Posts by mama bear

21

My (JW) dad called.

by SPAZnik in

jw
friends

for the 4th time in 6 years.

who is this man and why do i feel obligated to talk to him .

just because he and my mother eff'd each other over .

SPAZnik wrote: -- For the 4th time in 6 years.

Who is this man and why do I feel obligated to talk to him
just because he and my mother eff'd each other over
for a few years back in the 70's?

It's like he calls me just to grill, critique and reject me over and over again. It's like I'm never good enough to love as is. Must be more perfect (particularly by JW definition). I'm nowhere near living up to His Dream Of Me.

Maybe this relationship needs to end.
It certainly needs to be redefined.

Such a huge undertaking.
Gawd, people exhaust me.
I am so tired.--

Don't they though? I agree with that completely!

As for your dad, there is no easy solution. Whatever your energy and emotions [read: heart] tells you to do ... I was 'your dad' to our daughter only the 'mother' version but not so infrequently. We were honestly blessed with a child who grew up to respect us though she simply could not agree with the religion she was raised in and would not ever commit to it. [and believe me, I was an overbearing VERY critical mother] She wore her pain -- that which our religious differences produced - very stoicly. She reflected back respect and unconditional love. In time, it was her unwavering personal integrity driven by her capacity for love which began to wear me down. When I left I called her our Shekinah Light because her love and peace continued to shine towards us eventually leading us out of a place of legislated love [gasp:gasp] into a life where we could fully explore our heart's capacity to feel and to exhibit that love to all regardless of any differences we may personally have with them. It is a much better place to embrace people wholly than to judge them summarily! Perhaps, if your heart inclines you in the future your love will attract your folks from their loveless life. Lord knows they need a good swift love jumpstart to their hearts...the FDS manages to stifle the hearts of their following and slow it down to the slowest setting to support life...it gives them the dependency they need as a leadership to have full government over their membership! If you can, love your folks to death...death being their departure from the WTS grip.

12

People turn back to the religion they know best, when in distress.

by free2beme in

jw
friends

as a teenager, i was not real into the religion.

i went to meetings, lived by my mothers rules, and had a lot of witness friends.

on the flip side, i had dated nonwitness people in high school, was sexually active, drank and partied on the weekends and hide it well from my mom.

mama bear

Freetobeme said: -- The thing is, this is so common. As much as people will say they dislike the religion or they do not believe in it. I have seen time and time again, people return to that religion or what ever religion they were raised in, when times of distress happen, as it is the comfort zone or what they feel most basic in believing. Has anyone else experienced something like I mentioned happen in my life. I know a few former Witnesses locally, that had things like this happen. Just wondered if others on here, did the same. --

You are correct..what we know brings us comfort unless what we know has been the source of such horrific trauma it drives us back even further. For us, it was the trauma of being a Witness which drove us out and back to what we had been 30 yrs earlier...we tried going to different churches and all of them were nothing like what we had expected after being Witnesses for 3 decades but they also really did nothing for us that close personal relationships with others and deeply committed personal spiritual habits could not accomplish. So, just as we were before becoming Witnesses we are now -- just the three of us, a family, older, wiser and in a better place because we took the WT detour through religion. We have culled favorable things from our lives as Witnesses. Things from the lifestyle we really made our own because we truly were convinced of their validity but it is not anything that is uniquely the WTS making. As it turns out, many of our friends, from many different Christian and non Christian sects, have similar morals, similar beliefs, similar faith and hope and similar lifestyles, similar world view, preferring a close family to heavy socialization in any grouping.

