The Pagan Heart
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September-October 2005 Issue
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Family Values
By Axiom.
This column looks at our faith - whether it is public or private, revealed or hidden. For the authors of the articles so far it has focused upon self-revelation and the experience of revealing their paths to outsiders. This issue I'd like to write about my children and their faith. This is a topical issue for me right now as their grandmother is visiting. So far she has no idea that the girls are being raised as Pagans - not through my choice but out of deference to my husband's desire not to deal with the fallout. I have never hidden my faith from his family, but neither have I openly declared it. And up until now it hasn't been a problem. I think the family is nominally Christian - although Church attendance is limited to weddings, christenings, and funerals. They'd probably call themselves Christian if asked - but then again they might suprise me and say they're agnostic or something else entirely. Pagan, however, is probably not high on the list of "something elses" and I'm pretty sure it's not something to be taken really seriously. But the girls are talking about Solstice Eve, the Solstice Tree, and how some of their friends celebrate Christmas while we do Solstice. Hard to hide that. On top of their innocent babble is the Solstice Ritual we will all be attending at a dear friend's house. Yes, not only does she get to face her Pagan grandkids talking about Solstice, but she gets to come along and participate in a ritual! Oh joy. It is joyful - sharing our beliefs and knowing that there is no longer any doubt as to what they are. But the likely outburst, the questions, the doubt - these are not things I really want to be facing during this festival. I know that realistically this is an ideal time for it - the Winter Solstice is about the dark side as well as the rebirth of light. It is a time to face our fears and doubts, acknowledge them, and deal with them. But I don't want to - which is probably why it's all happening now. While out driving the other day, we passed a church being renovated and the girls asked what it was. I replied, on auto-pilot, that it was a church. Which led to the inevitable "What's a church?" Up until now they have identified most churches as castles, and I have let it go at that. But now the door was open and I needed to explain what a church is. So I replied that churches are places people go to talk to god. Since I don't talk about "god" to my children, but rather about concrete terms like "Mother Earth" or "Sister Moon" or "Father Sun", god needed explaining. Which got me thinking - how do I explain my understanding of the divine to my children? How to encompass all that it is without being too complex, and yet refrain from being too simplistic and dumbed down? I decided to explain god as being the feelings we get inside when we feel something. So when we're really really happy, or we really like someone - that's god. Of course that led to an argument from the back seat about whether being angry could also be god or not. And what if you hit someone because you were angry - was that being "god"? Further clarification led to the decision that it wasn't "god" when we hit someone, but being angry enough to hit someone was kind of "god". And it wasn't "god" when we hugged someone - but wanting to hug was "god". These were the analogies they came up with to explain "god". At first I thought they were mixing "god" and "good" up, but when I heard one comment that she loved her sister and that meant she had "god" inside and it made her feel all good, I realised that no, they weren't. I decided to leave the discussion of "god" at that point for now - discussing how god relates to the Mother and Father could wait until I wasn't driving along the freeway at 70 miles an hour in peak traffic! A little while later, one piped up and asked why other people go to church and we don't. Don't we want to talk to "god"? Well, I replied, some people need to be with lots of other people to be happy about "god" and to learn about "god". Silence greeted this remark initially, then she responded that we don't need that because we are happy together in our family and so we feel "god" all the time. And And that this means we learn about "god" from each other - maybe when we have hugs? Her sister added that even when she's really angry at me, she still loves me and she thinks that's why feeling angry is also "god". This month is truly shaping up to be a month of revelation, soul searching, and confrontation. Maybe I'll just let the girls explain to their grandmother why we believe differently! Sounds like they know what to say better than I do. And through them, maybe we'll find a meeting ground where we can celebrate happily together as a family. |
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