Circle Squared: December 2019

I don't particularly like the holiday season. I want to, but I don't. Some might think I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (or S.A.D.). And while the timing seems to fit, I don't think it adequately describes my experience during the winter months.

First and foremost, I'm not really depressed. Sure the weather sucks, and I would rather it be too warm than snowy. But I can manage the cold, honestly. No, it is not depression that fills me, but anger. The holidays make me angry. I guess you could say I suffer from Seasonal Anger Disorder (too on the nose?).

So, why am I so angry when so many people around me are oozing joy and cheer? Why does the jingling of bells and conspicuous displays of trees decked-out with glistening, eye-catching trinkets get under my chilled skin? Religion. Of course it's religion. Religious people take their favorite holiday and spread it out over two seasons (yes, I'm looking at you, Costco). To them the "most wonderful time of the year" translates to about 5 months of overt proselyting. And when people push back and seek inclusion by saying something as innocuous as "Happy Holidays," Christians throw a hissy-fit about an alleged War on Christmas and a decline in American values, as if their religious traditions are synonymous with morality.

I don't have anything against people being open about their beliefs and even arguing about them with others. I have done it plenty. But the holiday season gives Christians of all stripes a social license to be more brazen about it and they get offended by others doing the same. It isn't a level playing field.

Some who have followed this blog or my other social media platforms might think that I am confrontational about religion and actively look for arguments with believers. While it is true that I have found myself in some pretty public arguments online and in person, I don't generally look for those opportunities, and I have even shut down many such conversations when I either didn't feel it was appropriate in the setting (mixed company, usually with children), or I simply wasn't feeling up for it. To be honest, I can't remember the last time I actually got into a religious argument with someone. It's probably been a couple years.

I guess I'm just tired of the conversation. It is always with the same people (family members mostly) and I know it isn't a fruitful conversation to have most of the time. They are too defensive (they literally can't even entertain the idea that their religion might not be true) and my standards for evidence are too high for them to convince me (as if that's a bad thing). We are at a stand-still. Until something changes, I don't see the point.

Despite my reluctance to engage with believers, they routinely seek me out. Just in the past month I have been coerced through social pressure into participating in religious rituals (family members create situations where it would be perceived as rude if I refused), had the Mormon missionaries knock on my door and try to convince me to give them 10% of my income or suffer eternal consequences (when I told them I wasn't interested, they told me they would put me on a "do not contact" list if I gave them my name, which having been a missionary once myself I can tell you is not necessary), and an ultra conservative uncle of mine used the family contact list of all my extended family on my mother's side to send out a newsletter for his conspiracy-riddled Trump propaganda website. And I still have to make it through Christmas.

So, don't tell me "You can leave the church, but you can't leave it alone." I have been actively avoiding arguments with religious people for months (at least) and they keep badgering me. It seems they can't leave me alone. I would love to just let Mormonism be that silly little religious group I was a part of in my youth and move on to more important things, but they won't let me. They literally bring it to my house; they coerce me at family get-togethers; they advertise on freeway billboards and YouTube commercials; they make presumptuous jokes during staff meetings at work. Not a single goddamn day goes by that I am not reminded of the abusive, manipulative zealots that stunted my adolescence and young adulthood. And the holiday season just puts a bell and multicolored lights on it. So, please forgive me if I appear a little grumpy when I hear Bing Crosby in the grocery store telling me how wonderful it is that god sent his son to earth to be murdered because he--the all powerful, all knowing creator of everything--can't forgive his mortal children for touching their junk and drinking coffee without some good old fashioned blood-infused, death cult magic (it should be noted that as a child I was not allowed to watch the movie "Willow" because a sorceress tries to kill a baby so she can use its blood in a magic spell).