My two week consulting trip to Bethel (the beginning of the end) Part 5
As I drove home from the airport all my thoughts turned to questions. I kept recalling the advice from the faithful and discreet slave to never question them because they spoke exactly from gods lips to their ears. To question them was to question god. To have the slightest seed of doubt was to plant a garden of death fruit. Even though I was never an overly spiritual person I believed the teaching of the Watchtower society in a very technical manner. What ever they taught from creation to destruction I accepted as easily and absolutely as I accepted the fact that the sun shines during the day and the moon glows at night. When you do not even consider questioning anything about life it makes it an easy life to live, you do not have to think about anything, you simply accept and live.
I always thought that those who chose not believe what the JW's taught had an easy life to live. Either way, believing everything or doubting everything was easy, You didn't really have to think much either way. I knew I had a bright mind, I had been told that my whole life. For the first time I realized that being intelligent or being as dumb as a potato chip didn't matter. Belief has little to do with intelligence and more to do with acceptance void of objective knowledge. I had never experience objective knowledge up to this point in my life. Everything I had accepted as the truth about my own and everything else's existence was subjective knowledge. After my time at Bethel I now realized that what I so strongly and adamantly believed in was subject to the whims and interpretation of 12 very controlling men sleeping snugly in their brownstone apartments in Brooklyn. I later came to realize their incredible ability to keep secrets and claim that any thing said that was opposite to what they claimed to be true was apostate propaganda and the rank and file JW accepted it without question.
Is I walked into my house I got the usual "daddy's home" and a huge hug from my five year old son Nathan and a big smile with arms reached out from my year and a half old son Abram. Also as usual I was completely ignored by my wife who couldn't care less if I took a nice long business trip off the edge of a cliff Just as long as I paid all the bills and gave her money when she asked for it she didn't care if I was there or not. She didn't even ask about Bethel or the people I met or what I thought of the trip. We had been married for a little over six years and except for a short time period right after each one of my boys were born we never got along. She was a beautiful woman who like many JW women, got married young simply to escape her unhappy life with her parents and siblings.
She was not my first wife, I had been married once before at the age of 19. I married my high school sweetheart who I stole away from her Baptist parents and had her study the bible with my mom and leave her happy home to go live with her older sister and brother in law until she came of legal age to marry. We got married two weeks after she had turned 18. She accepted the teachings of the JW's because she wanted to be with me. At that age I didn't have a clue about being a good husband. All I knew was I was the head of the house and my beautiful new wife was supposed to do what I said. My first wife Sharon was very bright and we had a good marriage for the first six months. Since she had been raised outside of the JW religion she didn't understand how to live in such a controlling environment. She hated going out in service but since I hated it myself we didn't go do the door to door work much. I had learned the trick of going out in service with a coupe of elders who did nothing but back calls. I would push my wife off with some of the elders wives who did pretty much did the same thing. After a year of being a JW my first wife had enough.
She knew I would not listen to her for a second about counter JW teachings and she began to feel trapped in a world she learned to despise. One of the things she did tell me that surprised me and I had a hard time accepting was some of the songs in the JW song book had the same exact melody with a few lyric changes as the hymn books she grew up with in the Baptist church. At first I didn't accept what she told me about the song book and songs but I knew she sang in her church quire most of her life and I also knew she understood a lot about music because she had been playing the piano since early childhood. Her and I were very compatible but I took her intelligence for granted. I sucked as a husband leaving her at home by herself while I rode dirt bikes with my JW buddies on weekends. I wouldn't allow her to hang out with her non JW sister or girlfriends from high school. I had even told her to have my brothers wife be her maid of honor at our wedding instead of her own sister because her sister wasn't a JW.
I look back now and I can't believe how controlling and un-loving that religion had made me. Sharon and I stayed together for a little over a year until she could no longer handle it. She knew I would never leave the religion and the only way to set her self free as well as myself was to have an affair. The worst part of that decision was she had it with my best friend, the presiding overseers son. I not only lost my wife because of the affair, I lost my best friend. I was such an idiot. I was blinded to any reality in life, I just floated along filling up a seat at the kingdom hall and nodding my head in agreement like one of those floating head dog toys in the back of a car. I was taught to think any problem that came up because you didn't follow the JW road map of reasoning was the another persons fault. I accepted the fact that Sharon committed adultery because she got caught up in lust and unchristian like thinking. I went for a long time thinking none of it was my fault, in reality, it was all my fault. It was the first real jolt of reality I had in my life and it really crushed me. Everyone blamed it on the fact that I married someone who even though studied with my mom for a while and eventually got baptized, she was taken from a worldly life and I pretty much got what I deserved. I loved her about as much as any 20 year old kid could love a wife but it took me many years before I could blame myself for loosing her and coming to the understanding that I didn't have a clue about what real love was.
