To all lurkers, doubters, and curious ones. You must be here for a reason, and that is why this post is dedicated to you. (And everyone else too)
I have attended a few meetings after being disfellowshipped. Yes, although the act of df?ing was taken, I am not ?the disfellowshipped girl?, the plague, a loathsome disease that can be caught if I dare touch the microphone and pass it to someone sitting in the back row with me. I am a human being, a person, I am who I am. The onus is on you to figure that out for yourselves instead of letting a group of men influence your view of me. Yes, I am asking you to think for yourselves, something of course that the elders will not appreciate, but nonetheless you will be happier for it.
In my somewhat ?birds eye view? from the back of the kingdom hall, the row of banishment, I have come to notice things that I did not notice from the other side. You are the ones that are in, the ones who claim to have the ?spiritual paradise?, the ones who would never do anything to squander that precious privilege and end up in the back row with ?people like me?. So my question: Why don?t you look like it? According to the platform speakers, I am the one that?s supposed to be unhappy, long faced and downtrodden. However I look around and see some of the unhappiest looking people I have ever encountered. It makes me wonder, is this what you really want?
You may be wondering what does a d?fed person do now that they have ?cut themselves off from gods congregation?? Simply, I still get up in the morning, shower and go to work just like I did before. However the time freed up from not going in field service, and maintaining ?friendships? with people whom I had not much in common with in the first place, is spent on improving myself. I read more of what you would call ?secular? books, exercise more, and challenge myself to a greater degree. I am teaching myself another language, and I will be going to college (finally!). I am less critical and judgmental of others and because of that I have met some fantastic people, people that I would not have known otherwise if I continued to submit to the jw practice of labeling. Oh but according to the org, I should be doing all the things that ?worldly people? do. Perhaps that is what you expect when you pass me on the street, afraid to look me in the eye. I thought I was the one who is supposed to ?hang my head in shame?? Why are you doing that? Perhaps it is because you have searched for yourselves and could not find any scriptural basis for your actions?
Perhaps?
It is now to the point of intrigue that I attend meetings. I observe and take notes of what I see and hear. I may very well put my observations completely in writing one day.
LS