Visions of a Legacy Tonight, I open up my soul to all of you with things that have come into focus for me in recent weeks. I am not sure how or why I have been able to nail down a few things of importance to me, but finally they have become clear to me.
The Question: We all have in common the fact that each of us will one day leave this life and close our eyes in death. The question we each have before us is what will we leave behind in our wake? What will our individual live have meant to ourselves, and to those we touched?
The Value learned:: I learned early in life that there are things greater than ourselves -- that is, values. We learn to place priorities on one thing or another in life, whether it be worthy career goals or some other path. Whatever we do in life, it is all built upon a basic set of values we learn at our earliest stages of development. Some learn good and useful values, and others do not, or at least not in time to put them to good use.
The Choice: Somewhere in my youth I made a choice that I wanted to do good things to leave a legacy -- that it to leave this world a little better than I found it -- to positively touch the lives of others in a way that makes their own lives have a little more meaning, or purpose, or hope, or happiness. I wanted my life to stand for something that would survive long after the wind blows dust over my forgotten grave.
Becoming a JW: Admittedly in the late 1960s the world, or at least the USA was in a state of turmoil as well as my personal life. These things made me vulnerable to a group like Jehovah's Witnesses who promised a bright future. But, while all that is true, there was something deeper involved in my deciding to be a JW. I truly felt that a real Kingdom government by God to bring about the best possible conditions for the human race was indeed a prospect that coincided with my own values. I saw something truly greater than myself -- something that would prove to be the best possible legacy to leave behind to my children and grandchildren and others whose lives I would touch. I could not think of a finer or more worthy goal, a better legacy -- and the best part would be that I could share in that legacy.
The Choice to leave the JWs: But, once again, values, priorities of things greater than myself led me to realize that I was not leaving a legacy of goodness, but rather representing a fraud -- and stood the chance of leaving a legacy that could harm my family, myself, and those who I brought the message of the Watch Tower. The basic message sounded bright and honorable, but was based on a fantasy and fraud, and the religious system that promoted it is little more than a type of police state bent on worshipping an organization as god, rather than anything that could be truly called God or Sovereign or Father.
Is there a new Legacy?: The legacy of making a positive difference has never changed, but remains as true as it ever was. The vehicle is no longer about promoting a system of belief, or a hope for a fantasy life in a paradisiacal nirvana, but about even far greater things. For the goals of the Watch Tower are really self-serving if we truly view them in perspective, for they appeal to our desires for the good life, escape from reality, and reducing us to little more than play-things for a false god -- a god of organization striped of all sense of individuality, uniqueness, spontaneousness, challenges, and uncharted discovery.
Taking Stock of my life: Recently I posted the two accounts of my reconciliation with my Priest, Father Zanetti, and my life long best friend, Ken. Yes, they were posted to convey the steps I took years ago in healing and reconstructing my life. But, they were also posted for another purpose -- legacy.
We each affect those around us in obvious ways, and most often in subtle and quiet ways, and we make a difference for those around us that sometimes can affect lives for a many years, a life time, or even for generations.
The Priest affected me, not just with healing, but with his own legacy of forgiveness and kindness even though I had needlessly hurt him. He never forgot me, not because he recalled a bad memory, but because he felt sad at what I had been influenced to do. But, his heart was already to receive me back because he saw something greater than a hurtful act, but the soul of another person who really wanted to do what is right -- my soul. He touched my life and left a piece of his own legacy.
My Friend affected my too for healing and enabling me to set my support structure back in place. But he also left a legacy -- that of being a friend, a true friend, and demonstrating this over not just a few weeks or years but 4 and a half decades. He was true to himself not to accept or condone my JW religion, but his legacy touched me in that he placed genuine friendship above any grievances he might have had about the way I virtually shunned him. His too left a part of his soul with me -- a legacy.
The Challenge: Leaving the Watch Tower religion left me without some of my bearings in that I no longer had this highly visible organization and its larger than life mission to fulfill. I no longer had them as my means for a personal legacy. What was I to do now?
I have found in the nearly ten years since I walked away from the religion something far greater. I have finally realized that I do not have to stand up and try to be a Jesus Christ or Ghandi or Abraham Lincoln. Except for Jesus, these other great individuals did not realize what lay in their path that would put them on the road to a great legacy. But, I dare say that many people, if placed in similar circumstance would rise to the occasion.
What is important to me is not whether my personal name will live in the history books as some big wheel, or if I perform some miracle, but what I do hope for is that when I close my eyes for the last time, that I will be able to say that my life stood for something, made a positive difference for others, and that I left a legacy of values, principles, and being true to ourselves.
Personal Freedom of the heart: The legacy I hope to most leave is that in someway I will contribute to the liberation of other who find their hearts and minds imprisoned in needless shackles of servitude to religion or systems of thought created to exploit them. So, my every post, or letter, or email, or phone all, or personal visit with those leaving the JWs is each one more notch in my legacy in this life -- not that I am keeping score, because I am not. Rather, that each experience is one more victory for that day, one more moment lived wisely and usefully to break a chain that binds another person's life in someway that is not useful or helpful to them.
Rewards are immediate: Although I believe in self-sacrifice when needed, and delayed gratification for a better cause or goal, I have found that in building a legacy, and doing something that contributes in someway to the lives and uplift of others, I take away rewards that moment, and they do not fade. And what is also good is that they too give in return to my life, in many ways that I don't realize until later on -- like Father Zanetti and my friend Ken.
No longer lost: So, while my mission is no longer to save the world with The Watchtower magazine, it has truly become far more meaningful, even if less public. My life had become more anchored, though the chains of religious slavery have been broken. The end results will be far more lasting than Awake! articles that are forgotten within a few days of reading. The foundations of life are now more secure, though I have fewer answers to life's mysteries. The wealth of knowledge is no longer found in what an organization tells me to think, but in my own discoveries in what all my fellow humans have to share.
Hope of Life: Yes, I hope that God will remember me and find a way to let me continue to live, whether again as a human or in some new stage in the spirit. Even if my life is just what I now have, however, at least I have the satisfaction of knowing it is no longer living for the legacy of men at the helm of some religious organization that I don't know, but use me for their benefit. Instead, what I cherish is that I get to leave a legacy that will be what comes from my own heart and soul, and is rooted in the values that were given to me as a legacy of love.
Amazing