I Can't Believe. It's Not Butter.

My kingdom for the genuine article.

Susan has written me again. The envelope is unmistakable: dull and unassuming. It has none of the marketing oomph of its yammering mailbox mates: a shrill Pizza Pizza flyer, a relentlessly cheery Good Food discount card, a self-congratulatory puff piece from my Member of Parliament. Or does it? My eye and curiosity are drawn to the unadorned #10 white business envelope.

I haven’t heard from her in a while, I’m eager to see what she has to say. I notice with some regret that she’s switched from handwriting the envelope to using a printer, a shame. Her handwriting isn’t great but it was more personal. Perhaps this is her way of telling me she’s less invested in our relationship.

Susan is a Jehovah's Witness, that’s why she writes to me. If the return address is to be believed she lives just a few blocks away. Not that she’s given me reason to doubt her it’s just that the church is over in that direction as well, probably a coincidence, a small “JW.ORG” plaque gracing its buttoned-up facade like a decoder lapel pin. While the church is a tidy, discreet credit to its neighbourhood I prefer to think of Susan, an actual person, as my neighbour. She herself uses the word neighbour in her letter. 

A friend of mine befriended a Witness once. One day they were standing on my friend’s porch talking and next thing they were sitting and drinking tea in her living room and arranging for future visits. They talked about religion, may still, neither of them ever seriously entertaining the notion of conversion but each holding out hope that with time and patience a crack might form in the other where their respective lights could get in. 

The closest I’ve come to an in-person encounter with a Witness in recent years was at the home of another friend, six of us gathered for a sleepover. We’d just smoked a joint. We were at that delicate tipping point between bliss and paranoia, jollity and sleepiness, our destination as yet unconfirmed, when a trio of female Witnesses trooped up to the front door and knocked. We saw them through the front window. Hide, one of us said. Force of habit. Had they seen us? Our high listed momentarily to paranoia. But wait. They were leaving. What a relief. Down the steps they went. Through the side window, however, we saw them tack left at the corner of the house and sail toward the back door like the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria intent on laying anchor, storming our beach, and settling our ungodly shore. They were coming for us.  

Between fits of laughter we pooled our stoned resources to rouse our indignation. It was Saturday night, for god’s sake. What were they thinking? My friends had been at the point, the peak, of discovering a shared fantasy that featured ex-national TV news anchor Peter Mansbridge, that ecstasy now in danger of evaporating. One of the friends seeing there was nothing for it but to tackle the Witnesses head on met them at the back door. Are you busy, one of them asked, Do you have a moment? Very busy, my friend said, Most busy, Not a good time. She encouraged them to rethink their Saturday night rounds while the rest of us snorted and chortled out of sight like the relapsed delinquents we were.

But my Susan arrives by mail. Dignified. Plain-spoken. It’s like she knows me and my love of the written word, either that or she can’t get through building security. Her style is straightforward. She anticipates and preempts what she thinks may be my objections. “Although suffering may result when God’s laws are ignored, the Bible does not indicate (emphasis hers) that disasters in general are acts of God designed to punish the wicked.” Good to know. I was clearly wrong. I definitely grew up thinking he was one merciless son of a bitch owing to the unrestrained appetite he showed for young Littlefair flesh, four of my five siblings dead by the time I was twelve. Convinced he was at the bottom of it I gave him the finger and turned tail.  

Now I’ve received a second letter. It’s unfair of me perhaps, small-minded, but I had greater faith in Susan’s faith, greater faith in her convictions, when she wrote by hand, a cursive computer font no substitute. I read it anyway. But for one “is” where it should be an “are” her writing is still grammatical and succinct, the narrative tight. This time she speaks of “wars with nation against nation” and our children and the future. Apparently even though we bring trouble on ourselves by ignoring God’s laws, even though we have no one to blame but ourselves, God has our collective backs, he “will bring an end to war.” He doesn’t start them but he’ll finish them. For us. He’s like that. 

But what’s this? I’m still digesting the contents of the message when I notice the signature. It’s not from Susan at all, it’s from Carol. Carol who? Who’s Carol? Is she a neighbour too? Odd. A poseur? But wait: she has the same return address. The church! Is the church the sender? Have I been duped? Is there no Susan or Carol at all? Have I been the subject of a letter-writing scheme orchestrated to leverage my very own fear and loneliness in an effort to win my soul? On the spot I long for the marketing integrity of celebrity endorsements, the lure of a surprise gift in my box of cereal, the ingenuity of a two-for-one sale dressed up as BOGO, the siren call of free shipping and returns. Free samples. Cashback. Or the subtlety and nuance of an old fashioned magazine scratch n’ sniff ad attempting to lead me by the nose. Gimmicks. Anything but this, faux friendliness and attempts at personal connection to ensnare me. My kingdom for an honest set of Wendy’s coupons!

While I hadn’t been in serious danger of falling prey I nonetheless felt preyed upon. For shame, JW. Letter-writing must work some number of times, there must be some return on investment souls-wise, but at what cost to the organization’s good works and reputation? If people need religion they’ll find it, that’s how it works, no gimmicks required.

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash