If you take the time to read this whole poem and don't cry, call 911 immediately and let them know you need a heart transplant. It's long, but well worth the time.
I have recently reestablished contact with my brother who was DFed many, many years ago for a life situation that will never change. I have never personally known another JW family who has so ruthlessly upheld the shunning rules. I'm sure they're out there though. We (myself included) deserve at least a few days, if not years, in purgatory for what we've done to him.
He went to college and got his degree ( Congratulations my Brother!! ). This is a poem he sent me recently. For purposes of plausible deniability I am not stating that my brother is the actual author and that he wrote this in college. ;-) But, my brother assures me it has never been published and that the author gives permission for it to be presented here. If he did not write it, it definitely conveys his feelings. Please don't post it anywhere else without contacting me first.
BTW, please let me know if you think it's worthy of the "BEST OF" section of JWD. I think it is, but I am hopelessly biased on this matter.
Tearfully Yours, (For the umpteenth time in the last 2 weeks)
Open Mind
WALL OF LOVE
Seven years ago the three men came.
They came with their ties and their pressed suits.
They came with their little black books with the gold edges and with silk ribbons to mark their favorite parts.
The ribbons marked the rules the men found in the books.
Seven years ago the Christian men arrived.
Their lips read the letters and words from the little books and their eyes showed nothing.
The eyes kept silent to leave room for the message from the lips.
The eyes dared not connect, for then the lips might tremble and be unable to read the words of the rules.
Seven years ago the men opened their books.
The books decreed that a wall must be built.
The lips said it must be made as strong as steel.
The lips said the wall was the will of the book, and must be built.
Seven years ago the men adjusted their ties and kept on moving their lips.
The little books said to build the wall, not from stone or of wood, but of love.
"The wall is for your own good, for protection," the lips told us.
The wall would keep part of my family safe on the inside, and keep the other part out.
Seven years ago the three men left.
They took their ties and their books and their lips and went away.
But they left their rules behind, and they left their love to be the bricks in our family's wall.
For the love in our family was not strong enough to build such a wall unaided.
Seven years ago I last saw the neatly-dressed men.
These men have great power in their ties, in their books, and in their lips. Their magic is strong.
When they ordered the wall to be built they did not have to return to enforce the decision of their lips and pages.
The wall was built by us, the ones who would be protected by it, as the three men knew it would be.
Seven years ago my family built the wall.
My parents and brothers and friends and relatives built from the inside.
I laid the bricks of love in place from the opposite side of the wall.
A few days after the tie-and-book men left our wall was complete.
Seven years ago we laid the last stone.
I wrestled it into place from my side of the wall, the rest of the family helping me from theirs.
The men with the lips were not there to watch, but they would be pleased.
The will of the books and ties had been fulfilled.
Seven years ago my family said good-bye.
They hid safely inside their fortress, as the men with the gold edges and silk ribbons busied themselves with other chores.
I was also safe, safe and alone on the outside of the wall.
All by myself outside the wall of love that divides our family.
Seven years ago I began to stare at the wall.
I was on the outside, free to roam where I wanted, not cooped up behind the wall of love.
But I was also alone, with nowhere to go.
So I began to peer at the stones of love in the wall given to us by the men with the three ties, the three little books, and the six lips.
Seven years ago I found a new family.
Life outside the wall has grown better than I imagined it could.
But sometimes I still look over my shoulder at the wall and wonder about my parents and brothers.
I wonder how their lives have changed now that we are separated by love.
Seven years ago I cheated.
I held back some of my love and did not cement it into our family fortress.
Now I think of my mother, of my dad and my brothers, and wonder if they also cheated on the men with the gold-edged lips and books.
Maybe some of their love is still free, not locked up in the wall.
Seven years ago I helped to build a wall of love.
Since then I have begun removing a few stones from my side of the wall.
Perhaps one day someone inside the wall will defy the men with the silky, gold-edged tongues and pull out a small brick.
When they peer through the hole they create, they will see me, unfettered by men or books, waiting to love them in return.