To me, this is one of the most reprehensible things that the GB allows. They know very well that according to their rules, she could be disfellowshipped forever if she really learns all the lies. And they will hold her to a decision she made as a 9 year old. Now, they hold her life hostage. It's just sick.
AllTimeJeff
JoinedPosts by AllTimeJeff
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32
Nine year old baptized
by EmptyInside inthis weekend at the circuit assembly, (i stayed home, thank goodness), i heard a nine year -old girl was baptized.
and she seems a bit mature for her age, but hardly mature enough,in my opinion, to make such a choice on her own.
it seems to be a trend in our circuit right now.
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37
From Jon, My Brother
by AllTimeJeff ini had a brother.
his name was jon.. jon was a sweet, super sensitive guy.
also, a very tortured soul.
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AllTimeJeff
Thanks Dinah. Jon and I would both be happy that Alabama beat Florida Tim (Christ) Tebow.... I can't say Jon and I weren't rooting for Texas though.... ;) Hope all is well with you!
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From Jon, My Brother
by AllTimeJeff ini had a brother.
his name was jon.. jon was a sweet, super sensitive guy.
also, a very tortured soul.
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AllTimeJeff
Paul, I think of you often. I hope that can help. It wasn't from me, it was from someone who knew better. :)
Grace, thank you as always. Hugs back! ((Mouthy))
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37
From Jon, My Brother
by AllTimeJeff ini had a brother.
his name was jon.. jon was a sweet, super sensitive guy.
also, a very tortured soul.
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AllTimeJeff
Thanks everyone. Jon was a worthy person. Some people just need more time to grow up and out of their funk. Jon didn't make it. But others can. Sometimes, its all about time and being patient with ourselves.
We also need people to believe in us when we don't believe in ourselves. I think Jon's life exemplifies that.
I am glad that you all were moved by that. I think its a positive thing to be able to feel and emote.
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Some Conclusions I Have Reached
by AllTimeJeff ini wonder if everyone here who has kept up with me since i left jw's realize why i have been coming on here.
it certainly has been cool to know that some of my experiences and opinions have helped some.
i hope they know that i have been equally helped by others.. i come here primarily for me.
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AllTimeJeff
One day, I will get Arrested Development on DVD and watch it.
Outlaw, beer is good, esp during happy times.... :)
I really do believe in the power each of us individually has to help others, if only we can somehow heal from our JW experience. We all need to do that from what we have learned. I am determined to do that.
Funny, to say that love is the answer sounds so simple, but it really is complex. Love requires both head and heart. So to say that love is the answer that god would have us do and be is a real committment.
But in spite of it all, I really believe love is the only answer, the only thing we can somehow control.
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From Jon, My Brother
by AllTimeJeff ini had a brother.
his name was jon.. jon was a sweet, super sensitive guy.
also, a very tortured soul.
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AllTimeJeff
I had a brother. His name was Jon.
Jon was a sweet, super sensitive guy. Also, a very tortured soul. He wanted so much to be accepted, to be certain that god was with him. Actually, he really did believe that Jehovah was god, and that Jehovah didn't hate gay people.
You see, Jon was gay. And he was baptized as a JW at 13 years old. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of what he would be like had he been able to survive his tortured confusion. Jon killed himself in 1998. He would have been 34 this year.
When we were kids, we used to talk about how our families would visit each other, etc. Jon looked up to me, and I know that he loved me very much. That brings me a lot of comfort. Because of JW dogma regarding disfellowshipping and shunning, which I bought into, I wasn't able to help Jon at all when he needed me the most.
Jon was disfellowshipped 2 months after I got married to my now ex wife. For the next 4 years, he was in and out of my parents house, eventually moved out and lived with people who sometimes exploited him, othertimes tried to help him. Jon in all this time never stopped believing in Jehovah, the only god he knew. He would go to gay bars and look for gay Catholics to try and witness to. He went to the meetings at KH's on occasion and would tell the elders that he knew Jehovah annointed him with holy spirit, and that they were wrong to reject him for his homosexuality.
I know that he was disturbed, that he needed help. He called me three times after I moved away from Florida, one time, to tell me that my parents were divorced... 6 months previous. (!!) The last 2 were his efforts to try and feel me out, to see where I was. Jon knew I was a dyed in the wool JW. The last time, he asked if he could visit, and I had to turn him down. He said he understood, and that he loved me anyway.
