OLK, Welcome.
I really hope your Mom will think how beautiful her toleration is and how void the WTBTS is.
Your post was a delight of clear thinking, marching out one thought following another--to action.
Maeve
im a long-time lurker turned member, finally felt the need to share my experience with people who know where im coming from.
will try to be as succinct as possible!.
am from the uk and was born in as 3rd generation.
OLK, Welcome.
I really hope your Mom will think how beautiful her toleration is and how void the WTBTS is.
Your post was a delight of clear thinking, marching out one thought following another--to action.
Maeve
i posted this on the private board 2 years ago but now don't care who sees this as i'm no longer in hiding from the wbt$ cult members.. these are transcripts of the 2 letters i recieved leading up to my being da'd (not df'd), for apostacy(tm).
dear punk.
i am aware that you have requested that there be no contact from the congregation, but there is an outstanding matter that needs to be resolved, and we would like to have your co-operation in resolving it.. .
Punk,
Is this like a "break-up" letter where he/she can see the marriage is obviously in the crapper and doesn't want to hear the reasons why it is? This is so obviously a one-sided matter, only one side's interest of concern. It reflects a lack of appreciation for the psycological suffering that has to be felt by the one who has been going down.
Why do these elders have to make themselves so emotionally dead?
When the Org. does this it corrupts the congregations. IF they would be open to talk how different things would be! But this way they are clean, pure and holy--my way or the hiway. The elders have to have new hearts to do this work-- the hearts of butchers.
We who are expelled at least have a chance to recover. They do not.
I forgot--have they been worried about you since? (Mine haven't looked me up)
anyhow, take care
Maeve
my first special pioneer assignment.- part 1.. in australia, western civilization is a thin strip of land, that hugs the coast.
all the major cities are on the coast.
i grew up on the east coast of australia where the great dividing range, as its called, runs parallel to the coast, and limits the extension of cities like sydney and brisbane.
FTS,
That is a great story and well told.
You may have referenced this in another thread, namely the absolute reason(s) you scuttled the "Truth".
I myself have lived much of my married life in situations as you describe and found some of the exhortations and examples in the literature to be unrealistic. No plumbing, many children and no gas money and chores at home a-plenty. Yet I found the "Jesus teachings" to be invaluable in living with neighbors of all sorts.
I told the elders one time that my own experience was like "Legion" in the gospels. Healed of spirit, not allowed to go with the other disciples---and yet given the commission to go about telling others of the good things he had received at Jesus' hand.
The futility of trying to conform to the requirements of the WT program made me think a lot about what was in the bible and and what was not--so as to find where I and others like me could be a good witness to God even if we were "bad" J-Witness.
That helped me to leave when trouble came later.
I say again, Good story. I doo hope you will tell more of the struggles you saw in the community you were assigned to serve. Life being a struggle, I am sure some of those salty folks had some comments on the kind of spiritual needs they felt and the menu the WTBTS offered.
Thanks for your posts.
Maeve
in the past few weeks, the shunning issue has become a very personal one for me, and i have begun to realize that it is not just enough for me and my family to fade out.
after some recent events, i am motivated to start some anti-watchtower activism of my own.. i, like many others, have hoped that there would be a scandal of epic proportions within the organization, something that would wake others up and trigger a mass exodus.. while i am still hopeful that this may happen, it seems that the organization is too good at damage control, and heightening the paranoia surrounding apostates.. but what if the ex-witness community tried a different approach?.
what if, to borrow a hockey term, a sort of shut out situation was created?.
I occasionally see religious fliers on car windshields or in laundromats, but they can be tedious. With a few illustration-comic book style--it would be read by most who see them.
Your post makes me think.
We used to go door to door with a "Life-saving message" as JWs. Maybe this message of Anti-witnessing would really be lifesaving.
there are a great many fine posts here - and some from 8 years back - detailing how apathetic and perfunctory the organization has become.. and yet, it still stands, doesn't it?.
is there any point to be reached in this apparent 'experiment in sociology' in which they wake up and say 'screw this?
' if they crammed 10 congregations into one hall and stole the money, would any witnesses wake up?
The
The WT has a feature that makes it certain that there will always be some faithful adherents. What other religion has completely segregated the cult object from the common worshipper?
God and Jesus are made remote and unknowable by design. And though some of us had doubts and left there will be others for whom here is no way to know or not-know God unless they are tuned in to the "Channel". These are so indoctrinated that they will never be able to examine their own experience and thoughts of whether God even exists or examine the scriptures with honesty.
They will die as martyrs by slow suffocation.
i am drinking a japanese beer called kirin ichiban right now exploring the wonderful threads of the past here on jwn.
i love this forum so much.. how many here enjoy an adult beverage while browsing jwn?
i love all of you guys :).
I am a lousy typist so I can't drink my beer and type at the same time.
Which is a drag--because I at least fancy I can think when I'm drinking--something that I doubt otherwise.
Maeve-who-loves-her-beer
the bible likens the preaching work to a sacrifice of praise - praise to god.
pioneering is also a sacrifice that involves praise.
it's the sacrifice of a specified number of hours that wins you the praise of men.. when you really analyze the psychology of pioneering it is apparent that the praise of men or prominence before men is at the heart of it.
Good point, quelly. Anonymous like donations. Why not?
so... recently lost my favorite aunt, mother of my favorite cousin- she was a "witness" when she died.
inactive, but still a witness.
who lived with my witness mother and stepdad.
NewYork44M,
I do think it's like that. You have already had to accept their loss. The grieving has past.
My clue was from my non-JW husband whose mother YEARS ago moved across the country to be near her only daughter and then dried up as far as her two sons and their families were concerned. She had so completely dried up that when my husband drove to California to help clear out her house (daughter had died), her neighbors were shocked to learn she had sons--she never mentioned them.
She had money to travel--the sons and families scraped to get by. She had her own world.
Theirs was a grief passed before she died.
this is a topic that i was always uncomfortable with, but, as a good indoctrinated jw got myself to accept the spin.
of course, now that i am out, when i speak with other "christian" friends, they make the same excuses.
god's ways are above our ways ... okay, sure ... but really???.
"Well-founded, cogent, true, admirable" is one of the several dictionary definitions for the word "good".
As I was scrolling down the thread i was glad to see ADCMS hold up Perry's insistence on finding a common ground for defining "God".
But there must be a shared definition of GOOD as well as GOD.
Do they fit together, Perry?
greetings, fellow posters!.
movies can easily show emotion on an actor's face, or depict what he's thinking by his actions.
not so easily in writng.
Nancy-drew-pictures.^^^^^^^^ to show and not tell.
"Kickin' back in the sun in margaritaville--palmtrees and --where's my lime?"
Good times.
Rip, we'll write the body-snatchers out of the script and take back your writers' colony!