Heroes

It's summer and I am out of school.  I suppose I need some downtime, but there is part of me that wants to stay in super mode and accomplish great things.  But I'm just trying for some calm.  Yesterday, I was reading a book.  There is no pleasure in the world quite like reading a book from start to finish with no interruptions.  Usually I have to stop and teach classes, cook dinner, sleep.  You know, life.  But yesterday I had a rather long book and the whole day in front of me.

Do you think I got to read without interruptions?  Think again.  The girls went on overdrive asking me questions.  And by about page 300 when they would say, "Mom!" instead of cheerfully saying what my baby, I was sighing, putting the book aside, and saying the dreaded what now?  I was saying it calmly; I'm all about the calm this week.  And it finally got through to them because a little later, I heard one say Mom and the other one say we're bothering her.  I said no, but I am feeling a little crowded today.

There are movie tickets on the side of the fridge, a mall up the road and a full tank of gas in my car.  Don't they need to go somewhere?

This year, for the first time since they were in high school, the schedule comes up that I will have two afternoons all alone all year long.  I am never alone in my own house.  I wish they had the money to go to Pittsburgh.  Maybe I'll give it to them!

They do sleep in even more/later than me.  I get up, I take all my vitamins and supplements and a few prescriptions, and I have breakfast with the crossword and the jumble and Dear Abby.  Sometimes if the puzzle is really easy I have time to read Dear Abby and that Dr. column (today it was hemorrhoids - a tough word to spell - so I was less interested than usual) and sometimes a little headlines or op ed.  The thing is the news is all bad, and solving word problems makes me feel smart, so that is how that works.

Today Dear Abby ran responses to a column she ran in June asking readers to nominate their heroes, excluding celebrities or family members.

I tried to think of a celebrity I considered heroic.  There wasn't one.  I tried to think of a family member.  All I could say was Carly.  She has had me for a mother for one thing, and she goes to school with a bunch of spoiled rich brats.  She has her head on straight and doesn't whine about any of that.  She can cook and clean and decorate and manage money better than I ever could at that age.

When Dana and I were sitting in the waiting room while Lana had her tonsils removed, we were talking about how hard it is to see your child suffer and be helpless to change their lives.  My mother maintains to this day that she was a great mother and did everything for us.  She cannot afford to admit to any mistakes.  She will relate in great depth all her good acts in caring for her mother, her brother, her husband, as they all aged and eventually died  And that's true.  My first thoughts about my mother are that she fought me from the get go over education.  Anytime I won any academic honor, she was quick to tell me there were plenty of people smarter than I was.  When I finished my last degree, she told me:  "Big deal.  So now you're a doctor.  You have never even owned a house and you don't have a pot to urinate in."

Thanks Mom.  You wonder why I don't call you more often.

So who are my heroes if I wrote Dear Abby?

The brothers and sisters who stayed faithful to Jehovah during the Holocaust.  That's a good start.  In the Bible record, my top votes would be Sarah, Hannah, and Abigail.

Sarah told Abraham to get it on with Hagar.  There was that Abrahamic covenant in place, by means of your seed ... a mighty nation.  At some point Sarah figured out that it was not a Sarahmaic covenant.  Might not be her seed, so she said here is Hagar.  How many sisters would put aside their personal claim on a husband and put Jehovah and Abraham's relationship first, as well as the future of what became the Israelite nation?

Later, Jehovah told Abraham to listen to his wife.  He didn't want to send Ishmael and Hagar away.  I wonder if Abraham, as a man, didn't like having two women at his beck and call.  And Sarah didn't strut around saying, "uh huh, you should have listened to me from the start but no, you were stubborn, so Jehovah had to correct you."  Serves you right Abe, always thinking you're the smartest one here.

So I like Sarah.  She's doing all that without the Insight books to refer to.  And I like Abigail and how she figured out right away that first husband was going to get them all killed so she went to David herself with provisions.

But I adore Hannah.  She wanted a baby.  That was so important for a woman especially then.  The nation needed lots of babies, like grains of sands or stars in heaven.  The Mosaic covenant was not about limiting women to a biological role.  It was about appreciating the gift of life Jehovah gave humans.  Angels don't get to make babies.  Well, some made those little nephilim, but you know what I mean.

And Elkanah has babies with Peninnah, and he loves Hannah, and he is prosperous and in a good relationship with the nation, with Jehovah, with life and Hannah is so upset she can't eat.  Now that part I don't quite get, but I've seen it happen.  He tells her life is good, but that's a man talking.  He is not there in the household when the snide remarks of Peninnah are going round.  So you know how that turned out, eventually Samuel was born and later, other babies.  But Jehovah was the one who understood Hannah even when her husband could not.  I love Hannah for trusting Jehovah to understand.  It's a lesson I have to remind myself of frequently.

Once, when I was on my way out of the truth, I was working at Walmart.  There was a sister working there close to my age named Dorothy.  I was in the process of meeting with the elders and being disfellowshipped.  Ah, my wayward stubborn youth.  I really like the comments Abel's father made about that process last Saturday at the Miami get together as we were discussing that paragraph in the WT study on David and Absalom, and how family members have to respect disfellowshipping as Jehovah's arrangement.  Abel's dad said that disfellowshipping is not the end of a process, but the beginning.  It is the first step to come back.  It is necessary for the person to see the scope of their sin.

