When it is good, I love going to Church, but I haven't been going. Lost the habit years ago, as the marriage spiraled into the swamp. The wife would go to study, I would work, cook, do housework. The boyos were old enough to just say "no".

 I felt  and feel guilty that I let the kids "off the hook", and failed my oath given at their baptisms to give them a Christian Education, and seek their confirmation. Mid sized B went long enough to learn the basics, and is intellectually inquisitive enough to sample more, but is a science based agnostic/atheist. At least he made an informed choice. Lil B barely remembers church, and rejects it like most structure and authority, from a position of ignorance.

 My own faith is idiosyncratic. I'm too skeptical and logical to read the Bible as literal truth, but love it as more than merely literature. It is to me a mystical code of the infinite miracle which is mankind - essential truths told as fables, allegories and parables.

 When I bought this house, the fact that is within walking distance of my church was a bonus. Yet I have walked there maybe three or four times in 19 month, and, no, I did not venture out by car on those below freezing winter mornings. 

And here I sit, dithering past the window of opportunity another week, drafting this post. Its easy to come up with 10 Reasons NOT to go:

1. Sunday is my fave morning to work when its quiet at my too noisy office, early,before others arrive .
2. Its cool out - too cool to walk?
3. If I drive, where will I park.
4. What if its a dreary substitute minister? (see reason 2 to go)
5. I should be here for the kids when they get up (hah!)
6. housework.
7. coffee
8. OS
9. The Saturday Globe and Mail newspaper, arrived to late to readSaturay.
10. Feeling out of place amongst the aging congregation
11. what if the music sucks?

See...that's a bonus 11!

But just as easily, I list 10 reasons to go, though now its too late (that would be reason 12 NOT to go):

1. I love the sense of community, of place, of shared personhood, the core of civilization.
2. The regular minister is an academic, but also a cheerfully down to earth realist. His sermons teach lessons which take Bible texts and make them relevant and challenging in a good way, sparing us the fundamentalism.
3. The services and liturgy are not literalist.
4. When its good, the music is overwhelming and uplifting.
5. If its a nice day to walk, its wonderful.
6. It takes my out of my intermittent urge to hibernate.
7. Today, I was at work early, home early, had lots of time.
8. Other Sundays, I could dress a little better going to the office, drive from there -few people bother with a suit and tie these days.
9. If I don't go, will the church close (its a real concern), the minister move on, the opportunity be lost? Simply put, I should walk the talk.
10. I feel better after I go. 

I am, as you can tell, annoyed by my own ambivalence.

What's a man to do?