Taking Pride: Walking A Heathen Path Away from Guilt

I was raised to be humble, to always think of others, not to be selfish, not to brag, and to always remember how much better off I was than most of the people in the world. A large part of this came from the Christian, specifically Congregationalist and Presbyterian, aspects of my heritage, and the way they intertwined with the specific Midwestern German cultures of my grandparents. Some of it certainly came from my parents' experiences traveling and living abroad and interacting with refugees. And some may have come from a family propensity to depression and related disorders.

So I've grown up bad at taking compliments, bad at saying no to volunteering, and terrible at spending money, especially on myself. I don't want to draw attention. I never want to speak in public unless my facts are unassailable, my preparation impeccable...and everyone else is too busy. I don't want to turn in school or work assignments that aren't perfect. My parents and my culture meant to teach me humility, but what I learned was shame.

I'm searching for a job, and writing and sending resumes and cover letters is the most painful thing in the world. It's not the writing...not mostly... I like writing, and it can come very easily... What I hate and do poorly is sales, especially when my work is the product, or I am. I paid for a professionally-written resume, and I think the person it describes sounds pretty awesome...and very little like me.

My mother once told me that she didn't think living a decent life and raising your family to be happy was enough to qualify you as a good person who had really served Christ. I'm not sure I disagree with that; I'm not against caring about, and working for, the good of other people, whether you know them or not. There's a lot of suffering and injustice that needs fixing. But somehow the way I grew up thinking about it just led to guilt and feelings of failure.

And then there came the days, and months, and years when getting out of bed and holding down a job were more than I could handle. The pinnacle of Good Person status seemed even higher and more unattainable from the depths of my personal abyss.

Yet even there I could know my gods. On days when I couldn't send an email, I could reach for the weak, long-dormant stirrings of poetry in my soul and reach out to Bragi^[1a]. On days when all I could manage was feeding the cat, I could touch my husband, or myself, and know the power in joy that Freya^[1b] can impart. Even when I lived in a tiny apartment with nothing but a stump in the gravel yard, I could hear, and feel, the crack of thunderbolts, and pour out a beer for Thor^[1c].

We Heathens have a few basic rituals, and one of them is sumbel. We pass a cup or horn, and toast, and boast, and hail, and occasionally swear. Before I ever knew that I would call myself a Heathen, I joined the Society for Creative Anachronism and sat in toasting circles. Pass the bottle, drink (or don't), and give a toast, make a boast, sing a song, tell a story, share a joke, do a trick... Mostly we sang songs and toasted our heroes and friends, living and dead. I sang a lot of songs, and wrote quite a few, as well. It felt like my soul had come home.

I never liked to sit in church, and now I don't have to. Sometimes I listen to sermons online. I listen to a lot of podcasts about religion. But for me the religious experience is much more about gathering, in the woods if you can, to share some of yourself with your folk and your gods.

I've done that quite a bit lately, but always alone, and I miss having a group to do it with. Every time I craft words to honor something that's important to me, I feel like I'm getting stronger. I can boast of my own deeds (though it's agonizingly hard, still, to see what I've done that's good enough). And I can honor the work and sacrifice of old heroes without thinking I need to live in their image. My grandmother. My parents. Archbishop Romero. Jesus.

Heathens spend a fair amount of time discussing what it means to adopt the worldview of this ancestral folkway, and the difficulties in doing that while percolating in a Christian culture. I'm not much worried about that. I don't really think there was much wrong (for me) with my worldview or ethics growing up; there was just a mismatch between my declared Christianity and the beliefs and practices I found to be true and meaningful. There is a wide variety of ways to be a Christian, and many of those traditions, especially in my Protestant heritage, were shaped by our Germanic pagan ancestors.

Wherever I am, I want to show my love and honor to everyone who shaped me, supported me, taught me, and inspired my search for spiritual fulfillment. I am so, so grateful that I don't have to choose between my faith and my family, or my current religious communities and the welcoming one I grew up in.

