by Stan Blaxberry
April 24, 2008
Hey there! Are you guys from the Watchtower Society? May I say, you guys make a great periodical. I wasn't interested in Jehovah's Witnesses until I noticed your top-notch magazine.
If this were last week, I would've pretended I wasn't home when you came to the door. But since my girlfriend, Amber, left with the television and most of the furniture, I've had some time to think about you guys and your Kingdom Hall outfit.
I got one of your Awake! magazines after I woke up on a park bench with it stuck to my face. I couldn't read all of it because I think I spilled an Old Milwaukee tall boy on a good portion, but what I did see brought back a zest for light journalism I thought had long expired.
When I read Awake! it's a refreshing breeze in my otherwise monotonous existence. Sure, you can find other variety magazines with helpful gardening tips, fruit smoothie recipes and wilderness survival tales, but can the rest of them reassure me about avoiding the nether grave that awaits the unfaithful and self-indulgent? Not really (although George Will gave it a good try in his column on Monday). Awake! is like Reader's Digest, except for my soul!
I could go on and on about the content. Especially that article about Michael J. Fox and his tireless effort to lobby for Parkinson's disease while trying to spend quality time with his family! This stuff really blows Parade magazine right out of the water.
And unlike Parade, it doesn't bother to have a pretentious advice column, because apparently the world is on the brink of Armageddon anyhow, and we should be focused on salvation and dressing modestly, not asking what is an appropriate way to ignore a nosy mother-in-law's parenting suggestions.
I'm really thinking about joining your religion, especially since the Christian Science Monitor isn't giving out free subscriptions any time soon. Why don't you guys come in for a slice of pie?