a blast from the pass.. top left row.. demetrious barmetler and his wife.
jimmy kennedy who was killed at ruby falls and his wife who was pregnant at the time of his death.. bottom row left.. me, gary kennedy at his wedding, jack sutton my bethel roommate and his wife hedy, who died for refusing a blood transfusion.. .
.
i happen to run into a couple of elders and one of their bible studies was with them.
after we said our formal greetings to each other we caught up on each other’s history.
somehow the conversation took a turn into politics.
In the end back any JW into a corner were they might have to use reason and logic and this catchphrase will kick in.
The magic words that make everything alright, the placebo!
this forum was a lifeline to me when my world was unraveling.
i thought for a while that my experience was unique and my story important.
something close to 20 years have past and my life is happily, largely drama free.
"I referred to the JW Org as a "church" deliberately. Professional councilors say a major step becoming free of the control is dropping the jargon and trigger words."
Well said. Of course they never wanted to call themselves as a "Church" they consider themselves superior to that.
You can call something feces, or excrement but in the end it is still just shit.
They don't like being called a "church" or a "cult" yet the are both.
and i don’t mean eddie money’s paradise.... you just can’t make this stuff up.
.
There is no food served on board....but all the Kool-Aid you can drink!
i was in new york city last week.
the first time in many years.
one couldn't help but notice how many people there are in the world, thousands, millions....billions.. any major city in the world can give you this sense of the vast sea of humanity.
I was in New York City last week. The first time in many years. One couldn't help but notice how many people there are in the world, thousands, millions....billions.
Any major city in the world can give you this sense of the vast sea of humanity.
Lots of people with their own unique stories, children and families that need attention, yes people with the same concerns and worries we all have.
Before as a Jehovah's Witness when I live in New York, I could only look at these people as the walking dead. As the vast majority of them would soon be killed off by my god.
Eight Billion people on the planet and eight million Jehovah's Witnesses....so in New York City or anywhere on the planet for that fact I would only be able to find one person for ever 1,000 people seen that would be my brother, a fellow survivor of the promised coming massacre. Looking at these people and their families walking down the street one could only think that this was a sad ratio for sure.
This last week I saw these people, this vast hoard of humanity in a different light. Had they change some how? No of course not.... I had.
I saw these people in a new light.
These people are not different then me. The are me! There is no "us and them" there is only us!
I was no longer one special person in a 1,000. I was one person of a 1,000 people.
People like myself all wonderfully and divinely unique. The vast brotherhood of mankind.
Yes, I had taken the red pill for sure and there would no more Kool-Aid for me now.
interesting read in the new york times book review.
food for thought on a subject 3rd gen and i have discussed between ourselves and with our daughter.
in our case, the answer is yes.
For me the the last line in the movie Platoon as the wounded Chris is air vac out of the hell of Vietnam said it all. He is looking down at the carnage and death below him he thinks....
"I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy, we fought ourselves, and the enemy was in us. The war is over for me now, but it will always be there, the rest of my days. But be that as it may, those who did make it have an obligation to build again. To teach to others what we know, and to try with whats left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life."
Chris Taylor
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27078092/collison-retires-nba-31-focus-faith .
The good news at least they will all get a part on district convention on how they turned their back on fame and fortune to join the people who will be digging graves for all the other worldly pro ball players.
we all know that jw who would still believe if tony morris killed a baby on the roof of wallkill and put it on the internet.
for those people will there come a time when they will see or do you think someone so deep in a cult will never come to realize its all a lie.
Maybe if one of the governing body wrote a book about how corrupt the organization is that might do it.....oh I guess someone did that.
the last lines from the movie platoon.
"i think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy, we fought ourselves, and the enemy was in us.
the war is over for me now, but it will always be there, the rest of my days.
"That was the end of my religious period. I haven't sung a hymn in 103 years," Jack Crab Little Big Man
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27078092/collison-retires-nba-31-focus-faith .
I was in a congregation that J J Burton was in. He was a pro football player for the Atlanta Falcons who gave it all up because of pressure from his JW mother.
