Penultimate Day 2023

supplemental income. I really don’t want to get back into a desktop support role. I’m so out of the with much of the new technology and my knowledge of Windows is essentially prehistoric. I might like being paid to write Bash scripts. The idea of being beholden to a schedule seems disagreeable as well.

I miss being a contented atheist. I enjoyed not believing in a god and not having to deal with religion very much. Then I got sucked into the establishment of a church a few years ago, and while that experience has confirmed my non-belief, it’s also been quite stressful. My stress levels have gone down since I began minimizing my participation. Currently, the extent of my involvement is to take attendance during the services. I try to get the count as quickly as possible, so I can sequester myself in a room where I can’t hear it. I’d love it they could find someone else to do it. They seem to assume I’m going to take attendance even if I’m not there.

I think my wife is also feeling like the church takes us for granted and assume we will always be there doing what we do. This Sunday is supposed to be her last day as the chair of the reception committee which has the primary responsibility for the post-service dinner. Someone has already been named to take over but I’m sure they’ll depend on her to get things done.

I’ve been growing quite weary of everyone’s presumption of my beliefs. I get the feeling that everybody is oblivious to my lack of participation. Do they think that whenever I disappear, I’m praying or reading the Bible? In the coming year, I’ll be doing what I can to further distance myself from religion. The more I’m exposed to it, the less I want to do with it. I abandoned my presumption of belief years ago.

That brings me to the subject of funerals. I don’t remember how many I attended but three stand out. Two were graveside services at the VA cemetery and I liked them becuase there were short, to the point, and meaningful. The third one was for a young man who happened to have been a veteran. The only way I knew he was a vet was because I saw pictures of him in uniform. It was never mentioned during the service. In fact, I learned nothing about the deceased from the service. The service was a church sermon and the pastor went on and on about “Daddy God.” That’s a phrase that makes me want to wretch. I do believe that it was the first time I have ever walked out of a funeral. I meant no disrespect for the deceased or his family; I walked out out of respect for the deceased and myself. Not only did I feel the young man in the casket was disrespected, I felt I was disrespected as well. For post on that particular funeral service, see A Depressing Funeral.

What does 2024 hold for me? Will the Republicans gain more power? If they manage to return to the Oval Office, will that mark the end of democracy and the beginning of a Christian dictatorship? To be honest, I don’t hold out much hope for the sustainibility of the Democratic Party. There seems to be a lack of strong leadership as well as a lack of focus.

As for me, I’ll keep chugging along, doing the best I can with what I’ve got.

A Depressing Funeral

I’ve attended quite a few funeral and memorial services in my time and they can be quite sad and even depressing. A service that I attended recently has to rank among the most depressing that I have ever witnessed. Even when I don’t know the deceased well or at all, I’m usually moved emotionally by the loss and felt compassion and sorrow for the family. At this service I felt nothing. It wasn’t that I did not feel grief, sadness, or sorrow. I believe it was the service itself that drained the emotion from me.

At most of these services, I learn something about the deceased, about their life, their character, their accomplishments, and the impact their life had on others. I hear their friends and family share their memories, and I can, in some small way, share their grief. At this service, there was hardly any mention of the young man who tragically died, hardly any tribute to him. No one shared any memories. Hardly anyone talked about him at all. I left the funeral parlor knowing no more about this man than what I’d know beforehand.

Maybe it was the service the family wanted, or maybe it was the service they settled for. I have no way of knowing. But from my perspective, it was hardly a memorial service at all. No disrespect intended to the family or the pastor, but I saw it as a church service with a corpse and a casket at the front of the room instead of a cross and an altar. It wasn’t a memorial to the deceased, but a sermon about God and his glory. It was a Christian service, so I expected religious content and some sermonizing, but this came off a as full-blown church service. All that was missing was the choir and the collection plate.

But what really put me off was when the pastor started repeatedly using the term “Daddy God”. That term absolutely makes me cringe. There are a lot of juvenile things that Christians say, but “Daddy God” has got to be the worst. I had already been feeling emotionally empty, but now I was actually beginning to feel depressed and I had to leave the room.

In my mind, the young man and his memory had been disrespected. Hardly anything was said about him or his life. He was a veteran, yet there was no mention of it, nor was there a flag draped on his casket or a folded flag. That made me feel disrespected.

The service cemented in my mind why I do not want any kind of religious service when I leave this world. I fully intend to have that stated in my last will and testment. It is my sincere desire that there be no sermons, no prayers, no hymns, and no religious imagery. The only acceptable music wii be The Blues and maybe some of my favorite classic Rock. The purpose of any funeral or memorial service for me will be to celebrate my life, not to worship or glofiy a god I never believed in.