Christian friends of Christian family members often say insensitive things, assuming everybody in the room shares their assumptions. And my mom continues to buy books about The Easter Story and whatnot for my kids. I have to explain how these things feel, and why I want them to stop. But we have blended our Heathen and Christian holiday decorations and music. We live on the upstairs floor of my parents' house, they lent me a table for my altar, and their greatest concern is that I'll leave candles unattended.

My grandmother used to live up here too, and her influence is everywhere. In the mittens she knitted for my kids, and the knitting skills she taught them. In the pie pans and muffin tins she used to bake us wonderful, nourishing food. In the Bible quotes and little model churches decorating the kitchen. The mightiest of my Disir^[2] hang out with Jesus, and we're all fine with that. I look forward to toasting them among my Beloved Dead. I'm still proud of them, and hope they are of me. I think they are and should be. I feel more like a superhero-in-training each day.

--Lonespark

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1. ^[a]Bragi is a god of poetry, mainly. ↩

^[b]Freya is a mighty goddess of lots of things, whose power and influence touch on magic and sexuality and war and prosperity. This is a good book about her.↩

^[c]Thor is a god of lightning and thunder and he fights giants and protects the world from chaos. Plus Sif and grain and farming and adventures and Loki…ok, you should really just go read some myths and Heathen scholarship instead of asking me. This might be a good place to start. Wikipedia is also your friend, and I can suggest more links.↩

2. Female guardian spirits associated with a given family. Female ancestors can be disir, not all disir are necessarily ancestors, not all ancestors can or should end up as disir, YMMV, etc.↩

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Comments

[Laiima]

Lonespark, this was lovely. And I learned more about Heathenry. Yay!

[Laiima]

Up until last year, I'd never been part of a community of religious people where I felt welcome. I always felt like I was an annoyance, or a problem to be dealt with. In fact, that's how I felt almost everywhere I went. So the idea of a community where I'm not just physically present, but people *want me to be there*, is an ideal I've always longed for, but rarely felt.

That has impacted my relationships to my gods and even my beloved dead. If they could choose to be with anyone (since they're gods, or dead), would they really choose to be with me, right now? Or my houseplants - if they could get away, would they?

It's hard to come up with philosophies for dealing with people with respect and integrity and empathy when, for the most part, I'm guessing how that actually plays out. Even when I was in contact with my family, for any family event, I had to brace myself to be ambushed by the presence of my cousin-the-rapist, or people haranguing me about him, or telling me I was a loser, or just ignoring me (sometimes while they then fawned over Spouse, since he's a guy, so he matters).

Like, I'm not just a solitary practitioner because I'm an introvert; I'm solitary because I'd prefer to use my energy interacting with nonhumans, not protecting myself from humans. Maybe that's why I'm not sure my gods are humanoid.

[Deird, who is very interested]

Fascinating post is fascinating. :)

[Lonespark]

Thanks for reading, y'all.

[Lonespark]

What do you mean by gods not being humanoid, Laiima?

Like, I don't think gods are particularly human-like beings, or that we're "made in their image" or anything in any simplistic way. And I don't think most of the wights/spirits/powers/what have you have any particularly human characteristics, excepting those that have been human, and even then...what part of a person, or a person's soul, lives on or is connected to...whatever?

About Aesir/Vanir specifically...I think human-like in some ways is a part of what they are. That could certainly be an artifact of us interpreting interactions with them or myths about them through our own cultural lenses...

[Laiima]

@Lonespark, I guess I tend to default to thinking that the gods would show us 'human-like' faces, or aspects? Not to imply that those faces or aspects would be their totality at all, just, that's what we can understand and relate to. Except that, when I try to picture my gods, they don't look human.

+ So Tethys is the depths of the ocean, and when She looks like a being, it's a whale.
+ I never have come up with a shape at all for Medeine. Maybe She's the forest itself? Or liminal spaces? Or the wildness in the dark of night?
+ Ereshkigal is a voice over my shoulder. I'm more aware of her familiars/animal spirits, which for me are turkey vultures.

So, how could I invite any of these beings to hang out with me? For that matter, I've never experienced them all at once. Would they get along? How would I know? Do I need to know?

