Hate

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

I open this post with a quote from Dr. King.  He was a man who lived his life in a very non violent, loving way.  The quote above is excellent and I should really practice it myself.  Should is a very important word.  I have hate in my heart right now for my sister and brother in law.  I hate them.  I'm not supposed to hate, especially your own family, but I do.  I prayed last night for the first time in a long time, I asked god to take this rage I have out of my heart, I asked him to bring peace to my soul again.  I don't wish to hate.  Unfortunately the emotion still lives inside of me.  

So I have decided to cut out destructive influences in my life, the ones that cause this unsettling feelings in my soul.  I cut out the the religion that was causing me bad feeling, next I will cut off my sister.  I'm sorry.  You may be family but you have broken me this weekend.  Your words and actions have caused some sort of divide in my life that my love and I have spent the last day trying to fix. I hate you.  I will try to learn from peaceful people like Dr. King.  But for right now, I'm done with you.

Beautiful lights

 I haven't been to a Jehovah's Witness meeting since this summer.  I decided to actually celebrate the holidays this year, without guilt.  I enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with my boyfriend and his family.  I ate way too many desserts, we played  Bingo and even sang karaoke, it was quite an enjoyable evening.  The next night, I got a phone call from my party pooper mother.    "Why would you celebrate such a pagan holiday?" she yelled through the phone.  I informed her that the holiday had no religious roots and it's main theme was for families to get together for a meal.  Then a few days after that, my sister texted me saying "please give thanks to God every day and not just one day a year by eating turkey."  Geez, they clearly have missed the point of the holiday which is to be with family.  Which doesn't surprise  me since our family can't get together without some sort of major argument.

Since I am now like the spawn of Satan because I have decided to celebrate holidays, I figured I would go all out and even decorate my house a little.

I spent this evening watching the Rockefeller tree lighting special, and I even got little butterflies in my stomach when the tree lit up.  I'm beginning to like holidays...

Common Core Modules

Education is not the same anymore.  I haven’t been doing this job for very long.  I completed my teacher education program in May 2003.   After that, I was a substitute teacher, and then I worked as a ESL/Pre GED instructor at a for family literacy program.  I didn’t get my first teaching job until 2006, months after I finished my Master’s degree in Special Education.  In the last few years, there has been significant shifts in education.  One of the major shifts has been the Common Core State standards.  The Common Core State Standards are an initiative that seeks to bring diverse state curricula into alignment with each other.  The idea behind having national standards may be good. I worked in various states thought my career, each state use to have their own set of standards.  If we are a united country, it may be necessary for our school systems to be united too, and to have one goal…to prepare our students to be college and career ready by the end of 12^th grade.

 One of the major problems I have with the Common Core with are the one size fits all Common Core modules that were adopted by the school district I work for, and many other school in New York.  The New York State Department of Education has provided curriculum modules and units in English Language Arts and Math.  These modules are very scripted.  Most everything the teacher must say and do within the lesson is written down.  How much time it takes to do certain activities is also  listed.   The Child's classwork and homework are created by the state.  These teachers are becoming actors, and merely following a script.  There is hardly any room for creativity.  One of my colleagues informed me she gave one of the state created module exams.  There was forty minutes allotted for giving the exam, but none of the students finished in 40 minutes.  She had to continue on in order to get the whole module completed by the end of the quarter.   I teach Social Studies, the state of New York has not yet come out with modules for Social Studies.  But teachers of math and ELA must follow these scripted modules. 

Recently one of my Facebook friends posted about the Common Core modules.  Her son is gifted and at age ten has already skipped a grade.  He graduated from a private elementary school and had to go to public school, because there are no private Middle Schools in her area.  The child is board at school.  He finishes his work quickly and has to wait for other children to catch up.  The teachers can't give this child a different assignment because they must follow these scripted modules.  It was suggested that he be put into a 7th or 8th grade ELA class, but the books they read in these class, based on common core modules, have murder and rape in them so they are not age appropriate.  Everyone's hands are tied in this situation.

One teacher wrote an excellent post about his take on the Common Core modules.  Please read it, and form your own opinions on the Common Core.

theplainsatisfactions.wordpress.com/.../teacher-ken-siders-not-to-miss-perspective-on-classroom-modules/‎

 

Changes...

"If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living."

Gail Sheehy

"You've changed". That's what I was told by my mother this summer.  She really doesn't think I have made positive changes in my life, i think that I have.  I believe  all the  so called "changes" I have made are just normal human development. I have set "life" goals for myself.  I have more than just a job, I have a career, one that I enjoy tremendously.  I am beginning to establish roots, I purchased my first home and I have the cutest dog.  I learned about true unconditional love.  I have a stable, loving relationship with my very best friend.  Yes I have changed.

I found this cute little quote that is quite appropriate for me!

