The Pagan Mom Blog

I am so sorry I haven’t been around. With the weather monkeying up my work schedule I just haven’t had time to sit down and write anything. And to be honest by the time I got home I didn’t want to touch a computer lol.

In regards to my last post, for now I am going to continue as I have so far. If it becomes an issue at work I will deal with it then. Not sure what I would do, things are different when you work in a family business. I mean if I sued my father in law over religious discrimination, it would make for bad ju ju with the family. But I don’t see that kind of situation coming up so I am not worried about that. I think it just hurt to think that someone might suddenly change their opinion of me based upon a bumper sticker. Only thing I can do is remain professional, I am not about to try real hard to win someone over.

Moving on to other events, the weather prevented me from enjoying my weekend at Knit Inn 2010. That was frustrating because I REALLY was looking forward to the classes I had signed up for. On the upside I was able to get down there yesterday for the last class, a designing shawls class. I am a visual learner and unfortunatley this was not a hands on class. BUT, I did learn quite a few things. So I am currently designing a basic shawl just to get started. I have several ideas floating around in the head and will eventually get to work on those. I want to get the hang of the basics first. I am still trying to work down my stash and getting there somewhat. When I design the next shawl then I will buy more yarn. Or maybe when I get cracking on one of my projects in my queue in Ravelry.  Whichever I get to first lol.

That’s about it around here. Just doing what I got to do to keep up with work deadlins and keeping kids fed. Ya know, the boring stuff lol.

Coming out as pagan is always a difficult task. Some are lucky and their families and friends are supportive. Others have a much harder time with the people surrounding them. Often you find pagans online who often ask should I? When should I do it? And the ever elusive how do I do it?

I have never really announced it outloud. My family knows and doesn’t seem bothered by it. At least they have never said a word about it. This could be due to the fact that I am not very close to them and we talk maybe a few times a year. My friends know and the type of people I tend to be friends with, it doesn’t cause any issues. My husband’s family…..well I am not sure if they know or not. I have never come right out and said it but if they did ask I would totally confess. They have seen the altar in my home but I am not sure if they knew it was an altar lol. My father in law has seen tweetdeck open on my computer at work and my name is PaganMomBlog on twitter. And I have noticed that when the discussion of religion has come up, primarily the Christian religion, he will usually ask my husband a question. Not in a snotty sort of way but that kind of way of “you beleive like I do so let me ask you”. And then again perhaps I am reading into it.

Lately I have wondered if I should come completely out to my inlaws. I am concerned in the area of work. At work no one knows. Our clientele is on the elderly side and being in the south the automatic assumption is that they are all Baptists. I know, it’s an unfair judgment but it’s habit. One I am working on. I do know that some of them are Unitarian Universalists (which means very accepting) and I know exactly who those people are. But others  I worry about. I don’t want the business to lose clientele because someone has issue with my personal life.

So why is this coming up now, after 6 years of working there? I saw the look about a week ago. One of our clients has a business near my home and often in the mornings on the way in I swing by and pick things up or drop things off. This particular morning I got there before they open. I saw our client coming up behind my vehicle. Which she was staring at hard. And then that look came on her face. That look of “oh my god” and then I could see her trying to process it ” is she? noooo she couldn’t be”. Then she looked at me, that soul searching look and it was a desperate look. What was it that caused such a look? A bumper sticker. It says “Mother Grove” and has some slogan about honoring the goddess. No pentacles, no “my other car is a broomstick” sticker….just that word goddess glaring at her. I could tell that suddenly she was very uncomfortable. I handled her the way I always had. Cheerful and smiling. I told her what she needed to do with paperwork. I noticed that normally a woman who spent 30 minutes chatting my head off suddenly wanted to get as far away as possible. I haven’t heard  anything about this as of yet. My father in law is an adorable man. I can’t imagine anyone disliking him so I think if she had confronted him he might have been able to smooth things over. But the mere idea that he would have to do that bothers me. My religious beleifs should have no bearing on how well I can do my job.

So I am not sure what to do. I have this fear that if I came out to my inlaws that it would make things bad between us. I love them as if they were my own flesh and blood and for them to be upset would hurt me greatly. I think that is what makes this the most difficult. I don’t want people hurt. And I don’t feel forced into a closet, I have always wanted to live my beleifs without being an “in your face” pagan.

And perhaps I have blown out of proportion. Maybe there is some other reason she made the faces and wanted to rush into her store. Unfortunatley experience and intuition tells me otherwise.

P.S. I will be taking tomorrow off. This week is kicking my butt and I haven’t been getting up at 5am but 6 am. So I am going to listen to the body and “sleep in” and not worry about getting a post up. I will be back Friday for my Follow Friday post.

I am writing this because I think so many people are caught up in the emotional aspect of the victims, that they aren’t looking at the flip side.

Let me state clearly that HIS ACTIONS ARE NOT INEXCUSABLE!

At 7pm last night I sat with candles lit and gathered every bit of positive loving energy I could and sent it forth. It was my personal goal to send that love to military families who have family at Fort Hood, those at Fort Hood, and most importantly…..to Hasan and his family.

Upon watching the news this morning we learned so much more. We went from 3 shooters to 1. When I saw the name, I groaned. I knew what was coming. The witch hunts. My first thought was “of all people, it just had to be a Muslim”.  Upon looking at websites with personal commentary and floating around on Yahoo Answers I was right. So horribly right. It isn’t just moments of horrifying violence that causes me to lose hope for humanity….it’s watching people blame and point fingers and go on radical rants about ridding the world of religion because of one event. Or in their argument, one event too many. Not once are these people considering the flip side. When you ask them about it, they huffily respond “Are you even caring about the victims?”. Of course we are, we all are. It’s a natural response to come to the victims and give them a hug and tell them it will be all ok. We take the time to commend the hero’s who step up when the odds are against them and put a stop to the menace. But we always seem to brush aside other underlying factors.

