[Note: This essay, broken into sections for easier reading, was written as the first part of a three-part essay cycle written for a biography/autobiography writing class that I took so I could get my Bachelor’s in English (with an emphasis in Creative Writing), thus it was meant for Non-Jehovah’s Witnesses. The three parts were written during the Fall ’97 semester. I purposely focused on three major events: 1. The catalyst for my spiritual journey away from the JW. 2. An event that happened at Job Corps that was made worse by my JW background. 3. My first foray into the world of dating. I purposely withheld the events that actually got me out of the JWs when i was 18 because I wasn't sure if anyone in my class could handle what happened. (Plus, this was long before the JW dateline/Catholic church scandal...so, I think my classmates would've put it into the "bunk" catagory.) I would like to have some feedback from you all. I do have plans to adapt and incorporate some parts of the three essays to a collection of interrelated short stories that I’ve been working on. Some of the major characters in the short stories are ex-JWs.]
Some families I know have problems with money. Some have to deal with a child's drug problem. Others deal with their children not wanting to go to school. My family is different. We have two problems to contend with: race and religion.
In 1976, when I was four, my parents started studying the Bible with the Jehovah's Witnesses (JWs) and they were baptized members about three years later. I don't remember the initial conversion since I was so young at the time, but I would feel the effects later. Among those effects was my family’s gravitation towards a group-culture mentality, much like the Borg on Star Trek. Throughout most of my life, I had to put the needs of my family or our religion before mine. Even today, I still find myself thinking on occasion about the needs or wants of my friends, co-workers, and others before mine.
Race, my family’s other problem, stems in part from the ethnic makeup of my family. My father is of Irish descent and my mother is a Tejana -- a female of Mexican descent born in Texas. While she is not all Mexican, the Mexican/Hispanic identity is what she identifies with. I, other on the other hand, never seem to know how to look at myself: In the mirror I see a white face looking back, but I know I not all white. It’s hard to view myself as a typical white person; as I was growing up, I didn’t live in a white neighborhood. I lived in Montbello, a black-majority neighborhood.
Throughout the years, the two familial threads -- race and religion -- have sometimes crossed paths. Other times, one or the other by themselves would rear their ugly head and would make an impact on me. While I can't say I took an active role in these situations in my early years, I know they helped to shape my philosophy towards life as I got older.
* * *
I. The Church of Hue
Denver, Colorado -- Age six (1978):
I sat on the floor of my grandfather's living room with my Scooby Doo coloring book, trying to color and listen to him and my father argue. My grandfather stood there, arms akimbo, his eyes drawing to almost-closed slits.
"L---, you should've never married N---. Don't shake your head. It's true. Those marriages never work."
My dad was slouched down on my grandfather's couch, left foot kicked up on a coffee table, looking defiant.
"Gee, Dad. It's worked so far."
Of course, my grandfather couldn't be outdone: He lit up a cigarette, knowing that JWs disapprove of smoking. They looked at each other, sizing each other up for Round Two. Both were war-hardened Marines. They could get nasty with their fists if they wanted to. Yet from all the times I saw them fight with each other, their method of combat took to a less physical level: Their fists turned into words. Everything else stayed the same. The sizing up of the opponent. The quick one?twos. The thundering attack. The hasty retreat, if everything else failed. This type of fighting between the two had become so commonplace, as a little kid I could watch and not be scared.
Round Two: Grandfather struck first.
"You're lucky. But those Mexican women...god, they have a temper. Didn't you see the news awhile back? This goddam illegal killed her husband for staying out all night!"
"Yeah, so? Jehovah has taught us––”
Grandfather paced around, looking agitated. He cut in with surprise sucker punch: "L---, listen to me. Forget that Bible shit. I don’t care about that. It's a good thing that your kids look white. Nobody would accept them if they hadn't. I wouldn't."
Then my father slugged my grandfather in the jaw.
This scared me. I remember I started crying because I thought Dad was wrong for hitting his father. It didn’t make sense because my mom always told me that God punished those who treat their parents badly. But at the same time, I could tell by the tone of Grandfather’s voice, he didn't seem to be happy with my mom.
