So the kid thinks he's a writer, huh?

Today I submitted a non-fiction piece to a magazine, and it made me nervous.

I’m not nervous that they won’t like it. I’ve had some rejections and they really didn’t hurt like I thought they would. I’m not nervous that it’ll be accepted and become huge and consuming. It’s just the very fact that I submitted it, and it makes me think, “Who in the world are you, thinking that anyone wants to read what you’ve got to say? Your ego is astounding!”

It’s funny to me. I used to write for a local Christian magazine in High School and things I said generated a lot of heat, which was great. Heat meant interest, and that meant discussion and consideration. It meant my words and ideas had impact.

I wrote articles with the Yahoo Contributor Network before it went bye-bye. I’d write a piece, then paste it into their submission form, then edit the thing like nine times before hitting the Submit button.

Even posting something in my own blog makes me nervous. Maybe anxious is a better word, or thrilled. A tremor of energy runs through my whole body over the notion that I’m putting something out there for people to read and consider. Even a Facebook post, if it’s something I really feel deeply about, makes me jittery as I’m touching the screen of my phone over that Post button.

If I write a technical analysis at work I feel that dizzy excitement at the moment I send it off to be seen. I don’t worry so much over the actual content (some, but I have a fair amount of confidence in my knowledge and ability to communicate it) as I get the shivers at the notion of putting it out there to be seen, consumed.

I can hold forth on some topic at length, to the point where my girlfriend needs to remind me, “David – short version.” I am thrilled about communication and dialogue. I love to teach, I love to speak in front of people (which gives me the exact same kind of nervous thrill when I step onstage as well as when I step off).

I still feel like I’m a little kid, writing my story in Bible as Literature class in Middle School that the teacher asked to keep to show other classes. I’m still the kid in Grade School who stood alone, stage center, singing a part in the Bicentennial production Let George Do It. Just this week I had the same shivers from teaching a short class at work as I had as a singing Thomas Jefferson in 1976. I am nervous and excited and never feel like I deserve to be there, even as I know I wouldn’t be there if I hadn’t earned it.

I think I will never be comfortable with the idea that folks want to read or hear what I have to say. I will never be comfortable about how people where I work are happy to help me solve some problem that resides outside my job description, even if they work in an area where distrust of other work areas runs high. From a clerk pushing a cart to the Submission Processing Director, I am never afraid to approach people and communicate.

Yet the hyper-awareness of what I’m doing, what I’m saying, the fact that it’s stepping out sometimes where no one else can or will – I feel like a little kid again. I’m comfortable saying and doing at the time, but before and after the fact it dawns on me that I’m making an impact on other people. My eyes are wide with wonder every time.

Maybe this publication will pass on my offering, and that’s cool. I will shop it around elsewhere, or even fall back on using it for my occasional blog. But no matter what, when it gets placed in front of someone and has some impact, inside of me there’s a little kid going, “Wwwwwowwwww.”

A plea for reason in an age of conspiracy

1999.

Y2K was in every conversation, every nightmare.

Aircraft were going to fall out of the sky. Banks were going to lose all of their financial records. Social infrastructure would collapse within minutes after midnight. The end of the world was nigh, and as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses I got to hear all about that angle.

I tried to explain that computers didn’t really care if their internal clocks were reset. Every time a CMOS battery went belly up your computer thought it was 1980 anyway. Some financial transactions were vulnerable, but Microsoft was working around the clock (so to speak) to make sure their operating system was okay with the Big Change. Apple users sat back and chuckled, because their computers were fine with the Y2K change right out of the box.

“Things are going to be fine” I told people as the Date of Doom neared to a month away. I was assured that things would in fact not be fine.

“Our Elders told us how to survive when everything collapses.”

I lost the arguments, I lost the war. People wanted to believe the worst, so they did. Day after day that ticked by after January 1, 2000 should have helped people have a healthy skepticism about doomsday predictions. Instead, a bit less than 2 years later planes did indeed crash (into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon, a field) and it seems that in 2014 America is more paranoid than ever.

I wrote an article for Yahoo Voices (now defunct) concerning Catastrophilia, a love of bad news or disasters. It’s what drives people to stay glued to their televisions for up-to-the-second updates about something that scares them. They can’t look away, even though hour after hour of coverage may be anchors simply repeating themselves without an iota of new information.