"The Declaration is a magnificent document."
Paul Gillmor

My Declaration of Independence

I hold these truths to be self evident, that all people are created equal.  That they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Some of us believe that worshiping a God will help us in our pursuit of happiness.   It is our right as a human to worship God if we choose.   That to secure the right, religion is set up among men.  When a religion becomes destructive, it is the right of the individual to alter his beliefs, or abolish them.  We have a right to follow a new religion, or no religion at all.  It is up to the individual  to decide how to worship, thus likely  effecting their safety and happiness.

When religion has a long train of abuses, and when a person is forced to serve a religious "dictatorship" it is their right, to throw away such a religion and to be concerned about their future mental security. 

Such has affected me as a Jehovah's Witness, and such is now the necessity which forced me to alter my former religion. 

I, therefore do solemnly declare that I am free and independent from the Watchtower Society and that all connection between me and the Society is and ought to be totally dissolved and that I am a free and independent person.  I have full power to decided to serve god on the way I see fit and to develop relationships with who I want, and to think in the way I want and to do all other acts in which independent people do.

A double standard?

"A lie cannot live" -  Martin Luther King, Jr.

There has been a lot of turmoil for me the last few weeks.  Some of my family members know that I don't believe the Jehovah's witnesses have absolute "truth".  They also know that I have done things in my life that I could be disfellowshipped for.  "Disfellowshipping" is a term witnesses use when they shun a former believer because they supposedly have done some kind of "wrongdoing".

Following is the vast list of offences the Watchtower has created for which a Jehovah's Witness can be disfellowshipped or disassociated.

Adultery (sexual intercourse with a person other than your marriage mate)

Apostasy - 

• Rebellion against Jehovah's organization 
• Promoting sects 

Associating with disfellowshipped people

Blood and blood transfusions

Drug use

Drunkenness

Dishonest business practices

Employment violating Christian principles -

• Working for any religious organization 
• Working in a gambling institution 
• Selling tobacco 
• Contract work at a military establishment                                                                               

False Worship -

• Attending another church 
• Following mourning customs that involve false worship

Fornication

• Bestiality 
• Incestuous marriage 
• Artificial insemination and surrogate motherhood.
• "True Christians, therefore, avoid surrogate motherhood as well as any procedures that involve the use of donated sperm, eggs, or embryos" 
• "Artificial insemination of a married woman by a donor other than her husband makes her guilty of adultery" 
• sexual abuse of children 

Fraud

Gambling or related employment

Gluttony

Greediness

Homosexuality

Idolatry

Loose conduct ( The Watchtower defines "loose conduct" as including "disrespect to elders". This 

enables this term to be used to disfellowship for a wide range of offences not elsewhere covered, and as such is used to cover all manner of sins, such as refusal to cease fellowship with disfellowshipped people, or even being contemptuous in a judicial meeting where no other sin can be proven)

Lying

Non neutral activities (involvement in politics and the military)

Military service 

Obscene speech 

Political involvement

Porneia. Includes oral and anal sex between married couples, mutual masturbation between persons 

not married to each other, homosexuality, lesbianism, fornication, adultery, incest, and bestiality.

Slander

Smoking or selling tobacco

Spiritism (includes yoga)

Stealing, thievery

Subversive activity

Uncleanness

• Sexually perverse practices within marriage, such as oral and anal sex 
• Heavy petting and breast fondling 
• Touching of sexual parts 
• Practice of viewing abhorrent Pornography

Violation of secular law

Violence, extreme physical abuse, fits of anger (includes boxing)  

Willful non support of family, endangerment of mates spirituality

Worldly celebrations such as Christmas

This is quite the list!  On their website (which was created mostly for the public to learn more about Witness) the Watchtower Society  make this claim:

http://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/shunning/

But at their district conventions this year, the Witnesses were taught this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yLdwe_6JsU

Is this Christian like behavior?  You decide.

"I'd like to be settled into somewhat of a normal life. Somewhat. I know it's never going to be completely normal."

 Michael Jordan 

Regular - standard - ordinary - common - usual...all of these words are synonyms for "normal".

 But really, what is "normal"?  Do any of us live completely "normal" lives?  When I was more active as a Jehovah's Witness, I thought it was completely "normal" to spend ninty plus hours out monthly preaching to others about the religion.  This was done no matter what the weather.  We endured extreme heat and cold, terential downpours ect.  Now I've scaled back from doing JW activities.  I go to work, I brought a house, I have a dog..."normal"?  Maybe.  

Something great has happend to me, I fell in love! " Normal", most people would say.  We've known each other for a while, we've been through good times (and bad ones).  I can't fathom my life without him.  He treats me well, his family is wonderful.  Looking at him, you notice something...he's always sitting.  The love of my life has disability that requires him to use a wheelchair.  Is our life "normal"?  You bet!  I'm not saying every day is easy.  But "normal" is what you make of it.  Our relationship is regular, standard, ordinary, common and usual.