slavenomore

by Slavenomore 44 Replies latest jw friends

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  Newly Enlightened

  WELCOME Slavenomore. Glad to have you here with us.
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  Aunt Fancy

  Welcome Slavenomore! Stay on your journey and continue to read and search, it does get much better with time.
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  cofty

  Welcome
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  Slavenomore

  Thank you for the welcome.

  As I was saying, I was so bored and surpirse, surprise disillusioned after 12 years. The meetings and the meetings did I say meetings?! It was painful, and only by giving a part or walking to the back, outside, to talk with the 'spiritually weak' ones(also bored out of their gourd) could i save myself from wanting to scream in primal frustration. I was an elder, pioneer and ms for 10 of my 14 years enslaved. Two years in to being an elder, I realized that this life was not what I had signed up for. On top of that My marriage was stale. The wife took the bedroom rules a little too seriously and keeping up appearances became too hard for me. I was taxed beyond my means, my commercial contracting business, 10-14 different apartment buildings owned and maintained by me, rbc, all the bloody meetings just collided into any attempt at me enjoying life. My wife's concern was money, appearances and keeping her husband in the elite club at the KH, by doing this JHVH was sure to be happy. She was at one time very involved but got burnt out, now i did the heavy lifting for both of us.

  I wish I had confronted my fellow elders on the doctrinal errors as i had on the behavior of the CBE and the mother organization , but I had not yet investigated the watchtower corporation as I have recently...only confirming I made the right decision to leave. Instead not knowing a way out, I started living a double life which involved risky behavior not the least of which i resumed smoking. I was caught, feigned repentance and then got reproved. I continued and then I got myself disfellowshipped.

  If I had done some research before hand I would never have met with the JC. But knowing I did wrong and still believing somewhat In the theocratic solution to situations, plus I always was impressed when announcements of reproof or dfs happened from the platform, to see the person named sitting in the audience. It was my turn to take discipline and wasn't going to run away...well so much for pride. BeCause if I could do it over or if can advise anyone now it would be never meet with the JC. Do not give them this power over you. Because as you fade away from such indoctrination you begin to see the whole picture...and it isn't a pretty one, but one of a uber patriarchal control. Control of mind and behavior. I'm not proud to admit it but I was part of this destructive cult. My new and beautiful wife has the hardest time comprehending how I of all people could have been so duped, then so dishonest and then upon leaving and resuming a life based on personal honesty and integrity and I struggle to explain. Perhaps i cant. But then again perhaps i can. Maybe it was a midlife crises, after all I was all but 37, and I did buy a sweet motorcycle. Perhaps it was rejecting the cognitive dissonance and control that was so much a part of me, something which i grew to detest. My life is now so much better, positive and truly dynamic. I am doing exactly what I want and believe it or not I feel I am more moral and honest as I have ever been. It makes me wonder why so many of us thought that the org and it's rules and the bible and it's rules we're so essential to such a life. It is amazing that with the absence of authority, rules and moral codes, at least for me has enabled me to grow and thrive and do so in a way that creates a life pattern of happiness and love. I wonder if we need to be reminded of christs sacrifice to do good towards my fellow.
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  LoisLane looking for Superman

  SlaveNoMore...Welcome, welcome welcome. How lovely to have you here. I am so happy for your release from captivity!

  Just Lois
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  cobaltcupcake

  Welcome, Slavenomore! Glad you got out!
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  tec

  Welcome to you too, slavenomore!

  Peace,

  tammy
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  Amelia Ashton

  Welcome
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  LostInTranslation

  Congrats Slave No More, On finding yourself...
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  Slavenomore

  Thanks for the welcoming spirit, i have followed so many of the posts here its like i sort of know many of you, at least how you think about certain things that is. heres a little bit more about me. I live in upstate New York. Moving out to the country has been a real treat for us. We have apple trees. I now have time to love my wife and child(8 months old), todo my artwork, brewing and to live quietly, it just makes me wonder sometimes how simple life can be, and how much time I now have, but sometimes I think about how much time I wasted. But then I shake my head to rid those thoughts because if anything had been different I might not have met and fallen in love with my wife...like the butterfly effect.

