A Personal Dilemma

A personal dilemma has come up for me in the last 24 hours.  And since it concerns religion, I figure the blog might be the perfect place to explain and ask for advice.  (Since this concerns family, no names or identifying characteristics have been used.)

I got a letter yesterday from my family.  The letter turned out to be from my younger brother (allegedly from him–I’m thinking it’s probably my very religious, evangelical stepmother who really wrote it) asking for money for a trip to Peru this summer.

Normally, I’m all for supporting travel.  I think it’s important to travel around the world and see different cultures and places.  It’s a very eye-opening experience.  However, this trip my brother is planning is not a fun lets-learn-about-culture kind of trip.  No no, this trip is a missionary trip organized, I assume, through their church.

Here’s my problem: I want to support my brother.  If it weren’t a missionary trip, I would have forked over money without hesitation.  But it is a missionary trip, and spreading the word of God is the main focus.  He says in the letter that the group will take part in serving a needy community and reaching out to children in need by providing children’s programs the kids can attend.  But he also says that they will organize and fund a group of local students to travel through the mountains to spread the word of God with them.  “I’m very excited to be able to help children far less privileged than me by spreading the word of God.”

And that is the crux of my problem. How can I support something I very much disagree with, even when it’s my own brother?  I don’t agree with missionary organizations or people, and I cannot agree with or support their goals of spreading the word of God, especially when they do so while ostensibly giving aid to others.  In my opinion/belief, aid to these communities should be offered freely and from all for all, without any strings attached.  I believe it is the duty of all to help those in need, not for ulterior financial or religious motives, but from the goodness of our hearts and because it is the right thing to do.  It shouldn’t be a requirement or hurdle that in order to receive aid, you also have to put up with preaching and proselytizing.  And to proselytize to children strikes me as reprehensible and shudder-worthy.

I admit that not all missionaries are bad.  Some are very good people who genuinely want to help others.  They can bring much needed aid, supplies, and so forth to poorer communities, and not all of them inject extraordinary amounts of religion into their interactions with the communities.  But others are rather despicable and withhold aid unless the people convert or otherwise express a religious affiliation with the missionary.  Some missionaries take pains to turn a community against the non-believers in their midst in order to gain more followers.

It is possible that I’m being too close-minded about this.  I don’t have a very good opinion of missionaries, and I freely acknowledge that.  The idea that my brother might be turning into that type of person makes me cringe.  But I don’t think my brother is really into this.  I think he just wants to go to Peru, and is doing the church trip because it makes his mother happy and gives him the opportunity to travel.  Still, I have a serious personal conflict with giving money in support of such a trip with the goals that it has.

And I don’t know what to do about it.  Not contributing something means likely causing a family uproar once my stepmother finds out I didn’t send something. She will hold it against me and use it against me at some point.  She is that vindictive (some Christian she is).  I thought about writing to my brother and explaining why I won’t contribute toward the trip, but I don’t have his number or email, and he doesn’t have Facebook–so my only option is mail, and I don’t want his mother to open the letter, which she might very well do.  But saying nothing seems wrong; I don’t want him to think I don’t care or something like that.

And now I’m doing that Virgo thing where I over think things and look at all the different possibilities…

What do you all think?  What would you do in a situation like this?

Finding the Spiritual in the Everyday

Finding the spiritual side of everyday life can feel like a monumental task. How, you may ask, can sweeping the balcony or driving to work be a spiritual act? How could watching a tv program have spiritual meaning?  Such mundane, seemingly unimportant acts can be transformed into spiritual acts if you set the intention to make them so.  For example, playing with your cat or dog can be just play and a good time, or it can be turned into a good time and a communion with Air and the Maiden Goddess (Air for the laughter that moves air through the body; the Maiden because Air is the element of the East, Her quarter, and playfulness is a quality of the Maiden).  What matters is that you set the intention, however briefly, to make the mundane act a spiritual one.  Awareness of the action is important.  Otherwise, it may make you feel good, but it likely wouldn’t have the same impact.

