I suppose I should not be surprised, but leaving a group we found to be unsympathetic to anyone unlike themselves, determinedly anti-intellectual to the point of harming themselves and devoted to mindlessly repeating cable TV slogans would be unsympathetic to our need to find a group closer to our more thoughtful point of view. Our, now former, friends have treated our decision to begin attending our warmly friendly and accepting, somewhat offbeat and kooky, highly intellectually charged local UU church with a mixture of disdain, aspersions that we lack agency and are somehow being led or tempted by dark forces and bland and unthoughtful sloganeering.

We had a friend over for lunch and walk around our neighborhood and he told us we were being lazy and didn’t want to ”do the hard work” of being a Christian as narrowly defined by the group. When gently cajoled with the story that some idiots had decided that the Bible did not mention water treatment and therefore the government and dark insidious forces were preventing us from the benefits of “raw water”. Some nitwits sickened themselves and their children by drinking water from a culvert (don’t do this) and I asked our friend gently to find some common ground and see if he agreed that some anti intellectual trends were causing Christians to harm themselves. The only example he could think of, gears clearly grinding hard, was that some communities and countries were trying to deemphasize use of petroleum which was OBVIOUSLY outrageous. I began to explain that we used to drive by massive smoke belching refineries in Louisiana surrounded by poor neighborhoods and although it might be familiar and convenient to fuel our vehicles with petroleum products it would be beneficial to all to be less…. Our friend‘s blank stare and complete confusion cut off a long treatise on the environmental and health impact, historically temporary nature and geopolitically unfortunate addiction to cheap oil as fuel. They are really just not interested in any kind of critical thinking and it saddens me.

suddenly, we have no friends and I am worried about my spouse who needs social contact much more than I.

anyone want to commiserate?