Then the speculation begins. If anything can make a true crisis worse it’s misinformation being handed to you with promises that it’s THE TRUTH and assertions that you can’t trust any other information provider but me or us because all the others are lying to you.

Welcome to the world of brainwashing 3.0.

What is brainwashing anyway?

You can look up all the definitions and examples of “brainwashing” in all of its variations, and you’ll see huge disagreements. Basically it needs to involve pain or threat to really be called brainwashing, while the social pressures and mind-redirecting methods used to control how and what people think are sometimes called the same thing.

I object to the ridiculous bullying that is being used by fringe groups today.

“You are being lied to by your government and the media!” Actually that’s very true at times. Okay so far.

“You need to think for yourself! Arm yourself with knowledge!” Very nice, you’re speaking my language. I’m just about to raise my fist and chant for solidarity.

“Avoid all of these other information streams and tune in to mine, because I’m fighting the lies and I’ll tell you the straight truth!”

Wait what?

The pet term being used by these social bullies is “sheeple” in reference to people who just uncritically believe whatever the authorities, officials, major media, or others tell them.

But the people who are arrogantly proclaiming me to be a sheep if I don’t believe their severely subjective view of the world are just as deluded as the people they oppose.

I don’t like judging, but I’m not fond of being judged either. Although it may result in a Moebius Strip of endless judgment, since I’ve born the weight of their judgment recently, I’m now free to fire back.

This is my salvo.

If you tell me that I need to limit my media or information intake to only the networks or groups you approve of so that I can hear the real truth, you’re part of the problem.

If you judge people as blind sheep because they don’t accept and agree with your version of The Truth then you’re just as big a hypocrite as the system you oppose.

If you only fact-check stories you hear by researching only the information outlets “you can trust” then you’re ensuring you take in an inbred view of the world custom-designed to control your thinking, and you are railing against one cage while you intentionally remain in another one.

If you tell me that I’m too stupid or brain-numb to see the way things really are around me, because you’ve had your eyes opened and want to rescue the world from their slumber, I’d suggest you lay off the Matrix marathons and expand your conspiratorial sphere a little to include views that don’t add up to yours.

If you think I’m an idiot for believing what I believe about FEMA, or the Government, or the police, or the World Bank, or the UN, or the plethora of other things that are heralds of our demise? All I can say is “Kettle? Pot calling on line two.”

Whatever floats your goat

I won’t convince people to stop believing in FEMA concentration camps, Goliath-sized metal coffins (for mass burials or to prevent the zombies from getting out, I haven’t decided which), bar-code tattoos and computer chip implants and chem.-trails and whatever else they want to believe.

And I don’t want to try. I don’t care what you believe. You can believe your neighbor is Bigfoot if you want (please get better photos!), or that aliens are watching your house (again – get those cameras ready!) – more power to you. Ebola, Islam, Gay people, zombies, or whatever other thing is about to wipe out civilization? Whatever you say, dude.

You can also believe that there’s no such thing as police brutality or racism or electronic surveillance invading your privacy if you want – I’m not going to lose sleep over what you believe.

But when you start looking down on me from your lofty throne, as one who has Finally Had His Eyes Opened To The Truth looks down onto me and the other poor, deluded, unwashed masses who “believe whatever they’re fed”, we will have problems.

I choose to believe my version of reality, and you are choosing to believe yours. Fine. This is America, the land where I’m free to believe as my heart and mind direct. I don’t want to judge anyone for their views.

But this time? You started it.

Dissatisfaction Guaranteed

I wondered about all the news of defection to IS(IS)(IL) by Westerners, and looking around at other movements in the western world I think I figured out something:

People are joining themselves to groups with whom they share something – not a shared value system necessarily, but a shared dissatisfaction over life in the west.

If you look around America and Europe today, you see folks looking for something. The American Dream sounded great when you were just getting out of World War II, or coming to the Land of Freedom from somewhere that was ruled by autocrats and poverty. Nowadays you look around and you just don’t see it panning out like it was supposed to.

