So it's a beautiful Saturday morning in Murphy, Texas -- Big Tex was about to go to Home Depot and I was about to start weeding the garden when we looked out front and there was a nondescript 4-door sedan parked in front of our house. The two guys in it weren't getting out, so we thought "uh-oh." After a minute or two (I'll bet they were praying), two guys got out carrying Bibles and wearing polyester jackets (brown). I said, "I'm ready, are you?" and Big Tex nodded grimly. Yes, it was a couple of elders from the Allen congregation, where my publisher card has been resting peacefully for a year and a half. I invited them in and asked them to sit down. We made small talk for a couple of minutes, and then because I have a really mean sense of humor sometimes, I let Ladybug in (the young basset that Valis has nicknamed "catfish bait"). She is very annoying to new people and has a thing about shoving her nose into crotches, so we watched them use their Bibles to try to direct that nose elsewhere. That was fun for a couple of minutes and then they got to the point of their visit, which was to "see how I was and let me know the Memorial was coming up." They delicately mentioned that they, um, hadn't seen me at meetings lately, so I said, "I've been waiting. I moved my card to Allen a year and a half ago and no one came by to visit me at that time. During the January to March push to contact all inactive ones no one visited me. When my dad died a year ago February no one visited me. Last September when you closed out your congregation books and you're supposed to account for inactive ones, no one visited me. It's taken you a year and a half to come and find out what happened to this sheep -- I don't think that's very good shepherding, do you?" Dead silence. "Well, everyone is busy these days . . . ." I told them that I know everyone's busy -- what with five meetings a week, and service, and preparation, and assemblies, there's no time for taking care of the people.
Another silence. Elder #1 struggled with this for a minute and then asked, "Can I ask, do you still believe this is Jehovah's organization?" Big Tex and I couldn't help it, we burst out laughing! That really confused them. Big Tex said, "Oh, okay, now I know what this is about," and I said, "Look, guys, I'm not going to answer that question. I don't want to be disassociated and I've done nothing to be disfellowshipped for and that's a loaded question. My relationship with Jehovah is stronger now than it ever was because I don't have to deal with people who say they are doing his will but show no love for anyone." They immediately backed off that one and said that no one gets disassociated unless they write a letter and that's not why they were asking.
They tried to get back to the Memorial invitation and wrote their phone numbers on it in case I ever wanted to "talk," and Big Tex talked about the abuse he had suffered and the two witness rule, and I talked about the convicted sex offender who was protected in my dad's old congregation, and we told them that we didn't feel that the congregations were safe places to take our kids. They didn't have an answer for that either.
I asked Elder #1, "did you know last year that my father killed himself?" and he uncomfortably said yes, that the elders in Dad's congregation had "made them aware of it." I asked again, "why didn't you come and visit me then?" Dead silence. The only thing he could come up with was that I seemed very angry when I talked to the P.O. of Preston Park (Dad's congregation) that he thought I didn't want to talk to anybody. Wuss. They were just scared.
Elder #2 felt compelled to read a scripture -- Matthew something -- I wasn't paying attention. Actually, I was kind of looking at my watch because by this time it was after 11:00 a.m. and we were due to meet desib77, Valis, Megadude, Navigator, Elsewhere, and Six of Nine at Dick's Last Resort for lunch. I figured it wouldn't be politically correct to ask them to move this along a little so we wouldn't be late for an Apostafest, but they were more than happy to wrap it up. They didn't ask to pray, which was good. They said they hoped I'd be at Memorial and they'd stop by again. Yeah, right.
I hope they counted double time for that visit -- they earned it!
Nina