Penultimate Day

This is only my second post here this year!? I probably need to work harder at maintaining this blog. I really can’t take much comfort that most of my other blogs as just as neglected.

What has the past year been like? To be honest, rather unremarkable. I’ve been getting by, and that holds true for just about every aspect of my life.

This year was the Class of 1972’s 50th reunion. I made the trip up north to visit Dad, so the reunion was incidental. There were three days of activities planned for the reunion, but I only attended the bonfire on that Friday. It was nice to see and talk to some of my former classmates, but after 50 years, I still don’t have much in common with them. They’re all characters in an earlier chapter of my life story. In high school, my life didn’t intersect much with theirs outside of school itself.

As in the past few years, a lot of my life has centered around the church which, on the surface, seems kind of strange for an athiest such as myself. When the church started, I got sucked into it as if it was a blackhole. And like a blackhole, I’ve been unable to escape its gravity. The way I see it is that I’m supporting my wife in her duties as a member of the council, and she’s indicated that she wants to step down as the Reception Chair. I also support the Fil-Am community, and many of its members also happen to be in the church.

On Sundays, my particular function is to take attendance and count how many attend the service. Once I’ve completed my count, I retire to Foster Hall where the fellowship meal takes place and help Tina with setting things up for the meal. The greatest benefit I receive is that I don’t hear much of the service and usually none of the sermon. Still, everyone in the congregation presumes that I’m a faithful follower of Christ.

That pretty much sums up my participation in the church. I religiously avoid participating in any rituals and services. That’s not always possible, but if I have to be present, I try to be as inconspicuous as possible. During the fellowship meal, there is usually a call to bless those who are celebrating a birthday or anniversary that week. At the first indication that it’s about to begin, I discretely slip out of the hall through the kitchen. If I can’t, I stand there quietly, and my right hand does not go up in a Nazi-style salute.

When I can’t avoid exposure to religion, there’s always a dialogue going on in my head disputing what I’m hearing. Exposure to religion, I’ve found, only strengthens my non-belief. Over the year I’ve heard so many things in sermons and bible studies that are contrary to my life experiences and what I’ve learned. On the other hand, I’ve learned much about the Christian thought process through observation and interaction.

My financial status continues to plague me. When she changed her pension check to be directly deposited to her credit union account, I lost about $300 from the household budget. Now, virtually all the household expenses come out of my income. That’s bills, credit cards, loans, the mortgage, groceries. I’m even making the payments on her credit card and her long distance. Those used to be covered by that $300.

Projects like remodeling, repairs, and the like, aren’t happening because there are no funds for them. If something has to be repaired, the only option I have is to incur more debt which stretches my budget even further.

I’m not going to project into 2023. I fully expect the new year to be a continuation of prior years. Life is going to continue to suck.

Nullifidian

Technically, I can call myself an atheist and so can you. That’s because I don’t believe in gods, deities, or other supernatural beings. However, that doesn’t not imply that I’m at all comfortable with the label. Actually, I’m not comfortable with labels being put on people at all. I’ve found that labels are rarely ever a good fit. Labels belong on manufactured goods and machinery. I am neither.

I admit to be an atheist in the strictest sense of the word. I don’t believe any god or gods. However, I do not make any claims about the existences of gods because neither case is falsifiable nor can either case be demonstrated. I consider it moot point. Given the available evidence, my own obserations and experience lead me to conclude that the existence of god is highly unlikely. Credible and compelling evidence could conceivably cause me to change my mind, but until such evidence appears, my stance remaines as is.

If I’m uncomfortable with the ill-fitting atheist label, how do I identify myself and my lack of belief? I’ve recently come across the term nullifidian which somes from two Latin words meaning no faith. This seems to to fit me much better than the ill-fitting and too large atheist label. I consider myself a nullifidian.

Should solid credible and compelling evidence present itself, I might be persuaded to believe in the existence of deities. However, just because a god exists, it doesn’t mean it should be worshiped. Persuading me this deity’s worthiness to be worshiped could be an insurmountable task.

I have yet to find a god concept that has shown any coherency and not fallen part under moderate scrutiny. I find inconsistencies and contradictions that cannot be adequately reconciled. There are often incredible claims that cannot be substantiated or demonstrated, and have little or no basis in reality.

