Churching Gen X

So I'm putting lots of thought into this notion that perhaps there is a vast group of people who are not being served by the church. I'm looking at all religious organizations not just Christians. Since it's hard to count all the little special snowflakes that make up the "Pagan" community, it's hard to tell if we too are waning  However it is obvious that the christian church is. When we look at it, one thing that comes up is that the boomer generation is still served, to some degree by the churches of their parents as they have reformulated it. After that the numbers drop off dramatically. So what is it that the Gen Xers need that they do not get? What of the existing spiritual practices are not serving them and what would? If you look at the Gen Xers, they have often been screwed over by institutions so there is a lack of trust in institutional religion. They are not into doing things as their parents did just because their parents did it that way. In fact, that seems to be one way to get them to reject most anything. Perhaps we have learned far more from our parents than they think we did.

This is not to say that we as a generation do not see the need for ritual but it must be meaningful. It must be meaningful to us. I suspect that our generation is less into having someone between us and God. Yes I think that there can be a leader of ritual, one who is there to give spiritual guidance and say many of the words of ritual.  But perhaps they need not be a class apart, a job unto itself. Perhaps we will find that "church" happens spontaneously when needed rather than same bat time, same bat channel every week. Perhaps there will be a regular schedule so that those who have busy lives know they can come at particular time to get their spiritual community cup filled. May be that "church" happens with the work. I"m not sure how to bring GenX to church. Honestly, what I do know is that what is currently available is driving people away in droves. Not sure that we need an "opposite" to create an opposite effect. Interestingly a thought that occurs to me is that many people when asked say, "I don't have a problem with The Christ and His Teachings, I have a problem with Churches and how they do things."

So what is the issue? Perhaps an examination of that will give answers to how to Church GenX

Hmmmm. Community eh?

Well this is an interesting topic for me. Really in my experience the pagan community has a wide variety of broken units. Understandably so as they tend to be those who are not comfortably fitting into the nice boxes society provides for us. We are taught that we need no go between to communicate to the Gods and we can all be solitary practitioners. So what we have is a lot of special snowflakes and solitary practitioners. Creating a group of that is not an easy task nor is it frequent. For myself I find it useful to practice as the village wise woman. I keep to myself on the edge of the community, if i see things that need to be done I follow my partner's phrase, "someone needs to do something. Well I'm a someone." And I get to work. If someone needs me the Gods will bring them to me or me to them. I'm not out for my garter(s), just there should someone need something. The idea of purposely starting a group seems counter intuitive to me but likely I'll be doing that in the future as it is how my partner operates and as his partner I'll be in the thick of things.

Seeing the lessons

So for my birthday, message received.

I was joking with my partner about how I can could make improvements to me. The joke being, "I don't have birthdays. I level up." Where should I spend my points, what should I do to be a better me. Hell I was even contemplating the prayers my partner had sent up as perhaps I should look to my own house.
Then the PTB (tm) stepped in. I got requests for help or to be a support person for others walking paths I've been on in my life. Lost count of the number of times I said, "yes of course, I  know how she/you feel. Been there done that."

Message received: "take two gold stars out of petty cash. You are doing exceedingly well." I'm fine the way I am. I am doing well in recovering from all that I've seen and experienced. I have been through the fires several times and come out stronger though not harder.
It's not often you get a direct communication from the Gods.
Thanks for the birthday pat on the back.
Yeah it's all good.

On Death and Dying, Forgiveness and Healing

So this is on my mind today because one of my cousins is likely dying. This saddens me mainly because I am the oldest Cousin and I'm only going to be 44 in a week. It also saddens me because this is self induced. Nothing so blatant as a gun or pills but a lifetime of Alcohol and drug abuse. I will never likely know the pains and burdens she bore in her life. All I do know is that early on in High School she began self medicating with drugs and alcohol to dull the pain. This last round I actually expected her to die during the binge. She had yet another child removed from her home by the State because she was far more attached to her bottle than her child. Not a new state of affairs for her as we learned through the court cases to get that child removed from her home that she had had 4-5 others taken away also.  Obviously there was nothing on this earth that could heal the pain she bore. I cannot imagine what kind of pain she bore that first drove her to the streets and then into years of drug and alcohol abuse while there.

