you not be able to do that?

A few years ago I was in Pittsburgh visiting one of my husband's relatives and since we were right there, at the "nucleus" of where it all "began" we went to see Russell's grave, saw the Pyramid (which actually is not his tombstone as some think) and we also went to the Allegheny congregation. The brothers there regularly do unofficial tours of Russell sites if any visitor asks about it. I mentioned to the brother about pyramidology, he laughed, a little uncomfortably, and said "we don't talk about that". I understand it's a little bit of an embarrassment, but if you know the facts about it, it is nothing bad, and I would say it's quite understandable for men of God at that time who were searching for truth to have looked into all kinds of things along the route. It becomes a problem when opposers twist or embellish facts and make it look like Russell was into the occult and freemasonry etc. So in my opinion it would be better to explain where Russell was coming from, rather than trying to bury or ignore it. But, and this is the sad thing, perhaps the brother in question really didn't know the facts, and this is where the cult thinking comes in. You are a follower despite some unexplained beliefs. But perhap's I am doing the brother an injustice, perhaps he knew all about  Russell's "theories", but just couldn't be bothered to go into it....

What are you talking about? Nobody is saying anyone should avoid the anointed.
 
You can accept the anointed without inquiring about their anointing surely? Or do you need them to talk to you about their anointing before you accept them? As for talking to them about how they feel about the truth, why on earth should you not be able to do that?

Do you think Jehovah lacks the power to correct the errors you talk about?
 
 
 

It didn't used to be like that though. We had a sweet old anointed couple in our congregation back in England, in fact we were in their book study group and he was the conductor. Anyway, if one were to think of a perfect example of what one imagines the anointed to be, he and his wife were it. They were no different from any other faithful and spiritual brother or sister.
But things were different back then, there wasn't the taboo surrounding anointed ones like there seems to be today. Everyone just accepted they were anointed and that was it. We could talk about it. In fact my mum asked the brother once how does he know he is anointed, what happened when he realized he had the calling? He told her that before, he was looking forward to living on paradise earth, and then this changed, and he had this unrelenting desire to be with Jesus in heaven. He didn't feel special, and he didn't question it, he just accepted it. He did admit though it was difficult to explain.
I think today, "political correctness" has crept into the congregation too. Also, as has been discussed, there is some uncertainty about who really IS anointed today. Perhaps being discreet and minding our own business avoids situations where we might be questioning some "crazy" sister. We had one "anointed" sister in another congregation who would go around with a lit lighter muttering "I see you".

I prefer "Inexpensive" or "Frugal"
 

Perhaps some do dedicate to an organization. But the same can be said for a true believer anywhere. People are always making idols out of something, someone or even some idea.
Whomever you obey, you worship. So if you find yourself obeying and internally transferring the authority to command away from Jehovah or Jesus or the Bible, then you're in dangerous territory.

That was my experience w/a few of the older ones. Most of the older brothers had gone to prison during WWII for conscientious objection. One learned the truth as a hand on the King Ranch. He had been a colporteur and his son told me used to sit any cry on the edge of the bed that people weren't accepting the truth. He really cared about people.

It didn't used to be like that though. We had a sweet old anointed couple in our congregation back in England, in fact we were in their book study group and he was the conductor. Anyway, if one were to think of a perfect example of what one imagines the anointed to be, he and his wife were it. They were no different from any other faithful and spiritual brother or sister.
But things were different back then, there wasn't the taboo surrounding anointed ones like there seems to be today. Everyone just accepted they were anointed and that was it. We could talk about it. In fact my mum asked the brother once how does he know he is anointed, what happened when he realized he had the calling? He told her that before, he was looking forward to living on paradise earth, and then this changed, and he had this unrelenting desire to be with Jesus in heaven. He didn't feel special, and he didn't question it, he just accepted it. He did admit though it was difficult to explain.
I think today, "political correctness" has crept into the congregation too. Also, as has been discussed, there is some uncertainty about who really IS anointed today. Perhaps being discreet and minding our own business avoids situations where we might be questioning some "crazy" sister. We had one "anointed" sister in another congregation who would go around with a lit lighter muttering "I see you".

Like one brother said "Opinions are like elbows - everyone's got two"
I said, "but what about that brother w/one arm?"
He replied "good point!"

