Flashback

by freedom96 8 Replies latest jw friends

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  freedom96

  I recently talked to an old friend of mine that I grew up with. It had been several years since talking to him, and we talked a lot about the people that we both knew in the same hall. Listening to him, made me sad to a degree, for I feel that so many have lost out on a "real life."

  It has been over 15 years since I stepped foot into that hall, and yet so many of the same people are still there. There were people still attending that I thought were ancient (old) when I was there, and was suprised that they still were alive. There were families with children that I grew up with that were still there. There were some who had left to other halls, but he still knew what they were up to. Still others were young kids when I was there, and now they are older and married, and a very few had left the witnesses all together. But, for the most part, it was like a flashback to all the memories I had growing up there. Not much changed.

  So much the same, but yet different in a way too. The guy I was talking to had attended the same hall since he was an infant, and now he is nearing 40. Never married, pioneered for a long time, and just very devoted to the congregation. That hall, the meetings, etc, is his life. He would be completely lost without it.

  It made me wonder, how many people are the same way? How many people have lost an entire lifetime and the experiences that life can give by sitting in the same rut going to the meetings, assemblies, field service etc? They do not appear to be happy, and do the same thing day in and day out. Most of these families are exactly as I last saw them. Literally doing the same motions for over 30 years. They have not gotten ahead in life, never moved, and their children doing the same thing.

  It is as if almost they don't have a "real life." I have been sitting here trying to figure out how to put that thought into words, and that is the best that I can come up with. Now, are they alive? Of course. Do they have feelings and thoughts and emotions? Of course, though it may be stiffled.

  I look at my life now, and those around me. We certainly fill up our lives with work, family, fun, and things like that. We do the same things as many witnesses as far as a normal work day, go to work, come home, eat, etc. However, so much more of their time is spent doing witness activities that there really is little else they can do. And if they are not doing those activities, many times they are feeling guilty, and that overwhelmes them.

  It seems to me, that many life long witnesses, do not have a "real life." They are in a rat race of their own, just getting by until that next meeting. I feel sad for them, for I believe they have been cheated out of many wonderful experiences that the WTS just will not allow them. They truly have "separated themselves from the rest of the world."

  I look back on that hall, and sadness just seems to dwell there.

  Any thoughts?
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  shera

  I think you summed it up in your post.

  I agree.
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  metatron

  It's all kind of a program for being static - for becoming frozen in time while the
  surrounding world passes you by. Maybe you wake up ten years from now and ask yourself
  "what the hell was I thinking? Isn't the very notion of a religion saying Armageddon
  is SOON FOR A HUNDRED AND TWENTY YEARS silly?".

  But maybe by that time, it's too late - you don't dare question anything for fear
  it will all fall apart.

  There were guys in Bethel who didn't want to leave because they feared the outside world.
  I always thought of them like a bird in a cage - at first, the bird tries to get out.
  Eventually, the bird stops trying to escape and actually fears leaving because it feels
  secure in its prison.

  metatron
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  imanaliento

  I think a good word for them would be, Complacent.

  it's as if they have reliquished to others their God-given right to exercise their own conscience arriving at a second hand faith based on the convictions and reasonings of others.
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  Country Girl

  And some know the faults of the Society, yet they don't leave because they are old and that *is* their life.

  CG
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  Carmel

  Don't be sad! the world needs window washers and janitors! This way we don't have to import more "aliens' to do our domestic chores.

  caveman
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  onacruse

  More than a few "oldtimers" stay in simply because they've sacrificed so much of their life to the WTS that to stand back now (after 20,30,40 years) and admit they've been bamboozled...well, that's more than most people can take. To be honest, with 38 years in, it was more than I could take. I really don't think I would ever have left voluntarily.

  Sorta like the guy that kept holding on to 100,000 shares of Enron stock even as he watched it become worthless.

  Craig
• 

  outoftheorg

  Why do some stay so long in the jw cult? Why do some never leave, just trudge along day after day.

  A thirteenth century mystic poet Jalal ad-Din Rumi pondered this same question.

  In one of his poems he wrote about a man named Nezradene. He is ready to set out on a great journey one day, but he can't find his ticket. He looks everywhere, under his bed, in the trash, in all the dresser drawers, but he can't find his ticket.

  But Nezradene, one of his friends interrupts, why don't you look in your coat pocket? That is where you usually keep all of your most important things?

  Nezradene shakes his head and rubs his exasperated eyes. I know he says. But if I look in my pocket and it isn't there I will be just devastated.

  As one trudges along in a cult, we begin to feel lost as we grow older. We don't know the cause of this lost feeling. Where do we look for the cause? Do we look in circles all over the place? Or do we tempt Irrecoverable loss by going to the one spot where the cause can be found, the cult.

  One quest is easy to do, the other is difficult. All because of consequence. When we invest all our trust in one solution and OUR TRUST GOES MISSING, we have nothing else to fall back on but despair. The consequence of misguided trust in a cult.

  But not all is lost. Life is based on perspective and perspectives change. So if we wake up in a world without a reference point,"no more belief in the cult" and feel lost, this is the wonderful opportunity to readjust ones life. Establish new perspectives and reference points based on reality and not on the speculations of a cult.

  Outoftheorg
• 

  BluesBrother

  Christmas morning 2002. .. My wife and I had travelled early to visit mother in our hometown , drawing up about 9.45AM

  Approaching her home we saw walking down the street, dressed for the ministry with magazine bags, an old friend of mine and his mother.

  Once we young men who would go out for a drink and about the town, as full of ourselves as young men are. He would be around 50 by now - has lived in the same house , with parents all that time. They have faithfully preached to same people ,knocked on the same doors with the same message all that time !

  Ok I dont think my life is all that great , but I don't know how they do it .