My partner and i have talked about death and dying and what awaits in the after life. If I must define it overly much I imagine that it is like the Heaven/Afterlife in What Dreams May Come.  If you haven't seen it I recommend it, have a box of tissues on hand. We have discussed the idea of salvation. I don't personally believe in Hell, not as a punishment. I believe that the Gods are benevolent and loving and do not feel a need to punish us for being exactly what we were made to be, human. However, that said, We can turn away from the gods. If we are so wrapped up in our own pain and misery, if we believe we deserve punishment we can create for ourselves a personal hell.

And like here on this side of the veil if you do not choose to fix your stuff it will not get fixed. You can wallow in your own self pity and misery for the rest of eternity, and no one can save you from yourself. I've not spoken to this particular cousin in years as she's been on a seriously self destructive path for the last several years. Well she has succeeded. When I was told, all I can say is, "that's sad. I hope her passing is as peaceful and pain free as possible." Now the rest is up to her.

The hard part is contemplating her part in this. Can she forgive herself. She has made some incredibly poor choices in life. She has made choices that have forced others to save her children from her. I do not believe that she was cruel or abusive but truly and without a doubt neglectful. I hope that she can look back on he life and see that though her choices were stupendously bad she was doing the best she could with what she had. Her children are all safe and well cared for. She need not worry about what will become of them. I hope that despite the cards dealt her this time around she can believe in a benevolent deity. I hope she can believe that there is not judgement on the other side of the veil but love and healing. Hail and farewell my cousin, I pray you find love and healing at this time of transition.

The work

Your work is not to drag the world kicking and screaming into a new awareness. Your job is to simply do your work... sacredly, secretly, and silently... and those with 'eyes to see and ears to hear', will respond. Author Unknown

My partner and i have been talking, it's what we do. So one thing that has been bugging me is when he references the "unchurched" almost as if "churched" was a natural condition. Honestly I was a bit incensed as the people we are focused on serving don't need a frigging church! They need food and clothing and shelter. They feel abandoned by God and everyone. FFS churching them is the last thing they need, or so I thought.  See I don't do church as you may well have guessed. "Service" as represented in my practice happens whenever and wherever it is needed, and nowhere else.

I've learned a great deal about christians and their practices over the last 6 months or so as my partner is working toward being an ECC priest. I've finally come to understand that churched doesn't necessarily mean one who sits in church for Services. More it means one who feels a part of a spiritual community. So basically what my partner is saying is that the homeless, the hungry, and the abandoned who do have a community may through our helping them become "churched" by coming to understand that the Gods have not forgotten them nor abandoned them. That like me all the struggle, effort and working to survive may well be building energy toward radical life changes that simply have not yet manifest. And yes starting with helping the person next to you is an excellent idea as they are often the ones who will be right there doing the work with you. Build your team, chose your goals and work together. SMIB.

Who am I?

Perhaps this is as good a place to start as any. Amusingly this is a tougher post to write than I figured. I guess over time who i am will come out in these pages. So lets just start with why I'm doing this. I've been a practicing pagan for 30+ years and well it's been an interesting trip. Over the last several years things have been adventuresome and my spiritual practice has taken a back seat to survival. Oh I nod at the holidays and push energy when I or people I know are having difficulty, but those who need help have not turned up on my doorstep. I must confess that during the darkest times I lost faith in my relationship with the Gods and in my abilities. I've come to understand that it was all still there, otherwise I may not have survived at all. I did not see the blessings for what they were. So here I am having received a couple of thwacks by the cosmic clue-by-4 and noticed the rather prominently displayed paw print of Coyote smack in the middle of my life putting things back together. Stronger and wiser than I was, yet open to the lessons of the path ahead. This is my journal and I hope it is useful to others.

Answering the Call

So answering the call, living in service to the Gods, How does one do that? Mostly it's a matter of not turning away. When you see someone in need and you know they need to talk, you ask them how they are doing. When you know they are dealing with stuff you listen, give advice and generally be a support person. If it's more obvious give them food, water, money, whatever you can. AND with hold judgements. So what if the buck you give a homeless person goes into a bottle of cheep booze. Hell if I were in that situation I'd need some adult beverages on a regular basis. Wouldn't you? Another thing you do is allow yourself to be an agent of change. When you have the random thought to share something with someone, do it. Wisdom comes from many places, books, stories, movies, the internet. If you see something that makes you think of someone share it with them. Don't forget the coincidences. Being an agent of the Gods means being open to the coincidences that help people along in their path. If need be point out the interplay between you that shows the hand of God (or the paw print of Coyote) don't shy away from it as weird behavior because lots of times people don't see the miracles happening in their path because they are busy with looking for the ginormous flashing road signs and life altering moments not realizing that most often little course corrections are cumulative and bring one to places they never thought they'd see.
I can't tell you how often I've said, "If you had told me a year ago that I would be doing X, I'd have told you that you were crazy. " and often there aren't big changes just little cumulative differences as I go along in life that become all the difference in the world. Well there are also those Improbability Drive level changes that alter your reality and life and how you think things work, but those are pretty rare. But mostly, don't turn away from your fellow human.