Did you know that was the first time ever in my adult JW existence that I felt I was doing something wrong by obeying the JW dogma and edict? Jon was the first person to shake my tree a bit, to get me to feel. And all I did was say no to my brother in his time of need. But in Jon's time of need, somehow, he knew that he needed to know that he loved me. He knew that in the future, I would need that. It was Jon's love that slowly started the opening of my eyes, and started the erosion of the JW hold on me.
3 months later, Jon left us. He left me. But he also left me a great gift.
And yet, while I miss him, I know that Jon wouldn't want me to feel bad or regret. Jon wanted me to be happy. As I look back, he knew even then I was trapped in a way of thinking that deep down, wasn't mine.
Jon wasn't about rejecting others for who they were or weren't, for shunning people based on their narrow definition of god, he was about love and acceptance. In the end, he got neither love or acceptance. In that, for his life to have meaning means that I must try and apply the lesson Jon was trying to teach me. (and may still be trying to teach me.)
We must love and accept each other. We must forgive whenever we can. We must not waste time getting caught up in things that don't really matter.
Do you have family that you love? Maybe you can't get in touch with them right now. Respect where they are, even as Jon tried to do with me. Jon somehow knew that his love for me would somehow shake me. It did. I thank him for that.
Time is short. My mom is now sick. My dad and I aren't close, though we love each other. Yet everyday, this culture tells us that work, making a living, having a savings account is the best way to show you love your family and friends.
I say, there is no substitute for the time you can give others. And even if the JW cult has your loved ones in a vise that you can't break right now, please know that an expression of love from you is more powerful then any effort to dissuade them from the cult. Because deep down, your family loves you too. Deep down, your love is the best weapon against this cult. Send them an email. Put in the subject line "I Love You". Don't talk about JW's. Just tell them how you feel. Tell them you love them, and that you hope that one day, you can be a family again. JW's have no antidote for that. At some point, even if its years down the road, it will bear fruit.
Most of all, my life experience has taught me that tomorrow isn't guaranteed. Make the most of today. Love, but not in a religious sense. You know what love is. Give into it, give it and accept it.
If you do that, I promise you my brother, and others like him, will not have lived in vain. It will in the end make us all more powerful then this cult. It might even help us to be at peace, at long last.
Love you all! :)
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Some Conclusions I Have Reached
by AllTimeJeff ini wonder if everyone here who has kept up with me since i left jw's realize why i have been coming on here.
it certainly has been cool to know that some of my experiences and opinions have helped some.
i hope they know that i have been equally helped by others.. i come here primarily for me.
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AllTimeJeff
I wonder if everyone here who has kept up with me since I left JW's realize why I have been coming on here. It certainly has been cool to know that some of my experiences and opinions have helped some. I hope they know that I have been equally helped by others.
I come here primarily for me. It has been over 3 years since I left. I knew it would be a process. I made a few good decisions by blowing up the bridge. You have no idea at my lowest points how I wished that I could go back and think that JW's were right, that I could be an elder and have that purpose in life that being a JW gave me. (pioneering, not so much)
Amazingly, even though I knew that my 1st marriage, if not toxic, was certainly hijacked by the cult, I still had fantasies of us working out again.
All I needed was a little guidance as a teen, and I got none. I was turned loose in cult land, told at 16 I was essentially grown up (I graduated high school at that age) and from then on, I made a go of it. This cult took a talented, driven to succeed 16 year old, and molded him to their own insidious purposes. That hurts me more then anything else. It also hurts that not one person who knew better didn't try to talk some sense to that dumb kid, and watched him turn into an egotistical idiot, hellbent on rising in a religion that really tried to better the organization at the expense of the flock, instead of trying to benefit the flock with the resources of the orginization.
So I try not to be to hard on myself, realizing that there isn't a 16 year old I know who in similar circumstances would have made different choices. If there are, I congratulate them, they are better then I was.
It was like painful surgery to blow up everything because in the long run for me, if I left a path open to go back, I was scared that I would go back. I am glad that I did, in spite of the regrets and wasted time.
So I come here, I have posted TONS of opinions, not all of them about JW issues, because I need to catch up and sort through what I really am about. Each comment I have made I was sincere about at the time. But time, and time away from all of the negative emotions associated with being and leaving JW's has caused me to change. That is what I wanted. I think that healthy.
