Chapter 47
Eleven out of one thousand
So now what? Even though I
said I can’t do it anymore, it’s not like I had a plan of any kind. I didn’t
want out of the marriage just out of the religion. I loved my wife and never
even once thought about leaving her. She had been the first and only girl I had
ever been with. We had been together almost thirty years.
I was in limbo for sure.
She was in Washington staying
with her friend. I was alone in Portland. The rumors were flying around the
Kingdom Hall. What was said? What was done? Did someone cheat on someone? In
our small community of just a hundred or so people the gossip was flowing hot
and heavy. The brothers and sisters were having a field day with our
separation. Since, I was well like by some. Many thought she was crazy for
leaving me. Of course, those people didn’t know about all the doubts I was
having about the organization. She knew of course about some of them.
I just didn’t know what to
do. Should I take the blue pill and crawl back to her and the church and beg
for forgiveness. Or should I head into the great unknown. Both options seemed
devastating, just like I had told my psychiatrist, a few months earlier.
Funny, my father had told me
something interesting one night. He was sitting in my living room, and after he
had finished off his cognac. He made this interesting announcement.
“I believe it, I just can‘t
live it.”
I looked at him and said.
“Well… I can live it. I just don’t believe it anymore.”
This was the first time I
heard about why my father and why he was no longer an active Witness. He
certainly had spent many years of his life living it and definitely not
believing it. I believed my father had done everything under the sun except maybe
for murder, by this time and that was even a possibility. He had been out of
the organization for almost forty years.
Of course he couldn’t live it. His favorite movie
was “The Godfather” and he lived his life as if he was one. My father like to
lie and stretch the true his whole life. I really think he made this statement
because he thought it was something I wanted to hear.
However it was his compliance
and not standing up to my mother that got our whole family in trouble with this
religion in the first place. Yes, he was “the king” of living the life as a
witnesses and not believing it.
“A person is as much
responsible for the evil he commits, as the evil they permits.”
This problem that he was a
part of would take the next two generations of our family to get rid of. It was
too late for his lame excuses.
It was time for some
epiphanies. Sometimes in life they come all at once and other times years go by
and nothing at all. I was ready for sure.
“When the student is ready
the teacher appears!”
I had an acquaintance named
Mark Wiedcamp, he was going to get married at The Flying M Ranch on September 2nd.
2001. I had worked with Mark at Western International Forest Products for a
number of years. I say he was an acquaintance because he was a “worldly”
person. He couldn’t really be considered a friend. Even though he still invited
me to his wedding. If I had still been with Debbie at the time we probably
wouldn’t have gone to it. Thought it’s not forbidden to go to worldly weddings,
it is highly discouraged and frown on for sure. They are just like High School
reunions.
If you went or not was something
the Jehovah’s Witnesses call “A matter of conscience.” What does that mean? I means that when the
society doesn’t want to come right out and tell you that you can’t do
something, because it will make them look totally ridiculous. They will tell you
it’s “A matter of conscience” and that technically you can decide for yourself,
what to do in any situation. However there is a catch.
For example, they won’t come right out and tell
you that you can’t go to “R” rated movies. They will however quote you
scripture after scripture on the evils of doing just that. Yes, you can make a
decision to go to any movie you want but if you choose incorrectly you will be
considered spiritually weak and a branded as bad associate. Of course most the
time this is done behind your back.
Welcome to George Orwell’s 1984. Yes, there are
those who love absolute control over
every action and thought of its people through propaganda, secrecy, constant
surveillance, and harsh punishment and sometimes shunning.
“War is peace. Freedom
is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
“The best books... are those that
tell you what you know already.”
I decided to go to Mark’s wedding
since I knew Big Brother probably wouldn’t be there. I’m glad I did go because
I had two major epiphanies there that would change my life forever.
Of course over the years I had been to many events where
there was many non-witnesses in attendance. This one proved to be very
different. I only knew one person, the groom there. It looked like there was at
least four hundred people in attendance, enjoying the festivities.
They were of all
ages. There were families and singles, many married couples with children
running and playing. They did have one thing in common, done of these people
were Jehovah’s Witnesses. I’m sure I was the only one there. I walked among
them like a ghost.
