Act II: Dachskampf (Badger?s struggle)
?In all of history, no group has done more damage than those who thought they were doing the right thing.? ? Charles Schultz
For me to realize my true potential, I?d have to go to college. Hey, I?m all for blue collar work, and revere labor. However, the last person who should be in charge of anything that may cause instant painful death or dismemberment is me. What?s more, I would not be happy in a labor setting, and writing, thinking and creating was more my speed.
No one else saw it, though, least of all my father and stepmother. They had long refused to assist me in college, and would not even help me cosign for a student loan to that end. If I attended school, I could not stay there. Since I had little experience living outside the home or in any secular employment, my high school days were ending with a sense of dread. I had no clue what I would do or even what I was capable of.
To my estimation at that time, it wasn?t a hell of a lot. Others my age outside the org had held down jobs, excelled in studies (but then again, they had parents riding them the whole way), and a few had even started families (a bit earlier than I would have suggested). What?s more, I was hardly a problem child, even by the hair-trigger standards of JWs. I was guilty of very little even remotely mischievous or rude
I don?t know how I was able to rationalize it all. The New Order, the superior JW moral code, What I ?knew? to be ?true??I said a lot of things to myself to help get me through the day.
I didn?t begin the climb up the JW ladder, nor was I really pushed into it?it just became the only option I had left. I had said at 12 that I wanted to pioneer and go to Bethel, but show me a JW kid who didn?t say that once in a fit of piety and self-promotion. Problem is, my father took it as an ironclad promise. For comparison?s sake, I am not holding my 7-year-old to his recent promise to be a fireman.
And that?s what the org does to its young ones. It allows them to paint themselves into a corner with their own early thoughts and promises. Forcing them to grapple with biblical issues of good and evil and the end of days before they can read, turning them into outcasts at school before the end of the first grade, and the lifetime contract that is baptism in young adolescence?A slippery slope. Letting it happen to you results in you sliding further in, while fighting it will have you crashing down.
One ambitious young elder and former Bethelite just returned to our congregation and sold me on Bethel. ?You?re a bright one, Bro. Badger. You?ll fit in up there and get a great spot in no time,? he said. ?All you need to do is pioneer for a couple of years.?
I thought that was the ticket. I truly did. It was something everyone else wanted me to do and I had their support. I had been daydreaming about what life would be like if I weren?t a witness, going to college, going to worship once a week, running around with friends on a moments? notice. But what did I know? I was an imperfect, tempted human, and these were my parents and God?s Own Organization. They knew what was best for me, right?
I pioneered and worked for an elder?s floor cleaning service (I kid you not?the cliché is completely accurate in this case) while pioneering. I hated my work, but liked pioneering?at least for a few months?then I hated pioneering, and like the association?at least for a few more months?then I hated the association, and just focused on my goal of getting the hell out of that town and on to Bethel.
After one year of pioneering, I was completely worthless as a publisher. I had put in 1000 hours and only a couple dozen magazines and one return visit to show for it. I had stretched myself to the limit with work and service (I was truthful about my hours) and at one point, ?Borrowed? $5 from my contributions to put a gallon in my car and get a sandwich and drink. I remember feeling guilty for a long, long time about that, and about how I could be history on the Big Day just for that. I also realized that since fading, this is the first time I?ve even given it a thought, here typing this now?hmm?
I then got the thrill of serving as a temporary at Bethel. It was a uniquely soul-crushing experience. I went from of loveable loose cannon in my own congregation to a wire casing in a massive machine that worshipped frugality and expediency in an almost Soviet way. I heard tons of foul stories, the kind that made me wonder if that whole ?get off the fringes and into the center of God?s organization? spiel was really good advice. I had also had $120 taken from me in the Bethel locker room at the 90 Sands building. This really floored me. I mean, I had left my car unlocked in my school parking lot my entire senior year and nothing happened. One week at Bethel, and I had been lifted.
Then, my first on-the-job injury. I had fallen in a stairwell and cut my hand between my pinky and ring fingers. Needed some stitches and some pain medicine. I went back to my room for the rest of the day, unable to work (much less stand). I was called by my foreman (or what ever the hell they called them up there) back to work mere minutes after I had left the infirmary. What would have been a week off of work and about a cool grand in worker?s comp if it had just happened a few blocks away became treated like a battle wound?patch ?em up and back into the battle.
I looked around?$90 a month with no real work experience or schooling. These people then went back home when worn out and mooched for the rest of their lives, I figured. Not what I wanted to do. I spent the last two weeks disillusioned and didn?t even attend any meetings on the last 2 weeks while up there. I hadn?t missed that many meetings in a row in my life.
Going back home was worse. The Young Elder who talked me into going in the first place dressed me down in front of everyone about stupid stuff while I was up there (Wearing a hat indoors! Eating at a restaurant Saturday night! Talking to sisters!). I got the Swift Boat Veterans treatment 12 years before John Kerry did. Submitting my Bethel application was going to be a waste of time. I was removed from microphone duty for, of all things, forgetting my songbook.
The second year of service was not fun. I was able to secure a part-time office job, but that made me expendable. I really in my heart wanted to latch onto it full time, but I ?have more important work to do!? I was getting nothing done in the ministry, most likely because my doubt was showing. I was faithful in following the guidelines, but was having serious doubts. I hadn?t amassed any real evidence?it just wasn?t feeling like the truth.
I was going every meeting, but felt myself being left out. Two other brothers went, and were hardly more ?spiritual? than me (or so I thought at the time through jealousy). One of the things that hurt the most, I suppose, was the effort I felt I was putting in with no reward to be had.
It was January of 1994. I had pioneered for over two years and was in a rut. Nothing happening for me in service. I didn?t want to pioneer. My father was upset with my output. But hey, I was doing the right thing, right? Jehovah appreciated my efforts, right? The shepherds knew I was doing the right thing?
When I was thinking that, I was in a car group with another pioneer sister, the same young elder (YE) who had got me into this mess, and the CO.
CO: You sure have a fine bunch of young pioneers here, brother
YE: Yeah, they turn in a lot of hours, magazines and return visits?except for Badger here; he turns in hours, hours, hours?
?followed by a derisive laugh. I had been punked out in front of the CO. After all I was trying. I stayed in the car and fumed. The sister tried to console me.
I snapped. I asked to be taken back to the hall to ?take care of something.? I had lived my life the way other people wanted me to for a decade, and wasted the best and most vital years of my life for something that wasn?t going to happen and, as it turned out, something I would even get appreciation for trying at.
I applied for a real job that day. Although it would take 9 more years to fully develop, I began to pick my course in life, and the slow rise began.
(to be continued again)