I had an epiphany today while in church. It was a good service, full of Christmas carols. I've often wondered why church is so appealing to elders, and so universally unappealing to kids. I don't know of a single child who really wants to go to church. I think the answer has two parts: (1) conditioning, and (2) the comfort of rituals held year after year.
All through the early years, kids are getting the foundation, the conditioning that will pull them back to these rituals later in life. But that conditioning has no comfort - for the kids, it's all pain and no gain. Then as aging takes its toll and we begin to feel out of step with an increasingly complex and unfamiliar world, we embrace the songs that we heard as kids, and take comfort in that small bit of stability. I imagine the architects of each "faith" understood that process very well.
My email is now officially a mess. The domain "nicholsgrp.com" is somewhere in DNS hell. Verisign *may* be in the process of moving the hosting site, or may just have edited the DNS entry and pointed the domain into the bit bucket. We'll see.
Got to go target shooting in the foothills near Grand Junction yesterday. Northeast of the town, the edge of large BLM holdings (millions of acres?) makes for great recreation. Hiking, offroading, shooting, hunting and fishing - there's room for everything. And the views...awesome! You simply couldn't avoid becoming an outdoors person if you lived here.
We're back on the uphill slope! Yesterday was the Winter Solstice, so today will be just a little longer than yesterday, as will every day till June 20. The worst is over.