“Like it was supposed to.” That’s a sentence that has Unfulfilled Expectations written all over it.

We expected stuff growing up in America. We were indoctrinated with the basic Life Script that went kind of like this:

·         you graduated High School

·         you got a job

·         you entered a career

·         you dated

·         you got married

·         you bought a house

·         you had children

·         you retired with your spouse and occasionally watched the grandchildren

·         and finally you died at a ripe old age , fulfilled and successful. You won the game!

If you didn’t successfully complete this game, you were somehow a failure. You got divorced, you got laid off from your job, you couldn’t have children, you couldn’t afford a good house, your child turned out to be gay or selfish and therefore uninterested in providing you with grandchildren, whatever it was that caused your particular train to derail.

If some event came along to make sure you didn’t pass Go and collect your $200, even if it completely wasn’t your fault or within your control, you couldn’t shake the feeling that you were somehow a loser. You didn’t make it to the end of the game by following the Script, and you felt disenchanted, disenfranchised, dissatisfied.

Resentment set in. You were upset that your life didn’t work out the way it was supposed to. It wasn’t fair, because you did everything you were supposed to. You played your role in the Script to a T, and still you failed! How could that be?

It was my ex’s fault. It was my religion’s fault. It was my government’s fault. It was the Illuminati’s fault. It was white people’s fault. It was black people’s fault. It was the Mexicans!

It’s always someone else’s fault, because if I can find someone else to blame then I can get some relief from the voices in my head that whisper day and night, reminding me that I’m a loser. See, it was someone else’s fault that I didn’t win.

Now I personally don’t subscribe to the Victim Mentality that gives people a false sense of relief over their lives not working out the way they wanted them too. It’s an illusion, a sleight of hand that distracts us from the real issue.

No, the real issue isn’t that in the end I’m still a loser. The real issue is that I built my expectations on an outmoded rulebook, and those expectations just couldn’t be realistically met.

The Life Script itself is a lie.

By having expectations of life as if Eisenhower was still president and the WASP nuclear family was the norm, we are setting ourselves up for dissatisfaction. We can’t be happy with who we are, or how our life is, because we are still dragging out this archaic yardstick to measure the validity of our lives.

Once upon a time the Life Script worked. Everyone had their role and followed it, so that most of the time everything worked out fine. Today people romanticize The Old Days to the point of fetish. “Back in my day” was a phrase that made children roll their eyes, and here we are decades later, the children all grown and using the same tired expression.

“Life was so much better back when we spanked, or when we had strong unions, or when we had good men leading this country… wait, don’t you roll your eyes at me! We played outside, we didn’t have cable TV or video games… I said don’t roll your eyes! And stop texting when I’m lecturing you!”

Then black people, and women, and folks with mental illness, and Liberals, and ecologists, and gay people, and religious reformers all started making noise and stirring up CHANGE! Oh no! That’s not in the script! Why are they messing up everything with their improvising?

Well, they’re messing everything up for me, anyway. I’m sticking to the script, and they aren’t. If things are awful, then it’s the fault of the black people, the women, the Liberals, the Conservatives, etc.

So people begin looking for something to provide their lives with direction since they’ve been deprived of the guaranteed Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness they used to believe in.

Dave Barry once wrote how shocked he was hearing young people in the 1990s complaining how they wished that their generation could have a Vietnam. Christopher Titus said people were looking for that galvanizing moment that brought back that sense of community and America we heard so much about. Yet war after war, the coalescing hasn’t occurred. So now folks are following the tune of other pipers.

Perhaps it’s some militia that wants the United States government overthrown. Maybe it’s some Islamic movement that wants to force everyone to convert to their particular flavor and will kill anyone who refuses. It could be a religious group that purports to be the True Religion and is therefore no part of this crumbling world.

In whatever case, there is a lure to join with zealots, extremists, or “visionaries.” At least they are offering a new Script to replace our severely flawed one.

Therefore a person who hooks up with an extreme agenda may not be fully on board with every tenet and rule of the new group, but at least they have found family, community, support, fellow feeling over the same dissatisfactions, and direction in life. They find identity where they didn’t perceive one before. They are now someone, part of a movement that has purpose, living a life that has a real goal and therefore now means something.

