It gets lonely on a third shift duty as a guard. Especially in winter, a cup of coffee can cheer you up.
A man I partnered with offered me some one night. Great, but it was black. In those days black coffee was about as appealing to me as a cup of battery acid. When I tried some, the taste without amenities was unpleasant. But after several tries I came to really like it and drank nothing else.
Like an infant, starting life with a taste for sweetness, I went through the same experience in reading the Bible. Most of the Word was meaningless to me, even unpleasant. It took years, but I learned to read the Bible without any additives. If I need a taste of "sugar and cream", I can turn elsewhere for them.
To read the Bible "straight" may cause you to shed some friends, or more likely, they will drop you. Churches may fall by the way, that is, religions. It happened to me.
Giving up Christmas was a shock. All my good friends did so too, including those with children.
I may seem like some kind of stern Puritan, but I'm not at all. What I have experienced is that people who follow unBiblical practices are the most intolerant ones. If anyone deviates from their practices, they are considered weird, perhaps shunned altogether.
America as the land of "rugged individualists" is nothing but fiction. Do and believe as others or get out is the norm.
In regard to Christmas, two of my friends developed a charming practice. Though their children missed Yule gifts at first, they might receive unexpected gifts at any time of year, like in July. These were called Rapture Day presents, and were rewards for kind deeds or just good behavior. Rapture Day, "at a time when you know not".
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