What I am most ashamed of.........

by Xanthippe 21 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Xanthippe

  is not giving to charity while a JW. This whole 'lets sit back and wait for Jehovah to sort the world out while we do nothing' really gets to me. There is so much to be done in this world, so many people doing good things but the JWs just say bang on doors and sell Watchtowers.

  I did plenty of voluntary work in the JWs pioneering my youth away but it was all so useless, now I do voluntary work to help people who want to be helped, as well as my job. Not proud of myself at all as it seems I've wasted so many years not doing something useful.

  Now I really believe in people power. I think the most good in this world is done by ordinary people and we should never think that we are powerless for the simple reason that there are billions of us, far more than there are politicians!
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  WuzLovesDubs

  honey dont beat yourself up. when you know better you do better. and you are more than making up for it now. leave your past and love your future.
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  yadda yadda 2

  The Watchtower should be ashamed of themselves, not victims like you so let the guilt go. They hoard 100's millions in cash and assets and do not lift a finger to help end world poverty, suffering, disease, except occassionaly their own folk in times of disaster. Shame on them, wicked greedy religious hypocrites. They are a global property development and publishing corporation pyramid scheme masquarading as a Christian religion. They totally fail to follow the example of Jesus in Christian charity and pity for the poor and suffering. The poor and suffering need real material help, not peddling magazines and religious claptrap.
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  Recovery
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  tec

  What Wuz, and yadda said.

  What advice would you give to someone else in your shoes? A friend or a loved one? I would tell them to forgive themselves, and do the best they can now that they know differently. That is what you did then, according to what you knew then. Now that you know otherwise, you are acting otherwise. The desire to give has been in you all along; how you manifested it is what has changed.

  Peace,

  tammy
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  NeverKnew

  Ashamed? Noooooo!!!!! I think you're looking at your circumstances in a destructive way and I HATE that they've pushed people into guilt-based motivations as opposed to acheivement-based motivations.

  Xanthippe, I suspect your experiences are what drive you with the motivation to do much more! It sounds like you're actually looking for sincere ways to help others. The beneficiaries of your efforts are now twice as blessed.

  As someone who has never been involved with the JW lifestyle except to fall in love with one, I'm insisting that you consider the probability that without the experience of your JW life, your motivations and motivational levels would be a lot different.
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  talesin

  There's an old expression "when we know better, we do better".

  Don't feel guilty - you didn't know any better back then, and were doing what you thought was right.

  Ain't volunteering grand?
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  irondork

  In yet one more way the boys at WT HQ like to play Jesus, they have taken the attitude of "you should spend your costly perfumed oil on us because you will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have us."
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  coffee_black

  My mom, a jw learned this lesson when my dad developed kidney failure. Before that, her pat answer to anyone who asked for a donation, would be that all of our family resources went to the world wide preaching work.

  When my dad got really sick and was put on dialysis, she found out that the Kidney Foundation was picking up the tab for everything that wasn't covered by his insurance. She was dumbfounded that a 'worldly organization" would contribute to the medical treatment of someone they didn't even know.

  The next time she was asked to collect for a charity, she was out pounding the pavement for donations.

  Coffee
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  Xanthippe

  Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

  Wuz, Yadda, tec, talesin and NeverKnew I hope I can do better now that I know better. We can't help the way we are raised can we? It reminds me of the Jesuit saying 'Give me a child for seven years and I will give you the man'. One variation of it is 'Give me a child for his first seven years and I care not who has him thereafter'. As children we are born into a family and a way of life that is not of our own choosing. Generally in most reasonably healthy families there is a certain amount of choice as a child grows but not in the Jehovah's Witness family. As I look back it seems that my choices became less and less as I got older instead of more and more as it did for my peers at school. But I can choose now and that is wonderful!

  Irondork, I've been trying to remember that scripture for ages, thanks! I knew it was something about the poor are always with you. That was the reasoning behind not giving to charity as I remember it. It was pointless trying to help because we could never do anything about poverty and the poor would be always with us because Jesus said so. The only solution was God's Kingdom and the way we could support that was ... you guessed it, sell Watchtowers. As you put it, irondork, spend your costly perfumed oil on us. Where is that scripture? I wouldn't mind looking that up in my interlinear Bible (not JW I got it from a Christian book shop). Just as a matter of interest.

  Coffee what a great story. There are some truly amazing people doing great work anonymously aren't there? Occasionally there is a documentary on TV that tells us about them which is an antedote to news programmes which focus on bad news. How is your dad now?