I guess I've been needing more polytheists in my life to discuss stuff with!

[Slow Learner]

*Sympathy on having trouble selling yourself goes here*.

I'm looking for work at the moment; one of the things I find toughest is putting in the parts selling yourself in the applications.

[Izzy]

@Laiima: For what it's worth, I've rarely seen faces or shapes myself, except for one or two occasions when someone was...channeling? contacting? stuff?...during a ritual. Mostly, I get feelings and senses; not all at times or in places that I would have considered pleasant. Cold wind on a starry night. That sort of thing.

@Lonespark: This essay? Is awesome. I hear you on the trouble-selling-yourself thing. I didn't put my reviews on LJ until a friend of mine said I should, because it felt like bragging, and...one doesn't. Mid-Atlantic WASP culture--also Presbyterian, if very very lapsed about it--and, well, you're only supposed to be the center of attention three times in your life. That sort of thing.

[Laiima]

@Lonespark, I should have said, you sound pretty impressive here. And I know stuff you left out. It's hard to sell yourself, but I think you did a really good job here. :)

[Lonespark]

Thanks for the compliments, everyone.

When I wrote this I felt like the situation was improving. Lately not so much.

But I am super-duper excited to have met some local Heathens and be heading to a blot (ritual)tomorrow if the weather allows. It's a Skadi blot, so I guess snow is...appropriate.

[hapax]

I didn't know anything about Skadi except the story of the beauty contest she had for a husband.

Just looking her up on Wikipedia, she is badass.

[storiteller]

I'm looking for work at the moment; one of the things I find toughest is putting in the parts selling yourself in the applications.

See, the thing is, I have no problem talking about myself to others - the amount I enjoy it is kind of embarrassing. I love telling stories about my experiences. But despite that, applying for jobs was hideous. Writing cover letters involves a way of selling yourself that I think is completely unnatural to human experience. Instead of telling stories, you're forced to strip the context off of all of the lessons you've learned, boil them down to these vague sounding unhelpful adjectives, and describe your actions in verbs never used outside of a resume. When they do ask for stories, they're always like, "Describe one time you demonstrated wonderful customer service." And of course, whatever you would truly answer is never what they're looking for. Then, after you've shown off as much as possible and don't get called back, you feel like you could never be good enough.

So I completely sympathize with that side. I looked for a job for four months before the recession and it was one of the worst parts of my life. I can't imagine doing it now.

[storiteller]

Just looking her up on Wikipedia, she is badass.

I love the first picture of her - can't go wrong with skis and archery as a combination.

[Amaryllis]

That is a great picture, all right.

But thanks for telling me about Bragi, too. I looked him up, and I have to have a spot spot for any deity who spends his time considering poetry, of course!

Fascinating post is indeed fascinating. Also the comments.
Ereshkigal is a voice over my shoulder -- now there's a genuine touch of the numinous.

their greatest concern is that I'll leave candles unattended.
Hah. My daughter still lives at home, and has a non-religious fondness for scented candles that keeps her father, well, concerned.

Still, it's nice that your blended family is able to blend its traditions with a minimum of friction.

Job-interviewing and resume-writing are indeed horrible. I'd probably have gotten further in my career if I'd made myself do more of it. And as for writing up one's own performance appraisals, ugh! Say too little and it looks you did too little, or don't care; but how do you know when enough is too much? And "resume-ese"? Nobody talks like that!

I don't think the reluctance to brag is universal, though; I know people who seem to have no trouble talking themselves up.

[Lonespark]

Yeah, it's not universal. A lot of people are great at networking. Also I am better at it when I am slightly drunk, since I am then less terrified of consequences.

[Launcifer]

@Storiteller: That sounds like the most awesome variation on the biathlon that I have ever encountered.

[Lonespark]

...and...not going to blot. Too much snow for a long drive to a colder place.

Laiima, if you lived nearby I would like to go out for tea/coffee/muffins/whatever and talk about gods and animals and myths and stuff.

I will think a bit about how I perceive or interact with gods. Because it's generally not as human-shaped, human-acting beings, unless I'm specifically thinking about a myth that refers to them weaving or brushing their hair or whatever.

