A fake part of you died. You shed it like a reptile sheds old skin. It feels so much better when that load is gone. Happy one year anniversary! My one year mark is coming up soon, too.
Bonsai
JoinedPosts by Bonsai
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22
One year of being free
by Israel Ricky Gonzales inone year ago, this thursday, i went to work as usual.
i got home, ate dinner, got myself dressed for the meeting, and helped my kids get ready like i usually did.. my son had a talk that evening, his second one.
many of my family went to support him.
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Resistance is NOT futile!
by Bonsai inall i want from this life is to be able to wash windows at bethel.. my story.. when i was fresh out of high school and pioneering, i said those exact words to my friends and family.
all i wanted to do was be at the core of the organization where it was the safest.
i gleefully told people that i'd gladly spend the rest of my life washing windows, waiting tables, doing laundry or cleaning bathrooms.
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Bonsai
Sir82, laying flowers on the casket is a Buddhist ritual at funerals to prepare the deceased individual's soul for departure. In Japan, there is a strict, concerted effort to remove any Buddhist tendencies from JW's. I suspect some who put down the flowers did so without knowing about this ritual. When they were reprimanded they showed an unrepentant spirit and were df'd for it. -
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Yet more trolley (in)activity
by konceptual99 ini am currently having to spend a little time waiting for an appointment in the vicinity of a central london station.
whilst waiting i am catching up on some work in a cafe.
i can see a couple of trolleys and have been watching them for around an hour now.. not one person has stopped to take literature.
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Bonsai
I remember doing the trolley work, standing at a train station, hoping that people would walk by without noticing me. Very very few people stopped to talk. Even fewer took any literature. It was a great way to get time in, though. -
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Resistance is NOT futile!
by Bonsai inall i want from this life is to be able to wash windows at bethel.. my story.. when i was fresh out of high school and pioneering, i said those exact words to my friends and family.
all i wanted to do was be at the core of the organization where it was the safest.
i gleefully told people that i'd gladly spend the rest of my life washing windows, waiting tables, doing laundry or cleaning bathrooms.
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Bonsai
Thanks for your comments everyone. Here are a few more random observations that led to my awakening:
***The son of the deceased father was an elder. He was also disfellowshipped shortly after the funeral. Can you imagine losing your father and then being disfellowshipped yourself?
***I remember there was a sister who used to like practicing her English with me. She wrote a short book of bible poems that she was going to publish. The elders got together with her and discouraged her from publishing it. They said she would be taking due attention away from the Christ appointed organization and give undue attention to herself. This sister has battled terrible depression and is now battling breast cancer.
***In the country that I live in, up until very recently, df'd ones were assigned seats in the back row.
There is so much more that has contributed toward my disgust for all things JW, but I can only reveal them in bits and peices.
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Resistance is NOT futile!
by Bonsai inall i want from this life is to be able to wash windows at bethel.. my story.. when i was fresh out of high school and pioneering, i said those exact words to my friends and family.
all i wanted to do was be at the core of the organization where it was the safest.
i gleefully told people that i'd gladly spend the rest of my life washing windows, waiting tables, doing laundry or cleaning bathrooms.
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Bonsai
Zeb, according to the JW's putting a flower on a casket is an ancient pagan custom to honor and worship the dead. -
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Babylon the Great and the Anti Christ
by Perry insimilar views as those presented here are gaining in popularity in christian circles.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgmrfatdvtm.
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Bonsai
I am Groot!!! We are Groot! -
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BURNING AMBITION by Jehovah's Witness YOUTH: "I want to clean toilets in Bethel for the rest of my life."
by TerryWalstrom inas i have written previously, i crashed a discussion between a young j-dub and his baptist workmate who were having.
a religious debate outside starbucks.
this was months ago.
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Bonsai
Great topic Terry! I was one of those who wanted nothing more in life than to serve in a lowly position at Bethel. This thread inspired me to write my own life story. Thankfully, I never went to Bethel. -
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Resistance is NOT futile!
by Bonsai inall i want from this life is to be able to wash windows at bethel.. my story.. when i was fresh out of high school and pioneering, i said those exact words to my friends and family.
all i wanted to do was be at the core of the organization where it was the safest.
i gleefully told people that i'd gladly spend the rest of my life washing windows, waiting tables, doing laundry or cleaning bathrooms.
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Bonsai
“All I want from this life is to be able to wash windows at Bethel.”
My story.
When I was fresh out of high school and pioneering, I said those exact words to my friends and family. All I wanted to do was be at the core of the organization where it was the safest. I gleefully told people that I'd gladly spend the rest of my life washing windows, waiting tables, doing laundry or cleaning bathrooms. For a period of time, I lived, ate, breathed dreams of Bethel. I remember praying so hard for two years on end to get in there. Nobody in my family (which has a long history with this religion) had ever served there before, so I wanted to make history.
I remember I was 20, basically broke and without any useful skill because they had pounded into our heads that those who serve Jehovah full time get the biggest and best of his blessings. I was a pioneer, construction labor rat, and an MS to boot. I thought my future was secure. I was going to Bethel - the house that God built.
