When I got out of the service and returned home, my parents had studied and become Witnesses. I could hardly believe it. My aunt had been one all of my life but I never thought it would affect my parents. I was disgusted and surprised. I really was patriotic, believed in hellfire and thought it was crazy not to celebrate birthdays. I began a study with an old brother, supposedly of the anointed, named Walker. He was a good man, and a gentle man. He moved to where the need was greater and turned my study over to a man named Casper. He also was a good man, though a man of a different nature than Walker. I knew nothing and as I followed along in the Truth book and the Bible I became convinced that the Witnesses were right about a number of things, the immortality of the soul, hellfire, the wrongness of killing your fellow man for political governments or really, any other reason. I didn't know enough to ask hard questions, and did all my research in the Bible led by the brother and the publications. I never could really buy the 1914 date, or the stuff about the length of time the guys spent in prison in Atlanta having been predicted in the Bible. Though I had strong reservations, I did begin to believe the 7000 year day stuff which meant that 1975 was going to be it. I felt real guilty when I financed anything that would pay off after '75, as I knew I would never really pay for it. This changed for me when I found an old publication telling about the pyramids. It sounded just like the stuff we were still reading, only the names had changed. They sounded so certain, and it would have been like doubting God to doubt what they were saying, which of course I could see had been totally wrong. King of the North Napoleon???? Great Britain for King of the South? Or so I think it said. Anyway, this began my serious doubts, about 1973. I tried to research it, and ran into a wall. Nobody wanted to talk about it. I tried to ask about the creative days, and got terrible explanations followed by blank looks when I continued to ask questions. Nobody said anything, but I could tell pushing it was just changing the people I cared about in the congregation's view of me. So I began my disengagement. I just couldn't keep going door to door talking about 1914 after that. I really didn't believe any of the dates anymore. I still thought they were closer than anyone else I knew of, but you couldn't pick and choose, you had to take the whole package. As I had been having terrible fights with my wife over religion for the entire time I was in, I began to rethink the whole package. I finally decided since I couldn't buy the whole slant in the "Truth" and I couldn't buy the Trinity and hellfire and all that, to just read the Bible on my own, live as clean a life as I could and back out. My parents were going to be a problem. I loved them too much to hurt them and had nothing to offer them besides the Witnesses. My children were small and during this time I did not push my wife to take them to the Kingdom Hall but wouldn't let them go to church with her except on special occasions and I would take them on Memorial and one for one any other time. The elders talked to me but I told them it was the way I was doing it and it would cause a divorce to do it any other way and they let it go and never gave me a hard time about it. As our congregation was small and mostly made up of my relatives I think they were afraid it would cause more trouble than it was worth, or maybe they just really felt empathy for me. Anyway, I didn't know what to do, about the Truth, about the kids, about all of it. I jogged a lot and prayed a lot and sometimes felt like I was in a vice.
So I decided to move and not tell anyone I was a Witness. I found a job a couple of states away and on the way there I stopped the car and told my kids, "I don't want anyone here to know I was a Witness. I don't want you to talk to anyone about the Witnesses. Not for fear of man, but because in my new job I will be working with the public and don't want the Witnesses judging me as disassociated or trying to involve me in some kind of judicial deal over my views which would hurt my family back home." I stopped attending and just went to Memorial back home, or on the odd occasion when I was home visiting on a Sunday. When I did go, it felt just like I was reading propaganda. I had a hard time sitting through it. It was strange when I stopped going. I remember feeling so free. I was free to choose a friend, not because of his religious views, but because of his qualities. I was not looking for friends at all, didn't really want to associate with them, just wanted to do a good job and then be with my family, but they would seek me out. I remember having a knock on my back door, opening it and it was a guy from work with a big croaker sack full of oysters, some hot sauce and some crackers. He asked if I had ever eaten raw oysters, I said no and he proceeded to sit down on my porch and demonstrate how to shuck them and eat them. I wound up enjoying that and he is my friend to this day, though I have long since moved away from there. Funny. The ones I had thought were my friends I really had little in common with and don't know today.
That glorious sense of freedom, over choosing a friend. Pulling that car over and telling my kids I didn't want the Witnesses to judge me, was in a way prophetic. I was judged, but it was by someone in the car that day. Freedom is wonderful, and it does carry a price, regardless of what kind of freedom you are talking about.
Free to make a friend
by Grunt 5 Replies latest jw friends
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Grunt
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somebody
Hi Grunt,
:That glorious sense of freedom, over choosing a friend. Pulling that car over and telling my kids I didn't want the Witnesses to judge me, was in a way prophetic. I was judged, but it was by someone in the car that day.
{scratch scratch scratch} .....Who was it that judged you, may I ask. Oppss...too late...I already did ask.
:Freedom is wonderful, and it does carry a price, regardless of what kind of freedom you are talking about.
You speak the truth!
somebody
~~~I'm telling you, just attach a big parachute TO THE PLANE ITSELF! Is anyone listening to me?! ~~~
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Dubby
Hi, Grunt.
Freedom. What could be better. Freedom to go and do what you want. Freedom to read the bible, if you want, and get a different understanding than the WTS. Freedom to choose friends for their qualities and not their religion. A very special feeling indeed.
Leaving the WTS almost always involves a price to be paid. Probably more than the price to become a Witness, if there is family involved. It's still better to be free, though.
"Enjoy God's creation, ride a dirt bike!"
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Grunt
A child judged and still judges me. I was concerned about losing my parents. I should have been concerned about losing one of my children. It just took longer. Although with the turnover rate, there is always hope for the future.
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waiting
Hey Grunt,
Glad to meet you. Enjoyed your post. Glad you have found your freedom in your life.
waiting
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Grunt
Thanks to all of you for responding to the post. I think I really post them more for myself, but it feels good to interact with people who have shared a life experience. To borrow a phrase from a poem by Walt Whitman, these posts are my great "Yawp" at the world wherein I sing myself. As for freedom, I am only as free as a man with loved ones in bondage can be. I guess that is true of most of you as well. I have been totally honest with the ones I love in this life regarding the "Truth" as I see it. It really hasn't done much so far except ease my own conscience and probably bother theirs for continuing to stay close to me. Except of course for the one child whose conscience is clean, and whose course is wrong. I do always hope, that some honest hearted Witness will read what I say, recognize the truth in it and open their eyes a little to just what they are involved in and supporting. To turn your back on a loved one, they should have done something much, much, more awful than just disagree and point out why.