Holiday thoughts

nilfun

There was always a bible (watchtower)-based reason not to celebrate.
Heads were cut off.
Fertility rites were involved.

I laughed with glee when I read doorboy00s post in another thread:

I deserve to celebrate my birthday. I don't care if people were beheaded.

I thought about how I feel about Thanksgiving.
I asked myself:

Could I be using the tragedy of the American Indian experience
to continue with the conditioning I received at the KH
(of needing a justification to celebrate)?

Am I full of shit?

Is the comfort of familiarity the real reason why
I am blocked from celebrating Thanksgiving?

Sometimes I envy those who can celebrate without
the tape recording that I have playing in my head:

"What are the roots of this celebration?
Could I be honoring something wrong by sharing in this celebration?"

I have been out for eight years, but to my dismay, some things still persist.

FreeFallin

Nilfun,

I've been away for approx. 6 years and feel the same as you do. It's hard to shake what we learned.The scriptures go thru my mind constantly, like an endless tape. "Jehovah is a Jealous God,"......"The broad path that leads to destruction."....."what sharing does the light have with darkness"........and on and on and on.

But I never had too much trouble with Thanksgiving, always enjoyed it. Now you've got me thinking about its real origins.....ripping off the native Americans. More guilt.

FreeFallin

Mimilly

nilfun - you are NOT full of shit! That being said, it takes a long time to get out of that programming. I have been out for 10 years now, and last christmas was the first one I ever enjoyed without guilt.

My father always made every single holiday pure hell for mom and I, so I never learned to love holidays. It was one of the reasons I liked the dubs way back when.

You are in a space now where you are trying to find out just exactly where you personally stand regarding worldly issues - case in point - the abuse of the Indians by colonists.

There are people who refuse to eat red meat, or any meat at all or wear fur or who protest the WTO. Since being in the JWs kept us from caring about such things, we were sheltered and didn't have to think or form a personal opinion on such things.

Give yourself a break honey. It's a huge world when you consider all the issues and realities. Write it out on paper. I know that abuse by the colonists was not the reason the JWs do not celebrate Thanksgiving. So, you may be forming your own opinion, and if so, then honor that.

Perhaps, when Thanksgiving arrives, you could celebrate in a way that shows respect to the Indians. Use it as a time to be thankful you are no longer a dub. Locate some Indians and ask if you could talk to them about this. I'm sure they would be more than pleased to do so.

In the end, there is nothing wrong with being thankful. Use the day to be thankful you are not a dub, and honor your other feelings by reaching out to the Indians. It sounds like your conscience is speaking here and not the dubs.

I hope this has made some sense. Nilfun - never say you are full of shit. Don't put yourself down. Everyone has a right to voice their quandaries.

hugs, Mimilly

nilfun

Hi FreeFallin

Maybe Thankgiving bothers me
because it is so much closer
in time to me than all that
bible stuff.

The watchtower's
justifications are based on things
that happened thousands of years ago,
while what happened in America is relatively
recent...

Now you've got me thinking about its real origins.....ripping off the native Americans. More guilt.

arrgh. That's the last thing I'd wish for any of us here.

nilfun

Hi Mimilly

Hey thanks for the hug!

Maybe instead I could think of
Thanksgiving as a reconciliation...(?)

I have NA ancestry, but being
raised in JW pushed me far away from it.
After all, the Indians were pagans, were they not?
So I absorbed shameful feelings for that.

I felt like crying the first time I
went to a Powwow.

Crying because I felt so cheated.
Crying because it was so beautiful!

Swan

So whose birthday was it when those two witnesses were beheaded in the Phillipines?

nilfun

I wonder...if beheading is enough justification
for not celebrating birthdays,
maybe it is also enough justification for
not going door to door...?

Mulan

Swan, you are a riot!!

My family never stopped celebrating Thanksgiving. They became witnesses in 1950 and my grandmother never stopped making her HUGE turkey dinner, for the entire family. We all went, and called it Thanksgiving too, among ourselves. If we were with dubs, we called it a family dinner, and didnt' talk about the turkey. And we missed the Thursday night meeting too............unless we had a talk. Never could get out of those.

My JW aunt, who is now 81, was here on Wednesday and we were trying to remember when grandma died. She said, "I think it was about a week after Thanksgiving." So, I looked it up. Sure enough..........December 6, 1974.

Swan

LOL @ Nilfun!

Or sell Avon, the one true cosmetics!

Edited by - Swan on 8 September 2002 13:13:44

Holiday thoughts

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