How I Lost My Faith . XVII - 'As the Pendulum Swings...'

To say that my initial response to what I perceived to be outright rejection by Jehovah God and His people was a bit of overkill would be quite an understatement, but back then I had no idea what to do but over-react. The elders had no idea how much effort it took for me to abstain from masturbating even for just two weeks; from five or six times a day to zero was a monumental feat! After only a few months, I put everything I had, including my entire future as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, into this one achievement; failure was not an option.

But fail I did, and as a result I was wracked with rage, guilt and shame on a profoundly deep level. It was bad enough growing up believing I’d never really amount to anything, but to have first the elders, then Jehovah God, and finally my former second-best friend (Richard being the first-best) dismiss me as if it meant nothing to him—one rejection piled on top of another—was too much to bear. Instead of picking myself up, dusting myself off and trying again, I fled in pain and anger, and returned to the murky pit from which I’d emerged after four years of wallowing. I knew what the Bible said, and I took it very seriously:

The saying of the true proverb has happened to them: “The dog has returned to its own vomit, and the sow that was bathed to rolling in the mire.” – 2 Peter 2:22

Certainly if, after having escaped from the defilements of the world...[I] get involved again and are overcome, the final conditions have become worse for [me] than the first. … it would have been better for [me] not have accurately known the path of righteousness... – 2 Peter 2:20, 21

If [I] practice sin willfully after having received...the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice for sins left, but there is a certain fearful expectation of judgment. – Hebrews 10:26, 27

These Scriptures applied to me in spades, so what hope was there? The meaning was clear: there was no hope for me; perhaps God hadn’t really rejected me, but I’d rejected Him by willingly returning to a life of demonic hedonism, and that meant I would die during the battle of Armageddon: “fearful expectation of judgment” indeed. I took these things more personally, almost zealously, than most can even begin to understand, as I was convinced to my core that the Bible was God’s Word and Jehovah’s Witnesses were the only ones who had “The Truth”—which meant I was doomed. I might as well come back out of the closet and live my life the way I wanted to, so ‘eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow I may die’ is the attitude I adopted.

After my first night with Glenn, I knew I couldn’t stay at Gary and Elizabeth’s place anymore, so, in late Spring of 1985, I moved in with my new boyfriend. As quickly and thoroughly as I’d switched off the homosexual half of myself in order to embrace “the Truth”, I switched off any interest in the Bible or Jehovah’s Witnesses and embraced my re-found sexual identity. I wanted nothing to do with religion whatsoever; discussions about religion became taboo around me. 

 

When I’d returned to the Kingdom Hall earlier that winter, I had thrown out all of my porn and all books on astrology and the occult, but I’d kept Immanuel Velikovsky’s works; these were the only copies I’d been able to find and I wasn’t about to dispose of them, not yet. I planned on reading them all in an effort to feed my thirst for knowledge; the Bible was out of the question. I never got around to them, however, delving instead into other aspects of the occult like crystals and pyramids—until one day I attended a seminar on crystal magic. 

 

I don’t remember much about it now, with one exception. Near the end, a mystical chart was displayed that had at the top the very last thing I expected to see: the Tetragrammaton—the four Hebrew letters representing the Name of God, יהוה .   

This name is sacrosanct to Jehovah’s Witnesses, as well as Jews, and to use it in the context of occultist practices was utter blasphemy! I left that place stunned and dismayed. The last thing I needed was a blatant reminder of what I’d left behind months before. I was happy with my life. I had a gorgeous boyfriend, a few close gay friends whose companionship I really enjoyed, and I wasn’t even thinking about “the Truth”—until that damn seminar. 

 

Shortly thereafter, I made the fateful decision to return—back to the Hall to face what I’d done and try to get back into Jehovah’s favor. That meant breaking up with Glenn and abandoning the friendships I’d gained in the gay community. I could not live two lives, one gay and completely immoral, and one anti-gay, pious Christian; it was one or the other, and I chose the ‘higher road.’ In spite of my conviction that I’d sinned way too seriously, I also knew other Scriptures that kept coming to mind, giving me a glimmer of hope, particularly these two, which I took on a deeply personal level (hence the bracketed pronouns):

Though the sins of [mine] should prove to be as scarlet, they will be made white just like snow. … If [I just] show willingness and do listen... – Isaiah 1:18, 19

Jehovah is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness. He will not for all time keep finding fault... according to [my] errors has he [not] brought upon [me] what [I] deserve [which is death]. … For as the heavens are higher than the earth, His loving-kindness is superior toward those fearing him. As far off as the sunrise is from the sunset, So far off from [me] he has put [my] transgressions. As a father shows mercy to his sons, Jehovah has shown mercy to those fearing him [including me]. For he himself well knows the formation of [me], Remembering that [I am] dust. – Psalms 103:8-14

Perhaps my sins were not so bad, after all; maybe—just maybe—He would give me another chance. I sincerely believed with all my heart the message behind these Scriptures and resolved to try one more time to be moral, clean and upright—”good enough” for Ted and my other Witness friends, and for Jehovah God; I would show them just what I was made of!.

I moved out of Glenn’s apartment into my own place on Capitol Hill, ironically just across the street from an adult bookstore/video arcade. That would prove to be a test later, but initially I was completely Bible-oriented, and began to assemble what would become a very impressive library of Bible translations, dictionaries and lexicons (many of which I still have to this day). I also began to study Greek and Hebrew in an effort to understand the original language meanings behind key words and phrases in the Bible; I was never satisfied with basic, lay knowledge.

