Knock Knock.... its me Karen

Knock, Knock… I’m sure many have received that knock on their door to peer out your window and see that the man standing in the suit and tie and the woman in her conservative dress with their book bags in hand, you realize they are Jehovah Witnesses standing at your door .There are ones who dread seeing them come, there are those who will open their door and politely sheww the JW away, there are those who look at JW’s with deep regard that they are diligent in their door to door ministry. I have even heard many times “ at least they do practice knocking on doors” For me, I don’t have much respect for this at all, you would have had to grow up in a very devout JW home to understand why now , I find that lying to people at their door regarding Jesus Christ is appalling to me.

When one thinks of a cult… often comes to mind Jim Jones back in the 70s’ or David Koresh or even more now we hear about Scientology. A cult is anything or anyone who continues to control your thoughts, actions and feelings. Growing up as a Jehovah Witness  I can remember being young and when I would be told at someone’s door ,I  had just knocked on ,that we “I” was part of a cult , it angered me , I would want to fight words to defend my belief as a JW. I was young, this was what I was born into, a belief I did not ask to be a part of, but a belief that I had to partake of.

Let me walk you through a day or week in the life of an active JW; As for me my dad was an elder (an elder is the equivalent of a pastor but JW’s have more than one elder per Kingdom Hall), I was an only child and my mother was a pioneer (A pioneer is someone who knocks on peoples doors between 30 and 60 hours a month ad yes time is counted). We attended the Kingdom Hall on Tuesday nights from 7p-8 pm for what they call the congregation “book study”, these book studies were smaller meetings of with fewer JW’s spread out the community that night. There would be an elder who would conduct the study session. Paragraphs from the publication would be read and a question would be asked and individual JW’s will raise their hand to comment on the question. Now, when we are real little like under the age of 5, we are taught to raise our hand and we are given little comments to say like Jehovah, Paradise etc... As you start progressing in age, you are encouraged to give longer answers in your own words not read from the paragraph. As a teen ager, if I had not prepared my study lesson and not given a comment, I was grounded.

Thursday nights, we attended the Kingdom Hall from 7p-9 pm- During this time we would have the “Theocratic Ministry School” where we are taught how to talk to you at your door. We perform different skits pretending not to be a JW and the other person is taught what to say and we are actual GRADED on our performance. During this time as well and elder may give a small 20 minute “sermon” as JW’s they are not called sermons they are called “Talks” , the Talk may be on a congregation need perhaps, not gossiping or being in time at the meeting, encouraging prayer , etc..

Saturday mornings were always spent in the door to door ministry. I can remember be a child and teen ager and just wanting for one day to sleep in and perhaps to just watch cartoons, but nope, I was out in my dress knocking on your door. For my family, not only was it Saturdays we spent knocking on doors but it was anytime, I had off from school, so my summer vacations were always knocking on doors.

Sundays we attended the Kingdom Hall for 2 hours from 10 -12, the first hour being a Public Talk from an elder and the 2^nd hour what we called the Watchtower Study, similar to the Book study as I described.

If you are a devout Witness as in my case, your days are always counted for, to leave little room for you to be in contact with the outside world. While in school, you are taught to be nice and can be friendly, but that is far as it goes, you can’t become actual friends where you get to do things with that person such as sleep overs etc.

During the year, JW’s have 3 bigger meetings called assemblies, conventions, Special Days. This is where we will meet in a bigger city at a convention center for 1-2 days all day long, listening to different elders giving talks. I can remember our vacations were always the conventions in the summer, never did we actually take a vacation to the beach etc.

When you live a life that is so controlled with what you wear, read, can’t do, can do that the power to think on your own or question anything, then that is a cult.  Questioning the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses, even including questioning my parents undermined my mental programming as doubts crept in.

When you do decide to leave as in my case at almost 30 years old. It is the scariest thing to ever go through. The life you had , you know will never be the same , but you know you can’t live this life anymore  but you’re scared, I was in fear of not having any support  system, the only friends I had ever known now would shun me . Even now 17 years later, the shunning still triggers , let me make this clear, shunning me does not make me at all ever want to return to an organization  that teaches such a thing, the trigger is only that I still can’t understand how anyone who claims to be a Christian , how they could not even utter hello to someone.

There are two types of groups that are shunned in the JW organization: "disfellowship" and "disassociated".  Disfellowshipping is what Jehovah's Witnesses appropriately call the expelling and subsequent shunning of an unrepentant wrongdoer you could be disfellowshipped for multiple reasons, smoking a cigarette, saluting the flag, reading other literature from another church , associating with non JW’s the list is numerous.

Disassociated is someone who has rejected Jehovah and are called apostates. They are called "mentally diseased." They seek to infect others with their teachings... I am in this category.

The punishment of shunning the individual applies forever, or until the individual goes through a grueling few months or year of attending meetings still being shunned and the congregation of elders formally reinstates the person.

One of my biggest questions also growing up was the fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses only believe 144,000 individuals will go to heaven. Every Spring around Easter, Jehovah’s Witnesses celebrate the death of Jesus and only if you are one of those 144,000 people who will go to heaven only that individual can partake of the unleavened bread and wine. … So over the years The Governing Body of Elders from New York would send out the statistics of how many partook in the previous year of the bread and wine. I started noticing that one year maybe only 18,000 partook, the next year maybe 20, 000 people partook. I questioned to myself shouldn’t the numbers be going down as these individuals die off, rather than go up. I remember thinking a silly thought to myself “I thought what is happening is a little old man and woman JW at a nursing home stealing and extra piece of pie so they get knocked out of going to heaven so now someone has taken their place… it just made no sense… still makes no sense...

For any individuals who know of someone who is trying to break free from being a JW, you have to understand coming out of this organization is mentally and emotionally draining. It still is for me all these years later .There is a whole bag of negative feelings including fear, bitterness, despair, anger, sadness, loneliness, rejection and depression. Prayer is also very important. Today, I pray for wisdom and a receptive heart. I have to continue to remind myself my name is Karen no apsostate.