That also means that the old system is kind of the enemy now. They let us down, so they have to go. We’ll rebuild everything to our better specifications.

Man has been trying that for about as long as there has been Man. Every political, religious, or ideological uprising has been reactionary to the failure of whatever was in place at the time.

I think that simply waging war against extremist forces is a faulty half-measure. It drives folks into holes and restores the temporary illusion of security, but it also reinforces their view of the world and galvanizes their resolve to make the old world pay.

What we’ve been lacking is a concrete movement to ensure our children have identity of self. Not everyone lacks that, but as I watch people streaming to the Middle East while their friends and families say “I don’t understand it! He wasn’t like that a year ago! She was always such a loving Christian!” I can’t help but wonder why they didn’t just look at this extreme group of self-proclaimed Islamic champions and just go “Yeah, right. NOT!”

I guess it’s because someone got dissatisfied with things in America as it is today. Crime, sex, greed, impurity and immorality wasn't supposed to be the stage where we played our parts in the Script. I think dissatisfaction is pretty much guaranteed.

And as long as no one helps these people find their way in the New America with realistic expectations, groups standing for something that resonates with the disenfranchised will continue to draw them. And it will just leave the Script Players over here blaming yet another group for their unhappiness.

Door To Door Adventures

From 1993-2008 roughly, I was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

I don’t regret the time I spent there, because I was able to grow spiritually and socially, not to mention having the opportunity to travel around to local congregations and hone my speaking skills.

I also don’t regret leaving, because it was necessary for my emotional and spiritual health.

I steadfastly refuse to be a hater. The Society is what it is, and you can love it or hate it all you want but it’s still simply what it is: a church which sits outside the mainstream. It’s no more or less than that in my opinion.

How did I get out? Seriously, I simply stopped going. There were issues which influenced my need to leave while I was still capable of avoiding deep resentment. But they were the same basic kinds of issues I encountered among Baptists growing up in my family, so it’s not like these were special problems.

Although folks can tell you glowing or harrowing experiences they had either in or out of the organization, I’d like to share a few of my own. Some make me cringe, some make me smile.

Views of Field Service

I went preaching from door to door. It’s part of the package. You accepted it as part of the deal when you got baptized.

Here’s a secret: a lot of Witnesses really don’t enjoy the door to door work. Sometimes we’d hit a neighborhood and people found a multitude of reasons to stay in the car, or chose only to take a couple of houses which were clearly not inhabited at the moment. As long as you got to claim the 2 hours on your ministry log, it was all good in their minds.

I often hopped out of the car to catch someone just leaving, or started talking to folks on a bus, whatever. It was all about connecting with folks to share my beliefs.

Some see it as rude, and I do agree it’s a tad intrusive to just start preaching to folks uninvited at their home. But you would be surprised at how common the behavior really is.

Do you know how many Evangelical Christians hurl their beliefs into every conversation you can have with them? I didn’t ask you about your beliefs. I asked how you were, you said you were blessed, and then I got to hear praises. I just wanted you to ring up my purchase at Walmart so I could go home.

Do you know how many people shove their religious, political, ideological, and cultural beliefs on me on Facebook? I didn’t ask you how you felt about immigration, prayer in schools, Gay Marriage, or some political movement. But boy, I sure get to hear alllllll about it, don’t I? Sometimes by you holding colorful placards and shouting at me at stoplights.

I’m just saying that this nation has become all about shoving “my” opinions and beliefs into people’s lives at any convenient opportunity, uninvited and often unappreciated.

Door to door ministry ought to be a pretty standard event then, you’d think.

Experiences

·         I went to a house where a man was working on repairing his roof. I knocked on the door, in case someone in the house wasn’t quite as busy. A little boy came up and asked who I was. I introduced myself and the gentleman who was with me and asked if we could talk to his mom or someone since his dad was busy.

 

The little boy said that no one else was home but I could talk to his dad. He led us to the side of the house where a chain link fence and gate set off the back yard. As he put his hand on the gate latch, two very large dogs began a full-ahead sprint towards the same gate. A Chow and a Doberman Pinscher at full run. As I’m watching these two horses running towards me, I hear the boy simply mention:

 

“Be careful with the dogs. They’re mean.”

