Wee hours.
For most of the day yesterday I wrestled with a guilty conscience for having missed Christmas Eve service. So I thrashed out my feelings and thoughts on paper until, at ten o’clock tonight, I felt better. The important thing is that conscience is merely part of yourself— although others may try to manipulate it to get the results they desire. I came to the conclusion that the church pastor makes his emotions everyone else’s business and vice versa, disrespecting our boundaries in the interest of the church “family.” His collectivism operates at an emotional level as well as intellectual. But the problem with that is he doesn’t encourage independence and growth as much as enmeshment that suffocates each individual.
Well anyway, Christmas is over with, and symbolically, I wheeled my trash out to the curbside for pickup this morning. Out with the old, in with the new. I don’t know what I’d resolve for the New Year; usually I forget what I said the year before.
robgradens 