I often try to imagine or formulate the ideal supreme being, but I always come up short. I know many believers will tell me that God works in mysteious ways and is beyond our understanding, but that may be lack of imagination or an unwillingess to examine one’s beliefs. The closer I get to defining the characteristics and attributes of the ideal of a supreme being, the more redundant and useless such a god becomes. A perfect god serves no useful purpose.

What, exaclty, is the purpose of a god? Does a god personify its follower’s fears and insecurities? Or is its purpose to justify a people’s hatreds and prejudices so they can pursue acts of aggression to oppress those who do not believe as they do? Is the purpose of a god to fill in the gaps of a people’s knowledge about the world and themselves in order to believe they have the answers they need and to assuage their ignorance? Perhaps god are created for all of these reasons.

The more you replace your ignorance with knowledge, the less need you have for gods. Science continues to demonstrate that gods are not necessary for the Universe nor us to exist. It seems to me that a god with no utility or purpose is essentially worthless and not worthy of worship.

Penultimate Day 2021

We began the year in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. A year later, the pandemic is going into its third year. We have vaccines, treatments, and effective means of preventing the spread of the disease, yet it to continues to plague us. Much of it appears to be due to the willful ignorance of people who believe religious leaders, celebrities, and politicians who don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. It due to people who are unwilling accept the facts and seek out the plethora of reliable information. Idiocracy is transitioning from mere entertainment to public policy. Sorry for the rant.

I, along with my family, have adjusted to the changes brought about by COVID-19, and the adjustment hasn’t really been that difficult. We’ve gotten the vacciines and the booters, we wear masks when we go out, and we try to maintain social distancing. Sometimes the precautions can be a little inconvenient but overall, they’re reasonable. Some may think I’m unreasonable to believe that the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers are selflish, ignoranant, and self-centered, but, by all appearances, those people are being unreasonable.

During the summer I was able to break away from the church council. The pastor unwittingly provided the opportunity when he sent out a letter to all council members to renew their commitment to the council. Apparently, he felt that everyone would choose to remain on the council. I had several reasons for my decision. First of all, I didn’t feel that I filled a significant role on the council. I had a tiltle but no actual role.

Secondly, and most importantly, I knew that the mother church would begin to enforce certain requirements for our council and its members. The requirements haven’t been imposed yet but they are coming. Council members need to be “members” of the church, either full (Methodist) members or Associate members (keeping their previous church affiliations).

I don’t meet either requirement. Technically, I’m not a member of any church. I’m not even baptized, which is a basic requirement. Earlier this year, I checked with the Baptist church my family was associated with during my preschool years and they have no record of my parents being members. And I learned that Baptist churches do not conduct infant baptisms. That means that technically, I am a heathen.

Going forward, I intend to secularly support this church, but have no intention to undergo any of the sacraments. I’ll continue to be the positive face of atheism. I don’t seem to be able to fade away completely without negative consequences, but I’m trying to be less visible. Everyone still maintains the presumption that I believe as they do. Sometimes people are oblivious to the obvious.

The only other thing was surviving another year on a meager retirement income. I may have to break down and find some kind of employment The idea of going to a job and adhering to a schedule would seem strange to me now.

I don’t want to be committed

I really haven’t kept up on any of my blogs and some are more neglected than others. I’ve been meaning to write more but I just never seem to get around to it.

It’s now the end of June, half-way through the year. What’s happened in the last six months? The wife and I got our COVID-19 vaccinations back in March. Life in the pandemic has started to open up although I’m not as confident as the rest of the state seems to be. People are still getting infected and some are dying, but at a much lower rate. We got to see our grandchilren perform in the high school band concerts. I was disappointed that I couldn’t see my granddaughter graduate in person, but I did get to see her via a live stream. It wasn’t the same.

Our church has been able to resume in-person service most of the year with restrictions but it’s nearly back to normal now. Today we resumed the post-service fellowhip meal, if on a smaller scale.

I’m still on the church council although I don’t expect to be much longer. The pastor is expected to send out letters soon about renewing our commitments to the council. This, I think, will give me a perfect opportunity to step down from from my obligation (commitment).

Now that we’ve officially been a church under the mother church for a year, we will have to move toward meeting the guidelines and policies of the United Methodist Church. One of their requirements for members of the church council is that they be members of the church which includes baptism and a confirmation of faith.