Problem was: I could pound nails and polish windows like the best of em', but I had no specific skill or training that could make me useful. My friend was just as useless as I was in that sense. We both wanted to go to bethel, both were the same age, same school etc. The difference was his parents had both gone to Bethel, he had other uncles and aunts serving in Bethel as well. I had no such connections, but I knew that Jehovah knew how badly I wanted to go to serve him and bring joy to my family and congregation.
My friend and I both applied at roughly the same time. Six months later, he was accepted. I was left hanging. I waited two years with hope gushing that I would get in. Finally, the realization set in that there must be something wrong with me. Those two long years of being neither rejected or accepted really disappointed me. I wanted closure. Finally I gave up in my heart and moved to a foreign country to pioneer.
The disappointment of that experience didn't really hit me until years later. I had things to do in the mean time: be a need greater, find a wonderful sister, tackle new languages, bring others into the truth etc. Being busy kept me from thinking about any doubts I had of God or the organization.
Years later several events happened that little by little began to wake me up. In 2004, roughly 2000 miles from where I was living there was a massive Tsunami that wiped out entire villages. The wanton destruction made me miserable. In 2011 there was a massive earthquake/tsunami in Japan. I kept watching videos on the news and on tv over and over asking myself why god does nothing to protect or at least warn humans from imminent natural disasters that only he could know would happen. I was very troubled by them. I took my troubles to the COBE and asked him to explain why God wasn't sinning when in his own word at Proverbs 3:27 we are commanded to “Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it's in your power to help them.”
What the elder said disturbed me. He said that God had the power to choose to see or not see future events. He could put on special blinders that blocked him from seeing into the future, therefore he didn't know that such disasters would happen. This explanation was unsettling because even a layman such as myself knew that earthquakes don't just happen. As tectonic plates rub up against each other friction and pressure builds. There are many small tectonic tremors that build up before the event. God would know what was going to happen before it happened. Yet he stood by and watched as babies were crushed, electrocuted or swept away.
Natural disasters disturbed me but didn't break my faith. After the Japan Tsunami and earthquake there was a scandal involving several congregations locally. A former elder died. At his funeral, somebody put a bucket of roses and assorted flowers by his casket. Well, somebody got it in their head to put a flower on top of the casket as they paid there last respects. The others in line decided to copy and each, in turn, put a flower on the casket. Well, when the C.O. later found out about this he was furious. Heads rolled. People were df'd, lost privileges, interrogated for weeks on end. The hammer came down hard on numerous individuals from numerous congregations who attended the funeral that day. I remember one meeting where a crying pioneer sister screamed out loud suddenly “Are they going to disfellowship us?! What's going to happen to us?” It took several sisters to calm her down. I found the inhumane way people were treated then to be very Pharisaical and unloving. i was beginning to see the pharisaical elements of the organization in its treatment of those who were df'd.
One of my workmates was an atheist, former Catholic who hated religion and especially he reserved a special hatred for JW's. We often clashed and debated and argued, much to the angst of others in the office. He was very knowledgeable about TTATT as he had studied up on the JW religion. Preaching to him exposed me to TTATT. I went home and naturally began to research his accusations in order to refute them. Little could be found in the publications, so I went online. The rest, as they say, is history. As soon as I learned of the scandals and falsehoods in the organization I quit going to meetings.
The wife and I battled over my position. Finally, she researched on her own to refute what I was saying. She learned TTATT and is now inactive. Thankfully she hates hypocrisy just as much as I do. We are happy to be free from the organizational rat race, which has no finish line. You either drop out of the race to live your own life, guided by your own conscience, or you drop dead while turning a lap.
My whole life I have been a "Yes man". Now I've learned to toe the line, man up and say no. I say no to child sacrifices. I say no to shunning loved ones and those who have different beliefs. I say no to fear, guilt and obligation. I say no to promoting half truths and outright false teachings. I say no to the "magnificent seven" who try to tell me how to live my life from their insular, cozy ivory tower.
I want to thank all of you for the support and knowledge that I have gained since joining this site a year ago. I am getting the therapy I need from here. I raise a glass to all of you ( atheists, theists, gays and lesbians, guys and gals) and wish you a long, happy, meaningful life. Also, a special thanks to Simon for running this site.
Warm regards,
Mr. and Mrs. Bonsai
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Family Reuinion and Being Disfellowshipped (sorry...but it's long)
by babygirl30 init has been a long looong time since i posted on here, but never ceased reading all the posts and keeping up on the changes that have been going on!
but it just seems that now i have a need to get something off my chest, and this is the one place that will most definitely understand the topic at hand.
i have been disfellowshipped for about 8yrs now, and have dealt with the 'consequences' of that decision: all my so-called friends in the org left and i was also abandoned by my own family.
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Bonsai
I'd write a scathing letter to your father and send a copy of it to your other non-JW family members. Let your father squirm as the whole family turns on him for his heartless, loveless attitude. -
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Jesus Christ explains the particle used in my cosmology theory using parables in the bible.
by Aleon ini wrote a cosmology theory using an expanding particle shaped as a perfect sphere.
in the bible jesus christ speaks of this particle in his parables.
this is good news!.
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Bonsai
Sorry if I seem disrespectful, but your target audience to publicize your book has already been inflicted by many pains because of those who think they have a unique spin on the bible. And yes, I humbly admit that your theory is too difficult for me to... "handle".