The Worse Mandatory JW Activity You Hated The Most (page 3)

ninja

pmljohn.......welcome to he forum.....p.s.....I never would have guessed you were an elder .....he he.....da ninja

SPAZnik

hi pmljohn,

welcome to the forum. enjoyed your post. especially the part about the stark contrast between dressing it up to preach to the poorest. i think you make a good point there.

as for the comment about people that use strange names for things, i must say, for what it's worth, that I find the wording you point out to be a great way of deconstructing deeply ingrained terminology used by groups/cults/gangs to create followers. it may seem immature because in a way, it IS. it's the mind's way of carving a whole new path, using one of our greatest gifts, language! In other ways, though, it's completely mature, discerning, creative, and remarkably genius. To me anyway. It's baby steps in a way to new ways of thinking! Personally I LOVE the people that post those things every bit as much as I love the more serious posters as it HELPS me, psychologically. In fact, I find it downright playful. If I were still a witness, I might point out that Jesus said to be like little children rather than pushing them away. ;) But I'm not, so instead I'll say, "laughter is the best medicine".

I don't take offense to it because I actually see the humour in it and find it useful in a practical way that I suspect, if you stick around long enough, you might come to appreciate one day. :) I've found it's helps me take the perfectionistic linguistic programming I grew up around just a little less seriously, at least in this one area that I'm willing to. It tickles my brain and kind of helps me "get over myself" as it were, loosening the tight grip of looking at things from one perspective and missing out on so many other angles and perspectives.

All that said, I'm so glad that you've shared honest, neatly, and finely worded perspectives around here as well and do hope you'll post some more! :D

S.

viva

Of course field service was the worst required activity, in all its forms.

Giving talks was hell, especially if they were on some subject you disagreed with.

And some of the mandatory inactivies were especially bad, like no celebration at all, this was especially hard in school as a kid.

AnnOMaly

I vote field service too - that's #1. Hated cold-calling, knocking on doors (even when reg. aux'ing) - stressed me out to the point of becoming ill at times. Didn't mind mag routes too much - but there's the irony - you don't get mag routes unless you cold-call.

#2 - these contrived family studies. As a kid I disliked them, but fortunately the routine only lasted a couple of weeks before something disrupted it and there wouldn't be another attempt at a routine for months.

This could give the impression that I didn't like talking about the Bible LOL. Not so. I think it's just that I've never been a saleswoman and I like the idea of natural curiosity, a desire to explore, to be the driving force behind study, rather than yet another prescribed question-and-answer mini-meeting.

Spook

TMS - I hated the talks. You were trained to be stupid and make bad arguments.

I gave really good talks for a while - I have won numerous speaking and debate awards since leaving JW's. I always dug up additional information, such as things about the early church or deeper arguments by other religions. I usually got council about going beyond the societies publications or thinking too highly of my own opinions. Terrible. At least in the ministry I could say what I wanted. I never did more than ask people "Would you like to hear a positive thought from the bible today?" If yes, I read a pappy scripture and left. If not, I just left and never came back. Everyone loved going in service with me.

gubberningbody

Elder's meetings and judicial committees for unscriptural offenses.

One of the many straws for me that broke this back was the two page letter we got from the GB w/regard to pornography and the WT article on the same shortly around that time.

Two freaking pages so we have to devise some theocratic slide rule for the nature-duration-frequency algorithm to know whether something crossed the line into a judicial matter.

We had a couple of latently gay elders who seemed to revel in discussing this letter.

Later a few brothers with sensitive consciences came forward because they saw a boob and touched themselves.

I hated having to talk about that crap.

Why do we even have to get INTO that stuff? Can't we just let Jesus' warning about looking so as to have a passion be enough and leave it until actual pornea has occurred? But NOOOOOO, we have to have meeting upon unnecessary meeting...

Later, one of these sensitive brothers kills himself.

How do I hate this beast this man-of-lawlessness has become?

Let me freaking count the ways!

yknot

Welcome pmljohn!

For me it was blind-obediance to the hierarchy (local and worldwide).

I am thankful to the Elders who spoke to us about the need for loyalty to Jehovah and Jesus above loyalty to the Org.

sooner7nc

2 things: Not being able to watch movies with lots of swear words. To this day, the word F@*%, makes me laugh my rear off when used properly.

The second thing is, and it doesn't really apply to this thread, is reading what some jerkoff has written chastising all of us who use our own terms for something, that in many cases, has hurt us very badly. Screw you sir. If you don't like reading it, then don't read it for Chrissakes!

sooner7nc

Thanks SPAZnik, for saying what I should have said. Sorry newbie, I'm a little out of sorts today.

The Worse Mandatory JW Activity You Hated The Most

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