“Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.” – Henry David Thoreau

I’ve decided that the best Christmas gift I can give anyone that I know is to mind my own business. It’s free, it’s a gift you can give over and over again, and it could be the key to making everyone you know happy. Anyone wondering what to give me for the holiday can do the same.

Two weeks ago, I mentioned in a post that I was thinking of starting a new church, I was calling it The Holy Spirit Of Those Who Still Mind Their Own Business. I didn’t think all that much about it, but the idea seems to have gone viral,  I see now that I am suddenly a pastor, and my congregation could be enormous.

I admit to having been a sinner in my life, I have often presumed to mind the  business of others. It is selfish thing to do, not a generous one.  But I have learned not to do it, I am understanding about the spiritual and emotional importance of minding my own business. Thoreau understood the sanctity and importance of learning to make your own decisions, it was once a seminal principle of American life and government, the foundation of freedom itself. Decisions are literally what we are made of, how we learn to navigate the world.

Bad decisions are as important as good ones, I am an expert on that,  we probably learn even more from them. I, for one, need to be left alone to make them.

Since I mentioned the new church,  I’ve gotten texts, e-mails, Facebook posts, and a stream of s-mail letters to my P.O. Box (P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816)  from eager new congregants all over the country. People want to join. “I love your posting about the new church,” wrote Liz and Rich Garvey. “Amen!” I wasn’t sure there was anybody left on social media who believed in minding their own business, but I was wrong about that. Very wrong.

People on Facebook know better than anyone that Thoreau was right. Boundaries are the fences and borders of the human spirit, of independence and self-worth. If you are not free to endeavor to be what you were made, then you are not free. You will live in drama and struggle. You will be driven into hiding. You cannot live in a safe environment.

Thoreau, an inspiration to me, would have committed suicide in a week if he had taken a laptop to Walden Pond and gone on Facebook every day to share his year alone on the pond, making his own compelling decisions about how to survive and live.  he would have drowned in beeping messages there, between the animal police and secret informers, the vegans, the  home handymen and women, the fearful, the government,  the politically correct, the victims and the aggrieved, the regulators, the trolls and hackers,  the environmental and garden know-it-alls, the enraged centurions of the left and the right. He would have soon thrown himself into the pond.

I have discovered that the people who mind the business of other people are quite often not very nice. They do not intrude out of love or empathy, they seek the power that comes from judging from afar, and from the safety of invading people’s lives from computer screens in distant living rooms. Love is the very opposite of presumption and intrusion. Love means encouraging people to live their lives. You help when asked. That is love. When you mind someone else’s business,  the shrinks often teach us, you are very rarely doing it for them.

We have, as a people, lost this very sacred idea about living freely and in peace to make our own good and bad decisions, to learn from them, be responsible for them and move forward. It is not just a question of boundaries, but of dignity and freedom. We’ve surrendered a great deal to the growing numbers of people who believe they can and should tell us how to live and what to do. Mostly, because they now can. After all, it is so easy, just a few clicks on a keyboard and you will never have to look the victim in the eye.

The Facebook idea – perhaps the most invasive new idea ever – is that are all friends, we have the right to tell each other what to do.

Border collie know-it-alls e-mail me daily with critiques and concerns about how I am training Fate to herd sheep. Dava messaged me a few days ago to advise me that she and her husband were concerned about the weight of our pony Chloe, she assured me that she was fat and floundering (a vet had just told us how healthy and well cared for she was.) Jennifer messaged Maria recently to demand that she be allowed to get the dog she wanted,  it was obvious to her that I had taken Fate over out of selfishness and raw male power and deprived Maria of the dog she wanted. We share the good news and bad here, but when an animal dies,  the busybodies descend, it seems they love our animals more than we do and could have saved them all.

These people are not welcome in my new church.

I choose to share much of my life, and I’ve been dealing with busybodies and the righteous for years. I never did well in school, but I have a doctorate in presumption.  I can tell you their numbers are growing, they are drunk on bad manners and self-righteousness.   I’m pretty well acclimated to it. Lots of people are not so fortunate. The most serious consequence of people minding everyone else’s business is not just that it is annoying, but that it stifles free speech and encourages people to hide.

I keep asking my farmer friends why they don’t have blogs, they have such powerful stories to tell. They tell me they are afraid, they tell me it is dangerous to share your life in America, to write about it honestly. I hear that all the time, the busybodies see themselves as heroes,  not as Storm Troopers Of The Mind.

I don’t see the sharing of my life as dangerous, and even if I did, I wouldn’t stop. I’m with Thoreau. Because nobody tells me what to think, I am sometimes free to think. My mistakes are as much a part of me as my hands.

But I think we do need to get our new church going, we are not alone, we can worship together. The good thing about The Holy Spirit Of Those Who Mind Their Own Business is that it is free, and you don’t ever need to come and hear a sermon. All you have to do is be baptized and take the oath: let everyone mind their own business, and endeavor to be what they were made.