It’s even possible to find spiritual significance in something like a television show.  Believe it or not (and I can’t believe I’m admitting to this, but I am, so don’t laugh), I found a spiritual truth in a key episode of the British show “Doctor Who.”  It was the episode in which Rose, the Doctor’s companion, says “I create myself.”  I had watched that episode so many times, and nothing particularly spiritual or enlightening struck me about that scene.  And then I watched it after a particular class one evening and BAM! everything just clicked into place and I felt this bubble within expand until it filled all of me and burst, and for a moment the lesson resonated and felt so right.  The lesson I had been trying to understand from class, which had never truly made sense before, just all of a sudden clicked within me. I realized that, like this character in a tv show said, I create myself.  I make myself into the person I want to be.  I am the universe and the universe is me.  There’s more than just that, but it’s rather lengthy, and I don’t want to bore anyone with it.  Suffice to say, I found deep truths in an episode of science fiction.  I’m sure there are people out there who have found deep meaning in episodes of “Star Trek,” or “Stargate SG-1″ or “Avatar”.  It’s easier to spot if you’re paying attention, but sometimes they really can just sneak up on you when you’re ready to hear the message.  The same goes for movies.

Back to more mundane tasks.  Anything to do with cleaning–washing dishes, laundry, scrubbing floors or carpets, sweeping, spring cleaning, etc.–can be viewed as a cleansing act of not only the physical environment, but the inner environment as well.  Set the intention that when you clean or wash or scrub or sweep away the dirt, you are also cleaning out your spirit, and the energetic “dirt” from this spiritual cleansing is expelled from you and your space when you take out the trash or let the water drain when you’re done cleaning.

Cleaning is probably the easiest of the mundane tasks to turn into a spiritual activity.  But what about something like driving to work?  Or cooking a meal?  Well, commuting can be turned into an exercise in patience and goodwill toward others, which, depending on your driving habits, may be a challenge.  Cooking is an excellent way to acknowledge the earth and create a connection to the food you put in your body.  I don’t particularly enjoy cooking for myself, but I do like cooking for others.  I’ve noticed that when I cooked the food while in a good mood, it tends to taste much better than it would if I cooked while in a bad mood.  I pay attention when I’m cooking now, and pay attention most of the time to what’s going on my plate and into my body.

Once you start thinking of ways to make your days more magical, it gets easier to see how just about any activity in the average day can be turned into something that has spiritual significance.  This is especially freeing for those who are still in the closet and/or living with family that is not open to Pagan practices.  It’s easier to keep to spiritual practices if you can turn them into everyday actions that wouldn’t tip off unyielding family members.  This can also be good practice for those who are out of the closet as well.  Seeing the magic or spiritual side in the mundane opens the eyes to a whole new magical world in which anything and everything can have significance.

Reflecting on 2012

Today is the last day of 2012. As we all prepare to begin a new year and a new phase in our lives, we can look back on the year we just lived and take stock of all that happened. The joys. The disappointments. The beginnings. The endings. The pieces that can be wrapped up and put away, and the pieces that we can unwrap and set in motion for the new year. Whether you follow the secular new year or the Pagan new year or both, it certainly doesn’t hurt to do this sort of exercise more than once. I’ll be doing something similar again at Imbolc, but that will focus more on the metaphysical and spiritual, while this exercise today focuses more on the mundane and secular side of my life. You can divide the exercises out like that, if you like, or you can combine everything into the same exercise. It’s up to you!

The point of this exercise is to basically reflect on the year you have just lived, from January to December, and reflect on your life. Show yourself the things that made you happy; the new people you met; the people you said good-bye to; and any disappointments you had. It’s an opportunity to see where you are in your life and where you want the next year to go.

