Going Out Into Service.

Within a couple years of us moving into Lawrence Heights, my mother had become totally immersed in her newfound faith. So much so that she symbolized her dedication to her new God Jehovah through baptism by immersion with other likeminded Witnesses.

I too was also becoming much more active in my mother’s new religion. With so many other Jehovah’s Witnesses living in the Jungle all of my new friends were also in the same boat as me. We were all living the JW way of life, not so much because we wanted to, but because we had to. We all went to the same Kingdom Hall and we were all enrolled as publishers. Being a publisher required that each of us perform a minimum of ten hours a month going door-to-door soliciting the Watchtower and Awake magazines.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses call this going out into service.

In order to get my required ten hours, it meant I needed to be going out into service almost every Saturday and Sunday. My mother was dead set on each of her sons getting the minimum ten hours every single month and most months I had more than the required ten hours. The main objective of door-to-door service is to seek out lost souls who are seeking direction. Once they are found then a weekly bible study would ensue. Eventually, the hope is for them to also become a dedicated God fearing Jehovah’s Witness. They would now be spared from the impending Armageddon that the JW’s are forever warning of.

Rinse and repeat over and over and over.

I myself spent literally hundreds of hours going door-to-door seeking out those lost souls. Lost souls exactly like my mother herself had been back in Montreal desperately looking for some direction and something to grasp on to.

Personally, I never found any.

Besides, what fuck’n person in their right mind was going to listen to a teenager standing on their doorstep warning of an impending Armageddon anyway? I can’t count how many times I had a door slammed in my face. Over the years it would be in the hundreds.

But there I was week after week, month after month, year after year knocking on strangers doors. I never had any choice because my mother made me do it. I absolutely abhorred going out into service within my own neighborhood. By far the hardest part of door-to-door service for me was knocking on the door of a classmate or someone you knew from your school. There was no doubt that I was sure to be ridiculed the following week. I prayed while walking up to the door that nobody was home, but for the most part my prayers would fall on deaf ears.

And, without fail the following week at school I would hear “Mike showed up at my door wearing his suit with some old guy. He had bible magazines in his briefcase that he was trying to sell me. What a fuck'n loser.”

Or a reasonable facsimile.

Standing on a street corner with the Watchtower in hand was another option towards achieving the required ten hours of monthly service. I hated standing on a street corner even more than I hated knocking on doors. A group of us would usually hit a high traffic intersection on any given Saturday morning. We would split into pairs and ideally there would be two of us on each of the four corners. There we would be standing for hours greeting people who were coming and going while trying to get our literature into their hands.

Someone from my school would always see me on the corner and without fail the following week at school I would hear “Mike was standing on the corner wearing his suit with some old guy. He was selling his Watchtowers out of his briefcase. What a fuck'n loser.”

Or a reasonable facsimile.

By month's end I would always have my required minimum ten hours. There was a little slip I would need to fill out, sign and then deposit into a box at the back of the Kingdom Hall. If my hours ever began to slip, I am pretty sure I would have heard about it. No worries, I always wrote in ten hours even if I was short an hour or two.

I remember one weekend when I was ten years old the three of us went out into service up at our unassigned territory. Unassigned territories are remote locations that were not close to any Kingdom Halls so there would be no Witnesses regularly calling on them. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that everyone must have the opportunity to accept Jehovah. They are a worldwide organization and they will eventually knock on every door and attempt to save every soul on the planet.

That is their sole mission.

Our Kingdom Hall’s territory was French River, a four hour drive north of Toronto. A group from our hall rented a few cabins and we all drove up on the Friday night. We literally spent two solid days on both the Saturday and Sunday blitzing the whole area going door-to-door. It would be late on the Sunday night before we got back home.

Even at such a young age that weekend was a reality check for me. I always thought the three of us were dirt poor, but money was even scarcer up there than it was living in the projects. I remember many of the mostly Aboriginal residents wanting to trade us apples or baked goods for our Watchtower publications because they had no money. Most of the literature we just gave away to them for free if they promised to read them.

I will never forget the poverty that I witnessed on that weekend. Maybe we weren’t as dirt poor as I thought we were. No, we were still dirt poor, they were just dirtier poor.

There were many Witnesses at our Kingdom Hall who were referred to as pioneers. The majority were housewives who did not work and had an abundance of free time on their hands. A pioneer is dedicated to completing a hundred hours of going out into service each month. My mother on occasion had also been a pioneer and she always thought someday it would be nice for both me and my brother to experience the joy from pioneering.

My God, she could be so delusional at times.

I knew in my heart even back in those early days that there wasn’t a hope in hell I would ever be a pioneer. I also knew eventually that I would no longer even be a publisher either. However while I was living under my mother’s roof, I had to play by her rules.

And going out into service for ten hours a month was one of her rules.

During the years attending the Kingdom Hall I would see many new faces starting to show up at our meetings. They were now studying the bible and just like my mother for the most part they were single mothers raising their kids. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are like a magnet for single mothers from broken marriages. In fact I can't recall off hand of any two parent families who became Jehovah’s Witnesses while I attended the Yorkdale congregation. There were indeed many two parent families at our hall, but they were already there before I arrived.

Because I was a publisher I was also now giving six minute bible talks at our Kingdom Hall. Bible talks are a form of public speaking; I would be given a bible passage that I had to explain in full detail within a six minute time frame. I would be told weeks in advance of my impending talk and my mother was very diligent in making sure I was totally prepared. I would practically have my complete talk memorized by the time I had to speak.

Our Thursday night bible talks were on a rotating schedule and I only had to speak maybe twice a year. I was part of a rather large congregation and if everyone attended any given meeting, there would be close to eighty in attendance. I actually never minded getting up on the little stage talking through a microphone and it was those bible talks that I credit even to this day for instilling in me the confidence that I would carry into and throughout my adult life.

We always had what my mother often referred to as wholesome theocratic get togethers and I had so many great memorable fun times. There was always something to look forward to while I was a teenager. Whatever the three of us did it always included some of the 'brothers' and 'sisters' at our Kingdom Hall. With the exception of a friendly greeting when we saw them in the hallway, we literally had nothing to do with any of our thirty plus neighbors living in our apartment building.

My mother called them all 'worldlings' and bad association.

When I think back on those early years from the 70's I can’t believe just how much time I spent living the Jehovah’s Witness way of life. Every single week I spent a minimum of ten hours studying for the meetings, attending the meetings and going out into service. There was not a lot of free time, especially during the school year. Whatever free time I did have was always used as a bargaining chip for my mother and if I got out of line or failed to live up to her lofty expectations I would be grounded. Once my mother grounded either my brother or me there would be no mercy or no reprieve for good behavior. Our sentence was carved in stone and would be served in full at 11 Flemington Road cell #204.

No exceptions.

My mother was very strict with both me and my brother. She was a single mother raising two boys in a housing project and I get that. The problem was everything with her was cut and dry, black or white; there was no grey area with my mother.

Fear was how our mother kept both of us in line. It was the fear of forever being grounded and missing out on the little things that we enjoyed doing and looked forward to. It took years but eventually I would no longer live in fear of my mother. I realized that if my teenage life was going to have any sense of normalcy, everything I did would have to be thought out and planned in advance.

I would need to have all my bases covered.

Batter up!