Just to Clarify.....

I have absolutely no problem with people who choose to order their lives completely around exclusively religious activities.

What I DO have a problem with, though, is people who live exclusively religious lives and look down their collective noses at people who choose to enjoy secular things in an effort to maintain a sense of balance in their lives.

Imagine never feeling comfortable sharing about a really fascinating book you've read because you know you'll be looked at as if you have suddenly sprouted a second head.

Think about how you would feel if you knew that if you invited a person to some activity or event you really enjoy, your invitation would be either refused or ignored because it doesn't first and foremost involve church.

Imagine knowing that if you asked a group of people to get together with you a few times a year just for a snack-and-gab, the only way you could get them to commit to showing up would be to have it be a prayer group-with-refreshments.

What if you always had to go shopping by yourself, with no one but the sales staff in the shops to tell you whether those pants make your butt look fat, or those shoes really don't go with that dress.

Because I really do make an effort to being a "glass-half-full" type of person, a couple of advantages to these sorts of situations are that you really get some good practice in 'custody of the tongue', and you learn to be very comfortable with enjoying things alone.

It's almost like tunnel vision in many ways.

If you read anything much about icons, you will eventually (probably sooner rather than later) come across a discussion about how, in an icon, perspective seems to be somehow 'reversed' so that instead of looking forward toward a 'vanishing point' somewhere in the far background of the subject being portrayed, YOU are standing at that 'vanishing point' and looking OUTWARD. Icons aren't pictures or paintings, they are windows.

And it is through the window of my religion that I see all the other things in the world.