Well, after a 15 month absence from the Kingdom Hall, I once again found myself in the biggest kingdom hall of all – the District Convention. As in previous years, the material presented was dull and repetitious, so once again, I was forced to provide my own entertainment. So, like last year, I am pleased to present a further installment to my assembly adventures, called:
Another Surreal District Convention
My assembly experience began with a striking numerological coincidence. Upon checking into our hotel, my family was amazed to find that we had been assigned room number 1914. (Actually, it was 1419, but it was still coincidental enough to convince us that significant things were afoot). I later went up to the 19 th floor to check on a hunch. Sure enough, room 1975 no longer existed.
On Friday morning, we pulled into the parking lot and were greeted by a magnificent sight. The lot was filled with a great crowd of parking attendants, which no man was able to number. As far as the eye could see, parking attendants were frantically flapping their arms, like a million pairs of long underwear on a clothesline (This is my submission for best apostate simile).
The Friday morning sessions were very interesting. The program began with a thorough spanking of everyone’s conscience, entitled: “God knows what you did last summer.” This year, the society saw fit to ban baggy pants and spikey hair. (Actually, I’m not kidding about that).
One of the talks was entitled, “Creation Declares the Glory of God”. As could be expected, it was a pseudo-scientific explanation of the argument from design. The scientific factoids that were used in this portion were lifted from their own “Insight” book, so you can well imagine the quality of the arguments. For some reason that I can’t quite fathom, they seem to think that life on earth would be impossible if it weren’t for the moon. And, as all scientists know, the moon’s purpose is to be a nightlight for humans.
The next portion, “Walk in the Way of Integrity” was very interesting. Several real life demonstrations were given. The first one was given by a girl whom I will call Megan, because that was her name. She claimed that during her high school career she was continually invited to dances and parties. One boy was particularly persistent in asking her out. Finally, she came up with the solution. She told him that as a Jehovah’s Witness, she could only date if she was seriously considering marriage. And, she is a lesbian.
The next demonstration was given by a boy that I shall call Jeremy, because that was his name. They seem to be scraping the bottom of the experience barrel, since this young boy is 35. Anyway, he said that when he was younger, he liked to race dirt bikes. One day, when he was recovering from a broken bone, enlightenment came to him, much like Buddha. He realized that field service was just slightly less painful than breaking a bone.
The final demonstration was by a boy whom I shall Brennan and an elder, Tim. I think you know why I used these names. Anyway, apparently the elder had seen the boy at the mall with a worldly girl. The boy said that she was really nice, even nicer than some of the people at the kingdom hall. The elder responded, “Really? Does she have a friend?”
On Friday afternoon, the portion, “Jehovah, Our Fortress in Times of Distress” made extensive use of the phrase “The John Class”. Apparently, the society doesn’t realize that “John” is another word for toilet. Finally, they got something right.
Friday afternoon also played host to a one hour symposium on Amos – an excrutiatingly detailed and repetitive commentary.
After regaining conciousness, I noticed that a new brochure of maps was about to be released. I didn’t know this, but apparently, all other Biblical maps are prepared by Satan. Some of them showed Ninevah misplaced by as much as 15 miles. Also, some worldly maps just plunk Rome wherever they hell they feel like it, but the Society puts it right on the old Forum. On a scale of one inch = 1,000 miles, this makes a difference of almost 1/100 of an inch. The brother who gave this talk used so many superlatives to describe the brochure and got so excited about it that I swear he climaxed at least three times during his talk.
By the way, if “worldly” maps are made by Satan, where does the Society think it gets its maps from? They weren’t around back then.
Saturday – The Matthew 24:14 derby ended at exactly 10:57:03. The society made us wait almost half way through the convention before the tired old scripture made its first appearance. But, we knew it was coming. They couldn’t fool us. I waved my “24:14” plackard until the attendants made me put it away.
The announcements at this assembly took on a slightly different tone. At every one of the six announcements, they described the procedure for donating in vivid detail – how to donate by cheque, how to donate in cash, where to find the donation desks, how to get a receipt, and on and on. In fact, on Saturday afternoon, they even had a half hour talk on “Be Liberal, Ready to Share”. This was followed by the release of the 192 page book entitled, “How to donate”.
Another announcement indicated that the program was being broadcast on FM frequency – 98.1 FM “The Lamb”, where it’s “all assembly, all the time”.
Actually, Saturday’s book was “Learn from the Great Teacher”. I skimmed it for the dirty parts. It was rather disappointing.
“Beware of The Voice of Strangers” – Many of you may have already heard about this part. This is where the society forbids contact with just about everything. But there was something that I thought was pretty significant. It opened by talking about the one hour documentary about JWs on CBC. Several comments were read. One witness said that she couldn’t sleep for days afterward. Another said that it shook his faith. A few other similar statements were read. The speaker then went on to admonish people to turn off the TV when this sort of thing comes on because it originates with Satan.
However, this part implied some major points. First of all, the documentary had a big impact. Witnesses saw it. It got through to people who would otherwise never question anything, and it had a deep effect. Secondly, although they said to not listen to it, they did not say it was untrue. I listened very carefully, and they never once said that the contents of the program were false. You’re getting through.
The Drama was uneventful. It was neither offensive (like the one about Korah a couple of years ago) nor embarrassing for its exceptionally poor script (like last year). Don’t get me wrong. The script WAS poor, it just wasn’t so outstandingly poor that you retched into your briefcase. It was just dull. A bunch of men in bed sheets, delivering an arm flapping performance worthy of parking attendants.
Sunday’s public talk was entitled, “Who are Giving God Glory Today”. Here is a brief summary of the contents: The universe is big. Evolutionists are some crazy bastards. God’s name is Jehovah. Sell Watchtowers or die.
The speaker emphasized that JWs do not honor any people, unlike false religion. All honor goes to Jehovah. They then proceeded to parade the missionaries around the stage, while the crowd applauded for an extended period, the missionaries waved, and the speaker praised them. Now, correct me here, but isn’t this honoring people?
As always, the final talk quoted various hospitality employees from around the city, praising the Witnesses for their wonderful nature. Unfortunately, they didn’t quote the pool attendant from our hotel, who had some choice words of praise, after banning several of the Witness kids on Friday night.
For those who like statistics, attendance was 5,300 – down by 300 from last year. Baptisms were 33, down from 53 last year and well below the threshold needed to maintain their size in this territory. They closed by thanking the 662 volunteers that made the assembly possible – 590 of them in the contributions department.
As a closing point, I noticed this year that Devil-talk seemed to dominate the program. Hardly a talk went by without attributing something nefarious to Satan. He’s been one busy guy this this year – programming video games, writing books, singing, running the entire internet, designing clothes, dating young sisters, running tattoo parlors, fighting wars, terrorizing the world, shooting documentaries, masterbating, teasing children… He seems very creative. God, on the other hand, seems to have pissed away the whole year making infinitesimal adjustments to dots on maps.
For those interested in reading last year’s adventures, they can be found at: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/31324/1.ashx