So many things happened that I haven’t mentioned. My wife almost died of an asthma attack along with an allergic reaction in 1999. In 2000, we saw all of our friends abandon us. Yet, we as a couple were as strong as ever, and continue to be.
In the fall of 2000 my brother-in-law did something remarkable…..he said no to the abuse his parents were bestowing on him. After weeks of threats, he finally told his parents he no longer wanted to attend the kingdom hall. He told them that they treated him like dirt, and if they were examples in the congregation, he rather be thought of as a bad person than a ‘good’ Jehovah’s Witness.
It escalated when his father tried to throw him down the stair several days later. Bro-In-Law left, called us, and we picked him up. They accused him of running away.
This lad is a tall one, big and strong, but gentle as a lamb. He has some minor learning disabilities, but his parents showed how disappointed they were in his lack of mental prowess on every occasion.
I remember a time when I was first dating Water Goddess that they MADE him read a difficult passage in the bible in front of me to shame him. It didn’t work. Instead I suggested that I read the rest of the scripture, which I did. I love my Bro-In-Law……I don’t know anyone as unselfish as him, so eager to please, but that wasn’t enough. ‘Brothers’, and his parents alike thought him to be retarded and regarded him as such. Bastards.
No wonder, then, that he wanted nothing to do with a religion that ridiculed him when he couldn’t read a scripture right, or called him unspiritual when he was so afraid of public speaking that he refused to give talks. Yet, his parents tortured him with his “returning to his own vomit.”
Well, Bro left, and came to live with us. No more meetings, no more ridicule. In one year, he went from a suicidal, ulcer-ridden fellow, to a strong, loving, thick-skinned man, who is back living with his parents, but on his own terms. It’s not perfect now, but they told him he doesn’t have to go to meetings, and when they do mock him for not being a witness, he makes a wry joke and lets the insult roll off of him. I think we did the right thing in letting him stay, because his parents would’ve torn him to spiritual pieces until he killed himself. Then, they would’ve been guilty for three days until the elders told them it was Satan and his system that was to blame, and not their incompetence and judgmental attitude.
During his stay we were informed that we had been marked. Those words. They had even talked about us to the CO, telling him how dangerous we were.
You know, it’s amazing to me. While I was a witness, people hardly noticed that I was alive, but as soon as I thought something contrary to the collective thought, they ALL took notice of me. The JW religion is a police state that cannot be freed be the finest mind. They have to be relieved of their burden, one at a time, by family members.
I’ve left out a whole lot, but you can guess what kind of scandal ensued when we took her brother in, and it was discovered that we weren’t attending meetings anywhere. Probably about 10 congregations who knew us were contacted. Pretty crazy stuff. I never knew we were so important, but I guess one good apple can purify the whole bunch.
Well, in the midst of these family dramas, a friend calls and says, “Ashi, I need you to sit down. I’m going to disassociate myself.”
Was I shocked? Of course. Upset? By no means. For the first time, I was able to speak my mind about everything.
That conversation lasted five hours. He told me about the Nazi scandals, we discussed the dates problems, the generation teaching, everything. It was the most enlightening conversation of my JW life.
When I was done I made the decision. I was going to get my entire family out of this disease of a religion, and I was going to get them ALL out, not leave one to the jaws of the dragon.
My friend’s story is better than mine, and a whole lot more intelligent. But, in the end, he was made to recant his story, his DA, by his elder brother, “so the family wouldn’t be shamed.”
But that friend is still with me, and is doing better. I’m happy I could bring at least two of my friends from the abyss with me.
Then, in the midst of this friend DA’ing himself, my Bro-In-Law living with us (and my wife and I becoming instant parents to an emotionally needy eighteen year old), my sister met a WONDERFUL man, and he so happened to be a JW. But, that is the crux of our apostasy…that comes in a later installment.
Last year, before the memorial, FBF calls up, and leaves a message. For once, he sounded cheerful, and full of life, like I used to know him as.
I decided to call back, and we made arrangements to have dinner together.
We met at a familiar restaurant. When he saw me he started. I was fatter, smiling, with a handsome chin beard, with my lovely wife at my side. It obviously wasn’t what he expected.
We sat down to dinner, and told him of our recent trip to Scotland, and life in general. He was very, very uncomfortable.
