Well, well, well. Here I am again. Without fear. This time I will fill in more of the gaps. So please, pour that 2nd cup of coffee, perhaps that 2nd glass of wine, sit back relax and I will fill in the gaps. By the way this is lengthy.
If you have not seen my first post entitled Without fear, you can do that later. It was mostly about a thread already started by my Wife and Daughter.
As I post this I wish to let you know my experiences are related, so as not to brag, but perhaps to let you know what kind of person I am. With over 40 years as a JW I have a lot of experiences because I was the type of person with a conscience who pushed the envelope. Because I did study and I did the research.
I will start with my greatest influence in my life. One was my dad, he was the most reasonable thinking person I knew. His philosophy was always to take a common sense approach to things. He served as an elder up to his death. It is interesting to note he served as a MS for 8 years before a CO asked the body of elders why they were not recommending him as an elder. He Aux. pioneered 4 to 5 times a year. His first talk was assigned after his appointment as an elder. He was a deeply caring, type of person, for people. Let me tell you he did care.
My 2nd influence was a brother I admired a lot, his greatest gift was illustrations. He NEVER gave a talk without an illustration. So I copied that, and I myself NEVER gave a talk without an illustration.
Because of how I watched my dad not get used, and being much like him, and wanting to help my brothers, I realized I had to start reaching out. I lived, bled and sweated JW. But this BOE was peculiar. I realized I had to tie their hands somehow. I figured the only way this could be done was to pioneer. So I did, you see I figured Pioneering would seal the deal. The night the appointment came 4 other brothers were also appointed. Funny thing, they all gave their first public talks within 6 months to a year. I finally gave my first public talk in about 6 years. This was not because I was not a qualified speaker.
Let’s back up a bit.
About 3 weeks after being appointed I received a call from brother "G" asking about the teaching abilities of brother "A", he was my book study conductor. So I told him what I thought. The next thing I knew brother "A" was asking me about that conversation, so I told him what was asked, and what I said. Brother "A" asked me if I wouldn’t mind repeating what I said in front of brother "G". So I did. The next meeting I asked brother "A" if he figured out who was LYING. He said he knew. You folks should know, brother “A” and my family were very close. He was a 2nd gen. JW with lots of knowledge, truly a man I could learn from since my dad had already passed. I have as much respect for that man as I did my own dad. Brother "G" was a prominent elder if you know what I mean. And brother "A" was the PO as they were called then. Not hard to see what was going on. I was put in the middle of that. I took that opportunity to learn all I could about why God Hates lying, and boy did I. As a pioneer/MS and having, yes a janitorial business I had LOTS of time to study, and study I did. I could not get enough of WT learning. The more I studied the more I wanted to learn. I was the MS you enjoyed going out in service with because you knew I had brain teasers for you. (Now that I know TTATT, I think I now have the mother of all brain teasers)
Pioneer school was a gift I was looking forward to. Well I did learn a few things. I learned how to be humbled publically by the CO. You see the day before; during lunch it was my turn to give my exp. as to how I started pioneering. I mentioned how I prayed to Jehovah (Out loud) if he could make things work out so that I could start sooner, I would start sooner. I was planning to quit my job on the fall of the next year to pioneer, but I desired so much to start sooner, so that was my prayer.
The next morning after opening prayer this CO made it a point before class began to state that it was wrong to pray and ask Jehovah, "If you do this, than I will do that." He said it was putting God to the test. Now, I ask you all, couldn’t that have been done in private? The most impressive thing I took away from pioneer school was this. I observed a sister walking into the back library to ask the other instructor a question, he was reading some material in a book, that brother closed that book and gave that sister his full attention. There was no bookmark; after she left he began to find his place where he was. That's love in my book. Zipping forward
On another occasion our SO asked if I could make our home available for a book study, all excited I said yes, but asked why, brother "A" was only 2 blocks away and he is much older, wouldn’t it be better to keep it there? AHHHHHHH, you all just ran ahead of me. YEP another LIE. Here we go again. By this time though I was already experiencing prob. with that CO who humiliated me in class. And a lot of other things were happening at that time also. So pushing the envelope, I wrote to the society asking for assistance in these matters, well, it was more like complaining and accusing. Remember I have a lot of time to dedicate to study; things were beginning to take a different course, if you know what I mean. Well knowing that this letter could return and bite me in the back side, ( oops almost forgot, my best of friend and wife, NE ) We began to ask a lot of questions to ourselves, from the perspective of elders. Every question we asked we found an article in the WT to disprove or stop the argument. Before the day came, a brother asked me to read an article in a 1966 WT regarding maintaining peace. It was written so as to make it the publisher’s responsibility to maintain peace in the cong. See I was being accused of disrupting the peace. Well I thought there must be something more recent to have used. YUP, so I called that brother and ask why we were not going to discuss the more recent article, YUP, you guessed again, neither article was discussed. The day came, NE and I were to visit with not just 2 or 3 elders, my God it was the entire body!!!! ALL 13. Talk about intimidating. I know this is getting long, take a break, refill you coffee cup and maybe you need to keep the whole bottle of wine next to you. Does anyone need to go PEE?
Ok, within the first few minutes the brother in charge interrupted NE as it was her that went first regarding another matter. He said in a very bold tone, "be careful we could consider that apostasy and DF you." Like good trained, mind control JW’s we cooled it, until one of the elders leaned into the circle putting his hand on his knee and said “how dare you question what this body does!” I quietly stated to NE please get the file. NE leaned over and pulled the file containing all the research we had done, and yes it included an article stating that anybody has the right to question what elders do in regards to the congregation. Now I tell you folks without fear or exaggeration that folder containing all the info was 2’’ thick. Every elders jaw dropped simultaneously. Needless to say every subject that was covered in our letter to the society we had an article covering that and much, more. Not one elder had any articles at all. Some didn’t even have a bible. Well after almost 2 hours we left that meeting without as much a private counsel. We never met with those elders regarding any of those matters again. It wasn’t until the next CO’s visit that it was brought up again, and this time the Do was brought in. Needless to say I did more research and study. It did not go as well as the first time, but at least I was still serving as a Pioneer and MS. PHEW.
As a MS for the longest time I was not being assigned teaching parts on the service meeting. But whenever a fellow servant or elder begged off on his assignment I was the first one they called. One experience. I lived only 3 min from our hall. I got a call to handle a 20 min part, 20 minutes before I had to leave, which included a 2 nd person. Great, so what I do now. Gojira was my helper. Because I was such a diligent studier and preparer of parts we pulled it off. After that meeting I told our PO “Do not ever expect me to do that again, if I am good enough to handle a part unprepared than please start assigning them to me”. BTW I kept every talk I ever gave as a MS.
Well the day came and I knew it was going to happen, another lie was fabricated and I was deleted as a MS. No worries, my heart wasn’t in it any more for I could see I was the challenge this or any other body did not want to deal with, see where studying gets you in this org. NOWHERE. I will leave it for now and post more later.
Affectionately
Brother of the Hawk
PART 1 of Without Fear: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/experiences/248986/1/With-out-Fear