by undercover 20 Replies latest jw friends
I drove my Rolls Royce to the Ferrari club, and then drove my Ferrari to the Rolls Royce club last month. They both seemed OK - especially the RROC grandkids who really liked the Testarossa.
But a few years back, I was told not to bring my Corvette ZR-1 to a Ferrari show and I have really never gotten over that...Dallas Kar Kulture is Komplicated.
BTW - good for you, Rocky Girl.
It is funny how much they stand out to us former JWs, yet other people barely notice them unless they try to push literature. Sort of like when you drive a certain kind of car and forever afterward you see them everywhere.
Sort of like when you drive a certain kind of car and forever afterward you see them everywhere.
Like a Ferrari...
It is funny how much they stand out to us former JWs, yet other people barely notice them unless they try to push literature.
In the clinical literature on trauma, the JWs would be likened to "conditioned stimuli": We're more attuned to seeing them and reacting because most of us here have a lots of negative, if not traumatic experiences with the JWs. To use the lingo, the JWs are conditioned trauma stimuli: As soon as we see them - or think we see them - upsetting old images, thoughts and emotions are stirred up inside us. It seems as well that for many of us there is an urge to reach out to the JWs perhaps to show them we're not the bad people they've judged us as being.
That's why people who've been victims of physical and/or sexual crimes, find themselves automatically reacting if they go somewhere and someone who looks like their perpetrator is present. Often we can be left feeling hypervigilant and unable to shake the upset feeling for a time. For me, as the decades pass, I am more accepting this is a completely normal reaction (given my experiences with the JWs) and I seem to get over it sooner. Also, my days of trying to reach out to them, say, in public settings, is well and truly over. Part of that is because I need to look after myself - and, really, it doesn't help trying to reach out to people who have an equally automatic fear response to ex-JWs.
upwardly mobile
Now there's a term I haven't heard in a long time!
One of our group held out his commentary and pointed to the Hebrew word in question and said "That is not a good interpretation, see the Hebrew word here is --- and not ---, so it shouldn't be translated that way." We all read our different commentary's translation of the word and proceeded to debate the word and its different uses and why his didn't fit. The guy kind of slunk back into his seat and turned around.
LOL!!
I think this is a very valid topic. I admit to a small amount of trepidation when I see a JW, especially one I used to know. All sorts of scenerios go through your head when you see them. Will they speak to me? How will they speak to me? Should I pretend not to see them and ignore them? What if they ignore me - how will I respond to that?
I always feel like I am a fly on the wall when I identify JW's in my radar...
First of all, JW's are DD, not Starbucks.
I know what goes on. Think about the stated mission of the JW's (preaching is THE life saving work) vs the uncommunicated message of the all to infamous JW coffee break. (holy crap this is soul killing drudgery, lets get some coffee)
I feel sorry all the time whenever I see a JW. Even more when I see a group. You can see the confusion reign, the conflicted emotions....
They are a bit of an endangered species though, don't you think? ;)
They are a bit of an endangered species though, don't you think? ;)
yes, their heyday of huge growth in western countries is truly over. When I see them (which is not as often as it once was), I remind myself that probably the larger number of those I see will probably not last the distance and exit from the religion in many of the innumerable ways tried by people who want to avoid conflict. Good on so many of them for frequenting coffee shops and cafes - they've got to be way more inviting places than the door knocking territory.
Honestly, here in N. Dallas - the only JWs I have ever seen were some Vietnamese witnesses who came by and knocked on my door (several times) because my partner Mai has a phone in her Vietnamese name with the address. They were not working the street - they were just hunting people who they could talk to in Vietnamese.
I told them they were being used by a New York City organization of false prophets and sent them on their way.
I do some Jw's in Public I just end up ignoring them.They cannot put into a box
