to Carl Gustav.
I experienced a few "synchronisms" myself; most of them may sound religiously loaded but from where I stand I don't necessarily read them that way.
One I have probably told already: when I realised I was heading out of JWs it was quite a painful experience (especially the part about losing many cherished friendships). At some point I prayed not to be completely alone in the leave. One evident deadline in my mind was next Memorial, a few months away: I felt I had to "partake," even though that would likely lead to an investigation about my beliefs which would result of my being disfellowshipped (not doing it, or lying about my beliefs, was just not an option to me at that point). Then I forgot about that, wrote my resignation letter from Bethel, and asked to resume my pioneer service anywhere, in the (somewhat desperate) hope that I could use my time better speaking freely about what then mattered to me in my faith rather than translating WT literature. I happened to be assigned with another former Bethelite who had left a few months before. We had had some nice conversations while he was in Bethel but nothing highly significant. The day I was about to leave this guy comes to help me pack and move a few things. When we were ready to go, we decide to have a last walk in the forest near Louviers. At my surprise, this friend starts telling me he had decided to "partake" next Memorial -- he said he had been feeling like it for years but had always refrained because of the elders' pressure. But now he felt he had to do it anyway. He had never mentioned that before, nor had we ever discussed the subject as far as I can recall. In the next months we had a nice experience of very "special" pioneering in this Portuguese congregation of Paris. When Memorial came we both "partook". A few weeks later we were both df'd.
I remember at this time there were a few minor "synchronisms" -- probably because we were in the mood for that. For instance, once in the middle of a conversation during the judicial committees period I suddenly got up and walked to pick the phone, the other side of the flat -- a few seconds before it rang. I didn't even realise it, my friend told me. The day he was df'd his mother (an elderly, illiterate, but very clever and kind Witness) calls. He doesn't say anything particular to her but somehow she realises something was going wrong: she jumps in the next train to Paris (she was living about 500 miles away) and spends the next days with us, until the thing was over. Then as we had no place to go (we had to leave the flat which was subrented to JW friends) she offers to leave us hers as she was going on vacation. For years after that she was "under restrictions" for having done so, but she didn't care.
Another one from that Parisian flat: one of the official tenants (who subrented it to my abovementioned friend, not knowing I would eventually move in too) was a close friend of mine. They had left for England for a year or so. One cloudy day toward the end of our JW story I was sitting there, rather depressed. Suddenly through the window a sunbeam strikes a record cover where I notice the imprint of a writing. Looking closer I recognise a part of a letter that this friend had written to me a few months before. A sort of heaven smile for that moment.
Leolaia's story reminded me of another which took place a few years later. While I was on vacation with my wife in a small town near the Spanish border, I come across a family whom I had been "studying with" in my early JW period: I knew they had become JWs in the meantime. When I had left I had tried to contact them, but got no reply. Now I meet them hundreds of miles from both our places. The conversation was short, as they were pretty disturbed, but it had happened anyway.
