Heathen Blogging

I have been pretty much away from the keyboard since Saturday, when my son drove in from Upstate New York to visit. It was a nice break because after awhile, it can get to be a bit much, and the brain needs occasional decompression time, which most of us fail to get in a world full of mp3 players, cell phones, laptops, pagers, etc. We’re bombarded with data constantly, none of which does the brain have time to absorb. And clearly, I needed a break.

Yesterday was a catch-up day and I didn’t do much catch up. I was tired from late nights and early mornings and crashed early. But I’ve had the chance to think for a change and my brain has had time to process all it’s been taking in, and the first thing that popped into my mind was the process of blogging itself. It was blogging that brought me into contact with other “social networking” sources – Facebook, MySpace, Digg, etc, and which gives me an opportunity to advertise my reason for existence, Mos Maiorum.

There are a great many blogs out there, especially Christian, which is no surprise in the United States. What surprised me was that on Entrecard, which I joined awhile back, I’m the only Heathen blog to be found. There are a couple of Wiccan blogs and a couple of atheist blogs, but most everything else is Christian. I don’t generally read Christian blogs. I might drop by for a quick look to see what they’re focusing on but that’s about it. Reconstructionists are not represented at all on Entrecard, nor are what are called Revivalists. It would be interesting to see how well those who are attempting to bring back ancient religion are represented on the blogosphere. I don’t know of any studies done. Does anyone else, I wonder?

The process of blogging is one of self-revelation. We express ourselves and our words reveal much about how we view the world, as well as how we interact with it.
We show angst, anger, joy, sorrow. Sometimes I think there is too much angst “out there” but given the times, this is probably not unexpected. I just happen to believe that some angst should be kept to ourselves from time to time. A lot depends upon presentation, of course. I’ve read some delightful stream-of-thought rants. Others are almost incoherent. My own blog tends to be less about myself directly (I’ve found a new home for that) and more about my impressions of the world around us, and how I, as a polytheist and a Heathen, view the world and events in the news.

I think if all I did was review movies or books or whine or rant there might be some value to it but I’m not sure how much, and I’m not sure how accurate the title “Heathen” would be under those circumstances. My own focus has been largely narrowed to religion here, also to history as it pertains to religion (at least for the most part). I think it’s important for polytheists to explain, to teach, to inform. People are afraid of what they don’t understand. They get peculiar ideas in church or online (a notorious source of disinformation). I think we have a duty not only to our ancestors but to our gods to correct these notions, some of which border on crazy, as we all know. We cannot expect people to get an accurate picture of what modern Paganism is about if we don’t tell them. Personally, I’d rather they find it out from me than from the American Family Association or another hate group like that. That is one of the reasons I went to such lengths to expose those bastards a couple of weeks back.

Obviously, we Pagans have an edge on the Christians. Most of us were once Christians ourselves. We understand their POV much better than they can understand ours. The few “converts” they get from Pagan ranks may never have been Pagan at all. It’s easy to pull somebody out of a hat and let them ape us, spouting disinformation and propaganda under the guise of being an “expert” witness. And witnessing is the key. These people are selling Christianity as much as they are trying to discredit Paganism. See! We ARE the only true religion! That is their message; it will always be their message.

But modern Paganism is a legitimate alternative, real religion, true religion, one that takes account of the natural instead of shunning it, one that worships life and not death, and one which embraces tolerance and diversity, the two bogeymen of the so-called Religious Right. We won’t ever convince the Fundamentalists that we are for real, let alone legitimate, but there are plenty of moderates out there who will be genuinely interested to learn about what Pagans really think, what they really believe, and pleased to discover that we are people after all, and not worshipers of a mythical agent of evil. They may still think we’re a little off, but they won’t fear us anymore because they will not be ignorant of us. That’s the key.

So it’s our duty to not just rant, but to inform. To examine not only our own beliefs but those of others. Too much angst can be off-putting. So can anger and hatred. Blogging your religion can never be easy because it is very personal. I find religion to be something very personal but also public. Not in the sense of proselytizing, which I’m very much against (I think it should be illegal, in fact, to go door to door and harass people about religion), but in the sense that people should not be afraid to be publicly what they are privately. Polytheism is very much a part of what I am, just as Jesus is very much a part of who a Christian is or YHWH a part of who a Jew is. I don’t have to talk about my gods to be me, but I shouldn’t have to hide them either. I shouldn’t have to keep my mouth shut in fear because I’m in the company of a bunch of Christians who insist on talking about salvation as though it’s something everybody wants, everybody needs, and everybody believes in. We don’t. I don’t.

I find that in general Christians don’t want introspection unless it leads them to where they want to be. We cannot be afraid like that. We must question with the fearlessness of Socrates. We must, as the Greeks said, lead examined lives. We must, as Apollo enjoined, “know ourselves”. The blogosphere is a good place to work out this sort of examination. It is both intensely personal and public, just as is religion. We get to enjoy feedback, questions, the thoughts of others. We can teach, but we can also learn. And we can meet the like-minded, which is always something to be treasured. It is what I treasure most about blogging – you all who drop by to read what I have to say. The exchange of ideas is to be treasured, and I would be destitute indeed if it were not for the blogosphere and the friends it has brought.

So these are my thoughts on blogging. I’m glad I had the chance to think about it, about what it is and what it does, and why I do it. We should, I think, all stop occasionally and ask those questions. It is all too easy to go astray, to take the wrong tangent, to forget what it is we are doing here, and what we get out of it. It can seem a burden at times but so can drawing a breath after racing down field for a touchdown. It’s worth it to get tired from a worthy exercise. We should none of us fear the exhaustion, mental, physical, or spiritual, that we all experience putting ourselves out there. Because let’s face it, when considering things that really matter, a person informed (including ourselves) is worth more than any touch down ever scored.