My second wife and I met at a district convention of Jehovah's witnesses in Corvallis Oregon. I knew I had to find someone soon to marry because I had passed from being a non-sexual young Christian brother to a pulsing lump of hormones with a sexual Geiger counter fighting to show my zipper who was boss. At age 21 I was at the peak of my sexual stupidity and I needed a fix. Sharon showed up at the assembly begging me to take her back. I was cold and I was unfeeling and I didn't have the ability to understand let alone be compassionate or forgiving. She told me she needed to talk to me and try to explain. I couldn't think of any explanation that would excuse her actions. My level of stupidity was at its fullest and all I wanted to do was find a new victim. That victim showed up in a tight little summer dress and long brown hair, beautiful blue eyes, and the nicest butt I had ever seen. All the virtues of a perfect JW girl ripe for the picking.
The average JW post teen male has only a couple of priorities when looking for a spiritual sister to make his wife. She was a baptized witness, she had breasts and she had that same little gleam in her eye that he did. The JW's discourage long courtship's because of the chance of having premarital sex and dishonoring the organization. I figured after staring at Korin's butt for five minutes the courtship was half over. In most cases where a divorce does happen in a congregation the one left going to meetings and crying on the shoulders of fellow brothers and sisters is the one who is not at fault. It doesn't matter what happened or how stupid you are, as long as you show up at those meetings and squirt a tear or two out once in a while, you are absolved from all responsibility for the break up. I had to wait a few months before I could bring Korin to my own kingdom hall. I had filed for divorce from Sharon and Korin and I got married while the ink was still drying on the legal papers.
In that short period of time from where my eyes first met her cute little butt I was in love. I really didn't get a chance to Know her very well but that was never seen as a priority in the world of JW courtship. All I knew was she was beautiful and she knew how to highlight sentences in her Watchtower magazine. Every JW boy in the state of Oregon between the age of 13 and 60 wanted her and I had her. Like most young JW couples we had sex a few times before marriage. Most do, but few fess-up. As long as you keep your mouth shut you can slip through the JW wedding with an innocent look and phony smile. Korin and I weren't that lucky. Guilt and the fear of dying at Armageddon for having sex a few weeks before we were scheduled to get married took over and the story of the death defying sin we committed got out.
We had that infamous little talk with the elders in the back room where they asked personal sexual questions that were none of their damn business and we shed the appropriate amount of tears of remorse. We were told that we should get married as soon as possible (no, she was not pregnant) so we flew to Reno Nevada to get married. We went to an all night wedding chapel and I stood at the front as Korin and her mom walked down the isle. Korin was crying her eyes out and for the first time during this whole nightmare I really felt bad. Here was a 20 year old JW girl who had subscribed to Bride Magazine for years and her wedding day consisted of her mom, her disfellowshipped step dad, my JW room mate, me, and some Elvis wannabe rent-a-preacher. I looked at Korin and saw the tears flowing down from her eyes and I almost put an end to all of it right then. But, I couldn't. We both begrudgingly said our "I do's" and on a day that is usually the happiest day of any young bride's life we both felt like shit.
This was no way to start a marriage. It wasn't any business of a farmer, a TV repairman, and an a retired lumber jack to tell us we "had to get married as soon as possible." Starting a marriage with all that going against you was doomed to fail. That day I became the ultimate enemy in Korin's eyes. I was the guy who took her dreams and turned them into a nightmare. In her eyes Satan the devil was an OK guy with a small personalty glitch compared to me, but I was evil personified. One thing about a JW woman is they have had to endure such a deep feeling of being controlled and deal with a less important status than the theater seats in their kingdom halls, once they got pissed off, they can hold that pissed off feeling forever. Korin in the 25 years Iv known her has done just that. I have just learned to accept it.
After playing with my boys for a while I poured myself a drink and sat on the coach to try and just forget the past week and a half. For the next couple of days I just went to my office and acted like nothing had changed. I skipped the meeting on Thursday but went Sunday morning. The PO asked me how the trip went and If I had taken any pictures. I had told him before I left that I would shoot some slides and have a little gathering at my house to show everyone the beauty of Bethel life. The next day I went to pick up my slides and when I open the package all I got back was a couple of rolls of twisted multi colored strips of plastic film. Now this was weird. I had shot tens of thousands of photos before and was very familiar with the ins and outs of photography. This was the first time I had ever gotten a roll of film back that was totally destroyed beyond recognition. I don't believe in signs, predestined coincidences or even soul mates, but this little twist of fate and slide film really set me back a moment. After a while I just blew it off and didn't think about it again for a long time.
