One of my Witness friends in England told a friend of hers out in service about how I'm not going to meetings anymore, what a shame, etc., etc., so this well-meaning little person decided she wanted to write me a letter. I said sure, why not, knowing exactly what kind of letter I'd get, and I was right. Her short letter started out: "[My friend] is a very dear friend to me and when she told me the sad news about your Dad and how some in the congregation have treated you and because of this you have stopped going to the meeting I was moved to write to you." Uh-HUH. First mistake: oversimplification. Next paragraph included: "ALWAYS REMEMBER YOU DEDICATED YOUR LIFE TO JEHOVAH GOD AND JESUS CHRIST. We are in the very last days now and we know what Satan's purpose is to stop us serving our Heavenly Father Jehovah . . . Please don't let Satan win. Please pray to Jehovah not to allow imperfect brother and sister to stop you worshiping oru Heavenly Father Jehovah." Riiiiiiiight. Well, I just couldn't let that one go, could I?
So I wrote her a letter back. Here it is:
Dear [well-meaning but clueless person],
Thanks for taking the time to write to me. That was very kind of you. Yes, [friend] is a great friend and I think embodies every quality that a true Christian should have and, in addition, is a very interesting person. I?m picturing her in Antarctica this month and wondering if she can send me a postcard as she usually does.
Believe me, it wasn?t just a few people in one congregation that caused me to stop attending meetings; rather, over the past 18 years I have witnessed a growing trend in all the congregations I attended that really disturbed me, and that is a severe lack of love by the majority of people in the congregations. People like you and Jessica have become few and far between. I have also decided that we keep so busy that we don?t notice this until it touches us directly in some way. I?ll see if I can explain that statement.
I was raised ?in the Truth? ? my parents were baptized before I was born. My parents and I served where the need was greater, first in the Virgin Islands from 1965-70 and then in the Northern Territory of Australia from 1970-73. My first memories of a congregation include some wonderful older brothers who thought nothing of getting on a train to Brooklyn Bethel to argue a point of doctrine with Fred Franz if they felt so inclined (when I was very young we lived in Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, which was a short train ride to New York City). They were wonderfully encouraging to a little girl, and I remember nothing but love in that congregation. It was the same in the Virgin Islands and Australia.
In 1973 we moved back to the United States and settled in Dallas, Texas. I was 18 and immediately began regular pioneering and continued to pioneer for the next 13 years. During that time I went to Pioneer School and thoroughly enjoyed the two weeks of intense learning. I even applied to Bethel but was, of course, turned down, since they rarely take single sisters. I met and married another pioneer, and a ministerial servant, and together we attended meetings and worked hard in the congregation. Then my husband began to deal with the child abuse he had experienced when he was little, and I began to see a different side to the ?loving brotherhood.? His parents (his father is still a ministerial servant in good standing, even though he was one of the abusers) disowned him and spread malicious gossip throughout the circuit. The elders in our congregation said, ?what do you want ME to do about it?? and then warned us to stop talking about it. A circuit overseer threatened my husband with disfellowshipping on the grounds of slander. My father, who was in another congregation and who was greatly respected as an elder and one of the anointed, stood up for my husband, even contacting Brooklyn Bethel to see if something could be done for my husband ? his reward for that unselfish act was that he never again got a district convention or circuit assembly part. You see, the committee that decided who gave the talks was headed up by a couple of the elders from my father-in-law?s congregation. And when Chris? mother died in 1989, the elder who gave her funeral talk deliberately left out Chris as a family survivor.
Well, that was it for my husband. He told me that he could not in good conscience continue to attend meetings, but being a wonderful human being and very fair, he said if I wanted to continue to attend he would help me in any way he could. I kept going. I just KNEW Jehovah would make sure there was justice. I saw none. As a woman attending by myself, I became invisible in the congregation. Elders couldn?t remember my name. Even though my husband was neither disfellowshipped nor disassociated, we were rarely invited anywhere for a meal and never to any parties, unless it was a graduation or shower of some sort where a gift was expected.
Our beautiful Jennie was born in 1993 and sweet Jackson in 1996, and I continued to attend meetings on my own. Occasionally I would ask my husband to attend, usually the Memorial, and he would try but would usually end up with a migraine and throwing up afterward. I prayed constantly to Jehovah that he would come back to meetings, but the answer I would hear in my head when I prayed that was: ?It?s none of your business.? I finally realized that my husband?s relationship with Jehovah really wasn?t any of my business ? it was between the two of them. After I accepted that, I was at peace, because I knew that Jehovah saw my dear husband?s heart even better than I, and it?s a good heart. He is a perfect husband (well, mostly!) and a wonderful father and has successfully broken the cycle of abuse that ran through his family.
However, I was noticing in the congregations (we had moved a couple of times and finally settled in a suburb of Dallas where the school system is the best) that lack of love. I invited people with children over to my house almost every Friday so that my children would have good association, but they were rarely invited back. Again, I felt invisible, but I kept going because I felt that was where I needed to be. It was hard with two little ones, though, and I vividly remember the one book study where I dragged in late but proud of myself for making the meeting because it had been a supreme effort to get there after working all day (Chris was working nights at the time so I was on my own in the evenings) ? and the book study conductor glared at me and finished up the book study that night with a little lecture about the importance of being on time. I felt horrible. But I kept going.
