Encounter at McDonalds

jws

So I was helping some friends move and it came time for a break, I took my kids to McDonalds. We're sitting there and there's a family across from us, man, wife, 2 kids under 4. In the next booth is this older guy, maybe late 60's.

I'm not really paying attention, but then this older guy says something to the family about everybody being "me-first" these days. So that caught my ear. Why? Didn't seem to be anything going on. Any wrongs being committed that somebody had to make such a comment. I start to look this guy over, trying to figure out what his deal is.

He looks like he's wearing suit clothes without the jacket. Bright white shirt, tie, and for an old-fashioned addition, suspenders. This struck me a bit odd. I took him for one of the types of conservatives that likes to live in the past and wear clothes from back when they perceived all was well in America. Not talking all conservatives, but there is a certain subset.

Then it all became clear as he pulls out two familiar sized magazines and starts to read them.

As I was leaving with the kids and they went on ahead to refill their sodas, I stopped by and asked him. "So, you're one of Jehovah's Witnesses"?

He said he was and asked if I wanted to read what he was reading. "NO thank you" I replied. Since he was older I asked him how many years has Armageddon been just around the corner for him?

He said it's a comfort to me. Me: "huh"? He repeated that it's been a comfort to him and that it's kept him faithful. Then he asked me to go look up some verse in 2 Timothy? 2:3,4? 3:2,3? I don't remember. I think one of the verses I looked up said something about witnessing. I'm not even sure he knew the right verse.

Not wanting to stay and argue I just said "OK" and left.

Interesting. It's been a comfort to be strung along for who knows how many decades? Watching older ones who've been JWs much longer die of old age waiting. I don't get it. I think if I hadn't learned it was all a crock and left way back when I did, I might just be fed up of all the waiting by now.

Sayswho

Hope gives him reason to get up everyday...talking to others may help him in not thinking about his lost life. If he can convince someone else to believe as he (JWs) do, then this reinforces his beliefs and adds to his hope being true. After all Jah is opening up their minds to become believers, so it must be the "truth".

Now he can relive some of his lost passion through their new zeal! Provers 13:12 "Hope deferred makes the heart sick"

SW

MrFreeze

Somebody that many years along, who has devoted his whole life to it. It is probably all he has. It's his social circle. It's his way of staying relevant in some way.

JWdaughter

My mom was supposed to never get old. . .I don't think her mom was supposed to. She is 70 and I'm menopausal. I didn't figure for this earth lasting until I was pubescent! Go figure.

JakeM2012

It does sound like the elderly man in McDonald's has diminished from what was previously a sure thing, strong faith, imminent reality to now just a comfort.

factfinder

When I first started attending meetings I was told I'd "always be a teenager" because the end is so close! I am now 55, not exactly a teenager and the promised paradise has not come.

But perhaps for that man at McDonalds it is the routine, the lifestyle he has held to all those years that brings him comfort. He has invested so much of his life in it (?) that he would not consider giving it up?

I wonder if that is what my jw brother has as his real motivation - he has been a witness and pioneer for so long and it is his routine, his way of life. Perhaps it is not so much that he still believes everything but rather he does not want to give up his lifestyle and having invested most of his life in it. I do not know for sure as he will not discuss it with me but maybe it is the routine that brings that man comfort?

Like what MrFreeze said!

OUTLAW

JW Life..

Anxiety Compulsion

Reinforcement Obsession

....................... ...OUTLAW

friendaroonie

Remin ds me of the recent post on self deception

mind blown

Hadn't spoken to my kid in a while.....everything out of her mouth was.....scary robotic......

Finkelstein

The inherent doctrines of the WTS. Corporation has always been adulterated commercial fabrications,

exploiting the belief in the bible for its own marketing agenda. The JWs is a dangerous cult that has

killed thousands and broken apart millions of families, all for a bunch of disingenuous power seeking

men running a publishing house. It might be truthfully said that the WTS. created its false bible

interpretations to keep the proliferation of its published goods in a continuous and expanding presence .

Goes to show just how far aggressive coercion and manipulation can go by men running and operating

a publishing house.

Encounter at McDonalds

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