religion – Bethany Leger

Am I the Only One? — The Dangers of Groupthink and Razor Burn in the Dallas ‘Burbs

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that anyone who disagrees with them is the enemy. Their leaders, collectively known as the Governing Body, demand unquestioning loyalty and obedience, even though they have repeatedly failed, lied to, and exploited their parishioners. They are the self-proclaimed gatekeepers of truth and mouthpiece for God, when their track record doesn’t warrant the reverence they receive. Unfortunately, Jehovah’s Witnesses live in an echo chamber, leaving anyone with even a whiff of doubt to think: Am I the only one who feels this way?

In a cult, you can’t express your doubts without immediate repercussions. There is zero grey area, or room for nuance, without your character suddenly being called into question. Here’s where it gets even more sticky. Sometimes, the group is not entirely wrong. Jehovah’s Witnesses, as a group, want paradise on earth. They want to eradicate injustice and inequality. This is a beautiful sentiment. But, they also want to achieve this by the most divisive means possible—eradicating anyone who isn’t a Jehovah’s Witness. This paradoxical logic means they want to usher in an unprecedented era of world peace through a wholesale rejection of anyone who isn’t exactly like them.

At first, I tried to express my concerns in a way that was non-combative and reasonable. Why do we shun people who leave? If you want someone to change their mind and possibly return, insulting and isolating them isn’t exactly going to make them receptive to what you have to say. Or, when I vocalized my distrust of the Governing Body due to their mishandling of child sexual abuse cases, their eyes just glazed over. One Jehovah’s Witness put it this way: “Even if the accusations are true,” they said, “this is still the best place to be.”

One afternoon in my early twenties, a girlfriend invited me over to swim with her at her apartment complex. The cool, chlorinated waters would be the antidote to my hot Dallas depression. As I changed into my swimsuit, I noticed I was a bit scrappier than I’d like to be. “You got a razor?” My girlfriend, a disciple of the Brazilian wax, rummaged through her bathroom cabinet when she pulled out something cheap, pink, and plastic. I held out my hand.

“I wouldn’t do that,” she warned, laughing at the one-blade relic. But, I insisted.

“Better than nothing,” I said.

Next, as we dipped our toes in the chilly pool and congratulated each other on how cute we looked, we agreed to jump in at the same time. I surfaced with a gasp. Holy shit, that burns.

It’s okay to have doubts, to not be so certain that you leave zero margin for error. Unlike the Jehovah’s Witness who tried to convince me that their haven for pedos was still morally superior, I don’t believe that defaulting to the group out of misplaced loyalty is the answer. As they fall back on sweeping generalizations and pressure their members to conform, the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ rigidity will be their downfall. Is it possible that there are alternative viewpoints, or solutions, and why was I so confident that a rusty Bic was a smart move?

Sometimes, nothing is better.

I Don’t Drink, But I’m Trying to Start

I did a lot of solo travel in my twenties. Bored on the home turf, I networked with other Jehovah’s Witnesses to expand my social horizons. I want to check out Chicago, I’d say. Anyone have a cousin in San Francisco? Boston? I was beginning to close my eyes and fling darts at a map. At one point, I became obsessed with the Pacific Northwest. Dallas was a concrete jungle, hot and unrelenting, and Seattle was the home to Seasonal Affective Disorder. Sign my ass up.

The family I stayed with on that first trip was fun and generous. The wife was in real estate, and the husband was a photographer. As Witnesses go, they were very well off and had property on the Puget Sound. I had hoped to visit every summer as a respite from the Texas heat, so when they eventually asked me to housesit while they went to Central America, I hopped on a plane faster than you could fling a fish across Pike Place Market.

As planned, I looked for the local Witnesses. During the first week of what was supposed to be four, let’s just say, I would’ve received a warmer welcome sharing rusty needles near a dumpster fire under the I-5. I got stank-face immediately from married 19-year-olds; they were on their starter marriage, and feared I was moving in on their husbands whose facial hair was still coming in. Then, I met a modern-day Judas, a depressive frenemy who offered to show me Seattle landmarks only to talk trash behind my back to other girls in the congregation. One was especially sweet. “Why are you even here?”, she snipped. I dipped into my purse and offered her a Prozac, but the gesture was lost.

As my trip dragged on and the already frosty reception took a biting turn, I apologized to my lovely friends down in Costa Rica and booked the first flight out. The evening before I left, I stood on their front lawn to watch the sun set over the water. It was bittersweet, knowing I was leaving behind a beloved slice of the world just to get some relative peace back home. Suddenly, I heard a voice from across the street. “Hey there”, she called out, maneuvering the sprinkler in her yard from one side to the other. “Are you the house sitter?” I gave a polite nod to the friendly neighbor. “If you want to come over for a glass of wine, we’d love to have you.”

