Fuck, I forgot to take my meds this morning. They're at my house, I'm already on campus, and I don't drive, so you can see my problem.
I used to keep them in my backpack, but after classes ended last semester I took them out. Then I got used to the routine of not having to take them - after all, if I don't need to pay attention in class and I'm not driving anywhere, I don't need the same level of brain function. And work is repetitive enough that I can mostly just run on autopilot, so other than Duolingo and getting my first debit card, I was good. I managed to do pretty well on Duolingo anyway, to the point where I'm a few weeks ahead of schedule. So what if I forget to eat? If I can't fall asleep until four in the morning sometimes? If I have the memory of a flea with a concussion? If I keep making stupid mistakes because I can't pace myself and focus on what I'm doing? Let the ADHD demon run wild and free y'all*.
Anyway I have two and a half hours until my first class so I did actually want to write something.
Okay so you know how, despite being pagan, I was raised Catholic and even now Christianity informs my beliefs really heavily? How after being super heavily alienated from Christianity and becoming angry at God because of homophobia and transphobia that Her followers used religion to excuse, I realized that it actually wasn't Christianity as a faith that I hated but Christianity as an institution? And then this revelation ended with me combining my Christian and pagan beliefs into some sort of strange heretical folk religion?
Yeah. So. I actually really want to find a house of worship and religious community but it's really hard for someone like me. Like I want one focused on interfaith activism and liberation theology, one that's affirming of all LGBT people, one that is pro-feminist (and not just the über liberal kind that's actually mostly focused on appeasing men) and concerned with racial justice, one that uses love as a powerful social force for religion, one that combines the best of what I love about religion and allows me freedom of expression.
So far, I've found a few good options.
1. Join and/or form a coven. I've met a couple other pagans and I'm actually starting to be close to one of them. Both are Wiccan, but one is the kind that thinks Wicca is like ancient or whatever rather than having been founded in the twentieth century and I just can't vibe with that but I'm not going to tell her about it. The other one seems pretty cool and we have a lot in common and she's a trans woman so I doubt she'll be into the whole uterus-moon-goddess-fertility thing that makes me so uncomfortable with cis-centric paganism. Plus we found this really great website that's basically Twitter for practitioners and so far it seems like practically everyone on there is LGBT and we've - by which I mean just me and my friend, not the entire godsdamn site - been talking about going up to my family's cabin one of these days and using my firepit as a ritual thing.
2. Join a Unitarian Christian church. I'll look into it more later but it seems compelling.
3. Join an Episcopalian church. See above. Bonus: women priests.
4. Join a Quaker meetinghouse. I've been researching Quakerism lately and it seems like something I could really get into, though for a hot second it was hard to tell if I just had a crush on the woman in the informational video I watched (her name's Jessica Kellgren-Fozard and she's a British femme lesbian with beautiful red hair and she kind of resembles a sexy 1940s movie star and her wife Claudia is hot too but Claudia wasn't in the video). But like I really like Quaker ideas on simplicity and sustainability and loving others. And Quakers, apparently, are very chill with LGBT stuff and people combining their religion with another one. They don't even evangelize.
So you'd think Quaker paganism would be perfect for me, right? It's just, like, what bothers me is that Quakers apparently believe that EVERYONE is equal and nobody is irredeemable.
Which seems great at first, but I can't get past the "nobody is irredeemable" part. Like does that include rapists? Fascists? Abusers? Eugenicists? Pedophiles? Imperialists? Billionaires? Conversion therapists? Human traffickers? It bothers me, the idea that there are so many absolutely shit people in the world and if I'm a Quaker I'm supposed to see all of them as my equal. I'm supposed to see good in all of them, no matter how much they have done to hurt others. No matter how much my personal sense of heavenly love acted out on earth revolves around loving and caring for and maintaining solidarity with the people that have been hurt by anyone I just named.
Then there's the peace thing. I'm totally for direct action, violent revolution, and violence in defense of oneself and others. I would be more part of that if I could be, but living with my parents and being disabled and in college and working and not having a driver's license kind of puts a damper on my burning desire to form my very own Sweet/Vicious style leftist militia.
The thing is, though, I'm not a Quaker. Which is why I'm turning to any of you out there who are. Can you, Quakers, elaborate on those parts of your beliefs?
