We recently saw a 70 year old sister from a congo we used to go to; she was passing through town and called to say hello. We had an interesting conversation. Her husband, once a pillar in the circuit, no longer serves as elder because of the "politics" he saw and resigned. She went off on a tear about how there are a lot of "weird" people in the organization these days and how no one is allowed to ask questions about changes in procedures or criticize anyone or anything. This woman was a pio for many years and goes, way, way back at least 50 years in the org. and was virtually a founder of congos that eventually split and re-split in a city that grew very rapidly since the 1960s.
I asked her what she thought she ought to do, and she said she's just decided that her relationship with God is not really tied to an organization but is a personal matter between her and Jehovah. So she continues to hang with several old sisters she's been pals with for decades, taking care of the sick and the infirm, and they get together to go out in service a couple times a week and get to some but not all of the meetings and when they do they sit together (and probably roll their eyes in unison).
Anyway, she says she's forced herself to "tune out" a lot of what she hears from the platform as "just someone's opinion." She feels the real spiritual giants are all gone now, and the people running the organization today are just treading water until they get a clue what the next step is. Her philosophy now, she said, is "that this is all temporary, the sickness, the death, the problems, the changes," and that soon she'll be dead and right after that in paradise and is content to let God sort it all out then.
As I listened, I was thinking how much easier it would be to take that avenue if you are 70 and only have to fake it for a few more years, rather than 20 or 30. All of this supports my theory that there are thousands, maybe 10s of thousands, or more, JWs who are sitting in KHs all over the world who are tuning out the drivel, staying below the radar, and living lives of quiet desperation, awaiting some miracle.
