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The Single Most Dangerous JW Meeting....in my opinion!
by enlightenedcynic 33 Replies latest jw experiences
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lost_light06
I too recently attended a JW funural, for a young boy . There wasn't a dry eye in the place, mine included. The format held true to JW tradition, though. There were a few comments about this child in the beginning and then 30 minutes of "we will see him in paradise and this is why". There was more talk about the "hope" of every JW than there was about the child. It wasn't until the final comment about how "we hope to see him in the future" that the speaker actually began to cry. The whole talk felt so detached from the reason we were there, to remember this child and his shortened life. To pay respects to him and the uncertainty of life. No, we must try and convert all the non-believers that may be there. I was really embarrassed and sickened by the whole thing. Of course all you heard after the memorial was how great the talk was. I was thinking to myself "great? there's nothing even good about it. It was a pointless infomercial."
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enlightenedcynic
Thank you all for your condolences and sympathy, I will forward all of that goodwill and energy to my friend's widow and family during the next coming weeks and months ahead.
Just another observation though about the funeral. I couldn't help but notice that there were very few individuals openly mourning/crying. As a current JW, I know for a fact that we are an emotionally repressed people and as a result of the resurrection teaching, many JW's view outward grieving/crying as a sign of spiritual weakness(not believing in the "marvelous hope for the future" enough!!!). I mean, when you go to funerals of other faiths, there is intense mourning, sobbing, and crying. Obviously, mourning in an uncontrolled manner is not good. Crying however is our body's way of cleansing itself, and it helps us to begin healing and move forward. JW's on the other hand criticize these people, saying that the way they mourn shows that they have no real hope of seeing the loved one again("if they believed that all good persons go to heaven, they wouldn't cry like that", one elder said in a talk once). The Scriptures however are full of examples where individuals mourned and wept bitterly, but as a JW, our mourning must not be "excessive" as another elder once put it. Who is to determine when mourning becomes excessive? The WTS???
I feel sorry for the average witness, but I feel more sorry for myself because I am for the foreseeable future trapped in this mess of an organization where free expression and human emotion are squashed in favor of uniformity.
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primitivegenius
I have been to several funerals, mostly as you have guessed were at the funeral homes rather than a church, for reasons I dont have to explain here. I always felt sickened when a pastor would ramble on about himself or his church for 45 minutes and only talk about the deceased for 5 minutes. I always thought it was the pastors ego or simply the fact that he sucked as a pastor and really didnt know the deceased at all.
But when you go to a witness funeral....... I mean damn it all. A few minutes of speaking on the departeds behalf and then the rest of the hour totally on propaganda. JOIN US OR DIE.
My grandfather HATED at times and Disliked pretty much consistantly the witnesses, Yet who did his funeral talk! This man never went into a KH and couldnt be dragged there..... ok he came to my sisters wedding but felt to sick to go to the hall. That is the only occasion that he MIGHT have entered the doors of a hall. Yet when my dad who was and IS PO was trying to arrainge stuff, he made an effort to get the pastor they used growing up but when he didnt get confirmation of the pastors being their, first thing he did was call a local BROTHER to do the talk.
SO he used the KJV, he still made it a witness talk in the end. I had to go to a dub funeral recently and I at first refused, But my wife talked me into going for her aunts sake. I still didnt want to go and really dont want to go again EVER. The only way I was able to walk inside was something that a NON JW friend once said...... go inside and pray to god. Declare that you have spiritual authority over the place and ask god to give that to you as a child of god. Thats what I did, and everything worked out fine. Still had to put up with the BS but we got thru it.
grrrrrrrrrrrrr