The next week I got a call from my mom asking me how the trip to Bethel went. I knew there was no way I could say anything negative so I told her it was quite an experience. I told her that I had met and walked with Fred Franz every morning and I had ran into another GB member but didn't remember his name. I think she was expecting more of a glowing report but every question she asked I gave her the kind of answer she wanted to hear instead of the truth. I had been answering questions like that she had asked me my whole life. As a little kid I always wanted to play spots on an organized team. I would see kids playing little league baseball on Saturday mornings as we headed out in service. I remember asking my mom why I couldn't do that. Her pat answer was always the same question. Would you rather play sports or serve Jehovah? I always went with the lie. JW's only accept lies like that from little kids who want to experience a little normal kid fun growing up. They never seem to want "the truth", they just wanted "the answer".
After I hung up with my mom I stated to feel like shit again. I was slipping into the area of self denial and closing my eyes to what I now knew as the real truth about the truth. It was easy to do, I had been doing it all my life. As a JW you tend to melt two things into an accepting but false reality. The right answer and the real truth.
Talking to my mom was tough. Growing up my mom always was proud of me when I gave a talk or place a watchtower and Awake magazine at a door or gave a very adult answer at the book study. By this time in my life I never got any praise or recognition for any thing I did well outside of the Watchtowers force field of power. In Jr. High school I was put into a special math class that was studying computer data processing, advanced geometry and trig and that class was only available in three JR. Highs across the country. It was kind of an experimental class set up for some of the brightest pimple covered minds in the country. I didn't even know I was accepted into the class or that it even existed until I walked into it on the first day of the 7th grade back in 1968. I found out why years later when my mom told me that my parents always got things like that concerning me from the schools but never told me about it because I had eight other brothers and sisters living at home and my parents didn't want them to feel like I was anything special. They did a good job of that.
Instead of feeling proud of me starting my first business at age 26 with no college and very little money all she could say was be careful not to let materialism take over my life and never leave "the truth". I was a good dad and excellent provider for my kids who I loved and my wife who hated me. None of that mattered. All that mattered was the meetings I went to and the amount of hours I could lie about on the service time slip I turned in every month. Report those hours so the world can see how much time the Jehovah's Witnesses put into serving their god. That religion is all show and no go. In all the years I was a JW I never got a phone call from an elder just to see how I was doing or if I needed help in anything. But like clock work if I forgot to turn in my time slip I got a phone call. I hated those calls, it was a lot harder on the phone to add up the time I said the word god to a friend and then count the hours in-between that time when I left and said god again. The JW's call it incidental witnessing, I called it the elders trick for keeping your hours up. If the JW's used punch in time clocks instead of a time slip based on the honor system the hours they reported to the world every year would be cut by 80%.
The weeks and months went by and as they went along I started to miss more and more meetings and I blew off going out in service entirely. I couldn't handle listening to the same old thing over and over again that I had heard since childhood. I was talked to by my friend and elder one nigh that I didn't make ministerial servant because my hours were going down. Before I went to Bethel, that would have bothered me, now it was just a relief. I also couldn't watch as the song books opened up and look around the congregation like they were just another religion singing some the same songs as all the other religions and not really understanding what or why were singing. Each meeting I attended I heard all the same words but now I saw them in a different light. Speaking of light, the only time you heard anything different at the meetings was when one of their prophecies was proven wrong by going over it's due date or people narrowing down aspects of the old light and asking more questions the GB can't answer. Then we would get the "this is not an admission of being wrong in the past but" The F&DS have given us "new light."
Jehovah god is a god with great sense of humor and timing. When he reveals to the faithful and desecrate slave something that is going to happen he only tells them half the truth. Once they publish the information in their books and magazines and it doesn't come true, he simply says "just kidding" and then tells them the real truth. In the mean time that old truth now know as "the truth that god was just kidding about" brings in thousands of new converts because they buy into the fact that the end of the system is right around the corner. Iv been waiting to see that corner turned ever since I was five years old. And I thought New York city blocks were long. The "your kids are going to die at Armageddon and it will be your fault you lousy children hating parent" card gets played real heavy before the new light is turned on. Since most JW's are born blind at birth, they seem to miss that part.