21

It just seems that Witnesses are less active these days.

by free2beme in

jw
friends

i remember being a teenager and being at friends home on saturdays, and every time you turn around there was a witness knocking at the door.

my non-witness friends would be nice, and say no, as they did not want to insult me.

even though, as a teenager, i was not a witnesses (baptized) and did not make a public show of my connection to people outside of the congregation.

mama bear

Freetobeme said: -- I remember being a teenager and being at friends home on Saturdays, and every time you turn around there was a Witness knocking at the door. My non-Witness friends would be nice, and say no, as they did not want to insult me. Even though, as a teenager, I was not a Witnesses (baptized) and did not make a public show of my connection to people outside of the congregation. I remember going to shopping centers, and seeing Witnesses working the corners or even handling out tracts to people leaving coffee shops and so on. I just plain remember, them being a lot more visible and active in the past. Now, I am in my yard on almost any given Saturday morning, when the weather is good. On only a couple of occasions in 5 years of living here in a large neighborhood, have I seen a Witness in the door to door work. I have not seen them doing street work, in who knows how long, and even friends I work with have commented on their less appearances at the door. Not that I am complaining or anything, but for an organization that claims to be working so many hours in the door to door work, I just don't see them as much as I used too and wondered if others noticed this, as well. --

I live in an area where there are three congregations within a 20 linear mile distance. I live about halfway into that 20 miles. In the 4 yrs I have lived here, and I am at home during the week and on week ends often, there has been very infrequent activity. About 4 months ago a couple who are Witnesses moved into the house next to us. They still wave at us and smile ..obviously ignorant of the apostates who live right next door to them. This is quite the statement when you consider these folks have the meeting for service in their home on one of the week end days and in all these months obviously have not worked their own street where the territory card would have the big red A for apostate smack dab on our home! I believe the phenomenon may be attributed to a multiple of reasons...1] More and more households have both spouses working and week end activity is a minimal when it comes to field service; 2] More and more individuals who are not working are finding it more advantageous to be 'sick' which gives them sanctioned excuses for not participating in the many facets of the active JW lifestyle; and last but surely not least by any stretch of the imagination, living out here in the remote areas of our community people have come to rely on cable and internet access as a means to stay in touch and I believe the internet activity of many Witnesses for a plethora of reasons may be keeping them off the streets! The alleged 'staunch' ones may be doing their 'witnessing' online and counting that time while others may be busily apprising themselves of some seriously existing facts which compromises their belief system and may be dealing with the reality of disillusionment as have we all. The Service Report each year does not divide the methodology employed by individual Witnesses in how they go about 'accomplishing their ministry' they merely give the cliff notes and lump the hours in together not really stating how they are being spent.

Just some conjecture from an observant former Witness.

By the way, I am soooooooooooooo genuinely thrilled you are FREE TO BE YOU! That is one of the most precious gifts we are given when we leave is the FREEDOM to be who we really are!

4

Racial/Religious hatred laws

by KAYTEE in

jw
friends

with the interest in racial / religious hatred laws.

(im talking about the laws that exist or soon will do in the u.k) i wonder if some of the magazines that we have seen over many years could be viewed as breaking this law.. to name just a few of the points.

encouraging their members to shun ones, who may for various reasons, have stopped going to their place of worship.by inciting their members to view these ones as "apostates", and thereby doomed to die at armageddon.

mama bear

Gil said: -- They could then claim Perseuction! Persecution! when the law comes down on their members! --

