Is a hammer a good tool or a bad tool? Use it to build a house and it's fair to characterize it as good. Use it as a weapon against your neighbor? That's another story. Which leads me to the real heart of this post. One person's story. His screen name (and perhaps his real name) is kenneth. He responded to my What Kind of Christian are you? blog earlier this week with one word.
"Former."
When I asked him to share a little more, he took the time to provide this brief snapshot of his spiritual journey so far. I'm sharing it here as Part 1 of a two-part post introducing something new on the blog. More on that tomorrow.
Until then, meet kenneth...
I don't mean it as a swipe at Christianity or Christians. I just like to troll beliefnet a bit, spar a little with the conservatives read diZierga and anyone else who has something interesting that day. I couldn't resist a cheesy one-liner.
My own spiritual journey just took me in a different direction. I grew up Catholic in the 70s and 80s when it was much less dogmatic and shrill than now, went the altar boy route, the whole bit, for a time even wondered about the priesthood. Ironically, 12 years of Catholic school taught me some good critical thinking skills and I decided the idea of original sin and salvation was rubbish, that I wasn't going to prostrate myself before some Semitic storm god and that the whole of institutionalized religion was corrupt. I was a secular humanist for about a decade until I came to know a number of pagans, Their world view and sense of ethics appealed to me greatly, and even though I found myself in sympathy with them, I thought it absurd that an educated man in this day and age would style himself a "witch".
I laid the whole thing aside for the better part of seven or eight years but was drawn to it more strongly with time. The long and short of it was that Goddess was calling me, and I answered when I finally had the shred of wisdom and insight to walk that path. At age 35, I knew it wasn't some Goth fantasy or parental rebellion. When I went to my first large circle gathering, I felt like I had been called home from exile. I wept both for the time I was lost and Her grace in returning me to my tribe. On one other occaision I had a true experience of being in Her presense. Pure radiant timeless gentle, mother's love.
Had a valuable but stormy three-year involvement in a coven, learned a lot about myself and what constitutes a healthy group dynamic (or not). Got married in our tradition. Learned some hard lessons and had life's usual setbacks, but never once regretted my journey. I still have a certain amount of bad blood with institutional Christianity and political Christianism in general, but I try never to hold it against individual pracitioners. I try to extend the presumption that their faith journey is genuine (a courtesy not always reciprocated). I have also come to know that anyone I encounter in this life might have something to teach me, and some of the most valuable bits come from those outside of my world view. I wish you all well on your journeys.
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It's definitely and eye catcher.
Excellent post Kenneth and I'm truly glad you are at peace now with your faith. I am fairly certain that Joan's conversion was equally as powerful for her as your's was for you though they seem to head in opposite directions.
I had a somewhat similar journey, though my conversion call came after being a solitary pagan for over 20 years when I was told I had to become a Catholic. Of all things! A Catholic! I can't tell you how hard I fought it. I begged Her, I pleaded with Her but in the end the sign She sent was so clear there was no denying it.
I was told I wouldn't understand the reason why and I would continue to question and fight it for 10-15 years and 3 years later I'm still bucking and kicking but I attend Mass every Sunday and enjoy it, though I don't buy into the dogma or politics of organized religion.
The message that was given to me by a 3rd party, a perfect stranger no less, in direct answer to my silent, soulful and heartfelt prayer was 'It does not matter what name you call ME by, there is room under my mantle for all.' followed by, 'Never belittle the level another person is on because we are all on a path to God and you can never know where another person is on their journey.' This is paraphrased as there was much more told to me of a personal nature and it was told to me in Italian so it isn't verbatim.
Blessing on your journey.
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