Sad and Lonely;
There once was a funeral conducted by a JW Circuit Servant (True story!). The body lay in a casket in front of where the stage and microphone were. At the appointed moment, he stepped out onto the stage, put his mouth to the microphone, and shouted to the audience (as he pointed with his right hand extended to the body) "That man is dead!!!!!!!!).
The response in the audience was electrifying and mesmerizing. After all, he was a "Circuit Servant!!"
If you ever want to go to a funeral where your loved one had passed on, and watch that special person in your life turn into a "pawn" or an "instrument" of a gifted spokesperson of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, you should have been present at this funeral! The manipulation and disgusting propaganda was not only shocking, it was altogether too obvious what was going on with these tactics. You and I are mere puppets and pawns of a much larger "play". The fact that you are laying a loved one to rest has little or nothing to do with anything. Telling the world, and all who are within hearing range, the propaganda of the Governing Body is everything, even if it is about someone who died. They have no couth!
Do you think for one minute that it matters whether the person who died lived a good life or a bad life? I don't think so. This simply represents another opportunity for the religious organization involved to use its representative to act as spokesperson on their behalf, to deliver a message that will get the audience to think about the religion behind it all, meaning, to get them to maybe consider investigating them in terms of the possibility of even joining them. In other words, a kind of "proselyting" effort, albeit somewhat subliminal or subtley suggestive. (On the other hand, I am not so sure it is all that subtle!)
One more thing, in terms of the professional clergy, they are quite used to being personally compensated by the people closest to the deceased. That provides ample motive for the priest or minister to speak so positively of the deceased. There are many things that may be going on that you and I would never be privy to. In other words, the reason why any member of the clergy would speak so positively of the deceased could have any number of motivations from behind the scenes, and so the whole truth can never be known or discovered.
It all boils down to you and I, who have known the decease, and his/her life while they were alive, relying more on you direct experience with that person, rather than a priest who knew little or nothing about that person while alive. The eulogy may or may not be true, or have substance, or not. You decide!
Rod P.
