Silver
JoinedMy uncle, whom I had always looked up to as a kid, had recently become a JW. He gave up a lucrative career as a rock musician to spend time knocking on people's doors (for free)to sell Watchtower literature and talk about the Bible. I thought perhaps it was a passing phase or that he had gone completely mad. About a year had passed and my grandfather died (my uncle's dad.) It really saddened me and Uncle was right there to console me with Bible in hand, right in the cafeteria area of the funeral home. This resulted in my accepting a Bible study at his home, which in turn led to my eventual conversion and baptism. I also had given up a budding career in the rock industry. I was starting to get somewhere (finally) with my music and I'm sure I could have made a tonne of money. Oh, well. The devil made me do it! Lol. About four years after getting baptized, I decided that the inconsistencies in JW doctrine and hypocritical behavior among the "friends" were becoming uncomfortable for me to continue to ignore. And so I began to observe things a little closer and to question secretly a lot of things and to read "old light" literature and to talk to some JWs who had either been disfellowshipped,or left, to find out what their side of the story would be. I discovered more than I could fathom!! In the end, I had become completely disillusioned. I had invested so much of my time and energy trying to "please Jehovah and remain loyal to His theocratic Organization." I had given up so much. Boy, do I ever kick myself now!! Oh, well. Fastforward to now, 12 years later: I don't think I'll ever exorcise the Watchtower demons from my system. I was young and impressionable and naive back then. Now I'm wiser and in retrospect nothing could have prevented me from joining the Watchtower Org. I was raised without religion but I had an insatiable curiosity about it. It could have been the Mormons or the Moonies that my uncle had joined and it is very likely that I would have followed him into those, instead. Or I probably would have eventually studied religion on my own somewhere, that's how deeply smitten I was with the need to find God. Jehovah's Witnesses simply happened to have been the first religion that I agreed to investigate -- and that's where the buck stopped, unfortunately. Well, this is getting too long and involved. My life is'nt perfect, by any means, now that I've left the Org; I do some pretty "worldly" things, yes. I'm a sinner. But, hey, who is'nt, right? I just don't have the same tyrannical pressure from "above" anymore. I feel free to do whatever I want and I now know that my life is in God's forgiving hands. He is a loving God and knows we are filled with desires and fears which create a majority of the misery we experience as human beings. I discovered that the trick to overcoming moments of self-loathing is to aim for desirelessness and fearlessness. I empty myself, so to speak, and thus experience peace and inner-silence more frequently now than I ever did as a JW. And the good thing about it is that I can bring myself to this kind of state of being without the help of the Watchtower. I feel so much more at ease knowing that I can stand on my own two feet. I've grown so much after leaving the org. Life is'nt great, but at least it's worth the ride because it's REAL, if you know what I mean. Silver