afew days before the memorial the phone calls started.....i even had a long message left on my answering machine while me and my wife were "busy" in the bedroom.....it was very distracting.
i could hear "memorial blah blah if you want to go blah blah or call this number sister blah blah she went on for five minutes!...the next afternoon because i shift work i was having a snooze before the memorial and knock knock knock......i get up blurred eyes and all and yes witnesses reminding me for the 100th time there is a memorial on..."sorry i'll let you go back to sleep.
" at the memorial this same brother yells at me from his car in the dark carpark.
Hi Witness 007,
Our k/halls are not to far away from each other. In fact, I am certain from some of your earlier posts that our territory borders meet along the Yarra river somewhere!
And yes, I got the insincere love bombing/missing you/great to see you with your family/hope to see you more often crap as well!
Mattieu.
to any jehovahs witness reading this i ask....do you really "abstain from blood?
" the bible makes a clear statement at acts 15 doesn't it?
yet today hemophiliac jehovahs witnesses can use "worldly" blood for their clotting treatments which may use 10 bags per treatment.
Hi Witness 007,
I have asked a few witnesses to explain to me the current stand on blood issues, they had no idea what was acceptable and wasn’t. They all reached the same conclusion: in an emergency we will contact the HLC.
I thought how dumb can you be, on such a serious matter involving your life and your children’s, you will leave it up to a stranger on some committee to decide whether you will live or die depending on what the society currently approves!
I don’t mean to offend anyone who has/is served on a HLC, but I know three elders who serve on the HLC. They were not chosen for their medical education (they had none) but rather their spiritual disposition (all three a career/climbing corporate ladder elders). Over a bottle of wine one night with one of these elders, I asked many questions about blood/alternatives/society flip flops/new light…. ( I went prepared) This elder had no answers, kept wanting to get out the manual!
Whilst he (and I think you know him and his extended family Witness 007) has good intentions, he just couldn’t see the absurdity of what the society is doing to its followers. Ok, big breath now, I was getting worked up! Mattieu (who hasn’t carried a blood card for 3 years now, shhh, no one knew).
" (matt.
(a) why are those conscious of their spiritual need happy?
meetings.--matt.
Hi Blondie,
A big personal thank you for your research and preparing these comments. I always used to get to work on a Monday morning and sit down with a coffee and eagerly read your comments and the feedback from other members.
Now as a newbie, I am sitting down at home poring over them whilst my wife is going through the w/t at the k/hall right now, ironic, I enjoy you conducting it so much more!
In regards to your personal experience:
I have had 4 elders scream at me, and believe me I had not done anything to provoke it and had people standing by that witnessed it
Some may find that hard to fathom, but I have witnessed the same thing and other experiences that you walk away thinking that no one would believe me if I told them what I saw, I still shake my head at what I have seen.
Keep up the excellent work, Mattieu.
stutterer?
i have been lurking in the shadows for a while now i just got my account from the fine administrators of this board.
i have really enjoyed reading the well thought out comments and critiques of the wts doctrine.. i have been around the wts since i was 5 i left for a while during high school got to live a little worldly/normal life then got sucked back in.
my wife has been raised in the truth and even though weve been inactive (for a while now), she still has thoughts about the earthly hope and seeing her grandparents some day.
From one newbie to another, glad you took the same step as me, welcome!
Mattieu.
we have an italian cong that shares the hall with 2 english congs.
an elder from the italian cong makes the wine & bread every year for quite a few of the congs in melbourne.. after the last memorial is held in our hall, the wine is taken back to this elders house where certain privileged ones are invited back for some socialising and to drink a very nice drop of red wine!
as well as the usual assortment of cheese platters and crunchy bread.. we were privileged enough to be invited back a few years ago, but the whole idea didnt seem to sit well with me, so we took a raincheck and never got invited back again.
We have an Italian cong that shares the hall with 2 English cong’s. An elder from the Italian cong makes the wine & bread every year for quite a few of the cong’s in Melbourne.
After the last memorial is held in our hall, the wine is taken back to this elders house where certain privileged ones are invited back for some socialising and to drink a very nice drop of red wine! As well as the usual assortment of cheese platters and crunchy bread.
