Invitation For Community Event: Fill & Download for Free

I often invite atheists, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Wiccans, etc. to my Passover Seder. It's a community event that can be very entertaining and meaningful for people with a wide range of beliefs. Often, people attend it with a sort of sociological perspective; they're interesting in experiencing a Jewish event, understanding my faith better, etc., not in sharing it. I have often gone to services of religions other than my own with the same type of perspective.If Christianity makes you really uncomfortable, or if you're certain that going will lead to undue pressure to convert or be more observant, don't go. But if your girlfriend is just asking you to go to participate in a family and community event that is important to her, I think you should go, at least once. If you do get uncomfortable attention or pressure from the other attendees, that's a perfect excuse to not attend in the future.That said, also; don't go if you can't refrain from being disrespectful or a jerk. A church at Easter is not the right place to share your beliefs or present your disdain for their beliefs. If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. At the very least, you should be able to compliment the music.

Yes, this is realistic and how the matter is usually handled.A good superior, male or female, is a good discerner of vocations. By years of careful observation he or she ideally gains an ability to make a pretty accurate assessment of who is suited or not suited for community life. I myself was a novice in an abbey as a young man and decided it was not for me after a few years. On leaving I was wished well and invited to come and visit any time. I have a friend who was a woman religious who left, and her community has a sort of "alumnae group" the community keeps in touch with and invites to various events.This is not to say there may be poorly qualified religious superiors who may get angry or resentful when someone leaves, but they are the exception. If a person is not suited to religious life, it is really counterproductive to try to force that person to stay, or to try to make that person feel bad for choosing a different state in life.

I know from past experience and griping about it that this answer will not be the most popular but I’ll give it anyway: This senior citizen doesn’t want to hear that 40 or 50 songs playlist from the 60’s-70’s and 80’s that are played everywhere we go - - - at every function, dance, senior fitness center, many stores that we frequent, and especially any social group or gathering of seniors in any 55-plus community - you know what you’re gonna hear: Mustang Sally, Mony Mony, Brown-eyed Girl, Celebration by Kool and the Gang, Billie Jean, Smooth by Santana, Uptown Funk - (to make us feel hip and with it even though it’s already an oldie as far as I’m concerned) and my all time most hated, awful, horrifyingly sickening tune ever written: “Old Time Rock’n’Roll” by Bob Seger. Cringeworthy, stupid and NO, I will not get up and dance to it!!!I grew up always listening to Top 40 radio and what a wonderful time it was! You heard a VARIETY of genres, styles, artists. If it was a good song it somehow pushed through and made it to the top. You always knew what the cool tunes were because they were in the Top 40. It seems to me that it all stopped right around 1989 or so…Top 40 radio started to SUCK and suddenly music started to become genre defined. Rap came in big and (fine with me), many stations wouldn’t play it. Heavy metal…(some good stuff but not a lot). So music splintered into all these little sub-categories and you really had to search and take a risk just buying records and CD’s of groups you kinda knew about who you might like. (This is how I discovered Depeche Mode. I reasoned that a band with that many albums must have some good songs.) Then of course the internet came along and really blew music up. Bad and good.But for some reason now, it seems wherever I go you hear a lot of “Oldies” radio stations. Pick any city and they’ll have at least a couple. Playing the same 40–60 songs…”Jump” by Van Halen…please, not again. Lots of songs from the way overrated Eagles…no thanks. I lived in a 55-plus community in California who played the same songs at every community event. If they hired a band who strayed from their preferred song list - that band never got invited back. Then we moved across the US and two weeks ago attended our first dance here and yep, sure enough, got to hear all the songs I heard back in California - and in almost the same order!!!So as I get older I continue my search for cool new tunes from young (and old) bands who play good music. And I do find some really good ones too. I just wish I could still turn on my radio and hear that kind of stuff and not “Rhiannon” or “Crazy on You” for the one-millionth time.