 

With that, the gate opened.

 

Things went into slow motion at that point, like I was in a movie.

 

My fellow preacher became one of the X-Men and teleported back to the car. I’d never imagined a person could relocate so instantly.

 

These two dogs cleared the gate without even slowing down. They would be on me before I could take another breath. So I simply said to myself, “Well, if I’m going to go, I’m going out nicely.” I believe I saw the man on the roof, gleefully getting ready to watch a reenactment of the Roman Coliseum.

 

I dropped my literature bag and put my hands out to the two dogs. “Hi guys!”

 

I was suddenly wearing two incredibly happy dogs.

 

“Hi! How are you? Who are you? Doesn’t matter, can we lick your face and demand that you pet us?”

 

Those two dogs just lavished affection on me. The boy stood and watched. The father on the roof threw his hammer on the ground and demanded angrily that I get the heck off his property (as it were).

 

Man he was angry. And frustrated. And disappointed. But his dogs had a great visit.

 

·         I went to one door where the house was set off from the street a little bit and obscured by trees. The gentleman came to the door and asked what I wanted. I skipped the basic intro we were using that morning and just told him we were in the neighborhood sharing the Bible with folks. He said that was cool, then something dawned on him. He asked that we excuse him, that he would be right back.

 

As we waited, he returned with a hunting rifle mounted with a beautifully shiny new scope.

 

He cocked it (or whatever the “correct term” is for getting ammunition in place to fire) and pointed it at us, then told us it would be a real good idea if we left immediately. I agreed.

 

The elder with me decided this would be a good time to start arguing with the man. No, seriously.

 

I walked back to the car and left them to their devices. I remember raised voices, but no report from the rifle. We left, and I wondered about all the criticism I had received over the years about just leaving when people told me to leave. If this elder was any indication of what was expected of me, I was in for a lot more criticism.

 

Today when people talk about being oppressed for their religion, I ask them if they’ve been face to face with a hunting rifle because of it. That’s 100% right there.

 

·         I knocked on one door and a young mother came to the door, followed by her toddler daughter. I started to explain why I was there, and the mother’s face just screwed up into this vicious scowl. She let me know how terrible I was, locked her front door, and slammed it in my face as hard as she could. It shook the front porch.

 

Unfortunately it also caught her little girl’s fingers, who had wandered to the door to see what was going on and had put her hand inside the door jamb to hang on to.

 

The screams of that little girl still make me shudder, some 10 years later. The mother couldn’t pry her out of the door, so it took a moment for her to get the door unlocked. She opened the door back up, thrust her daughter backwards into the living room, relocked the front door, then slammed it with undiminished anger.

 

I know she didn’t mean to hurt her daughter, and I pray the little girl’s hand ended up okay. But it does go to show how much hatred ordinary people can muster. It’s one reason I try to be very conciliatory when talking religion, politics, or other heated issues.

 

·         Once a woman came to the door while on the phone. We often met folks at the door while they were on the phone, and I never stayed. On rare occasions I slipped them a quick tract, but I never wanted to take up their busy time.

 

This lady opened the door, told the person on the phone to hang on a minute, and asked me, “What do you need? I’m on the phone here.”

 

I started to apologize for bothering her but I was interrupted.

 

By her phone ringing.

 

The look on her face…. The sheer disgust and defeat of pretending to be on the phone to cut a door visitor short, then having that very phone betray you by ringing when it was supposed to already be engaged. Her whole body just kind of sagged.

 

I smiled and said “You probably ought to answer that. Have a nice day,” then went on my way.

 

·         I got a couple of young men at one door who spooked my ministry partner for the day. These two came up grinning. I explained why we were there, and they informed me that they were worshipers of the devil. Their walls did indeed had an upside down cross on it, which they pointed out and asked me what I thought.

 

I shrugged. “Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t venerate the cross, so you can hang it upside down, sideways, or anything else and it doesn’t bother me.”

 

They slammed the door on me.

 

Rats. I was so sure I had some interest there.

 

·         Since we were there to discuss our religious views, a lot of Witnesses translated that as “We’re here to talk to you. So just be quiet about your beliefs and listen to us.”

