by Mr Ben 125 Replies latest jw friends
I was thinking...
If something like this happened at a "regular-flavor" church, the gathering itself would probably not be cancelled... but then it would certainly suddenly turn into a pretty intense prayer meeting for the one in trouble!! That would be both appropriate and comforting, in my view.
I've never been a dub, so I've gleaned that JWs don't have prayer meetings... so they wouldn't necessarily come to this kind of conclusion. ...Am I right?
bebu
My oldest brother was giving his first public talk he must have been in his late twenties at the time. He had a slight case of the flu. However, he insisted giving the talk, and I suppose between having a case of the nerves and being weakened by the flu he passed out on the stage in the middle of his talk. Instead of stopping the service, several brothers carried him off the stage and then proceeded to play the song to begin the Watchtower Study and went on with the rest of the meeting.
What pi**ed me off was that they didn?t know why he passed out, my family knew he was fighting the flu, but as far as everyone else was concerned they didn?t know what was wrong with him. I was about thirteen at the time, and I was thinking why don?t they stop the meeting, my brother could be seriously hurt.
Even as the paramedics wheeled him out of the kingdom hall the PO asked them to keep the noise to a minimum. I am glad I don?t have anything to do with this cult any longer.
| my grandmother had a stroke during a #3 talk. I didn't see this, as she lived very far away from us. She died after 5 days in a coma rumor has it that the meeting continued, but I cant confirm that to this day (22 years later). Judging by these stories, no surprise to me if the meeting went on. I can't even begin to express how happy I am to be away from that abusive so-called religion. |
now that I think of it, i remember a sister having a seizure and 911 being called and them taking her out into the foyer so the meeting wouldn't be disturbed.
come to think of it, i have never heard of them stopping a meeting in the middle for any reason.
i remember being at a DC one time and hearing how there was a family present who had been at a store the day before, where the mother of the family was shot and killed. but the rest of the family was praised for attending the rest of the convention.
surely it must've been shock alone over the incident that caused them to do that. this was announced at the pontiac silverdome years ago, anyone else remember this???
fleur
BrooklynNY,
You said, "Even as the paramedics wheeled him out of the kingdom hall the PO asked them to keep the noise to a minimum. I am glad I don?t have anything to do with this cult any longer."
You made me remember something. The elder giving the talk whilst the brother was dying started to speak louder and louder so as to drown out the noise of the working paramedics.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, WatchtowerWorld is sure one fucked up place!
Wow, even I have to think this must be the exception rather than the rule. I can see how Witnesses would have the mindset of doing this, but I just can't believe that most witnesses would react this way.
I can. Our hall had a young MS with a heart condition (the same condition that had killed his father at a young age). He was standing in the back of the hall passed out during the meeting (I think it was a WT study led by our PO), hitting his head with a resounding CRACK on the literature counter. 2 sisters who were nurses rushed to take care of him, but the remainder of the cong was scolded by the PO for reacting, and told to pay attention to the meeting.
Same thing, the paramedics were asked to be quiet while in a hall full of people trying desperately to pretend nothing was happening back there.
sick
These sad accounts reminded me of the following passage from Barbara Grizzuti Harrison's book Visions of Glory: A History and a Memory of Jehovah?s Witnesses. (The book is online at http://www.exjws.net/vg.htm. It's a really good book, by the way -- she was a very fine writer who wrote many published books on travel and other topics. You can find some still in print -- with 5-star ratings -- at http://www.amazon.com.):
Mike died at a party at a Witness' house. Unlike most Witnesses, he never seemed to give a damn what impression he created on other people. He was funky and loving and flamboyant. He was an iceman; he drove an ice truck. When I was younger, I'd had a temporary job at the UN bank. Mike used to drive me up to the Secretariat building in his truck. We laughed at the incongruity of driving to the UN in a Sicilian-decorated truck, and he never used the occasion to preach about the evils of the "beastly United Nations" (which ranked second, in the Witnesses' chamber of Satanic horrors, only to the Vatican). He may have accepted the Witnesses' belief that the UN was the "desolation of desolations, "but that didn't deter him from driving up gaily and irreverently to its portals. The fear and loathing such "devilish" places inspired in the Witnesses' hearts, and the repulsion and fascination, seemed entirely lacking in his.
