noodling on religion

[iimpavid]

hashiveinu invited me to talk about religious stuff, so I'm gonna talk about religious stuff. 
____________________________________________________________________________
 

 
My teacher, she tells me it's a Calling.
I don't think Callings work like this.

My oldest friend only smiles, like he's winning something. I suppose he is.

He points to a pile of rocks, just like the song goes, and asks me to pick
one up and put it down somewhere else:
by this other rock, on top of that flat stone, by the stream,
just toss it on the pile there.

The rock is my job. Or my friends, or my mother,
or the myriad of modern toys he scoffs at;
it's my dubiously reliable body, or having to move house yet again, or
my entire concept of faith;
it’s learning to spin, it’s another avenue of study.

Pick it up, he tells me with a pregnant pause: but only if you want to.

It’s all trust and choice, all the time.

 You could always just quit.

It’s always about choice.

It’s no skin off my nose.
  

As if I could just quit.

We’re building something together, you know, so … why not pick up another rock?

 

When I make the mistake of asking why, everything comes up peorth
again and again and again and again --
I am so tired of not knowing where I’m going.

It’s up to you.

I’m not a fool--

No one will make you.

-- I know when I’m being led by the nose.
 

Choose this–

I know what happens when I stop letting myself be led–
I’ve had more than enough of my deathbed.

Choose me–

Any clearer direction might see me fleeing right back to the still, clean chill of the mikveh
where no sly spirit suggests I choose anything.
I know he knows it.

Choose every step on the Road.
 

Bless that Lævísi, he’s a sharp one and he uses it well.
For all I gnash my teeth and complain,
I can’t say he doesn’t know me.    

____________________________________________________________________________

I never really know how to begin talking about my faith.

There's the nuts-and-bolts jargon, I guess: I'm a Northern Tradition Polytheist, no not the fascist kind. I primarily worship Loki-- no, not the Marvel character-- Sigyn and my ancestors (of choice and genetics) with much love given, too, to Surtr, Hel, Mengloth, Freya, Freyr, Angrboda. That's to say nothing of trying to care for my local landvaettir-- I'm an animist, too. No, I'm very much not Wiccan. I believe in science to the point that it's probably a character flaw.

Most polytheists I've met don't have experiences like mine, which honestly just makes me feel even weirder about the whole thing.

All of this started when I was really, really young. I spent a fair amount of time trying to understand why my pastor insisted that I should only worship one god when even the Christian god admitted there were many-- and I knew that there were spirits in all things not made from plastics. I don't experience theophany of any sort, I don't think, and I do not experience psychosis. This is relevant because I know and have been Told that Loki has been a major facet of my life since I was a small child, if not longer. I don't know why-- he doesn't give straight answers when I've asked why. I've gotten to a point where I go where he leads-- albeit like a particularly anxious and distractible sheep most of the time.

After all, the gods are fallible. Accepting that fact and trusting them anyway is... just one of the many challenges that comes with the job.

I know, too, from experience and much argument, that I'm actively disallowed from monotheism. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. No single-god faith allowed for iimpavid. This isn't normal for pagans on the whole, but it's part of it for me, and I'm not inclined to question it. My life demonstrably improves when I center it on the gods, even when shit's really rough, as it is right now. If I stray too far from them, precarity turns into certain disaster-- and that's to say nothing of how easy it is to despair if I don't actively turn toward some kind of prayerful thing, be it music or writing or art or just lighting a candle.

So I must follow the path.

This fact exists in a funny sort of tension with choice. My teacher insists that it's a Calling, the fact that Loki has always stood at the periphery of my life. The kind of Calling that warrants the capitalization. That means that I fundamentally have a choice to ignore being Called if I really, really want to be stubborn about it... and arguably I could choose to ignore it.

But it's better for me not to lie to myself about how badly I want to reach out to my gods. So, I don't get to pretend that it's a happy accident or some unexpected, unlooked for boon (or curse, depending on who you talk to).  I have to do this faith business on purpose. I don't get to be lazy, to go through the motions, to treat prayer and forgiveness and worship as vending machines. I have to mean it, every time. The gods are very easy to love but it is not easy to always be intentional in the act of loving them when the rest of my life is so loud. I think, now, that that effort is part of the gift I get to give them; I think that it must nourish them in some way.

If people want to learn anything about my faith, then I need to teach them. That's one of my duties-as-assigned. To do that well I need to be visible, to talk about being whatever-this-is so that people know they can ask me about it. I need to feed people, or else help make sure they have money to get food, whenever I can. I don't get to look away from others' need, even when I find myself unable to do anything about it except bear witness. I think that this is because one of Loki's (many, many) lessons is first and foremost the truth.

(You might not expect that from a trickster, that fleet-footed pathwalker has a great many facets, though. His bynames alone will keep you busy for weeks: mind-tester, vulture's path, skytreader, liesmith, chaos father, burden of Sigyn's arms, isle son. I just really love him, okay.) 

My faith compels me, above all else, to act. Personal responsibility is a big deal-- even for shit that I didn't directly do, but benefit from. I'm still accountable to make wrongs right if I've inherited them. Caring for my local community is of paramount importance: do I know my neighbors well enough to keep them safe if something strange occurs? do they have enough food for winter? does everyone I know have warm socks? do my friends working retail have good boots for the slog to and from the bus station? am I doing my part to fight unjust laws? Sitting around whining is no substitute for measurable action, even if sometimes one must sit around and whine a while to prepare to act.

As a result, my faith innervates every facet of my life. It always has, this unassailable knowing that the gods and spirits exist, that I (like everyone) am part of Wyrd which affects every other part. It's hard to lay out all the pieces of it one by one when it's so much like a tapestry, but I enjoy pointing out the individual threads.

I don't know if any of this is especially useful, but let me know if it sparks any questions for anyone else about any of this.