i am bringing this up because even it was a lot of work, for the majority of the friends this was a rewarding experience.
camaraderie, joking, costumes, props and when the time came the celebrity status of being in the drama.. back in the 50s and 60s, conventions could be as long as 8 days and from about 1966 the dramas became an integral part of the program.
we had one per day and the brothers looked forward to their presentation.
I was a stagehand in a drama and also played the part of a rock in one key scene.
The Dramas were fun to be part of because they gave a good sized group of people something to work together on that was considered by their peers to be a noble effort.
As far as the drama's being successful, this was mostly because they were a welcome alternative to the drone of a stodgy old unlettered and ordinary man, reading off some canned talk hour after hour....day after day.
my husband and i have been out for a long time, maybe fifteen years, i must say we are in a bit of a nowhere land spiritually, we find it impossible to attend any other church.
we really resent so much of how they messed up our and our children's lives.
we can't get back all those 25 years we were in.
I have felt the way you do. I used to think to myself, I'll move and just go back to a new Hall on my own terms just so I'll have a network of friends again. I'll ignore all the non-sense and never let them have a hold on me....just play along.
Then I come to my senses and realize that:
Perhaps you could sneak in to a meeting somewhere and duck out early just to see if you are remembering things clearly. For me, I just couldn't stomach the repetitive nature of the meetings, the doctrines full of holes, the JW lingo I'd be expected to parrot, explaining why I missed a meeting or a day in service, being expected to give talks and go from door to door. There's also the real life experience with the blood issue that opened my eyes in the first place and the fact that there'd be endless questions, files that would be transferred from my old Hall and the years of suspiciousness one would have to endure before one was truly accepted (if ever).
two documented disturbances during memorial 2016. type 'memorial 2016' on youtube.
please post your favorites too.
my favorite quotations:.
you cannot change what you refuse to confront.. sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.. don’t think of cost.
On the topic of worrying about the future and crossing bridges before you come to them....
so i attended a fairly large jw gathering last night with my active, elder husband.
it was a good-by party for a former special pioneer couple who have been demoted to reg pios and have now moved to a larger city to find work.
anyway, there was music and skits.
I always found it nauseating the way anytime JW's got together as a group, they had to do something religious or Bible based. Why couldn't they have had a humorous skit where the plot simply expressed the groups well wishes to the people who were moving? Why did they have to drag growing old and dying, or the "end of the system" into the occasion? Don't they have ample opportunities as it is to think about these big picture topics?
Don't get me started on how they'd make meeting style "announcements" and then insist on thanking Jehovah for the refreshments our loving sisters provided.
two documented disturbances during memorial 2016. type 'memorial 2016' on youtube.
Not really a good comparison, Jesus was (supposedly) the Son of God....not a mere man who simply disagreed with what was being taught at some "kingdom hall" he no longer attends, as was the case in that video. To Jesus, the temple was his fathers house and a place of worship rather than a marketplace and he was (supposedly) sent to earth by GOD to personally carry out his will. Who does this guy in the video think he is that he can just walk into someone else's place of worship, intentionally stand up and disrupt their proceedings with an inflammatory act and start dictating how they should do things?Listener 31 minutes ago
Seems that there are some on here that would say Jesus was wrong in turning over the Money changers tables in the temple.
so about last night.... i am out at a local club (not restaurant, not event venue - a club) to see a rap concert.
now, i am with some friends minding my own business, and i find that i am standing right behind 3 active jw's - one of whom used to be my best friend.
this girl is as fake as they come: 1) she used to live with me and would bring non-jw guys home all the time, 2) was living with a man when she lived down south - until he dumped her, and then she decided to go back to jw's the 1st time and got reproved, and i supported her.