*sarcasm
I used to keep them in my backpack, but after classes ended last semester I took them out. Then I got used to the routine of not having to take them - after all, if I don't need to pay attention in class and I'm not driving anywhere, I don't need the same level of brain function. And work is repetitive enough that I can mostly just run on autopilot, so other than Duolingo and getting my first debit card, I was good. I managed to do pretty well on Duolingo anyway, to the point where I'm a few weeks ahead of schedule. So what if I forget to eat? If I can't fall asleep until four in the morning sometimes? If I have the memory of a flea with a concussion? If I keep making stupid mistakes because I can't pace myself and focus on what I'm doing? Let the ADHD demon run wild and free y'all*.
Anyway I have two and a half hours until my first class so I did actually want to write something.
Okay so you know how, despite being pagan, I was raised Catholic and even now Christianity informs my beliefs really heavily? How after being super heavily alienated from Christianity and becoming angry at God because of homophobia and transphobia that Her followers used religion to excuse, I realized that it actually wasn't Christianity as a faith that I hated but Christianity as an institution? And then this revelation ended with me combining my Christian and pagan beliefs into some sort of strange heretical folk religion?
Yeah. So. I actually really want to find a house of worship and religious community but it's really hard for someone like me. Like I want one focused on interfaith activism and liberation theology, one that's affirming of all LGBT people, one that is pro-feminist (and not just the über liberal kind that's actually mostly focused on appeasing men) and concerned with racial justice, one that uses love as a powerful social force for religion, one that combines the best of what I love about religion and allows me freedom of expression.
So far, I've found a few good options.
1. Join and/or form a coven. I've met a couple other pagans and I'm actually starting to be close to one of them. Both are Wiccan, but one is the kind that thinks Wicca is like ancient or whatever rather than having been founded in the twentieth century and I just can't vibe with that but I'm not going to tell her about it. The other one seems pretty cool and we have a lot in common and she's a trans woman so I doubt she'll be into the whole uterus-moon-goddess-fertility thing that makes me so uncomfortable with cis-centric paganism. Plus we found this really great website that's basically Twitter for practitioners and so far it seems like practically everyone on there is LGBT and we've - by which I mean just me and my friend, not the entire godsdamn site - been talking about going up to my family's cabin one of these days and using my firepit as a ritual thing.
2. Join a Unitarian Christian church. I'll look into it more later but it seems compelling.
3. Join an Episcopalian church. See above. Bonus: women priests.
4. Join a Quaker meetinghouse. I've been researching Quakerism lately and it seems like something I could really get into, though for a hot second it was hard to tell if I just had a crush on the woman in the informational video I watched (her name's Jessica Kellgren-Fozard and she's a British femme lesbian with beautiful red hair and she kind of resembles a sexy 1940s movie star and her wife Claudia is hot too but Claudia wasn't in the video). But like I really like Quaker ideas on simplicity and sustainability and loving others. And Quakers, apparently, are very chill with LGBT stuff and people combining their religion with another one. They don't even evangelize.
So you'd think Quaker paganism would be perfect for me, right? It's just, like, what bothers me is that Quakers apparently believe that EVERYONE is equal and nobody is irredeemable.
Which seems great at first, but I can't get past the "nobody is irredeemable" part. Like does that include rapists? Fascists? Abusers? Eugenicists? Pedophiles? Imperialists? Billionaires? Conversion therapists? Human traffickers? It bothers me, the idea that there are so many absolutely shit people in the world and if I'm a Quaker I'm supposed to see all of them as my equal. I'm supposed to see good in all of them, no matter how much they have done to hurt others. No matter how much my personal sense of heavenly love acted out on earth revolves around loving and caring for and maintaining solidarity with the people that have been hurt by anyone I just named.
Then there's the peace thing. I'm totally for direct action, violent revolution, and violence in defense of oneself and others. I would be more part of that if I could be, but living with my parents and being disabled and in college and working and not having a driver's license kind of puts a damper on my burning desire to form my very own Sweet/Vicious style leftist militia.
The thing is, though, I'm not a Quaker. Which is why I'm turning to any of you out there who are. Can you, Quakers, elaborate on those parts of your beliefs?
*sarcasm
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