It is eight months since I went to a meeting in a Kingdom Hall. In that time I've met one or two Witnesses, including elders, as I've been out and about in this small town. Some have been pleased to see me, some have avoided me.
This morning, I met by chance, coming up the street, a woman who goes regularly to the KH but who has managed to remain a kind of perpetual student for many years. So she remains a little bit sceptical. She wanted to talk. I made it very clear that I was never going back, and how relieved I was to be free of it all.
She told me, firstly, that my name had been read out as being no longer an unbaptised publisher. I found that hilarious and laughed out loud. Then she told me of three disfellowshippings that had taken place. One I knew about, a man in a marriage breakup. One of his teenage daughters is now disfellowshipped. So she must be shunned by her own mother, a zealous and very brainwashed sister. The third really shook me. He was a brother whom I had known for some years before he became a JW, and who had been in charge of the TV cameras and sound system. Now disfellowshipped, for reasons unknown.
The pain behind these three disfellowshippings really brought it home to me how lucky I was to have escaped when I did. The third person I mentioned is quite a vulnerable man, not terribly well. The teenager is barely an adult, butatleast has her father with her. Her mother, grandmother and sister are "in" and so must shun her. The pain involved in these three situations must be huge.
And they call themselves Christians!