I like lists. Horror of horrors, I actually find lists fun. They speak to my detail-oriented, organized side, and there’s something satisfying about seeing a list–especially a to-do list as it gets checked off.  However, you can do what works best for you: a graph, a chart, pictures, Venn diagrams, etc. But I will be making a list of everything I can remember happening over the last calendar year. I will be writing down everything I can remember that made me happy, and everything that made me unhappy.

After I’ve made my list, I will read over it. I will put a star next to all the items I consider good and a square next to all the items that were not good.

Then nothing. Set it aside.

I want to sleep on it. I want my subconscious to consider everything I just wrote down and categorized. Then, on New Year’s Day, at the start of the new year, I’ll look at the list again and see what I want to carry with me to the new year. Anything I don’t want to carry forward, I’ll wrap it up in my mind and place it on a mental shelf, to sit in storage as just a memory. The items I do want to carry with me into 2013 I’ll examine carefully. If they’re things that made me unhappy, then what have I learned from them, and how can they help me avoid more unhappiness in the new year? If they’re things that made me happy, what have I learned from them and how can they help me find further happiness? What do I want to put my energy toward in 2013?

A couple of items from my list:

• Promoted at work
• Went to the UK
• Moved into my own place
• Published my first novel
• Spent 3 weeks with someone I greatly dislike and nearly ruined my trip in the UK
• Fell off the wagon with no longer drinking soda
• Killed two plants because of my black thumb =(

I find these kinds of exercises helpful in figuring out my own mind. I hope it can be helpful for you, as well. Enjoy, and happy new year everyone!

I’m Back!

Hi everyone! Long time, no read. All of my loyal followers have my sincerest apologies for the long silence on the blog. It was certainly not my intention to let the blog slide as long as I have. I feel so sad that it’s been quiet for so long. But I’m back and ready for blogging!  The new year is going to be great!

I was quiet for so long because I had so many changes going on in my life in the past few months, some of which you may have heard about.  I moved into my own place.  I got a promotion and increased responsibilities at my job–I’m now actually running the entire project, which means a lot of responsibility and time.  I self-published my first novel (which, sadly, I can’t mention the title of here without revealing my real name, so you won’t be able to see it) and that took a lot of prep work.  And then just all the normal holiday craziness of Samhain, Thanksgiving, and Yule that tends to take over everyone’s lives even when you swear you won’t let the holidays take over. They do it anyway.

Well, for now, I’m going to leave things here and work on drafts for the next few posts. I have so many ideas, I think you all will be really happy to see what I’ve come up with for posts in the coming year!

Merry Yule, and hope everyone had a fantastic holiday!

Hurricane Sandy

Everyone please be safe if you’re affected by the hurricane this week.  I’ve seen many people not taking this event seriously; severe weather is nothing to joke about.  60 people have died from this storm already.  Please take precautions.  In this case, it’s far better to be safe than sorry–or injured or dead.

If you’re in the VA/MD/DC/Delaware areas, it’s a bit late to prepare, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still take precautions.  Can’t make it to the store to buy water?  Then fill up your bathtub (clean it first); purify a bunch of water and store it in pots and pans or tupperware containers for drinking water; or even fill large ziploc bags with water, put them in the freezer, and then you’ll not only keep your frozen items cold longer in the event of a power outage, but once thawed, you’ve got drinking water.  Identify safe areas in your home or apartment where you can go in case of an emergency.  For example, if a window breaks in my apartment and the winds are still high, I can go to the innermost area of my apartment and be relatively sheltered, or my newly-emptied coat closet can become a shelter.

Please don’t take risks on this one.  I know the weathermen are often wrong and we usually discount their warnings.  But I went through Isabel when she hit Maryland in 2003, and I can tell you that was nothing to joke around about.  This storm is expected to be worse and cause more damage than Isabel and Irene both, which means this is something you should pay attention to and prepare for. Prepare for the worst while hoping for the best.

Blessings to you all, may you all be safe.