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JW Chronicles – Requests for JW Jokes

JW Chronicles – Requests for JW Jokes

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A selection to demonstrate some of the reasons why the JW jokes have been requested. Download my collection of Jehovah’s Witness jokes if you like, but please read them with a light-hearted spirit. They are not intended in a hateful way, but only to provide a distancing mechanism in a court-jester style. Some JWs have written to me that they thought they were funny too – and others misinterpreted the collection as an expression of my personal feelings. My advice to recovering JWs page is where you should go for my serious writing on the subject, or look through the JW-related posts here.

Christopher: Can I get your JW jokes? A friend just got kicked out of his house for going to a mall with a girl who was not a JW and I think he would enjoy them.

Marvin: I have never been a JW but lost my wife to them (after 20+ years of marriage). I could use a little humor.

Matt: would really like to recieve your list of jw jokes. i also want to say that i think your site carries with it a great wealth of refreshing ideas and insite. so i thank you

Sheba: I wanted to cheer up my best friend from my old days in the jw prison, who now at last has left them too,when I clicked on my bookmark and saw your statement… I am so sorry to hear that you have received so much hate mail from jw – its a very “loving” sect indeed. I thought your jokes were hilarious and no way offensive – I would have laughed at them even in the past… And yes please send me your beautiful jokes – so that my dear friend can have a good laugh at her past.

Robin: Have just been to your website to check out the JW jokes. Seen that they have been removed because some people don’t have a sense of humour! Could you please email the jokes?

bzp: Please send me the joke database…I am a current JW but evidently I have an
advanced sense of humor, I’m not offended.

Bill: Would appreciate it very much if you could send this. Pity about the levels of abuse you’ve experienced. Some ex’s don’t find it easy moving forward, I’m afraid. We were in the organisation for nearly 40 years and after being out about 5 years are pretty much chilled out now….can’t think of anything that would particularly faze us, in fact.

Ben: I’d like to see your list of jokes. I have a friend who’s a JW. Strange, she talks so much about her beliefs and hardly knows the bible. She can quote random bits perfectly, but has only completely read “song of solomon”, a detail which I actually found encouraging. Anyway, loved your sight, and your cooling writing style, keep it up.

Ken: I’d love a copy of your JW jokes! “I’d rather have questions that I cannot answer than answers that I cannot question.”

Michelina: HI. . i don’t understand why some of the witnesses didn’t find the jokes funny. . I am a current Jehovah’s witness and i thought they were hilarious. . haha. . anyway. may i please have a copy of the jokes?

Kevin: I would like the jokes…I promise I will not offend anyone with them. “…Though justice be thy plea, consider this, that, in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation: we do pray for mercy; and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy.” The Merchant of Venice

Brian: I visited your site again today, after not having been there in some time, and was disappointed to see the jokes had to be taken down. It’s understandable I suppose, given your explanation, but still unfortunate. I work in an office which is about 50% J.W., and while I am not one myself, I do enjoy working with them, even if I don’t agree with some of their principles. If the file of jokes is still available, I would like a copy if it is not too much trouble.

Neil: please would you send me the Witness humour pdf ? I’ve recently met a JW and would like some mild jokes … thanks

Jerry: I’ve been enjoying your website but would like to read the jokes you removed. I will not be offended by them and you won’t receive angry mail from me.

Sara: I’ve just been on your website to see your ex JW jokes, but see you have had to take them off. Some people have an operation to remove their humour I think- sorry they felt the need to complain to you! I’d love to read the jokes if you get the time to email me. I’m an ex JW in the UK by the way.

Dawn: This sounds like my type of humour!! Could you please forward me the PDF of the JW jokes? I am an EX JW…my parents were Christians until I was 8, then ‘became’ JW’s. I left on my own, or “disassociated” myself 10 years later. I’m still working on my parents…

IF: Can you please send me the jokes about JW. I was trying to tell them to my ex jw friends but i just remember a few. why would you take them out in the first place? they were so cool

Chris: Thanks so much. Even when I was active, I was always able to laugh at my (our) own silliness. Great to be liberated.

