Look, it's my interjection. Why give it any thought at all? It isn't your thought or feelings to begin with. So move on brothers.
sKally
Warren Schroeder from Bethel on Freddy, Kline and the apostate books!
by Dogpatch 501 Replies latest jw friends
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daniel-p
SF and Snowbird, wtf?! Your anger is mis-directed. We were all in at some point, and also believed the WT hook, line, and sinker. Just because the Society encouraged the publishers to look up to Bethelites doesn't mean ex-bethelites share some sort of blame for that. It's not like the ex-Bethelites here were controlling the organization--far from it. Some were overseers of printing press facilities, others were dishwashers. If you think anyone here is in some way responsible for the trauma you went through or are going through you need to take a big step back and think a minute.
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yesidid
Don't worry about skally.
She cant help being judgmental any more than the GB can.
I sometimes wonder if they get lessons from her.
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sf
I take back the sarcastic "brothers" comment. I'm sorry. THAT was not fair.
I believe that I know pretty much how you feel, and I believe that Tom and Randy and Warren and others also know how you feel.
I was pretty sure of this, It is why I could be as honest as I was/ am. I'm fairly fond of Randy. So I am sure it may puzzle many what the hell I am going on about. I cannot spend time trying to explain my rage to those "many". So I DO appreciate that you MAY know how I feel. {You actually could not possibly}
I don't hate him or you "brothers". I seriously wanted though, for you to stop and flip that coin over and see it as we saw it. I didn't appreciate, for a second, ever being involved in this organization. I never had the choice. Until I was 18. I can't help how what you all are reminecing over is something that makes these feelings surface, again.
Yet I did need to state it. And you can bet a few lurkers stated it it as well.
So please allow me this. Or not. The pain of scars will always be raw when touched. If you have a scar on your body somewhere, hit it, right now....doesn't feel too good , does it? The WTBTS has caused absolute pain and misery in my family nucleus since the 60's.
Somehow, as children are hurting right now in this org, I don't see how there could be any happy times TO remember. But that's just me.
sKally
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daniel-p
You're right, not only could I not possibly know how you feel, it's also pretty impossible to know what the hell you're talking about. You're angry at the organization. OK. Why are you angry at former Bethelite ex-JWs talking about their experiences? Don't you know ALL OF US went through painful times and have had to get through this? You ask us to "allow you this"--well, allow others to process their past.
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Tom Cabeen
1914,
OK, I stand corrected. I;ll give you the guy with serious flatulence, but there ain't no way God is going to pelt the world with the ends of giant Q-tips! :-)
Seriously funny, i'll admit, but don't quit your day job!
Tom -
Tom Cabeen
Hi sKally,
I probably don't know you. But you may not know me and what many of us went through. You may have gone through some much worse things than I did. If that is the case, I am sorry you did. But the fact that we had some good times while at Bethel was not because we did not care about badness or because we did evil things.
I was not responsible for the teachings of the WTS. Even though I ran their pressroom and participated in perpetuating their teachings in many other ways, my conscience is perfectly clear. I was taught these things by my parents, and I accepted them as true. When I came to see that they were not, I left them behind. I never taught anyone something I did not believe to be true. (I know plenty of people who did, though.)
It was not fun for me to grow up as a JW in the 1950s. I got beat up and made fun of many times because I was not allowed to salute the flag, stand for the national anthem, etc. etc. Even teachers made fun of me. That is one reason I loved Bethel. For the first time in my life, I was not an outcast. I met some wonderful men and women there. I loved them then and I still do, even the ones who are still JWs. I assume that they are not evil people, just misled like I was.
After over a decade of service at Bethel, my wife and I decided to leave Bethel. We doubted the WT chronology. We wanted a family and we just didn't trust WT chronology enough to stay "until the end". We had absolutely no money, nor any of the things we needed to set up housekeeping. I had to borrow $300 from my father in law just to move from New York. When we left Bethel, we had no friends who were not JWs. Yet after we left, we received almost no help, financial or otherwise, from either family or our JW friends. We were later both disfellowshipped for no good reason at all and as a result have been shunned by those same friends and families for nearly three decades. I had to start from scratch at age 30, get a real job and learn to support my wife and kids, without a college education. We had some tough times. But we had good times as well, and we made good friends.