And I have some problems with that. I checked with the church in my hometown where I would have most likely been baptized, and they have no record of it ever occurring. As a non-believer, I am strongly against professing to a faith that I don’t hold. The includes all of the associated rituals to include baptism, communion, confirmation, and professing faith. I feel as if I’ve sacrificed too much of my integrity already just playing along with everyone’s presumptions of my faith. Fraudulently going through the whole process is more than I’m willing to do.

When it comes time to consider renewing my commitment to serve on the council, I plan to resign, saying that I don’t feel ready to make a commitment on the level I’m going to be asked to commit. They already know that I’m still a newcomer to this religion thing, so they tend to see me as a “work in progress.” My justification will essentially be that I’m not ready to take the next steps and I need time to work things out.

That will probably set off an onslaught of prayers and love bombing. I’ll probably go from a work in progress to a major project. They don’t know how I react to pressure. I don’t cave; I intensify my resistance. They have no idea how stubborn I can be. That’s my Prussian ancestry.

Addendum

19 September 2022

It’s been over a year, but here’s an update. I did leave the church council. The pastor and a few members of the council were surprised but there were no questions and no pressure. My wife is still on the council and I support her in her role with the reception committee. I’m at the church nearly every Sunday, but that doesn’t mean I go to church. I help the wife with setting up the fellowship meal and I take attendance. I’m usually done counting well before the service gets going, so I don’t catch much of what’s being preached.

I try to keep my participation in the religious aspects to an absolute minimum. I’m usually in seclusion with my laptop is some empty meeting room during the dance practice and Bible studies, and I discretely exit the hall when the pastor is offering prayers to anniversary and birthday celebrants during the fellowship meal. If anyone notices my absences, they don’t say anything to me about it.

In the past year, I haven’t seen any signs that the Fil-Am church is working toward compliance with the United Methodist Church when it comes to church membership and meeting their requirements for the church council. But that was only one of my reasons for wanting to be off the counci.

After a bit or research, I found that the reason the Painesville Baptist Church as no record of my baptism is because I was never baptised. It turns out that the Baptist church doesn’t do infant baptisms. And I see no reason to go through with it now, so I’ll remain an unbaptised godless heathen. Of course, everyone in the congregation takes it for granted that I must be a faithful devoted servant of Christ who just happens to be uncomfortable with expressing his faith. Let them have their illusion.

Penultimate Day 2020

Another year has passed and it’s Penultimate Day again. As a bonus, it’s the penultimate day of the current decade. Decades and centuries end in years ending in 0. They begin with years ending in 1. It’s not that hard to figure out.

Other than the COVID-19 pandemic, and the current idiocracy that has taken over the nation the last few years, it wasn’t a totally bad year. The pandemic was, of course, a major inconvenience for everybody but I adapted without too many problems. Things would go so much better for everybody, if people would just learn to adapt and quit making a little inconvenience seem like a major crisis where their Constitutional rights are being trampled. Common sense, compassion, and cooperation are the keys to getting through this without it taking years.

There were a lot of things I missed like seeing my grandchildren’s school concerts, marching band and football games. I missed family gatherings like birthday parties and holiday get-togethers. But I never go anywhere anyway so the pandemic allowed me to stay at home more and avoid social interactions. The churches being closed didn’t bother me at all. Although services were being held online, I never bothered to check in to them. That was mostly do to non-belief and lack of interest.

This was the year I worried about my father’s health. A year ago November, he had a stroke during a routine procedure that had him in a coma for three days. A man who had once been a healthy, strong, self-suffient working man was reduced to an invalid overnight. Early this month he tested positive for COVID-19 and was hospitalized and treated for bilateral pneumonia. He was in for a week but he’s home now and seems to be doing alright. It’s seriouis business for a man his age in his condition. I don’t think he has long, but I want him to at least make it to his next birthday. The whole family knows that he’s living on borrowed time.

Early in September I tested positive for COVID-19 but I was completely asymptomatic. The only real inconvenience of my quaratine was having to sleep on a cot on my computer room. Being quarantined in the computer room wasn’t all that bad.

I have pretty much given up on lucid dreaming. I probably don’t remember more than a couple dream a week and most of them are gone before I can write them down. The interest is there but it just hasn’t happened.

The Christmas Spirit abandoned me again this year. I didn’t really do anything to celebrate the holiday. It’s pretty much always been a secular holiday for me but I don’t feel the desire to do that.

I’m still a distinguished member of the council for the First Fil-Am Church of Greater Dayton. Yes, it’s officially a church now. As I always have, I feel a conflict between my non-belief and being a church leader. It’s not a conflict of faith versus non-belief. At least I don’t think it is. I’m genuinely fond of the people in the church and support their goal of bringing unity to the local Fil-Am community. I’m getting tired of going through the motions, going along with their presumptions of my beliefs. I’m lying by omission and that bothers me. Some will figure it out eventually. There are subtle and not-so-subtle clues everywhere.

