Only problem is that our old Covidians are doing the same thing I am. I am not the only Covid denier in the church audience, and they aren’t giving the Covidians a break. Some of them wrangled maskless indulgences from the gubbimint hucksters regulators and others just won’t comply and see no sense in curbing their own lives to accommodate the senseless fear of others… so a lot of the more rabid Covidians are staying home too.
There was hardly anybody there yesterday, and those that were made me feel welcome. I told them up front I am not going to wear a mask; I agree about rendering unto Caesar but I will not bow down to him… and they could kick me out and I’d be just peachy with it. A couple of masks came down to reveal rude smirks and a few winks were exchanged… most of them are only doing the mask thing to get along with the few Covidians that might show up. It went down exactly as it should have, they had no problems with the mask, but they respected my rights and grounds to refuse. A lot of them are not getting vaxxed either.
The Sunday lecture was ironically about restoring broken families, and the extent we should be willing to go to patch things up with estranged family members. I guess Jacob gave up his paltry life savings and all his possessions to his vastly wealthier brother and bowed down to him seven times in order to mend fences. I sat in the pews and flat out rejected it in my case. Mom has decreed that only The Righteously Jabbed are permitted in her magnificent presence, and like the rest of the family shitlibs, she is a proud defender of faggotry, feminism, socialism and woke politics and ideologies. She is also a disagreeable old bitch to be around. I told my Maker that if he wanted me to do stuff like that, He’s gonna have to send me a sign or something because I don’t do stupid fights with stupid people in my family or community anymore. Outside after the speech I slipped on a patch of glazed ice in the parking lot and did a painful face plant on the way to the truck. HARdy HAR HAR, Father… but you’re going to have to do a lot better than that! Geez, that hurt!
There is so much to divide us out there now, with a lot of it being driven by our leaders and politicians and oligarchs. It’s time for everyone to grow up and start being adults. I’m sorry, but the maturity and civility has to come from both sides of these contentious issues. Jacob and his bro wanted to bury the hatchet. From what I am seeing these days, a lot of the folks want to bury their hatchet in the skulls of their adversaries and then get the guns out.
Perhaps I have been in the basement too long. But it was good to get out and see honest folks again. There are islands of sanity out there among the collapsed and prolapsed institutions. Spending time in them is like a breath of fresh air.
I hope your Monday gets off to a good start - and thanks for dropping by.
Sure is funny how different churches have responded to the panic. I'm blessed to belong to a small church of pretty sensible folks. We've been maskless for a bit over a year already ( Oh, the true covidians still masked up for service, but nobody insisted on masks). By now, even all but the most devoted covidians are unmasked.
ReplyDeleteThis in contrast to my son's church, where masks are still required for admission to the service. Of course, right after service they all gather in the fellowship hall for coffee with no masks & no "social distancing". Oy vey
We are locked down up here too SW. Our folks do the exact same thing. After the service the Covidians go home, and the regulars stay behind for coffee and conversation without the masks.
DeleteIn Canada, setting up a Covid based bureaucracy is what the liberals call job-creation. At the rate they are killing real jobs, I suppose anything that kicks the can further down the road is what they will do. There are real penalities for defying them, here in Alberta the cops have already busted pastors and shut down churches that defied them. It's all for show, and our church tries to ignore Caesar as much as possible. They can bend their knee or not as they see fit. I know what my choice is...
I don't know but given the shit-show out there, hiding in the basement seems like a good solution to me. There is no reason to put yourself into the path of stray bullets. And there are plenty of those flying about these days. Call me jaded but most folks out there are not worth the trouble and I'd rather find my happiness elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteI know Mike. There is all kinds of wisdom in what you say, and I will not fault you for one iota of it. And I agree, most folks out there aren't worth the hassle. My entire family is like that and my wife's as well. But in our little church, there are those that ARE worth the hassle. Our few remaining churches that serve such people are seriously having to start looking about going underground. Obviously that does not sit well with any of them, but times are changing and our leadership is caught in the middle of it. How do you handle something like that? At what point do you pull the trigger on an action like that? Defying the govt goes against their grain and they don't know yet how to handle the govt now that it has definitely turned against them. They have a lot of very difficult issues on their hands from all sides. The only reason I am there is that I think some are starting to lean this way on things. If it were just a pozzed church I'd turn on my heel walk away wihout a second thought. There are a lot of good people here.
DeleteI stopped going to church when this thing first started; not because I was afraid to get the 'Rona, but because I feared bringing it home to my son, who was in an accelerated program to become an X-ray tech. He would have lost his seat in the class if he had to quarantine. I haven't been back since. The Catholic church didn't have the spine to stand up against the tyranny. Our church was closed for several months. When it did reopen, it was outside, masked up, in either morning cold or 100*F heat! I said "SCREW THAT!" I was a member of the choir. When the church BUILDING finally reopened, it was without the choir. When it finally DID let the choir sing it was through their masks! "SCREW THAT!" I guess the Church is more concerned with lawyerproofing than anything else, and it doesn't have much money left after dealing with the victims of the diddling pedo priests it covered for. Of course, the Catholic church has no problem breaking the law when it comes to illegals...