Faith, Lost and Found

Faith. Hrm. If there is anything I wrestle with most it is having faith. I am a natural worry wort. I'm waaaaaaaay better than I used to be, but still I worry. What's so funny is that if one takes an honest look at my life, it has been amazingly charmed. I swear the Gods watch over and protect me. It doesn't mean that nothing bad happens in my life but for all that I have seen more than my fair share of grief in life I have always been given the opportunities that have made it not as bad as it could have been. Let me explain, no there is too much let me sum up. . . For all that I had a wretched childhood, I survived it and even recovered. Really the Gods watch. It is a miracle that I was never accidentally killed before the age of 12. Or for that matter killed to silence me. For all that I spent years drinking to kill the pain of my childhood, I never died. As a type one diabetic that is more than a minor miracle. I've had bad marriages but none of them became dangerous. Every time I truly need something it is brought near enough to me to be obtained. I've faced homelessness twice and both times someone reached out and took me in. They were each an adventure in their own ways and for their own reasons, but I did not have to go to a shelter with my son. My son had a tumor in his brain. Benign and located where removal was not only possible but very likely to produce a good outcome with minimal side effects. He came through brain surgery with flying colors. We shall see how successful it all was over the next few years. I cannot say the path was easy but it was most assuredly eased. For that I am grateful. So why do the I wrestle with faith? For one I know I am not immune to misfortunes. Gods know I've seen plenty. I guess some of it is that I don't count on blessings. It's that whole plan for the worst and hope for the best. When life comes apart for me i operate as though the blessings will not come. I do everything in my power to fix it myself. I'm a DIYer as it were. Just in case the blessings do not happen I am ready to do it myself. I guess part of it is that i've seen too many people for whom the blessing doesn't happen and watched while their lives continued to unravel. I guess I have a hard time believing that I am any better or worse than another and that at any time the blessings could fail me. They never have, but if they should i don't want to be caught flat footed. So i go along in life and when it starts to unravel there I am with seam sealer on the job. If the Gods step in I am grateful, but should they ever just step back to see what I will do on my own, I'll be ready.


UPDATE:

So my partner, who is brilliant in a thousand ways and for whom I am deeply grateful, and I were talking about this "lack of faith" that I seem to have. I believe in the co-creative aspect of the Universe. We, all of us, and the Universal Spirit (whatever your concept of Divinity is) are co-creating our reality. Short version is God(s) help those who help themselves. My thought has been that I've been putting an Amazing amount of Energy and effort into turning around my life through the last several years of adventure. And not seeing much response from the Universe. Something my partner said rang very true. "What did you learn? How many people did you help that you may not have had the opportunity to help otherwise? Who is to say that perhaps all that effort and Energy was not being stored up in, say, a fourth dimention that we do not see, only to be released later? Have you not said that your life has suddenly and in many ways become amazingly good and you aren't sure what you did to earn it?" yeah. hmmmmm. perhaps what I need is yet another change in perspective. Thank you My Love. I am still examining it for Opiate kinds of properties, but this makes a lot of things click into place.

The Sacred Marriage Within

I've been wrangling with this one for a time as I'm working on whether this for me is more about how I'm wired or how I live due to how I believe. Essentially this is less about my internal structures and more about values. As archetypes the Lord and Lady are guides for behavior (for good or ill depending on your pantheon). For me the Lady is of the verdant fields, fertility and potential which will spring forth at the first opportunity, but you have to give it opportunity. The Lord on the other hand is the Lord of the Hunt, ruler of the wild places and keeper of the wild things. I must admit that I highly value logic and communication. I also value intuition and instinct. I've learned that intuition is not illogical, you may sense something that is not readily apparent but it IS there. It may be on some visceral level and you may not immediately understand where the information is coming from but it is there it is real, and you are using real senses to perceive it. I guess what I'm trying to show is that the more intuitive and feminine ways of sensing things are no less logical that the five senses thing. Also emotion need not be overwhelming nor always controlled. Emotions are for expressing. Like anything else if it's all you do it won't be all that functional. I guess in the end, this aspect of practice is about balance. Masculine traits balanced with Feminine, the ability to engage logic and intuition to solve a problem, this is balance that I strive for.

