My father was always “death” on
– he constantly
played it “to the hilt” in front of the workers.
He even got so extreme in denouncing Christmas that two sister workers decided to play a joke on him. The workers’ names were Julia Brown (sister to Arnold Brown) and Leatha Austin.
One Christmas Eve they tip-toed in through deep, unplowed snow, in the middle of the night (12:00am), to leave a Christmas gift addressed to my father on the back door step! They didn’t dare drive in, because they were afraid the sound of the car would wake my father up, or worse, they would get their car stuck in the snow! It was only about a quarter of a mile from the main, plowed road, down the road to our house. Our elder, George Chappell, actually drove the Workers so he would be there in case they got stuck and needed help.
I remember my father waking up and walking to look out the back door when all of a sudden he “war-whooped” that someone had left a big Christmas package on the back door step! He immediately declared that he was going to take it down cellar and burn it unopened, in the incinerator! Then he thought about it for awhile, wondering who would have left a Christmas gift – unsigned – addressed to him, from Santa Claus!
He decided to carefully unwrap it so as not to tear the Christmas paper, to see if he could find out who had sent it. Inside was a box of Fannie Farmer’s Christmas Chocolates, wrapped in wads of newspaper. Each newspaper, my father carefully unfolded and spread out evenly with his hands, hoping to find some clue. On one of the papers he found it! The newspaper had a subscription sticker on it that listed our elder and his address, so my father (who knew that the workers were staying with him and his family) decided that the workers were playing a joke on him by giving him that Christmasgift – him of all the saints who hated and deplored Christmas! So this is what he did:
But first I must tell you about Julia Brown. She was a Worker who was very down to earth, but also very neat and fastidious about herself. She had deep brown eyes, dark hair that was very curly and “flared” out beside her head. And she loved to laugh. Actually, giggle, uncontrollably, and it wasn’t at all difficult to get her to shriek and laugh her head off. She would try very, very hard to bring herself under control, but once she got going, she was crazed. My father always hinted that Julia needed a man to calm her down. Our elder agreed, so apparently one could say that she exuded a certain degree of sexual tension, not uncommon to find in a middle aged, attractive woman, worker or not. One of these areas of “sexual tension,” however, was Julia’s abhorrence to men’s woolly, long underwear, the kind that has a “backdoor” – she just hated to drive up and see my father’s long underwear hanging on the clothesline – it set her all atwitter, or one might say, increased her sexual tension to an embarrassing high, although she always tried to make it and tone it down which made it more obvious than ever, especially to my mother who did not like it one bit, as mother was very possessive of my father’s attentions.
The morning passed, a quiet, uncelebrated Christmas morning, like all the others, but I did notice that my father spent an awful long time down in the cellar with the Christmas package. I was hoping he would incinerate the candy, as it looked pretty good. Just before dinner, who should drive up, but the Workers? And what do you suppose they did? They very soon inquired of my father if he had received any Christmas gifts (giggle giggle). My father said, with a big disgusted sigh, “Well! Yes,” he had – but he had taken it right down cellar to burn it in the incinerator! The Workers cried out, “No! No! Open it!” To which my father replied he was going to burn it and that was it! This “argument” went on for quite awhile, until my father gave in to the Workers and went down cellar and brought up the completely rewrapped Christmas gift --- just as it had arrived!
I was surprised to see it so neatly wrapped up again but I, of course, said nothing, as I knew that my father knew the Christmas gift was from the Workers. I imagined that he was going to open it in disgust at the Christmas candy and “carry on” about that.
My father put the Christmas package on the floor in front of Julia Brown (who by now was all flushed with anticipation) and slowly began opening the package, so slowly was he opening the package, in fact, that Julia kept urging him on to go faster! Suddenly, as quick as a flash, my father grabbed something inside the package and leapt to his feet! There in his hands, held high above his head, were a pair of red “woolly, long underwear”, the kind with the backdoor, and which he swished around in front of Julia’s face! She let out a shriek! And, in fact, so did Leatha, who was “the quiet shy one” of the two! Julia suddenly fell on the floor, rolling off the couch with a loud thump, because she couldn’t stop laughing! She was absolutely beside herself with hysterical laughing! This went on for 20 minutes, at the end of which, Julia managed to get herself up off the floor and compose herself on the couch, when suddenly my father reached down into the package and pulled out another red woolly pair of long underwear! Julia let out another shriek and promptly rolled off the couch with a loud thump and the laughing began all over again!
Later, we sat around and ate the candy. I honestly think that was the best Christmas I ever had – and to think, in a “professing home” with two Workers!!
I hope you enjoyed the story because it shows the “other side” of some of the more friendly Workers who were not so stiff and hard-lined” as the others who had been and later, came along. But this was under Henry Moore, the Overseer who was kind and not so strict. The Overseers are like princes ruling in their own particular way, with their own individual set of “rules”.