In the midst of my confusion, I didn’t notice Dad was picking me up and taking me home until I recognized the start of the engine. My dad started speaking in a really sad voice, one I hadn’t heard before. “I’m really sorry you heard that. It isn’t right. Granddaddy don’t like because she’s not a white woman. Don’t hate him for that. Just feel sorry for him. Satan blinded him real good, you know?”
Even with the tears still rolling out of my eyes, I got what my father was trying to tell me. It hurt to see what I had, but a little part of me understood and was glad for what Dad did. He was my hero.
* * *
Age 17 (1989):
Pulling away from the drive-up window of a Taco Bell. Windows rolled down. A hot day in Denver. I wasn't hungry, but Dad insisted. We were out driving, and my father said it would be a good time to talk. He seemed intent on talking about my younger sister, H---, and her friend, D--- B---, who lived just down the block. D---’s father was an elder in another congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. Brother B---’s congregation used to be part of our congregation until it grew too big and our Kingdom Hall, the building JWs worship in, was always SRO on the weekends.
Over the years, my parents had developed a distrust of us kids; to remedy the possibility of one of us lying to them, they would try to pump information out of the other one. These tactics had an effect on my relationship with my sister; by my early teens, I felt I could no longer trust her with anything private.
"Brother B--- came up to me last week, asking me if it's okay for H--- and D--- to go to this party together," my father started out. "Did D--- mention anything to you about it?" I got the feeling from Dad, that he didn't seem too thrilled about letting H--- go.
"Nope. Does it matter?" I asked, thinking it had something to do with the fact that JWs don’t let their kids date until they are pretty much adults. My sister was 15 at the time.
Turning on to the highway, Dad spoke louder. "Yeah, it does. I don't want my daughter going out with that kid. He's not even baptized."
The wind, howling through the open windows of the van, almost drowned my father out. Yet I didn't miss his feelings on the matter, it was expressed clearly in his eyes and knotted eyebrows. A little fire had started in his eyes right after we drove away from the Taco Bell. It was normal for me to avoid my dad when he had that look. But this time, I wanted to know why, though. D--- wasn't a bad guy; he just didn't want to go to the Kingdom Hall on Sunday mornings like he used when he was a kid. I envied him, actually. He didn't spend his Saturday mornings going door-to-door preaching and hawking the Jehovah's Witnesses' magazines like I was forced to do. And that bothered me: He was free but I was trapped by our parents’ religion.
"If he was, would you let her go?"
"No. I don't want any child of mine going with somebody like him, even if he was a Witness."
Now this was confusing. If someone was a JW, my parents generally assumed that they were trustworthy and decent. (So did I, only because I figured that most JWs were too paranoid of the possibility of God’s wrath to defy the rules of the religion.) This backtracking of beliefs had my interest and suspicions raised. I knew better than to say anything, because I’d be “questioning” my dad’s decision about the matter. But being seventeen and figuring that I knew it all, I did it anyway.
"Why not? They're going to a party with other people around. It just one date." I stuck up my index finger for emphasis.
My father stuck his finger in my face. "Oh, sure. 'One date.'" With each passing word, his voice rose, "Then it becomes another, and then another. I don't want her getting that involved with him. He ain't a Witness, he'll want to have sex. Until he goes back to the Organization, he's worldly."
There was that dreaded word again -- worldly. Not of Jehovah. Satan's Domain. Us versus Them. Every time I turned around, you’d hear different Witnesses whose kids were in public school say, “Oh, those worldly kids at school are trying to getting my kids to hate Jehovah. They’re always teasing [so-and-so] about their love for Jehovah.” Other JWs who were parents always nodded their heads in agreement and replied with the occasional “Yes, Satan sure is trying to seduce our kids away from Jehovah’s love, isn’t he?”
"That could happen even if a guy is a Witness, Dad," I pointed out.
I thought to myself how dumb my dad was. It was the reason why my parents would not let me date; they assumed I wasn't capable of controlling myself around a girl.
I continued on. "Those things happen all the time. People have sex, and a Bible isn't going stop them if they want it."
Dad gave me an exasperated look.
"That's not what I really mean. I don't want her going out with a black guy. Period. Those things rarely work out."
I thought back to my dad’s fight with my grandfather. My father ceased to be my hero.
