by Marilyn 34 Replies latest jw friends
Hi, Marilyn, I happen to like fruitcakes! Yes, sometimes I miss the stuff that drew me in in the first place. The wholesomeness. Then I realize, like you said, it's only smoke and mirrors.
I totally agree with what you said about apostasy. I'm not an apostate, I didn't turn away from God, only a man-made religion.
Hey Marilyn
I'm another one of those strange people who like fruitcake...so even if you were one, it would be fine with me.
Dannybear...you don't have to order it from Georgia...my sister and I have killer recipes for fruitcake that no one ever thinks of using as a doorstop!
About your post Marilyn, I found it very interesting to contemplate. My reaction is the total opposite of yours. If I am watching some news clip and they show the JW's at a convention...or if I hear a tape of a few minutes of a watchtower study...I am totally repulsed! I look at those people in their seats and all I can see is the intense boredom on most of their faces...and the sickly sweet dumb ass answers to the watchtower questions.....arggggg, it literally makes me wanna hurl!!
That doesn't mean I don't also have fond memories of times, places and people in my life. I was raised a JW so of course those memories are dub related. But there is no pull attached to those memories. I don't know if that's a difference in the way some people think...or how your emotions are tied in to memories....not sure what the difference is, but it's interesting to think about.
Thanks for sharing with us....as long as you resist that pull baby!!!
Tracy
Edited by - think41self on 29 September 2002 10:49:42
Edited by - think41self on 29 September 2002 10:51:39
We are all creatures of habit and we respond to programming received earlier in our lives for the rest of our lives unless we are sucessfully deprogrammed. And that's what we're reacting to when we see those scenes of assemblies: old programming.
It's the same with people who have received negative programming a little children. We grow to be adults to be sure, but along come someone or some thing that presses one of our "buttons" and BAM, off we go playing back the old tape. That's why children of dubs who were absued can behave in ways (as adults) that seem strange to us. Some old button is pushed and the old tape plays. Normal. But it can be destructive or at least a hinderance to growth as adults unless we get ourselves deprogrammed so that when one of the old buttons is pressed, there's no reaction.
I'm OK, You're OK.
francois
Not me..
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be, that's for sure..
Englishman.
Hi Marilyn,
I appreciated your post, and don't believe for one moment that you are a "fruit cake".
Being in a religion that's prime goal is to "remove" individualizm and self, plants it's tenticles very deep inside the mind, no matter how many years have passed by. Your experience does not surprise me at all.
In my opinion I think we all would be drawn to a magical cure for the world's problems, via JW's or anyone else if we thought it was really true. But it's a fairy tale and nothing else. And, don't we all still love those fairy tales from youth? Even when we are adults, we say we take the grandkids to see them "for them", but it's really just as much for us too.
The antidote is this: we might "dream" while we are awake sometimes, but we realize it's only a dream. The reality of life is what is most important, and that keeps us safe from getting "taken in" again. We might have one eye closed and the other open sometimes, but then we remember to open both eyes.
Take Care,
Sentinel
When things are so deeply engrained in you, they never totally go away. Although not a JW for very long or raised in it, I too get feelings as you describe from time to time. However, I also get similar feelings from time to time associated with the Army and Vietnam (not flashbacks or weirdness). I have good and bad memories of Vietnam and good and bad memories of the JWs. I just don't let either control me today.
Lew W (another of the believes the best use for fruitcake is as a boat anchor class)
Ha, Marilyn! Not only do I have to remind myself about the JWs, as you do, I also have to remember the Catholics, as I was raised in that religion! So there's a double whammy to ignore.
Victor, I appreciate your explanation of the emotional "Pavlov's" response. It makes sense explaining that. It's a knee-jerk reaction, not a reality-based one.
Pat
I will admit to being one of the odd ones... nothing draws me back, or even gives me a good feeling about the past with JW's. Even when they come to my door, I am polite and let them get about 5 words out, then have them move on. Discussions on religion with my Methodist wife or kids dont even bring back haunting or nice memories. Maybe I managed to cleanse my brain via thinking? Or was it the crank? Whatever it was, nothing triggers anything resembling a "warm fuzzy".
Animal
Tracy,
I really believe people dislike fruitcake for one reason. Citron.
If you can find a cake made without that yucky stuff, you stand a far better chance with fruitcakes!
Danny
Ps then again does anyone really want to 'stand a better chance' with fruitcakes?????? I bet your receipe is grand, having lived in the deep south(Georgia), I always presuppose that any receipe is better from a 'southern belle'.
Am I the only 'fruit cake" here?
I'm a-thinkin' it depends on who you ask: there are those here who think I'm one, but, hey... what do they know?
As for the "warm fuzzies," I must admit that the ONLY feeling I get, when I see JWs out on the street, when I see a WT or AW, when I see photos of the Bethel Buildings, when I hear about their conventions and assemblies, etc., etc., etc.... is SICK! Truly. My stomach "turns". Folks have tried to get me to read the magazines to show what new lie or misleading doctrine they're now telling, but even for that reason... I can't. Even to just hold a WT is nauseating to me.
Why? I can't explain it other than to say it's because I know (1) who they really are, (2) why they're really here, (3) what they're really doing, and (4) who they're really doing it for:
1. False prophets, scribes and Pharisees;
2. To mislead, if possible, even the chosen ones;
3. Killing the prophets, shutting up the kingdom of the heavens before men, stoppin the "little children" from coming to the CHRIST... and waging war against the remaining ones of the seed;
4. Their "father", the Devil, whose children they evidence themselves as being by judging and condemning, by HATING not only their enemies, but their brothers as well, even "murdering" the latter.
And it just makes me sick. THEY make me sick. Not the poor misled and misguided "sheep" (oh, how my heart ACHES for them!), but the wicked "hired man" (the GB, and their DOs, COs and elders) who always abandons the sheep to the wolf. THEY make me sick. Pepto Bismol/Alka Seltzer sick.
May YOU all... have peace!
A slave of Christ,
SJ
