oh and your song is beautiful
Lucinda__first love.....prison and Jehovah's Witnesses
by Terry 24 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
cyberjesus
Terry this song is like the song in the Song Book. The one that was also written in prison. Except yours was about something real that dissapeared.
-
Terry
oh and your song is beautiful
Well, thank you for that.
I went in to prison in 1967 and got out in 1969 but it was in late 1978 I was DF'D after fading for 6 months.
When I was parolled I became a Pioneer, got married to my best JW friend's sister bing, bang, boom.
After 1975 my devout, born-in wife realized it was all a crock and began drinking. Eventually she became an alcoholic.
I could not get her to sober up or leave the organization. So, I left and moved in with a friend who happened to be a woman.
Nothing was going on, but, next thing I know I'm DF'd. The Judicial Committee operated on no evidence or eyewitness to anything at all but
their own dirty minds.
-
Terry
But thanks for sharing. I always felt so bad for the poor young guys who at the peak of strength and virility landed in the slammer
I went in a 20 year old boy, for all practical purposes and came out a man.
If only the indoctrination inside hadn't made a fanatic out of me!
-
clarity
Terry
Listening to your lucinda music ... I imagine a very slow dance and my face looking like I'm ..................................................gonna cry!
NICE!
clarity
-
scooterspank
Speechless...
-
Hortensia
What a story -- what a sad thing to happen to you. How has it affected your life since then? Besides Lucinda, I mean.
I remember in the late 60s hoping they would draft women so I could go to prison too. My uncle had spent WWII in prison, and it seemed like a wonderful goal to me at the time. Now I think that is insane.
I'm still a peacenik, though. Just not a JW peacenik.
-
Terry
In many ways, I'm grateful for the prison experience...although I would NOT want to go through it twice!
I had so much to learn about life in such a short time.
Reality is a great slap in the face if your head (your mind) is stuck up your own ass (i.e. dream world.)
Being a so-called objector of conscience is an odd badge to wear.
It wasn't conscience that put me in Federal Prison. It was following orders in mind-control situation.
That is pretty much opposite of conscience.
To my way of thinking now, conscience is how you view your own beliefs in order to hold yourself true to them. When placed in a testy situation
how far will you go? But, it has to be about Right and Wrong to count for much.
Most JW's do not now know (or even back then) IT WAS NEVER ABOUT THAT!
My Congregation overseer and his assistant had a private conversation with me. They made clear that I had to refuse to accept ALTERNATE service from
the judge if so sentenced.
Stop and think! Under American law NO PERSON OF CONSCIENCE is required to violate that conscience in time of war. Were you aware of that fact??
Instead, provision is made to perform COMMUNITY SERVICE INSTEAD of military service. This is both fair and extremely lenient when you think about
how other people your own age go off to engage in combat and perhaps die or come home maimed!
So, the instruction I was given was to (metaphorically) spit in the face of that legal provision SO THAT I could be an example for publicity purposes.
Community service was awkwardly defined by Jehovah's Witnesses in a peculiar and distorted way: "You are still serving as property of the Armed Forces."
Utter nonsense, of course.
It was a gimmick to creat a propaganda scenario setting the religion in a special "holier than thou" prestige among the other christian churches.
Instead of working in Terrell State Hospital helping my fellow man, I simply lived off the taxpayer dollar as a ward of the government.
So, it is nothing noble for a JW to do this charade in the pretense of pure religious neutrality. It was bullshit window dressing.
-
Band on the Run
Terry,
Is the community service only in the military? Could you have done civiian work?
When the KH is on fire, they should decline fire services b/c the government provides the service. Also, if someone is stabbing you to death and a police officer arrives on the scene, don't interfere. It could be my age but I vividly recall the Cold War. If no one served, those civil rights that they cling to would not exist.
I was unable to access the music, unfortunately. Your story is very moving. Have you thought of publishing a piece?
-
Quentin
...