No Man Can Serve Two Masters

I was fifteen when I made, at least emotionally, the most difficult decision of my life: I was leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I remember quite vividly sitting in my bed before dinner, trying to convince myself that my decision wasn’t a mere act of adolescent temper or unreflective rebellion, as everyone would inevitably think. Even though it had been a long time coming, I kept postponing the confession both because I had little appetite for bringing so much sorrow down upon the people closest to me, and because I wanted to be sure I was doing it for genuine reasons. After all, the religion had marked me indelibly. It had, of course, constrained me in any number of noxious ways, but it had also afforded me a stable and loving community, and had been my principal point of contact with a great part of my family. In leaving, I was estranging myself from all of that. And yet, as I walked downstairs for dinner -- which I knew was going to turn sour -- I was in no doubt that I was making the right move. I felt bound to something that outweighed it all; and I was taught that no man can serve two masters.