They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Nowhere is that more evident, I think, than in the Kingdom Hall. Like so many others that I knew, I thought the Watchtower society had it right, that their answers were the correct ones. I faithfully underlined the answers in every Watchtower and raised my hand at every question. For the better part of 16 years, 6 of those as an auxiliary pioneer, I went out in field service to knock on doors and spread the Good Word of Jehovah. It's even possible that I've met you on some Saturday morning or Tuesday afternoon. If I did - if I smiled up at you as a child and held out a Watchtower, or stood in my Goodwill suit and countered your argument with a carefully rehearsed line from Reasoning from the Scriptures, then I want to apologize to you. I was wrong, and I'm sorry.
Wow. I just did the math. Almost a year of continuous time spent in active field service. I couldn't have been a very good witness - I held many bible studies with different people, and convinced a few to come to the Kingdom Hall, but I can't recall anyone who actively joined because I introduced them. I'm thankful for that, looking back on it. I had good intentions and I thought I was doing the right thing, but if I knocked on your door then I apologize. It wasn't the Truth I was offering, it was poison. Carefully wrapped and lovingly presented, but poison nonetheless.
That Truth was a toxin that infected me and my family. I watched as it drove a wedge between my parents, and it's to my shame that I recall telling my father that he was a sinner and wouldn't get into Paradise if he didn't go to the Kingdom Hall. I watched my mother drip her venom in the ear of my family until it disintegrated, my father sidelined and made inconsequential in the eyes of his children because he didn't believe. My brother entered into a marriage and had a kid long before he was ready because it was the Good Witness thing to do. I still hold that the financial and emotional strain of that fed into the carelessness which turned my baby brother’s wife and child into a widow and fatherless boy. My little sister, too, so much smarter than my bother and I combined, chose to turn away from an education and marry someone whose career consisted of delivering home appliances on the rare occasion he wasn't leaching off my mother. After all, he was a good Witness boy. It made me a target in school, and the pain and confusion and isolation that came out of that time brought me to a point where I put my father’s revolver to my head, stared down the barrel and had a long, hard think about dying. I wish I could say that was only the one time, but there were more than a few points where being a Witness was less fun than being dead.
That was a long time ago, thank ... well, thank whoever. There's been a lot of time since then, with a lot of anger, pain, questioning and searching since then. I don't knock on doors anymore, and I like to think that I got out of that somewhat less damaged then some other people I know. There's Watchtower society baggage that I'm still discovering, though, and more that I'm not sure will ever completely go away. I love spending Christmas with my wife and her family, who have been so wonderfully loving and adoptive of me, but there's always a shadow of guilt when I help hang the ornaments. I love giving my wife presents on her birthday, but I watch my own approaching with a discomfort that has little to do with advancing age.
So, if I did knock on your door and roust you from a calm Saturday morning, then I am sorry and apologize with all my heart. I had good intentions, but those paving stones were taking me on a path that I'll always regret. As hard as I tried to convince you that I was right, years and hindsight have shown me how far from right I was. I want to thank each of you who closed the door in my face, each of you who told me you weren't interested or that you had your own religion. I was so very, very wrong, and I'll always be more grateful than you know that you didn't listen to me.