I recently watched the classic 1965 film "The Sound of Music" for the umteenth time. It was the winner of 5 academy awards, including Best Picture. I originally saw it on the big screen when it first aired and loved every minute of it. I was a diehard JW at that time and there was something about the movie that really moved me. It wasn't just the heart-warming story or the beautiful music, either. It was something else that I just couldn't put my finger on at the time.
Then I discovered that "something else" this last time I watched it, and now I know the deep-seated reason why I loved that movie from the very first time I saw it. It represented a possibility in life that I yearned for, but did not have.
The movie starts out with two big contrasts: a rigid, rule-making autocratic father who stifles the youthful energy and creative talents of his 7 children and makes them live to serve his ideals of structure and control vs. an energetic and free-spirited governess who revels in the enjoyment of life and is in constant awe and celebration of that life by soaking up all it has to offer each and every moment of every day.
I thought to myself, "my God, THIS is what it was! Captain von Trapp is just like the Watchtower Printing Corporation and represents what kind of a life one must live under that bondage. Maria (the governess) is just like what kind of life is then available when you break free of the chains of the Watchtower Corporation."
Of course, this kind of analogy applies to any high-control religion, but I was raised in the Watchtower one, so that is the one which is most relevant for me.
If you watch that movie with those thoughts in mind, you cannot help but think that any kind of God worthy of the title "God" would never want his creation to live in the misery of a Captain von Trapp world, when the real world has so much beauty and joy to offer humans who only need to soak it in and enjoy the most of it.
End of observations.
Farkel, Maria CLASS