Addendum: The jokes page is back!! http://www.virushead.net/jwhumor.html

Another Former JW Writes

Another Former JW Writes

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Testimony and advice from another former JW

R: I really like your site and I feel your advice for new ex-JWs is very wise. It was a pleasure to find your site. I haven’t been a JW for 20 years or so. I was a third generation JW, raised in the religion. By my mid-20s I was seriously depressed, guilty, and aimless. One of the things that made me feel really guilty and like a failure was that I just couldn’t pray with any conviction. Also, I came from an abusive family – at least my father was a dangerous and violent alcoholic who frequently tried to kill us.

I went to massage school in my early 30s. Giving and receiving massage made me feel worthy, and even loved. Other things that helped me were maybe a little silly – a bumper sticker that said "since I gave up hope I feel better." That’s how I felt! Massage school gave me culture shock; I was exposed to all sorts of viewpoints and beliefs. I realized that much of what is taught by and to JWs is simply not true. Also, I realized that many many many JWs are leading dual lives – they are good JWs when with each other, but very worldly, even promiscuous when no one is watching. What a shock. I went to a psychologist for a year or so – and I highly recommend it. Talking with him, I realized that the root of my depression was something I felt strongly but couldn’t express – my deep sense of betrayal by my mother and the elders. The elders kept telling my mother it was her duty to stay with my father, because he was the head of the house, even though he was a non-believer, and extremely violent and dangerous. When I realized how I felt and expressed it, I felt much better. I was even able to forgive my mother for not protecting us. She really believed she was doing the right thing. And I began to realize what a sick religion it is.

Eventually I was able to tell another truth: I just plain don’t believe. I don’t believe the Bible or any of the other religious writings. I don’t believe in religion. There’s a lot going on the universe that we don’t know about or understand, and it doesn’t matter. I detached from having to have all the answers. I don’t think it’s important to know who made the world and who or what is running the show. We can’t know, therefore it doesn’t matter. What matters is trying to live a noble life. I checked out other religions, but I’m just not impressed. I just don’t believe. I did learn some useful ways of thinking from Buddhism, especially some of the books by Alexandra David Neel. I’m also not interested in discussing it. I don’t care what other people believe, and I feel I have the right to pursue my own beliefs without having to justify them, and I don’t have to put up with people who want to convince me I’m wrong. If there is a god, which I seriously doubt, I can’t see him/her/it rejecting 99 percent of his children and accepting only JWs. God, if he/she/it exists, could hardly be less loving than people in general are.

What I lacked in the first years after I quit being a JW was someone to talk with who could relate to my experience. My sisters don’t relate; although they are not JWs any more either. I finally ran across a wonderful woman in (deleted) who was a former JW also. She shared a great book with me, the first hand account of a former JW. I think it was called "Clouds of Glory," and I wish I could find another copy of it.& The author of that book expressed many of my feelings and reframed the whole experience for me.

When my mother died three years ago, I was immersed in the JW world again for a week, while my mother was in intensive care. I realized how far I had traveled. Now that she is gone, I don’t have to ever have anything to do with any of them ever again, which is a great relief.

I’m a lot happier, healthier, and more useful person now. And terribly grateful that I managed to get out of the JWs. And although I was never able to pray with any conviction as a JW, I learned how to meditate by doing massage, especially lymph drainage massage, which is very quiet, still, and repetitive, and requires that the therapist pay attention to his/her breathing.

Nice of you to provide a place where people like me can unload. I looked for a friendly website for ex-JWs for a long time. Most of the ones I found, though, were very angry and were bent on proving that JWs are wrong doctrinally, and I don’t really care about that. I don’t believe the Bible anyway, so what does it matter? I was very impressed by the wisdom and compassion in your advice. Thanks! I see from your web site that you get a lot of hate mail from JWs, and I really don’t want that. But if my experience would help anyone, it’s OK to share. Like you, I don’t want to make the past the center of my life, I don’t want to be bitter and focused on how I was harmed. I just want to leave it in the past and enjoy the life I have now.

I also liked your advice about overreacting to JWs when leaving the organization. I have seen a few others in the last 20 years or so that have left the organization. However, they seem driven to prove how bad they are: drug abuse, promiscuity, other risky behavior. Self-destructive behavior won’t help.

I would like to tell them: Nurture yourself, don’t destroy yourself. If you are leaving JWs, and you feel angry and guilty, just lie low for a while. Don’t talk about it all the time, although you may be tempted to do so. Don’t act like a victim. Look around and find people who are living lives you admire, and get close to them. Learn how to live a new way by hanging out with wise, compassionate people who are successful at living noble lives. You’ll get through the stage of feeling like a traveller from another universe, and you’ll find worthwhile friends and rewarding activities.

