Lyman Swingle at the Bethel Breakfast table - What fun!

by Dogpatch 32 Replies latest jw friends

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  exwhyzee

  This must have been shot by a Bethelite at the morning meal since they were doing the text and comments as visitors weren't there in the morning meal. I sat at that table and got to know each of the GB as they rotated every week taking turns doing the morning worship. I remember the time Bro Knorr announced that he had Cancer and started sobbing. He said he felt badly because Bethel was so big now that he didn't know everyone by name like he used to. I went back there in the 90's and in 2006 with my family. Each time it gave me the creeps just being there again. Even the really gung-ho congregation group I was with wanted to get out of there. I remember we were looking at a display of JW history in the waiting lobby and one sister said " I know this sounds bad but I'm sorry....this is just creeping me out for some reason"

  It took years for me to stop waking up in the night in a panic having just dreamt that I had decided to quit my job and go back there to work only to realize when I got there I'd made a huge mistake that I couldn't back out of. I can't describe how upsetting those dreams were...I'd be so relieved when I woke up that it wasn't true.
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  fugue

  Could you actually see or smell the breakfast food that you weren't allowed to eat until this old booger shut his piehole? That would kill me. Knowing that my breakfast was RIGHT THERE, just out of reach. And I couldn't touch it until the monotonous droning voice stopped making noise.
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  exwhyzee

  Could you actually see or smell the breakfast food..

  Yes....how intuitive of you to think of that FUGUE. As I rembember, the food was there and the eggs, oatmeal and or cream of wheat were turning to rubber as you waited for them to finish agonizing over the minutiae of a scripture. Each commentator trying to come up with something more brilliant and fascinating than the last...hoping that the person ahead of them didn't say what they had planned to say. It was all so compulsory, you were assigned a day to comment and there was no getting around it. You sat there waiting for the camera and lights to swing around from the GB table and then it was your turn to be heard via closed circuit TV to the Brooklyn and the Farm. There was always the new blokes who tried too hard and were a bit over the top....kind of entertaining and fodder for much snickering on the way to the factory.
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  lrkr

  Wow- I remembered being there- checked out- eyes rolled back in my head- dozing off- waiting for the old coger to get it over with- hoping he didnt loose his place and start saying the prayer. I cant believe we convinced ourselves that this muttering was part of the "spiritual paradise" we were in. (The chance to be taught directly by the GB!!)
• 

  designs

  I made two visits to Bethel when my brother was there, that was enough to convince me NEVER to go.
• 

  00DAD

  DP: why ruin a boy's life over it?

  Because they can!
• 

  Room 215

  I was there for four years, 1965-1969; I live just 60 miles from there now; and I haven't had the slightest interest in going back for a visit.
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  00DAD

  Lyman Swingle: "It's Tuesday June the 22nd, ... I believe .... "

  Great, this guy doesn't even know what day it is, loses his place in his notes for 1/2 a minute and then messes up the name of the brother reading the scripture! How could they possibly think they're "God's Representatives on Earth"???
• 

  Andrew Sh

  As I've never been a JW....

  The only other JW talk I have heard is Fred Franz telling everyone about the church of Antioch doing its own thing about seperating Paul and Barnabus for the first missionary journey... Fred sounds aggressive, and not really pleasant at all.

  But from this video I can see why people think the JWs are Gods's people, and why some struggle for a long time even when the truth is beginning to dawn on them that it is not the Truth/Biblical. Lyman seems a really nice, gentle old man... and the prayer from whoever sounded OK too.

  I'm reminded that, often, a heretical/cultic organisation/church is discovered not by what is said, but by what is left out. I think I would struggle too.. I'm sure I would. Praise God, He never allowed me to get stuck inside.
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  fugue

  Back in the early 90s I went to visit Brooklyn. We had a friend who had married a bethel boy and now they were serving there together. She was in housekeeping. I remember her telling us that these morning worship sessions were torturous for her. She's not a morning person at all, so she said that every morning she would want to stay in bed until the last possible moment, then rush to put on a skirt or dress, fix her hair, and her and her husband would get there just in time. She said she just wanted to be left alone in the mornings, but there were inevitably irritating people at their table who wanted to talk. Then, she suffered through these ridiculously long sessions. She said she would try to just stare at the clock, willing it to go faster so she could eat and get out of there.

  That's the way I would be. I absolutely hate mornings. If anyon comes around me in the mornings, I'm an asshole to them. I just don't want to be bothered. My eyes are blurry, my mind isn't awake yet... I just don't want any human contact until I've had time to wake up.

  I can't imagine having to endure this every single morning. What's the point of it? I bet at least half of the people sitting there at the tables aren't even listening.