This is perhaps one of the more humorous though ultimately offensive aspects of the JW belief system. They deliberately set themselves up for derisive remarks by engaging in bullying behavior and then have the temerity to say they are being persecuted! It is funny because they do it and get away with it on the inside but highly offensive to those on the outside who truly know what persecution is! And all the more today with the news so filled with REAL persecution! When you can stop public transportation with people from your own country who are part of your own religion only a different sect of it and then kidnap and slaughter them thereafter strewing their bodies as a public spectacle of your heinous acts THAT is persecution! Getting someone to say something unfavorable about you because you stuck your finger in their eye is not persecution it is just desserts! The arrogance of this group, [I feel true remorse from ever having felt and exhibited this behavior myself as a Witness], is astounding and quite disgusting. As I said, it is funny on the one hand because it is so twisted but more offensive on the other because it trivializes the ones who are truly being and have been persecuted through no fault of their own! Even within their own group it should be offensive! The poor souls in Malawi who were brutalized and then murdered who were Witnesses truly suffered PERSECUTION. Not because they distributed a KN which had an inflammatory title but because their religious leaders invoked their 'neutrality' doctrine which put these poor souls at odds with their government and led to their persecution. As it turns out, though this happened 30 plus years ago, this particular type of terroristic persecution is now being visited upon anyone who does not fall into line with a ruling or prevailing ideology and creates for all the world a true and immediate example of what REAL persecution looks like. Here in America and in other 'freer' parts of the world where Jehovah's Witnesses proudly exhibit their 'persecuted' banner I hope folks will remind them they are in no way being persecuted because folks disagree and say as much. These folks need to have everyone point out that when you are in their face with caustic and religiously offensive commentary you are going to hear about it and having someone point out your error is considered a 'favor' by most 'thinking' individuals--not persecution!

19

I am so angry

by hambeak in

jw
friends

my partner hambeak is a great guy.

i have known him over 20 years.

he is the most kind and gentle person i know.

mama bear

XU said: -- Hey hambeak's partner. I don't know if you are still up reading or if you just had to vent, but I feel you. Some of us in his situation have different ways to deal with it, but most of us will justify our families' behavior to some extent because we understand where they are coming from or we used to be like that ourselves. It's really especially frustrating to our partners who weren't exposed to the bizzare world of witnesses. People that hear the stories are like, whoa, that's crazy! But people that have to live with us in the aftermath really see how sick and wrong and cruel it is. Hambeak is fortunate to have you on his side. --

So true! So very true! Yet, as seen by the person who has been so personally affected as Gary's partner, one of the single most repulsive things seen by the outsider and NEVER understood is the whole 'shunning' aspect of their beliefs. While most of us who were once Witnesses engaged this facet of behavior ourselves while Witnesses and fully understood that it was expected, there are some who did it while privately not agreeing with it. It runs against human nature to cut someone off who has allegedly made a mistake instead of showing them compassion and trying to encourage them through their alleged 'sin' state of mind. The fact is though that with each shunned person who is so vehemently treated there are those looking on who WILL NEVER become a Witness because of that! And that circle of NEVER GONNA BE's grows exponentially with the exposure of the shunned one to nonWitnesses who see nothing wrong with the individual being shunned and the effects of the shunning on the individual. This effects those who the shunned one works with, socializes with, neighbors with, shops with, etc. I have a daughter [the one who we went to bat with because her step father abused her..we legally adopted her after we were all tossed out of the Org] and a granddaughter who live here in this very small town. The last time I saw my granddaughter was 7 yrs ago when we disassociated from the Org. Her mother remains married to her elder husband and on the active rolls, though from what I have heard from nonWitnesses who we have in common she is not necessarily living a Witness life by going to meetings or out in the ministry...she is playing the 'sick' card. Because it is such a fundamental aspect of their belief system that mankind is so far removed from perfection as this system progresses, being ill is like a confirmation of their religious doctrine so the more ill you claim to be the more excusable your lack of 'Witness' activity is because you trade off the meeting attendance and field service for being so imperfect!

Also, I am the president of a local non profit organization who manages a staff of around 10. One of the office staff is a Witness. The Witness must communicate with me because it is 'business' but the board of directors and fellow staff are beside themselves that there is so obvious a case of shunning and they all know me...they know I don't do anything that is considered 'sinning' except that I disagree with the JW doctrine adamantly! To me, this is the best tool for a former Witness to have in their arsenal! It serves as a visual and tangible example of a destructive doctrine which creates in the onlooker a firm grasp of what they would never want to personally experience.

