It's quite draining to have your "BS" detector running on high alert for 4 straight hours, so, by the time the clapping was done for all the baptism candidates filing out to change clothes, I'd managed to move it's setting to low power standby. After a recharge of sandwiches, chips, washed down by now room temperature soda, I decided that I'd take a walk around the general area.
Inside the perimeter area of the Astrodome, JW's young and old had filed out and filled the area. The attendants and the ladies mannig the many contribution boxes were conspicously in the periphery of the area. As i walked around, I noticed pallets of boxes placed close to the exits guarded by attendants. Inside those boxes I surmised that there were the new Great Teacher book. Great numbers of young brothers were milling about, shaking hands and talking amongst themselves while out of the corner of their eyes, checking out the sisters whose tight young bodies appeared to have been poured into their form fitting pastel colored dresses with plunging necklines. The meat market had opened; The hunt was definetely on.
Halfway around and having grown tired of trying to weave my way through the masses of overperfumed and overdressed flesh, I decided I'd turn around and head back to my seat. As my luck would have it, I got caught behind two elderly ladies who'd apparently lost their way from the elderly\disabled area. They both shared a single walker with wheels that wobbled as they slowly moved through the crowd. I couldn't help but think that it was highly likely that these were pioneer partners who've probably told an unknown number of people that they would never grow old and die in this system, giving everything they had to the organization.........and look at them now, slowly shuffling through the corridors of the Astrodome long after those printed words have become "old Light", the younger generation of witnesses passing around them fast and furiously as if they're invisible, oblivious to the sacrifice these elderly ladies and by extension they will be required to make in pursuit of the WT paradise pipe dream.
Back at my seat, with my belly now feeling the effects of lunch, the droning, monotone, manuscripted speeches resumed. Drifting in and out of consciousness, my "BS" detector ripped into high alert once more when the speaker expressed the need for humility and a forgiving giving spirit amongst Jehovah's People. They again shamelessly plugged how they were Oh-so- helpful to victims of Allison, the rainstorm that put the city of Houston underwater two years ago and how money poured in from witnesses around the world. Yeah-Right!!!!! What they failed to mention was that all the supplies they used were either donated, or bought at very reduced rates using government grants, stored in donated space, all the labor was provided free by brothers in the building industry. They also failed to mention that it took anywhere from 6 to 8 months for them to finish the work on individual homes and that after it was finished, you were presented with an invoice detailing all the hardware used with a total of what the retail cost of what those items would've been. Of course, this total was a suggested donation amount. The JW's I know showed much humility and giving spirit in the way they were bitching about how much the WT was expecting from them monetarily, while at the same time, those who had it, using their insurance windfalls buying big ticket items they'd, under normal circumstances, never be able to afford. I happen to know that there were a lot of "shepherding call" going on to certain peoople who were "helped" by this arrangement. There was a lot more to this story than they were willing to admit.
The apparent highlight of the afternoon session revolved around a fiery talk given by the convention overseer entitled "Beware the Voice of Strangers" where he basically declared war on apostates. He shared the example of how loyal JWs should be sheeplike listening only to the voice of their shepherd and how they would actually flee from the voice of strangers. He likened strangers as being demon inspired, originating with Satan. Strangers whose strange and vile ideas coupled with their abusive speaking of the "truth" served only to undermine and draw people away from the faith. His first and primary target of the hangout of these "strangers" was....you guessed it........THE INTERNET. He warned against the indiscriminant use of the internet and the exposure to media coverage critical of the faith, likening them to inviting faith killing strangers into your home.
In an almost Baptist preacher-like way, he likened anything not inspired by the "slave class" as indistinct trumphet calls from Christendom. Again, my "BS" detector went into orbit. With all of the flip-flopping doctrines, opinions, doublespeak, doublethink, outright lying and hypocrisy that's been exposed about the WTS in the past 20 years that I've been aware of their existence. A 120 year of historic "new lights" sitting next to their almost blatant hyposcrisy in "doing the nasty" with the UN to me ws cler evidence that they are as convaluted in their "trumphet call" as any organization they lump together as a part of Christendom.
The days activities ended with a rather long-winded and way over time given talk about requests on how the "slave class" could bridge the information gap with the young ones in the audience. And with that, a brand spanking new publication was released, complete with instructions on how to use this book with the 6-10 age group. The sspeaker was rather longwinded in his synopsis of the book yet stated that there would be a copy for eveyone upon their exit from the facility.
A song was sang.......
A prayer was offered......
And all the JWs dutifully gave the obligatory round of applause, robotically signally that they thoroughly enjoyed the days "spiritual meal".
I left the Astrodome that day with a renewed sense of freedom. Gone was the feeling that I had somehow slipped and was reminded of how I should apply a whole new set of principles in my life; gone was the feeling that I was less a person because I wasn't pioneering, acting as a servant, or reaching out; gone was the feeling that even though it was excrutiating to be there, that I had to pretend that I'd enjoyed myself, that the information was so timely, that the information presented and the association was a virtual spiritual banquet. Once again, the man behind the curtain revealed himself to me, I could actually see through the looking glass, the emperor actually had no cloths. The WTS truly is nothing more than a real estae holding and book publishing business who has successfully transformed itself, to loyal rank and file JW, a religion.....the "truth".
On they way home, loving freedom, loving life, with the bright sun shining down on my face, the wind in my hair, my wife sitting in the passenger seat turned to me and asked, "well, what did you think of the assembly?".
With a sly smile and a chuckle in my heart, I responded, "honey, it truly was EVERYTING I expected it to be."