Before I continue, I have to backtrack to the beginning in 1988 for a moment, because something else very important to the story had been occurring occasionally. Yall know how the scriptures were ?speaking? to me at times? Well, there were some scriptures in the Hebrew text that had also been speaking to me about making me the third in rank in the Kingdom....if I would obey Jehovah?s commandments....the ten were the only ones which were meant, because they were supposedly written by Jehovah?s own hand, whereas the rest were written by the hand of Moses and to me, the rest should have been the only ones called the Mosaic Law. This made sense when I thought about the two commandments Jesus had given to love Jehovah with your all, and to love your neighbor as yourself, saying that the whole law hung upon these two commandments. The reason for my thinking this was because the ten dealt exclusively with these two issues, whereas the rest of the Law, written by Moses, also dealt with matters of dress, temple arrangements, hygiene, etc., which were things I, myself, had begun to find it difficult to believe were more than Moses? attempt to conform others to his own viewpoints, for the most part, even if there were some good advice in them.
Now.....I understand how much we, as exdubs, hate scriptures poked down our collective and individual throats, but I do hope that yall?ll have patience with this writing as I explain just a few critical scriptural points that I discovered and included in my April letter to the GB. The explanations are not included here to sway anyone to my way of thinking at the time, but to show why the letter seemed so important and resulted initially in an earthquake and the appearance in spirit form of my therapist to me.
Mid-April, 1988
Something that I noticed after buying a set of demitasse cups at Cedars Market around the corner.....they changed design. My son noticed it, too. You see, I had re-tiled my kitchen and bathroom floors in the bungalow with some of those peel and stick tiles. The tile design had a light blue ribbon-like stripe bordering each one with little pink and blue flowers in the corners. When I had purchased the cups, the design on the cups was a dark blue stripe encircling the cup near the rim, with little lighter blue flowers on the stripe in one spot. When I looked at the cups one day not long after I had re-tiled my kitchen and bathroom, the cups? design had changed to a light blue stripe and flowers that matched the kitchen and bathroom tiles now.
I also noticed a magazine ad that was a picture of a little girl standing behind a screen door smiling shyly as a little tawny-haired boy with freckles was offering her a bouquet of wild flowers. I don?t remember what the ad was for, but that picture sure impressed itself on my memory.
I also had another dream/vision that I experienced as though physically happening. One morning shortly before I awakened. I felt the spirit beginning to have intercourse with me. I couldn?t see the spirit, but I could feel the effects and I was very ?hungry? for it.....and I wanted it to fill me....and quickly.....I found there were leaves in my right hand with which I was urging the spirit into me, ?waving it on? so-to-speak.....then suddenly in the distance, off to the right appeared my ?therapist?.....he was dressed in a white robe and I recognized him as the one who had appeared in the second dream/vision of 1988 to the right of the doorway, beyond which was the brilliant light. He looked very stern and exasperated....and suddenly pointed to the spirit above me and quickly motioned with his left hand and pointed finger for the spirit to get away from me.....directing the spirit to his left. The spirit left me and I awoke....and I knew that the spirit "visiting me" THAT particular time wasn?t him.
Getting back to the research I had been doing in regard to the mistranslation of some of the Greek scriptures, I?ll explain how I came to the understanding of some of them that I did. As yall?ll recall, I was using the Greek Interlinear and a Greek/English dictionary, but did not have access to a dictionary containing the original Greek Koin (sp?) language.....so when I came across words that I couldn?t find in my dictionary, I would break them down into syllables and look up the meanings of the words closest to those depicted in the syllables to get the meaning of the whole word. This isn?t as far-fetched as yall would imagine because I was reading a novel just the other night wherein some of the characters were attempting to determine the meaning of some German writings and used the same technique I did to find the correct translation of some of the words in the German writings that weren?t clear in their meaning.
One critical discovery and that played a very important part in the April letter I wrote to the GB, I?ll use as an example here. Remember Jude 9 where Jesus is having a ?difference? with the Devil and arguing over Moses? body, according to the NWT? I had already discovered that the literal translation from the original Greek text into English interlinearly, was different than what was written out in English scriptures in the column beside the interlinear text.....and this, too, differed from what was written in the NWT, which was the only translation to which I had reference. According to the English Interlinear translation in the Greek Interlinear, Jude 9 literally translates, "The but Michael the archangel,.....when to the devil......having judged for self dividedly.....he was saying in disagreement......about.....of the Moses.....of body, ....not....he dared.....judgment.....to bear upon.....of blasphemy, ......but.....he said.....May he give rebuke....to you.....Lord." The column to the right of the Interlinear Greek/English translation reads, "But when Michael the Archangel had a difference with the devil and was disputing about Moses? body, he did not dare to bring a judgment against him in abusive terms, but said: ?May Jehovah rebuke you.?" In this particular case, the NWT version reads the same.
I took issue with the words "having judged for self dividedly" and began to look up the Greek term, "diakrinomenos," from which it was translated. I eventually discovered (since I couldn?t find the whole term in my Greek dictionary) that the syllables translated from Greek as "arguing with himself dividedly" or "arguing with him self-dividedly."
I considered how Jesus had NEVER been quoted as having said anything about his being here as something that he was doing voluntarily or because he wanted to do it, but rather that it was something he "must" do. I checked for any scriptural indication on his part that it was otherwise, but all I could find was that he?d been quoted as saying something like, "it is something I must do."
I also recalled that the real translation of John 1:1 which states that "In the beginning.....the word was God." I suddenly realized that the Hebrew term Genesis means "beginning".....and the different facets of this little gem of knowledge began to "click".....to come together for me.
