Agony (of indecision)

by onacruse 19 Replies latest jw friends

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  onacruse

  Once in a while (sometimes in rapid succession), very insightful (or, shall we say: willing to share their hearts) people say something that just immediately cuts right to a totally exposed nerve...no thought needed, you just know right away that it has touched a tender spot in your soul, and you instinctively flinch.

  Without prior permission, but with editing, I'd like to share part of this personal message:

  If you can remember how you felt before you went to Bethel...about a true brotherhood working together towards a common cause, where one is your leader and all you are brothers...it is a dream I cannot let go of. Another person was kind enough to describe it in the words of Nathaniel Hawthorne (of Herman Melville) - "He can neither believe nor be comfortable in his disbelief and is too honest not to try to do one or the other."

  This brought tears to my eyes...oh how true! oh how true!!! OH HOW TRUE!!!!!

  "I have a dream."

  ((My friend)), thank you for this; it's feelings like yours that bring me back to anchor.
• 

  Brummie

  Brings back memories of desperately wanting to believe it and yet not being able to continually defend it.

  Good post but heavy.
• 

  frankiespeakin

  On,

  He can neither believe nor be comfortable in his disbelief and is too honest not to try to do one or the other."

  I don't know if I could understand this?

  I'm getting very comfortable in my disbelief,,nothing is proven,,so I disbeleive and feel no pain emotionaly,,so I guess that's what comfortable means?

  But may be I'm reading it wrong please correct me. I'm very confused as to what he means and I wish to understand if I may.
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  Brummie

  He can neither believe nor be comfortable in his disbelief and is too honest not to try to do one or the other."

  He is not comfortable being a disbeliever but is too honest to believe the things he used to, he is also too honest to to throw away all his former beliefs just incase some of them are right, his honesty makes him question why he is throwing them all away so he's soul searching....he doesnt want to be found dishonest and is at a crossroads, hes confused.

  There, sorted. :)

  Brummie
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  Satanus

  I think he's a member of the fence sitters club.

  In our society, we think that we should either believe or disbelieve. Why should we feel compelled to do one or the other? Can we refrain from doing either one?

  SS
• 

  onacruse

  SS, perhaps he/she is a "fence-sitter"...as was I, for soooooo long. And, so...

  If I may ask: Did you "sit on the fence"? If so, how long? If not, why not?

  Sincerely,

  Craig
• 

  Flash

  I appreciate your explanation Brummie because when I first read onacruise's quote my mind got into a bit of a knot. I knew something was there but couldn't quite see it. LOL Now that I see it, I LIKE IT!

  "I have a dream."

  I have always believed the Witnesses are God's people and that all the problems/errors are of human origin. Their a lot like ancient Israel.
• 

  Satanus

  Ona
  

  I went from a wt believer to a nonbeliever in a few days (franz' book). That was a few days in the yr of our lord 1995. I continued to be a bible believer for 2 yrs more after that (alanf's treatise on noah's flood). I now know that the wt and jws, and the bible are not what they claim to be. I know that. It isn't a belief. At the time, i didn't fence sit, because i was into thinking and logic, rather than emotional about it.

  I have still, a degree of belief in the afterlife, another realm. Perhaps i will experience this other side before i die, perhaps i already have. Anyway, maybe i will drop it as a belief, not disbelieving it, just letting it be. But, i'm really an amateur, after all.

  Believing or disbelieving takes energy/action/grasping, an action that upsets perfect balance, a reaching out to something outside, instead of inward. It may be a futile effort, never giving satisfaction, as mystics are fairly in agreement that we have all/know all within.

  SS

  Ps, i grew up in the wt. The feelings, the 'dream i cannot let go of' similar to what you described, i remember them it very well, and miss it. It is like a childhood illusion now.
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  DanTheMan

  the words of Nathaniel Hawthorne (of Herman Melville) - "He can neither believe nor be comfortable in his disbelief and is too honest not to try to do one or the other."

  Yes, what a quandry disillusioned former believers find themselves in.

  I've never been able to slog through Moby Dick though.
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  Earnest

  Melville was an interesting choice of one who could neither believe nor be comfortable in his disbelief. Many think that Moby-Dick reflects his search for faith, with the whale representing faith (or God). As such he was by no means a fence-sitter but one who put all his effort into finding that whale/faith. In chapter 55 he says (of the whale) :
  

  ...any way you may look at it, you must needs conclude that the great Leviathan is that one creature in the world which much remain unpainted to the last. True, one portrait may hit the mark much nearer than another, but none can hit it with any very considerable degree of exactness. So there is no earthly way of finding out precisely what the whale really looks like. And the only mode in which you can derive even a tolerable idea of his living contour, is by going a whaling yourself; but by so doing, you run no small risk of being eternally stove and sunk by him.

  Earnest