4:40am June 13, 2014

There is No Heirarchy of Worship

youneedacat:

deshretandkemet:

ginandjack:

I’m going to say it again, there is NO heirarchy of worship. I’m not saying that those who take on the roles of priest/ess, oracles, nympholepts and god-spouses, or ordeal makers/runners are all on equal footing with Joe Blow polytheist/pagan/whatever. I’m saying there’s nothing wrong with being Joe Blow. I’m saying that while those callings may be “deeper” or “harder” they are entirely individual, as your experiences will be as well. The relationship you have with your holy powers is determined by you and them alone. I’m sick of the attacks on lay worship. You have nothing to prove to me about your faith, nor I, you. The only thing that should matter is the sincerity of your worship.

Sincerity matters. We, all of us, are ready and happy to pay lip service to the gods, because waving their banners quiets the conscience for a bit. Talking about your love of the gods, your research, or joining in talk with others isn’t inherently worshipful, but it could be! I’m happy to pay service to the gods with my lips, but not lip service! I’d much rather hear about the holy powers from an enthusiastic flag bearer than bored parade marcher. To again quote the classical ext “many are the wand-bearers, few are the Bacchoi.”

And to drive the point home, some will be called to weild their flags as a battle standard. Some will bear their battles and sacrifices in silence, some will share, and some blaspheme. They have an arduous road ahead of them, and their calling is different from yours. But that doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with being in flag corp. marching, and twirling! The gods are social and they likely want it all! Be sincere with and about the gods because there is no heirarchy of worship, only the relationships you make with them. Do not pay them lip service, service them with your lips!

Also, I’m giong to go out on a limb here and say… Priest/esses/godspouses/etc. may actually be “on equal footing with Joe Blow”. Having a deeper relationship with a given god/spirit may give you more knowlege* about that god. But where this fits in in the greater scheme of things…

*Also, most gods/powers of the world tend to be about as huge and complicated as the entire ocean, hell, as the entire galaxy. One person trying to contain all that… Let’s just say that Joe Blow could be seeing something different and valid just because they are looking at a different angle.

I would say that we’re on equal footing.

I worship the way ordinary people worship. I don’t do priestly-type rituals the way a lot of Pagans do. I know, for a fact, that my relationship with the Powers That Be is no less demanding, intimate, or intense than that of someone who’s taken on the path of priest(ess). It’s different, but it’s not less in any possible way. And I’d question the wisdom of anyone who thought priest(ess)es are somehow on a higher level with the Powers That Be than average people.

Kind of going off on a tangent here, but I’ve been wanting to talk about it someplace. I hope this doesn’t come off as off-topic/spammy/etc discussion. (Also, just as a disclaimer, this applies only to myself— there are others in system who have absolutely nothing to do with what I talk about here, at all.)

Yeah, all of what you said. And… Well, I don’t talk about my spirituality at the front much, in public. In fact, I hardly even mention it beyond just the fact that it exists. But it’s entirely based on “inworld” stuff, and so I can’t practice it at front in any kind of group-oriented way. Unless I somehow got to the point of trusting someone enough that I could tell them about it and they decided they wanted to practice it too, which I would actually be perfectly okay with, if they were serious and not just trying to score points with me to manipulate me into a relationship or whatever, but I have a hard time seeing that happening. Whether you see it as something generated by your brain, or objectively existing elsewhere— and actually the experiences can be similar no matter which view you hold to— it’s the kind of thing that makes me wish *private* communities like Other Worlds were more prevalent nowadays, for talking about this stuff.

Anyway— the upshot of it is that no matter what I do, at front, it has to be on my own. I have no groups of like-minded people to do rituals in, I have no priests or priestesses at front. (Though it’s a spiritual path that kind of abhors rigid hierarchy anyway; it’s not that experienced people don’t mentor younger ones, just that stuff like “the priest/ess Knows More Than You so you must defer to them” is… not really part of how the thinking goes, I guess you could say.)

And yet I feel it’s continually demanding of me, not in a “burning you out” way but in a “constantly pushing you to do the right things in the right places” way. Despite the fact that many people wouldn’t take it seriously just on principle, and declare that it was all made up with no substance to it. But it continually pushes me to stick to my core values, to do my best in the areas I excel at, to help others and treat them fairly, to take into account the balances of various things. This is not something I do to look “cool” or “rebellious” or some New Agey “looky look, I’m communicating with some entity no one else has ever heard of who is going to tell you all how to live your lives” thing. If it WAS, I would be out there shouting about it at the top of my lungs. But it’s not, so I’m doing it in private.

And I strive every day to follow what I feel I’ve been… charged with isn’t the right word, there isn’t a good English one, but th role in the world that I fill. And while all of that is private between me and the Powers That Be and All That Is, it has very concrete effects on what I do out here, even if I don’t mention what those effects are or how I came to thinking this was a role I needed to fill. There’s never a time when I’m *not* serious about it, and it can be a very hard, driving path sometimes, even if I don’t talk in public about how or why.

And I feel it’s just as necessary as part of the “tapestry,” as people who follow recognized faiths, even if marginalized and demeaned ones. I think any spiritual path that says people like me are unwanted, unnecessary, have nothing to contribute, or must be following a false path (irrespective of the effects I have on the existence around me, just looking at the fact that it has no other followers outworld and declaring that makes it wrong or false on principle) has a problem there.

-S.

My primary faith is also one that has no name and no other following to my knowledge, even though it’s also quite different in many ways from yours (and doesn’t have the in-world/out-world problems). I know many other people that the same can be said for. And I completely agree that people like us are just as real and important parts of the spiritual ‘tapestry’ as people from recognized faiths, the same way that laypeople and priests are both just as real and important in the roles that they play. There’s nobody who’s unimportant just because they have a 'religion of one’. (Nor anyone who's more important just because they have a 'religion of one’. I know you don’t think that way, but there are people who do.) Of course, part of my spiritual beliefs have always been that everyone and everything is a part of the world and has a specific part to play – regardless of how common or unusual that part is, they’re still equal in value to the world. And if a path is leading a person to try to treat others better, to do their hardest to do the right thing, to become more compassionate, etc., then it’s doing something right, regardless of how they get there.

(I should clarify also that I don’t think that everything calling itself a spiritual path is right. But I do think there are easily thousands of spiritual paths that can be right. Subtle but important difference there. If someone’s spiritual path is making them nasty and cruel then I can hardly call it a spiritual path at all, regardless of what it is. But there are thousands of different ways that a person can become less nasty and cruel, and if any of those works for anyone, then it’s right for that person. I know “nasty and cruel” vs. “less nasty and cruel” is a gross oversimplification of religion and spirituality, but I’m not doing the best on the language thing right now, so, as I said in my other post, cut me some slack. Spirituality is impossible to wrap language around on the best of days, and today is one of the worst days I’ve ever had.)

Notes: