Week 3 – Response to Jo’s journal entry – Pine Lake JW’s (Week 2, Memory 1)

I catch a glimpse of the two older, black women wearing shrouded black dresses as if in mourning. They stand in the middle of the street at the corner, wiping their brows, trying to decide which narrow street of Pine Lake to go up, away from the lake or continue on around the lake. I fear they are moving towards my front porch, designed to welcome visitors. I grab my cell phone and hurry to the back of the house out of sight. I call my friend five houses up and warn her that there are JWs in our midst. She curses, thanks me for letting her know. Says she will hide out in the spaceship, her nickname for her closet office. My doorbell rings. I stay hidden in my bedroom; modulate my breathing as if they can hear; wait for what I think is the appropriate time for them to disperse and peek out to the living room, then beyond out the sidelight windows of the front door. The two women once again stand in the middle of the road in the sun looking like ancient mourners at the Wailing Wall. They inch up the street so slowly I know it will be awhile before they are ringing my friend’s doorbell. I wonder if their ankles are swollen; if their salvation hangs on their willingness to go into neighborhoods; how many doorbells they must ring, how many pamphlets they must hand out or leave. I think of two black slugs sliding along the uneven pavements of our roads, and text my friend, “No hurry, but here they come.”

My response:

Why do we hide when unexpected visitors ring our door bell?  What do we expect from them?  Is it fear of being molested or things turning so violent we won’t be able to survive?  Are we just annoyed that we were so rudely interrupted doing some very important task?  How important is it really?  What is it like to be a person who holds such strong beliefs about salvation that they are willing to face rejection, to have doors slammed in their faces?  To have people immediately bristle that they want to share life everlasting with?  What would it take for me to be so powerfully convinced that my fellow humans will perish that I would risk such humiliation?