Most of these people were from Mark’s church. A really nice
looking group of people. If you hadn’t known it, this could have looked like
any witness wedding.
My first epiphany happened when I was sitting on this small
hill taken it all in. I couldn’t help but noticed a married couple in the
buffet line wanting for their food. The woman was standing behind her husband
and put her hand on his back. As if to say, I’m so happy to be here with you.
I hit me like a lightning bolt. I never really experienced
that with my wife. I never really felt wanted by her. Long before I started
doubting the church and from the very beginning there was that spark that was
missing from our relationship.
Looking back I don’t think I was her first choice. Maybe I
was just a ticket to get away from her crazy mother. The woman who chased away
other boyfriends in her life before me.
Our marriage felt almost like brother and sister. I realized
we never had any real passion in our marriage from the very beginning.
How would I know what passion was? She was the first and
only girl I really was ever with. The society told us the purpose of dating was
looking for a marriage mate. It was very clear dating was not for recreation.
So in some places if you had more than three dates with a girl, you better
start thinking about an engagement ring real soon.
Because there was no sex before marriage there was a lot of
teenage marriages and if you weren’t married by the time you were twenty five
there was something wrong with you or you were at Bethel.
This of course is a
recipe for disaster. Young people with little or no experience getting married
way too young because they were hot to trot or just want to get out of the
house.
Since you were only
getting married once and since your first sexual encounter would be most likely
on your wedding night, you were really rolling the dice on sexual
compatibility. Sadly many realized there was definitely no sex before marriage
and sometimes little or no sex after marriage too.
Bottom line there is just as much infidelity and divorces in
the Jehovah’s Witness organization as any other churches. Maybe there is even
more with all that sexual repression going on.
I knew then, that last night before she left me for good.
When she gave me that last kiss on the cheek. When there was no words spoken. I
knew then that was the end of our contract together. I knew it at that moment
and on some level I think she knew it also.
I have no regrets about my time with her. I wish her the
very best and hope she finds happiness with her new Jehovah’s Witness
husband.
My second epiphany came when I looked at these beautiful people
at the wedding. I couldn’t help but think to myself what if what I was taught
to believe was true. If it was true then all these people would of course be wiped
out in the battle called Armageddon that could take place at any day. All
because they weren’t Jehovah’s Witnesses.
I couldn’t hurt anybody and I couldn’t hurt these people but
yet I was worshiping a god who could.
I couldn’t help but think back to the large district
conventions when we had ten thousand Jehovah Witnesses all sitting in an
auditorium. I looked out over this vast see of humanity and I thought to
myself. What if all these people, represented the entire population of the
planet Earth. What percentage would be
Jehovah’s Witnesses? There are over seven and a half billion people on the
planet now and over eight million Jehovah’s Witnesses. So if you do the math,
that means there would be only eleven people in this entire auditorium that
would be a Jehovah Witness and thus be saved. The other 9,989 of course would
be going away. That’s a lot of dead people.
Then I thought to myself since I was basically born into the
Jehovah’s Witnesses what were my odds of surviving Armageddon? Probably pretty
good. However what would be my odds of survival if I was born in to a
non-Witness family in Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland. One in 9,989. The
math isn’t working here. Maybe there is nothing wrong with the math. Maybe…
just maybe it’s my reasoning is all wrong.
What if Jehovah isn’t going to kill those four hundred people
at the wedding? What if he isn’t going to kill four thousand people or four
million or even seven and a half Billion people?
My second epiphany was this. I was raised to be
pacifist yet the god I was made to believe in wasn’t. He was an angry and
jealous god who would have no problem wiping the vast majority of the Earth’s population.
Yes, I remembered the picture in the “Paradise Lost to
Paradise Regained” book when I was only nine years old. The picture of the
little girl falling into the great abyss at Armageddon with her dog and doll in
hand.
At that moment I knew in my soul it was all bull shit.
I’m afraid Mark Wiedcamp’s marriage didn’t last but I will
carry the memories of that insightful day to my grave.
Oh, by the way I no longer want to in their band. There are
many people making beautiful music all over this world. Millions of other
bands. I just need to find them.
