Vanity Trumps God

Latest bit of wackiness from my mother.

So, Dante has been spending Spring Break in Kentucky this week. He got down there Friday night. This past Saturday was the day of the one celebration Jehovah's Witnesses officially recognize: the Memorial. Now, if you don't know what that is, I'll explain it to you. It's the most boring ceremony on the face of the earth. You go to church at "sundown" (or as near as you can manage it) to remember the night before Jesus died--the last supper bit. So, it starts off with a hymn and a prayer. A small speech is given about that night and the events that supposedly happened then. They read the scriptures from the gospels describing what happened. When they get to the part where Jesus sends the bread around the table and says "This means my body," the JWs pass around a little basket of unleavened bread. One of the little old ladies in the congregation basically bakes it beforehand and doesn't use any yeast. You pass it quietly from person to person. Then the speaker reads the scripture where Jesus passes the wine and says "This means my blood." Then a glass of wine gets passed from person to person. That part was fairly nerve wracking as a kid, because you didn't want to be the one who spilled the glass (oh noes! Jesus' blood is on my dress!).

Now, you don't actually eat or drink either of these items. Unless you happen to be among the "chosen" 144,000 who are supposed to go to heaven and rule with God. Then you get to eat the nasty bread and sip the wine. This is all self reported, of course, but only around 2000 people out of the 6 million JWs worldwide self report. Interestingly, they also seem to be mainly composed of old, white Americans. Hmmm. I think I've only ever seen one or two people eat/drink at that ceremony, and they were visiting. Afterward there is more prayer, and then everybody goes home. Bo-ring. I have seen brothers and sisters drinking the wine after the meeting was over. It loses its specialness then. Nobody noshes the bread afterward, because apparently it's pretty gross. It's the one event they publicize for. They spend prior weeks knocking on people's doors with special little tracts about the event. It's the one time you push hard to drag everything and everybody you know there. It's "Teh Big Deal."

So, I'm on the phone with Dante's dad and he gets a call coming in. When he switches back, he tells me, "Yo mom is a piece of work!" He was mad. Apparently, she had gotten Dante for the afternoon/evening for the purpose of dragging him to this event--which his dad neither knew about nor approved of. But now, she was whisking Dante back to his dad's apartment blathering about how she couldn't take him "looking like that." What was wrong?

Dante's braids were out and he had an afro.

In the course of the conversation, Mom called him a "wildman" and ranted on and on about how she didn't even have a du-rag to put over it, as if walking into church with your du-rag is better than walking in with a fro. She went on about how she had been "assured" that he would have his hair cornrowed, which begs the question by whom?? the Committee to Inform Nana about Dante's Hairstyles? but that would be a fact, and she doesn't deal in them. So, her put down of his ethnic hair set his dad right off the edge. Partly because such comments reveal Mom's subtle and latent racism that she doesn't want to admit is there, partly because she tried to sneak church over on Dante's dad, and mainly because Dante was sitting in the seat next to her listening to her go off.

I know I'm supposed to be mad at this, but I can't stop laughing about it. I warned Dante that Nana probably wouldn't like his hair out of braids, and for him to ignore it. He had already come to that conclusion himself. But here's the thing: she chose looking good in front of her church buddies to exposing Dante to the "Truth" of her religion on the one night where it doesn't matter who you drag in to hear it. She chose to leave her only grandchild in "darkness" for appearances in front of church.

LOLOL.

She hasn't called me all week, which is unusual when Dante is down there, especially if she's fighting with his dad. That can only mean she knows she fucked that one up good. And that all arguments about how "important" it is that Dante come to know JW "truth" is a bunch of horseshit. LOL. At least now we know that the way to get Dante out of church is to take his braids down.

-- Virgil