badstar

All this time, all these years now, it's been "clergy, clergy clergy" kicking at me, beating at me, harassing me, not letting me have any peace.

And then I finally found the means to pursue it.

And now I get to the point where I'm working on that...and I wake up one day with this thought in my semi-conscious mind, this idea that I could just drop it and walk away comes to mind, and for a minute it's this giddy, giggly, slightly insanely gleeful thought in my mind, and it's so damned clear.

Was it in the stupor of passing sleep that this thought found its way to the surface, with my conscious mind not quite coherent enough to keep it down?

How can I honestly serve an organization when I can't even relate to a number of its major elements? (ancestor worship, earth/nature worship to name a few) This has been really bothering me for a while now, and was one of the big sticking points resubmitting my essays for CTP approval, the three kindreds essay.

I respect nature and care about what happens to the earth, but I don't relate to it on a religious basis. I want to scream when I hear that all pagan religions are earth-centered, or that "we as pagans should..." as if being pagan somehow means that one should strive to be a beacon of ecological correctness and that it somehow makes one more ecologically correct by default- not that I'm saying that it's a bad idea to do what one can to improve the planetary situation- I'm not.

But I just can't connect it to my religious practice. Somehow, the two just...don't meet up.

But anyway, that essay, it was the one I rewrote the most. And by the time I got to the accepted version, I almost hated myself for it.

Don't get me wrong- I didn't write anything untrue. I wouldn't have lied to get it through. but if it had been sent back one more time, I just couldn't have done it. I couldn't have given any more to that essay than I gave, and remained honest.

Then there's the general question- what is clergy? Among other things, clergy perform weddings, and funerals and all that stuff. You know, if someone really close came to me and asked me to perform a wedding, or (gods forbid) a funeral, I'd do it. But can I just be available to the general pagan public to do that? I really don't think I can. I've never really been able to truly see myself doing that.

So why am I doing this?

I think I know what happened.

First of all, I think I made some misinterpretations along the way. Starting with "clergy".

There is still absolutely no doubt in my mind that I am supposed to be serving the gods in some strongly devoted capacity. That, if anything is as crystal clear as ever.

Somehow, though, I think it got interpreted in my mind as "clergy" because it's a familiar concept. And it really didn't take much for that to formulate as what it was meant to be.

An instant to form, and almost ten years to break down.

Gawds. The last year and a half, all the long, unending conversations that I've had with Gavin- about general aspects of being a member of the clergy, aspects of ADF that don't jive with one's own religious beliefs/practice etc, how many things have I said didn't bother me (at least not too badly)? How many things have I said I could deal with? How many things was I wrong about (or how many things did I have myself convinced of?)

Dammit, there's so much more that just doesn't fit.

I was upset and worried that night, when I made that post I referenced earlier, I felt like I had turned my back on everything for a minute there. And then by the morning, I was fine and everything seemed to have gone back to the way it should be, and by the time I was telling Michael about it later that evening, I couldn't figure out why I'd been so upset. It was this randomly-interjected moment of absurdity in what was a clear-cut picture.

And then, there was this moment, several weeks ago, where I saw myself leaving. Two or three years from now. ADF and Baltimore both. It seemed long-term temporary, but again...two or three years down the road.

What if I was wrong about the time? What if it's now? (Not leaving Baltimore, I couldn't if I wanted to) but...everything else?

God, I had this all figured out. I had a plan.

This time, I don't think I'm going to wake up tomorrow and say that I don't know what I was so upset about.

Arright. Where does this leave me?

I've got my faith and devotion to the gods.

Dammit, I thought I knew what he meant when he said it was going to hurt. I was wrong, and that's been nothing so far. This kills.