In August there was a big thing about the council members signing a covenant. There was a ceremony in front of the congregation, fancy certificates, and everything. I went through the motions but didn’t actually sign it. I’m certain that I’ll be asked to more as a council member, things like leading prayers and giving testimonies, neither of which I hold even the most basic qualifications nor desire. I hope I’m not nominated to be the new lay leader. That would be sacreligious!

What about the new year, 2021. I’m not expecting anything to improve significantly, particularly not in the first half of the year. It’s going to take years to undo the mess Trump is leaving behind. It may not even be possible. The pandemic will still be with us when the ball in Times Square drops, so will the unrest, the divisiveness, the racism, the xenophobia, and every other problem that plagues us. The only thing that changes is the date.

I’ll be just what I’ve always been, a simple man trying to make his way in the universe.

Finding my faith

I didn’t set out to become an atheist and I’m still not comfortable with the label. About ten or so years ago I had reached a point in my life where I felt that I needed to take some things, like mortality and spiritual matters, more seriously. I had never been religious and very rarely attended church services. I was kind of skeptical about religion in general but I presumed that, at some basic level, I was a Christian. This presumption was likely due to living in a predominantly Christian culture.

I briefly considered joining a local church but which one? Many of the denominations to which I had been exposed didn’t sit well with me, so randomly choosing one seemed a haphazard approach and hopping from one church to another didn’t seem to be very useful either.

Then it occurred to me that the one thing that all Christian churches had in common was The Bible. It made sense to me that reading the Bible might give me insight and an understanding of the Christian religion as a whole. I figured the differences between the various denominations were matters of interpretation. I may have been a bit naive, but I felt that a basic knowledge and understanding of he Bible would help me find my faith and point me in the right direction.

I did some research before I began reading and I found several Bible and religion sites that recommended reading the Bible in a piecemeal way, reading related passages from different parts of the Bible before moving on to another collection of passages, leapfrogging through the Bible.

At the time, the premise behind this approach didn’t occur to me so I began reading the Bible in the same way as I would any other book. I began with Genesis, intending to read on through Revelations. Long story short, I did not read either the Old or New testaments in their entirety.

From the very beginning, I was assaulted by inconsistencies and contradictions within the scriptures themselves. There were passages that were in direct conflict with the world as I knew it, conflicting with the history and science I knew, and with my own observations of how the world worked and should work. But I plowed through it — all the begetting, Sodom and Gomorrah, the flood, the exodus, and the conquest of the promised land, et al.

I reached a point where I couldn’t tolerate the Old Testament anymore and I moved on to the New Testament which seemed to be, in many ways, kinder and gentler. But there were still some disturbing elements. For a Messiah that preached peace and love there were a lot of overtones of hate and violence. And, of course, I still found a plethora of inconsistency and contradiction. And, no, I didn’ t make it all the way to the grand finale, Revelations.

To summarize, I did not find my faith by reading the Bible. Instead, I came to to the inevitable conclusion that I could not reconcile the inconsistencies and contradictions. I realized that I probably never had any faith to find and that my presumption of Christianity, was just that, a presumption. To me, it was obvious that the God of Abraham, the god described in the Old Testament, was not a deity I could believe in and certainly not one worthy of my worship.

At the time of my initial reading of the New Testament, Jesus seemed more acceptable to me. I found several inspirational verses in the Synoptic Gospels, but I had lingering doubts that I couldn’t reconcile. If I’d never been exposed to Eastern spiritual ideas, I might have been fine with that. But many of the Eastern ideas that I’ve gained knowledge of are more palatable, make more sense, and more closely paralleled the world I’ve known and experienced.

In the last couple of years, I’ve been much more directly involved with Christian doctrine and practice and many of the irreconcilable issues have become more apparent to me. Of course, the inconsistencies and contractions, and the darker side of the faith rarely, if ever, come up in the Sunday sermons or in Bible study sessions. Most of the sermons I hear are the happy side of Christianity — peace and love, salvation, and the promise of eternal bliss in Heaven, with only fleeting mentions of hellfire and brimstone.