"You were my best friend for years. And I miss you everyday. But if this is some attempt to incriminate me or just saying hi, then please remember what is going on with this world, and that you still know 'the truth' and what you should do to come back"
Your response was great but what if you said:
"I will come back to meeting, (preferably a Watchtower study) if you promise that while I'm there you will raise your hand and tell the audience about your experience at a recent Rap concert where you and the other JW's saw me, a former JW and suddenly had a guilty conscience and ran away. Tell them about how I called you out on it and you tried to flip the situation around and make yourself sound like a spiritually strong JW by ignoring the fact that you a JW were in a Club dancing to Rap music when you know better. Tell them how instead of explaining your own "untheocratic" actions, you had the gall to lecture me about the closeness of the end and the wickedness of this world.
Until you are willing to do that or something similar, save your preaching about world conditions and the importance of my returning to "the truth" until you actually believe it yourself and are acting in accordance to your beliefs.
(Don't be surprised if she is pretending that she wasn't at the club, you are mistaking her for someone else and are using this as an excuse to contact her.)
i wanted to write my experience on how my husband helped me see the ttatt (the truth about the truth).
first, let me mention that he wrote his own experience a couple months ago under the name sanchy.
for his story please click here….. http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5148261828526080/walking-thin-line-resigning-elder
C-Girl,
Loved your story and the way you presented it. Your husbands past post was a memorable one as well.
I instinctively followed the same course as he did when dealing with my Wife and she was able to see, in her own way and in her own time, what I had already come to know. Whenever I talk to JW's I take the approach that I want to understand what it is they believe (and I do, I'm still open to the possibility that they can teach me something). Rather than blindsiding them with scary outside information and scary new ideas, they come to their own conclusion after seeing the holes in their beliefs that become apparent when try to explain them to someone who has real life questions.
Thanks for sharing this with us and wanted to let you know that my brother and I are 16 mos apart and my wife and her Sister are 13 mos apart. In both cases things turned out well and both moms are sane and healthy
is it just me or does it grind your gears when you see #bestlifeever hashtag after every damn jw post on fb and instagram?.
i rarely get on instagram anymore because i dont want to deal with the jw propaganda but i swear sometimes i just want to comment on one of those pics 'jw life is the worst life ever wake up already'.
does anyone else know what i'm talking about?
It is annoying until you remember that more often than not these public proclamations are mostly a way of reassuring and convincing themselves that what they say is so, when deep down they know it can all vanish before their eyes like the morning frost.
When you are truly sure about something, it's a given, a constant and as certain as the sun rising in the east. You rarely even think about let alone feel the need to exclaim it or prove it to anyone.
Pity is called for here rather than annoyance.
two documented disturbances during memorial 2016. type 'memorial 2016' on youtube.
See folks! Activism isn't all or only about reaching JWs. I dare say activism should be primarily about reaching non-JWs! Stunts like this reach non-JWs! It is far better to reach the non-JW public than attempt to reach JWs.
I guess I don't get the popularity of "activism" for the sake of activism, these days. It's the fashionable thing to do to rally around something publicly or blast others with your opinion on every topic. It seems like some people are looking for a bandwagon to jump on or a cause to engaged in it to make themselves feel as if they are part of something important. I've seen groups invade/disrupt Council meetings and Press Conferences and they always come off badly in my opinion (even when I agree with them).
When I see some of these X-JW's doing their thing, I get the sense that they may be showing off to the rest of us, showing us how it's done. Why else would they need to video the whole thing other than to show their handy work to others and get a slap on the back from those who enjoy seeing the ensuing drama without having to risk anything themselves. It seems to me that when these same folks were JW's they might have the ones we remember who were over the top about "the truth" as well. The ones who'd get a head of steam worked up at the meeting or at the assembly and go out an blind side the public with their gusto and be perplexed as to why no one would listen to them.
As far as reaching non JW's who may have been in attendance, it's more than likely that this demonstration served as an opportunity for the seemingly nice kindly balance JW's in suits and ties, to give their startled guests the JW version of what took place and to give them the low down on these scary imbalanced apostates whom the Bible foretold would be in abundance, in the "last days".