We were “privileged” enough to be invited back a few years ago, but the whole idea didn’t seem to sit well with me, so we took a raincheck and never got invited back again. It was deemed to be a special privilege to be invited back and share in the wine that was used in the memorial.
Does this wacky use of the red wine happen anywhere else?
i can remember being at many of the ca and dc and hearing those talks about the people that had left the org.
and then came back.
usually it was supposedly quoting a handwritten letter that we never got to see or an.
Hi Stonewall,
If only I would read the earlier publications I coulda found out about C.T.Russells involvement with Numerology and Pyramidology
If only I had listened to others when they tried to tell me about Beth Sarim in San Diego,Calif. and J.F.Rutherfords Mansion
If only I knew that 1914 wasn't the first date that was picked for Christ return. (evidently he's returned a lot accordig to WT)
If only I had followed my Dad's advice and went to college (dad wasn't a witness but mom was)
If only I hadn't distanced myself from my non-witness family members considering them bad association according to WT
If only I woulda listened to my conscience and not kept shelving stuff that didn't make sense and instead kept looking for answers
I think we have lived the same life, Mattieu
but im not.
i have lost everything.. i am a third generation jw on both sides of my family.
all of my family is in full time service, pioneers, elders, cos, international construction, anointed and gb.
aprocryphal22,
Hang in there, life & circumstances will get better, you have to believe that. Whilst my fadeout had brought about some dark feelings, you will reach a time when they are just a distant memory and the load on your shoulders will be eased.
This site was fantastic in helping me go through that period even though I was just a lurker. Take all the comments above as being genuine and from people who have really been through the same emotional roller coaster and more importantly never lose your sense of humour!
i thought rather than everyone start their own topic relating their experience of attending the memorial, we keep it simple and have just one thread.
if anything, it's saves bandwidth.. i will be going to the memorial tonight and will post my experiences afterwards.. all the other memorials i attended, i was an active jw, so this will be my first experience as a submarine witness.
it's weird being on the other side so to speak.
My first memorial as an inactive witness, was told by 3 elders how great it was to see me and big handshakes & smiles all round, now I know what is meant by the "love bomb" terminology. Far from genuine they were, it took me back to when I was an MS and we had all the pre-memorial planning meetings. Instructions to smile a lot, shake as many hands as possible and be all over people we do not recognise.
Our speaker was quite nervous and mentioned how the number of the anointed has been declining! My wife couldn’t look across at me as she could see me smiling and she would have done the same, as we have had a few discussions about the claim in the WT about the number declining. She cant make sense of it either.
The passing of the emblems felt really hollow to me for the first time, particularly as they kept reading 1 Cor 11, but not reading verse 26, which I had my wife do, then asked for her opinion of it after the meeting.
I felt the whole talk was dumbed down, I looked around and guestimated that only 3 or 4 were RV’s or bible studies, the rest were pubs and inactive ones. Yet 90% of the talk is spent explaining why we are here and what is going to take place, the other 10% is a genuine spiritual discourse.
Then a letter is read from the society for the benefit of any interested ones present and we are told that we can only exercise faith in Jesus by participating in the preaching work and studying the bible by means of W/T publications.
Overall, hollow, empty and fake. But good to see a lot of my fading buddies back under one roof again! And yes, enjoyed a nice glass of white wine when I got home!
is there a way to know in any given period of time, like a month or year, how many visit jwd/jwn that are non-members.
so many of the newbies mention they have been "long time lookers"...... that i am now curious.
i can understand why early doubting dubs are prob scared to death at first, since any non-jw material is so taboo...they prob just take a quick peek....then another....then really start reading and looking back on on threads..............oomps.
Hi Oompa, thanks again for the welcome & the advice you gave me on my first post about not giving away too much personal info. Pleasure to finally be in touch with you after enjoying your post's for a long time. I met a C/O from North or South Carolina once, when I can think of his name I will pm you.
Yes, I was a long time lurker, once I verified many of the things being said here, I sunk my teeth into a lot of the old posts, many thanks to Lady Lee for her work in that department.
Mattieu.