Yes, I have heard the good news and I’m not buying it. Jesus died on the cross to save me from the sin that God inflicted upon all mankind shortly after creation? The promise of everlasting life? Eternal life only seems to have two options. If you’re obedient and put God first, you’ll have everlasting servitude to your Heavenly Father. Otherwise, a loving god sentences you to an eternity of unimaginable torture and suffering in Hell.

You can get into Heaven no matter what maliciousness you may have engaged in on Earth. All sins can be forgiven if you believe, if you have faith. All sins except one, the sin of not believing. The one thing that God cannot tolerate is someone ignoring him, either by choice or through ignorance. Not believing in his son is essentially the same thing thanks to the Trinity. God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all one and the same, except when they’re not.

I can’t accept that the god of Abraham, if he does exist, is a deity that is worthy of my worship, servitude, or obedience. As to the existence of any deity I’m agnostic and I live as if they don’t.

I’m not sure where I fit as an atheist. I have ideas about divine nature, the nature of the soul, and the supernatural. I don’t actually believe any of these ideas, they’re more like thought experiments or conceptual meanderings.

Swallowed

Am I being swallowed by a religion that I don’t believe in and whose doctrines and beliefs run contrary to the reality I see around me? Will my non-belief and my non-conformance inevitably cause it to spit me out? Or will it continue to masticate me like a piece of meat, hoping to break me down and tenderize me so it can swallow me whole?

It’s been nearly two years since I first slipped into this rabbit hole and became a founding member of what has become a new church. At first, I was curious, as I’ve long had a peculiar fascination with religion, but I never expected to become as involved as I have. But the rabbit hole is slippery and contains many twists and turns. Somehow I inadvertently found myself voted into the council, and despite my reluctance, my involvement in the growth of the church has grown along with my non-belief.

So far, most of the decisions I’ve had to make as a council member haven’t dealt with religious issues but they’re looming ahead of me. I inadvertently abstained in the vote on the council covenant simply because I put off voting on it and at the deadline for voting, I had been busy with something and missed it. When asked if I’d abstained because I’d forgotten to vote on it or because of “philosophical differences,” I responded with the former although I actually do have “philosophical differences” with the covenant.

I realize its importance to the church and the council but the religious wording and its implications of belief and its demand for adherence to that belief is not something I can, in good conscience, agree to. When the council voted to accept the covenant, I inadvertently abstained because the vote had slipped my mind. Even if I had remembered to cast a vote, I still would have abstained. I didn’t feel I could vote against it because I felt it was important to the church and the council. On the other hand, I couldn’t vote in favor of it either because I cannot adhere to its religious content.

Essentially, by abstaining in absentia, I postponed the inevitable and probably difficult discussion about my beliefs, letting everyone’s presumptions of my faith ride a bit longer. I’m sure that at some point, I will be asked to apply my signature to this covenant. How will I respond? I’m sure it will have greater consequences than my vote would have.

Now that the fellowship has officially become a church, I’m dreading the time when I will be asked to take part in discussions and decisions about worship, discipleship, and mission that, by all rights, I should not have any say in. In the council meetings, I’m in constant fear of being asked to conduct the opening or closing prayer. What do I know about prayer? I’m really not very good a impromptu speeches so making up something on the fly, especially something the sounds like a prayer that has no references to God, Jesus, or faith, would be a challenge.

Religion has a voracious appetite and is unwilling to spit or or regurgitate any sustenance as long as it believes it can sufficiently dissolve and digest you so it can eliminate the doubt and skepticism.

Penultimate Day – 2019

Once again, it’s Penultimate Day and it also happens to be the penultimate day of the penultimate year of the current decade. I had to get that off my chest because it irritates me when I hear people refer to a year ending in zero as the beginning of a new decade or century. Year ‘zero’ marks the end of the decade or century while year ‘one’ marks the beginning.

The Christmas spirit did not come to me this year. I didn’t put up a tree or any decorations. Other than the gift-giving deadline, it was just like any other day. I can’t say that I’m feeling any excitement about New Year’s Day either. For me, it’s just changing the calendar and creating new files to document the year to come.

As I noted in last year’s Penultimate Day post, I found myself becoming increasingly involved in the First Fil-Am Christian Fellowship of Greater Dayton. Well, a year later, I find myself much more involved than I ever could have imagined I could be or wanted to be. Early in the year a council member-at-large stepped down and I found myself a member of the council, a position in which I have become increasingly more uncomfortable with each passing week.

Lucid dreaming has eluded me for yet another year. In fact, I’m remembering far fewer dreams than when I began this pursuit a couple years ago. The interest and the desire are still there but there have been no tangible results in at least two years.