If you want to rid the world of violence, we have GOT to stop being so hateful to each other. If Hasan’s claims are true and he was consistently berated for his religion, then it’s of no surprise that it broke him down. He was not in great mental health. It was reported he was undergoing treatment for alcohol abuse, no one is in great mental health coming out of an addiction. This man also endured listening to his patients stories about war. Especially about war in a place that is known for being primarily Muslim. And as the Muslim Chaplin said this morning on GMA….he had no one he could seek counseling from. He was expected to not “whine” about his problems and attend to the problems of the soldiers going out and coming back. Combine all of this and you have a ticking timebomb.

If soldiers were berating him for his religion, why do we condone that to be ok. Because it’s not done with guns? If I was Muslim talking to a patient who just got back from Iraq and listened to this man berate me about my religious beleifs….I would be terrified. And it’s still the age old question, why are grown people still purposely pushing each other’s buttons? We tell our children not to do such things and then do it ourselves? You want to rid the world of war, we have got to start respecting each other. And it has to start here in our home, the USA. The same place where Christians loudly announce that half the country is going to rot in hell and that “god hates fags”. The same place where radical atheists propose to rid the entire nation of religious people and not allow religion into our country at all. The same place where Muslims now have to take extra safety precautions because people ASSUME that this is related to religion and not the mental instability of a man. This is when I have no hope for humanity. Because we as adults say we want to teach our children better, but don’t live up to those same standards for ourselves. And the children are not stupid….they see what we do. And they copy it. And they grow up doing it over and over. Then they tell their children to be better human beings. And their children see that they don’t live up to those standards. Again and again and again this will happen. Because we are too selfish to actually grow up and do what is right for all of us.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, I forgive you. Someone has to show you forgiveness, kindness and love. I am looking at all sides of this story. You will have to pay for your crimes but I think deep down inside you just need someone to say that we know Islam is not as bad as it is made to sound. You need someone to listen to YOU after you spend hours listening to horrifying war stories. You need forgiveness and love…and I give it freely.

I found a new local shop that I am so in love with. It is called Gaea and they sell all sorts of metaphysical items. I had a great time looking around and ended up buying a couple things. They aren’t inexpensive but it’s nice to have a local place to go when I don’t have time to wait on Amazon to ship me something. I even got into a great discussion with the owner who gave me cards for some local pagans in town.

I was telling hubby about the shop and as usual our discussion went onto other topics in regards to paganism. I don’t know how we got onto this particular topic but we did lol. What I had said was that Christianity wasn’t nature based and that some Christians prove that point by saying “You shouldn’t worship the Creation but the Creator”. He took offense to this, something that I had not meant. His response was “that sounds like Pagan Prejudice”. Now there is no doubt that some pagans are prejudiced against Christians. This usually arises from some of the crap they have dealt with in  coming to their particular path and dealing with the prostelyzing. Regardless of your spiritual path, all of us are capable of being prejudiced of other paths outside our own. But in this case I have to say, no.

His viewpoint is that Christianity should be nature based because the Creator gave us Creation. I certainly appreciated hearing that. Christians as a whole have a somewhat unspoken reputation for not caring too much about the Earth. This of course is changing and will continue to change and I mean no offense to my Christian readers whom are ecological conscious of their home. Hell, some of you all are more ecological than I am. But, Christianity isn’t nature based because they do not honor the elements and see power in the earth and moon (and even sun). That is where I think his confusion comes in. He doesn’t beleive in honoring the elements, that it goes against God. I can respect that, but he  proved my point.

The most interesting part of the discussion is when he said ” I have never heard a Christian say ‘worship the Creator not the Creation’”. Well, why would he? He isn’t worshipping the Creation. When you’re in discussion with a Christian and they know you are Christian, they don’t exactly feel the need to drive that point home. He doesn’t seem to understand that what some of what we pagans hear, he will never hear. It’s a moot point. And I have to say I was equally frustrated. He just couldn’t seem to beleive that anyone had ever told me that before. Even after he saw some of the things that Ms. Kimberly Daniels put in her article about witches (click here to see my video on that). We have worked past this now. He is still in disbeleif but he seems to understand my standpoint.

So I am interested in hearing some comments about a similar situation. Have you heard something from a different religion and someone else of that religion alleged that it was “made up prejudice” just to be angry with that religion?

I found this disturbing article on Yahoo yesterday. Basically a man was fired. Depending on who you ask will depend on the reason. He says it was because the pin he wore said “One Nation Under God”. The company says that he was fired for not following company policy which states ONLY company pins could be worn as part of uniform.

Now me being the capitalist I am, I would have to say that if someone does not comply with uniform rules and are heavily defiant about it….they should get fired. BUT. The man claims he has been wearing it since March 2008. A year and a half and NOW the company wants to fire him? The man also claims that he had recently started bringing the bible to read on his lunch break. And it wasn’t until then that his button was an issue. IF all of that is true than the company has just discriminated against this man because of religion.

I have worked with people who have brought their bibles to work. I have worked with people who wear religious pins and religious jewelry. I personally don’t see what the problem is with it. Now if a company wants to say that there are uniform rules, fine. I am totally ok with that too. But you don’t wait a year and a half to fire someone over it.

Please read the full article (I am too lazy to c&p it here, sorry) and share your thoughts on the issue!