Mostly, I want to feel better. I haven't always felt good. I suffer from depression and anxiety related to my experiences in Cameroon and my JW exit. That settled feeling that I would be ok has been missing.
It's been a fascinating dynamic to look at those who leave and who seem to do so in a healthy manner. There isn't a mental health professional who would tell anyone reading this that STAYING angry and bitter is good for you. Those are honorable emotions upon exit for sure. No one here needs to apologize for feeling angry at the borg. I sure as hell don't. But after a while, that anger can only hurt you.
I think it the greatest challenge of all former Jehovah's Witnesses to put their own unique JW experience into some kind of healthy context that can benefit the rest of their life, even if they have left in their 50's and 60's.
So what about me? I thought I would share my conclusions, and what I hope to do from here on out.
For me, I have a personal view of spirituality. It isn't worship or devotion of a god specifically. It is somewhat rooted in faith. At times it sounds New Agey, although it is far away from the Sylvia Brown's of the world. lol In short, I feel like a deist, and that speaks best to me. I have and will probably continue to argue on certain points that I agree with atheists and agnostics, because the battlefield on those debates seem to be the idea that spirituality can be contained within a group dynamic, i.e. organized religion. I am very much for people to do whats best for them, regardless of religious affiliation.
But frankly, those debates are done for me. I do feel that I function best as a person as a person of faith. Faith in what? Who? Couldn't tell you, and wouldn't argue my position at all. It is extremely personal to me. It isn't superstitious per se. It is an acknowledgment of what I observe that people of faith, spiritually minded people who live and let live with other peoples beliefs or non-beliefs, are less angry and bitter.
When I see debates on this board (and I know more will come) between angry theists and angry atheists, I understand. That is why I think it important for each of us to come to our own conclusions about how we feel, and to not feel the need to apologize for them, so long as they do not harm others.
I don't feel my beliefs harm anyone, and I feel they give me a platform to move on, go forward, and actually help others.
Because that is the last part of this journey. I would like to come to these boards, not for myself, but for others, and help them whenever I can. That is part of why I come here, but not primarily why I do so. I am closer then I ever have been to that though. It seems silly to me to offer "help" when I am the one who has needed it more then anyone.
So to those who I have engaged in passionate debate, I thank you in all sincerity. You have helped me flesh some things out. I esp thank the atheists and agnostics on this board who with their (sometimes) brutal honesty, have helped me to examine my motives and thoughts.
I thank the people of REAL faith, who are spiritually minded and worship god in their own fashion, and who are willing to express their beliefs among other competing beliefs. You also have helped me very much.
It is my goal to move on and reach out, to help others and make that the main reason why I come here. In fact, I hope in time to talk and meet some of you fine people if I can.
In short, in spite of my own weaknesses and mistakes made, I do believe most of all in love and forgiveness without reservation, whenever it is merited. I believe that is how god would want it, whoever she is.
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The president sit in with the G/B?
by Aussie Oz inthis is made as a reply to a facebook question (not by me) as to why the current president is not of the anointed:.
why is your new president not anonted even tho the watchtower says all presidents should be announted ???
as for the current watchtower presendent; you see back when bro.
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AllTimeJeff
The President of the WTBTS no longer needs to be of the annointed. The GB has done what many religions in the United States has done, which is run the legal corporations as the "ecclesiastical" leaders of the religion. This is a legal designation ensuring ironically enough, that what Rutherford pulled in 1917 with the WTBTS (i.e. take it over via hostile takeover) can not happen.
While this goes against the 20th century tradition of JW's, it is how things are now.
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Why Do Some Elders Go After "Faded Ones" While Others Leave Us Alone?
by minimus inso far, no one has really bothered me.
i always wonder why.
then i read of how some are always getting calls and visits.
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AllTimeJeff
LOL @ Farkel.
There are a ton of Napolean complex's going on with Elders. They get to live out life long fantasies of delusions of grandeur. God knows I went home some nights thinking I was way better then what I turned out to be.... You can't help it. It's power over people, and if you have no experience and on top of that, sincerely believe the WT crap, you are going to be an idiot elder.
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Why Do Some Elders Go After "Faded Ones" While Others Leave Us Alone?
by minimus inso far, no one has really bothered me.
i always wonder why.
then i read of how some are always getting calls and visits.
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AllTimeJeff
Really, its a combination of the personality of the elder body, the elders as individuals, and if the person is considered a threat or an apostate.
