Soccer

My son was not well the other Sunday, so we stayed at home. I was in the mood to do so as well. We had Soccer trials in the afternoon which we also didn't get to, although we did turn up to buy some gear.

I had other motives. I'm a little demotivated at church by the interior of our main auditorium (what some like to call 'the church'). I've mentioned it before, but didn't elaborate on the huge sound desk halfway down one side of the space. It is intrusive and makes the seating layout awkward. Oh that the whole thing could be banished.

Is this a big thing? Well, yes and no. I don't feel that the space in any way exults the worship of God in our meeting or even respects us as a group. Its like a sound stage between productions: muddled and unconsidered.

The other motive was a darker one. I was thinking that I didn't want my son to grow up so emotionally locked into church that he experienced an isolating culture that would risk him becoming vulnerable in later life. So absence from time to time is fine, maybe good.

I might give more detail at another time (because few do, and it might be of interest to some), but my motivation reflects a set of derailing experiences in my early adulthood.

Two significant interests of the opposite sex produced an unfolding disaster for me as they ended. The first was a series of mistaken motives and objectives, maybe by me, but I felt, by Delta too. It ended with an astonishing rebuff that I should 'get myself together'. Unbeknown to both her and me was that I was living with an undiagnosed broken neck and using medication that was later found to have deleterious psycho-active properties for younger people. So, maybe I wasn't 'together' in her mind, but the unkind dismissiveness of the comment hurt deeply. I had admired Delta and regarded her as a friend; I had never until then thought that I wasn't 'together'; it shocked, almost frightened me. I felt that I recovered from it, but within a year or so I was crushed by the ending of a relationship that I possibly over-invested in. It ended with my limitations being examined for free.

I had to steer clear of Christian girls. They were too dangerous. I became very wary.

It all seems to be quite petty now, decades away, but I reflect that it might not have been if I'd been more worldly wise, less open, and more self-protective, maybe more experienced; but that would have meant an alternative to my plan to not be close with non-Christian girls.

Was it all bad? Well, no, as I later met the one who I would marry, so that was good. But the flip side was that hurt stifled effective Christian service for decades! I dabbled here and there from my early thirties, but am only now returning to the tempo I once had, but even so, still not quite.