What do I believe?

I came across this essay in an old journal dating to 1997. At that time I was living in Florida, active in Runehaven Kindred, and facing possible medical discharge from the Navy. I fought the discharge and won.

Spiritually I was probably at my most content of my entire adult life. Given my current semi-seeker status, I thought it might be good to contemplate what my 20 year old younger self believed.

What do I believe?

1. I believe there are many paths to spiritual fulfillment.
2. I believe we have many lives in which to learn the lessons of this world.
3. I believe the Gods are those who walked the path before us, then turned back to show us the way.
4. I believe I must walk my path myself. I may get a nudge every now and then, a hand to help me when I stumble, but I must make the journey under my own power.
5. I believe in adhering to the Nine Noble Virtues: Truth, Courage, Honor, Perseverance, HOspitality, Self-reliance, Fidelity, Industriousness, and Discipline.
6. I believe Freya and Odin especially are my guides on the path which is becoming.
7. I believe there is much to be learned in this life.
8. I believe the world is a good place, and getting better all the time.
9. I believe the cosmic purpose of the human race is to spread terrestrial life into the galaxy, and will forward that goal in any way I can.
10. I believe children are the greatest legacy anyone can leave the future. All the accomplishments we have achieved will mean nothing if we are extinct.
11. I believe the human race is still evolving.
12. I believe love is to be shared with many and not just one.
13. I believe there is safety in numbers. It is good to have companions when travelling my path, though some parts I must travel in solitude.
14. I believe we we will suffer another major setback--the Third World War, Ragnarok. I will work in every way I can to delay this, then I will do my share to fight the good fight.

So, that was my spiritual manifesto at age 20. How does it match up with now?

1. The same. The problem remains figuring out which path I belong on.
2. THe same, pretty much. Really I'm pretty agnostic on this point.
3. Notable to me is that at my most content with my religion I didn't actually view the Gods as the Divine, per se. Actually had very little thought about Divinity at all, at least in my manifesto. Now? I lean towards monolatry: the Divine shows us many faces to help us on our path, these aspects being referred to as the Gods and Goddesses of the different religions. I also wonder if I'm spiritually mature enough to bypass the myriad faces of it and directly contemplate the Divine.
4. I still believe this. Indeed, I'm getting nudged now.
5. I still consider these virtues important and at the core of my expression of morality. Not that I'm always very good at adhering to them.
6. I maintain my special relationship with Odin, but not so much with Freya as my life has changed. I'm no longer a single woman and a warrior, I'm a matron and a mother. I think I'll always be a scholar and creative with words, my other bonds with Odin, though, regardless of whether I think he's a God, a face of the Divine, or an ancestral spirit who turns back to give me a helping hand.
7. The same.
8. More or less. I'm not quite the optimist I was in my youth.
9. I still rather believe this, but I don't think it will be our civilization that pulls it off. We have too many problems here to fix first. It certainly won't get going in my lifetime.
10. Absolutely
11. Yes, but with the caveat that evolution is not directional. We are evolving, but not necessarily on some sort of inevitable upward/forward path.
12. Yes, but I have also come to realize that it is only the rare and fortunate who are blessed with multiple partners, and that love is work, too, when you love people and not just your idea of them.
13. Yes, but I've been on a lone road spiritually for quite a while now. Really could use some of that companionship again, but need to figure myself out and what this nudge means first.
14. Sort of. In keeping with my recognition of the lack of directionality to evolution, I see the rise and fall of human civilization as somewhat cyclical. Hopefully the next curve will proceed in a spiral and not just loop back on us. Though frankly as a mother I have other priorities than fighting the good fight if it comes to it. I'll get out of Dodge first, and/or concern myself only with the defense of my kin. I'll fight for the future of my daughter and any future children with all that's in me. The rest of the world can go to metaphorical hell in a handbasket.

Belief-o-matic

Beliefnet has a quiz that identifies religions closest to one's stated beliefs. Yeah, a bit hokey, but kind of helps me identify what's going on in my head.

Here were my results this afternoon, everything that rated over 75%:

1. Bahá'í Faith (100%)
2. Sikhism (96%)
3. Unitarian Universalism (95%)
4. Neo-Pagan (94%)
5. Reform Judaism (92%)
6. Mahayana Buddhism (92%)
7. Liberal Quakers (90%)
8. Jainism (89%)
9. Orthodox Judaism (88%)
10. Islam (84%)

The results the LAST time I took the quiz:

1. Neo-Pagan (100%)
2. Sikhism (97%)
3. Reform Judaism (95%)
4. Bahá'í Faith (94%)
5. Mahayana Buddhism (92%)
6. Orthodox Judaism (92%)
7. Hinduism (90%)
8. Jainism (84%)
9. Unitarian Universalism (83%)
10. Islam (81%)
11. Liberal Quakers (81%)
12. New Age (76%)

So...my thoughts and feelings are less in line with Neo-Paganism than before. Baha'i got the highest rate. I know a little bit about them, I suppose it's not too surprising, though any prophetic religion that young kind of makes me go hmmm.