 

I always found that unpalatable and ridiculous, so when I encountered someone who wanted to share their views I was usually ready to listen. An exchange of views was always a plus in my ministry.

 

One time this older gentleman invited me and the young lady with me in to have a chat. It turned out that he believed that his church – a small personal affair – was presided over by a blood descendant of Aaron, and their little group was the re-established Aaronic priesthood.

 

The sister I was with had enough of this guy’s explanations shortly before we even walked into his house, but I was intrigued. I asked questions, I shared verses, we discussed why I had some reservations about his claims.

 

He agrees that there was no explanation that would be sufficient to someone who didn’t believe it, but there it was.

 

I had never heard of this group, but it was the most fascinating visit I’d had in months.

 

The sister avoided me for some time after that call, simply because she had to sit there in disgust while I asked someone else about their beliefs.

 

That’s me.

 

·         Some householders were well known to Witnesses who worked certain neighborhoods often. My car group one day consisted of me, my wife, and two young women who knew of this house where a theologian lived.

 

These two girls suggested that they would take one side of the street, and maybe I could start with this big house on the edge of a cul-de-sac. It was a total set-up. The guy who lived there had taught religious studies and enjoyed twisting religious folks in knots with his reasoning powers and huge leading questions. He had humiliated a few witnesses over the years, and these two wanted to see me get my turn.

 

I had a wonderful time. He pitched, I batted. I pitched, he batted. He won some, I won some. At some point my wife wandered off bored, so it had just been him and me wandering about in some serious theological forest.

 

 I had just responded to one of his contentions about God’s willingness to just let his own son die, and he seemed like he was done. I waited a moment and then told him it was his turn. He smiled at me and we agreed we were both pretty tired.

 

My car group was standing nearby. They had finished the whole street and ended up just standing there listening. He told me “I’ll bet if you came back, I could turn you away from your belief system.” I smiled and replied, “I’ll bet you couldn’t.”

 

Back in the car, with a half hour behind us, the two girls wanted to know how badly he trounced me. I reported that I had stumped him as often as he stumped me, AND that I had placed a tract and a booklet with the guy, which he accepted.

 

They wouldn’t look at me the rest of the week, they were so mad.

 

·         For some, a person’s self-confidence is seen as pride and arrogance. I was often viewed as arrogant and haughty, which hurt. I was energized and loved interacting with people, and I was always prepared for almost anything I encountered (including the rifle; I was fully prepared to leave).

 

But sometimes my fellow Witnesses assumed many things about me which simply weren’t true, all because I sometimes triggered their own issues. One of these came out when we left Independence, Missouri to help out in a little town in northern Kansas called Troy.

 

The sister who was driving us gave me a very serious series of cautions and admonitions. Why? Because we were going into a rural setting, and in her opinion I was too “City” and would have to seriously change my way of talking and dealing with people if I was going to talk to anyone.

 

I was raised on a farm in the rural locale called Nevada, Missouri. Granted I’m very “City” but that doesn’t mean I can’t talk to folks. She had her doubts. That was a painful thing to sit there and take. It still rankles.

 

We got out there, and I spent quite awhile at one farm. I got out of the car and walked up to a farmer who was wearing overalls and had been out with this huge power mower. I exchanged pleasantries, and he mentioned that his mower was all clogged up and jammed, maybe with a chunk of wood preventing the blade from spinning.

 

I put my bag down, and in my suit I got in there, helped him tip the mower over and together we spent awhile cleaning out his mower. We just chatted about stuff and life out on the farm. If he talked about problems with keeping two bulls apart or foxes from going after his chickens, I was right there with him. I didn’t say a thing about religion, because I wasn’t there anymore to preach: I was there to connect with people.

 

Covered in wet grass and rotten wood bits, we got his mower back up and running. Finally he mentioned that I was pretty dressed up to be doing stuff like that. Why was I there? I explained that I was there talking to folks about the Bible and asked if he was interested. He laughed. “No.” I smiled and shook his hand, and went on back to our meet-up place. It was my best call all day.

 

The sister still concluded I had probably messed everything up because there’s no way I could identify with common folks. She actually told me that. I still hurt from those words. I probably shouldn’t, but I do.

