I just sent this letter to my Dad 3 days ago. I roughly translated it from spanish, so it has many weird sounding sentences but I just wanted to shared it with the board. Practically I just say good-bye to my family.
Dear Mommy and Daddy and dear family:
It has been almost a year that we haven't seen each other and I want you to know that I miss you so much. Every that I see a letter or a text message from any of you I get very happy. My family is very important to me and I get filled with joy every time I hear news from you. I know that you worry about me and I think of you all the time and I wonder how you are.
In the past 2 years I have been thinking very seriously about my life, the direction it has taken, my past and future decisions, and even though the last year was very difficult for me today I feel very happy with myself. I have reached a place where I feel good since I have meditated many things I hadn't thought-of before.
One of the decisions I took 2 years ago was to go back to the Organization with a clean conscience. As I told you 3 years ago, if I decided to go back it would be due to my love for Jehovah, to do my creators will without looking for a paradise reward. Doing it for a reward would mean doing it only lookinh out for my wellbeing. Going back would mean doing it without any personal interest but with the interest to help improve the lives of many people and to please Jehovah.
And that training I owe it to you. You taught me to love God, justice, to be honest and many personal values that even today rule my life. I have learned that our life as adults is influenced by events in our childhood that imprint an indelibly mark in our behavior and attitude for the rest of our lives. I have come to realize that from childhood I had always the intention and desire of joining the full time service. My golden dream was to become a missionary and to serve people all over the world.
I also remember very fondly being involved in theocratic matters. Going to field service, to the meetings, conventions and bible studies. My whole life was molded around the Organization. As a matter of fact all my plans were regulated by the education I received. The decision of not going to University and study a technical career instead was due to the fact that I wanted to go back to Bethel and serve as a full family member.
Even though I haven't been part of the organization for the past 15 years I have never forgotten what I learned. My decision to go back in was based on the training I received from my early childhood from you. When I was a little boy I trusted you completely in everything you ever said to me. The same parents that fed me, that took my hand to cross the street who gave me cloths and house were the same parents who told me what to do and what to think. And of course I was going to trust everything they told me.
I always felt fortunate for having been born in a family who was in the truth and I always wondered what would have happened had i been born in India. I would have never become a Witness, what a blessing it was to have the privilege of having a Witness family. Although I would always get sad when I would think of all the people who would never know about Jehovah. That is why when I would go door-to-door I had a sincere desire to help people learn the same truth I had learnt. Although the fact that I didn't chose my religion always bothered me. My religion was chosen by you, I never did a sincere search in other religions nor ever investigated my beliefs. I couldn't say with a clean conscience that my religion had been chosen by me. Of course I trusted that you didn't want anything bad for me, therefore I trusted that everything I had learned was true.
Therefore my decision of getting baptized wasn't really taken by me but it was taken by the circumstances I was in. Baptism was the logic thing to do if I wanted to continue in the organization. That is something that always perturbed me. I remember asking my father only a couple of months after my baptism what would be a valuable reason to get my baptism annulled. since I was feeling that it hadn't been and intelligent decision rather a circumstantial one. Therefore I was always uneasy with the fact that kids could take such a major decision like getting baptized. If a minor shouldn't get married, couldn't drink alcohol, smoke or have sexual relations why would he be allowed to get baptized when that was an even more important decision? When I got baptized my little sister of only six remarked "now you can get disfellowshipped, right?", imagine if I had been disfellowshipped by 16? not being able to talk to my friends in the congregation? not being able to have friendships with "worldly" people nor with witnesses not even with my own family at such a tender age as 16? That is why I had this mental conflict all the time since I knew that my decision wasn't one of a conscious adult but rather from an arrogant and impulsive teen. That is why when I was kicked out of the congregation I asked the elders and my father if it was possible to dissolve my baptism since It had been based on an impulsive and not well thought out adult decision.
But at the end I accepted the decision and I decided not to go back until I had cleaned my life and could go back with a clean conscience and on my own will, not because my parents were insisting. I had made a mistake once and I didn't wanted to make it again. This time I had two children under my responsibility and that was an even bigger reason to take a better and well though-out decision.
I want to make clear that eventhough I don't think baptism of minors is right, I did used to think that everything I knew was correct and that I was doing the right thing. I believed in the organization, and that it was directed by Jehovah, that the bible was his word and in all the doctrine taught by the society. I had made my mind of never leaving the truth
As a matter of fact I trusted that I was doing the right thing to the extreme of defending my convictions at school every year. I was humiliated from first grade for what I believed. I was constantly sent to the principal's office and I was punished for disobeying the rules by not saluting the flag or singing the national anthem. To the extent that I was kicked out of school even though I was a model student. I had taken the decision to do the right thing because that was what my trained conscience was telling me to do. There is no doubt that I grew up fully trusting what I had learned during my childhood.
But now that I found myself outside of the organization, if I was planning to go back I had to take my decision as an adult and needed to make sure of all things. With acquired knowledge based on a conscious and honest study of the bible. Not because my parents taught me to, but because I had learned it myself and I had confirmed it to be true.
That is what led me to study the bible and the organization in a diligent and sincere manner. And it is that study that has changed my opinion about the organization, religion, the bible, God and life in general. I decided not to believe anymore in anything just because somebody would tell me. The divinity of the organization or the bible authenticity it didnt matter what the issue. If God had given me a thinking, reasoning and intelligent brain then I wanted to use it fully and reason about it and achieve conclusions. I rather God upset for using the brain he gave me and not believing in him than not use it and and belive blindly.
