Episode 2 The B.I.B.L.E, yes that's the book for me

In this episode, I talk about a few more tools of indoctrination - including the beginning of the dogma of bible training.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This podcast is intended for mature audiences. So grow up. I'm Les and I'm a storyteller. But these aren't just any stories. These are my stories, untold until now. A Gen Xer who's lived through it all. The analog days, the digital dawn, and everything in between. I'm turning the mic on myself to share the true stories, the awkward moments, and the maybe you had to be there experiences that shaped who I am. This is Gen X Crossing. Episode 2. The B I B L E. Yes, that's the book for me. Heads up. In this episode, I begin to relay memories of my own religious indoctrination which some may find upsetting. Please listen with care. The Bible, also referred to as the Word of God, caps on word and of course always on God, was considered sacred in our house. My mom had a big family Bible. It was in pristine condition, shiny and black. She kept it wrapped tenderly in tissue paper in a trunk, along with other keepsakes and important documents like birth certificates and death certificates. I think it was passed down at least from my grandmother on my mom's side. Inside the front cover were marriages and births. On the back cover were spaces for deaths, names, dates, location. Back in the olden days, as we used to call them, the family Bible was the primary method of recording such events and could easily be the only time someone was even mentioned in writing. We were forbidden from touching it, which probably was a good idea. I can't imagine what five sets of grubby kids' hands would have done to it. Still, I knew it was there and took care not to disturb it when rummaging through the trunk to snoop. In addition to that Bible, my parents each had their own, from which they would read our family devotions. Family devotions were once a week. My parents would pick a passage from the Bible, talk to us about the principles it discussed and what it meant to us as Christians. Then Dad would lead us in prayer. Inevitably, someone would get the giggles during prayer time, and my dad would ignore it, maintain his serious tone, end the prayer, and walk out of the room. This was enough for us to feel chastised. There was this, I don't know, just aura around being able to carry a Bible. Before I could read, I knew that it was a really big deal. There are certain rituals that happen in certain order in Christendom. And I know that for me, um, you didn't get a Bible until you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior. So I remember my mother leading me in the sinner's prayer when I was three. It went something like this Dear Jesus, I know I'm a sinner, and without you I would be bound for hell, and I believe that you're my savior, and so I'm accepting you, Jesus, as my Lord and Savior, and will be a Christian. Something to that effect. So I know you couldn't have a Bible until you did the sinner's prayer. And you want to want your family, if you had a family of believers, you would have a family member lead you to Christ. That's what the word was. So I led him to Christ was a way of saying you got someone to say the magic words to become a Christian. So I said that when I was three. There were other rituals along the way that you have to do at certain ages based on your quote walk with Christ. Um, but that was the first one. Then there was attending church, which in our family was mandatory. That was not something that you could just say, oh no, I don't want to go. No, you went, period. Unless you were throwing up, you were at church. So there was accepting Christ and then regularly attending church, and then the next big deal for us was getting your own Bible. Ideally, it would come from your parents, and mine did. Easter Sunday 1973. I was just about to turn six years old. There it was, leaning neatly on my Easter basket right next to the stuffed rabbit with blue fur and a ton of candy. Hollow chocolate rabbits, jelly beans, these egg-shaped wonders from Brocks that had a candy crunch on the outside and some kind of marshmallow-ish filling on the inside. Ugh. Anyway, I had my very own Bible. Brand new black faux leather paper with simple gold lettering. Holy Bible, red letter edition. Red letter meant that those words that you were reading that were in red were quotes from Jesus Himself. On the way to Easter service church and away from the Easter basket distraction, I examined my new Bible. On the inside cover, there was a verse. My sister read it to me. On the spine under the repeat of Holy Bible, was the word dictionary and King James Version. King James Version was the only version my dad allowed us to read back then. In case you aren't familiar, that is the version with these thou's hast. Nothing to put you in the mood for some hardcore churching, quite like language from the 1600s. I felt so grown up carrying it into the chapel, though I could barely read. It was a rite of passage, signifying that I could no longer leave after the offering when the assistant pastor dismissed smaller kids for children's church. As a first grader, I now had to sit there and listen to the sermon, with my Bible open to the chosen passage of the day, with the help of my mom, of course. I didn't know the Bible yet. There was no doodling, no laying in the pew as we sat with our mom in the balcony. I miss