That Jehovah god, he cracks me up all the time. I started to wonder if he ever gave Leo Greenlees some new light to share such as "get a clue pal, you like having young Bethel boys as room mates so they can get other young Bethel boys drunk and have sex with them in their butts". Actually I think some of the other governing body members where blinded by that light and that was why god told them to send Leo to New Orleans. I don't know how that new light didn't make it into the publications. Somebody must'a forgot to flip the switch on.
In August of that year I decided to go to my 10 year high school class reunion. I didn't go to my five year because just like in high school JW kids are encouraged not to associate with worldly friends. The word "encourage" means one thing to the JW's and another to the rest of the world. To encourage you not to do something means "don't do it"! Or to encourage you to do something means "you will be treated like a leper with rotting skin falling off your demon possessed bones if you don't. I was encouraged to get baptized at 18 years of age. So, as the JW's say after you grow a brain and leave the religion and they disfellowshipped you while they encourage your family to not to ever talk to you again they can say "It was your decision to get baptized and your decision to leave." "accept gods discipline and forget you ever had a mom, dad sister, brother, son, daughter or grand kids." Yep, I deserved getting a good butt whacking from god for actually seeing what I saw and hearing what I heard at Bethel. Shame on me.
The word "encourage" is the biggest loop hole they use to cover their ass. When asked why they tell their people to do or not to do this or that they say, we never said that. We "encourage" them to do this and that but they have a free will to do what they like. JW's and exJW's who are honest with themselves know what a crock that is. The people in the world give people the benefit of the doubt too much and buy into that crap. The JW's get away with murder with that loophole and they hide behind the letter of the law because of it.
At my class reunion I ran into all the people I knew as a kid and wanted to hang out with but couldn't. To my surprise I hooked up with an old class mate who was one of the most popular guys in our class. He was editor of the school paper, played as a starter on the football and basketball team and had the impressive ability to date all the hot girls that were sometimes a year ahead of us in school. This guy was my idol in school and probably would have been my best friend back then. We were a lot alike, popular, athletic, smart, nice looking, but at the same time we were both real loners. He had his reasons and I had mine. He also had the coolest name in the school, Kurt Sinner. What more could a guy want in high school? What really pissed me off was I was smarter, a better athlete, and better looking than Kurt but I wasn't allowed to do anything about it (I slipped that in just in case he ever reads this). That was 20 years ago. Kurt an I have been best friends since, even tough I haven't heard from the bastard in four months. He has a new girlfriend now, I'll hear from him when she smartens up and dumps his old butt..
Kurt walked up to me at the reunion and with a real smart ass grin on his face said "Dave everyone is wondering where you stole the Porsche from". I looked right back at him and said "from the Porsche car lot ya moron". We were instant friends, two cynical, sarcastic, and intelligent smart ass brothers who were separated at birth. Little did I know at the moment, Kurt, my new best buddy was going to ask me a question that would take all the things I saw and heard at Bethel along with all the fears and frustrations I had been feeling my whole life and help turn me completely around.
As the next few weeks went along Kurt and I got together several times and talked about how our lives had been going for the last ten years. Kurt had a college degree and became a high school teacher. He was married and had a young son. The more we talked, the more I was impressed with his level of intelligence and his grasp of reality. I had never had a friend like this and it felt great. One day Kurt came over to my house. I introduced him to my wife and kids and we sat down to have a quick drink. My wife sat down with us because Kurt was a good looking guy and she wanted to stare at him while giving me dirty looks at the same time. She was an Olympic gold medallist at giving me "die you bastard" looks.
As with most JW's when they get a worldly friend to sit down with them they almost automatically without thinking, break into a little incidental witnessing. Even though my head had body had been going in the opposite direction for a while I slipped into this robotic and very seemingly rehearsed "Did you know god said" little speech and Kurt stopped me a little into it. Kurt looked at me funny but then smiled. For the first time he had figured out why I was such a loner in high school.
Kurt leaned over the table a little bit and looked me right in the eye. He said "Dave, you are one of the smartest guys I know, but I have to ask you this question." (Here it comes folks). "do you really an honestly believe, that the whole world is in a world of shit, because a talking snake, told a naked lady, to eat a piece of fruit"?
I went dead quiet and slowly leaned back in my chair. I thought about his question and I thought about how incredibly ridicules it sounded. It was like my mind opened up and for the first time in my life I could answer a question exactly how I felt in all honesty instead of answering it with an answer I was supposed to give. A huge smile came to my face and I felt like I had a light bomb of intelligence and truth shoot through my head for the very first time. At that very instant I became absolutely honest with myself for the very first time. Everything made sense now and for the first time I answered a question as Dave, not as Brother Dave. I looked at Kurt and with a half laughing tone to my voice I said "NO"! I don't believe that.