Heidi: What a wonderful treat to get your letter this morning – thank you, thank you. I too saw a therapist when, during two separate occasions in my life, I just felt that I had been ill-equipped to navigate the psychological terrain. It was a big big help to me, especially since in both cases it was short-term with limited goals. I didn’t want to turn into a narcissist, I just wanted to know how to get through to the next level. One of the things that was most enlightening to me was a very simple message that I had a choice – that I could decide for myself what was important to me among the conflicting voices inside. That somehow allowed me to shift and sort and to find more authentic paths. Sounds so simple, but it wasn’t something I had been allowing myself.

I am sorry about your family. There is an awful lot of this sort of thing. It took me until the year of my own father’s death to be able to forgive him – and then only because he was around a lot, being good to my son, and had overcome both the alcoholic and the post-alcoholic madness that had destroyed his own life.

It is so true that sometimes all it takes is exposure to other ways of being for some JWs to be able to realize at some level that their own way is somehow wrong. I think that is why (along with other authoritarian and controlling groups) that the JWs so discourage “worldly associations.” They framed it in such a way that we would think all outsiders are bad – some then seek out the badness as the only route out. But of course most of it isn’t bad at all – there is a lot of kindness and compassion and fun out there too! You were fortunate to have found a window that included a sense of healing and a respect and acceptance of the body.

I studied world religions, and that helped me a lot – but my own path of questioning is somewhat eclectic and I too see nothing but strife in arguing over doctrinal and interpretative matters. I have always found that if your focus is intellectual, learning to ask better questions promotes wisdom a lot more than the illusion of having the answers. In many ways, a breathing meditation accomplishes more – you get centered, attuning your spirit and body. I also like sound, attention, and compassion meditations – even just paying attention to how different bodily positions affect your emotional state – bowing, reaching up to the sky, etc. Ultimately your spiritual path is your own – between you and your sense of the cosmos/God/gods, whatever you like to think. Words are so misleading anyway.

For myself, I decided long ago that if God were really like the God of the JWs, then such a God was not worthy of my attention, much less my worship and obedience. I have since come to believe that this could not be God – I use in meditation Anselm’s thought that God is that “which none greater can be thought.” So I think of the best God I can possibly imagine, and then assume that God, or the cosmos energy of love, or what we label as these things, is much much better in ways that I just simply won’t be able to understand given the way we perceive the world in human terms of space and time. And, to quote the character Stuart Smalley, “that’s…… OK.”

R: So nice to hear from you – your point of view about JWs is so intelligent and realistic. I remember being surprised to find that non-JWs could be good friends, and weren’t all bad, which is what I believed for a long time. There’s a little superiority in that feeling, too – everyone outside the organization is evil, and we’re so good. A lot of narcissism too – look at how good we are, how holy, how superior. With distance I realize that JWs are a narcissistic group, and more afraid of demons than of god, which is interesting, isn’t it? Anyway, I have found many better friends outside the org. than I did inside it. I remember when my mother came to my wedding (she stood outside the church and watched through a window), she said with surprise at the end of the weekend "Ramona’s friends are nice!"

I don’t actually believe in Buddhist doctrine, but I have learned a lot from the writings of the Dalai Lama about how to live, which has made me a much happier person. I really respect the Dalai Lama. Another book that really helped me is "Women Saints East and West." I learned something really important from that book – that although the doctrines were very different (Catholic, Muslim, Buddhist), these women had very similar lives. They all had an experience of the divine, meditated or prayed about six hours a day, and lived lives of service to others. The modern example is Mother Teresa. I couldn’t agree with her doctrinal beliefs, but she lived that life – an experience of the divine, six hours a day of prayer, and a life of service. Evidently god spoke to her in a train when she was a young woman. Then I got the big Aha! from a book by Alexandra David Neel. She went to Tibet early in the 20th century to learn from Tibetan Buddhist mystics. She spent a lot of time there, learning really difficult meditation practices, the short path. At the end, she asked the monks a couple of good questions. She asked if all that she had learned wasn’t just in her mind, not real at all. The monk said yes. Then she asked about people who couldn’t do the short path meditations, which were really hard and didn’t allow time for a person to earn a living or live a normal life. The monk said "then they have to live noble lives." I really got that. We don’t need doctrines, special clothing, special buildings, special rituals or a church hierarchy. We just need to try to do the right thing on a daily basis. That’s actually tougher than going through the motions of religion, but it’s also more rewarding.