the songs and games from children's church, the props and hand motions, the rousing choruses of songs like Stop and Let Me Tell You What the Lord Has Done for Me. It didn't take long, though, to learn hymns by heart, just by hearing them. Some I already knew from my grandma's Elvis Gospel album, How Great Thou Art, The Old Rugged Cross, In the Garden. Then there were new ones like Onward Christian Soldiers, Marching as to War. These were way more heavy in subject and serious than I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart, which is what we sang in children's church. Sunday school became a bit more serious as well. So just real quick to give you a framework if you didn't grow up with church. So first you went to Sunday school, then there was a little break in between what they called fellowship, and then there was church. And if you were under a certain age, you would go to part of church, we called it big church, and then they would dismiss you to children's church. So couldn't go to children's church anymore, but I still had Sunday school. I remember this one Sunday school lesson that stayed with me for a very long time. The lesson was from a couple of verses in a book called Ephesians, and that's in the New Testament. Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. By way of reminder, I was barely six. Our teacher, a kind old man with just a halo of white hair remaining, was sitting on a chair in a dark suit. He wore glasses with thin round metal frames and was explaining what the word obedience meant, doing what your parents tell you to do without a fuss, making decisions that would make them and God proud of you. What are ways that you can obey your parents? He asked, looking around the circle and smiling at we fidgety kids at his feet. His open Bible was resting on his knees. Our hands shot up eagerly, each of us competing to be called on. He made eye contact with us one at a time. Going to bed when they tell you, not talking back, making your bed, doing your homework, taking a bath. When it came to my turn, I had more of a burning question without a question mark. Guilt was eating away at me. Sometimes when I wake up early before anyone else and I'm hungry, I eat a piece of baloney. His eyes opened a little wider. Do you ask before you get the baloney? No, because my mom and dad are still asleep. Well, he said, looking at me disapprovingly, that's stealing. You should wait until they get up and ask. The group vibe froze a bit and the wiggling bodies paused. I shrunk back, the remaining answers of how to obey our parents fading into the background of my pounding heart and red-hot face. When Sunday school was dismissed, the teacher gave his customary gentle pat of blessing as each of us exited the room. He paused as I crossed the threshold. I looked up at him, his large hand remaining in place. Just ask the Lord to forgive you. Confess to your parents. It'll be okay, he said, smiling. I was really conflicted about this, as I followed my mom and siblings to the balcony for church. They hadn't ever said I couldn't have a piece of baloney when I got up. As long as I didn't wake anyone up too early or make a mess, I was really pretty free to do what I wanted during that hour. It had become my little Sunday morning ritual. Now, it was also my first sin. I prayed during the service for forgiveness for not obeying my parents, and in the months following tried to think of a good time to bring it up. That time never seemed to present itself. So to be on the safe side, I just asked Jesus to forgive me in a little prayer in my head. Every time I opened the meat drawer, flipped open the packaging, and peeled away the plastic casing. I did start hiding the plastic casing in the trash, under other trash, so that my parents wouldn't find out about my thievery. I wiped the baloney slime off the fridge handle too to remove any trace at all. By the end of first grade, I began to understand more about sin. Saying God's name in vain. So if you said, Oh my god, that would be an absolute nobody would say that. That was a sin. You were not to say that. Lying, cheating. Here's a little thing I jotted on a piece of notebook paper when I was little. I solemnly handed it to my mom one day while she was stirring a pot of stew at the end of first grade. It goes like this. Those sad, hard days some days, when people do things I know the Lord cries at. A boy named Tony can't stop swearing to God. I tried to tell him, but he won't listen. Now he is headed for hell. I pray for them all. My mother was so proud of me that she kept that little note, gave it to me when I was an adult. I found it in a box of my stuff when I was working on this podcast. She saw it as proof of my devotion to Christ and compassion for the lost, what we called non-Christians. Lost. A few weeks before Christmas 1974, I sat in Sunday school with Miss Thompson. Miss Thompson was patient, the kind of patience that people without kids always seem to have the reserves to access. She was someone people referred to privately and without malice as an old maid. Back then, a woman who still went by Miss and was of a certain age, in this case her fifties, was assumed to have been never married. We simply were not accustomed to an older, unmarried woman unless it was a widow. Widows usually used their married name and were filled out from motherhood in the business of homemaking. She wasn't conventionally attractive. My seven and a half-year-old