Us and our neigbhours have a guy who trims our trees annually. He's a JW. For the last 2 weeks our neighbours have engaged him to pave their driveway. Let's face it, it's hard to resist a workman who arrives in an antiquated old truck, after 11am for a days work, and loves to stop for a skite at any opportunity. But you can't help liking this guy, who's a typical JW He's not stunningly bright, but 'salt of the earth' if you know what I mean! Well anyway I once told this guy that my family are Witnesses, but I haven't mentioned that I was disfed over 20 yrs ago. Why should I?
Yesterday was real cold, so I took him out a cup of coffee, and as usual we got chatting. I told him my daughter was about to qualify as a doctor. Predictably he told me that soon God would do away with all sickness..... Just the thing you want to hear after you've invested in your kids medical education for six years! I treated the discussion with humor, which at times frustrated him. It was cold and I wanted to get inside as I had the feeling I was in for the long version presentation. I agreed that things were in a mess - though I didn't bother to argue that they were no more so than they've ever been. He explained that JWs have been predicting the end of this system of things for 90 years already. I wanted to say "don't sell yourself short - you've been predicting all manner of catastophes for 125yrs!" But instead I fixed my eyes on an area of grass and let him drone on passing up countless opportunities to take him to task.
When I finally escaped, I pondered my lack of committment to putting him right. It was simply a decision based on previous encounters. I can't have a discussion with someone who doesn't have some level of committment to listening as well as talking. Normally if you tell someone a fact, like you can't use that glue on those tiles, because it doesn't stick to ceramics, the person is grateful and checks carefully for a glue that does stick to ceramics. But if you tell a Witness about the numerous dates that JWs have wrongly predicted stuff, they quickly dismisses it and even worse, they become suspicious of how you know such things. The information already trivialised, gets totally shelved in favor of finding out more about your status with the WTS. I've been thru all this before, and I've experienced the frustration of being told that they won't continue talking with me because I'm disfellowshipped. Yesterday I practised "live and learn" as opposed to my usual "live and don't learn", by letting this Witness ramble on at me unmolested. Instead of me walking away frustrated, I watched him get frustrated, as I chased my cat, made jokes, and generally acted like an airhead. I retrieved my coffee cup and went inside feeling good rather than annoyed beyond belief!
Can you blame me?
Marilyn