Sophia: Mommy, can we go for a walk?
Mom: Okay, Sophia.
Sophia: This is nice Mommy, walking down the street in our neighbourhood. Look at all the trees.
Mom: My, they are so beautiful. Who made the trees Dear?
Sophia: Jehovah and the flowers and the animals.
Mom: Very good. You are so smart and such a deep thinker too.
Sophia: Thank-you Mommy. I do a lot of thinking. And I am starting to do a lot of reading too.
Mom: Oh?
Sophia: Yes. After the meeting at the Kingdom Hall I go to the library and read. That’s why you don’t see me for a while after the meetings.
Mom: I thought you were just playing with the other children.
Sophia: No, I’ve been doing a lot of reading these last few weeks.
Mom: Oh? What are you reading?
Sophia: Some of the older publications. Old Watchtowers, old books by a guy named Joseph Rutherford. I think he used to be in charge of Jehovah’s Witnesses a long time ago. Do you know about Joseph Rutherford Mom?
Mom: I know a little bit. Not much. We don’t really talk about him much. Why are you so interested in him?
Sophia: Well, because he used to be in charge of us and he said some really interesting things.
Mom: What things?
Sophia: Well, he said that the faithful men of old were going to come back to earth and live in a house he bought for them in a place called San Diego. I think that is in the United States. He said Samson and King David and some others were going to come back in the year 1925.
Mom: Oh?
Sophia: And you know what Mom?
Mom: What?
Sophia: It never happened. None of what he said about that ever happened. Another guy named Fred said that Joseph Rutherford said he ‘ made an ass of himself ’.
Mom: Sophia, don’t use dirty words.
Sophia: What do you mean Mom? Ass means donkey doesn’t it? Is donkey a dirty word?
Mom: No, it isn’t, but…
Sophia: I didn’t think it was. Maybe you confused ass with another word because it is in the Bible, right? And then Joseph Rutherford told everyone that millions of people were not going to die, but they all died, and then he told everyone not to get married because the new system was coming soon and it never happened. And then Jehovah’s Witnesses starting getting all confused, just like you got confused Mom, and they thought the higher authorities were the government people and then they thought they were the elders and then they thought they were the government people and then they thought they were the elders again and then…and then… sheeesh, they got so confused I don’t even think they know what they think about that anymore. And then Fred said Armageddon was coming in 1975 and then it didn’t come and then….
Mom: Slow down Dear, my head is spinning. So many things I haven’t even heard of before. Are you sure they said these things?
Sophia: Yes Mommy, it’s all in those old books in our Kingdom Hall library. Mommy, what is it we say about Jehovah’s Witnesses? What do we say we are in?
Mom: The Truth Dear. We are ‘ in The Truth’.
Sophia: Oh right, the Truth. We are in ‘The Truth’.
Mom: That’s a good girl.