JAN TALKS BACK

JANET LOGAN

Just say my name is Jan. That's all it matters anyhow. Its not the names of the black sheep that they wanted; it's how they got that way. Isn't that what they said -- "Why do some of the young people leave the church?"

Well, I don't know about the others, but as I look back on it, this is how it happened to me as near as I can figure it out.

What I have to say many interest you. It may interest your father and mother, too. Because I'm not gilding any lilies.

I was baptized when I was twelve years old. I thought it all out and I knew I wanted to live as Jesus wanted me to. I wasn't urged to be baptized by my parents or the minister or schoolteacher. I believe I knew what I was doing and was sincere.

It was on that day I decided to live up to all that had been taught in church school. I stopped eating meat. Even though I was reared an Adventist, my parents served meat on our family table, occasionally. Now I believed it was wrong.

My father and mother were teachers. They were church members in good standing. We went regularly to church and our family sat together. We had family worship until my mother started working away from home. Then it eemed to be forgotten execpt on Friday night or Sabbath sundown. We had a clean house and our baths were taken -- that is, usually all taken -- by sundown, before they went to bed.

After I was baptized, I decided to protect the sacred edges of the Sabbath. My bath would be taken early. I wanted to be ready for the Sabbath when it came. I felt personally responsible to live up to what I knew to be right.

Meat was still served on our table. I firmly refused to eat it and no one urged me, though my brother did tease me some. My sister said she was glad; it left more for her. No other food was provided to replace the meat for me. I was hungry, but I refused to eat meat for several weeks until one day I couldn't refuse any longer. I hadn't learned to use the power they tell about when they say that no temptation will be given us but God will provide an escape. That Sabbath I ate a piece of fried chicken.

After that, I was no longer a vegetarian. I learned that many other church members weren't vegetraians either, and I wondered why they taught us that it was important to be one when few of the adults I knew really believed it. (When I say vegetarians I mean nonflesh eaters, not strict vegetarians, who cut out milk, eggs and cheeses.)

I felt a sense of failure when I gave up this principle of my belief I wanted someone in the adult world to encourage me. No one did. The preachers still preached about it, but I learned later that even a few of them ate meat when no one was looking. If it was wrong, why didn't everyone stop eating it? If it was all right to eat it, then why didn't they keep still about it, and not teach us one thing and then let us learn they were sometimes doing another.

It was confusing to me as a teen-ager to really be sure what was right.

When we moved to the city, I was taken ourt of the Adventist academy and entered high school. My father couldn't afford to keep three of us in church school all at once. He had begun teaching in a high school in another town from the one where we lived.

Mother was doing some private tutoring and was busy much of the time. One weekend, while Mother was gone and Dad was home, I found a slab of bacon in the storeroom. Dad walked in on me holding my discovery in wonderment.

"Don't let Mom see this." he said with a sly grin, which amused me. "What she doesn't know won't hurt her." He took the bacon and tucked it back in its hiding place.

My father was a Christian. I never doubted it for a moment. But I was confused again to learn of his secret. ALthough he wasn't reared an Adventist, he had been one for twenty years. Later, he confided that he drank coffee.

Mother was strict about not eating pork, smoking, and drinking alcoholic beverages. But Dad used to amke root beer and spike it with raisins to give it a kick. I knew little then about chemistry and ther result of using sugar, yeast, and raisins, with root-beer flavoring.

MOther used to refuse to let us go to the theater, but I overheard her tell a friend about the show she saw while soliciting for some drive. She had called upon a theater owner and he invited her to go in and see the show. She had gone in. In church school the teachers said theaters were no place for Christians to go. Agian I was confsed. Idecided if it didn't hurt her to go to a show, it might not be so bad for me. I went to a show soon after that. It was an exciting experience. I went again and again. I played sick from school to go to the theater. I forged my father's name to my excuses. No one checked up on me. I got away with it. It didn't seem so bad anymore.

I'm not saying that it was all my folk's fault. I know I was to blame mostly. But why can't parents help us more by being particular about little things? It made me feel like they didn't really know what it meant when the Bible says: "Having the form of godliness, but denying the power."

