The New Diary of Winston Smith

by WinstonSmith 336 Replies latest jw experiences

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  WinstonSmith

  Hi team,

  Thanks so much for continuing to check in on the developing story. It has been a tough time, but this is a war we win little by little.

  Oubliette, thanks for your well thought out comments. I agree with you mate, it is easy to see the holes when we have our eyes opened eh? I just hope that maybe one day mum will also start to see some cracks. I appreciate that you have kept up with my story right from the start.

  Watkins - I think you must be right. I am sure that the things I have discussed with mum must be having an impact on some level, whether she wants to admit it or not! Looking back it is amazing to see the things we used to believe (and would die for) yet we never even bothered to check them out with any depth. For shame!

  Aunt Fancy - My goal is slowly let mum let her beautiful personality shine. She is a loving, caring, generous person, and I know that this shunning crap will be going against everything her natural inclination is telling her. I am quietly confident that even if I can't help her to see the falsity of the WTS, I will at least be able to maintain a semi-normal-agree-to-disagree-and-lets-not-tell-anyone-about-it situation. It may not be ideal, but it is better than nothing right?

  In my last post I mentioned that mum had commented and clicked Like on a blog post I had made. Last week she did it again. No comment this time, just a Like. At least I know she is checking my blog and showing an interest in me still, albeit indirectly.

  Last night I sent her an email. Just a real nice and normal email. No religious stuff, just a 'this is how work is going, this is what Mrs Smith has been up to, here are our plans for some holdays we have coming up' type email. I'm not holding my breath for a reply, but hey, you never know!

  Enjoy the rest of your week guys :-)

  WS
• 

  konceptual99

  Hi Winston. Good to hear you are keeping your pecker up.

  Is your blog something that would be of interest to us? Can you share the URL?
• 

  WinstonSmith

  K99: I guess I am an optimist!

  As for my blog, oooooooh it is tempting to post it here as blogging is a favourite hobby of mine. I am a hack amateur photographer and it is full of my poor attempts at the art, along with my ramblings on life and a commentary on the adventures of Mrs Smith and I as we trundle about here and there. It is immediately obvious when you go there that it belongs to me (by my real name) and I am not quite ready to pull off the mask just yet. However if you send me a nice PM (and beer), I might share the link with you....
• 

  WinstonSmith

  I have made three posts over the last week on my blog, and Mum has clicked Like on all three and commented on two of them. Not big comments, just two or three words.
  
  Still no reply to my email.
  
  I think she is trying to tell me "I'm keeping in touch as best I can within the rules" or something........

  Little by little the battle is won.
• 

  WinstonSmith

  Hi everyone!

  It is an absolutely gorgeous day here in my city. Had a lovely weekend just chilling out with Mrs Smith.

  Nothing to report on as far things are going with mum, the extent of contact has remained at a Like and / or comment here and there on my blog.

  Thought I would share something that has popped up a couple of times in the last little while.

  Since I DA'd I have not seen or run into any JWs anywhere. I am waiting for the day when I get my first official shun ha ha. I have always wondered what I would say, I guess it would depend on what they said. Anyway about a month ago I was walking to work having left the train station about 5 minutes before. I got to my corner and when the lights changed, crossed the road. As I was almost across I noticed approaching me from the right was a JW that I knew. He was not in the congregation that I was in when I DA'd, but in one that shared the same hall.

  We saw each other at the same time, and I thought, "Here we go!" But to my surprise he walked right up with his hand out for a shake and greeted me with a "Hey bro!" Straightaway I thought, "Okay he is either being really cool, or he doesn't know that I am DA'd. We stood on the corner for a couple of minutes making small talk - where we worked etc - and in amongst it he asked me where which congregation we were in now. I said "Oh man we have moved house, and we are all over place" He just laughed and said "Yeah I know what that is like. We live in X territory, but go to Y congregation." I laughed with him and said "Well, there ain't no scripture against that!". He agreed and said "They are pretty relaxed about that kind of thing now."

  We then parted and went on our merry ways. He obviously has no idea that I am DA'd, and I saw no reason to bring it up.

  Then last week, I had just got out of the station when I felt a tug on my jacket. I turned around and it was him. Again, handshakes and hey bros. As we walked down toward the corner where we met last time, I was wondering if he might have heard about my DA. Maybe he has mentioned to someone that he has seen me and they had said that I was out. But then I thought that if that were true, and he was in dub-mode, then he probably wouldn't have tugged my jacket, but remained silently behind me.

  As we walked along we talked about work being busy, the weather, nothing real deep. It is literally a 5 minutes walk so we soon parted ways again.

  I wonder how this will turn out?
• 

  WinstonSmith

  Some interesting info on all the money the WTS has made / is making on their big sell up.

  Also interesting to note that the new HQ has a cost of $11.5M while what has been sold or is under contract (according to the article) totals over $500M.

  There is a lot of extra cash somewhere!

  http://therealdeal.com/issues_articles/nonprofits-sitting-on-gold/
• 

  WinstonSmith

  I'm reading a really interesting book at the moment called Everything You Know About God is Wrong . I am really enjoying it. It is a compilation of essays and articles that cover everything from Iranian bloggers getting arrested for Muslim apostasy through to showing that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John didn't write the books that carry their names. Tonight in a chapter called "The God from Galilee" there was a point the clanged with me and punched another hole in my view of the reliability and claimed sources of the bible. Here it is, nice and simple:

  Thus, the God of the bible, who is portrayed in the Old Testament as the relentless enemy of human sacrifice among the heathens, turns himself, in the shape of his own son into the New Testament equivalent.

  In other words, God spent all this time in the OT saying how bad human sacrifice was - and in particular the sacrifice of children - and smiting people for it, yet in the NT, what does he do? He sacrifices his firstborn (to appease himself?).
  
  The God of Double Standards.
  
  I now know where the WTS gets the "this applies to everyone else but me" attitude.
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  WinstonSmith

  Well, well, well.

  I was not expecting THAT.

  Had two pretty awesome things happen in the last week or so.

  Am typing it all up right now...
• 

  clarity

  Winston ....we are waiting!
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  happy@last