Unmoored

It’s Christmas Day 2022. Had to think about what actual day of the week it is (Sunday). I’ve spent some time today sitting in front of a virtual fireplace, listening to carols played in an unadorned manner on the piano.

We didn’t go anywhere for Christmas Eve worship, just sat at the kitchen table watching a couple of local online offerings on YouTube. At some point in the day yesterday I was contemplating making the effort to go to an early service locally, but that didn’t happen. The only other options were at 9pm, and that was too late for me.

It’s difficult to put into words how I’m feeling. Christmas has always held a special spot in my memory, the old feelings never too far away yet more difficult to conjure of late. A certain carol or song can still bring me back, but there’s something else going on now, and it has to do with this inner turmoil, this doubt that keeps nipping at my heels, chipping away at my understanding of things.

Perhaps at long last I’m realizing how little any of these feelings and emotions have had to do with Jesus. I feel no compulsion to attend worship, and when I watch the online services or attend in person, I am watching with a growing cynical and skeptical eye. It’s becoming a bore to me– not because things need to be spiced up, but because the words and message I hear are so bound to formula, agonizingly familiar, increasingly empty of import and meaning and relevant unpacking. It’s simply rehash and party line week after week, a lazy embellishment of chapter and verse.

I’m always listening in the hope that someone can hit a nerve, touch on a novel perspective that resonates and knocks me out of this errant orbit I seem to be settling into.

What does the family think of me? Are the kids starting to put two and two together? My actions aren’t matching what I was preaching for 26 years. I’m just drifting.