Jehovah’s Witnesses & Witnessing…
moocowinthecity So Yesterday morning (okay…afternoon) I’m awakened by my doorbell…now, my doorbell isn’t a normal doorbell it sounds more like an air raid siren so that by the time I figure out that Buffalo, NY is not actually under immediate threat (when being woken with a start) I can quell the adrenaline running through my body enough to make it to the door with a grimace on and pretend that I’m glad to see whoever’s there (a marked improvement from when I first hear it go off and attempt to duck in cover and then look for a bat so I can explain via pavlovian training why one shouldn’t ring doorbells).
So I make my way to the door (knowing full well it isn’t any of my friends, since the first thing I tell people when they come over to my apartment for the first time is to never, ever, ring to the doorbell). I open the door; and it’s my pseudo-arch nemesis…this older woman, who looks like she grew up in the deep south who has beautiful ebony skin that has a warm glow to it, a charming accent and wears old grandmother hats, wire glasses frames, and white gloves. A very sweet lady indeed.
Now, I don’t want to be mean to her (I really don’t, she seems lovely); she doesn’t want to be mean to me so I’ve been using avoidance as my main tactic. However, this time she’s outsmarted me. You see, this is the same pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses that have been coming to my building for the past few months fairly regularly. Normally, I have it timed that I’m leaving the building as they’re entering and I hold the door open for them (because they can feel free to harass my neighbors as much as their hearts desire) and bid them a good day and high tail it out of there so I can make it to class on time; however (in a twist of irony) I was up late reading Tracts because I couldn’t sleep, and when I can’t sleep I read things that I find offensive (I’m not sure why, it’s just what I do) and what can be more offensive than saying it doesn’t matter if you rape, murder, steal and kill but so long as you accept Jesus you can go to heaven, but if you’re a Buddhist who feeds the poor, helps the elderly and dedicate your life to doing good works you can’t go to heaven because you didn’t accept him as your lord and saviour and no matter what you’ll be cast into a lake of fire. Personally, I think Jesus is pretty chill and would be slightly more lenient than to immediately throw the buddhist monk into a lake of fire, but according to the Tract website, I would be wrong…dead wrong; So the short end of it is that I was sleeping in and therefore didn’t beat it out of the apartment at my usual time (which is okay in one respect given that I don’t have classes on Wednesdays, but for the intents and purposes of avoidance, it didn’t work out all that well).
I say she’s outsmarted me because on the door of my apartment is a sign basically saying two things: the first, is explaining that my apartment is kosher so not to bring in any non-kosher products. The second thing it states is that my apartment is not a democracy, but rather a benevolent despotism and as much as I think Jesus is cool (which, in all honesty, I do…he’s on my top ten cool guys list and I wish more people would listen to him instead of talk for him) I really don’t very much fancy being witnessed, that I’m happy being Jewish and that I don’t want to offend you with a sharp tongue, you don’t want to offend me by being disrespectful of my beliefs, so let’s just say that we each turn around, go our separate ways, have a nice day and neither of us will offend the other (it’s actually really nicely worded and maybe one day I’ll type it up for you). I know she’s read this, because I’ve heard them outside of my door before reading it to themselves (the walls here, are like paper and my desk is next to the front door).
However, she wasn’t outside my door this time and thus has the ability to have selective amnesia and forget that there’s a sign on my door; so instead, she’s rung my doorbell and thwarted my efforts to avoid the inevitable.
So she’s standing there (her outfit was gorgeous, as usual, everything matched and I’m a little jealous of her hats because at this point, I think she sews them herself because now they’re matching her blouses) and I’m standing there and she begins her speech “Now many people don’t expect us, but I’m here to discuss the Bible with you” and I said “why, thank you very much but I’m Jewish and while I appreciate your coming to see me today, I’m quite happy with my faith” and she asked if I’ve read the bible and I said “yes, I’ve read your bible and I read my Torah daily” and she begins to ask a litany of other questions that get us no where except back to where we started and finally she asks if she can come inside at which point I had to inform her that while I really do appreciate her coming to share her message with me, I am a Rabbinical student (because when you read Torah, you study Torah, and therefore all those who study Torah are students of the Rabbis and who knows, maybe one day I’ll take it to another level and it may have been fudging it a bit but I’ll repent for it later) and that I hoped she had a lovely day.
After pushing some more, she finally understood that I wasn’t inviting her in (if I were more put together, I wouldn’t be opposed to giving her tea or coffee but I just woke up) so as I was walking to campus, I was thinking about the Tract where the guy was in the plane, he was a good man, but didn’t accept Jesus, the plane crashes, he’s brought before Jesus who sits in a big throne, Jesus promptly started to throw him into the lake of fire, the guy protests and said “but you never warned me” and cue this cartoon guys flashback to two very lovely people going “Now many people don’t expect us, but I’m here to discuss the Bible with you” and I thought to myself (as I checked the sky for impending airplanes) “Well, wouldn’t that be all…”