Wordless Wednesday: Taking Risks

I am an Aquarius and they say we were born before our time. Like a Gemini I see the two sides of every issue, but unlike them, I don’t wrestle with which side is the right side. Everything in my world is gray. Both sides can be right depending on who they are right for. I choose what feels most right for me, and sometimes I might even tell you that my way is the right way because of how much I have informed myself on the subject, (have your baby at home, breastfeed, eat vegetarian), but that’s the internet me. If you sat down with me in my home and we shared a pot of tea, I’d like to think I’m way quieter about my values. I’m also a much better listener than talker. I like to learn about who people are and why they are the way they are. I will speak my truth if the subject arises, but I won’t push it on you. I don’t want to offend you, but also I genuinely don’t think there is only one way.

Take religion for instance. I was raised in a non-religious home, yet I was intrigued by my friend’s families who attended church. After I graduated high school I began to explore religion for myself. As a Westerner living in a Judeo-Christian society, and not knowing any other route to salvation, I went to a few different Christian churches. In every one of them I felt uncomfortable. I liked the warm feeling of community, but the words didn’t ring true, and I didn’t like being told to repeat things I didn’t believe in. I felt like a guinea pig in a huge, yet completely voluntary brain washing experiment. Finally, resigned by my lack of passion, I stopped trying to find God in a church. A few years later I met someone who profoundly changed my outlook on spirituality and unbeknownst to him at the time, helped me understand the web of life and gave me my truth. It was who I was all along, but I had never stopped to listen to my heart.

I call myself a Pagan now. Not a Wiccan, although I did try on that witches hat for a while. I follow an Earth-centered spirituality, close to Darwinism in that it’s based on science, but I don’t think Darwinism speaks as much to the magic of the Universe, and I definitely believe in magic. My beliefs are more along the lines of Aboriginal people. When we say grace at dinner time we thank Mother Earth for our food, for it is she who supplies the soil and holds those plants up until they are ready to be harvested, and who provides the rain and receives the sunlight. Instead of God I speak of the Universe. I speak of the Goddess and the Creator, the mother of all life.

Yet I am still interested in and intrigued by the other world’s religions. I follow blogs by women of all faiths and I am as interested in their posts on religion as I am on their attachment parenting. I love learning about why people believe what they do, and why it speaks louder to them than anything else. I don’t often find all the answers I am looking for, so I keep on searching. It seems to me that the world’s religions are not too different from one another. Yet there is some kind of power that compels people to choose one over the other, or to disagree over which is best, and who will go to Heaven when the other guy is certain to go to Hell. That, I do not really understand. Maybe from a historical perspective I do. But from a heart perspective I am baffled that our world society will treat one another so badly over something so deeply personal. Why are you right and I am wrong?

Aren’t we all, at our core, mostly good? I know some of you might disagree, and I admit I have very liberal views on the subject. But even the criminal has a story. I do not believe that one wrong act should define a person as evil. People who have done wrong things in their lives were children once. Someone loved them. And if they weren’t loved, they were robbed of their innocence. We pass the buck and say “God loves him.” Great, but why can’t we too love the criminal? Why always give it up to God? I love the criminal. I have compassion. I am interested in the story behind the act. The story behind the person. As an aside, who among you have heard of restorative justice? I think it’s pretty amazing.

In Chandelle’s post Integration, she speaks of her internal struggle for goodness. Even though she has renounced religion, she finds herself a part of a Quaker community. Not because it’s a religious group but for the sense of community and a feeling of being a part of a something good. I get that.

My husband gets it even more. He grew up Catholic and describes himself as “a recovering Catholic.” Guilt is his middle name. He has often brought up the subject of us attending church if for no other reason than being a part of a greater good. I couldn’t get past the kneeling and Amen’ing, but I’ve supported him if he wants to go. I have gone to church a few times over the years. I witnessed a good friend’s Baptism because it was important to me to be there for her. I even chose to receive a blessing. I loved the feeling of being there, but again, I couldn’t attend regularly in true faith for myself.

Chandelle’s friends think if she wants community she should join a book club. Me? I join groups that, for me, are similar to religious groups, by the power of their values. I haven’t gone for about a year (due to retiring leaders and moving) but La Leche League and the like-minded friends I met there became my heart and soul community. Our meetings were like what I imagine Bible studies to be, except we were learning about breastfeeding while chatting over muffins. Now that I am living in Victoria again, I am thinking about rejoining a vegetarian group. Vegetarianism is another value that defines me. And yet, these days I find myself feeling more and more supportive of the real food movement as it is defined by the Weston A. Price Foundation, who totally rejects vegetarianism! So would I even be welcome in a local vegetarian group? It’s almost like a religious homosexual worrying about being rejected by their church! Ack!

I think that real food-eating-vegetarians are as close to goodness and a diet can be. Maybe this is why I am one. I do good things for my body all the while saving animals from the butcher. And then I still find ways to be nice to people who eat meat.

At the root of all my choices is my sense of wanting to be good. To be seen as a good person and to be one. In high school people knew me as “the nice girl” and it was a label I actually liked to wear. And at the end of the day, after my posts are published telling you that breastfeeding, co-sleeping and homebirthing is best, and the computer is put away, the nice girl is still who I am at my core.