by Gorbatchov 25 Replies latest jw friends
For family reasons, Gorby and his wife and children has to visit the hall at april 14. Our family accept that we are faders, but don't accept if we do not visit the memorial.
So, it seems a small investment: one evening love bombing for a year peace and rest.
But I hate the visit. Headache. Meeting the people knowing it's all fake love showing.
How do you get through it?
Gorby
It's one of the shorter meetings. It actually throws a bone to Jesus. And remember, a lot of the JWs are nice people who may actually be glad to see you. They are conditioned to act inhumanely by their cult leaders. Not saying you should go, though (vote with your feet). But if you feel you must, hopefully these points help make it a little easier.
I dont go. and one of the last 'memorials' i attended i had the wine nearly yanked out of my hand.
Switch over to a better place in your mind.
Practice doing it, it does work. I do it on buses and stuff.
Fortunately its not a long Meeting.
Sounds like your family places conitioal love.
Try to sit close by families and leave as soon as it is over.
Children from my generation were taught that it lacked respect for Jesus death to make it a social event.
I think I'm going to try to spot the rebellious 20 something who's there to please their parents (like me) to sit with or sit at the back with the disfellowshipped and try and have a bit of a laugh. I also intend to spend the meeting looking for anyone who looks like a study/disfellowshipped and then write jwfacts.com on a few notes and pass them out after the meeting.
But I'm going to a memorial where I won't know anyone and maybe give a fake name, as long as I can tell my parents I went they don't have to know anything else.
5th year to not go :)
Apply directly to mouth as needed....
For several years I managed to stay completely off the radar. No Memorials. But the last three or four, I've gotten more pressure than before to attend. It's the only time of year that I get any backlash for my being out and gone. For all intents and purposes, I am an ex-JW, except for this one meeting, when both family and old JW friends put the heat on to attend.
And I've come to terms with it. It's just one hour a year. I can deal with it. I've studied, researched and dissected the JW ritual of the Memorial enough to not be swayed by anything done and said during this one hour. I try to liken it to being coerced to attend Mass once a year, as many a backsliding Catholic are pressured to do at either Xmas or Easter. So I go, I play nice, and then when it's over, I go about my business as if I had never attended.
I do pay just enough attention so that if the subject of the talk comes up later, I can point out the errors, inconsistensies, or down right false statements, if cornered and I have to defend my position.
And for those that want to make a statement by partaking, this is my take on that: Personally, I think it's rude and disrespectful. You're on their turf. It's their meeting, their service. Even though they may not respect our position, our lifestyle, our new faith, or lack thereof, I will not lower myself to their standards by shitting all over their beliefs/practices while at their service. I'll defend myself as needed, I'll fight em on my turf if they show up, but if I were to hate them that much, I would just not go to anything JW related and would leave them to their own devices.
