Basic Reading: Sunday Penance

 

Torture Stake, Not a Cross

I hesitated a long while whether to include this part in Basic Reading, mostly because it wasn’t really reading in any sort of creative sense, and it was never meant to be. It was meant to be a mind-numbing, soul-crushing, bland food to be crammed down and spewed forth again by rote. For seven long years we were isolated from participating in anything social, political, cultural or historical, except for anything pertaining to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and it made us odd. I don’t really want to blame Mom, although she was responsible for it (Pop certainly didn’t care about it but went along with things to be peaceful); she was just as duped as anyone and got out as soon as she realized a few things.

By a peculiar sort of paradox, we were encouraged to be as intelligent and as well-mannered as we could be, to prove how superior our way of life was to ‘the outside world.’ We were just forbidden to use that intelligence for anything but the propagation of the Ministry. ‘Art’, both literary and graphic, was discouraged, except for the simple, sanitized, bland offerings served up by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Among the children of the Kingdom Hall, there could be no other allowed subject of enthusiastic conversation, no cartoons, no TV shows, no music, no movies. That was all ‘worldly.’ Not that such things weren’t indulged in on the sly. You couldn’t help it.

Well. These days I try not to dwell on that period too much, to give it too much oxygen, as it were. It is too bitter. No birthdays, no holidays, no friends (‘worldly associates’), all cut out of the deepest heart of my childhood. I think that was the one aspect of the business that Pop appreciated: not having to buy presents for his swarming brood on any regular basis.

But out of such arid fare as the Kingdom Hall (not a Church; those were corrupt!) offered us, we still tried to squeeze some imaginative or even spiritual nourishment.  ‘Reading’ included all the candy-colored Watch Tower Society ‘study books’ we were expected to buy, and it was a bonus if they had any illustrations.

Off we would go every Sunday, each boy armed with a purple song book (not a hymnal!) and a bright green translation of the Scriptures (not a Bible, but a New World Translation of the Holy Scripture!), the famous ‘Green Ghost’ produced by no known translators or scholars but strictly vetted to adhere to JW doctrine. On the inside cover they did have a world map, showing the lands and peoples of the ancient world, including a friendly little dinosaur wandering the sandy wastes of Africa. What were we to make of that?

We did get some mileage poring over the map, the only ‘illustration’ allowed in the book. Perhaps my fascination with maps in other Fantasy books even stems from the JW version of their ‘Bible’.

But for reading (not at the Kingdom Hall, of course, that was given over to ‘talks’ and ‘studies’) we kids had the Paradise book (From Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained), a large, profusely illustrated volume following the retelling of ‘salvation history’ from the JW slant, for children. That was better, in a way, because it included fantastical drawings (wizards! dragons! miracles! slaughter! torture!) as did the magazines The Watchtower and Awake! These regularly featured sinners getting theirs (just getting killed, of course, Hell didn’t exist) and the saved enjoying a romp in Paradisal Earth. Fear, not love, was a big part of indoctrination. There was certainly no comfort.

Well. Like I said, I should leave it be; I’ve already gone on too long about it. It happened, and it can’t ‘unhappen’, although it was certainly unhappy. It still lurks in the dark corners of my memory, but at least it has been washed out of my spirit. I’m just glad it did not sour me on God.