Jumpin' Jehovasaphat

I love me some Jehovah’s Witnesses. Yes indeed I do.

No, I'm not mocking them. I respect the hell out of them, though I doubt they’d want me to phrase it that way.

Think about it: When was the last time you cared enough about something – anything – to interrupt and invade the personal space of total strangers and get cussed out for telling them about it?

When you’re sober, I mean. The other doesn’t count.

Aside from the sheer enormity of their effort, which your lazy, apathetic and skeptical Auntie can’t get over, there’s the philosophical angle.

Auntie was a Philosophy major during the Roosevelt administration (don’t ask which one, brat) and can still quote Thomas Aquinas from the Summa Theologiae. I just broke a bookend, finding my copy to check the spelling.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Internet. See previous, re: Roosevelt.

Today’s Jehovah’s Witness couldn’t handle an actual theological discussion. Oh well.

She was, however, pleasant and hugely enthusiastic. She really-really-really wanted me to know that God wants me to be happy and healthy. She also wanted me to read the Bible.

Guess what! I’ve read it. Okay, only as far as the begats in Genesis, and that was for a class in college called “The Bible As Literature.” (Don’t start, Sis. I moved the punctuation inside the quotation mark there, so we’re even.)

I didn’t tell her I’d read it, though. There might have been a quiz.

Since I hadn’t put up an argument, all she could do was reiterate her position. Again and again. She wasn’t smart enough to rephrase, or hit it from another angle, or do anything but repeat.

She was nice. I liked her. But even the silent older woman handler behind her looked weary of all that childlike enthusiasm.

Childlike, not too bright – they say God protects children and idiots.

I guess she’s in the right place, God bless her. I hope no one cusses her out.