The list this time was shorter, and Islam, which I've been reading about a lot lately, has climbed in the ranks.

Back to that modesty thing, and turning inward

I've been feeling a bit adrift lately. Maybe it's because all the reading I've been doing has been a bit gloom-and-doom: Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond.

However, it's also because I kept telling myself I'd have/make more time for spiritual things once I graduated from college. But what have I been doing? First, I obsessed over my diet for a while (procrastinating, though also an important issue) got busy in a frenzy of sewing to prepare for Estrella War (procrastinating). Then, I got fixated on my dearth of housekeeping skills. With my new job, my new organizational leaf so hopefully turned over has been decidedly overturned.

With the weather warming up, I get back to my wardrobe. I bought myself a couple of blouses and a pair of pants that actually fit yesterday, all suitable for summer wear. I've been altering my existing things to make them more suitable--making some of my cami's extra long and cutting others into bras.

But I get the feeling my clothing issues (and probably the food and household organization thing, too) are just symptoms of my need to focus on what's really going on: my sense of dissatisfaction with my religious and spiritual life. And ultimately, I think I need to focus on the spiritual side of that, because this is about turning inward.

The question is, how to go about it? I usually attack things in this arena on 2 fronts: study in my own faith, and study someone else's. With this modest dress kick, the "someone else's" currently on my radar is Islam. I've been reading some thoughtful and inspiring blogs by Muslimahs lately. I'm probably going to go back and re-read the Qu'ran as soon as I'm done reading Silent Spring (which I'm pretty sure is overdue at the library).

For the "my own" portion of this, I'm reading the sagas. Every night before bed, no matter how tired I am, I'm working on reading the sagas. It's about making time for it. No more PROCRASTINATING!

Full Time

Well, my new chore system has officially descended into havoc, because I started working full time. I quit working for Scary Chick Publications Lady and went to work for Jenny, who is nice and not flaky and I know is on the same page with me about my caring for her daughter.

Which is great. Now, I will be spending 50 hours a week at Jenny's house. The up side to this is that I will dirty very few dishes, use very few groceries, and Luthien will have limited time to wreak havoc on the house. Luthien plays so hard with Maggie that she's exhausted and goes to bed right after dinner.
The downside is that I'm rather exhausted and tend to just drop stuff upon coming in the door, and need to go to bed at like 8PM, which means making it to SCA meetings is highly unlikely.

So, do I re-write the darn thing, table it until May, or just not sleep again for 3 months?

On the up side of other parts of my life, it looks like corporate politics are swinging towards David getting a promotion soon because his store isn't performing well enough to have as many managers as it does, and he's better qualified than the assistant manager to get promoted.

On the down side, one of the positions he may be up for involves traveling all over the country to open new stores. Only up side of that is that it pays better than a promotion to GM would. The down side is I'll see even less of him than I am while he is leaving for work every day at 2:30 AM (2 hours before I get up) and getting home in time to go to bed by the time I get home around sixish.

Why Heathens aren't Literal Fundamentalists

I mean, aside from all the writings on our religion having been recorded by Christian monks and therefore to be taken with a grain (or pound) of salt.

So far, so good

It's week 2 of my new chore planning system.

I've gotten all my weekly chores done.

I'm thinking about quitting my new part-time nanny job because I might have a full-time one that pays a little better in the offing. I'll know tomorrow. I wouldn't just quit because it's less money, mind you. The woman almost fired me last weekend after 2 days of work because, well, she's overprotective of her daughter. Now, I find myself walking on pins and needles around the child for fear of offending her mother and getting fired. Not a good situation, especially when it comes to discipline. Also, I've babysat for the other person I may go work for in the past so we have an established relationship there. Oh, and the woman I'm working for now has Chick Publications stuff in her house, which is downright creepy. Actually, makes me kind of ill. Especially as a lot of that stuff is racist and her daughter is mixed-race and has some self-image problems (which her mother blames on past caregivers). She'd had some reservations about hiring me because of her church involvement. Well, I have some reservations now about working for her--not because of her religion in general, but because of this specific material in her house.

How do I know what's in those comics? I read them all in my grandpa's bookstore one summer.

I'm PMS'ing, staying up too late, and questioning everything about my life. I really wish I'd stop doing that.

Oh, and my dad had another heart attack but not as bad as the last one and they stuck a stint in his clogged artery. Dad, next time, go to the doctor when you're not feeling well, don't wait for the chest pains. Pretty please?

Tabards!