Metatron had a thread about self-righteous people. I started writing a thread but then it sorta turned into a general Bethel Memories thread. So rather than hi-jack his, I started a new thread:
My Bethel Memories. . .
- Playing in a band and drinking beers in the storage building at 50 Columbia Heights and having a bunch of sisters from New Jersey come over for a mini-concert AT BETHEL.
- Bethel elders taking me out on my 21st birthday and getting me drunk
- Getting my overseer - who was a little geographically challenged - to believe that Nigeria was pronounced "Niggeria" (yes, as in the racial slur). My overseer proceeds to then go into a factory committee meeting about "nigeria" and proceeds to say "Niggeria" instead throughout the entire duration of the meeting. Beings people like Max Larson, Bob Butler, etc were in this meeting it was a BIG DEAL. On one hand I couldn't hardly stifle the laughter - but on the other hand it was also terrifying since those guys at the time were quite important. Hehehe.
- Playing a gig in our "Bethel Band" at a Witness party in Pennsylvania. Sitting in Bethel judicial committees the following week for drinking and questionable conduct with the hot pioneer sisters out there. One friend was kicked out of Bethel and the others were all severely reprimanded. (I was tired that night and went to bed early so I actually got off scott-free! Haha!)
- Trying to make casual conversation with Karl Adams (who was also my School conductor) at lunch, I said, "So are you working on anything cool in the Writing Department?" To which he gave me a gentle but firm tongue lashing about how they never talk about anything before it is published. We basically sat in silence for the rest of the lunch.
- Laying out on the roof of the 30 Columbia Heights building (the one with the big neon Watchtower sign) to get a tan. I have on headphones and am dozing in and out of sleep. When I open my eyes there is Governing Body member Garret Loesch in his SPEEDOS sunning himself on the roof. The way the chairs were arranged they were sort of staggered across the roof, so his ass was basically in my face.
- Weird conversations with GB members, Writing Department members, and Given Ones in my Kingdom Hall.
- There are a few hot single girls at Bethel - who - because of skills - were allowed to be Bethelites. So, walking into my room and seeing my roomate on top of his single Bethelite girlfriend was a pretty cool surprise.
I'll write in detail about all these experiences sometime in the future.
What I learned was that these super-righteous people either flamed out like you said, or they got a dose of their own medicine and realized how retarded they were acting. Some actually ended up kinda cool down the road. My first roommate at Bethel was a Mexican dude from Southern California. Not to generalize, but most Mexican Witnesses from Southern Cali tended to ALWAYS be self-righteous - the ones at Bethel anyways (No offense to you Mexican Souther-Cali people). It was almost like they had an inferiority complex and puffed out their chests in retaliation. He would constantly tell me how I would never amount to anything at Bethel with my attitude. Within a couple of months being there, and still only 19 years of aga, I had a very prestigious job in an air-conditioned office with a computer and worked with the Governing Body and their associated committees on a regular basis. (Obviously I didn't work with them on procedural and doctrinal stuff - I handled more ancillary duties.) Meanwhile he was over at 90 Sands in the heat of summer putting in ductwork. Needless to say, he was pissed. Also, needless to say, I rubbed it in.
As time went on I became very connected at Bethel. We jokingly had a little unofficial organization called the "Bethel Underground" which consisted of new guys like me and actually some Bethel elders and heavies (even in Writing and Service Department) that were predecessors of my job and the jobs of some of my friends. If we couldn't get requisitions or services that we needed through "official Bethel channels" we usually had a connection with someone in our "network" so we could get it pushed through.
A couple of things I got that way:
I got a special adapter so I could watch morning worship and the Watchtower Study from the comfort of my room on TV (muahaha!). The only way you could get this at the time was from "special permission" from the Publishing Committee. Other than reports that a few adapters were missing, no one was any the wiser.
Another perk:
I had an "in" in the Bethel Home too and was able to secure a "future" roommate who was -at the time - a commuter Bethelite, and I found out through channels he was going to be approved as a full-time Bethelite and would move into a bethel room. We were already good friends. But I could not put in a request to have him be my roommate because he wasn't "Officially" accepted yet - but he knew it and I knew it - so the Bethel Home matched us up as roommates. The thing was he was not due to start full-time at Bethel until 6 months later - so for 6 months I had my own room ALL TO MYSELF so I had no guilt trip during "open seating" of sitting in my room watching just enough of morning worship so I could make intelligent comments on it if someone brought it up throughout the day. Talk about an enjoyable 6 months.
I was able to position my job so I could essentially be anywhere at Bethel at ANYTIME throughout the day and no one would question me. I would go out to breakfast many mornings of the week (I had some decent $$$ from all the g-jobs (side jobs) I did around NYC) alone and read the paper. I stopped for coffee all the time and generally just walked around the beautiful neighborhood. It was really nice in spring and fall. Would go to the local bookstore and read books.
The Society even has little houses scattered around the city, some of my work involved going to those houses and doing stuff. They used those houses on many occasions to house Lawyers and other important people who have families so the lawyer can go into work at Bethel and their family can still have some semblance of a normal family house and school and stuff. Some of my other work involved going to the various assembly halls, patterson, the farm, etc.
I can HONESTLY say, and I said it to many of my friends long before I started questioning my beliefs, is that at Bethel it was ALL ABOUT who you KNOW. Many of the self-righteous people (like my first roommate) never got anywhere meekly following all the Bethel rules. By my shmoozing and through our Bethel underground I was - and still am with many - on a first-name basis with brothers in Writing, Art, Service Department, Executive Assistants to the GB members, and so on.
Naturally this is all going into the toilet as my true intentions of my exit will be made known in the coming months.....but now that I write it, I really miss the freedom I had there in some weird ways. If I had been a SR (self-righteous) guy I probably would have imploded.
-ithinkisee