by minimus 41 Replies latest jw friends
I know some who truly believed they were "gifts in men". They needed their approval and wanted to be well spoken of by them.
I know some who can't stand elders and regard them as pests, always looking for some dirt on somebody.
I know some who liked maybe one or two but regarded the majority as unqualified.
How did you view the elders???
I was raised to respect them. But after awhile my folks tired of them and let us know it. Once when we had the bookstudy in our home us kids went to our rooms and invited the other kids to hang out. One of the elder's kids brought up playboy magazines. He said he loves to look at it and wondered if we did. I took out my stack of Playboys, Penthouse, OUI, Club, and Hustlers. Well, he borrowed a couple to take home. He rolled them up and tucked them under his sock under his pant leg and left. Later we LOST the priviledge of having the study in our home because of the porno. I still don't know if the little punk outright finked on me or if he got busted and was forced to tell where he got them. ASS HAT! As I grew up I learned about the elders in Albuquerque who went on stake out. They would park in the Safeway parking lot across the street from the Pussycat Theater on Central Ave and wait to see if any of the brothers went in. WTF! I think it's safe to say I find them to be duplicitous and hypocritical judgmental turds.
As a child and young teen - with FEAR.
When I moved 'to serve where the need is greater' at age 17, I got to see some of the RL behaviour (especially the extreme drinking, and some of the flirtatious behaviour), with DISGUST at their hypocrisy.
t
EDIT: There are a couple of elders that I still look back on with fondness, and one I even respect to this day - the above is a generalization, of course, as no group is all good or all bad.
I knew one (American) family in the congregation who were convinced that one of the elders was a drug dealer and spy for the Vatican. They were serious too. (They liked to quote something in the Daniel book about Communist spies in the congregations in Russia as if it supported their theory). I didn't like the elder much either , but I don't know where he would have found the time for a full time job, plus being a drug dealer, a Vatican spy and a nasty busybody elder to boot.
Maybe I'm in the minority but all the elders I knew / know are sound fellas
I had "elder God syndrome" I thought they were God's spoksmen for me. That was slowly to change when my ex became an elder and wasn't anything near God. Looking back they did a lot of harm to me in many ways but I was blind to it. Now I view them as just men, some are good some are not. I wish I never gave them so much power over me.
I never liked them.
Lumbergh reminds me of most the elders I knew...
for me i have gotten on well with most of them. i like quite a lot of them. in love with one of them.
but one of my friends who is an elder and the COBE was given a really really rough time by the rest of the body so ever since then i am wary.....