I must tell you the following story while I am thinking of it. My Mother observed the Ruth, “of the revolution”, (you know which one I mean) wearing toeless shoes. My mother, not knowing yet all the unwritten rules by which she was judged, went out and bought herself a pair. Esther O’ Stranda told my mother in no uncertain terms that she was NOT to wear toeless shoes!! My mother stammered out the fact that Ruth wore them and that was why she had thought it was all right to buy them. Esther said, “There are some people that we don’t try to correct because they just won’t listen to us!” That was the end of the discussion, but my mother was livid!! I remember my mother and father going to the edge of the dump and winding up and throwing each shoe into the dump as far as she could! I remember thinking she looked rather like a wild woman. When she got back in the car, she was still in a temper. If it was all right for Ruth to wear toeless shoes, why wasn’t it all right for her to do so?! Since my father didn’t wear toeless shoes, he didn’t see what my mother was so upset about. It was, of course, the principle of the thing.
What an unreal world; a world of inconsistent contradictions,
a world ruled by unrules.
- Did you ever notice the peculiar speaking habit with which some professing people and workers use in meeting or while discussing “spiritual things”?
- They sound so humble, soft spoken and docile in their “righteous” voice which is very unlike their normal voice?
I am somewhat familiar with the concept of religious addiction having observed my professing family in action. I have to admit my father was the worse offender. He was constantly quoting the Bible and always in a very subdued, “holier-than-thou” tone of voice. I believe he used this tactic to hide himself (inebriate himself) from having to deal with real problems; if he clothed himself in Biblical verses, from head to toe, who could possibly get past that “holy” defense?
My mother, on the other hand, was very emotional and couldn’t hide her feelings even when she tried. My father’s denial of his emotions as well as her emotions, often drove her past the point of no return – especially when my father threw his smug, self-righteous shroud of professing jabber-wocky over his head in order to hide from her pressing need to express her feelings.
Some days my mother simply “had it”!
And one of those days I’ll never forget!
Mother was trying to get my father to acknowledge the fact that she was upset. My father started quoting the Bible to shame her into keeping quiet. Suddenly, she got up from the kitchen table, where we were all having dinner, and walked over to the counter, got a huge bowl of tapioca pudding and plopped it over his head. The bowl came to rest like an over-sized hat, a “crown” that had very much slipped, if you will, and my father was covered with the thick goo of tapioca pudding.
Instead of jumping up and yelling, “What the---do you think you are doing?” My father continued to sit there pretending to be totally undisturbed – still quoting Bible verses! In between verses, verses that referred to being “long-suffering” (as he pretended to be), he would stick his tongue out, and lick the pudding as if he was enjoying it immensely!
Mother didn’t know whether to laugh or cry! Frankly, we children rather enjoyed the scene. Even though we couldn’t articulate what was going on at the time, and even though mother’s actions seemed extreme, it pointed out very clearly how much father would deny his own pain and humiliation and how he (cowardly) hid behind the Bible to do so.
Looking back at it now, I realize that mother was just trying to get an honest human reaction from my father; to get him to relate to her on a human level. We all recognized the truth in what mother was trying to do and her right to demand that my father get off his superior, “holier-than-thou” perch and come down to earth where God put us and meant for us to be.
It is this “heady” height of this perch that intoxicates, especially when the perch is shared with several other high flying birds. Instead of moving closer to God, the birds escape their God-given obligations by pretending to rise above it all. They lose touch with reality; and reality is often painful. Rather than confront their pain (an angry wife), they fly off and “booze it up” by going to meeting or quoting Bible verses. Mother never called my father a “religious addict” but she frequently called him a “religious fanatic” which I think more accurately describes the illness.
The dictionary defines the following words:
Religion: The belief in and reverence for the Creator and Governor of the universe.
The Bible speaks of religion in a negative sense and a positive sense. Impure religion is a pretense, being double minded, trying to serve two masters: self and God. James 1:27 says, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows and orphans in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” In other words, true belief is more than words; it affects our behavior towards the needy and the world.
Addict: tr.v. To devote or give oneself habitually or compulsively; to become physiologically or psychologically dependent on a habit forming substance or behavior.
Lenin said, “Religion is the opiate of the soul.” That statement denies the proper place that true religion has. In other words, I don’t think it is possible to get too close to God or to be too thankful to God. I thank God several times a day for all that He has seen me through. God has been good to me. I can’t emphasize that enough! (False religion is an opiate, not true religion which is a healthy relationship.)
True religion is not numbing, like a narcotic; if an addiction means to devote, certainly devotion is not destructive. So let’s look at the word, “fanatic.”
Fanatic: A person possessed by an excessive, unreasoning and irrational zeal, especially for a social, religious, or political cause; or enthusiasm for entertainment or athletic pursuits.
“Fanatic” implies the pursuit of a given interest to lengths that are inordinate, irrational and destructive, often to the virtual exclusion of other important interests.
What I think has really happened through the workers’ religion is
what Jesus Christ described when he called the scribes and Pharisees “hypocrites:”
the pretense to be something which one is not,
a form of godliness without the power; false piety without true virtue.
Hypocrites deceive themselves even more than they deceive others.
We have the words of Jesus Christ on our side.
Christ absolutely hated religious hypocrisy; excessive, affected piety, and self-righteousness!
Christ was plenty angry on this issue; and it is the same issue that we are angry about too!
Religious fanatics do not serve God!
They serve themselves, their egos, and their need for attention.
It is a certain way to serve self instead of God.
A young unprofessing man met a sister worker (well known for her stiffness) a few years ago and later was asked what he thought of her. He paused a moment and then candidly replied, “Well, she seems like a nice mean person.”
