Getting Our Religion

FOR SOME REASON I have growing urge to decorate my house with Christmas lights, on Novemeber sixteen, of all dates. This usrge has been with me for several days, even though we are currently in the middle of a warm spell. Maybe the warm spell is the catylist. I noticed jsut last night that there is one, only one but still one, house in my neighborhood which has indeed put their Christmas lights up; they looked good last night. Each year I hang strands of lights in my front windows, in no dicsernable pattern; I just hang them randomly, abstractly,and they always look good to me when I am finished hanging.I buy strands for about three dollars a box at Dollar General, and as the holiday season moves along, I often buy a box of light on my regular shopping visits, and add them to the array as Christmas day approaches. Ovrteh past couple of decades or so, if memory serves, I hang up the first lights on the Sunday afternoon and evening after Thanksgiving. From late November until New Years Day, which is about when I take them down... I turn them on at dusk every evening, and,f or some reason, leave them on all night long. If it is overcast the following morning, I sometimes decide to leave them on all day. I have no idea the precise impact on my electric bill; obviously, it doen't lower it any, and doubtless raises it at least some, though I haven't the faintest idea exactly how much. Not much, I suspect.I can't recall any January light bills standing out as being excessive, and then too, these modern Christmas lights, the liny glittery ones they sell these days, appear to be pretty easy on electricity. Years ago I used to put up a six or seven foot artificial Christmas tree, then, cats came into my life, and well, the rest is history, as they say.I haven't had a Christmas tree in years. I've never actually tried having a tree and cats at the same time: I just figured that the easiest way to proceed was to give up the tree, to not even try it, seeing as how Christmas decorations have no special signifigance to me anyhow, other than just fun. As I age towards the transition,I seem to enjoy and embrace "the Holidays" as much as if not more than ever, which I think is a good sign. that I have not become bored, jaded, or disinterested with the frivoliies of life, frivolities such as religious holidays and holiday decorations. I'm also glad I have a kind of "when in Rome" attitude about life as a member of a community and of society. There is, for instance, no reason for me to feel conflicted or hypocritical about regularly attending chruch when in fact I not only am not religious,but I actually disparage and denigrate religion in general. The fact is that I see value in religion, all religions, not just teheone of my choosing. I have no patience with people who embrace their religion of choice with enormous enthusiasm and devotion, and for some reason seem to completely fail to comprehed why and how other poople do the same, with religions of their choosing. The more devoted people are to their own religions, the more intolerant they tend to be of other people with similar religions devotion to their own religion. Religious intolerance,bigotry, prejudice are as unreasonable and illogical as racism itself. With thousands of organized religions in the world, nothing is more obvious than that they all deserve equal respect, by everyone. There are millions of good reasons to dislike people, without bothering to use skin color or religion as one of them.