I know that this is very painful for you. I have not forgotten what it means for a witness to see that a family member goes away of the organization or even worst that stops believing in it. I know that for you, your beliefs represent your whole world. Because they represented the whole world to me also. And now to realize that they were just beliefs my world collapsed and shattered in pieces. I want you to know that it wasn't easy to face that reality. I fell in a deep depression since all my dreams and hopes for the future dissolved in the air. But it is more valuable to me to be honest with myself than to believe in a pretty fantasy of which I had no proof whatsoever. It doesn't mean that I answered all my doubts. On the contrary I have even more. But I feel better to say that I don't know something because I am willing to learn and am hungry for knowledge.
Oh how I wish that I coud avoid any pain to you since I know you have suffered enough. but I have to be honest with you and with myself. I cant keep living a lie faking that I believe in something. Perhaps you consider me as someone who has committed the unforgivable sin. But there is nothing I can do about it. I always considered the bible my guide and I was convinced that if I ever stopped using it I would get lost without knowing what to do. But I have realized this not to be true. I feel very happy to be doing things based on my conscience. My life hasn't change in the sense that I am still interested in helping my neighbor and to do good to people and I feel happy that what I do is not because God commands it but because I want to do it. I love my neighbor and treat people with kindness and respect. I know I wont be able to convince you of that because I know you think that Satan has blinded me and that he deceived me thinking that I am happy. Thats why i don't even try. But I am certain that happiness is easy to reach for everyone.
Maybe you are going to think that I turned into an apostate or something like that. But that is also not true because I didn't abandoned my religion. I have not been a witness now for 15 years I didn't leave the religion, I was kicked out of it.
I know that you find comfort in the pain of losing me to the world because that confirms your love for Jehovah.. I believe that you have sacrificed all your life and your happiness for it. I respect that. I know that If I was in your place I would probably would do the same. But I am not in that position anymore. I have stopped believing beliefs and now I base my life by facts. I wont sacrifice my present life for a future one that is based only on religious beliefs. I can believe in a loving God that divides families or in a religion that does the same.
Mommy and Daddy, I love you very much and I want to be able to have a close relionship with you. You are my parents you raised me and you saw me grow up. I take in consideration what this letter might mean to you and that you might think that your neutrality and spirituality is in danger if you continue talking to me. That is why I have written this letter many times and in different ways and why I have waited so long to send it to you being honest about what i think.
Because I love you and I don't want to loose you, specially now that I have decided to take responsibility of my past, present and future actions. I see now things in a different way I wont try to separate you from your love that you have for your beliefs and to Jehovah and even if I tried the only thing that would do would be to confirm what the bible says; that the most difficult trials come from within the family.
On the contrary, I accept and respect your decision and hope that you could do the same with me. I want you to know that different than you I am and will always be willing to openly talk and listen to points of view that go against what I believe and to reason and change my mind if I see that I am doing a mistake. Sadly no witness can sit and talk to someone who doesn't think what you think. Because he either is a "worldly" or because is disfellowshipped, even if a witness doesn't agree with something the organization says he cant talk openly with anyone because he can get kicked out of the congregation and being labeled a rebel for not following what the government body says.
What an irony that you can not even talk to me at least to correct me because that would go against what God says, when Jesus himself sit with sinners and showed them his love. People need counsel. They need to be able to talk and express themselves openly. No one should feel attacked or offended only because someone things different than us. Ostracism and isolation ideas that are not even based on what God says but taken out of context.
I cant do that anymore. I cant sit like a sheep any longer and listen and obey to what a group of men say if I don't have a valid reason for that. I can't sacrifice my happiness, my life, my children, my family and my loved ones. I only have this life and I have to live it.
Now I see the world from a different angle. I don't see people as walking carcasses ready to be destroyed in Armageddon. I don't see evil nor wickedness nor Satan controlling humanity. I see common people, I see hope in humanity. I see that we are trying to be happy and survive. I see how little by little we get rid of superstition. We don't believe that singing and dancing would bring us rain anymore, nor that offering the heart of our children to God would apeace him, nor in making animal offerings, or that the earth is flat nor in miracle weed or fruit. Little by little humanity is removing the superstition veil. I have hope in the future. I am not superstitious any longer. I see how gradually our species keeps improving. Women have gained more rights and equality. People are receiving more respect and racial discrimination keeps dissapearing. Even though human beings are still in a precariou and primitive state still in many aspects we keep improving our life level. I am very happy of being born in this time and I know that in future centuries humanity has the power to improve human race and the planet in general.
This is not a letter to prove the non-existence of God or the divinity of the Bible, its prophesies or the damaging effects of religion. I know what you think about it and its arguments in favor or against. Believe me I have ponder over it and researched those topic for so long now. I was in your place for 35 years.
The only thing I ask from you is that we can be again a family. That we can communicate openly like human beings. I know that you will always choose Jehovah instead of me although painful for all. I know that this pain will confirm to you that Jehovah will reward you for your love and fidelity to him. But I am not gonna abandon you. I wont give up on you no matter what, I promise you I wont give up on our relationship or in accepting that you don't want to have me close to you. I love you so much and I wont allow to pass time without communication. We lost already so much time apart. Is like the Awake magazine says " religions should not divide families".
When I was a little kid I didn't have you because we were too busy with the organization, then I didn't have you because I got married, then because I stopped being a witness. Now I don't want to let anything from keeping us apart. I love you very much and that is not going to end. I will always look for you to let you know how much I and my kids love you. and I hope that I am not the first or the last person to tell you this. I will take care of you when you get old and you can not take care of yourselves and I will always treat you with love and respect. I know that your love is unconditional like mine towards you. Know that I will always love you no matter what.
You Little son that loves you,
Jesus
PS. My love and respect is extended to my sister my brother in law my niece and nephew my uncles aunts and cousins. I am open to talk and answer any kind of questions if you have them. I love you all very much. Que viva la familia!