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Why I Quit Sunday School
by Ken HarnischAbstinence, the old minister said, makes the heart grow fonder
And then he chuckled at his own witticism, while missing
The puzzled looks on the faces of good teenagers who had not yet visited
Their predilections towards investigating, beyond certain fantasy moments
The bodies or intentions of the opposite sex.
I recall Jill was kind of delicious and Barbra buxom in a way that made me wonder
What she might look like divested of that coat and dress, but then, instantly ashamed of myself
And still in love with the Lord and His alleged teachings on the joys of celibacy
I kept both thoughts and hands to myself Sunday after Sunday
In that magical year when decisions were made by Fate alone.
Our teacher was an elder of the church, forty being old then, and Mr.
P’s wife and daughter also being Sunday school teachers, a figure I looked up to
When most males disenchanted me and I found women far more mysterious and intelligent
And beautiful for being so. But Mr. P had a soft voice and way of boring through the muslin
That covered my eyes and part of my brain.
He produced a book about young adults, churchgoers like myself, and how their biology had begun to grate on their Religious upbringing, and horror of horrors, he told us we would all be reading a chapter each week aloud.
There was a climactic scene, no pun intended, in which the young protagonist finds himself at a lodge with his young lady and before a roaring fire he attempts to divest her of her clothes
And Virginity , all in one eventful night, only to have that accursed Fate thwart him at the last moment.
I was no stranger to graphic depictions of sex, having discovered, in a local Bookstore, the wonderful Victorian anthologies which kept me rapt for hours on end, but reading them in a soft-covered book
Endorsed by the Episcopalian Diocese was something else again, and I was, there is no better word
For it, appalled.
One Sunday, while Louie read from a chapter, an earlier one, I did the math and following the sweep of
The class and the likelihood of who would be reading what and when I discovered to my chagrin
It would be my turn when the fateful chapter rolled around, and the thought of reading such
Depictions out loud, and by doing so, give voice to the darker impulses which were already
Running riot in my gonads and dreams, I decided that I would no longer attend Sunday school,
Preferring to read my erotica in silence and alone rather than in Church, where I was sure
God might assault the very stone foundations, knowing He had found the perfect voice
To make the point Sex was a dish best served in private, and not aloud by someone
Who was already beginning to wonder when it would be his turn at the fire, at the lodge,
With someone not so invested in religion or the kind of doubts to thwart the outcome.
That’s why I quit going to Sunday School.
01/11/2008 Posted on 01/11/2008
Copyright © 2025 Ken Harnisch
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by A. Paige White on 01/11/08 at 02:44 PM This is great! I was enthralled all the way through. Don't you just love how in corporate activities, at some point or another, you will be called on to do something that is totally outside your comfort zone? Heh. Sounds like a church designed by a carpenter with a cross in mind. My pick for potd. Love it! |
| Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 01/13/08 at 05:20 AM Oh, my, the trials of life and discovery. This is funny and sad and painfully adolescent - I can so relate. Well done. |
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