mine remembers her having a witchy-shaped face, which wasn't at all helped by the wart just to the right of her chin. But she always made an effort to be fashionable. This day she sported a polyester floral dress in varying shades of blue, white vinyl sandals with a modest square heel, and of course, tan pantyhose. It's amazing what you can recall after so many years. Anyway, Miss Thompson started the class by telling us that she had an early Christmas present for us. Next to her chair was a gray steel folding chair stacked high with brand new Bibles. We all watched in anticipation as she picked up each Bible, opened the front cover to read the name she'd written inside, waited for the named person to come up and give them a God loves you, as she handed it to them. This Bible was much smaller than the one my parents had given me, which I assume they bought like our pants and shoes for me to grow into, because it was an adult-sized Bible. The one from Miss Thompson was also a King James also red letter for the words of Jesus, but was the illustrated Rainbow Edition. It had colorful depictions of various stories from the Bible in a sort of visual montage that wrapped from the front to the back cover. Inside, too, were special page inserts, also with color illustrations, Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark, Moses parting the Red Sea, the Nativity Scene, each with a citation in the lower right corner as to which book of the Bible, chapter and verse, the story could be found. I plopped back down excitedly in my chair after receiving my Bible, enraptured. Not to be confused with raptured, I was enraptured. A kid-sized Bible with pictures. The only picture in my Easter Bible was a map of ancient Palestine and of the Holy Land today on the last two pages. So this was a very nice gift. After everyone had received theirs, including a visitor whose name Miss Thompson jotted into the blank presented-to-portion of a spare Bible, she called us to order. Okay, children, who knows what the first book of the Bible is? Several of us raised our hands enthusiastically. Goodness, she said delightedly, it looks like most of us know, so let's say it together. Genesis. Nathan, will you please stand up and read Genesis 1, verse 1? To the sound of all of us delicately turning the thin, crispy pages, Nathan, a Nordic blonde, smallish kid in white jeans and a cable knit sweater, stood. He followed the line with his index finger, reading aloud. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Very good, she praised, smiling. Genesis 1, 1 is the first book of the Old Testament of the Bible. The Old Testament was written before God sent Jesus to save us, and the New Testament is all about when Jesus died for us and about his disciples. The last book of the Bible in the New Testament is called Revelation. Each Sunday we're going to learn more about what is in each book of the Bible. All of it is God's word, and everything you need to know about living in the world as Christians is in these pages, she said, holding up her own Bible proudly. She passed around black ballpoint pens then. These were only to borrow, she explained. The last thing we are going to do today is make a promise to God. Open your new Bibles to this page. She demonstrated, showing the publisher information page just opposite of the list of the books of the Old and New Testament. Up here, in this corner, write these words. She got up from her seat and moved to the chalkboard. This Sunday school room doubled as a schoolroom during the week. I she wrote as she narrated to the pace of her writing. Your name goes here, she said, drawing a line, then continuing. Promise to try to read my Bible every day. I carefully wrote in my promise, attempting to imitate her handwriting but failing miserably. The next week we started memorizing the books of the Bible in order, and then we would have a lesson for the day, subjects like Jesus dying for our sins, accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior, being baptized, the fundamentals of following Jesus and believing in God as our Father. We started with some of the basics. If you grew up in church you know this one, John three sixteen, for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son that whosoever should believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. That was one of the first ones I memorized. We went back over the Bible stories from kindergarten and first grade, but this time we heard more details about why God flooded the earth. Spoiler alert sin. And why Adam and Eve were cast out from the Garden of Eden, spoiler alert sin. How it was that Jonah found himself in the belly of the whale, spoiler alert, it's sin. Only this time sins were more specific. Disobedience of God, wickedness, corruption. Don't let this happen to you, we learned, and God won't have to punish you. As I moved along through third, fourth, and then fifth grade, the focus was on Bible drills, with a big emphasis on accepting Christ and being baptized. Since I'd already accepted Christ, being baptized was going to be the next milestone. We're going to talk about that and my continuing indoctrination through the Bible in our next episode. Thank you for listening. It means the world to me that you give precious moments of your day to hear these stories from my life. If you're enjoying what you're hearing, I would love it if you would like and subscribe. Until next time, peace out of the video.