Meanwhile, in my dad?s congregation, which I had attended for four years, there was a different sort of problem, which caused me to leave that congregation out of concern for my children?s safety. A young man in that congregation, age 14, sexually assaulted a 4-year-old girl whose family also attended that congregation. He was caught and sent to juvenile detention for a year. Not being ?plugged in? to the gossip of the congregation, I had no idea why he disappeared and then reappeared a year later with a really short haircut. I didn?t think much of it until one of the congregation gossips got me aside and whispered that I shouldn?t let my children go to the bathroom unattended. I asked why, and she told me the story of this young man. I subsequently found out that his parents, when he got out of detention, wanted to come back to that congregation even though the parents of the victim strongly disagreed with their daughter having to face her attacker three times a week, and some of the congregation members had even signed a petition requesting that the boy go to one of the other three congregations in that city. The elders insisted that he come into the congregation where the little victim was ? that family left immediately, never to return ? and a local needs talk on ?forgiveness? was given. The elders privately warned the objectors not to speak of the matter at all or they would be disfellowshipped.
That was the same congregation that disfellowshipped my dad and, even after his reinstatement, treated him so badly that he committed suicide.
Okay, back to my congregation, which is a neighboring one. Jackson (our 8-year-old son) came down with a rare virus when he was about 6 and contracted post-viral arthritis, which had him in a wheelchair and in severe pain for 4 weeks. He finished the last week of Kindergarten in a wheelchair. He had people, total strangers, stopping us on the street to ask what happened to the poor little thing. Because of the virus preceding the arthritis, I had missed about a month of meetings but no one had called or come by, which I was used to by that time. However, I took Jackson to a Sunday meeting in his wheelchair once he started feeling a little better and out of 150 people only three came up to ask what happened. One of them was the Presiding Overseer ? after the meeting he asked, ?what happened to him?? and when I started to tell him, he interrupted me after about five seconds and said, ?well, Jehovah will give you strength to endure,? and walked off.
That did it for me. For myself I could endure being ignored, treated rudely and generally made to feel like an outcast, but I absolutely refused to allow my children to sit in a Kingdom Hall and hear people from the platform talk about how much better Jehovah?s Witnesses are than any other religion on earth and then be treated like dirt. That was NOT what Jesus meant when he said we would know his followers by the love they showed. That?s not love. From the same platform I heard someone smugly talk about all the problems the Catholic Church is having with child abuse, but I saw with my own eyes how they were covering up the child abuse case in my dad?s congregation.
I went home and told my husband I was never going back. The children cheered ? they weren?t too fond of the meetings either and didn?t feel welcome. So we started reading the Bible together in the evenings, and reading about Jesus? time on earth really opened my eyes. His message was so simple: love God, love your neighbor. As he came across a case of need, he helped. It didn?t matter what religion they were ? if they needed help, he helped.
I started to look around at my neighbors and my coworkers and I saw some genuinely nice people. I started to see people as human beings and not ?oh, you?re going to be destroyed at Armageddon if you don?t become a Witness.? After my dad died so tragically, I was profoundly humbled by the love I received from the people at his retirement home, my coworkers, my neighbors ? and a few Witnesses who knew him. I saw several elders and their wives walk out of the funeral service, which we held at his retirement home, because the service started with ?Amazing Grace.? One of the residents had asked me if he could sing it for Dad, and I thought it was a beautiful gesture. Another elder, a long-time friend, refused to speak at the service because (1) I wouldn?t let him use the 30-minute outline from the Society, and (2) I had asked for any resident who wanted to get up and say a few words about Dad. Gary was afraid that he would be ?taking part in an inter-faith service? if he spoke and it freaked him out. All they did was tell stories about how kind and helpful Dad was and what a good man he was. And they cried because they missed him.
I was baptized in 1965 and in my baptism vows I dedicated my life to Jehovah God and Jesus Christ, not to a man-made organization. They changed the vows in 1985 to say ?Jehovah?s visible organization,? by the way. I have never wavered in my faith to Jehovah and Jesus and in fact it has been considerably strengthened since I left. Remember how I was able to leave the matter of my husband?s relationship with Jehovah in His hands? Well, I did the same with my own. I have left the matter of my everlasting life in Jehovah?s hands. He knows my heart. He knows my reasons for staying away from meetings. And if He thinks I need to be back there, then I am confident I will find a really good reason to do so. So far I haven?t.
And it took the elders in my congregation a year and a half to come over to my house to find out why I hadn?t been attending meetings. I told them. They haven?t been back (that was in March, right before Memorial.)
So that?s my story ? as you can see, it?s a long one! Hope I didn?t run on too much, but there isn?t a short answer! Anyway, please take good care of our [friend]. She is a really sweet person and we love her dearly. We have tentative plans to come to the UK, maybe in a year or so, and when we do I?ll look forward to meeting you!
Here's my question: since I gave such a brilliant un-Witness, can I deduct the time I spent writing the letter from HER monthly service time or from my own many years of pioneering?
I would've been harder on her except that I remember the days when I probably would have written just such a letter and been most sincere about the sentiments in it. At any rate, I figure my reply should ensure that I never hear from her again!
Nina