I have changed my attitude about many things since I was at Bethel, and more still since I left the WT organization. But when I left, I decided I would not allow that little group of people to continue to control me by molding my life around what I was then due to their influence. I learned from the experience and moved on. I am not an "ex Witness" any more than I am an "ex high school student". I do not spend time thinking of what my life would have been like, if, for example, I had accepted the full scholarship I received and gone to college instead of Bethel. I cannot change the past.
But I am not ashamed of the time I spent at the WT headquarters, nor for having had a good time with good people. I have thoroughly enjoyed this walk down memory lane. The good times I had were not good because of the badness of WT doctrine, they were good in spite of it.
May God bless you,
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compound complex
Thanks, Tom and sKally, for your much-appreciated thoughts. Your closing words, Tom, about being good people IN SPITE OF the organization reminded me of Bob Lang, whom I knew in passing.
CoCo
A "Man" in Spite of the Organization
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/142719/1.ashx
What does it mean to "keep Jehovah's organization clean"?
[...] It means that those men will continue to apply with all due vigor whatever policy may be current and they will disfellowship anyone who does not adhere to that policy ... The main concern is to be obedient to Society policy. The feeling is created that 'if the organization tells us to do it we will not be held responsible by God if it is a mistake.' That same mentality has prevailed among men of many lands and in many periods who have excused themselves of guilt in serious injustice by the claim that "they were simply following orders from their superiors." Even the world's courts have rejected such an excuse. How much more should Christians reject it!
The binding, restricting effect that this concern for organizational submission can have on person's minds was illustrated to me by an experience related by Robert Lang, then the assistant Bethel Home Overseer at the international headquarters. He had been transferred to a different congregation in the New York city area and he said that at one of the first meetings he attended there the elders approached him for advice. It seems that a young woman, the sister of one of the ministerial servants, was disfellowshiped and was still attending meetings. She had a small baby and brought it with her to the Kingdom Hall in a baby carriage. The Hall itself was on the second story of a building and the stairs were long and steep. The young woman would back up the stairs, pulling the baby carriage - with the baby in it - up the stairs as she went. The question the elders asked was whether it would be proper for the disfellowshiped woman's brother to assist her in getting up the stairs! Some thought so, others said, no, being disfellowshiped she should be considered as if she were not even there. To his credit, Lang said, "I don't know what the rule is on this, I only know one thing: if I'm around when she starts pulling that carriage up the stairs, I'm going to help her! When I think of what could happen if she were to stumble and lose control of the carriage ....'
The most frightening thing about this is that adult men did not feel they could be guided by their own hearts and minds in a circumstance so obviously calling for human kindness. The pressing concern for them was - not the danger to the infant's life - but WHAT THE ORGANIZATION POLICY ALLOWED in such cases [emphasis: RF]. They gave evidence of having become emasculated men in matters of ethics, of right and wrong.
Franz concludes by stating that Robert Lang was for him "the kind of person he was, not because of the organization, but in spite of the organization."
IN SEARCH OF CHRISTIAN FREEDOM, Ray Franz, pp. 404, 405.
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wschroeder
I see a couple recent posters who are less than pleased with the discourse/tenor of this thread. I don't understand how you expect to change the context and re-paint my life at Bethel.... that's something that JW's try to do. I thought it was my story.
I often laugh at the movie scenes when the boss says "you're fired", and the employee retorts, "you can't fire me because I quit". It's about the control, whether of the boss, or the employee.
Some exJW's seem to have issues because they lost control.... and they can't seem to find it back after many years. Seems like a lot of wasted time considering the options. -
Seeker4
Does anyone else, in the midst of these really angry ex-JW comments and the responses, find it sort of hilarious that our main advertiser on this thread is the International Muslim Marriage Site?
God, I'm sick of constantly angry people. Yeah, the world is a rough and tumble place. That's the given. That's where we all start. Some of us get really fucked over on top of that, and some worse than others. I decided a long time ago I wasn't gonna let that write the story of my life.
I decided I WAS gonna write as much of that story as I could. I decided I was gonna laugh and smile and not be pissed off as much as I possibly could. Right now in my life, I'm about one fucking flat tire away from losing my home and more.
But I still laugh everytime I see that Muslim ad. I will only let my circumstances fuck me over so far.
Thanks Tom and wschroeder and Randy. Great thread
S4