Christmas Eve
My parents invited friends for drinks. It was a nice evening but a little tiring having to talk to people all the time. (Hence going to bed before midnight.) Got a game of Zèrtz in with a son of one of the families attending—on his first game he got within one marble of beating me! I think I am too reckless with my sacrifices. And I did point out one capture he could make.
I am not going to church tomorrow. This (I think) will be the first Christmas I haven’t been to church. It is surprisingly liberating. Increasingly I feel like a fraud whenever I attend a church service: I simply don’t believe any of it. For several years I was director of music there and having to sit through so many repetitions of mostly the same words while just listening out for my “cue” could have been what eroded my faith (which was kind of pantheistic to start with). At present I strongly doubt that I shall ever have any religious faith again. But it doesn’t bother me: I simply don’t feel the need to believe in something “other” than the physical universe (or multiverse, if you prefer). I know people say “there must be a purpose to all this”… but why? That’s like a photon saying “there must be a reason I was scattered in this direction rather than another”. It just is… in my mind, anyway.
Er… I’m not sure where all that came from. It’s just turning midnight now, so I wish any readers a very happy Christmas and New Year. And to any who don’t celebrate Christmas, I wish you a very happy Christmas Bank Holiday, because you can hardly complain about having a day or two off work for a festival you don’t even celebrate! ;-)