Did I expect too much of them?

I heard my folks discuss the sins of some of the well-known people in the church. I was surprised! Somehow, I expected adult Christians to be strong in face of temptations. Maybe I was just plain out-of-line to hope for that.

Say-maybe you can set me straight on this, at least: When are the Adventist who eat meat going to stop? And the ones drinking coffee? And going to "good" shows? Yes, and I've heard some pretty crude jokes from some of them too.

How could Dad expect me to obey traffic laws when he exceeded the speed limit and then slowed down when a patrol car glided in sight?

Then there's temper, too. And little white lies. Mom said, "I'm sorry I just haven't the time to go to Dorcas." Or to prayer meeting, or Ingathering. But she really wasn't really too busy. She didn't want to go. Why didn't she say so?

How about the time an extra expense came and Dad said he'd make up the tithe when he got to working again? Didn't he believe God meant what he promises?

Hows a person to learn to choose right from wrong when she learns that what she thought is wrong, is right sometimes for Mom and Dad?

About this time Mother started to work away from home. My biggest sister was left to look after us younger ones. She was in love and didn't seem to be particular about what she did as long as we left her alone to talk with her boy friend. I was pretty much on my own. She was married later.

Sometimes, I'd get sick inside with loneliness to talk to someone about how to be the Christian girl I wanted to be. Sometimes I thought I couldn't stand it any longer - just drifting along, not really having any anchor. Not really having any hope of getting to heaven - it seemed so useless.

I didn't know any successful Christians really well. If I had found one, I'd have asked him how he managed it when there was so much inconsistency all around us. But whom could I talk to? The good kids didn't invite me to go with them anymore, and the bad kids were doing things, I hadn't started doing yet. I just didn't belong anywhere.

Then Ralph asked me if I wanted to go out with him. I didn't know how it was going to turn out when we started, but we sure go into a tight spot. You see, Ralph "borrowed" a car. That's what he said, but he really stole it. He picked me up at the drugstore and we drove over to Mary's and got her and Tom to go along with us. It was just for kicks. We girls didn't even know where the car came from. We were glad for the ride.

We drove all over the country. We went across the new bridge and then in the fair grounds. Then Ralph said the gas was low and asked us to go out and wait while he went after gas. We got out and sat down under a small shade tree.

After a bit Ralph drove up to the curb in a new shiny car. It wasn't the one he had before.

"I ditched the old one. This one's got gas! He said. Come on, pile in."

It was wrong. We knew it. But there was something exciting about the danger of doing wrong. We started out. We laughed a lot and maybe too loud. Maybe I tried not to hear a little voice inside me. Then it happened.

"Cops." said Ralph between his teeth. We looked back.

A patrol car sped around the corner about three blocks behind us.

Ralph turned the next corner on two wheels. We screamed. Tom clamped his hand over Mary's mouth. The rightened itself and Ralph cut into the next alley. The tires smoked to a stop.

"Scram!" he shouted. We scrambled out of the car and raced toward some garbage cans in the hallway of an apartment building.

We heard the siren of the patrol car draw closer. It whined a dying call, and the police ran toward the alley. Tom pushed Mary ahead of me and ahead of him and raced through the apartment hall to leave by the north door. I looked back as I ran, but Ralph wasn't with us. Then I heard a man's voice.

"This is the end of the trip, son." It was the cops talking to Ralph. Tom closed the door behind us and we walked quickly down the street in front of the new library. The we went into the library and pretended to look for some books.

We had no money, so we walked home. It was five miles.

Later I learned that they sent Ralph to reform school for a while. His father was our church elder for two years. Does that make sense to you?

Now the folks of all my old friends acted like I'm poison. They don't want me to call up their kids any more on the phone. I don't have any one to go around with but girls and boys who never heard of Adventists. I was on my way out and I knew it. I didn't want it to happen, but I thought I was trapped.

I wish my folks had never sent me to public school. I think I could have gotten up enough courage to start again to be a Christian, if I could have been where other boys and girls who were trying to live right, where the teachers cared.