Like any cult, it’s us versus them. But, what happens when you realize your people are not your people? Is it important, or lazy, to create these moral shortcuts? Is it possible that you might need to reassess your relationships? Your religion, or politics? Your desperate need to be right? I felt disappointed and isolated by my religious community, but if anything was going to drive me to drink, it was a nice stranger confirming my suspicions. The nameless neighbor across the street showed me more kindness with her invitation, the only invitation to someone’s home in the two weeks I was alone—and she wasn’t one of “us”.

A source later told me that two people cried when they heard of my early departure. Of course, they weren’t crying for me. They cried because their life sucked, and they knew it was easier to shit on me than perform any self-reflection. Call it insecurity, or a genuine chemical imbalance from a lack of sunlight, I don’t know, or care. Wine Lady may not have had the answers to life’s greatest questions, and I didn’t need her to.

It’s Beautiful, Dammit: Why Blue Skies and Sunshine Made Me Want to Die

I’m driving home from the coffee shop when I look out the window. The neighborhood is bathed in a soft, early morning glow. Everyone is still asleep. Bursting cherry blossoms bristle in the crisp spring wind, the sidewalks peppered with the pop of purple coneflower. Suddenly, the sky yawns, big and blue and beautiful. As I soak in the view, I feel slightly unsettled. Fingers coiled around the steering wheel, I examine each passing house: the one with a brick porch that’s a different color from the other bricks. The one where the shutters have a half-moon carved above the slats. Espresso wafts through my Volkswagen as I coast down the lazy, bohemian boulevard. I notice if the front door has a screen, a brass knocker pinned at the top, or is propped open and ready to greet whomever may come moseying along. It’s going to be a perfect day for preaching, only I escaped the cult seven years ago, and I don’t have to knock on another fucking door for the rest of my life.

Every Saturday, I’d wake up at 7:30 am, begrudgingly, throw on a skirt, take a nervous shit, gather my Bible and a stack of dog-eared magazines, and haul ass to the Kingdom Hall. Granola bar hanging out of my mouth, I would relish the last bite of breakfast and moment of silence before heading in. Next, I would say hello (begrudgingly), sit through an obligatory pep talk about saving humanity, then brace for the heat or blistering cold, depending on what we were subjected to that month. On the way to the “territory”, I would jerk my car into a Quik Stop, take another nervous shit and dry heave. Twenty minutes later, I parked my broke (but enlightened!) ass on WASP country, with irritated stares already peering through their fancy blinds. Jehovah’s Witnesses infamous door-to-door ministry is a nuisance at best, certainly for the disoriented homeowner jostled awake by a religious zealot, but also for the one doing the knocking. I used to pray, not for salvation or world peace, but for rain. Please rain, I thought, and spare us all.

I grew up in Dallas, Texas, where most of the year is oppressively hot. Like a vampire, I recoiled at the sun, pining instead for cool, overcast skies. I rejoiced in a thunderstorm. I had been known to frolic in a puddle, or two. But most notably, rain meant those crazy people wouldn’t be out proselytizing. Rain was the sole qualifier, the one get-out-of-jail-free card we had where Jehovah’s Witnesses in suburban America wouldn’t be pressured to preach to strangers that day—at least not on foot. We also did ‘phone witnessing’, the Jehovah’s Witness equivalent of telemarketing. Hello, you live in a gated community, which is why I’m giving you my unsolicited religious advice through this method instead. And, we did ‘letter writing’: hand-scribbled junk mail punctuated with scriptures and stickers, letting grown women with a Lisa Frank obsession express their creativity in ways they wouldn’t otherwise be allowed to. I, however, risked the guilt trip that came with opting out of these alternatives, and went back to bed. Preacher on the streets, sinner in the sheets, indeed.

But, if it was beautiful outside, say, 65 degrees and not a cloud in the sky, you were screwed, destined to spend a rare, sparkling two hours now tarnished by the drudgery. No one wanted to talk to us, and if we were honest with each other, none of us wanted to be there, either. We descended on neighborhoods, uninvited, to arrogantly shove our brand of religion down someone’s throat on their own doorstep. At least a fraction of us knew this was wrong, but we were following orders; the door-to-door ministry was mandatory, and anyone who didn’t report for duty would answer for it later. People cursed, slammed doors, or would simply notice us from a distance and quietly head inside. I hated blue skies and sunshine because it meant I would be seen in the daylight doing something that, in fact, put me in a dark place. My religious life isolated me from the rest of the world, and preaching on a stunning, panoramic morning only served as a reminder of how lonely I really was.

Occasionally, I’ll get a faint hit of PTSD on a bright day, though it quickly subsides, replaced by a rush of relief—I’m free. Spring and summer are very different now. Lounging in my plastic Adirondack chair in a tattered bikini, I welcome the warmth on my cheeks. (My face, pervert.) I’m enjoying my little patch of land uninterrupted, happy to let my neighbor do the same. No more doors to knock down, souls to save, and if I take a shit, it’s for the pure joy of it.