by Amazing1914 72 Replies latest jw friends
I am revising my exit story called, "My six-year Journey out of the Watchtower." I will be adding some corrections, and a couple of new chapters, along with some spelling and grammar "refinements." It will be republished on Freeminds.org under my real name.
Jim, I have read your exit story quite a few times. I've enjoyed it immensely, and I'm looking forward to reading it again with the extra chapters! Let us know when it's up.
Jim,
Your last post put your ‘rocking” comment into a lot better perspective and coming from that point of view I can better see where you are coming from. If I had a parent like you I think I would have definitely agreed with your comment. Unfortunately I, as well as many others did not have parents that put their kid’s happiness first. That’s why I have only seen my mom and most of my 9 siblings only three times in the last 23 years. The really sad part is I quit caring about any of them many years ago.
Life goes on.
Dave
Jim: From all the chatter your post has caused, it's clear not everyone here "gets" your point and that's probably because, as someone pointed out, the dub experience was not universal.
My wife started studying in 1972 and was baptized in '74 at that same Oakland Coliseum site where you were dunked just a few years earlier. There were more than 1,100 baptized at Oakland that year. I had just started studying then, primarily to find out what this thing was my wife was so committed to, and was surprised that I and the kids could not watch her baptism. Because of the sheer size of the group, they lined up a bunch of charter buses and took the baptisees away to one of several area pools they had arranged to use. She came back a few hours later with damp hair and a serene smile on her face.
It was easy to feel we "rocked" back in the day. I mean, when they have to bus that many people all over the city to get baptized, it tends to suggest a sense of something "happening." There was an air of expectation, a strong sense of urgency. The convention atmosphere was that of a pre-game tailgate party just prior to the Big Game at which our team was destined to trash the oppostion. After all, 1975 was just a year away and even if some people were hedging their bets and backing off on the prediction as a hard and fast rule, the vast majority of dubs were psychologically ready to rumble.
Unless you were there, and especially if you just came "in the truth" in the past couple of decades, there is no way you can appreciate this sense of special belonging. We were the specially trained, elite front line troops in Jehovah's army and every meeting for service was a search and destroy mission guided by the angels. We were "the fastest growing religion" on the planet. People were coming into the congregation from the field, for crying out loud! Congos were bursting and splitting into twos and fours. They were bussing people to get baptized!
More importantly, the dubs appeared to have lofty goals back then, and the rank and file believed in them. The new people becoming dubs then were highly idealistic. Some, like my wife and I, were turned off by a system of government and politics that was clearly in decay. People were marching in the streets. Presidents were being assassinated or impeached. The "peace and love" movement of the early 60's had turned into an orgy of drugs and bad behavior. The "movement" was our last great hope for reform in a rotten world, and it had been co-opted. The idealistic among us were turning elsewhere for answers. The dubs offered what seemed like a logical response. Some superhuman wicked spirit creature was behind the system's decay. What was needed was an idealistic government conveniently run by Jesus Christ -- and hey, who's more idealistic than he is?
So, yeah, we "rocked." Or so we perceived. Some of us, anyway. And for us that perception is reality. For others, I fully respect, it was not.