You know, I haven’t said this much about my beliefs to anyone before now. Do you have a lot of ex-JWs bending your ear and unloading like this? If so, you’re a really compassionate person. I have been toying with a book on spirituality for people who don’t believe anything. One of these days I’ll finish it.

H: Yes, I do get a lot of email on these topics, but although compassion is a major path for me I think it is healing all around. It is, as you say, beneficial to communicate with someone who understands the issues involved and has a certain kind of common ground of insights and experiences. And I need to hear it as much as anyone else. It fills me with joy to see others who have found (or rediscovered) their own path. Thank you for sharing your experience here for others to read.

Watchtower Military Warfare

Watchtower Military Warfare

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Watchtower Owns Warfare Technology

The Watchtower Society owns 50% stock in Rand Cam – so much for its pacifist claims and prohibitions on political involvement. Among their products is an engine used in smart bombs.

“On December 6, 2001 we announced that a U.S. Navy contract (SBIR No1-144) has been awarded to Advanced Ceramics Research (prime contractor) and REGI U.S., Inc. to build and test a Naval 0.5 horsepower ceramic engine. The proposed engine is a four stroke Rand Cam engine utilizing continuous injection and combustion in a single combustion chamber. The engine will be of all ceramic construction to permit high temperature operation, without cooling, to effectively burn heavy oil. This new motor will be developed for powering the U.S. Navy’s new Smart War-fighter Array of Re-configurable Modules (SWARM) low cost unmanned aerial vehicle. On April 4, 2002 we announced that we signed an agreement to grant a license to Advanced Ceramics Research, Inc. (“ACR”) for the Rand Cam based motors for 10 H.P. or less for the SBIR No 1-144 Navy Contract for the remote piloted applications. We agreed that a 5 year contract will also be granted to ACR for the Rand Cam concept motors for the commercial and military rights for the applications developed under the Navy contract for 10 H.P or less.”

Is this new? Not really. Here’s another example from the randytv.com site, a report written to illustrate that although the Watchtower Society and Jehovah’s Witnesses condemn war or any such involvement in warfare, it was indeed one of their own devout ministers who was instrumental in the production of weapons of mass destruction specifically during WW2. Clarence Gilbert Taylor (JW) was founder of the (Taylorcraft) Corporation, and set up nine different companies in the mass production of warfare technology. In addition to the famous Taylorcrift Airplanes, just one of these companies – strangely called Gibson Refrigerator Company – contracted and manufactured the following:

1. Incendiary Bombs
2. Chemical Bombs
3. Chemical Bomb Clusters
4. Anti-Aircraft Guns
5. Navy Practice Bombs
6. Aircraft Parachute Flare Bombs
7. Bomb Shackles
8. Jettison Aircraft Fuel Tanks
9. Liberator Bomber Wing Flaps
10. Computer Parts for Large Caliber Anti-Aircraft Guns and Shipboard Guns
11. Engine Parts for Aircraft and Tanks
12. Bomb Housing Band Sets
13. Bomb Sight Lens Polishers
14. CG4A Bomber Gliders
15. Mustard Gas

There is extensive documentation at the site – and a claim (which I need to research for validity) that Dwight Eisenhower was brought up in the “Bible Students” – an early version of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Neutral in world affairs? Here’s just one more way they are not.

JW News – Fake Bomber

JW News – Fake Bomber

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Man arrested after threatening to blow himself up at Rome sect meeting

It must be tough to be a member of a Kingdom Hall in Rome in the first place. Angelo Cicero had been “expelled from the sect” of JWs and, after making several attempts to be let back in, resorted to this. He jumped up on the stage during a meeting…armed with a pistol and with wires handing out from his jacket…and threatened to blow himself up. A robber already known to police, he didn’t actually have any explosives on him, and the gun wasn’t loaded.

There has been a considerable amount of violence from people who have been cut off from the JWs and were so twisted by the double-whammy of the basic psychology and then the shunning on top of it that…. whee- we all fall down. In this case, it seems that he only needed recognition of his existence, perhaps a call for help? Next time, will he actually bring down a whole congregation with him? The normal pattern seems to suggest that no, the usual targets are the immediate family rather than the group members.