 

·         Once we were walking along a street and a woman in her car was approaching. She came quickly to a stop and rolled down her window to yell to us.

 

“Are you preachers?”

 

Usually this is a hint we were in for some grief, but that’s part of the job. “Yes ma’am, we are.”

 

She parked her car on the shoulder and ran across the street to us with her young teenage daughter. She actually had a favor to ask us.

 

They had just seen an auto accident, and apparently it freaked them out by triggering a bit of post-trauma from a severe accident they had been involved in a year or so before. They were both in tears, and asked if we would lead them in prayer.

 

Now I don’t know why the others with me were skeptical, or why they suddenly didn’t want to get involved. But a person in need had approached me for help; how was I going to say no?

 

It didn’t matter what their religion was, or what ours was. I led our little group in a prayer to God about His love, how He cares for those who feel sadness and fear, how He wants joy for us and grants strength to overcome the obstacles in life.

 

When I was done, she and her daughter thanked me gratefully through tears for doing that. I’m sure I never saw them again, and I didn’t try to chat. It was her need, and once we helped it would have been wrong to try and use that as an opportunity.

 

A lot of my fellow Witnesses disagreed and probably still would, but that was my position. Helping people was and is the true Christian service.

 

·         One last anecdote for now: The question of who goes to Heaven is a pretty gritty question sometimes. Many churches believe it’s their members and no others. Some believe it’s their members and anyone who agrees with them. Of course for Witnesses it got hung up on their position that Revelation’s report of 144,000 in Heaven was a literal number, and that caused some real debates at the door.

 

I accepted the teaching as being theirs, but I never insisted on it. I knew that to disagree was nearly a disfellowshipping offence, but I just never cared for it. This was my position going to this one door.

 

The gentleman who opened it had been schooled by his church on things to say to Witnesses at your door. Many churches in the world offer that little service to their members. Kind of a flow chart: if the Witness says that, then you say this, and follow the line of reasoning.

 

He launched right off.  “Hey, if I’m not one of the 144,000, does that mean I’m not going to Heaven?”

 

I was mad, not because he was confrontational, but because he sounded so well rehearsed that it made me realize he could only parrot what he had been told to say.

 

“Do I look like God?” I blustered back at him. “Who goes to Heaven is up to God, not you, not me, not any human. He’ll let Jesus do the judging and make the call in the future, but it’s not my call.”

 

He was floored. That did not go AT ALL the way his church said it would. He literally could not get a work to escape his open mouth.

 

Another person sitting nearby in the living room came to his rescue and tried to patch things up by leading the discussion to the next level, since I wasn’t playing by the rules.

 

“Well, you assert that Revelation makes it clear that the number 144,000 is literal.”

 

“A Bible book that is full of symbols says 144,000. But the ultimate decision is not up to any one of us. If God wants exactly 144,000 in Heaven, that’s how many will be there. If He wants exactly 1 person in Heaven, that’s how many will be there. If he wants everyone except exactly one person in Heaven, that’s what He’ll have. It’s up to him.”

 

I wished them a good day and walked away. The silence behind me was palpable, but then so was my disgust. I wished one of the “normal” Witnesses had gone to that door, because it would have been a perfectly matched yell-fest. I wanted to be reasonable, and that was becoming increasingly difficult for me, whether within the congregation or outside it.

 

In all, there were many great experiences and many terrible ones. But I went to the houses because I believed that’s what I should do. When I found it was no longer in line with my inner self, I stopped that along with everything else.

I had to leave after 15 years for my own sanity, and I can’t bring myself to ever go back. But really? I don’t regret the experience, not for a minute.

Hey, you know something that freaks Witnesses out today, though? Coming to my door.

That’s a party.

I'm (not quite) Batman!

I’ve seen a lot of great things on my Ozark vacation. A cave (Jacob’s Cave), a place called El Taco, a wax museum, another cave (Bridal Cave), the famed Branson Strip (basically a small Midwestern version of Vegas, with miniature golf establishments in place of casinos), two dams (Bagnell and Tablerock), a further other cave (Fantastic Caverns, which you ride through on a small tram and features a short historical film shown in the cave itself), and some of the same families in various locations.

