Episode IV: A New Hope
?Where are we going, man?"
?I don?t know, but we gotta go.? ? On The Road, Jack Kerouac
After moving to Dallas, I finally got to do what I wanted with the truth?which was nothing. I didn?t really admit that to myself at the time?I had meant to go to meetings, but I was busy. I went to one in the first few weeks after I arrived?and that was it. Talking to my dad and stepmom made it hard to completely admit I was out, nor did I really want to be at the time?but I certainly was never going to be as integral a part of a congregation as I had been before.
I started dating other women (still separated, mind you), setting my own times and took to my new job like a fish to water. I felt like I was doing what I was meant to do, and having fun doing it. I had also committed another first?Christmas presents.
I had difficulty believing that I was at one time bitterly opposed to any of this. I wasn?t participating in pagan rituals or committing crimes against God?I was enjoying what he had given me.
I was going to do it. I quit. Not a JW anymore. File for divorce, leave me the hell alone, talk to me if you want but on my terms.
A week later, I got a call. My wife was now going to be my ex, scripturally, no less. She had been running around with other men for the past few months. So, she was getting DF?d and I was suddenly the good, long-suffering sheeplike one who had proven his loyalty. I got calls of support from those who had considered me before persona non gratis.
To quote Michael Corleone, just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.
Leaving at this time would have been a true headache. I was filing for divorce, but the sudden support I got from my father and stepmother (belated though it was) for taking my son was too much to piss away on what I thought might have been a rash decision. So I waited.
She suffered the abuse that I had in the few weeks before she left to return to her parents. She was beaten by my stepmother and given a frightening silence by my father. I couldn?t call her a liar when she told me this?I knew it was very likely true and a typical reaction.
Thus justified in the eyes of the congregation, I very briefly returned to meetings?and saw the same crap I did in the previous congregations. The cliques, the ?what have you done lately?,? the scorn given to any sort of conflicting interpretation between people, the judgement of your conduct and attitude by purely artificial and subjective means?none of this changed. I resolved that was finished with it, I realized, but how would I get out? WHY would I get out? Nothing better out there, and even though I had seen people in the org act like jerks, I didn?t see any scholarly evidence that the people in Brooklyn were anything but well-meaning overseers who didn?t have the direct control over the insane things that happen to congregations. If we just did what the FDS told us to, or so I was led to believe, we?d be fine. So then, why do so many refuse to follow?
I just wanted to be left alone, live my life and have Jehovah be happy with what I was doing. He made me like this, and I was certain that in my new place I had made for myself ? ALL for myself, in spite of the efforts of others ? that I was doing much more of his will than I ever did in two years of pioneering.
I began to look at the assemblies more like a class reunion in a small town that I wanted to forget. Much like the same, I used it as an opportunity to show off my better clothes, working car and better job. I even bumped into the Young Elder (now not-so-much)
YE: How?s your new career, Badger?
B: Oh, I LOVE it! It?s what I was meant to do. I can?t wait to wake up in the morning!
To that, he could say or express nothing. I picked up that he sincerely wished he could feel that way himself.
I tool around on that most satanic of creations, the Internet. At first, I was still resolved to stay faithful at least and signed up on Pathways, a site that was trafficked by liberal JWs who, like me, saw good in the teachings but not in the org. It was also the first I had heard of the UN scandal, and the true extent of the child abuse scandal had been made plain. I also found this site.
I came here with the same attitude that I did at Pathways?I was still a believer, I just wanted answers from an outside source. That damn college book learnin? had taught me to look for multiple sources from several different points of view. I reasoned that if my faith was really well-placed, the org would hold up under scrutiny.
I then started thinking briefly that I could reconcile what I knew with what I was. My last meeting coincided with my first miniapostafest, and I used one of Blondie?s world-famous WT study comments in a meeting, then a hour later steaked down with dozens of apostates. In for a penny, in for a pound.
A couple of weeks later, I was finished. I knew I wasn?t going back. I went through a few apostate rites of passage (saying the pledge, celebrating Christmas, having an affair), and funnier still, people started seeing a change in me, most notably my ex-wife (?you seem a lot happier and confident,? she said, as she was trying to get reinstated).
My parents noticed too. And they didn?t care for my decision to allow my son to stay with my ex. They attacked my reasoning and accused me of not caring about my son?s well being. I took it and just wrote a letter back explaining my position, which I posted here.
My father?s supremacy had been threatened, he had read, and he unloaded on me one night. He called and vented about how I seldom called, wasn?t attending meetings, and never visited. I pointed out, since score was being kept, I had visited them 10 times in the last two years, whereas he had not visited me once. I pointed out my schedule and he began swearing at me.
While the juxtaposition of being sworn at for being spiritually weak was precious, I couldn?t take it. I wasn?t going to be yelled at anymore. I hung up.
Five months later, my stepmother called and begins swearing immediately. She never was one to mess around.
I keep hearing through contacts that both are really sad I won?t talk to them. They don?t even know how done I am with the org. They don?t know what I?m aware of. They think I?m merely inactive, not someone who literally dines with apostates and has chosen another faith (Quaker) that is the antithesis of what JW?s stand for.
I can?t say that everything has gone perfectly since leaving. Like so many on the board, I?m technically still in. But I feel a great deal more kinship with this online congregation than I ever did in any circuit assembly. Slowly but steadily, guilt, shame and pressure and being replaced by peace, pride and confidence. I am proud of what I?ve done, but I know that the help of my fellow apostates in varying degrees and ways was indispensable.
I haven?t covered everything in the story, but you do get idea. Bless you all and thank you.
?First they ignore you
then they laugh at you
then they fight you
then you win?
--Ghandi