I am so sorry for the pain this doctrine causes the individuals who are being shunned because whether we understand it or not we still have feelings and in so many cases are far and away not really so 'evil' as this sort of behavior suggests. Let me join the cast here in sending you my sincere condolences for having to see the effects on someone you love and especially because you know your partner is so undeserving of this. This is like a prophalactic shot for you...seeing this and understanding its devastation on your partner hopefully will create antibodies in you against ever falling prey to this religion and especially this doctrine.

May God bless you both and bring you healing peace in abundance.

21

would you call someone or go to their house to discuss concerns with WT?

by truthsearcher in

jw
friends

i wonder would you call someone or go to their house to discuss concerns that you are having with the wt?

is that a scary thought?

under what conditions would you consider it?

mama bear

Troubledmind said: As for me this past year has been hard , I feel the need to talk to someone face to face . I appreciate all the support on here , but I really can't express myself as clearly sometimes as I would be able to in person .

Talking to someone face to face is an essential part of the process of healing. I think it is getting the thoughts swept out of our minds and spoken for our ears to hear. However, it does not have to be someone who has been a Witness, though that would be one resource. I actually had my loving husband who had taken every step as a Witness with me. But what I found personally with sharing with the former Witnesses was the commisserating did not move me beyond my sense of loss. What helped me was to just tell folks I met and who may have known I was a witness that I left. I was no more. I had a couple of women who were deeper than others and who knew there was a story and wanted to let me vent to help with the healing process. This works a work of good too because they see first hand the traumatic affect living that lifestyle has on the person and it solidifies their stand NEVER to go there. These days everyone has a friend of family member who is or was a Witness and the peculiar behaviors are all noted by outsiders. Questions from those outside are an inevitability and when they hear the answers they are just dumb founded. For you, to help you heal, talking to a live person is a natural course of action. Believe it or not, there is a time when you move past the hurt, past the deep sense of loss, like a huge wound that has healed and will always be a little more tender than anywhere else on your body and has the biggest ugliest scar, this part of our past does takes its place in the stream of things that stretched from our birth to eternity. Just remember what Solomon finally concluded....there is a time for every season ... a time to cry...you will have a time to laugh....a time to tear down...you will have a time to build up....a time rip apart....you will have a time to heal. On the other side of your own personal experience is a much better LIGHT....it doesn't get brighter it is already the LIGHT of the world!

29

Breaking it to my grandparents

by AirDuster in

so i've been deciding for the past year or so whether or not i want to stay in this religion, and i have decided that i do not.

i plan on telling my grandparents (whom i live with) this very soon, possibly tomorrow.

of course i can't be just like "i don't want to be a jehovah's witness anymore", but rather "i don't believe in this anymore, and here are the reasons why".

mama bear

----->>>Hi: Are you baptized? If so, will your grandparents turn you in to the elders? This could leave you out in the cold in more ways then one. If you do want to go ahead and tell them how you feel, keep to one of two topics and avoid getting confentational. <<<-------

One other thing to bear in mind, depending on the status of your grandfather, whether he himself is an elder, serves on the body, etc, there may be an effort made to meet with you to 'encourage' you to rethink your choices. During this meeting, while their goal is to 'correct' your thinking, they will be collecting 'evidence' of your degree of 'standing off, away from' which may be used if they find and agree that your presence in the congregation may pose a threat. First and foremost, they will want to meet with you to dissuade you from departing. Failing that effort however their next line of reasoning is to build a case for cutting you off from the congregation, even though you are not baptised! We've all heard those wonderful annoucements...'so and so is no longer a publisher' which is 'truthspeak' for 'they are not baptised so we cannot disfellowship but they have engaged in activities that were they baptised they would be removed so treat them as though they have'. That's the time when the teen in the audience whose name has just been spoken over the p.a. system wishes they would have simply 'marked' them instead of blown them out of the circle of 'friends'.

I hope things go well with you and that the wonderful and warm suggestions posted here from others have provided you with some food for thought. In all that you do...remember, God and the Organization are not synonymous...you can love ONE without allegience/affliation to/with the other.

