It was actually very quiet - just me and the cat spending the day together. Joe had to work on a trade show that day (he's a union stagehand) so we just went out for dinner later that evening after he got home. I spent the day doing some wash and doing some reading.
Right now, I'm working on a book called "The Faith Club." The website is here. This book involves an "interfaith" conversation between three women: one Muslim, one Jew, one Christian.
I don't call that "interfaith" because the only thing these women discussed were the Abrahamic traditions. I don't see them thinking outside of that box at all.
And as I read it, I find myself thinking "wow, do they even realize how arrogant and self-centered this sounds? It's like they think the only legitimate religions are the Abrahamic ones! I wonder how they'd take the criticisms of a Heathen or a Native American, who might speak up against the atrocities committed against their people and the indigenous ways, in the name of at least ONE of the Abrahamic faiths: Christianity!"
Sometimes I wonder if there will ever come a time when Christianity will finally give and say, "No, we DO NOT have a monopoly on truth, we never did, and we were wrong to act as if we did. There IS spiritual 'salvation' that has nothing to do with Jesus Christ and there always was such 'salvation' - we just refused to admit that."
Given that "salvation" simply means "healing" anyway...of course salvation is available without the Nazarene.
Since in my area I'm surrounded by non-reconstructionist Wiccans and eclectic pagans, I've wondered if I should start a pagan version of "The Faith Club" and get at least one person from each type of pagan path around a table and get some things aired out.
For example, whoever would be the recon representative would have to tell the Wiccan and the eclectic "look, we really don't appreciate the way you people mock our traditions by lifting things from it and using it out of context!" It would be nice if a Hindu person could sit in on this and say "you Wiccans are particularly bad about using the concept of 'karma' completely out of context" and explain why this is a bad thing.
Problem is - I'm not sure that a Wiccan or an eclectic pagan would even listen to it. They'd just view it as an attack and need to defend themselves and their ways.
So it's likely not a very good idea after all.
On another topic, in the "I can't believe I missed this" category...
Last month marked 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. It's such a wonderful thing, and I can't begin to excuse myself for missing such an important date. Well, better late than never, right?
Here is a video of Peter Jennings announcing the....eh, I'd call it the "legal" demise of the Wall. (Embedding has been disabled on that video; maybe later I can find an embeddable one.)
20 years later...here's a couple of videos of the celebrations at the Brandenburg Gate:
Freiheit indeed.
Wassail. I'll drink to that. Absolutely.
Let me add this: Joe is very deeply proud to have done his part in ensuring that wall would come down - he served in the US Army from 1983-1986 (right at the tail end of the Cold War, sort of) and was stationed in Baumberg, in Bavaria, just 30 kilometers out from the Czech border. Given that his own great-grandmother had emigrated to the US from Prussia in 1920, and given that he had grown up hearing German spoken in his household, he felt so fortunate to have spent time in Germany and yes, he did take the time to get to know the German civilians while he was over there. Wonderful people, says he, and thanks to a couple of encounters with German women here in the US, I can believe it. Hospitality on a level not even found in the American South, which is justly famous for some lovely hospitality! I'll have to explain that later.
Well, I'm very glad to have found those videos and I'll have to keep up on this from here on out. I'm not one who is inclined to totally ignore everthing that goes on in Europe in the 21st century, just because we no longer live in the Bronze Age or the Iron Age. I'm very much an Information Age/Digital Age/Electronic Age (call it whatever you like) Heathen. I'm here, now. I am a 21st century woman. I see no reason not to live as one; we have creature comforts that, if our ancestors had access to them, they'd jump on them in a heartbeat. Central air conditioning, computers, cars, good dentistry, flush toilets and cell phones come to mind. LOL!! Hahahaha!!!
Well, I guess in the long run, I am enjoying being 40. I thought it would be very traumatizing, and in the weeks leading up to my 40th I was kinda depressed. I felt that way because I don't have kids (not that I'm trying to have any; I'm not really a kid person so I doubt I'll ever have them)...I don't own my own home...I don't really have a "career" to speak of...very long story, that.
But something clicked in my head upon turning 40. It's this: I don't have to take anyone's crap any more. One of my former coworkers, when she turned 40, said "This is the time in your life when you really can make some noise; up to this point, you haven't had much of a clue about what you want, what the world is about, how to get to where you want to be, etc but now - it all falls into place and you can get out and take over the world."
I believe her now.
:D
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