Two Worlds

Stella introduced me to the amazing Danish film "To Verdener", based on the true story of Tabita, a 17 year old girl who was expelled from the Jehova's Witnesses when she fell in love with a boy from outside the sect.

My favorite part of the movie is a dialogue the ficitionalized Tabita (who in the film is called Sara) has with her father towards the end. She has come to church to attend the funeral of a friend, who incidentally has died after an accident, by refusing a blood transfusion. Everybody ignores Tabita, of course, but after the service her father follows her out and tells her off for being so selfish.

"Don't you realize how much you're hurting me and your brother and sister by being here?"he says.

She answers by asking "Do you love me?"

-"How can you even ask me that? Of course I do!"
-"And do you love god more than me?"
-"Yes."
-"Why?"
-"Because he created me. He is my heavenly father. He will give me eternal life."
-"You know what, dad? I think that is very selfish of you" she says, and walks away.

AND THAT IS JUST IT! It couldn't be put clearer!

To love god above everyone and everything is perforce a selfish kind of love. If we love someone because we expect from them something in return, isn't that just selfishness and fear, rather than love? Even if there were a god that had made us and was super sage, wouldn't he want us to love each other more than we love him? Love is really love when it is felt as a full appreciation of its object, when it is given not because of perfection, but because of imperfections.

This is why the question of whether god exists becomes irrelevant. It's so much more important that we're able to love each other, rather than worry about the existence of a creator!

Anyway, here's a videoclip in Spanish, not a part of the movie itself but another true story of someone who grew up with the Witnesses.



I have to talk with Ruth next time I'm in Argentina, see how things have been for her, as a child of witnesses. Ruth's in her 20s now, the daughter of my cousins; she's living with a married man and away from her parents, as far as I know. Throughout most of her life I have been outside the country, which means I've only met her a couple of times... Still, I wonder what her relationship with her family and their religion is like these days.

Morbid curiosity, perhaps?