05-22-04 @ 10:06 am EDT

Note to the people who replied to the last entry: You will be receiving replies. For those of you I write to regularly anyway (as regularly as you can call that, I guess), maybe as part of the regular e-mail itself. It usually takes me an entire online session to type up one e-mail so it'll be a few days :/ ...though I'm hoping you already knew that. I just wanted to post this today and get it over with.

Taken from my paper journal TUOJOT (The Ugly Orange Journal Of Tehuti) (slightly edited for various reasons). Take note, some of the things I state about different religions here...okay, ALL of the things I state about different religions here are based only on my own observation and I'm more than likely way, way wrong. If you know better you can correct me if you're so inclined. At least I wouldn't look quite so stupid the next time. o_o

Saturday 05/22/04
7:38 AM

I think I'm going to try to ask a few more things about Kemeticism, since I really wonder how they believe the gods think. They seem so based on ritual, and on a very close personal connection, and those are two things I just can't seem to get in religion--I tend to believe that most gods (who are all part of One, IMO) aren't so petty as to REQUIRE specific acts of ritual, just so long as you show respect to them; it seems that in some cases merely living your life, doing what you love to do, would be veneration enough for some. It just seems to me that Thoth, for example, would more appreciate a follower of his writing a story, or a poem, even if it's not about him--just so long as they put all their heart and hard work into creating it--than he would appreciate a food offering, or incense on an altar, or a specific prayer or chant delivered in a certain manner, if it's not done with heart or spirit.

Ditto for most of the other gods/spirits. I think the "Christian God" would more accept the joy of a follower at being in nature, offering up feelings of happiness and wonder, than the stiltedness and discomfort of a follower at being stuck in a stuffy church, offering up bored or meaningless praises or confessions taken from a book. And vice-versa with a follower who adores being in church, versus a follower who loathes and feels uncomfortable in nature. Devotion shouldn't be so set in stone for everybody. Why would God want an unhappy prayer offered from a church when He could receive a grateful prayer offered from beneath a tree? I can't say to go out and do whatever the hell you want--but wherever you feel closest to, and most comfortable with, God--it seems like that is where He'd want you. Not all lined up in pews on Sunday--or bowing before a homemade shrine--or reading specific lines from a specific book while offering specific offerings...unless those places are where one feels closest to God.

It's the strict exclusiveness and ritualism which make me shy away from EVERY religious system there is. Even with as much as I love the Ojibwa manitous and the Egyptian gods, I just can't bring myself to offer tobacco or burn incense or erect altars or offer morning invocations or anything at all like that. It's too formulaic. With me being the way I am, I know I would get so stuck on getting every little detail just right--including some I know I could never get right...that I would never feel comfortable or close to God. I would grow to loathe and fear my path, just like I already do. It would become one ritual after another, always having to do everything just right lest I offend God/the gods, and...that's exactly what I think religion should NOT be about! Like I already said, going through the moves, obsessing over every detail and always being afraid, is no way to please God. Whereas if you can stand in a forest, or look into a lake, or up at a rock, or hear a bird sing, or touch the grass, or hear the rain falling or thunder cracking--and feel awe, and just know somehow that God is there, in whatever form, and feel gratitude--that would seem more pleasing.

What would you rather take as your offering, a wonderfully made cake, tall and ornate and slathered with thick frosting, layer upon layer of soft filling, made exactly according to the recipe book...which tastes like cardboard and burnt sugar as soon as you take one bite? Or a modest, half-squished, misshapen cupcake which took just as long to make, yet was made from scratch and guesswork...and tastes so sweet and lovely and wonderful? Some people thrive upon ritual and formula to better know and serve God, but not everybody. For some people ritual is a hobble, a choker, a set of blinders. I would quickly grow resentful and bitter and unhappy following strict ritual. Any praise I had to offer God would be forced and stilted and insincere. But if I'm standing in a green woods, reading no book, reciting no incantation, placing no offering on the ground...at least what little praises I offered would be happy, and unfettered, and sincere. Just because I'm not eating a wafer or offering tobacco or washing and dressing a statue, does this mean that what I do offer should mean so much less? How can it if the spirit behind it is the same?

It's hard for me to write this out for, while part of me is SURE this must be the way it is--I wouldn't even WANT to believe in some obsessive-compulsive fanatical God who needs every little thing done JUST SO...there's still the very big part of me that can't rely on faith. Faith is the one kicker. It's just so hard for me to go by what my heart says, when my eyes offer me nothing. Christians, natives, Kemetics, all talk of how God/gods "speak" to them. They have dreams--visions--thoughts which come from Him. They struggle, of course, but they claim such personal relationships--Kemetics even seem to refer to specific gods as their "mother" or "father," and talk of how they were chosen by that god. Natives receive visions of the spirits, which advise them what to do and how to act. Christians take comfort in the Bible and in knowing that they are forgiven, and certain things to them are clear signs of God's love.

