Finally we have some sunshine. Lisa was off this morning so we went with a friend to breakfast. I got my usual: 2 eggs over easy, link sausage, potatoes grilled with onions, white toast with blueberry preserves, and coffee. It’s my one very sinful meal of the week, and I love it!
They offer healthier choices at this restaurant. But they are so much more expensive. Just like the grocery store. Healthy food is far more costly. I eat healthy most of the week. This is my time to sin, and sin boldly I do!
I’ve been invited out for supper after Lisa goes back to work so I’m going to skip lunch. I gladly accepted the invitation because, when Lisa’s working and since we have an empty nest, I sometimes go days on end without being with another person. It gets very lonely sometimes. I’m an E/INFP, so I can stand long periods without another person, like a virtual hermit. But when I want company, sometimes there’s none to be had. So an invitation is a rare and welcomed thing.
I didn’t choose this isolation. But it certainly is a ramification of my choices. I chose to submit no longer under the spiritual authority or dominion of others. I sued for my own spiritual independence. I wanted to walk my own spiritual path and find my own spiritual land. I feel this is everyone’s right and responsibility.
The ramification of that is that those in authority and the mainstream they dominate told me, essentially, that I was no longer a citizen of their country. I had, I was informed, betrayed my own citizenship. My passport to the established spiritual domain was revoked. I am denied access and privileges. Unless I surrender my rights.
It wasn’t me who told me I was no longer welcomed at the church I left. It wasn’t me who unfriended me on Facebook. It wasn’t me who cut off all communications with my former colleagues and friends. It wasn’t me who banished me to a spiritual no-man’s land to fend for myself.
No! I took a stand and the crowd that used to surround me gradually but decidedly dispersed.
The friend we went to breakfast with this morning has decided to no longer go to church. And this person too all of a sudden feels alienated and isolated. It wasn’t that this person chose this, but they did choose to be able to make decisions for their own spiritual health. Another spiritual refugee.
Many of you know exactly what I’m talking about.
You are lonely not because you are a loser or an unfriendly person or unpleasant or anything of that sort. You are lonely because you made a wise and healthy choice! And like healthy food, it costs you extra. It is harder to live by. You can eat what everybody else is eating, but you instinctively know that this is not best for your spiritual health. You can join where everyone else is joining, but you know you would have to surrender too much.
We are like spiritual refugees. But we can’t have it any other way if we choose independence.
So we take moments during the week to pop in to the refugee center, TLS, to have a drink, meet up with other refugees, get encouragement, gather more resources, and to strengthen our resolve that we not only made the right decision, but that we will stick by it.
Peace, my independent friends!
david