As with the issue of the protection of pedophiles while simultaneously cutting off any resources for victims, the effects of the practice of shunning from such an all-controlling authoritarian group call for intervention from outside authority. Unfortunately, I’m starting to feel that the outside authorities – especially the governmental ones – have instead turned to the psychology of the JWs, the Nazis, books like 1984, etc as a guide on how to control the population for the purposes of greed.

His simulated suicide/terror attack may actually focus attention on the problem. I must admit, however, that a wee shadow side of me carried an inward smile as I pictured the scene. I can at least understand the impulse. My yearly temptation when I was still a witness was to actually “partake” of that communion wine that was denied us. Although I never for a second thought that I was one of the 144,000 thousand – I always hesitated for a second or two before I passed that wine down the aisle. What if I did? What would they do? I wonder if anyone has done it – just to see.

JW Chronicles – Predators, Justice, Help

JW Chronicles – Predators, Justice, Help

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There is something inherent in controlling authoritarian communities like the JWs that helps to produce – and serves in some ways to protect – sexual predators of all kinds and, for some reason, especially pedophiles. There was at least one such in my own congregation, who described me as a “perfect little doll” to my parents and who gave me the permanent creeps. He was in his seventies before any charges were made, but I knew deep in my heart that they had to be true. He was convicted – but although he is on lifetime parole, he appears to be a JW member in good standing and according to his stepdaughter even goes door to door and is available for bible studies to families. Three elders of my childhood knew about this (Richard V, Arnold E & Richard M) – and I was simply stunned, even now, to know that not only did they essentially do nothing to protect the children under their care (including me!) but that they didn’t even warn the congregation in any way. While Ralph was “disfellowshipped” for a short time, he simply moved from one congregation to another and in any case we were not told why he was being disciplined. In this case, the predator admitted his guilt and served… one year. This is only one of many such stories.

One of the elders mentioned above was someone that I trusted – he and his family were close friends with my family when I was young. I liked them. After my parents each had their various issues and ins and outs with the JWs, they were less friendly – but I always remembered a very happy time with them at the beach. It’s just another one of those little disappointments. I would have thought he might have done better.

With this going on, they were still pretty keen to accuse me of sexual misconduct based on testimonies from people never named to me – and I was innocent, but gossip spread like wildfire anyway. Yet in my own congregation this was happening and he was allowed to grab me at a wedding and dance “powerful close” to me, the scent of him with his horrible after-shave cologne and his greased hair, his body pressed close to mine making me want to scream and run away. And no one blinks. Here was this known abuser, this pedophile, this control freak, this sadist, walking around smiling. Then there’s me – supposedly this “rebellious youth” – singing Kingdom songs at the top of her lungs at every meeting, trying to be kind and good, being gossipped about and maligned and slandered. When I was later raped (by someone who was not a witness at least) do you think I would go to the JWs for help in a million years? No, I knew better. Because of their views on the nature of God, I even thought that I was being punished by Jehovah for not being more active, for not getting baptised, for asking questions, for not trusting the elders enough… So what DID help? Going to a female psychologist, just long enough to find different ways of thinking about things. Playing the piano. Drawing. Reading fiction. Writing things down to work them out. Taking walks. And, finally, making outside friends, finding outside interests. Most of all, for me, finding a more authentic spiritual path, and discovering – with the help of many fine teachers from all walks of life – how to ask better questions.

The official Watchtower site currently has an biblical quotation at the top of their site: “Happy are those conscious of their spiritual need.”—Matthew 5:3
Very ironic. One of their articles on child abuse states that

“AFTER using children to satisfy perverted lusts, after robbing them of their security and their sense of innocence, child molesters still want something else from their victims—SILENCE. To secure that silence, they use shame, secrecy, even outright terror. Children are thus robbed of their best weapon against abuse—the will to tell, to speak up and ask an adult for protection. Tragically, adult society often unwittingly collaborates with child abusers. How so? By refusing to be aware of this danger, by fostering a hush-hush attitude about it, by believing oft-repeated myths. Ignorance, misinformation, and silence give safe haven to abusers, not their victims. For example, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops concluded recently that it was a “general conspiracy of silence” that allowed gross child abuse to persist among the Catholic clergy for decades.”

