My first house is a whole story in itself and I'll get there soon. For now though I'm just continuing my religious journey quest. From age 20 I lived in my first house and soon enough I had a knock at the door which had me in a new circumstance. I could now tell Jehovah's Witnesses to come in and chat. They looked over the moon at the offer and in five minutes had arranged an evening appointment to return and have a good involved chat. Or as they saw it- indoctrination.
Our chats turned to me actually studying their beliefs on a weekly basis. I studied for two whole years every week and questioned as much as I could while trying to stay respectful of their religion. The married couple who taught me were an absolutely lovely couple who lived five minutes away. Firstly I'd go around their house and they'd give me free books to read and we'd read and then discuss whatever the books put forward. It really was like being at school. Even on the nights I couldn't be bothered, I went and came away with a glowing feeling of wanting to make my life better.
My first sticking point was that there were explanations given as facts of why believing in this religion was indisputably correct. One illustration was shown to me. The man of the couple explained if you took a jar which represented your life and put a tennis ball in to represent work. Then put a tennis ball in to represent socialising with friends and family followed by another to be this and another to be that ....quite soon it was full.
"You see how your life is full of all these things?"
Yes.
Then he said if you put a container of sand in now, which represents RELIGIOUS BELIEF then the sand would fit snugly around every element of your life and still not over flow your life jar.
My friend sat back smugly as if there was no weak spot in this illustration.
My next statement was " but you've just decided yourself what the sand represents and what the tennis balls represent. I could just as easily say that the tennis balls represent EATING FOOD, WATCHING TV and GETTING DRUNK and that the sand represents being a serial rapist...and LOOK how the sand fits snugly around all the elements in your life"
There was a silence in the room which was brought on by the two blank faces in front of me.
This was merely one occasion in which I stumped them.
I remember forever getting onto Heaven and how it was arranged to work with family members who I loved but hated each other. I didn't want them having their minds wiped or them being in a place where I would never see them again.
The Heaven chats were also unanswered by my friends and it resulted in me saying that all the answers I actually wanted from religion were not something that could be answered AT ALL by Jehovah's Witnesses. All I got was that they believed Heaven was a great place. "But can I watch horror films in the afterlife or play video games? Because I sure don't want to be singing hymns with Thora Hird for all eternity"
My two years were up and I threw in the towel explaining that I'd done all that had been asked of me and still GOD hadn't made his presence known in me.
Once I'd left the teaching evenings I still would go around for a coffee with this couple because we were friends. The man because quite poorly within a year and it came out to me that he had been having wavering belief in the whole thing himself and when I put my cynical questions to them, it had made his disbelief stronger if anything.
As his illness grew the other witnesses started to turn away from them and be nasty about them behind their backs. They actually stopped being Jehovah's Witnesses and sighted chatting with me to be the final piece of the puzzle. They no longer believed. They were out.
I felt slightly guilty about this, I say slightly because for the last part I was overjoyed.
Then not six months later, Mormons came a knocking. Two Americans lads who I liked straight away. On their first visit i said "I'm in, when can we start discussing stuff?"
Two more years of study and I'd exhausted that too.
This just wasn't giving me the answers i craved. And then during this time there was the weird stuff happening at Nashville Street. My home. My dark, haunted home.
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