Now, I know this man. He was my best friend for 7 years. I mean, I can pick apart a person in ten sentences, and I knew this shallow fellow for 7 years. I knew exactly why he wanted to have dinner with us when I saw his face. He was there to counsel me. I even could see the outline of the pocket bible through his coat. Fortunately, my wife didn’t see this or even think anything was amiss. She’s a real firecracker when she’s angry, and his rear-end would’ve been smarting for a month if she knew what he was up to.
We went back to my place afterwards, picking up some brews on the way.
I flipped on the computer, and we both sat down next to it as I played funny things I had gotten off of the Internet. Because I knew what was coming, I asked Water Goddess to leave and get some Ice Cream Sundae makings at the store.
When she left, he hit me with it.
“Ashi, I wanted to talk to you about a few things.”
“Sure, but let me fill me mug to it’s brim, eh?” I said with my best Irish accent.
I considered whether I should avoid the conversation as I poured the beer into our mugs, and I said to myself, what the hell?
When I walked back in I saw that he had the bible out. I laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing Captain. What’s up?” I hand him his beer.
He puts it down and says, “I’m real happy to know that you and Water are very happy but I was concerned because I haven’t seen you at the meetings. I just wanted to ask……”
“yeah?”
“Do you still believe in the teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses?”
I stopped for a microsecond, and remembered that Judicial Committee long ago. That had been the first question they had asked me. Now, FBF was no elder, so someone MUST have sent him. I thought quickly and said,
“FBF, my not going to meetings is not a question of doctrine…it’s a question of people. I need time away for a while to get my thoughts together. You know what Water and I went through getting married, etc.”
He cuts me off, “You don’t have a problem with anyone specific in the congregation?”
Ok, I thought to myself, so the PO did send you. I see.
I answered, “In particular? No. It’s just the general attitude of the basic person in the hall, the fact that we are all subject to the conscience of the strictest conscience in the hall.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” I said carefully, “say that sister tightwad doesn’t like Star Wars. Then, brother young guy likes it. If he says anything about it around her, it will offend her, and any person who offends another in the congregation should cease from what they are doing because they are stumbling the other person, right?”
“Well…”
“Right?”
“I guess, but it’s not absolute.”
“Ok. I like Stone Temple Pilots. So do you. What if Brother X didn’t like it, and counseled you against it……would you listen to him.”?
“I would take his words into consideration.”
“OK, ok, ok, that’s my point, the fact that people have ANY SAY OVER OUR PERSONAL LIVES AT ALL, is my argument for not going to the hall. Pretty soon they’re going to be banning peeing just because some old, respected sister has a bag on her hip.”
“Comon, ashi…”
“I know I’m exaggerating, but that’s what I’m talking about. Do you see what I’m getting at?”
“I guess so. But don’t you know that the only place to receive spiritual refreshment is from the Kingdom Hall?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Shocked silence.
I continued, “What about the forest, the mountains, all of the physically beautiful things that God created for us, what do you think about those?”
“They can’t give us direction where we may need it.”
“Who needs direction when we have our own consciences to direct us, just like those people in the hall who MAKE all the rules do? I’m not going because here, in my heart, I feel God, and that’s something that no man can take from me.”
“Ashi, let me read you something.”
FBF started reading me scriptures about Noah.
I stopped him and said, “Don’t you get it FBF, if I was unhappy, you’d say that it was because I wasn’t going to the hall. If I’m happy, I’m just like the people in Noah’s day. Don’t you get it? How can I trust people who have all the answers? Only salesmen have all of the answers, and it’s because they made up the formula in the first place………”
He looked at me as if he was in physical pain. I thought he was going to start crying. We were silent and sipped beer for a few minutes, all the time I was giving him my whimsical, ashi-look.
“Ok, ashi.”
He put his bible away.
I said, “I love you, FBF, but I’m not going to go back to the hall until I feel like it’s a place of love and reason again.”
He shook his head, and didn’t say anything.
He left about twenty minutes later. I remarked how we had to get together soon. I haven’t heard from him since.
Eventually, Bro-In-Law went back home, my DA’d friend found some peace, and people left us alone for awhile.
Until my sister announced her wedding plans.
The next to last installment:
Sister’s Wedding, The Molested friend, and Ashi’s Apostasy.