What I would hope for

When I was a kid, they didn't have the internet. I was trapped in a worldview I did not know how to escape. I had to let "outside influences" take over my life. I had been rendered unable to choose, I had been rendered unable to think for myself. At the height of my desperation, I experienced a visit from "my future self" who told me it would work out OK. Who told me I had to do what I knew I had to do, I had to let go of the safety. I had to let go of my friends. I had to let go of my family. I had no other assurance it would work out OK beyond this visit from my future self. I knew I had to be free, and I knew that would not be possible if I continued to live as one of Jehovah's Witnesses.

What I would hope for is something more than what my occasional reaching out to strangers in ex-Witness support groups has shown me. I would hope to be able to show that it is possible to emerge from this atmosphere without the bitterness and the grudge. I don't think you'll ever be "normal" as in, able to leave the past in silence. My friends know that I will refer to my past as a Witness with some regularity, and they tolerate it in me. They don't know what we have emerged from, and my friend, if you are on that threshold, and if you are ready to make the step, then can I share a little of what I have learned with you.

I once hoped to be able to write a story as powerful as Siddhartha, or Tommy, or as powerful as a good pop song: Do you Feel Like We Do, or a Bob Seger joint, or whatever hook, line, or riff has given you a moment of freedom and a taste of what free air might be like. I don't think I have that beautiful story in me. I have only appreciation for the freedom, and appreciation for the artists who have portrayed a world that is beyond beautiful. A world to be shared with reverence and awe, not a world to be feared.

Religion inhabits my language. I cannot talk about the things that are most important to me without reverting to the language of worship and awe. And so my friend, I have figured out who it is I'm talking to. I'm talking to you, myself in the past: full of doubts, and fears, and questions, and ready to take a stand, ready to make a change. I'd like to share with you some of the things you will find out.

Let's begin with level flight.


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Location:Salem 1984

DNKJB

Someone who cares very much about me tipped me off to the existence of this version of the Holy Writ. I won't provide a link, you can Google it if you're curious. My experience upon looking into the reasoning these, uh, scholars provided for hacking the King James Bible was probably very much different from the reaction I'm sure she was hoping for. It brought back for the most part those old feelings of helplessness and rage. Where can one even begin to reason with anyone who finds this tripe compelling? I was confronted with grandiose, deceptive, nay, viciously deceptive half truths. Yet, as I read on, floating amongst the flotsam and jetsam like a pearl on the half-shell was a direct quotation from the KJB regarding the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The passage was offered in order to prove some point in the drivel. But what this old angry monk got to experience for a moment was the joy and peace that accompanies meditation on the Gospel. For anyone who's seen it, this light cannot be hidden. So, thank you again Lord for the good words. And you know the rest: save me from your followers.

Writing when you've nothing left to say

I remember years ago when I killed the editor and the words started flowing. French emerged, Iikely because my English felt so powerless to convey the flavor of the stream in my mind. And the scrawl in the page, in
purple splashing light, somehow reflected more accurately the shape of my thoughts than these stultifying and restrictive blocks that I am bound to try to hit in order to get the words in the stream to fall out onto the page. Unfortunately, the last time i dug out that tool in order to scrawl, it broke in half. A hundred dollar Waterman pen broke in half in my hand - like a sign from God that i should not be wasting my time doing this. In addition, the editor, who was dead then, cannot resist reviewing my typing at very short intervals so that I do not forget what I have written. As if the words that were coming out at this point meant anything. Just the mind of a questioner who loves the language and it's ability to contain an answer, like the wise man in my past once told me, "I don't know. I'd have to write about it to find out what I thought about it.". All I have now is a glimmer of hope, that this pattern will not continue. And it begins, it begins with paying off the credit card, and thanks to Charity, who lives the dream I once had, with so much more awareness and grace than I ever would have had. And, by the way, how *do* you say "pay off my credit card" in Spanish?


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Location:Home