12

Reflectionslooking through the mirror of time

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

reflectionslooking through the mirror of time looking back in retrospect to the person that i once was, there.

were a number of things regarding my past witness life that.

were disagreeable to me.

mama bear

What do you see when you look into the mirror?

When you look in the mirror do you still see that angry
bitter person?

I was never angry. I chose to be a Witness. I can only hold myself responsible for allowing my mind to be clouded with pictures of flowers, forests and wild animals as my future reality. What I became angry [or perhaps strong sense of betrayal] about was after I left and found out about the whole UN thing, the REAL story about BLOOD, the Stock in REGI, reflecting on the many doors and the many lives I preached to over the years bravely touting the UN as the Wild Beast, NO BLOOD as God sanctioned, and being NEUTRAL where armaments of war were concerned. What a fool I felt like when I learned of their deceit. I was simply ticked at the deceit. Today, I am angered when I see a Witness who behaves in an unacceptable way and I know they are Witnesses knowing the whole time we were it was wrong to bring reproach upon the Org or "Jehovah" yet some guy can pull into a parking lot, walk into a business office and complain about someone's dog chasing his car while he was out 'in the territory' and expecting the office personnel to call the police! With a danged cell phone hanging off his hip! And pulls into the 'handicap' parking spot while he grinds and drones on to the office staff! Then this guy drives up and down the street while we are trying to have our board meeting 'waiting for the police to arrive' because someone's dog chased his danged car! Then after it is all over with, he slips out of his tie and talks like some trucker with a trashy mouth to one of our staff! Uh huh...and the office admin assistant is a member of his congregation, HELLO! It just insences me that proper decorum was always expected of us if we wanted to be used in the congregation, reaching out for privileges and stuff like this happens! Not angry for being a witness...just really ticked that we took it all way too seriously we think.

Have you made any progress since discovering
the Watchtower hoax?

Oh yes...my sense of humor has become acute! My husband always has cracked me up but every once in awhile something happens and his dry wit just causes the biggest belly laugh! It is always a picture of us all dressed up in our 'Witness Garb' doing our 'Witness best..you know the whole souled...thing?' that he manages to create the humor relief from. It is essential that we can laugh at ourselves for being so gullible!

What improvements have you made since leaving the
organization behind?

Interestingly, our spirituality is keener, our integrity is purer, our morality is finer, we have learned to accept people without judging them, A REALLY BIG THING...we have learned to embrace differences and relish the wonders of others. We do not go to church...well except on Christmas Eve...yeah..we became 'holiday Christians'. Only then because I love the pomp and tradition. Big fan of RED! In our family, the biggest changes..we have been able to reconnect with siblings, children, parents, nieces, nephews we were not able to associate with before because of their stand 'against' the Org. I guess, for us, the improvements have been in person to person areas. Being able to really connect with a total stranger without having an agenda and a desire to control the individual through preaching. Being able to really just sit back and listen to the thoughts of others and enjoy their uniqueness and individuality. Being able to exercise critical thinking and seeing positive results.

69

Did you ever think you'd stop being one of Jehovah's Witnesses?

by sandy in

i'm sure this question has been asked before .

i've come a long way in my thinking.

a very long way!