That helped me find peace, more than I have ever had before, 30 years after the fact.  But at the time this was all going on in 1981, Dorothy had heard the announcement but knew nothing about the why.  At the store, she was telling everybody who would listen that I was being thrown out of our church for being so wicked, and she proceeded, based on the stories that made it back to me, to tell everyone about the drugs I was on, the number of boyfriends I had and their racial heritage, and every other vile thing she could imagine and that she was so much better than me.

So I told the brothers I understood why they were taking the action they took in my case, but I said could you please discuss this with Dorothy and ask her to not spread rumors at my place of employment, because it was disrupting work and my boss had talked to me about it and said if the problems continued, he would have to terminate my employment. 

The elders were in my living room, decorated on a budget and filled with two crushed velvet occasional rockers and two wicker chairs.  A stereo and a B&W 19" TV.  That's what I had.  I was in one wicker chair and all three brothers were substantial and looked uncomfortable in my small cheap furnishings.  The brother in the other wicker chair wanted to snow exactly what Dorothy was saying.  I couldn't bring myself to give the entire list because some of the things she said indicated that I was not only sleeping with men, but also women.  As if!  So I said a few things, and ended with the summary statement:  She's telling everybody she's so much better than me. 

Without blinking an eye or missing a beat, the elder replied adamantly, with spit flying, She is better than you.

I have to say, 30 years later, I wish I'd had Abel's dad in that room instead of that brother.  I started to say well, it is my understanding Jesus died for all of us and maybe I'm the prodigal daughter.  But instead I just said okay.  And I got fired.  I had no congregation and no job and no hope.


At the DC, I really liked one of the talks about the Prodigal Son.  You know why there is no prodigal daughter in the Biblical record is because women could not take money and go live alone or travel.  But I have always liked that account because in some ways I feel like a modern Prodigal Daughter.  The talk in Reading mentioned that the father never gave up hope that the son would return, and I was thinking that maybe, just maybe,all that time I was out in the world, Jehovah never gave up hope I was coming back.  And I don't give up hope my girls come in and come on strong for Jehovah.  Who has the authority to write anyone off?

Over a dozen years later I was at the hall with my two little girls when we had a visiting brother give the talk.  It was the Wicker Chair brother.  I went up to him after the meeting and thanked him for coming, but I won't complicate your opinion of me by lying about my motives.  I wanted to know if he remembered me.  I wanted to say Look at me with my two preciously beautiful little girls at Jehovah's house.  Did you hear all three of my comments during the WT?  Do you remember how you hurt me?  Do you see I am "better" now?

I was feeling vengeful because Dorothy was out of the truth and I was back.  If he recognized me, I could not tell.  He shook my hand and said he enjoyed visiting our congregation and that was all.  Later I told Sherry (McCasland, the helper Jehovah blessed me with) that he was the brother I had told her about.  I had spent years trying to heal from the pain of that remark.  I spent years thinking I was not good enough to be your sister.  I spent decades even after regaining a spiritual standing thinking I didn't quite rate with the rest of the membership.

The saddest thing to me is that if I had a Dear Abby column and got everyone to write me their heroes, if it was just a column for witnesses, I bet a lot of sisters would list male heroes, but none of the brothers would list female heroes.  I'm also fond of Deborah and Dorcas and Zipporah.  Esther.  Miriam.  And there is no irony here, as I could propose a long list of males I admire and study.  I'm wild for David writing all those songs, and Moses being meek and mild, and Peter, oh how I wish Peter would be resurrected to earth.

Brother Wicker died a few years later with cancer.  Sherry told me.  I wonder sometimes if he will have a perfect memory in the new world and recognize me then.  And it took a lot of years for me to forgive him.  I kept telling myself I had better figure this out if I expected Jehovah to forgive me of my sins.  But saying you need to forgive someone and really doing it, that's two different things.  Two of my friends have told me that sometimes reading my blog makes them sad.  They wish my life had been better.  I am not writing for sympathy.  I am writing so if you have been hurt too you will at least know that you are not alone.  That these things are being experienced in the whole association of brothers, and sisters.

Satan uses everything he can against us.  I am never tempted to smoke, but it is a problem for some.  I am never going to be counseled for alcohol or drugs or being a lesbian, but I have had a few problems wanting a husband.  I have been counseled so many times, beginning with my grandmother making me write the scripture about the tongue is a little member 100 times, about my mouth.  I'm not materialistic for china or diamonds, but I do like Barbie dolls and books.  Satan knows all my buttons to push.

And he used Brother Wicker to push a big one, and it nearly worked.  It did work for awhile.  But I got over it and it made me stronger.  I have probably said something at some point, and I would consider myself blessed if it was only one thing, to someone that hurt them for decades.  Something I may not even remember saying.  Satan might be exploiting my tongue if he can.  What doesn't kill you makes you stronger my sisters.  Satan wants to kill us.  I am grateful I finally got over that remark.  I want to live, forever, with all of you.