Now.....to me....Jesus was the word of Jehovah God, who in the book of Genesis, had begun usurping Jehovah?s position as creator, stating that God (not Jehovah) had created the heavens, light and darkness, the earth and everything in and on it....And I thought, "so THAT?s why the scriptures didn?t contain any information about anything in existence before the word was created by Jehovah!"
I remembered how, in Genesis 3:22, when Jehovah was clothing Adam and Eve as he removed them from Eden, He had turned to someone with Him and said, "Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad......" "Like us.......knowing good and bad....." So.....it appeared to me that Adam and Eve weren?t the only ones that ate from the fruit of that tree......which made it probable for that spirit creature to become "divided" in its thinking, words and actions, just as we humans often are....torn between what we believe to be right and what we believe to be wrong.
I also thought about the description of the Anointed Cherub in Ezekiel 28: 13, and how it is like the description of the shepherd of the Shulammite in Song of Solomon.....and how in Ezekiel 28:14 and 15, the Anointed Cherub was described as "the anointed cherub that is covering......faultless in your ways from the day of your being created until unrighteousness was found in you."..... "faultless........until unrighteousness was found in you." The Anointed Cherub had eaten from the tree. (I wondered if it was called a "serpent" by Eve because of its deceiving of her.) And I considered, too, Jehovah?s judgment against the Leader of Tyre and the Anointed Cherub, comparing them with the judgment pronounced by Jehovah against the "serpent" in the garden and thought about how Jesus had been brought before "kings" and had died an ignominious death.
By now you can draw your own conclusions regarding these matters, but to me at the time, Jesus appeared to be the personification of the word of God, sent to earth to "pay his dues" and right what he?d caused to be wrong, to atone for the damage he?d caused, beginning in the Garden of Eden. And I included this in my April 22, 1992 letter (I think that?s the correct date, but not positive) to the GB, along with other pertinent info regarding their burdening WTS members with their unscriptural criteria for baptism and salvation AND their haughty blasphemous usurping of even Jesus? position as the only mediator between Jehovah and mankind. All hand-written.....on my yellow legal pads.
Now during this time period, that "no frills therapy" suggestion that I?d written to my therapist began to come back and bite me on the butt. My State Disability and Workers? Comp payments ended because the doctors had attempted to send me back to work full time and I?d refused because I wasn?t "game" to let them see if they could injure my back seriously enough for them to decide I would then need surgery, so they could play "hero." There was no way I was going to chance making my back injury worse than it already was, because, as things stood, I could still function, even though cautiously and often with considerable discomfort.....not for any amount of money.....OR "frills."
My AFDC also came due for renewal again....and by now I knew this meant they?d be late with the renewal payment and we?d probably be evicted.....again.....so I began selling off most of what we owned, furniture, clothing, dishes, etc....in order to put food on the table and pay our utilities at least.
On April 22, when I finished the letter, I went around the corner and ½ block up the Avenue that 7 th abutted....to a copy shop, "Copy Girls".....I was standing at a copy machine with my back to the checkout counter, making myself a copy of the letter and wondering when I should mail it when the two women behind the counter suddenly got into a loud "discussion" over something that hadn?t been picked up by the postal clerk that day as the clerk had dropped off their mail, because one of the women hadn?t left it out on the counter in time to be picked up.....and I heard the older woman say, "It HAS to go into the mail TODAY! You?ve got to go the post office NOW to mail it." I realized there was a "message" in this for me......so returning home, I placed the original copy to the GB in a large envelope addressed to Bethel, and rode my bicycle to the post office and mailed it....having used money from the sale of our belongings to pay for the copies and mail the letter.
That night.....I had just gone to bed and was preparing to go to sleep.....my eyes were closed but I wasn?t asleep yet......I was turned on my left side, facing the wall, against which my bed was positioned, with both of my hands curled under my chin......it was between 11:10 and 11:20 PM.......when suddenly the house and all its furnishings began to shake.....now...I hadn?t opened my eyes when the earthquake began, because I?d already been through one since I?d arrived in California and felt it probably wouldn?t be bad there in Escondido......but when something quite solid landed with a heavy thud on my bed between me and the wall I was facing, THEN I opened my eyes......instead of the wall, I saw white crisp fabric in my face.....I slowly raised my eyes up what I discovered was the front of my "therapist?s" shirt......he was there on my bed....smackdab in front of me....in spirit form because I could see that he was slightly transparent, though I could actually physically feel him there....he encircled my waist with his left arm, bracing my back with his hand.....and he was looking down at me with such a tender, loving look on his face, smiling slightly.....then he looked up, which was toward the adjacent wall, since my bed was near the corner of the room and reached toward the other wall with his right hand and braced his position with his right hand against the other wall......and I lowered my head to rest against his chest and closed my eyes.....content to be there being held by him and knowing I was safe.....and as I rested there, I felt him moving my wild curly mop (I had a spiral perm), which was understandably in disarray, from off my forehead with his chin......and then he kissed me on my forehead.....I kept my eyes closed, smiling to myself....and when the earthquake subsided, he was gone.....I felt that his appearance to me had been for 3 reasons.....to reassure me that he actually was protecting me and could arrive in a time of peril in less than a heartbeat.....to let me know that he approved of what I?d written to the GB and that I?d followed his directions......and to reassure me that I hadn?t totally lost my mind yet, that it really was him all along.
I?m gonna stop here and take up with the expected eviction and the REALLY bizarre things that begin to occur in the next installment....(wear Depends for the 9 th one, if yall have a bladder problem).
Frannie B