I cannot forget this little girl.
Ezekiel 34:12 “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them"
You can try and try to scrub her blood from your hands, and stifle her screams out of your ears, Mr. Brown et al. But you will answer for your sins of commission AND omission. COMMUNITY RESPONSIBILITY!
Genesis 4:10 "The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground."
We live in a world filled with such beauty, when you know where to look. But we also live in a world filled with imbalance and at times horror. We have heard Cassiline’s heart wrenching story of childhood abuse. We have heard about Tatiana’s abuse and her sister, Kelli, who finally put an end to her pain the only way she knew how. There are millions of others of us, with stories with only slightly lesser degrees of horror. Want more stories of blood and gore from being raised in the Watchtower world? See silentlambs.org. The organization is laying eviscerated with all her dirty, fetid secrets oozing up to the top for all to see. And now we add little Laree to our morbid sisterhood. I want to talk about Laree. Yes, we’ve heard and read her story over and over again—it will be heard until this changes. Something about this girl’s story has touched me to the very core of my being. To quote a scripture, her blood cries out to me from the ground. I did something I have not done for a LONG time last night. I cried. Then I prayed. I do not know to who, or what, but I tearfully and humbly invoked justice and community responsibility from any deity or Just Being that would hear the cry of the lowly and crushed.
What goes through the mind of a 12 year old girl as she lays dying; young life seeping out of her core. We can only conjecture, but as so many of us have had the experience of being both abused, and being the child of a Jehovah’s Witness (at the same time), we can perhaps fill in the holes. She has been taught from infancy, probably that this organization is the closest thing to god on earth that there is. Obedience to it and her parents has been pounded into her skull at every meeting. This organization (god’s spokesperson on earth) gives her parents full sanction to do the horrific things that are done to her and her siblings at home. If she ever questions even internally whether or not her treatment is just, she is reminded at yet another meeting that it is. This is her universe. The only reality she has ever known. She is probably a model student, etc. so teachers are clueless—her parents seem strict and authoritative, but concerned, shiny, “happy”. She wouldn’t dare risk bringing reproach upon Jehovah’s Name (remember in her universe, Jehovah = Organization) by telling a soul what goes on at home. So, this is her existence. There are no friends in the neighborhood to play with, so they can know the dirty little secrets that go on behind closed doors. And a blind eye is probably turned at the only place where allowable help could come—the Kingdom Hall. There are probably a few who think these parents are too strict, perhaps a few have seen the abuse, but they are too afraid to stand up and say anything, and some, god help them think it’s a GOOD WAY TO RAISE CHILDREN—they’re probably doing the same things at home to their children. And god forbid, ANYONE WOULD REPORT SUSPECTED ABUSE TO THE AUTHORITIES. We all know this is NOT DONE by order of the governing body. To any who have witnessed and not reported abuse in your vestiges of “spiritual paradise”: may your god have mercy upon your souls. Do JW’s hold the market on physical, spiritual, sexual, and mental abuse? No. But they claim to be god’s only spokesperson on earth. Often the abuse is perpetrated under the auspices of “god’s love”. So, let me hold your head down to the fetid stench of the WT’s ulcerated ugliness—get a good wiff, all you shepherds and ask yourself: when this girl died; when her final rasp of desperate breath finally exited her little body, did she exit this world knowing, if nothing else, that god’s merciful, fatherly love and grace awaited to embrace her? Well, remember what she’d been fed all her little life. If she’d been taught in true, hardcore, JW fashion, likely no. She probably died thinking with the last fiber of her being that she was getting what disobedient children deserve. As her parents administered blow after soul crushing blow, she probably died alone, and frightened and crushed.
For those who say this is an isolated case, ask yourself why. Why is abuse such a common theme of those who grow up in the “truth”. Is this what god wants? For those of you still in the organization, I call upon anything and everything that is good and loving and human inside of you to watch out. You could be going to meetings with a Laree and her siblings. What have you been taught about community responsibility? Can you imagine that god looks upon the abuse of a child with anything but disgust? Will he not call you to account for lost innocence? Remember the scripture where Jesus said he remembers even the little sparrows? If he exists, I know he is LIVID about Laree. Do not think Laree will be forgotten. Laree. Laree. Laree….that you could live again and be free and know the life of a normal, happy child.
And in calling for justice, I call for the those responsible for the teachings that aided, abetted, and assisted these parents to feel justified for every life destroying blow they administered to this child. YOU are called to, no you are cursed to feel with the humanness and decency of your heart (for I still believe it exists there), the remorse, the weight, the culpability before your god for absolute MIND and SOUL rape you have perpetrated or allowed to be perpetrated against the humans you have entrusted yourself with—especially the little ones. Only when you FEEL these--- Truly FEEL them, will you know peace in this life, or the next.
Report suspected abuse to the authorities. For the love of God, if you cannot, will not protect your children, let someone else. It is the law. Period.