ReplyDelete...I'm in no hurry to return to that environment... I do know I need to be a part of a Christian community, but as of yet haven't been led to the right place...
Pete I try to stay out of denominational politics because I just don't know enough about them. I will just say the Catholic church has some very real problems within their organization and a lot of it seems to start at the top. They are not unique in that at all.
DeleteOur elders in our church answer only to us and to God. So far he has been a largely silent partner, and they cannot lead when we can't agree on a path to follow with such things.
I know those men, they are true Christians that walk the walk and talk the talk, and they try to lead by example whenever possible. Their cooperation is stuff like this is to avoid a fight, rather than start one. If my leaders did what yours did, I wouldn't just walk out - I would sit down with them first and tell them succinctly why I was leaving and I would encourage anyone that listens to do the same. They have to decide at some point whether they are a church of God or a church of Covid. You did exactly the right thing in walking away, in my opinion. Don't give up on them; when they crash and burn, you will be needed to support the rebuilding efforts.
Sorry to hear it.
DeleteI am angry that they closed the churches because of Gates and Fauci crying wolf. I don't think my pastor's heart was in that decision. On the phone I told him of my skepticism in regard to Covid. I got him laughing when I said that I wish Bill Gates would shut his face. I've been outspoken about it. I think my pastor is skeptical too. Instead the elbow bump, I just gave my pastor a smart military salute (which in this instant, was one the few times I didn't mind saluting.
ReplyDeleteThose guys are all in a pickle, Quartermain. All we can do is try to influence them and hope they listen to us. If they don't... well .... maybe we shouldn't be listening to them. I will bet your man is happy for your support and patience.
DeleteWhen the other side points fingers and makes accusations at you unprovoked, there is not much you can do besides leave the door open, and get on with your life.
ReplyDeleteI am not a particularly spiritual person, but there have been moments. I remember a day when I was about 12, riding alone on horseback, up within sight of the tree line. More recently, while babysitting our 10 month old grandson.
I lay a large chunk of our current societal ills at the feet of Dr. Spock--"It's not your fault"-- and the myriad of excuses that follow allowing the blame for one's shitty life to be placed elsewhere. Oddly, it strikes me that perhaps part of the panic on the left is because those favorite places to put the blame are evaporating, leaving only one. I call it the "Don Quixote" syndrome. He was defeated by the Knight of Mirrors.
Our top church leadership called BS on the Covid madness right off the bat. Our very small local group is all older people. I'm the youngest at 67. Between being scattered and some not being able to travel well or sit in a pew for any length of time, we were already meeting via teleconference a couple of years before Covid. We use recorded sermons from the HQ church and provide recorded hymns for the service with prayers by participants. The lead minister would be in jail if he were in Canada as he tells it like it is and preaches the Bible, not feel good crap with no scriptural basis. He is also very politically & socially conservative. None of our local group believes in masks or the clot shots and neither do nearly all of the international membership.
ReplyDeleteThat is awesome FF.
DeleteI personally think that Christians are going to be forced to abandon the churches in the near future and go underground and I really like that your group is embracing the technology to do that.
I expect more people to lose patience as I have done as this thing drags on. The resentments are only going to fester...
Well, you didn't sue the church for not salting the parking lot.
ReplyDeleteThat is not the way I roll.
DeleteSince I moved to Columbus, OH, I've been unchurched. I tried several, but discovered issues of one kind or another. Then the Chinese attacked, and many churches closed or disbanded. Most members had no idea how to set up a Zoom meeting, which wouldn't have worked anyway.
ReplyDeleteI went to church services last Sunday, the idea being that the church in question was a non-denominational Christian church with sermons for the adult believer, and the music drove me out. Another Church I tried in the pre-covid days had about 130 or so members, was non-denominational, and had a choir. The problem was that the minister of music acted like a lounge singer with the choir as his backup. He amplified his voice, and shouldn't have. The man was arrogant, so I left.
I'm still looking for the right church.
As for wearing a dog muzzle or providing proof of vaccination or very recent testing, I refuse. Social distancing helps, and is desirable in most restaurants anyway - remember the last time you went out on the town for a nice, refined dinner and ended up sitting at arm's length between a bachelorette party (whooooooo!) and an extended family of Millennials, all of whom have the table manners of a primate and the collective intelligence of a family of dead beavers? At least social distancing limits capacity and keeps the undesirables away.
The only thing I can say about the Chinese Flu crises is that the true colors of the ministry really showed. If your church elders stated bluntly that as Christians, we follow the Lord first, man's overly complex rules and regulations second, then you are attending the church I'd like to attend.