But me...I just don't have that faith. Even with as much as I believe everything I wrote about so far...I've never had any god "choose" me as their own. Not even Anubis or Thoth or Upuat, all whom I feel so close to--I feel I would assume far too much to call any one of them "Father." I've never had a vision sent by spirits that can't just be written off as a dream--the manitous have never spoken my name. And I most certainly have never developed, or even felt, any sort of closeness or connection to Jesus, or God Himself--I can't sit here and believe that Somebody I didn't even know died for ME, long before I was even born, and that all I have to do is just believe in Him and I'll get to Heaven. Don't get me wrong--I didn't lie or exaggerate all that stuff before. When I hear thunder, or walk on the island, or even look at a picture of a beautiful forest, I FEEL God. I feel like He MUST be there, and I feel awe that I am allowed so close to Him, and I feel grateful. But a personal connection...I just can't feel one. I can start to, when I'm in nature. But back in regular life it's like He's completely removed from me. And even at the closest I still feel almost disconnected from Him, shut out, like I'm allowed to look but not touch. Why do Kemetics call their gods by family names, accept new names of their own, and speak of how their gods come to visit them so they can even describe how they look and how they act? How do natives simply know and accept that what their visions and encounters tell them is true, and know that they came from the spirits? How are Christians so positive that they are saved, that they are sinners and always will be, but take such comfort in knowing that they are forgiven by Someone they have never met? Faith must be the answer to each of these...

And I've been so wrong, and so naive and easily taken in, just trusting my heart in the past...so many times, and all of those times were with mere people. How can I just believe what my heart tells me now? When this is God we're talking about, and I've always been so wrong and stupid before?

If I had faith, I could have the stupidest, most out-there spiritual path--Jesus and Manabozho and Isis all sit down to tea and crumpets together--and it wouldn't matter a bit. I'd believe it, and it would bring me comfort when I need it most.

But faith is like self-confidence on a spiritual level...you already know about me and self-confidence. :(

Things I wasn't patient enough to write out in my composition book:

Lest anyone get the idea that I think ritual and formula are bad things, please take note that nowhere do I say that. It's merely that, as someone who suffers from OCD (in short--that disorder characterized by WONDROUS numbers of inane, endless rituals), I find precise ritual to be something that terrifies me. I know for a fact that if I were to engage in religious ritual it would become a nightmare! Honestly, I can't see how a loving God would subject His followers to getting every little detail down JUST RIGHT in order for Him to be pleased. Can you imagine how that would feel to someone like me? You can never be perfect--you can never be loved. You can never be close to God. This is something I just realized while writing out that entry, but I think that's one of the big things that really SCARES me about organized religion of any kind. (And by organized, I pretty much mean any religion which follows some sort of rules and regulations and ritual--which is pretty much all of them. Unfortunately for me. :( )

HOWEVER...I also know that ritual and formula can be GOOD things. I would have never gotten anything done in school if I had not had a timetable and due dates. I need nudges to get things done. I need schedules. I need rules. I need order. I need to know where we are going to go, and what we are going to do. Ritual is a GREAT thing for those who thrive on it, and more power to those people who do. Truthfully? I feel that you people who adhere to ritual in fact have it somewhat easier than someone who does not or cannot. At least you already have it laid out for you. You can adapt it as you see fit, but most of the work was already done long ago. You have this physical or mental list of things you must and must not do, which proves that there was at least one other person before you who felt this was the right way to be and to believe--even if you decide to modify it, you are walking a path that has at least been partly trampled down for you. You can have the confidence that somebody besides yourself thought that these beliefs were valid enough to count.

Me? I don't have that to fall back on. All I have is what my dumb heart tells me (it's been wrong plenty of times before), and I'm the only one who it's ever told these things. No one has gone before me. There is absolutely no one who can tell me if I'm right or wrong. I'm the only one. And as someone who is so used to just taking orders and following routine and staying away from doing things on my own, and always asking if everything is going to be okay, I find that terrifying. It's frightening that I really can't just turn to someone and ask them if I'm doing or believing the right thing. That's one of the reasons why this is such a big thing with me, why it keeps rearing its head. I'm constantly seeking SOME sort of reassurance--I can't even believe on my own!--but I can't think of anybody who can give it to me. Even those who follow their own made-up paths are walking over the ground they themselves trod already. I haven't had the confidence to declare a path so instead I'm meandering in circles and tripping over rocks and things. There isn't any path there yet. And the one thing I feel I really need to start me on tramping down that path is the one thing nobody can give me.

All I've been able to do so far is try to ask people of other religions what they think and believe and how it works. I'm trying to summon up the courage to ask someone who clarified a few things for me before to clarify a few more things I brought up in this entry. (I'm hoping it turns out better than the last time I attempted that...) I just can't help but feel that most of the things I say and believe will be incredibly offensive, especially to those who follow established ritual. I never intended that, it's just that ritual isn't for me. I'm hoping that someday at least *I* can have enough confidence in myself to believe for myself without seeking validation, but for now, all I can do is ask others about their paths, and I will probably find out that most of what they believe is in direct conflict with what I believe... :/

Well, I guess that's all I can do for now. If I had faith, then the fact that others' views of God/gods are different from mine would not bother me so much. But at the moment, it does.

So there's my second big religious entry and I hope you were happy while it lasted.

Tar...