Auntie, I'm so sorry for what you experienced. What I always found ironic about JW beliefs and visiting other churches was that in my travels, including a trip to Israel and Egypt organized by prominent JWs and with many circuit overseers, Bethelites and elders on with us, we would always, with never a qualm, visit cathedrals, basilicas, mosques, temples - you name it. We would pay our attendance fee, which went directly to the upkeep of the religious building (something completely normal, you may say, but JWs are not supposed to help Babylon the Great maintain their churches/synagogues/mosques, etc.), change our dress code if necessary in accordance with each religion's teachings on the matter, and yet we were not supposed to do anything which might remotely be considered part of a religious service while attending a non-JW funeral.
Ironic, and hypocritical. Auntie, you are not dealing with logic here, nor even love. JWs (and I was one for most of my 46 years) are told what to do, when to do it, and if they deviate from these commandments of men they are made to feel that they have sinned directly against God.
As Blondie so aptly put it:
What is sad is so many JWs do not attend JW funerals. When I was a teenager, JW funerals were well-attended. Now if someone has to go on a weekday or drive any distance, they skip it. Especially, if the deceased is a non-JW although family members are JWs, few JWs attend, not even the visitation in a neutral funeral home. I also saw that people gave money in little envelopes. Sometimes only a dollar, sometimes two. It added up. I helped one family and they collected over $1,000 from such widow's mites. People brought food, cleaned the house, took the car out to be checked and washed, mowed the lawn. And all from "unloving worldly" people. It opened my eyes to another facet of Christian love that was lacking at the Kingdom. JWs can't even send a card. One non-JW family received over 300 cards from neighbors, church members, business colleagues, classmates, people from their lives over 30 years ago. I am trying to makeover that part of my JW personality.
Learning what love really is after being in an emotional deep-freeze for most of one's life is certainly a challenge. As you can tell by her posts, Blondie is well on her way to her makeover.
Auntie, thanks for being here. Please accept my apologies for the JWs and their coldness. I was one of them once. Thanks to people like the ones here, I've learned how wrong I was. Maybe they will also.
Ac
