I arrived home from work this morning to two Jehovah’s witnesses knocking on my door. Maggie was going bonkers inside signaling the alarm.
“Y’all let me calm my dog down,” I told them as I invited them inside. I put Maggie in the bedroom and shut the door. She finally settled down.
They were two nice elderly black ladies. Mrs. Florene would have liked them saying they were kind. I really didn’t want to fool with this after work. I can be too kind sometimes for my own good.
“Do you know God’s name?” the lead lady asked me.
“I am not sure,” I replied as I stammered for an answer.
She opened the bible and read a passage from Psalms about God’s name being Jehovah. She handed me two magazines to read and said they would be back in a week to see what I thought of what I read. So now I have Jehovah’s homework. I will probably read the pamphlets out of consideration for the ladies and talk to them about it next week.
You know what’s amazing about this? Is that maybe that Paxil I am taking is working. I normally would have been so socially anxious as to be about crazy from that. I was nice, calm, and collected, and treated the ladies with respect instead of shutting the door. Maybe I am getting better.
7 comments:
That's good that you were so calm. I'm happy to hear it. But, if you're like me, you don't want anyone knocking on your door, no matter what they are selling. Run down to your local hardware store and get a no soliciting sign and nail it to the front door.
Maybe you are. I certainly hope your new meds work better than the old ones and you need less of them. What a great accomplishment that would be.
I don' t do door to door religion. No time to have a discussion about something I am not going to convert to.
You are just amazing. I have been reading you for years. You are so focused on getting better. You believe in yourself and that is wonderful.
You are obviously doing better. I would have never let those ladies in my house. Now you won't ever get rid of them. I agree, put up a no soliciting sign on your door and avoid them. You don't want to get mixed up with them!
Frankly I wouldn't have let them in my house either. Personally I think JW beliefs are weird and do not celebrate the joys of life.
Hi Andrew,
Sorry to be so blunt, but my best advice is to stay well away from Jehovah's Witnesses. Although they are generally decent people, their religious organization is a dangerous cult. They will try to suck you in, slowly at first so you don't realize, until you're so involved you feel trapped and can't get out.
My sincere advice would be to tell them FIRMLY you're not interested and you don't want them to visit again. And then close the door. Seriously.
I know what I'm speaking about, I was a JW for almost 50 years before I learned this 'religion' is actually a book-selling scam. It entices new converts with utopian promises of a paradise earth where everyone will be healthy, wealthy, and live forever picnicing in front of their beautiful villas, with baby lambs and lions frolicking in the background.
They prey on people who are idealistic, emotionally fragile or just too kind to tell them to go away. They are very persistent and will wear you down with their 'niceness'. If you ever joined them, they will convince you they are the only people who REALLY care about you and they are your new, spiritual family.
You would be required to 'preach' to (i.e. try to convert) all your family and friends. Like all cults, they look on everyone not in their cult (including close family members) as 'worldly' and 'bad association', who will be destroyed by their god Jehovah 'real soon now'. You would be required to spend most of your free time attending JW meetings, going door-to-door 'preaching' and socializing only with other JWs.
Of course, if you later broke any of their multitudes of rules, they wouldn't think twice about expelling you and totally shunning you, which has - sadly - caused many such 'disfellowshipped' Witnesses such misery and despair that they have taken their own lives. Thousands upon thousands of families have been shattered by this cult.
Even if you didn't break any rules but just decided you didn't believe it any longer, you'd soon find there's no way to leave the cult with your dignity intact. The idea of leaving is unthinkable to a loyal JW - to their way of thinking, anyone who could even contemplate such an action must be controlled by Satan. And slandered as an 'apostate'. And expelled. And shunned.
What I've said above may sound totally over the top, your two old ladies aren't like that at all. They probably aren't. Most JWs themselves don't know the dark side of their own relgion. But if you don't believe me, Google "Jehovah's Witnesses" and you'll find thousands of web sites, many by ex-Witnesses who have been severely damaged by them. Two very informative and factual sites are www.jwfacts.com and www.watchtowercomments.com.
I hope I'm not freaking you out here; I just wish someone had told me and spared me from wasting a lifetime giving them my time and money. But there was no Internet 50 years ago.
Kind regards,
Ken
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