I see loser quitter dead people
I was a young man at Bethel about 30 years ago, back in the early 80's and at one point I finally decided it was enough. I was going to leave.
Bethel requested I stay a certain time and I had doubled that time, so I thought that was pretty darn good given that the last month or so of my stay at Bethel was fairly miserable. For some masochistic reason, I had a particular date in mind to make my stay exactly be in even years. I wanted to leave on the anniversary of my arrival and on my own terms. I had fought many issues, resisted many temptations and avoided a maze of opportunities to screw up. I had suffered heartbreak in many ways while there too. Still, I managed to not get kicked out of Bethel and I even flourished in some respects while there. So, I thought, I could hold up my head high. I did it!
So, with a few weeks left to go, I finally gave notice of my leaving to everybody. Now, if you stayed at Bethel for any length of time, you ended knowing about a zillion people both in Bethel and locally in the various congregations you attended or visited. It took time to say all the good byes and to explain to each and every one of those zillion individuals about why you were leaving.
It turns out this wasn't so easy.
As most of you may already know that has ever stopped any form of service in "God's organization", this was not looked upon favorably. For example, if you ever stopped pioneering or stopped being an elder or even stopped running the mikes, if you ever stopped doing something you volunteered to do in the first place, then you were a loser. Yep, you were a big fat loser quitter who doesn't appreciate spiritual things and is now a spiritual zero. You = L-O-S-E-R. After you stopped your service, even if you stayed in the congregation and gave it your all in every other way, you were still the subject of whispers about your shameful trip to loserville. Well, let me tell you, if you think stopping being an elder or pioneer is bad, then leaving Bethel service makes you a double whammy, double dog loser. You become a loser quitter of epic proportions to be pitied and shunned.
I found over time that there were only a few good reasons to leave Bethel to avoid this loser stigma. I watched this occur over and over again through the years. This is what I observed:
- If somebody in your family died, like your dad, it was OK to leave Bethel to help your mom out. They would say "Go, with our blessings brother. Be strong. We love you!" [Group hug]
- If you got deathly ill, that is you got cancer or lost a leg to diabetes or your eyeballs fell out, then that was OK to leave Bethel too. They would offer "Go, with our blessings brother. Be strong. We love you!" [Bigger group hug]
- If you were married and your wife got pregnant, well, children aren't allowed in Bethel, so, they would utter "Go, with our blessings brother and sister. Be strong. We all love you!" [Biggest group hug]
For any other reason, if you wanted to leave Bethel, well, you were spiritually weak and not really worthy of so much as a real good bye. Many Bethelites knew this and contrived stories in order to force themselves into one of the "it's-OK-to-leave-Bethel" categories. For example, some made up a relative dying. Some had a relative that died, but in actuality it was only a distant uncle twice removed whom they never even met. Some got "sick" in a mysterious way with maladies that no human doctor could detect. After they got home, they were magically healed. Some "got pregnant" and then after getting home they had an opportunely timed miscarriage, so no baby.
You get the idea. They had the "good excuses".
Well, I refused to play that game. I was leaving because I wanted to. I was simply done with Bethel service. I had nothing to be ashamed of and no reason to lie. I had doubled the time The Society expected me to stay and did it with dignity and hard work. I wanted to go home, go to college, get married, have kids and just be a normal human being without having to spend the rest of my life living in an institution. That seems honest and straightforward doesn't it? After all, Jehovah's Witnesses often talk about "being honest hearted" and "speaking the truth", so certainly the people I had met and befriended at Bethel didn't need to hear a variation of the excuses everybody else gave to leave Bethel, right? Certainly my friends could accept honesty from me and were better than that, no?
Well, let me tell you about a conversation I had with a young couple I had grown close to and very fond of in my stay there. They were nice, smart and attractive people. They had a good sense of humor and I really liked them and I thought liked me too. We spent off time hours together laughing and joking and playing in good clean fellowship. I wanted to talk to them more in order to tell them all my hopes and dreams for the future. Here is how the conversation went with them one day near the end of my stay when I picked an evening meal (or it could have been a weekend, I don't remember exactly) to eat with them. You see, with these meals we could sit anywhere we wanted to sit and have more talking time than the other more formal meals, so I thought it would be perfect for me to talk to them at this time.
We sat, began to eat and then I told them I was leaving Bethel. The conversation went something like this:
Him: Oh, boy, oh boy. [shaking his head back and forth]
Her: Oh, no... [clasping her hands together]
Him: Yes, we thought we heard that you were leaving, but we didn't believe it. [looking sad, still shaking his head]
Her: Poor thing, we're so sorry.
[This went on for a while...]
Me: Uhh. Guys, sorry? Why?
Him: Well, you're leaving God's House. Why would you leave Bethel for no reason?
Me: I do have a reason. I'm tired and want to go home. I did my time, actually doubled it.
Her: That time is just to let brothers know they cannot come for a few months, so they know this is a serious commitment. But it isn't meant to mean that when that time has passed that they should leave.
Him: We're all tired brother. This world tires us all out. Now is not the time to give up. Now is the time to persevere diligently.
Me: Look guys, be happy for me. I've completed my stay here and I did everything I wanted to do and now I'd like to go home and lead a normal life.
Him: Normal? What's normal? This is the closest you'll be to living in the new system and you want to return to the outside and work in the world? [still shaking his head]
Her: There is nothing normal about this wicked world brother. We need to keep close to Jehovah's organization and this is where we can best do that. [clasping hands together so hard that if she had put a pencil between them, a diamond would fall out]
[More hand wringing and expressions of dismay ensue...]
Me: Guys, guys, listen. It's OK, alright? I'm only leaving Bethel, I'm not dying.
Him: [with disgust, spitting it out] It's the same thing.
Me: [urk]
Wow. Now that hurt.
We all stopped talking and I tried to finish my meal, but it was difficult for me to do that as my throat was so tight I couldn't swallow. By then my stomach was in knots too.
I gave up on the meal and got up and said a weak good bye to them and they, not even looking at me in the eye, did likewise. I never saw nor communicated with these two "good friends" ever again. And you know the worst part? I found out that this wouldn't even be all that unusual. In fact, after years in Bethel service making many friends and sharing everything with these people, living closely with them, eating every day with them, toiling hard side by side, fending off angry people in field service with them, meeting their families and worrying about their problems and so on, I would return home and not keep one single friend from that place.
Not a one.
My sin? I just wanted to go home.
LivingTheDream
