Postmodernism: The Whispering In the Kitchen
6-20-06 And How Shall I Presume
For me Postmodernism began in 1946 when I was 8 years old in the kitchen of our farmhouse outside Waupun, Wisconsin when I heard my parents conversing with neighbors and relatives in the most haunting hushed tones concerning rumors of the invention of the atomic bomb and predicting The End of the World. The minister of our church JJB seemed happy. "Lord Jesus, come quickly" was his favorite prayer. I hated that prayer. JJB hated life and liberals. Of course he despised liberals. Liberals love life. JJB wanted to get this life over with so he could get started on the next one---the only one that mattered to him. He wanted life to be over with before I had ever kissed a girl let alone made love with one. Go to hell, JJB. A few of us still have our lives to live before you & God wipe us off the map & give us the maximum punishment-----Hell of course and forever for anybody so full of desire to be alive. What scared the hell into me in my family kitchen back there in 1946 was the sense of dread permeating that Silent room full of people with no radiant reply to the atomic bomb which could wipe out whole cities---even countries.
I knew nothing then of art or literature or of my future as a writer & a reader. All I "knew" at age 8 had been poured into my ears by my parents and by the right wing Protestant church at which my family worshipped---Heaven or Hell forever and no in between---And it's probably hell no matter what anybody says because if you die this instant and your soul is not saved by Jesus Christ you are finished for all eternity. No second chances in the beyond. I just got started. Only in 3rd grade. Some son of a bitches want to blow the whole place up. Truman says it's them. But that goddammed atomic bomb is on American soil manufactured in the USA. Reverend JJB is glad. It fulminates his rage to punish sin which he and his family are without. The rest of us though---we make up for his lack. "Lord Jesus, come quickly" he wheezes into the microphone at the pulpit. I feel sick in my stomach when I hear those miserly words coming from JJB during his long prayer. It lasts about twenty minutes. JJB's long prayers are full sized sermons in themselves wherein he is giving orders essentially to God which he has taken verbatim from the Bible. His prayer is a recitation of church doctrine & scriptural quotations telling the Almighty what He has decreed and exactly how things stand down here in the land of Soddam & Gomorrah. Get me outta here! Before this whole goddammed church blows to smithereens.
RLG Copyright 2006
For me Postmodernism began in 1946 when I was 8 years old in the kitchen of our farmhouse outside Waupun, Wisconsin when I heard my parents conversing with neighbors and relatives in the most haunting hushed tones concerning rumors of the invention of the atomic bomb and predicting The End of the World. The minister of our church JJB seemed happy. "Lord Jesus, come quickly" was his favorite prayer. I hated that prayer. JJB hated life and liberals. Of course he despised liberals. Liberals love life. JJB wanted to get this life over with so he could get started on the next one---the only one that mattered to him. He wanted life to be over with before I had ever kissed a girl let alone made love with one. Go to hell, JJB. A few of us still have our lives to live before you & God wipe us off the map & give us the maximum punishment-----Hell of course and forever for anybody so full of desire to be alive. What scared the hell into me in my family kitchen back there in 1946 was the sense of dread permeating that Silent room full of people with no radiant reply to the atomic bomb which could wipe out whole cities---even countries.
I knew nothing then of art or literature or of my future as a writer & a reader. All I "knew" at age 8 had been poured into my ears by my parents and by the right wing Protestant church at which my family worshipped---Heaven or Hell forever and no in between---And it's probably hell no matter what anybody says because if you die this instant and your soul is not saved by Jesus Christ you are finished for all eternity. No second chances in the beyond. I just got started. Only in 3rd grade. Some son of a bitches want to blow the whole place up. Truman says it's them. But that goddammed atomic bomb is on American soil manufactured in the USA. Reverend JJB is glad. It fulminates his rage to punish sin which he and his family are without. The rest of us though---we make up for his lack. "Lord Jesus, come quickly" he wheezes into the microphone at the pulpit. I feel sick in my stomach when I hear those miserly words coming from JJB during his long prayer. It lasts about twenty minutes. JJB's long prayers are full sized sermons in themselves wherein he is giving orders essentially to God which he has taken verbatim from the Bible. His prayer is a recitation of church doctrine & scriptural quotations telling the Almighty what He has decreed and exactly how things stand down here in the land of Soddam & Gomorrah. Get me outta here! Before this whole goddammed church blows to smithereens.
RLG Copyright 2006
posted by rlg at 3:52 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home