It's from my favorite band, The Protomen. It's called "Keep Quiet", I think, from their new album, Act II: The Father of Death. Yes, shameless advertising. Hey, if the WT can do it...
Anyway, it just reminded me of the struggle for freedom of mind, freedom from indoctrination:
I've seen your face in the shadows
I've seen your face in the places
I wasn't meant to be
I hear them whisper about you
I hear the men in the bars
I see the women lock their doors at night
Lock your doors tonight
They say your eyes are on fire
They say you'll kill a man
For walking the wrong side of the line
But men, they say a lot of foolish things
In the end the only words I can find to believe in are mine
They say
This city
She's been dead for years now
For years now
So death is
Not something
Not something that scares me
There's worse things
Than death here
They tell me
Keep quiet
I will not be told where to stand
I will not be told what to say
Not by man or machine
Not by you, not by anyone tonight
Gonna have to do better than fear
Gonna have to step out of the shadows and fight
And when they see your face again
They will know what it means to have fear
Dragged out into the night
Drag it out!
They say
This city
She's been dead for years now
For years now
So death is
Not something
Not something that scares me
There's worse things
Than death here
They tell me
It's just...I wish I had more courage. It took so much out of me, all the research and effort trying to figure out what was really going on with the religion I'd trusted all my life. I went back to a meeting, not in my home cong., on Sunday. My beloved still believes in them. I try to hold onto my mind, but it's so hard sometimes. I'm afraid that she will choose the Borg over me. She thinks I don't care about the bad things we've done together. I do care. It's just...I don't see why we have to live in guilt and shame over things that aren't anyone's business anyway. The kind of guilt that the elders inflict is not the kind that helps people truly repent. In the end, punishment is all that really matters to them. How much actual time do they spend (feel like I'm quoting Ray Franz) trying to help restore someone's spirituality? Not much. The hearing is just to punish, then to tell the person to come to meetings for a year while being ignored, then write THEM a letter asking for reinstatement.
That's the part that really pisses me off, and normally I'd never write that kind of thing. But if I get DF'd it'll be a cold day in hell before I write them a letter asking THEM to let me back into a frakkin' cult. And how the heck does have a [blank] thing to do with your sins being forgiven? Did the guy in 2 Corinthians write a letter to the elders? NO! Is this another Legal Department thing? Probably.
I'll go back to the place for my beloved, and continue to look for ways to prove she's under mind control, someday. But I'm not going to ask them to be reinstated if they DF me. THEY will have to ask ME, if anything. If I repent of my sins, then God forgives me through Christ--that's how it works. My sins aren't in retention until I write a g[blank-blank] letter to some [blank-blank] men who will not and cannot stand before the judgment throne on my behalf.
I'm going back to my home meeting tonight. For a woman. And gosh, she's wonderful, but she really is awfully serious sometimes. I thought I took life too seriously. I didn't know the half!
Well...I'm feelin' a bit down. There are days I wonder if I love her more than I love freedom. But every day so far, the answer has been yes, without a shadow of a doubt. It's tough, staying with this crap and still wondering if somehow I'm wrong about 587 B.C. or the bizarre teachings back in the 1870s-1930s, etc. (I read part of The Harp of God on my Kindle not that long ago. Good Grievous! What kind of nutcase was Rutherford? This really is a cult if people accepted that crap!)
Well...I better get moving. Gotta keep my job--it's the last good, normal thing I have left.
SD-7