mama bear

Thank you for asking this pointed question. It is cleansing actually. I was a teen, with a toddler and a head filled with idealism when I was first contacted. I had come from a religiously challenged family with no particular doctrine or tradition or structure and married a man from Catholicism who was very devout as a youth but turned way off by the time I met him. I dragged him to church to create a cohesive family life I decided I wanted through worship of God. When the JW's called at my door and came in and answered all my questions and introduced me to the Bible and to God [albeit a wrong God] I was literally thrilled! Alas I had found the way to be a family united in worship! I was a sponge and there was nothing they could ask I would not comply with even envying those who'd been associated all their lives! We spent 15 yrs being most obedient, connected in the center, part of the scene of our congregation....then....we happened onto a dirty little secret that being the good little Witnesses we were required we take to the body only to be told that we were to leave it alone and not to muddy the waters...the dirty little secret? A 14 yr old 'sister' [our daughter's age] had been routinely sexually molested with her mother's knowledge by her stepfather who served as an elder in our congregation! And they did not want to muddy the waters! Long story short...we wound up on the short end of disfellowshipping because our naivete led us to believe that she should be protected from this pervert and because we would not leave it alone we were shown the back room and then relegated to the back row! With family and friends all JW's and our whole world till then being fully and centrically focused on the WTS we were nomads in a very strange land. However, work associates came to our aid, lovingly supporting us through this experience...we stayed out 8 yrs before returning. FOOLS though we were for returning we always felt being a JW was the only life for us and we felt since we'd done nothing to justify being disfellowshipped we would not turn our backs on HIM!

We came back, were reinstated and it was really a good thing...it was the next 10 yrs that proved to choke off any and all affection, loyalty, innocence, and adherence to the org. A series of idiotic and unbelievable events were set in motion which when they all came to bear were so twilight zonian that I had to just simply acknowledge things were definitely not right in Dodge City...and beat a hasty retreat. We disassociated in 1999 leaving behind close friends and family of 3 decades and find ourselves even to this day giggling at the simple things we do freely we would be in hot water for doing were we still Witnesses...like VOTING on Tuesday! Like prepping for CHRISTMAS...like wishing someone a HAPPY BDAY...like discussing POLITICS and TAKING A SIDE! Oh the joys of just being a normal citizen of these United States like everyone else and not feeling like a sore thumb! Glory to God for FREEDOM IN CHRIST!

15

In the beginning ... was the Watchtower Society

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

in the beginning ... was the watchtower society after last night's thread concerning whether or not individuals on.

this discussion board hated jehovah's witnesses, it was found.

that the vast majority did not.. .

mama bear

Did "Pastor" Russell have a good motivation in the
beginning regarding the Watchtower Society?
Do you think it was "Judge" Rutherford that corrupted
the organization?
What is you overall viewpoint on the matter?

After spending 28 yrs there, having studiously devoured all the early materials, Faith on The March, the Studies in the Scriptures, historical data provided in and out of the org, and trying to be 'fair and balanced' now, I think Pastor Russell was genuinely seeking his own spiritual enlightenment and no doubt within his own relationship with God was granted answers which worked best for him. I know he penned some far out stuff and frankly when compared to others who sought spiritual enlightenment like Matthew Henry, etc, what he wrote was not even in the same league. But, as to his motive, I think his heart was sincere. It seems his lack of humility and his desire to be confrontational in debating his own findings and assumptions with other leaders may have laid the ground work for what would become the ultimate confrontational alleged 'Christian' religion which to date is still printing inflammatory materials such as the latest KN. I don't think he is any worse than some of the others who were about and developing their own following back then but when you look at the exposition of such writers as Matthew Henry in comparison to anything ever penned by Pastor Russell or anyone succeeding him --- the evidence suggests he may have been more a kin to the Pharisees in his approach to study of God's Word.

The Judge..Knorr, Fred Franz, these folks took a left turn and moved away from any semblance of traditional Christianity and left Articles of Incorporation and By Laws in their respective wakes.

My viewpoint is that I am in such a better place emotionally, psychologically and mentally away from that life than ever I was while 'in' that life. Seeking God, reading HIS Word, loving HIS Son, enjoying HIS Spirit, appreciating HIS Creation, being free to love 'people' from all walks of life and with their own sense of values and not being confined to choosing my friends from within a select group of look alike people makes for a far more exciting and fulfilling life. I do not need men to tell me what to think, believe nor how to behave, dress, speak, or address another. I had a lot of fun discovering I had my own will and my own mind after 28 yrs of submission to the authority of the 'org'.

My apologies..I went to change the color of the text and for some reason the only option is red! Guess I wil have to study this forum a little.