"Quit your job and find other employment".
Some of the worst and blunt advice from any eldub,,,ever.
What's the Worst Advice You Heard of an Elder Giving Someone?
by Sea Breeze 48 Replies latest jw friends
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IWant2Leave
Don't take a blood transfusion. Call the HLC and they will navigate the medical ins & outs and communicate with the doctors for you. The person died after being told by no less than three doctors that their situation was critical.
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Diogenesister
LHG People in the religion who already have a career, wealth/education under their belt but push a life of poverty on some naive young person - are among the worst, in my opinion!
Exactly ! I remember expecting to meet an older, married lady, not an unmarried young woman barely out of High school! Being from a somewhat worldly background even as a young child I questioned the sense of a girl like that choosing to go part time in a bakery*. Not lost of me the daughter of her pioneer partner who brought her in, was studying at Swansea university for her BA in french!!
Thank goodness you had the good sense not to give up your pensionable earnings! What brought this lass to mind was the fact she will be just now hitting retirement age. 😞
*This girl was a convert not someone with witness parents supporting her.
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LongHairGal
DIOGENESISTER:
What I observed were that all the older JWs in the congregations were either collecting their pensions or about to…..Quite obviously THEY were in the workforce- so why would I not be.
But, all the older comfortable JWs were pushing poverty to us young baby boomers. (Apparently, nobody’s conscience ever bothered them.) And this was the early ‘80s not pre-75.. There was a frenzy to pioneer all pushed by the elders.. It was like a virus and everybody caught it but me. Again, the elders pushing this were well-off.
Even though I was scoffed at (to my face) and not invited places, something held me back and I just could not bring myself to do this. Maybe it was my non-JW upbringing and being in the working world and seeing how ‘normal’ people lived that stopped me. Who knows? I just know that I am ever so Grateful today that I never listened to these fools years ago!
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Beth Sarim
""Leave everything. Just go and leave everything behind"".
That line just totally pisses me off.
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Dagney
Boy where do I begin.
I guess the ones I remember most are the many times husbands were unfaithful to the wives, and the wives were pressured to "forgive and forget." Could be the other way around, of course. They were looked down upon if they proceeded with divorce. They were miserable and it never ended well. It was pretty sad.
The other was an elder body coerced a friend to sell the family home that he inherited from his mother. His siblings didn't think it was fair he had the house even though he lived and took care of her through her last very ill days. So the siblings went to elders and complained. What a mess and he is still so upset over it many years later.
I don't think the elders would be so involved these days...tho I could be wrong. They were so intrusive.
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StephaneLaliberte
When my sister died in a car accident, two elders came to my house and told me to limit contacts with my disfellowshipped mother to a bare minimum, if possible, none at all.
While they talked, I contemplated the idea of kicking them out. Instead, I said "thank you for your advises, I appreciate your visite, etc, etc". Then, once they left, I called my mother.
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WingCommander
To LongHairedGirl and others: RE: push in 80's to quit work and Pioneer
Explanation: This was because no one in the 80's even expected to make it to 1990. Check out the entire Bound Volume (for WatchTower and Awake!) for the year 1984. Many of the covers are talking about Prophecy, the year 1914, and The Generation of 1914. Those magazines were used for YEARS in the ministry as irrefutable "proof" as to how far into "The time of the end" we were. No one, and I mean NO ONE - would have ever thought we'd make it to the year 2000 in this "system of things." If you had even implied it, you'd be accused of having weak faith, and possibly even holding Apostate leanings. So, just like before 1975, there was a tremendous ramp-up to quit working full time and Pioneer to save as many people as possible before the Great Tribulation broke out. Because unlike today, once the Great Tribulation broke out, the symbolic "Ark doors" were CLOSED - and on one else was going to be saved. They were toast!
This sense of urgency and paranoia can NOT be understated enough to the people would weren't even alive yet. The height of the Cold War era and nuclear annihilation compounded the feeling of dread.
Next month, May 2024, will mark the 40th Anniversary of the infamous "Generation of 1914" WatchTower cover. Amazing.
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LongHairGal
WING COMMANDER:
Yes, that certainly does explain what happened back then in the Witness religion in the eighties and you described the very feeling inside the hall!.. I can almost remember it.
Many of those older JWs are gone today and I wonder what they’d have to say about everything... But, when all is said and done, I’m Glad I followed my gut.
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TonusOH
I remember that I believed that I would not graduate high school before the end came. 1986 was the year I graduated, and I think that was the year the UN promoted as "the Year of Peace and Security." The WTS made note of this, and I remember many brothers and sisters mentioning it, because it looked like a clear reference to 1 Thessalonians 5:3.
I think that you go through these disappointments and you repeat the party line ("the GB did not specifically say this was the end, no one knows the day or hour, and so on"). But each time, you lose something. You might not think it, you might not notice it, but somewhere in your mind you wonder if these men are really getting any insight from god through the holy spirit.