I couldn't stop smiling. I got up and literally walked around in a couple of circles. I said, " Ya know, I never thought about how stupid and childish that story was. I started to laugh. In that very second I had a feeling of freedom I had never experienced in my life. I had that spiritual revelation that I thought I was going to feel at Bethel but came home feeling the opposite. If any time in my life I felt like raising my hands to the sky and saying "praise god", that was it. His simple question was the key that unlocked my mind and my life. The feeling of being honest with myself for the first time and saying it out loud was over overwhelming.
I looked over at my wife and that feeling of joy turned to a lighting bolt right through my heart. She looked at me with her big beautiful blue eyes in a total state of shock and then got up and left the table. She knew all the years we were in our terrible marriage that she could treat me like total shit and I would just put up with it and never leave her. In that moment she knew the game was over and I was no longer being controlled by other people. I had just taken my life back for the very first time.
Kurt left a little while later and didn't realize right then that his question and his friendship would completely change my life. A few days later I jumped on a plane and headed off to Detroit for a small business convention. I took a very late flight home Friday night and got home in the middle of the morning on Saturday. I didn't sleep at all. Korin didn't even know I was home because I always slept on the coach in the living room. We didn't sleep together very often because I grew tired over the years of starring at her back in bed and knowing I couldn't touch her.
Korin came into the room and told me to get my lazy butt up and go mow the front and back lawn. We had a big two story five bed room house and the front and back yards were vary large. It was a hot summer day and I went out and mowed both the back and front lawns. I came into the living room dripping in sweat and Korin was in the kitchen. I sat down to rest for a second and I asked Korin if she could please get me a glass of water. She yelled back from the kitchen "I'm not your slave, get it yourself." That was it. That was the straw that broke the camels back. I walked into the kitchen and in a very calm voice said. "You're right. You're not my slave. You acutely don't do any thing for me. I make my own meals, iron my own cloths, and I even sleep by myself. You're not my slave, you are not my anything."
I went into my room and put a few things in my luggage. As I started to walk out of my room my five year old son came up to me as calm and quite as I was. He looked at me with a very questioning look. and I bent down on my knees and gave him a huge hug. I started to tell him that I was moving out and this time I was never coming back. I had left Korin on and off over the years but usually for only a week or two and I always came back. I started to choke up and I expected Nathan to start crying. He didn't. He, in a very mature manner said that he knew it would happen someday. He was and still is an extremely bright person. He gave me a big hug and said he understood. He said don't worry daddy, I'll see you soon. I told him that I would be back in a week to pick him and his little brother up for the weekend. He said OK and walked away. As I was walking down the stairs to put my bags in my car, my year and half old son came crawling down the stairs crying. He wasn't old enough to understand what I had said to Nathan but he knew something was wrong. As he slid down each step he would look up and me crying. I lost it. I started crying and went over and picked him up. I just held him tighter and tighter as Nathan stood at the top of the stairs and I could see a tear start to roll down his cheek.
Abram would let go of me. He had a tight grip on my neck and wouldn't let go. He just kept crying. I told him that daddy would come back soon and get him, but it didn't help. He just held on a little tighter and cried harder and harder. Nathan finally came down the stairs and said "dad, give him to me." I pulled Abe off my neck and gave him to Nathan. I walked to my car an opened the garage door. As I backed out I could see both of them standing at the doorway. Abe crying and holding his arms out for me to come back. Nathan just looked at me with a single tear running down his cheek as he held his little brother tight. As I pulled onto the street, I looked back one more time. Nathan was waving good bye. I just wanted to die. I drove away crying harder than I had ever cried in my life. I couldn't get the picture of my two boys standing at the door in the garage out of my head.
Part of me felt free, part of me felt dead. I knew I couldn't tell my wife about the things in Brooklyn. It was bad enough she heard my response to Kurt on the talking snake issue, I didn't want her looking at me as an evil apostate and try to keep my kids away from me. I absolutely knew I couldn't tell my mom about Brooklyn either. She was going to be upset enough that Korin and I just broke up for good, adding the truth about what I experience in Brooklyn would be too much for her to take. Everyone who knew Korin and I knew we didn't get along. I figured that I would just use that as the excuse for leaving and let people think what ever they wanted to think. They were going to do that anyway so what the hell.
As I drove to my dads house I couldn't get the picture of my two boys crying as I left. I didn't know what was going to happen next. I just kept driving and crying. It must have been an all time first. A guy driving down the road in a brand new Porsche crying is eyes out. All I could think about were my boys and it was tearing my guts out.
Life was weird and it was about to get even weirder.
End of part 5