Excerpt from my book "Journey to God's House" - Chapter "My GB can lick your GB"
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Back in those
days, two other Governing Body members George Gangas and Dan Sydlik were still
alive and walked the Bethel halls as well. These two Governing Body members
could not have been more different from each other. Now, keep in mind when reading
the following stories that Governing Body members were practically worshiped
among Jehovah's Witnesses, as there was no one higher on the JW food chain than
they were. Besides, it was thought that they had a direct line of communication
with God Himself. How could you be bigger than that? It was like hobnobbing
with Moses or Abraham.
Dan Sydlik at
the time usually played the voice of God in most of the convention dramas. (As
mentioned before, conventions were large annual gatherings of Jehovah's Witnesses.)
The JWs who ran these conventions often re-enacted various Bible stories
through mini plays (called dramas) and everybody in these dramas dressed up like
ancient Israelites to make the stories more realistic. Those dramatic stories
were retold through realistic sets, acting, music, and so on. It turns out that
Brother Sydlik used to be the favorite voice of God in these dramas since he
was a large man with a big booming voice, not unlike what it might sound like
if you took the actor James Earl Jones and plugged him into an amplifier.
I can
practically hear Sydlik now in the drama about Moses and the burning bush: "Moeeeses,
Moeeeeses! Do not coooome neeeear heeeere. Remoooove the saaandals from your feeeet."
Dan Sydlik had
a very self confident, outgoing personality. He walked powerfully and spoke
with authority, even more so than most of the other GB. He also had a wife
about half his age, which always tickled us young Bethelites. At least one GB
was probably having hot sex in their room, we thought.
One day he gave
a special invitation-only "New Boys" talk to us first year Bethelites.
In this talk, he mentioned that we all needed to "roooound out our personaaaalities
because Jehoooovah doesn't like squaaaare things." He said, "Look at
naaaature, nothing is square in naaaature, this shows God loves smoooothness."
Interesting I thought. I went up to him after that talk and making my way
through the crowd surrounding him, I said:
Me: Loved the talk Brother
Sydlik. But, regarding the square things in nature issue, I can think of
something square in nature.
Sydlik: [eyeballs
me for a second] Ohhhhhhh? Whaaaat?
Me: [confidently] Sodium
Chloride. Table salt. It's a perfect cube. [I smile]
Sydlik: [grabs
my tie and pulls me closer to his face] Whaaat's your naame boooy? If you're
wronnng, there's a job chaaange in it for you! [playing at being mad]
Crowd: HaHaHaHa.
Me: [smiling, knowing
he is playing] My name is Brock, sir. And it's Sodium Chloride. [now tickled
pink with this]
Sydlik: [letting
go of me seeing as I am getting the joke that he's pretending to be mad at me] Har,
har, har! Gooood one boy! [walks off]
***
I liked both Sydlik
and Gangas, as they were real people and did and acted pretty much as they
pleased, but in a good way. They seemed completely oblivious to the stodgy, careful,
and calculated way many "Bethel Heavies" handled themselves. ("Heavies"
meant important people like the GB or the many Bethel "committee"
members.) They also seemed to have a genuine love of people that I didn't see
in many of the other prominent Bethelites at that time.
---
Brock
