Well, friends, this could be the beginning of the end for me. I’m not sure what, if anything, is going to happen to me in the next few weeks, so I’ll have to wait and see. Here’s the situation:
My wife and I moved to another house outside of our congregation’s territory a couple weeks back. We had not told anyone from our congregation our new address. Well, Saturday morning the doorbell rang as I was opening the garage door to do some organizing. I was expecting a friend to come by, so I met the visitor at the door and I was shocked to find that the visitor was an Elder from my congregation. My first thought was “how did they find me!!??”. Perhaps they called my in-laws for the new address or something. Then the elder asked me to join him at his parked car where another elder was sitting (he is disabled from a recent surgery).
Well, I was completely caught off guard by all of this. The first elder said that they were just making the rounds and wanted to discuss something with me. It seems that a sister in my congregation became very distraught at finding a Listmania recommended reading list on Amazon.com by yours truly that includes several “apostate” books. The sister notified the elders of what she found and they wanted to schedule a time for me to meet with them and yet another elder. I refused the meeting stating that there was really nothing to discuss – in the spirit of Proverbs 18:17 I was just providing the other side of the story that anybody could read so as to come to an informed conclusion. My stance was that there is nothing to hide and that the truth should prevail, so there should be no danger in recommending books. They were concerned that I represented my self as a “Former Ministerial Servant” on Amazon.com (which I am). They felt that that title gave an air of authority to my recommended reading list that could cause unnecessary doubts in the minds of the brothers and sisters.
Anyway, I made the list a few months back and I suppose it came from a sense of apathy within me. I don’t really care if I get DF’d or not. Well, actually I do care for my wife’s family’s sake, but I just get sick of having to walk on egg shells all of the time. I guess that is why I made the list under my real name. I think I also used the rational that my recommended reading list only comes up if someone specifically searches for “jehovahs witnesses” or something similar to that on Amazon.com. As most here know, there are not many Witness friendly books out there, so someone who saw my list was probably already looking at Crisis of Conscience or something.
This conversation spanned a couple of hours in the cold outside of my new house. We talked on all range of subjects including the UN debacle (which one of the elders was unawares, and the other downplayed unsuccessfully), Evolution (that was fun!), 1914, Ray Franz, the bible as inspired of god, my baptism when I was 13 years old, etc. etc., and including if I still consider myself a Witness. The one elder commented, “So do you consider yourself an Agnostic or a Witness or what?” to which I responded, “Actually, I think you put it quite well – I’m an Agnostic Witness.” I specifically mentioned that I have no desire to disassociate myself.
So now I’m not sure of what will happen next. I didn’t tell them anything that I haven’t already told them in previous meetings. I just left it at I’m still searching and I still consider myself a witness, but I am definitely doing the slow fade and I would appreciate being left alone. I could not determine whether this was a judicial investigation or anything – they seemed to want to “help” me, to which I answered that they tried to help me over a year ago and the only thing they could tell me is that my concerns were not important. I didn’t see any value in rehashing all of those issues over again (though it would be fun). They weren’t going to change my views unless they had some brand new light that I haven’t heard about yet.
They seemed to genuinely care for me, which I appreciated. I still have tender feelings for these guys, but I’m not good at reading people and I couldn’t tell whether the this was going to get ugly down the road or not. I’m wondering if it’s too late for me. I could just let things run their course and accept the “consequences” as they put it, which I suppose would include DF’ing. It wouldn’t ruin my life, but it would make certain family functions uncomfortable (or even non-existent). Or I could go the Lawyer route and threaten to sue the elders for defamation of character and emotional turmoil ala AlanF, but I’m not sure if I want to go through all of that or if it’s even too late to do so.
I guess the next few weeks might be interesting. Could they DF me without having a meeting? Do they have to disclose that a meeting is Judicial in nature? (Because I didn’t get that feeling) Is it too late for me to pursue legal options? Should I take down my Listmania book recommendations? This is the first time that I’ve ever felt like they’ve got me on something that could be considered a DF’ing offence (though I’m not sure what that would be in the spirit of Proverbs 18:17). I know it was my own stupidity and apathy that brought this on, but I suppose I’ve already helped many to see both sides of the organization and to make their own informed decision, including my family and some friends.
Any thoughts from the premier Jehovah’s Witness discussion forum on the Internet?
rem
"We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking." - Mark Twain