Bethel Meals: King, Prince, Pauper

by Stephanus 8 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Stephanus

  I remember reading a book on the JWs by mainstream Christendom author Salem Kirban, part of a series he did on "cults". It was written late 60s/early 70s and opened with him on a Brooklyn Bethel tour. He stated that the Bethelites observed the old saying to"eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper" - he mentioned arriving in the mess hall at "prince-time".

  Was he observing things correctly about Bethel meals, or was he imposing his own ideas on what he saw or was told? Were Bethel mealtimes really run according to that philosophy?
• 

  Jomavrick

  I don't know where an expression like that would have eminated from. Of all the meals the morning meal was emphasised the most due to the fact that it was held with people sitting in predesignated tables and 'morning worship' (reading of the daily scripture and discussion) took place.

  Lunch also took place at your table. Dinner was not attended as much as the other meals because after work many people had a long commute to get to where their congregation was, so many including myself rarely ever went to dinner. But all meals are open to everyone to enjoy and as much as they desired. Bethel actually did a wonderful job of preparing excellent meals.

  Jomavrick
• 

  joelbear

  Breakfast was definitely the best meal of the day. The only meal where real milk and real butter were served. It was skim milk and margarine the rest of the day. Lunch wasn't bad, most days good to very good. Dinner was usually not very good except for pizza nights when you could expect lines in the cafeteria. Most people took stuff from lunch back to their rooms for dinner, thus causing the mad rush after prayer at lunch to scoop up leftovers from all the tables. Food was served as it ran out, so different tables would have differing amounts of food left in the serving bowls.
• 

  Stephanus

  So was the expression "Breakfast like a king...", etc., something Kirban was likely told by the tour guides, or would he have applied it himself according to what he was told about mealtimes, i.e. that breakfast was the best meal and that dinner was the least attended/popular? Did any Bethelite ever hear that saying being bandied about? Has anyone touring Bethel heard this expression being applied to mealtimes?
• 

  rocketman

  I guess there were no Happy Meals served.
• 

  Stephanus

  I probably should further add that Salem Kirban, for one who wrote a series on cults, had some funny ideas of his own, particularly on food. He did some books that basically said that a natural food diet increases your spirituality. I've often wondered if his king, prince, pauper observation in the JW book tied into his own philosophies somehow.
• 

  herk

  I ate at Bethel for 40 years. The meals got better and better. Nearly all meals were "fit for a king." The food was always fresh, right from the Society's farms, and there was plenty of variety. The evening meals were not as fancy as those at noon, but they were nothing to complain about. I wish I could afford now to eat half as well as I ate all those years. But far, far better then enjoying good wholesome meals 3 times a day is the freedom from organization worship that held me in bondage all those years.
• 

  AGuest

  May you all have peace!

  I visited Bethel once... incognito, sort of (had a message to deliver)... and was invited to lunch in the main dining room. I can tell you, I truly did not understand how those who took a "vow of poverty" could afford to eat so grandly! Not that I am knocking it: they have the farms and the food had to be eaten.

  But I thought it quite... ummmm... "curious"... that every table held food, heaping plates/bowls of food, whether it was manned or not. Yep, even the tables where no one sat had food heaped on them. And there were several. At that time, I told myself (of course) that most probably it was "just in case" some Bethel folks came in. (I even thought it might have been in anticipation of visitors, but my understanding was that you cannot just eat in this dining room, but had to be escorted by a Bethelite, and preferably a fairly tenured one at that!)

  Since that time, I have often wondered why, with all the food the farm(s) produce, "care" packages couldn't have been sent out to widows and maybe even single mothers in this country... versus them having to rely on local food closets (and please, please don't think they don't!). Or perhaps some could have been sold for a profit, for money to send to the "brothers" in less fortunate countries. Or, hey, just distribute the excess on the street or to missions or food lockers where the homeless/hungry go for food. That would have made the most sense to me, I mean, if the "brothers" were trully inclined to observe the TRUE "fast" of JAH, as such was demonstrated by His Son.

  Sigh! Anyway.... sorry to have gone on... this subject... and what I observed on my visit... sort of sticks in my craw.

  Peace!

  A slave of Christ,

  SJ
• 

  simplesally

  I had lunch at the London Bethel. It was a very nice meal, although eaten very quickly because all the workers had to go back to their rooms and change back to work clothes then go back to work. I really could not believe that they had to have on "meeting clothes" to eat meals.