Pretty much every Pagan I know has grown up in a Christian
family, ranging from Pentecostal to Mormon, Baptist to Lutheran, (and though
not Christian but still Judaic) even Jewish. Their parents ranged from
Church at every opportunity to church never but pretty much all of these
parents hold the same belief: if you don’t worship God, their God and no other,
you go to Hell.
HELL WITH A CAPITAL ‘H’ for
emphasis!
For most of the Pagans I know, Hell was the hardest fear to
let go of. For those of us raised in the Christian faith, Hell is that place
that we heard about in church, were warned about by our parents; it was the
ultimate punishment of our wrong doings. Now, it’s become an expression ranging
from the classic, “What the hell?” to the dramatized comparison during unwanted
situations, “This is hell!” Though this transition from fear to blasé didn’t
happen overnight for any of them.
I often hear a term used, to describe this first stage of
leaving Christianity, known as ‘Christian Guilt’. Now, the ‘guilt’ may be true
in the sense that you might feel bad about how your family will react but
beyond that I’m not so sure that it quite fits. If you went through this you
may be able to look back and think about the emotions you felt there in the
beginning. I know, for me personally and the friends I’ve spoken with, it was
fear.
Fear is difficult; it doesn’t have to be rational or have any
real basis and often times the most irrational of fears are the hardest to let
go of. Getting over fears is kind of like reprogramming yourself, you face your
fear, often by repeated exposure, and eventually it stops having the same
effect. But when it comes to Hell? That’s a fear that really cant be faced in
the same way unless you can manage to die repeatedly. Its strictly based on
faith and when the faith in your beliefs becomes strong enough (and if one of
those beliefs is that there is no hell) eventually the fear fades into nothing
but a memory.
But for our family, friends, etc. whose beliefs are in the
Christian faith, hell is a very real, very scary place.
I realized my faith back in 2005, I had already been estranged
from the Pentecostal beliefs I’d been raised with for years – I’d let those
beliefs go around the same time as I did Santa. I moved from that to just
believing there was something bigger without really giving much thought as to
what, faith just wasn’t that important to me; that changed in the summer of ’05.
There was an incident one day that summer that sparked a
change in me. It was a normal day that changed when my grandmother and I seen 2
women walking hand in hand down the road and made the comment, “That’s just
disgusting! I don’t know why those people aren’t just rounded up, put on an
island, and then we can have the place blown up.” And I was so hurt and so
angry by it that I ended up coming out as bisexual right then and there.
It caused a massive blow up resulting in my mother bawling,
my grandmother screaming and calling me a ‘Lesbian Anti-Christ’ (its ok – laugh
– I know I do now) and quoting scripture at me, their contemplating taking me
to the hospital to have me psychologically evaluated, and finally resulting in
locking me in my room where all the anti-depressants were from the year before
when I had lost my 2 best friends in a car accident and my mom didn’t feel like
I was coping well so had me try multiple kinds before abandoning the idea. I
ODed that night, obviously survived, and though it only made my mom voice her
opinions more quietly and didn’t change my grandma an ounce on the subject – it
sparked a major change in me.
I’d hit bottom at that point – and I was ready to find faith
again but I didn’t want to turn to a faith that caused my own family to treat
me like that. I first started looking into Buddhism and though parts of it
resonated with me it wasn’t enough to really commit.
One night when I was feeling especially down I snuck out and
went to the park near my house – it was windy and it was going to rain soon but
I didn’t care. I found my favorite place to go in the woods and that’s when it
started raining – just a total downpour. Something about the rain was so
soothing – and the trees were swaying and it was like the wind between the
trees created a melody – the rain slapping the leaves and the ground around me
percussion – and I danced with the trees. I don’t know how long I was there but
that night saved my life - in large part because the beautiful, amazing, terrifying, yet loving woman who appeared to me in my dream that night and all she said was, "Wake up my Willow, it is your time to come back to me."
I didn't know who she was but I felt her strength, her love, her knowledge, the fear that she could cause when necessary - I felt it and I knew that she was what I'd been searching for - whoever she was, and I never looked back.
I didn't know who she was but I felt her strength, her love, her knowledge, the fear that she could cause when necessary - I felt it and I knew that she was what I'd been searching for - whoever she was, and I never looked back.
I knew that there were nature religions but I knew nothing
about them so I started researching. Boy
was I surprised when I found out that Wicca was a nature religion, I’d
always heard it referred to as Satanism. I remember being afraid to even read
about it at first, I didn’t believe in Satan but, again, fear doesn’t need to
be rational – I was conditioned to fear him.
But study I did and I fell more deeply in love with nature.
I didn’t stick with Wicca and ended up on the path of Drudiry where I believe I've truly found my place.
I didn’t come out about my faith to my family until 2009 –
my mom cried again and still claims to get nauseas every time it comes up, my
grandmother was in the starting phases of Alzheimer’s when she found out from
my mom and didn’t express much of an opinion, and another family member
lectured me for over an hour about how it’s ‘the Devil’ – half way through the
lecture I was having Water Boy flash backs and suppressing my laughter.
I had dealt with the worst of my ‘coming outs’ so was better
equipped to help my friend….