* * *
II. The Church of Used-Car Salespeople
Age 10:
It was customary for my parents, when they were active Jehovah's Witnesses, to spend their Saturday mornings engaging in the door-to-door ministry, or "field service" as the JWs call it. And whether I liked it or not, my parents dragged me along. Field service on the weekends consists of JWs waking up their (usually) tired (or even hung-over) neighbors and bombarding the now angry or bored householder (depending on far the person had come out of their restful stupor) with latest issue The Watchtower or Awake magazines and a lengthy spiel about Jehovah and the "Good News of the Kingdom." The Kingdom referred to here is the JWs idea of a post-Apocalyptic Paradise.
This door-to-door preaching was pure misery for me. I didn't have the heart for it; even at that age, I started having a hard time accepting what the JWs said. Jehovah came across to me as an ugly, angry god dressed in darkness, not in “light” as the Witnesses professed he was. Not to mention, I was troubled by the infamous policy of no blood transfusions. Plus, if this religion was so great, why was I (and every other JW for that matter) spending my time annoying people about "The Good News"? I reasoned then, and still do today, that if the Jehovah's Witnesses was such a great religion and was "the Truth," people would be beating down our doors, not us beating on theirs. The whole scheme of all things Jehovah had a look, sound, and feel of a used-car sales pitch, except the pitch was of eternal salvation from Armageddon and entry into Paradise. I felt shivers whenever I heard my parents, other JWs, and hypocritically myself telling the householder on the other side of the screen door that they and their children would face death if they, the parents, did not take Jehovah into their hearts. I thought the whole play on emotions was so cheap.
So, it was befitting for me to think of my parents’ religion as a dark tunnel that I had been thrust into: I could not fathom that if "God is love," why he would destroy people at Armageddon if they weren't part of "Jehovah's earthly organization” (the JWs)? Even the kind, good-hearted people like Mother Theresa were not to be spared God's wrath, and that seemed more horrifying to me. And I knew plenty of bad JWs -- JWs who would beat their kids, even at the Kingdom Hall, including my parents; JWs who cheated on their wives and husbands; JWs who were drunk half the time. If these people were to be "saved," I knew there was something wrong with God's mind.
But the dread I felt towards the door-to-door work had been intensified when I was still in public elementary school. If my parents and I came across the house of a fellow classmate, it was a sure bet my classmate would mention it to me and everyone else at school the following Monday. It was an embarrassment to have students come up to me and say, "Who's Jehovah? My mommy says your mommy made him up." How could I explain what I truly didn't believe in? Even when I tried to tell myself that they were right -- that there wasn't a Jehovah out there, something inside me would scream out, But what if the Witnesses are right? What are you gonna do then? After awhile, I would just give up and sit there quietly. It seemed better to sit motionless, mentally and physically, than to move around; I wasn’t giving into the kids and their beliefs nor was I giving into my parents. I knew it wasn’t making me happy either way.
The holidays were even worse. I was expected by my parents to explain, or "give a witness" as JWs call it, why Jehovah hated Christmas. It was uncomfortable to give the other kids at school a witness; I had to tell them that Jesus wasn’t born on December 25th and Satan was lying to them. Of course, the other kids at school thought I was weird. They thought my god was weird. And I was jealous. I reckoned that if these kids were slated to be destroyed by God, at least they were going down happy (along with their toys and Saturday morning cartoons, of course). So when my parents pulled my sister and me out of school in the middle of the fourth grade because they (along with a couple of other extreme-JW families in our congregation) regarded education as a sign of Satan's system, I cried because I was so happy. I knew I would miss learning new things, but I was happy to know I would be spared the teasing and the harmless questions of why I didn't get toys at Christmas.
But there was also a little light in my dark tunnel. One Saturday morning when I was ten, my parents decided for a couple of different reasons not to go out into "the field" that day. But my parents figured I still had the responsibility to go. "It's what Jehovah wants you to do," Mom told me when I asked to stay home. Mom called up a lady named B--- B--- [no relation to D--- B--- at the beginning of this essay] to take me out into "the field." Looking back on that day, my mom regrets it -- she regards it as the day I started "falling away" from the Witnesses. Deep down, I know I really didn't "fall away" because my heart was never in it. I was in the JWs out of fear and force by my parents; the only thing that had kept me in all that time was the fact I was afraid that the JWs could be right about Armageddon.