But it was his heart that killed him. He'd had two heart attacks; on morning of that party, he'd been out preaching for the first time since his convalescence. He was talking about his delight in being able to go from door to door again, talking with gusto about his pleasure in "sharing" (other Witnesses might "give the truth"; Mike shared), when he clutched his chest and began to gasp for air. He took the diamond ring he wore off his finger and gave it and his wallet to his wife (he knew he was dying; his thoughts were for someone else). A few Witnesses went, spontaneously and generously and compassionately, to his wife to support her. A respected elder from Watchtower headquarters launched-as Mike's gasps began to sound, horribly, more like the final rattle of death-into an interminable story about the people he'd known who'd been taken unaware by death (I knew someone else who died like that," he said, looking at Mike). Three-quarters of the Witnesses present set themselves to clean up the room in order to "give a good witness" to the police when they arrived. Mike was pronounced DOA. The cops were given a speech about our hope in the resurrection. Mike himself was ignored (except by the police, whose attempts to resuscitate him were heroic); grief was shelved (Mike's wife was sedated). The Witnesses congratulated themselves on the way the police had seemed to be impressed by their decorum and their calm; in their zeal to "give a witness," the actual fact of Mike's death seemed almost forgotten. I can't remember anyone crying out in love or horror - or praying.
The task of telling Mike's young daughter that he had died was delegated to me. As an elder drove me to her house, he recited all the Scriptures I might use to comfort her. He might have been reciting the Guinness Book of World Records. (The rest of the Witnesses stayed behind; when I left, Mike's heavily sedated wife lay on a couch while, around her, Witnesses talked about what a pleasant change it must make for the cops to come into a "decent" house, how much nicer than having to break up a drunken fight.) I looked at the elder in a vain attempt to find some trace of sorrow or anger on his face as he continued to offer memorized words of comfort. He had already buried Mike in some recess of his mind; his concern was how to keep Mike's daughter from "going overboard with immoderate grief" (his words - she was 12 years old). I have hated very few people as much as I hated that man, then. "See if you can take Mike's daughter out preaching with you tomorrow morning," he said. "It'll keep her mind from selfishness.
Nobody had cried. Mike's daughter cried, and I couldn't find it in my heart to read a single Scripture to her.
This is maybe the most troubling of the thousands of posts I've read on this forum. It brings to mind a television program on PBS several years ago, a documentary about a day in the life of a paramedic ambulance squad. One of their emergencies was rushing to care for a heart attack victim at a Kingdom Hall while the meeting was in progress.
When the members of the paramedic team met at day's end to discuss the events of the day over cups of coffee, the main topic was this incident and how shocked they were that the meeting went on as though nothing had happened, and that some JWs actually tried to place magazines with the crew as they were tending to the victim!
I once was at the Stanley Theater in Jersey City, where a brother collapsed and died in the rear of the hall while the Circuit Overseer droned on at the podium. He wasted no time in spewing out his anger over the unseemly commotion as the drama played out.
some JWs actually tried to place magazines with the crew as they were tending to the victim!
That absolutely has to take the cake!! They do the screwiest damn things that make them look like the total lunatic nutballs they are, then complain when people point out how bizarre their behavior is, and cry 'persecution'
This thread gets more and more disturbing. I know this happens, I've seen it happen. Why have I never given it any thought before. You all are right, in nearly any other church all sermons would stop immediately and they would have a prayer session.
And witnessing to the paramedics, sick. Yet I've seen that done before too. Someone is taken in to the emergency room and there are the Dubs handing out magazines to the staff and non-jw family instead of sitting and holding their hand.
It sickens me when I think of how many times I read 1 Tim 3 ("having no natural affection") in the ministry. They have no clue what natural affection really means. God, just when I think this whole JW experience is starting to fade out for me, I read something like this thread and it turns my stomach over.
BTW Lloyd Barry? is that the one who keeled over while giving a talk at the DC?
Odrade