I Don't Know Why I'm Telling You This But. . .

I can't tell you how many times in my life I've heard that phrase followed by an immense amount of emotional retching. I've heard most everything. I'm gay, I'm straight, I cheated on my husband/boyfriend/wife/girlfriend, My husband/boyfriend/wife/girlfriend cheated on me, I have AIDS, I was raped, on and on. Man's inhumanity to man, human's ignorance of how to communicate with one another etc. etc. etc. I've learned how to recognize when it's coming and get the Emotional Retch Bucket (tm) out before I get splattered. I'll even occasionally stick my finger down the metaphorical gullet to help get it out. I recognize that doing this is helpful for people and it's one of many things I've been trained in as a priestess. There are some ground rules I was taught:

FIRST, You cannot save anyone! I can offer advice. I can offer tools and offer support but the person who has to actually fix the problem is the person with the problem. No amount of love/money/patience will fix a person. If they do not want to or are not ready it will not happen. If they are, you can help and witness and walk along side them but you can't do it for them. If they do not get up and walk under their own power then there is nothing for you to do but walk away and help someone who can actually benefit from it.

SECOND, know your boundaries! There are all kinds of boundaries needed. Know when you are out of your depth. If someone is really bat shit crazy I do not have the skill set to help them. I can do some but no I'm not trained at a level to help a person back from the land of the broken. I've walked that path myself, That was my path and I did it my way with the guidance of a skilled professional. I am not that person. DO NOT Hug the Buzz Saw! Sometimes when people are not ready to start their healing journey, they will lash out and get really ugly. Do not allow yourself to be abused while helping another. You are not a Martyr, you are not a Saint, if they aren't ready let go, circle around later and see how they are but don't waste your energy on trying to fix things when the person with the issues is not ready to fix things (see FIRST rule).

THIRD Most the time all they need is someone to listen while they talk their own crap out. One can offer practical advice like how to keep a budget for a young person who was never taught how to do that before leaving home or given directions to the nearest AA group. One can give Tools and tactics for how to not let an abusive spouse hurt the kids and destroy ones life while limping through the last years of mandatory marriage. Much of this is experiential and you pick it up through all the conversations you have with people. Once you've seen how some people have solved a problem , or not solved it, you can pass that knowledge along.  Most issues are solved with common sense and the ability to step back and see the issue in a bigger picture, less emotional kind of way.

So why am I looking at this bit of my training again? Well remember how I said that I'd gotten a cosmic Clue-by-4? Yeah I have a couple of situations in which I am reminding myself of these things so that I can bring my A game when it is called for.Oddly they are very similar yet different because of the person with whom I am friends and the person who is disintegrating. One I cannot even really talk about. But a friend is learning the hard way that hugging the buzz saw is not only damaging to oneself, ones children and ones health, but it drives away all those who could help in a bad situation because most healthy people won't let themselves be abused for very long. It is a hard decision to have to let someone sink deep enough so they can push off from the bottom not knowing if they will push off or if they will give up and drown.

In the other my heart bleeds for my friend and sister. She has a son who, like his father, is an addict. A bona-fied genetic addict. His father, however, has walked a path of sobriety for a very long time. My friend's son has only just begun his journey. He has yet to have the experiences necessary to help him make the decision to walk a path of sobriety. As my partner said today, sometimes all we can do is walk beside them. That will be the job of my friend, to watch as her son goes into the world as an addict and see if he can survive it. Like her I pray that her son will emerge from the other side of this part of his journey whole in body, mind, and spirit, wiser from the experience with the ability to walk a path of sobriety. There is no way to know at this point. So I look at this and realize that really the only one I can help is my friend. When this drives her to her knees, as I'm sure it will, I will be there to help her up. I will be ready to hold her when she cries and to try to give her strength to carry on while he travels this very difficult and heartbreaking path. Sometimes it's not even walking with the person with issues but walking with the people who love them.

Gods help these people to find their way through their lessons. Help those who love them to find their way through the situation and learn their own lessons. Give everyone in this situation strength.

 SMIB