My efforts lasted about four or five months before I gave in to desire and went to the adult store across the street...and there I was again, back in the gutter, wallowing in the mire I’d left behind for a second time. I therefore did the only logical thing: I went out to a gay bar, got drunk and picked some guy up, went home and had sex. Once again, guilt and shame consumed me and I once again left the Kingdom Hall in disgrace.

It’s important to note that the vast majority of the congregation had absolutely no idea what I was going through. Only Ted and a couple of others knew what I’d done while away, and how ashamed I was when I returned to the fold, so I wasn’t publicly shamed before the group or anything. It was all in my head—the shame, the guilt, the impossibly-high bar that I knew I could never reach. When I returned to the flock, the congregation just assumed I’d been away and were truly delighted to see me again. It would be a while yet before others began to see a problem, but in those early days I was regularly welcomed back by all, including Phillip, with open arms.

By now it was 1986, and that summer, I decided I could bear the shame no longer and made the decision to leave Denver and return home, to Virginia. Maybe there, I could get my head together and figure out what the hell I wanted to do with my life. I’d met a handsome deaf man at a gay bar who had family back east, so we decided to take a road trip together, down through Texas to visit my mom, then through Arkansas and Louisiana (never again; the bugs were atrocious!), on up through South and North Carolina to Washington, D.C. He taught me some sign language on the way, which I remember enjoying immensely; I wish I’d continued learning it, but never really took the opportunity to do so.

Since I had no place to live, after a week of staying at my friend’s brother’s apartment for a week, I decided to head south to visit what was left of my family. On the way, my car broke down; apparently the distributor cap had cracked. A man stopped to help and offered to buy a new cap for my car if I’d agree to attend a Buddhist ceremony nearby. Since I really had nothing else to do, and I wasn’t interested in any Bible-oriented discussions, I agreed. It was the first time in my life I’d seen the inside of a Buddhist temple; I remember thinking, “What the hell am I doing here?”

After the ceremony, this man, whose name I forget, gave me a prayer book written in Chinese, and a small altar before which I was supposed to repeatedly chant, “Nam-myoho-renge-kyo” and everything I wanted would come to pass. I figured, “What the hell? ‘The Truth’ isn’t working out for me, so let’s give this a try,” and for several months I did.

The next day, I reached my godmother on the phone and told her I was in the state and wanted to visit. I wound up living there for nearly a year, helping out in the family store and working at a deli. The rage I’d felt growing up here had subsided, making the situation relatively manageable. My mom later told me that my godmother was proud of the work ethic I’d developed in the years I’d been gone. Things were going well for a change and I felt I could relax for a bit, get my bearings and decide what to do next with my life.

While living there, I made routine trips north to D.C.—about 50 miles one-way—to go bar-hopping. That winter, I met a very nice-looking young man from Texas named Jed. He and I hooked up regularly and had a great time together, to the point where I began looking at him as a possible life-partner. One night, he confided in me that he had tested positive for HIV and was terrified his father would find out and disown him. I hadn’t even thought about HIV in several years; it was still taboo, especially among Jehovah’s Witnesses, and I hadn’t discussed it with them at all.

That discussion got me thinking about the possibility I may have it, especially now that I’d been intimate with someone I knew for sure had it. Right about this time, I began questioning my own mortality, and what would happen to me if I died from AIDS. My studies with the Witnesses had taught me to believe in resurrection in Paradise, but what about Buddhism? I’d been chanting in front of this altar words I didn’t understand. Was there really any future in this?

I met the guy who’d introduced me to Buddhism one day for lunch and I asked him point-blank, “What happens when we die? The Bible talks about resurrection; what do Buddhists believe?” He talked about reincarnation, reliving our lives over and over—complete with mistakes, sin, sickness and death—apparently forever, or until one achieves some higher plane where reincarnation stops. Frankly, it made absolutely no sense to me. That was not hope; it was a futile repetition of pain and suffering for all eternity, as far as I was concerned...and I knew right then what I had to do.

That day, I took all of my Buddhist stuff—prayer book, altar and all—to our store and threw it all in the wood furnace. My younger brother was watching the store at the time, and he told me he saw a spirit leave that furnace and fly away. That was all the convincing I needed—Buddhism was spiritistic and demonic and there was only one place for me to go: back to “The Truth.” I knew where the local Kingdom Hall was and made up my mind to start attending right away.

But what about Jed? He’d just told me he had HIV and was scared, and I wanted to be there for him...but he was gay and I couldn’t continue being with him if I wanted to make things right with Jehovah. So I wrote him a three or four-page Scripture-laden letter explaining in the most diplomatic terms why I could not see him again, crying the whole time. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt him, or anybody for that matter, but I had no choice; I had to take the “high road” and do what was morally right. It was a very painful process, but it would not be the first time I broke someone’s heart—and my own—in this eloquent but cowardly manner.

Thus began to swing the Great Pendulum of my life; for a time, I’d be “out and proud” as long as I didn’t run into any Witnesses, then the Pendulum would swing the other way and I’d be the best damn Witness one could possibly be. It was a sometimes-violent conflict that struck at the very core of my being, and I began to lose sight of who I was, what I really stood for—and for the next 22 years I lived in that limbo, becoming whoever others expected me to be at any given time. 

 

Over the years I became ever more determined to “get it right,” at one point making a sworn oath to Jehovah God that “I will not stop trying to get it right, until the day I expire,” in those exact words—and I meant it. I would prove that even someone as damaged as I, who had repeatedly returned to this Satanic world as all it had to offer, could become clean and upright, and acceptable to Jehovah as one of His children. I was convinced that my sexuality was something I could change with enough will power and constant prayer—and I tried so very hard to prove it, time and time again, but to no avail. I simply could not escape who I was, and it would be decades still before I figured that out.