Arm-a-geddon outta here!

Thanksgiving was wonderful. I spent it at the beach.

Quiet. Calm. Serene.  The way holidays should be.

Being at the beach is restorative for the soul.

Its being on the beach, just before the sun rises, that I feel so at peace-- at peace with myself, with the world around me, even with an organization that stripped that peace from me at an early age and replaced it with an irrational fear of the great day of judgement. Children, in my humble opinion, are naturally peaceful beings. JW children, on the other hand, are naturally scared of demons, a wrathful God, and of fire raining down from the sky to destroy them.

I have much to be thankful for today. I have my health, my needs are met, and I have family and friends.

I had the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving around some "normal" people. "Normal," as I refer to it here, means not JW-oriented. These are folks who can truly wear the world as a loose garment. They can be in it, a part of it, and happily removed from it when need be.

My JW past still haunts me to some degree today. I'm recovering and moving along somewhere between the world of the recovered and the world of the annoyed. I watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on television, saw the children smiling, and yet the thought of an angry God just destroying them on the spot still snuck up on me. Then, just as quickly, I dismissed it as rubbish and continued watching.

We recovering, former Jehovah's Witnesses are a unique lot. I don't question so much why it took so long to get out of that repressive, terrible religion-- a religion that worships a book publishing company. Rather, I question how to move forward, ever forward.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to watch a parade, sing a Christmas song, or do something "worldly" without the irrational fears of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society creeping up on me.

But today, just today, I have a fighting chance of having the life I've always wanted. A life free of the guilt and oppression from a cult that preys on the young, the innocent, and the gullible.

And for that, I am truly thankful.