But one of the most abiding encounters on this trip? Two bats.

I know, big deal. Bats. You can see your share in Missouri. In more rural locations a family might have several bats as family members. In a small community there might be enough bats to break off and form their own community (which I hope they call Gotham).

And I have visited 3 caves so far, so obviously I’ve seen bats. What’s so special about these two?

Well, I never saw any bats in the caves. These two were hanging out about twenty paces from each other.

Hanging from a concrete wall an inch or two off the ground.

Next to busy two-way traffic.

In broad daylight.

They let me walk right up to them and take their pictures.

Weird.

The scene

We went to Bagnell Dam, a place that figures in our pasts. It’s nice enough, for a dam.

 

It’s big enough on top that you drive across it, and there’s a pedestrian walkway on the dry side (not completely dry, but you know, not the side next to the lake).

 

 



I wanted to walk out over the dam so I could get some pictures off the edge. Traffic was constantly passing me, and one truckload of young guys thought it would be hilarious to lay on their horn as they drove past me. I didn’t jump, but they had a good laugh. I got some good pictures too.

 

 

 







But as I walked along, I noticed a patch of something brown on the wall of the walkway as I was crossing.

 

 

On getting closer, I was surprised by what it was.

 

 

I could have pet it.

A little farther along the walkway was another, covered in grit from passing vehicles.

 

 

 

The two bats were clearly breathing, although it was breathe in and out, wait a few seconds, then in and out again.

I was glad I ran across these little guys instead of the family who was also at the dam. The father and his little boy were thinking about going out on the walkway but left instead. I would hate to imagine if the little boy had tried to pet one or pick one up.

After a late night, I called the city of Lake Ozark the next morning to tell them about the little critters.

Me: “I want to report two bats.”

Bureaucrat: (Pause) “Well, that’s a new one.”

She couldn’t help me, since there is no Animal Control function in the city. (“We don’t even have a dog catcher.”) So she gave me the number to the Missouri Department of Conservation in Camdenton. They were much more interested in my discovery.

As the woman said, “They may be sick. We’ve been tracking something that has been making bats sick across the state.” She promised that they would send someone out to see if the bats were still there and make sure they were okay.

 

An update: on Friday, we decided we weren’t finished with caves. This time it was Ozark Caverns, in the Lake of the Ozarks State Park. As soon as we got there, we noticed signs:

 

 

Because we work in an office that uses “white noise” generators to help reduce the distracting sound levels, we naturally started trying to figure out how we might protect these bats from “White Noise.”

But it’s White Nose Syndrome, so-called because of a white fungal infection that covers their noses, mouths, and parts of their wings. If American bats start showing up in a cave with white patches on their noses, it’s pretty much a done deal. The park even has a pamphlet on the disease.

Turns out, cave after cave is finding their bat population coming down with this, caused by a fungus which is now attacking the poor things in the caves. There is no known cure, no totally reliable prevention.

Once the fungus gets into a cave, it’s apparently there for good.

And once the fungus gets into the American bat population of a cave, that population may have only about three or four more years of life. It’s only a matter of time before that entire American bat population is dead. Inasmuch as a single bat can eat thousands of mosquitoes in a single night, that’s pretty bad news for people wanting to visit lakes in the summer. Bats are great at keeping flying insect populations down.

I said American bat populations, because apparently this fungal nuisance has been around awhile in Europe, and their bats generally seem to do fine, while American bats are dropping fast from infection. Even European bats with the telltale white fungus on their noses and elsewhere seem to be healthy and live out their lifespan, whereas American bats seem to have no immunity.

We were told that the only thing they’ve found which will stop the fungus is peppermint oil. It will kill the fungus in the cave. Unfortunately it will also “kill” the cave, since the oil will destroy its ability to grow and regenerate the cave formations. And it still wouldn’t help any of the bats who are already infected.

So the vacation has been very bat-centric. I hadn’t had anything to do with bats before this week, but now it seems like I’m hip deep in the topic. Seeing bats up close and personal was an event for me. So for the sake of my fellow misunderstood mammals, I’m writing this. Want more information?

https://www.whitenosesyndrome.org/

http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/disease_information/white-nose_syndrome/