Greetings to all. Yesterday's meeting was rough. I admit I intentionally waited till my mom was gone, then sat in my bathrobe and played Super Star Wars on my Wii for about a half hour before finally getting dressed for the meeting. It was fun.
Afterwards, the COBOE himself (coordinator of the body of elders, for those who've been out awhile) approaches me and says he wants to meet with me, along with my Field Service Group Overseer. Less than awesome. Unsurprisingly, the COBOE finds himself distracted and quickly acts like I don't exist anymore. "Hmm...should I, or shouldn't I? Yeah. I should." So I take the opportunity to leave.
Mom dragged me out to field service. I felt guilty for placing one Awake! magazine. What really surprised me, and provided a great window, was my mom going on about Jim Jones. (Yesss...I can insert 'how cults work' without her defenses being up!) Steven Hassan's book kicked in, and I explained the BITE model and how deception and mind control are used. "Where'd you get that from?" she said. "Well, people have studied the psychology of it," I replied. She spoke of how one Bible study encountered someone at work who said the JWs are a cult. The study said she'd prefer to investigate that herself. (I thought to myself, gee, she may not have all the information she needs to make that decision...) I added that, "Obviously, if you ask someone who's in a cult if they are in a cult, they're not going to say yes, they're going to say..." I trailed off, realizing that I was about to say, "They're going to say what we would say, that they follow Jesus." It's hard to be careful sometimes...
Mom finally asked me, "So do you think we [JWs] are a cult?" If I said yes, I knew it would immediately provoke her. After a long pause, and a sly smile on my face, I said, "Certainly...Certainly not." "I don't think we are," Mom said. But something in her voice said there was just a tiny doubt there. It seemed like a stand-up moment, "So a cult member says to another cult member, 'D'ya think we're in a cult? I don't think we are.'"
Anyway, any suggestions? I'm scared of facing the elders now. I've missed half the meetings and I've done 1-3 hours a month in field service at most over the past five months or so. I missed one month. ... I know they don't hold my fate in their hands. It's just...do I want to end it now, or play their game? Figure the less I say, the better off I'll be.
Speaking of which, I better sign off. Looking forward to your thoughts and apologizing for this long entry.
SD-7