Although your post is very interesting, I would appreciate it greatly if you made use of an lj-cut when the post is longer than, say, four or five paragraphs.
It's alright. I just figured that you may have not been aware of them and was trying to be helpful. I know that I occasionally post things that end up 5x longer than I thought they'd be.
so since you emphasize how successful these religions have been/and still are who are so aggressive, does that mean you think we should be as well? That doesn't sit too well with me frankly. I agree that we should use a general term like 'heathen' when dealing with the General Public. But you are not going to get anyone to give up their culturally specific terms in dealing with their practice. And well they should not. In dealing with the public I specifically use Heathen and I encourage others to. I also try hard to weave webs of frith wherever I go as do most of the folk in my kindred(great ash)and we find that people respond well to us. For which I am grateful. I think that the mass organizations, such as the AFA the OR, the AA and even the Troth, tend to de-personalize the experience for the individual frankly. And that we always will be a faith(or many segments of faiths)that relies on interplay of the individual with one another. I do not think we should attempt conversion tactics as we don't really want someone who has to be
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No, no, I'm not suggesting that we persuade people into thinking our way. I don't think that forced conversion is the answer. What I was trying to illustrate was how Chrisitanity, who had their religious act together, overran us, just steamrolled us under because they were able to play divide and conquer games. We're in danger of being squeezed out by our own discord. Heathen works for me. It always has. What I'm seeing is that we are having trouble keeping the members we have now. I've seen many get embittered and leave the religion all together because of the bad taste in their mouth they got from the squabbling they've seen in their kindreds and lack of loyalty to their own members who took an oath with the ring. And we can't say those members are well lost. They're not. Many end up becoming embittered solitary practitioners. (and I've seen this alot.) But heathenism has to be a more hospitable place to attract members.
I'm very glad Odin snapped you out of your near-coma :-) Filing the story away for shameless citation.
But for pity's sake it's not about age, it's about what we do. I don't have any kids, and I spent many of the years you have been heathen not realizing it was an option . . . but I think I am as old as you or older
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I forgot to mention that, but you are right about our group being misused and abused! The National Alliance, the Aryan Nations. What is the name of that sect that really abuses our religion? The sons of Odin? They were listed as a dangerous group in the 2004 Most Dangerous Places book as a dangerous hate group and they described them (and I cringe at this) as a Christian group who invokes some of the Norse Gods. The Nazis almost destroyed our religion by utlizing runes in the SS and incorporating them in other institutions. When I was living in the mid-Atlantic states there was a group of politically correct people who objected to a Virginia man who used the word Niggardly and was asked to resign his job. We all cringed at that because you're right, sometimes the watchdog groups do attack us and automatically assume we are Nazis. And actually in one of our kindreds a NeoNazi did try to join. But the racist, homophobic and sexist bile he spewed got him banished after the first day
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Heh, the shameless citation thing was just my wordfame which I am passing along. Wouldn't it be great to see a new book made of our stories? To have our stories and our pictures read and seen by our descendents? I know it's not a pleasant thought but someday we're all going to be somebody's ancestors. Wouldn't it be nice to see our words-uncut and untainted-read by people centuries from now. Maybe they will be inspired, maybe they'll shake their heads and the bumps and scrapes, not to mention our trials by fire and ordeal, but those stories will show that we were here. And this is what we thought about what was going on during our time. 500 years from now instead of Renfaires, they'll have 20-21st century faires. And I'm not being facetious. Like the Renaissance, the 20th-21st centuries are going to prove to be quite the turning point in history. Wouldn't it be great to let those people in the 26th century know how we felt? I would have loved to have known how Jane Seymour really felt during the year she married Henry VIII right
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I am so saddened that the swastika is so reviled. What a beautiful symbol it was and it was used everywhere. And in almost every culture. The whole circle of life. The four elements of the earth. Will it ever rise again and why shouldn't it? Just because one (albeit big) nasty group used it should it undo thousands and thousands of years of use? There is one famous tatoo artist who is trying to use his body to revive the swastika. He has about 300 of them tatooed on his body. He's also a huge beefy man and definitely projects a presence of confidence and strength.
Thank you for your kind words and I totally agree with you about the hospitality stopping where deliberate hurt has been done. We are not a "turn the other cheek crowd" which I have always thought just makes ready-made victims, especially when the tormentors are typically the ones asking you to turn the other cheek. I am friending you (and the rest of you too) so you can read my friends-only post about what I think about turning the other cheek and the deliberate harm done to me that resulted in me having a permanently damaged spine, which in turn led to the near-death experience. You will read that it was my own kin who did this to me and they are sure not welcome within 100 miles from me
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But for pity's sake it's not about age, it's about what we do. I don't have any kids, and I spent many of the years you have been heathen not realizing it was an option . . . but I think I am as old as you or older ( ... )
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I know it's not a pleasant thought but someday we're all going to be somebody's ancestors. Wouldn't it be nice to see our words-uncut and untainted-read by people centuries from now. Maybe they will be inspired, maybe they'll shake their heads and the bumps and scrapes, not to mention our trials by fire and ordeal, but those stories will show that we were here. And this is what we thought about what was going on during our time.
500 years from now instead of Renfaires, they'll have 20-21st century faires. And I'm not being facetious. Like the Renaissance, the 20th-21st centuries are going to prove to be quite the turning point in history. Wouldn't it be great to let those people in the 26th century know how we felt?
I would have loved to have known how Jane Seymour really felt during the year she married Henry VIII right ( ... )
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