A subject that I know a lot of you can relate to. My wife admits to leading a double life in regards to her spiritual activities. It comes with the territory, I suppose. My 40th birthday just came and went yesterday without any fanfare, and to tell you the truth it didn’t really bother me too much. Perhaps because it was my 40th birthday or perhaps because my daughter got to go to a friend’s birthday party that very same day and my wife even picked out the birthday gift and even attended the first part of it. It was Sunday and she had to go to the 12:00 p.m. meeting so she had to leave during the party but returned afterward. Or perhaps it was something she said to me the night before my birthday….
I’ve been trying to get to know the real her lately, trying to find out what makes her tick. I’m surprised by some of the things she tells me and is certainly not something your average witness would say. Or perhaps maybe it is given the stuff I read here on the message board.
She told me that she seems very lonely at times because she does a lot of things alone that is without me or the kids. I did not realize she felt this way for outside of her college and the meetings on Sunday mornings, we do a lot of things together. In fact, it seemed to me that we as a family spend a great deal of time together. So, I asked her what her ideal life would look like if she could have it. I was expecting her to say something along the lines us going to the meetings, going out in field service, the assemblies, the district conventions, etc, etc like a very happily married Jehovah’s Witness family. I was surprised at her response.
“We would go to the meeting tomorrow and I would throw you a big birthday party that I was planning for years to celebrate your going over the hill.”
WHAT?! So she would have her cake and eat it too, I thought. Clearly she is not a full believing Jehovah’s Witness, I told her, and she agreed. She said that she felt like she is now straddling the fence again with her spirituality. She let on one time that she only goes out in field service out of obligation and she only follows this religion simply because she does not want to die.
I find it sad to see her so trapped like this, wanting to be herself but not allowing herself to because she is afraid she is going to die for it. I have to admit, Christians have this problem too but a lot of them do to a lesser extent simply because the majority feel like all they have to do is say the “right magic word” (Jesus) and everything is okay. In addition to that, there are so few rules that a Christian has to adhere to in comparison. Granted, there are some who push doctrinal rules and “works” but the vast majority of them (including the Watchtower) wind up saying things that contradict what they’ve previously said. It is for these reasons why I stopped focusing on “orthodoxy” while trying to focus more on love. I’m not trying to sell or defend Christianity because I realize that it has its problems too. I agree with Pascal when he stated that to make good people do evil things takes religion.
I did pose a question for her to see if she got it, not that I am sure if I got it. When the Easter candy went on sale for 90% off after the Easter holiday passed, why did she buy it? Why is it okay to buy Easter candy on sale after the holiday as opposed to buying it before the holiday? She basically stated, in a roundabout way, that the holiday was over and therefore it is not ‘considered’ participating in the celebration anymore. I’ll buy that but I asked her was it ever published in a Watchtower or spoken about by a brother on the podium in this manner? Did she hear or read this line of reasoning somewhere? Did her mom, perhaps, teach her this? She replied no on all accounts.
Truth is, I thought about this myself on the very day that she bought those candies. How can she touch ‘the unclean thing’ when the holiday is over and the candy is 90% off? I knew that it was because it is no longer ‘unclean’ to her after the holiday but if that was the case could it not be ‘unclean’ before? I thought it could not have been since the mere passing of the event did not change the candy in any way. Then it dawned on me, the ‘rules’ that are guiding our life are our own rules that we choose to accept even if we make some of them up. In a more profound sense, the unseen force that is guiding us and moving us along in this life, are ourselves.
When I told her this, I don’t think she got it. For all I know, I’m not sure if I got it either.