If you had told sixteen-year-old me, "In the year 2020 there will be a great pandemic. You will be separated from your parents to prevent the spread of the disease and you will miss them terribly!" I would have laughed and laughed and laughed. Not so much about the pandemic part, I was raised to be a dooms-day-prepper for Jesus so pandemics are just part of the norm, but the missing my parents part would have seemed far-fetched.
At 16 it's not that I didn't love my parents, I just didn't understand them. Or rather, felt they didn't understand me. As most of you who read this blog know by now, I was raised a Jehovah's Witness. At 16, I was super depressed and suicidal. I'm not going to say it was the religion that made me that way, but it certainly wasn't helping. In that faith, nothing you do is good enough. We're imperfect. You can always "do more". And if you're sad or depressed, or having a crisis of faith, the best thing you can do is pray to Jehovah. Talk to him like a friend! And I did. Let's just say it was a real one-sided conversation in my experience.
The centerpiece to the Jehovah's Witness faith is that "The End" is coming. All the trials and tribulations of this big bad world and all its injustice and greed are just proof that Satan is in control, but one day soon Jehovah will say, "No more!" and BAM! Apocalypse! Now to survive, you just have to believe in Jehovah. You'll ride out the beasts rise, the destruction of all society, and be rewarded for your faith by God destroying all the wicked people and you get to live for ALL ETERNITY on the Earth, which will be restored back to its Edenic start. But you have to really believe. Jehovah can read your heart, and if you have doubts...oh, you're probably not gonna make it friend. Which led to my crisis of faith. I was suicidal already, and you're telling me I have to live on earth...FOREVER? With these people?! Hard pass. Even if I get a pet tiger the inherent misogyny of the religion was a real bummer for me.
Fast forward to 2020 and shit has gotten weird friends. It sure feels like the end times. If you're thinking this is my formal announcement of my return to my childhood faith, I'll burst your bubble right now with a big "Nah".
As you can imagine though, my parents are on high alert. This is not a drill. This is what their religion has been preaching for years. YEARS! How many years? Well, the end of the world was so close that I was probably not even going to have to go to kindergarten before "The end" started so...
I actually have a good relationship with my parents now. Something 16-year-old me could not comprehend. Sometimes it baffles me too. Not the "enjoying my parents" part - they are awesome people - everyone enjoys them! But their faith also teaches that because I am not a believer I am "bad association". The fact they talk to me at all and have a relationship with me is really the miracle here. But it does require us to waltz around the topics of their faith like seasoned ballroom professionals. It seems effortless to outsiders, but it's years of practice and built up muscle memory. In spite of all of that awkwardness, I still love them and love spending time with them. This pandemic has made me really miss them.
This past Thursday I invited them to my favorite place, the Arboretum. We could socially distance in an Edenic garden and enjoy each other and the landscape. While our Venn diagrams don't line up on the topic of God, they did instill in me a deep love of nature and being out in it and reveling in all its wonder. On this, we wholeheartedly agree.
While we walk around the beautiful gardens they fill me in on their meetings, now all conducted remotely via zoom. This doesn't bother me. I see it as them filling me in on what's new with them. I explain to them I do all my work via zoom now too, so we laugh about the foibles of modern video conferencing.
They make comments about the flowers and trees, gasping in wonder and praising Jehovah for creating such amazingly interconnected and beautiful things.
The waltz begins.
My mother and I are enjoying the beautiful canopy of the forest above us when she comments, "I think the greatest thing Jehovah created are trees. You can do so much with them, and they do so much for us."
"They are so beautiful!" I agree, and side-step, "I often think this canopy is reminiscent of the architecture you see in Cathedrals. The sweeping vaulted lines that reach to the heavens. It must have been what they were thinking of when they designed them. To bring the divine in nature inside." I appeal to her love of architecture and history. One-two-three, two-two-three...swirling away to another topic.
While walking through the hosta glade, my dad comments, "Look at all the shades of green! Jehovah sure must love green when you think of all the different colors of green there are just in this one kind of plant!"
Shall we dance father? "I've read that our eyes see more shades of green than any other color, which if you think about it makes sense for distinguishing different types of plants to eat, or possibly to avoid predators in trees or grasses."
We've leveled up our dancing skills today. We've had a theoretical discussion about creation vs evolution without even saying the words! He can think, "Neat, God sure thought of everything!" and I can still talk about science without getting angry.
Invariably we talk about politics and current events. This is where things get the strangest. You see, Jehovah's Witnesses are taught to remain politically neutral. Don't vote, don't get involved. Pay Ceasar's things to Ceasar, but trust that Jehovah has a plan. This is my parent's vice as Witnesses. They like to stay up on current events. And they have opinions. Luckily and weirdly our political Venn diagrams line up pretty well. We get cranking on politics a lot, I think I am like their one outlet for this juicy conversation, and once they get it all out they usually end with a, "But we don't take a side in this system of things". I smile demurely and nod because I threw away my absentee ballot instructions that were on the front entry table before they arrived because I do take a side, but don't want to cause a fuss in case they need to use my bathroom. This is the dance that we do.
Sometimes though, there is nothing you can say. In those situations, I just blankly stare.
"It just shows we're in the end times..." A phrase I have heard most of my life, and just haven't come up with a good response to yet. So I stare out at the prairie flowers knowing those taproots go really deep and just don't say anything. Sometimes there is nothing to say. Some things we do see eye-to-eye on, and some things we just never will. At the end of the day, our view of the world is in fact very different.
At the end of the day, it was good to catch up with my parents. I so enjoy their company. They are funny, thoughtful, kind, and loving. 16-year-old me is surprised this is where we are at, but forty-year-old me is just grateful. Grateful for whatever time I get with them.
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