No checking up

A friend and I agree that some church congregations can be rather pushy and nosey: they are also keen for people to get involved in things. However, if one stays away for a period of time it is rare that anybody bothers to check up on you.

Following my abrupt exit from the ringing chamber a few weeks ago nobody has contacted me to see how I am. I have - as the amusing mis-quotation goes - passed a lot of water since then and I now understand what happened. (This ought to be the last time I blog about this by the way.)

I dare not go ringing again, even if I wanted to, because there would be too much explaining to do. I suppose people are taking a 'Let sleeping dogs lie' approach, or 'He'll come back when he is ready'.

Relating yesterday's post on Cognitive Dissonance to ringing, I know now that I did not want to give up ringing but I knew that I had to do so. What is more I have known for a while. I was becoming increasingly tense and fed up whilst ringing because I gain so little from it these days. The little I could gain is a decent ring with everyone knowing the method pretty well, which is not much reward for having given up an evening to help people who have made no effort during the past 7 days. This is very common theme in towers.

As a musician I know it is bad to practise and lock in one's mistakes but this is what regularly happens in bellringing because nobody will say anything. I can only bottle things up for so long and then I burst. Add to that the quasi-grief at realising that my ringing days are over and it is no surprise that I made a swift exit.

Perhaps someone in my tower will read this blog and understand that I am not a bad person. The reason I get so depressed in church services is that not even I will storm out of a service for which I am playing the organ: I have wanted to a few times.