i remember that every time when my father and i came home from the meeting, my mother (who stayed at home for my disabled brother) asked us "who was attending and who wasn't attending".. and then, we took some time to drink coffee and went through the list who was there and who wasn't.
there after there was an opinion made why someone was absent and what this meant in relation with his strength of believe.. just curious, do you recognize this?
gorby.
Who was there at the meetings and what they had to say afterward was always more relevant and newsworthy than the meetings themselves.
The only time the meeting program was discussed was when there was disfellowshipment announced or there was a rumor of an exciting announcement that was forthcoming from the society which could possibly be about the beginning of the tribulation.
i'll start off with this one:.
some years ago when i was formulating my exit, i employed for some time an ms brother from another congregation.. i'd had a couple of young "worldly" lads work for me but they proved unreliable as they used drugs or alchohol and consequently would'nt arrive at work and such like.. so when i was was contacted by this brother and spoke to him and heard he'd worked at the australian bethel for some time on construction and wanted an opportunity to learn the trade of bricklaying ,i thought ,"great someone to finally trust and be reliable".
he was in his 40's at the time and he worked like a trojan ,was honest ,really likeable and interesting ,could play the classical guitar beautifully ,had a beautiful family.
i found this picture and i just can't believe it?
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http://www.jw-archive.org/post/130152768378/jw-booth-at-a-book-fair-in-brazil-photo-shared-by#.
Ladies and Gentlemen...
In the unlikely event of a water landing
our literature should not be used as a floatation device.
how many of us were woken up by some apostate yelling false prophets at a convention?.
how many of us were woken up by someone holding a sign and yelling, what happened to 1975.
how many of us were coerced to investigate the wt because some ex-jw pulled up a bunch of old watchtowers magazines and told us to read the false predictions?.
A lifelong JW friend who was like a sister to me, sent me an "interesting" email about Beth Sarim. She thought it was wonderful to see the old photos and so interesting to see how much brighter the light has gotten and she shared it with all her JW email contacts.
I on the other hand was shocked that as a life long JW, a former Bethelite and as someonene who tragically lost a loved one over the blood transfusion issue, couldn't believe that I had never heard of this Beth Sarim nonsense before and wondered what else I didn't know about this religion and it's crazy founders.
A google search ensued and all the missing pieces about the religion that I had wondered about but had dismissed, began to fall into place. The rest is history.
I often wondered if anyone else who received that email from my friend, had the same reaction as I did. When that friend later discovered that my wife and I were no longer Witnesses, (5 years after our last meeting) she said she loved us dearly but if we were leaving the organization, she would no longer be able to remain in contact with us. She asked me what happened to make us want to leave the truth. I told her that her email about Beth Sarim gave me the go ahead to do a google search to find out more and to verify it's accuracy and that's when the JW house of cards came crashing in.
Let me tell you...she was horrified but I assured her that we were the same moral and decent people and this would have happened eventually anyway. She said that out of loyalty to Jehovah, she would have to cut off contact with us. I told her that loyalty to Jehovah and loyalty to the Watchtower organization were two different things but she didn't see it that way. We made several attempts to visit her and her husband after that but phone calls and emails weren't returned.
About 9 months ago she was killed in a freak accident and we attended her Memorial which ironically was not too far from Beth Sarim. (we visited the Beth Sarim site while we were there) It was our first time in a Kingdom Hall since Memorial of 2008 and it was strange and bittersweet to hear the old JW speak again.I sniffled and sobbed through the whole thing especially when one of the old kingdoms song was played at the end. It was such a terrible loss and under the circumstances never to have been able to say goodbye.
Her family was delighted to see us and we were invited to the dinner after her memorial and they were truly glad that we came. Other than the family, we didn't know anyone else in attendance at the memorial. Everyone assumed we were JW's and treated us as such. It was heartbreaking that she wasn't there with us like it used to be and such a shame that we never got to speak to our dear friend in the last few years of her life because of her loyalty to a man made organization.
i won't pretend to know things that i don't but just look at the incredible rate of change we've witnessed recently.
it seems that since candace conti and the australian royal commission the watchtower are scrabbling around to shore up their finances in the face of unprecedented legal action against them.. abuse settlement claims are one thing but what happens when children die as a result of your religious teachings?!
you can bet wt legal are arguing for a complete rewrite of policy to protect the organisation from litigation.. do you think their religious privilege will protect them forever?
based on what we've seen, it seems to me that of the seven, splane and jackson are the smartest; herd, lett and morris the least intelligent; and sanderson and losch somewhere in the middle.
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what's your impression?.
that was a quote from a dyed in the wool jw recently.
it was a complaint.. we all know that with 'new light(tm)' that the watchtower corporation's version of 'religion' has kept changing for a long time.
since i remember.....and i go back a long way too.
It isn't. My JW Wife commented to me after the big mid-week meeting announcement "are we still called JW's anymore??"
More like "Website Witnesses" what with all the promotion of JW dot ORG.
We are Website Witnesses,
We click our mouse with fearlessness,
Ours is the God of Search Engine Accessibility
Google his name and you'll see
My husband always said the KH's look like funeral homes.
I've thought that same thing for years and toward the end of my JW career, the meetings seemed more and more like attending funerals rather than uplifting events that gave you the strength to carry on. It finally dawned on me why so many JW's are depressed. (including myself)
People in Cults don't realize they're in a cult until after they are out of it, otherwise they'd have never gotten involved with it in the first place. Most of the time they spend as a cult member, seems perfectly logical to them. It's only when personal hurt or betrayal within the cult occurs, that they begin to allow themselves to see things as they are.
How many of us sailed along rather uneventfully as JW's until we were hurt or betrayed by someone in the cult or when we crossed paths with the unkind/unfair policies of the organization or discovered the organizations past history that was hidden from us?
(raises hand)
i dont know if you are aware but i was informed recently that jw governing body member tony pants morris was in a safari park in africa.
he stumbled across a skinny hungry looking lioness with cubs nearby.
not seeing a way to escape, he got on his knees and started praying, pleading for help.
for years i denied myself the thing i loved to do the most to be a good jw.
i love to ride off-road motorcycles.
so, i am going to indulge myself and get a new dirt bike.. i love to see god's creation from the vantage point of a motorcycle on a mountain top.
"Never mind Pete" they assured me "You'll have all the time in the world to ride off road bikes in the New System"
(sure I will...sure I will )