I suppose I always blew off the anointed idea as having authority (to me it's sola scriptura all the way, even Jesus said "Why do you call me good? Nobody is good except one, God" - Jehovah is the authority, Jesus is the authority, the scriptures have authority - balanced w/the need to allow for differences in consciences (to me, focus on anointed is a weak faith which I tolerate). Maybe it was a local phenomenon, but it was mostly weirdos or really old people who partook. Invariably some would just go nuts. I think some people mistake the voices in their heads for being special. The desire to worship the creation has a real pull on people.
The other issues I have with the whole thing (not saying that it's not real) is that there's no objective measurement to determine this thing.
It's not as if you could go to the Bible and establish a diagnostic criteria (a spiritual DSM manual) for cases of being anointed.
In one congregation there were some that had some weird theory about being anointed meant you could see some weird thing when you looked at the sky when the sun was setting. I didn't even bother investigating that. The sister was weird, she'd lost a daughter and her son was a musician and periodically had to deal w/alcohol issues. I chalked it up to distress and wanting to be special in some way. Her belief did at least for a time calm her down. I don't know how she is today.
We used to think that all this was moot. It was simple. If you were at the right place and the right time and the deal was if you became a "true christian", then you were a defacto "anointed".
So all the people from the 1st century on, if they were true, then they were anointed.
I wondered. "Is that even true?" "Why some and not others?". Of course it didn't matter so much to me, because if anyone was it wasn't my business. I never got the chance to ask (I would have if there wasn't so much social pressure to NOT ask).  Ostensibly it was a spiritual job interview process, like they're hiring 144k down at the factory and they need people w/various life skills and experiences. Once the slot got filled (you died w/the golden ticket) it would be 144k-1 and so on.
I still believe that this kingdom and it's rulers will be pulled from humanity, but whether someone is or isn't anointed - that's their problem unless they make it my problem by saying "If you don't believe X, Y, and Z are anointed, you're outta here." I certainly won't argue the point when it's been made manifest.
In any case in MT 25, not one of the righteous had a clue who Christ's brothers were. They treated all men equally. But we claim to know. Huh. Somehow we're smarter than the righteous.
 
 

It has become the thing. I would love to see a national breakdown of it. Is it evenly spread among all of Jehovah’s people or is it focused in a few nations of similar attributes.? I’d bet a fairly large sum that it is the latter.
Though i would not bet in the presence of “cowboy” elders. We all know some of them have existed, and in their wake there is a certain amount of damage? What if you knew another in that same congregation?
 
In fact I am. When you have a gift, you bring it to the altar. You don’t diss everyone else for not having it. You see if (hopefully) they may have another gift.
This is all starting to come together. The music is rising to heart-bending finale.
I have not noticed this with my mutt but I am keeping a close eye on him. He is known to do anything he can to get extra treats. You should see how it wolfs down peanut butter on carrot.

I think you just like playing games. I think it is an insult to God. But then a lot of what JWs do is an insult to God and Christ. 
 

Every man and his dog on line now claims to be anointed....it’s hard to take any of them serious...why on earth would he or any one be jealous of them??...I’ve had my differences with JWI here..but I will stand up for him..on this..I think he’s  got a lot more guts and backbone ..than you give him credit.

Well it totally depends on what amount of damage the hypocrisy .( that’s the only point I’m addressing here) .which is there...actually did...and we are not and nor will we be for many years be like Jesus ....In  The ability or power...of forgiveness ...but we can try....I think that’s what your saying Tom.
I think what certain ones here have done.....is  allowing their pain..and often a extreme pain ...a righteous anger ...turn to resentment and bitterness that may even be justified....BUT...it then it controls them....thus satan has got them either way.
Im Not  sure exactly what was said In This thread as I have blocked a couple but can pick up a fair bit.
what helps me..is remembering where Jehovah planted his son...right smack In The middle of his.....Then people...the most self righteous pious lot if there ever was...but ALSO there..were the wheat...and people struggling to serve their God .....and a lot that have been hurt forget that...and their anger consumes them and they are then a tool of the devil ....thus those that were the culprits..those  hypocrites...won.
I actually dont write this for anyone here ...because I know they will smart mouth my comment...but hopefully some one reading who has been hurt may be encouraged.

I have noticed they are getting a little chubby, that does tend to happen with age. I would by no means call them obese though. Plus, as I mentioned, you don't know people's circumstances. In any case, I am wondering why, if you have such an aversion to them, you even know what they look like lately. Do you have an unhealthy obsession with them?