A friend and I finished lunch and walked out of the restaurant towards a bench that overlooked the Hudson River. While engaged in conversation, a woman approached carrying booklets, saying Excuse me, ladies… I turned to meet her gaze and listen. I’d like to share with you some news about the Four Horsemen. This is an article about who they are and how they affect our lives today. She held out a thin newsprint magazine with the name Watchtower that I recognized as the publication of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a religious group that often goes door-to-door sharing Christian material. The magazine matched with the familiar vibration of her approach—a resonance of my prior experience with the members of this path.
Sure, thank you, I answered, taking the magazine from her and placing it in my bag. She continued about the word of God while I dug in my purse for a gift back to her—my response to the offering of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I found a little yellow card in my wallet with the word HU printed on it and an list of the benefits that can be found by singing this word silently or aloud.
And I’d like to offer you something, I said, handing her the HU card. What is this? She asked, holding it warily. This is the word HU. It’s a love song to God that you can sing like this (I demonstrated by singing in a drawn out breath Huuuuuu…. pronounced like the word “hue”). It’s for recognizing all the blessings around us every day.
There was a moment of silence in which she looked at me so fiercely I wondered if she might say something harsh. But as she held my gaze, she said, It’s amazing, isn’t it? Unmasked, the light in her eyes met the light in mine with equal knowing, Yes, it is.
She smiled gently and turned to walk away. I returned to the conversation with my friend as she called out, there’s a discourse online that you can read, too. It’s in there. She’d remembered her script, all she was supposed to say.
My experience over the years with Jehovah’s Witnesses is that they love God in their own way and believe in sharing what they hold to be true. I’ve had wonderful conversations with several members of their church about love and gratitude for all things divine.
Perhaps it was my grandfather’s staunch atheism that taught me to respect whatever each Soul I meet has decided is true. I chose to prove truth to myself through direct experience. So who am I to speak to the experience of another? The spiritual fact of beingness, of the opportunity to meet one another’s gaze and recognize common ground, is enough.