I have a friend that, for the sake of his privacy, I’m gonna
call Jake. Jake is an extremely intelligent and hard working man, he has a good
heart, a gorgeous son, and a very involved family. Jake has also been practicing
Wicca for at least 9-10 years now.
Jake stayed in, what is jokingly known as, The Broom Closet
for a very long time – and then he got sick of it. His son, whom he has full
custody of, was old enough to finally start getting a grasp on religion, to
start figuring out his own beliefs, to think for himself, and because of that
Jakes family decided they wanted to start getting him involved in their Mormon
faith.
Jakes wasn’t too happy about this, he wanted the right to
teach his son what he believed just as his parents did with him and realized
that in order to do this he would have to come out – so he did. Many parents
get upset, cry, get angry – but his parents just seemed semi-aggravated and
didn’t take him seriously – and although he is a full grown adult and has been
for many years – treated it as if it was a stage of teenage rebellion.
This attitude, and the fact that they continued to (and
redoubled their efforts to) teach Jake Jr. their Mormon faith, caused many a
heated argument between them. These arguments only increased when Jake came out
of the closet in another way, he’s gay. The real irony of this situation is the
fact they didn’t take his faith seriously until then, he had to come out as Gay
to be accepted as Wiccan.
At this point they started pushing him to get involved at
their church, to get him to go out with their groups and proselytize about the
Mormon faith, to get him to go their churches Single’s Night and meet a woman
(you can laugh, we did), and even bought his son his first Mormon Bible.
Jake and I talked endlessly about this, it was a great
source of stress for him. He was tired of working 90 hour weeks and coming home
to find them helping his son memorize scripture, tired of his family ushering
him off to events that he had no interest in going to – but he loves his family
– pushing them too hard to butt out, as he so badly wanted them to, could have repercussions
he wasn’t sure he could handle but tensions were so high between them all that
they were nearing a breaking point anyways.
THE HARD PART:
Well that’s pretty obvious – it’s a combination of dealing with the fights between friends and family – sometimes even losing those friends/family from our lives. The ones that stick around – some are accepting and that’s the easy part – the hard parts are when the ones we care about so much are pushing their ideas on us to the point that we just want them to shut up! Often times it makes us feel like they think we’re too stupid to form our own thoughts, opinions, and beliefs.
Well that’s pretty obvious – it’s a combination of dealing with the fights between friends and family – sometimes even losing those friends/family from our lives. The ones that stick around – some are accepting and that’s the easy part – the hard parts are when the ones we care about so much are pushing their ideas on us to the point that we just want them to shut up! Often times it makes us feel like they think we’re too stupid to form our own thoughts, opinions, and beliefs.
THE REMINDER:
His story, even more than my own, is what inspired me to write this post; in large part because he and I spoke of it so often there for a while.
Sometimes, one of the hardest things for us to do is put ourselves in someone else’s shoes especially when that other person is hurting us or infringing on our personal rights or privacy in some way. Believe me, in this case I know how annoying it is to have to deal with your family/friends butting in and telling you that you’re wrong, trying to get you to go to church or read the Bible, using Bible verses as reference to why your beliefs are wrong. It gets old and it gets old fast. But this is exactly what I did to keep from losing my mind, put myself in their shoes – especially my moms.
His story, even more than my own, is what inspired me to write this post; in large part because he and I spoke of it so often there for a while.
Sometimes, one of the hardest things for us to do is put ourselves in someone else’s shoes especially when that other person is hurting us or infringing on our personal rights or privacy in some way. Believe me, in this case I know how annoying it is to have to deal with your family/friends butting in and telling you that you’re wrong, trying to get you to go to church or read the Bible, using Bible verses as reference to why your beliefs are wrong. It gets old and it gets old fast. But this is exactly what I did to keep from losing my mind, put myself in their shoes – especially my moms.
My mom has never been an overly religious woman but she does
believe in the Christian God – she did grow up going to church, etc. and though
she fell out of the practice as she got older she didn’t stop believing. I had
to look past my anger at her interference in parts of my life I didn’t feel she
had any business in, and just remember – she loves me. Its that simple, she
loves me.
I really don’t believe in hell – at all – never entirely
had. So I had to liken it to having a friend getting addicted to a horrible
drug like heroine and the fear of her dying horribly. That’s as close as I can
get with it – because to them its so much worse. An eternity in hell? An eternity
is such a long time we cant possibly wrap our minds around it as much as we
might try – eternity is a concept that we have no actual point of reference to.
My mom, just like Jakes parents, just like many friends and
family of mine, yours, his – believe in this eternity – whether it be in Heaven
or Hell – they just want the best for us.
Now, don’t get me wrong! In this caring I am in absolutely
no way saying that their caring means that you have to let them drag you to
church, and listen to their lectures, and let them degrade you and your faith.
What it does mean is letting comments like, “Your false religion” slide from
your shoulders a little so it doesn’t turn into a fight right off the bat and
trying something like, “I respect your right to have your beliefs so please
respect mine.” Don’t rise to the bait whether intentional or not. Being the
bigger person is hard but when you make a choice that your family doesn’t agree
with sometimes its required of you if you want to keep them in your life and
still live yours the way you see fit.
So now to you, have you dealt with these issues? What advice
would you give to someone considering coming out of the Broom Closet or who is
dealing with this now?
