I keep having this memory, and I don't know why it recurs.
I remember sitting down with a CO one day, one of my last years there, in the back school of the KH, and I don't remember if I was out in FS that day or if it was after a meeting, and I don't remember my "status" in the hall at the time, but apparently I was "weak" because he was trying to encourage me. It's quite possible that I requested a little chat with him after a bookstudy. More likely it was a sort of shepherding call, but informally held after the bookstudy. I wish I could remember the circumstances but I just don't.
Anyway, I remember only one thing about that encounter. He looked at me and suggested that I picture myself in the new system, and perhaps that would make it real to me. I remember trying really hard to imagine it, but all I could come up with was the picture in the live forever brochure, and me sorta skipping through the grass. Which as an adult was pretty ridiculous when I thought of it, because as a person I am so full of natural curiosity and a quest for knowledge. You'd think I would have been able to imagine something more meaty like looking at rocks through a microscope, or swimming under the sea to examine exotic sea creatures. But no, all I could come up with was "skipping through the grass", and what's more, I could feel no emotion inside me. It was a picture in my mind painted with pastel crayons, not even in 3 dimensions, and I was a cartoon cutout.
But more than that! What I remember about the CO's demeanor was one of pure exhaustion and an attitude of not really caring or even really believing what he was saying to me. I think I was honest with him in saying I was having a hard time coming up with something "real" in my imagination, and I distinctly remember that he basically just dropped the subject, perhaps suggested a scripture that I read, and ended the session.
His fatigue and indifference really struck me. I got the very real impression that he was just going through the motions, having lost his true belief a long time ago. I don't think he "gave up on me" because I couldn't make it real. It really seemed to me that he shared my attitude and had no resources inside himself to help me do something he himself couldn't even do.
I had glimpsed what I thought was this attitude in several COs during my last years there.
Which was a FAR cry from the very real and personal zeal and caring I experienced from one CO when I was a teenager, whose interest in me as a youth and as a PERSON, as evidenced by his final comment to me before he left our congregation -- he looked me straight in the face, took my hand in his and pleaded from the depth of his soul, "Keep the faith!" -- almost single-handedly kept me attending through many of my doubting years before I finally left. The energy of that time was crackling and palpable. The energy of my last ten years there was like a wet blanket.
Anyone else with similar experiences or memories?
your memories of COs?
by halcyon 3 Replies latest watchtower bible
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halcyon
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halcyon
oops! wrong category! Can someone please move this topic to its appropriate home?
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halcyon
oops! Wrong category! Can someone please move this thread to its appropriate home?
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yknot
I got a CO talk every rotation.
The PO was certain one of them would give him permission to do something judicial to me.
All of our older ones were in on the 'game' and often reminded me to discern entitlement and go forth accordingly. One younger CO deferred to the DO who more or less said to it was best to accept the 'assignment' of my KH on the WTS pyramid. I was told to work on my discernment of those to whom I could discuss things openly and reminded that not all COs are of such quality yet.
Interestingly if things do changed as rumored........ I dread the quantity over quality aspect.