  But how did I become to be involved in such a mind numbing and control oriented cult? I had graduated with honors, from university with a geology degree. Without student loans to bog me down into the work cycle, I decided that travel was my best future. With that decision I traveled to Europe with my brother for 9 months, then on to Kenya by myself and stayed for 2 months. I had previously spent a semester in India, and with the collection of religious classes and the belief in the divine so encompassing in the subcontinent of contrasts, I started to think more about life and it's meaning. While in Europe I experienced such kindness, generosity and universality of the human spirit that I thought that there must be some connection to all this that we call human culture. Instead of a world of scatterred self interested people I saw a thread that ran through everything and everyone, that thread I started to believe was some sort of divinity, which in my young mind must of had some creator being that started it all. Having read and been inspired by Hesse, i was a romantic in the sense that the world was colorful and wrapped In a mysterious and mythical beauty. I trusted and was gullible to a fault. I also was steeped in politics throughout high school and college. Encouraged by my loving parents, I went from protest to protest, starting with joining with much older students protesting SA apartheid in the eighties, school of America's, George and Ronald's disastrous policies in Latin America to desert storm and on and on. I also was a fond lover of deep ecology, and it's seducing language of bioegalitarianism. Rachel carson, Aldo Leopoldo, Bob Marshall and Dave foreman were my heros in the war for environmental justice. So basically I was as anti-authoritarian with a romantic vision of the future if everyone could get on board the neo-socialist environmental band wagon. Religious studies at college never bored me. Buddhism, the ideal of the feminine divine, Taoism and epicurean philosophy inspired me. But i I think what happened in africa was crucial in my stepping into the watchtower trap. While in Kenya I stayed in a remote village,no electricity, cars or anything but simple food and fruit and genuine people. These same people were converted a while ago into the RC church. Their church was an open field where a priest came once a week and a mass was celebrated. No bibles, songbooks or liturgy. Yet Anyone would be hard pressed to find a more joyful throng of singing worship. My idealism was at full speed ahead when my patron, Charles, started introducing me to his family/village, he called all he introduced either brother or sister, uncle or aunt, grandmother or grandfather. I asked him, "how is it Charles that you have such a large family?" his reply as simply and genuinely as he could muster was "the bible tells us to treat everyone as brother and sister". This book, the bible, the same bible that we, my colleagues and i, castigated in school, laughed at and certainly would never demean ourselves to read, created in this man, Charles a way of life so beautiful and clear. A religious man was summoned to our little hut by Charles as he had no bible, yet alone a book, in his mud hut( I have forgotten this mans name, but remember himas a seventh day Adventist) . He brought me a bible and I began to read it. It answered none of my questions as I could not find anything of value in it. The Adventist when hearing my dismay, brought me some bible tracts of unknown origin. These tracts talked about armeggedon, the whore of Babylon, which interestingly enough included JWs, (wish i still had them, many were such tracts at markets where people sold them along with anything else) they then led me to places in the bible which concurred with their extreme views. I had no idea the bible was full of such political messages: Governments to be destroyed for their wickedness, churches for their whorish ways also destroyed by the God they pretend to worship. Growing up with conspiracy theories and two political and environmental activists as parents turned this message into a warm familiarity and a desire to see it fulfilled. I left Kenya to return to my hometown, where with my new found appreciation of the bible created some interest in my geology mentor, who was a Presbyterian. I went to his church and quickly realized church was not for me. My mom was raised RC, and my dad a secular humanist/atheist. upon moving to what was to become our hometown in the early 80's, My mom , who could give a flip about religious tradition, wanted to find a church for the family that would allow us boys to become conscientious objectors in case of war. Funny thing is that it was a choice between the KH in the neighboring town or the Unitarian church in our town. She went to both and chose the unitarians without hesitation(I learned this later on as I was 10 yrs old at the time). Let's put it simply, religion played not one factor in our childhood, it's influence was near zero. Instead it was family and friends, learning integrity through action towards others and standing up for principle like justice and peace. Being political activists from the viet nam war onward, my parents walked the walk. Working on refugee issues from Biafra to Bangladesh throughout the seventies til now, nuclear disarmament, incineration and other vital issues. Their network of friends, fellow activists, writers, journalists and a few celebrities was wide. They taught me everything I needed to know about how to treat my fellow and how to live with integrity. To them the idea i needed further instruction from a bible thumping organization hurt them to the core when I told them that I was remaining put in a miserable little town as a jw instead of going to Italy to take up an artist residence. I let them know that god was going to bring peace despite what humans do, therefore it was more important to side with him, the solver of worlds problems then to pursue selfish endeavors and at the same time dismissing all their work in one fell swoop. We argued this point ad infinitum and to my father in particular ad nauseum. They eventually, albeit reluctantly, accepted my choice and we got along as best a family can separated by distance and prevented in celebrating holidays.