"Make the truth your own," they would say.
It was a line from a song that Witnesses used to sing. It became a mantra of encouragement that was hauntingly beautiful when a stadium of brothers and sisters sang it out. In those moments, it was easy to feel zeal and passion for Jehovah's Organization. In those moments, it was almost possible to see the very thing that you were led to believe that everyone else in that room had.
Almost.
I felt closest after I was baptized in the summer of '95. I had just turned 15 and would be a Junior in high school the following year. In Springfield, Illinois, I answered the two questions everyone gets asked while I stood beside my friend Vince. We filed out to change our clothes and I eventually made my way to the pool. In front of the four-thousand or so attendees that stayed to watch the baptism, I took a dunk. It was the closest I would ever feel to owning the truth, and it was fleeting.
I was compliant on paper. I gave talks and went in service. It was a full year, however, before my book study conductor ever asked me to offer an opening or closing prayer. Even then, it was only after I'd been called upon by another elder and had mentioned it to my conductor while out in service. Truthfully, he almost sounded surprised.
It was something I yearned for, honestly. It was a benchmark for every baptized brother, to offer prayer for the congregation. Each week, I'd stare intently at Marty hoping that he'd call on me but he never did. Sometimes he'd take a long pause as if he were considering it, but would then move on.
I started to feel a bit defeated as time went on. I'd done what I was asked and encouraged to do. I made a good showing. So what was wrong with me?
I began counting up the toll it was taking on me to reach out for the miasma of owning the Truth. I had already entered into a legally unenforceable (being a minor of course) contract to represent the Watchtower Society. I had given up my free time to pursue Kingdom interests. I had surrendered my personal growth and development to be a Witness. My dignity also seemed to be expendable as I had become a dog cowering for attention.
The attention eventually came in fits and spurts. I offered prayers. I ran the sound booth. I read for book studies. I almost had what I'd been told I wanted, but I had to admit that it was coming at the cost of every level of personal identity and cognitive objectivity.
The straw that broke the camel's back, as they say, came in the fall of 1997. I had just graduated high school and had fallen in love with a girl from my class. We were completely taken with each other and I had risked a lot of reprisal to be with her. Keeping that part of my life secret enough to avoid a Judicial Committee, yet believable enough to seem genuinely Watchtower-grade Christian, was a balancing act that had real consequences for my health. She did accept my stance of only marrying another Witness, though. A debt that I can't ever repay.
Despite enormous stress from every side but hers, she studied and was baptized. During her studies, her teachers Christina Brown and Lisa Kinealy openly questioned her as to whether she though I was spiritually strong enough to accept prison instead of military service if the Government instituted a draft. At what point did it become acceptable to question the integrity of a baptized person as part of the teaching process of another? Particularly of one for whom they had no cause for reproach or reproof?
That angered me deeply. But I kept my head up despite the intense pain of realizing that I could be compliant with every measure of success and still be inadequate.
Time passed and my future wife was baptized at the Convention the following summer. I still knew that there was little to no acceptance of the fact that I would begin dating my to-be wife, but we proceeded anyway. Again, we followed (most of) the rules and made sure no one had a legitimate reason to complain. I already knew I wanted to marry her, so I proposed and she accepted.
On a Friday night, I sat watching television with my parents and wringing my hands in anxious anticipation. I was about to tell them my plans and I didn't know how they would react. As the night drew to a close, they turned off the TV and I told them there was something I needed to discuss. I delivered the news simply and factually. No elaboration. No flare.
My mother shook her head with emphatic denial of what I'd just said and my father simply stated, "you have no rights to her body."
This is how the announcement of my engagement, which should be a happy time for parents and their children, went down. With ridicule and, effectively, spiritual reproof. My mother wailed and lamented "what will the congregation think". She wasn't even pregnant... they'll think we're getting married.
What followed was a blur, but no more encouraging or supportive. Another cost counted. The toll had become excessive by my estimation. I'd gladly pawned my dignity, had my respect undermined, and been chastised for following every rule I'd been given without so much as a clarifying question. The only thing left to do was to finish what I had started.
Wedding planning proceeded even though we asked and had been turned down by three Elders and one Ministerial Servant when looking for someone to marry us. I had never been close to anyone in the congregation, so even finding a best man was a struggle. And while I was already certain that the Watchtower held nothing for me, I trudged onward with my compliance. I smiled. I did the work. At long last, I had finally lost all of my sincerity.
With the wedding done and marital bliss well under way, we began to fade. It wasn't anything intentional or deliberate, of course. We were simply more interested in each other than the Truth. Without even a slight interest in debunking anything about Witness beliefs, we simply ceased to care. Every aspect of our courtship was tainted by some aspect of being a Witness, or the people who carried it out. There was no way for us to be a married couple AND incorporate being a Witness.
I had lost every measure of self respect. She had endured the turmoil of adopting a faith that freely questioned the character of her husband. I now had the debt of requiring that of her just for the burden of saying "I do" in front of two-hundred and forty people who were predominantly there for a free meal and Bud Light on tap. I couldn't even love my parents the same way anymore.
Sorry, God. I'm tapped out. Wallet's dry. Nothing left to give.
I can't even live a normal life these days. When I share my past with anyone, they look at me with a measure of pity, as if I'm defective. Conversations with my parents always carry the risk of an invitation to return. Seeing a person that I once knew from the Hall may have the same risk. Twenty years are a suspect void of pain and a desire to belong to something that wouldn't have me. I'd rather forget it, truthfully.
Twenty years that are better written off and can't be relived...
What's that worth?