Let's Be Blunt

My mother always told me that if I didn't have anything good to say, I shouldn't say anything at all. Lucky for you, I have something good to say. Lucky for me, only 7 people will read this which drastically reduces the number of people I will offend today.

A few days ago, I read a status on Facebook that surprised me. A friend, a high school comrade, was casually commenting on the 2012 Democratic National Convention... commenting with passion. Embedded in his casual-but-passionate comment was a statement that I took like a knife to the chest. Or maybe it's rammed in my back. I can't tell. I never saw it coming.  

I admire and respect my co-graduate. I'll be honest and admit I was secretly crushing on him back in the day. Twelfth grade English. Dr. Leeman's class. I was sixteen, probably the school's best speller, and a starry-eyed admirer of the boy with the beautiful black hair who sat in front of me. I didn't know how to flirt with any amount of finesse, but I kept at it. Every day. All year long. I finished my high school career with a D in English. Curse those stars. Curse that beautiful black hair.

To paraphrase the comment that bothered me in his post, he mentioned he couldn't trust or respect anyone who didn't believe in God.

Personally, I consider myself to be Agnostic because I have trouble believing in a personified deity, but I don't have any issues with believing in an undefined higher power that I really can't comprehend or contain. Now get ready to un-friend me on Facebook - I dig New Age.

Ready for the blunt translation?

Wicca: The Religion

I can almost hear the questions rolling around in your head.

I like the idea of nature and the energies of the universe lighting my path. I don't believe in the devil, or sin, or hell, or fire and brimstone. I acknowledge the fact that evil exists in the world, but I believe that such horrors are handled through Karma and reincarnation, rather than exile to a fiery pit. I believe in the Threefold Law - what you put out there comes back at you threefold. The threefold return on a good deed is awesome. The threefold return from poor behavior? Not so much. For this reason I'm careful about what I do and how I act. Wicca is an Earth religion. Instead of worshiping in a church building, I prefer the outdoors. Your Ten Commandments is my Wiccan Rede - an outline of rules on how to live. Your prayer is my spell. Sorry, spells have nothing to do with magic. I can't walk through mirrors or turn my enemies into frogs. Please don't ask me how I know this.

I was born and raised deep, deep inside an Irish/Italian Catholic family (I have the family stories to prove it), and I used to think 'I can't be an atheist or agnostic or a pagan or a witch or a buddhist or a ... , my mother will kill me.' But here I am, an American-style practitioner, celebrating seasons, cutting through religious jargon and abstract concepts, buying cauldrons... just kidding... and I find my only animosity toward Christianity (or any other religion) is to the extent that its institution claims to be "the only way". It's not. If you can't trust me, trust Google. It agrees.