Sister B--- was a portly, outgoing, black lady from Texas around my mother's age. Coming from the same region as my mom, Sister B--- was one of the few blacks my mom trusted or even liked. I liked Sister B--- for simpler reasons: She shared her candy with me and let me listen to whatever I wanted on the car radio. My parents never did that kind of stuff. Even here in the present, she still holds a level respect in my eyes that I don’t afford to other JWs. When they are not out doing field service, most JWs I know tend to talk badly about non-JWs. But not Sister B---. She held everyone on the same level; she just believed the “worldly” people just needed “new eyeglasses” to see the world with.
Sister B--- knew how to work “the field”; her calm demeanor would easily keep open the doors that other Witnesses couldn’t even open. Even on those few occasions where she first met with opposition, she somehow found a way to be invited in for a spell. She was magic in my eyes; if I hadn’t been around the JWs already, I surely would have been converted by her.
After several doors, we came along a simple little red house. That house showed me the path of life that I would seek out later on as an adult. Before Sister B--- even had the chance to knock on the door, it swung back and a Japanese lady in a short, tacky green house kimono stepped out onto the porch. "Hey, I always want to talk to you people, but my husband won't give me the chance," she said rattling her words. She was small; she and I could almost look at each other straight in the eye. Her body was like my stick figure drawings: her arms and legs jutting out of clothes too big for her. The lady told us she was Junko and invited us in without a word being spoken by either one of us. Sister B--- looked as if she was caught off-guard by Junko's friendliness as we entered.
It turned out that the woman was like most of the Asian women in our neighborhood: She came here with her military husband who now was stationed at nearby Lowry Air Force Base. The look in her eyes told me she didn't seem too concerned about what Sister Bryant had to say, she just wanted the company. After an hour or so, she looked over at me and saw the bored look on my face. "Hey, little boy. You wanna look at my picture books?"
It was all she needed to ask. I told her, "Sure." Anything to keep my mind off the JWs. As she was leading me over to her kitchen table, I caught a look from Sister B--- that showed her displeasure at my eagerness to shrink from "giving a witness." At the table, the lady showed me a big book with funny lines and curves running all over it in vertical columns.
"You can't read all of it. It's mostly Japanese, you know. But the pictures are pretty, you’ll like them," she told me as she went back to the front room.
She was right. I was fascinated by the alternation of bright, happy, humorous paintings of men and women (mostly women, though) who were enjoying life with those paintings of dark, rainy sadness. But those rainy pictures touch me more. The looks of the people held what I felt inside, yet there was beauty in the faces and in the background. I thought whoever painted those pictures knew something about my inner spirit. I didn't know why I knew this and I didn't get this kind of feeling from looking at Western art. What's more, I felt I was on the verge of some sort of awakening. What it was, I didn’t know. But I knew this: It was going to replace the JWs.
After I was finished with "field service," I headed straight for the Encyclopeadia Britannica Junior collection on my parents’ bookcase. It wasn't of much use -- I couldn't find too much on Japanese paintings. But I found something else. I found out what drove some of the painters, especially in the more religious, solemn-looking paintings: Buddhism.
I really liked what I read. Buddha didn't do all the things Jehovah did: He wouldn't destroy little kids because their parents didn't believe in him like Jehovah would at Armageddon; he didn't tell parents they couldn't let their kid have a blood transfusion if the kid was hurt like Jehovah did; he didn't order people not to celebrate the holidays like Jehovah did. And, more importantly for me later on, you found enlightenment on your own, no Jesus necessary. This point really made sense to me because I couldn't fathom how a guy who died over two thousand years ago could save me. I didn't ask him to save me. In fact, I didn't have the proof that Jesus, as Son of God, actually existed. There is no disputable evidence of Jesus raising dead people, there are no miracles happening today, and there’s not a single incidence of God talking to people like he did to Moses and others in the Bible.
I made my mind up right there. I felt I’d rather save myself than leave it to a guy who may not actually exist. I found my truth and it set me free.
[end part #1]
To do list:
1.Still waiting to goose the Organization.