[Laiima]

Lonespark, I would like that too. If you're ever planning to be back down in the mid-Atlantic, let me know, so I can try to get together. Literata's in northern VA - maybe all 3 of us could talk? (And now I really want that to be possible!)

I'm really glad you wrote this post. Lots of food for thought, and interesting discussion.

[P J Evans]

I have the feeling that 'in God's image' is not about physical image, but about spiritual image - it's why we love creating, whatever it is that you and I create (art, crafts, writing, music, architecture, engineering everything that we can look at and say 'it's good!').

[Lonespark]

That makes sense, PJ Evans. In the case of a multi-deity pantheon, especially one like the Norse/Germanic where there are different "tribes" of gods/Giants/elves etc., it's not as much a matter of gods creating people anyway, but many of them do have powers or affinities related to creation/birth/rebirth...

There is the myth of the three gods creating people...but if we are created as humans, what does that mean? Maybe it means we become able to recognize that creative ability within ourselves, the power to name and shape and plan and judge...

[Nenya]

I've just realized that I keep mixing up Lonespark and Literata, and to a lesser extent Laiima. What is it about Heathen Slacktivites and L-names? Perhaps you're all connected through L-space?

(Though you'd better not have your coffee and muffins there. You might never emerge to see daylight again!)

On-topic: Lonespark, I'm going to have to reread this and think more on it. I, too, have the problem of not wanting to brag on myself, and I find that if I can't or don't say what I'm good at or what I've done well lately, I start to think that I never do anything well, and that's not good for me. So, thank you.

[Karen]

Great post. Lonespark, I'm 1) redheaded and 2) a Texan, so I'm about as introverted as an explosion. I don't have stage fright, start conversations with random strangers in airports, and still have trouble writing resumes. There's being outgoing and bragging, and resumes always sound like bragging.

On the post itself: I love your descriptions of your religious practice, especially how your grandmother is a household protector. I feel a strong connection to both of my grandmothers, and love the idea that they protect my household and children, even though they never met my kids. Also, I love to ski and really, really want a Skadi sweater to wear the nect time I go skiing. At least a sticker to put on the skis themselves.

Finally, there is a great piece of poetry in Old English called something that translates into "The Savior" that shows Jesus as a Germanic prince with his thanes, that uses imagery from Germanic and Scandinavian mythology. It's a remarkably inspiring work, and I would love to find a good translation again.

[Ross]

Grumble. It's finally happened. Work content filter has declared all blogspot URLs to be "mature content" and blocked them in their never-ending quest to stop me from filling up the ceaseless hours of waiting my job entails. Pretty soon, it'll just be google and ESPN you can get to from here.

[Amaryllis]

Work content filter has declared all blogspot URLs to be "mature content" and blocked them

Huh. So it has. Grumble.

[Lonespark]

Sorry, Ross. Blocking is always so random, and unrelated to actual productivity-killers or liabilities.

When I worked in a factory with downtime while we waited for machines and shipments, I mostly wrote poetry. Luckily, it was a book factory, so there was plenty of scrap paper.

Karen,
Thanks for mentioning that poem; I would love to look it up. Learning about Christian syncretist traditions is fun! It even helps me be less baffled/annoyed whilst reading Narnia. (Well, ok, letting Ana read it for me.)

There are a lot of strong, wise, accomplished women in my family, and my husband's family, and mentors from church and school. We didn't always get along, because they had definite ideas and expectations and I was struggling a lot and not understanding why, but my kids and I have a lot of role models and protective spirits, for sure.

[Diona the Lurker]

@Karen: the poem you describe sounds like The Dream of the Rood. Various translations are on the Internet; here's one:

http://www.thing.net/~grist/ld/young/ky-drc.htm

[Amaryllis]

@Karen: or maybe you were talking about The Heliand?

Amazon offers a couple of translations, but I can't find anything online either.

[gleomstapa spamflagging]

I believe the comment at 01:31 above is spam, though I don't think I've seen the charity-flavored variety before.