Is this for real? They talk about exactly what they did as silent complicit enables, and then point to the Catholic version? The next step is to talk about the responsibility of the child and his/her parents not to become an “ideal victim”? Sheesh. They do give some tips on protection, but there is no discussion of action at the level of the elders or the organziation. They are very careful. There isn’t even any reference here to their requirement for two witnesses. On the next article, they say (of course it’s “they” because we don’t know the author), “Isolation, rigidity, and obsessive secrecy — these unhealthy, unscriptural attitudes are trademarks of the abusive household.” Dear dear JWs – These are of course the very attitudes that they foster, and they are also the trademarks of the abusive congregation, the abusive religion…. While they claim that wife-batterers don’t often change, they seem to think that pedophiles (with an even more intractable cluster of problems) will. Meanwhile, there isn’t much of a sense from any of their articles here that they would encourage reporting the molestor to the authorities. There are a couple of throwaway lines about some victims or family members who might feel they should report it – just in terms of the laws of some places requiring it, but immediately they invoke the possibility that justice might not be served.

The truth of the matter is that JWs like secrecy and control. In many ways, they treat their people like children – and that family is not always a safe place to be. The propaganda wing at The JW Office of Public Information doesn’t have a contact form, but there is a phone number to call with questions should you be so inclined. Evidentally, they don’t want any kind of paper trail. It’s interesting that they have a separate number for journalists. For any kind of discussion you are redirected to the local level. They’ve got it all worked out – very neat.

If you want to understand more about this issue and why many people think that the organization bears some of the responsibility (and may even have restructured the corporation to prepare for lawsuits), check out Silent Lambs and the Watchtower News Service. They both have a lot of information.

For myself, I think that the pattern of abuse of all kinds (check out those news stories!) is a symptom of large, deep problems. I actually laughed out loud when I saw that they were doing things on the official site with the topic of women’s rights – wow, what a strange idea since in that group women are definitely second-class despite being in the majority in most congregations. They talk about their good works around the world – but look a little closer at what those good works actually entail in terms of “what” and “for who.” However they present their official “face” to the world, JWs are in fact taught to believe that the outside world is an inherently evil place and that all authorities of that world are controlled and ruled by Satan the devil. People in the congregation are taught to distrust all outsiders, including police, judges, and psychologists, and they are even encouraged to lie as a “theocratic war strategy.” While predators (especially male ones) seem to have avrious protections, heaven help the victims of abuse, the confused, the ones with psychological issues, the ones who want a deeper spiritual or intellectual understanding beyond rote repetition, or to have a dialogue or debate. None of the above have any resources in the group itself – none. They are on their own.

If you are a JW who has been physically or sexually abused – please – report it to the police and other appropriate authorities. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you can only pray on it and wait for Jehovah. Don’t concern yourself about any so-called “disciplinary action.” You have to have a higher priority. First things first! Stop the abuse before it leads to further incidents – like rape, like murder. Protect yourself. Protect your children if you have them. Do not engage in any interior conversation about not trusting worldly authorities – get out, get help, report it to the police and, if you want, to the elders. There are women’s crisis centers in any moderately sized city. If you are paralyzed with indecision or fear, or even if you somehow feel that you “deserve” what is happening to you, call a hot line, get help. You are NOT on your own in this matter and you can get help. You are taking a big risk if you simply trust the organization to do this – their record is just…not exemplary.

A Former Witness Writes

A Former Witness Writes

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I don’t know if you remember me but I had wrote you an email about how much I enjoyed your web site. Have you ever seen that video Witnesses of Jehovah? I ordered it. It had a lot of good information but I didn’t like the propaganda style making of the video. The music, the horror stories and them dramatizing the the little girl crying and sitting while saluting the flag (sitting during a flag salute is against Witness doctrine anyways). I grew up a Witness kid and it wasn’t that bad. I did love that animation Jesus story! Watch out Disney!!!! lol All they really had to do is present the facts in a fair balanced way, which they did with exception of those few things I mentioned. Keep in touch and keep up the fair and balanced work you are doing. The truth is there it’s just so hard to get through to them, it is a tremendous amount of mind control they are under. I feel for them because I was there once. Please continue on your crusade and if there is anything I can do to help please let me know.
Respectfully,
Ruben

Hi Ruben! Yeah, there were a lot of things that didn’t ring true in the video for me, but at least it’s a start. I actually enjoyed explaining why I didn’t salute the flag when I was a kid – actually, I still don’t salute the flag. There is something so creepy and nationalistic to me about it.

