What kind of pics were there? Could you give me more information about that display?
There was this Kiosk or display off the waiting room where you waited to go on tour. They had a display of photos and JW memoribilia from the early days of the organization. Like a mini museum, it showed old photos of long dead little kids and adults wearing sandwich signs announcing the nearness of the King and his Kingdom being established kind of stuff. Old book bags and old literature that isn't used anymore because the information is incorrect. It had a display of the old phonographs they used to use at the doors, photos of imprisioned Witnesses and old literature etc. I had the feeling that all these people in the photographs who believed they wouldn't die are gone now and all the hardships they suffered because of the "Truth" was for nothing. If they lived today, they wouldn't have had to be so hard core about everything and many of their beliefs would have had to be "adjusted". It made me wonder depressingly if someday when we're all gone if people in the future would be gazing at the items we use today as we rearrange our lives for this organization and await armageddons arrival. There was a palpable air of an altered state of reality there at Bethel that I had forgotten about until I returned. Yes, everything was very nice...very clean etc but it was like a funeral parlor. Artificial flower arrangements, occasional tables and comfy wing backed chairs, very stuffy old lady style that sent the message that one should sit up straight and be on ones best behavior. Everyting looked like those idealistic photos in the magazines very studied and very much trying to send some underlying message or give the impression that they are a perfect organization. There was something very off putting about it. There were other groups of JW waiting for thier tour dressed in assembly clothes who were all a twitter because they thought they were in God's waiting room.
Anyway, I thought it was just me that was getting weird vibes until this sister turns around and said she wanted to get out of there. She said " I know that they work really hard here and we're supposed to be appreciative but I just don't want to spend any more time in here." Later my Wife and boys said they felt the same way.