I feel for most of the people who write to me, but I’ve gotten some serious hate mail too. I seem to really hit a chord with some of them that makes them explode with anger. My idea is simply to try to model simple acceptance and compassion – which I do sometimes better than others – but just to show that there might be other options for their lives than to be the “evil exJW” or to become a fanatic of some other religious outlook. By the way, there are some excellent resources out there now. There is an “Out of the Cocoon” newsletter on my links page put together by a terrific woman named Brenda Lee (she gets little anecdotes and stories from other exJWs that are interesting), and there is a wonderful guy named Richard Francis who runs the Love Ministries (He has some thought-provoking books for download – “Jehovah lives in Brooklyn” was the book that first impressed me) and a blog at http://www.loveministries.blogspot.com/.
I’ve been keeping up on JWs in the news through Silent Lambs (what IS it with religion and pedophilia?) and the Watchtower Information service. I’ve put together everything I can find on my links page. Some of the links have things I don’t particularly agree with, but I figure that each person has to sift through things themselves to the extent that they feel called to do so.

I pretty much steer clear of the biblical interpretation and doctrinal argument sites. Having studied religion academically for many years, I have only become convinced that it’s pretty useless to make arguments without an understanding of the culture of the time and an even deeper understanding of Hebrew and Greek. I have my own ideas, of course, but this is the area where people get really irrational and bizarre. And since we’ve pretty much lost the gift of dialogue and debate and communication in a spirit of caring, it doesn’t seem worth it to me to get much involved with that. This is all the more the case when I consider how late in the game came the idea of “inspiration from God,” especially with regard to the text, which was taken through a selection process responsible for things like the burning of libraries. Once you had to basically agree to a loyalty oath to get a government job, once there were defined contours of acceptable christianity that were inline with power and circumscribed by “heresies”, then all the joy and variety of the early christians was pretty much lost. And in the US, it’s obvious more than ever that JWs aren’t the only ones who have completely gotten off track with regard to the central messages. It seems to me that all gifts are necessary when they show the “gifts of the spirit” – and the flip side of that of course is that when they bear “fruit” that it destructive and anti-love, it’s time to reassess.

My feeling is that one first has to absorb the milk of loving kindness, forgiveness, compassion, love, empathy – and it is more the practice of these that leads to deeper wisdom than anything else. When you then return to the text, it just reads differently from an entirely new perspective. Or as the JWs say – you are ready for more substantial “food” and see through the glass less darkly. To me, this is a lifetime journey required of all of us, not the responsibility of a handful of men in Brooklyn (or Washington…or).

So I guess what I’m trying to say in this roundabout fashion is that I’m not at all on a crusade. Some people can find a right path for them in the center of the JWs – there are those with the “spirit” who are JWs, as there are in any religion, all religions. But I think JWS are left stranded in ways that those in other religions may not be – and at least I can offer some alternate ways to think about themselves, some practical nuggets to survive and thrive, point to some other resources, and reframe things enough that perhaps it is a little bridge to the next stage. That’s all I can really hope for – it’s little enough in the scheme of things. I had some wonderful teachers that collectively helped me just to take that couple of steps, to give myself permission to find a more authentic way of being that was actually truer to what I felt to be a calling, a reorientation (an attunement that is at the same time an atonement). If I can show someone that there is a bridge, that they are not alone in placing the next stepping stone in front of their feet, then I feel that I have done as I could do, with honor and ethics and care. We all need a reminder that our choice is less between God and the World (or Evil) than between love and nothing. I need that reminder too, and this also helps me to remember – to repent in the old sense of “turn again” – turning again to that principle, reorienting again to the direction of love.

What can you do to help – nothing that I can think of for me, but probably lots and lots and lots for yourself and others. Caring and kindness sure go an awfully long way!

R: I believe you misunderstood me when I said you were on a “crusade”. With what I’ve read on your website I know you are not out there to bash on Witnesses but to help those who need it, like you mentioned in your response. I do feel that your intentions are good and you are trying to help others. Keep up the good work.