Category Archives: Introspection

Introspection, Paganism, Religion, Spiritual Development

#ChangingPathsChallenge2024: The Future

Leave a comment

Note: Today brings #ChangingPathsChallenge2024 to a close. Many thanks to Yvonne Aburrow for creating this challenge. It has been fun — if challenging at times — to create a post for each day this month. I look forward to doing more such challenges in the future. I hope you enjoy my final contribution to this challenge.

For those interested, I’ve also been blogging my way through Yvonne’s book, Changing Paths, on Fridays. Those who have enjoyed my posts for this challenge may want to check out that series as well.

On to today’s challenge topic.

To me, the future is undecided. That’s because I view the future as something that people — indeed all living things — are building together. Every choice we make and every action we take shapes the future and what the world will look like in that future. Personally, I look forward to seeing what that future and the world looks like as we continue the creation process.

Having said that, I am hopeful for the future. I believe that people are increasingly becoming more mindful about the kind of world they want to live in and what they can and need to do to help bring that world into existence. I am hopeful that our numbers will increase and that we will learn to cooperate and strategize together more effectively.

I also think that there will be challenges ahead. I suspect challenges will remain an ever-present reality. There will always be those who simply don’t care about living in or creating a better world. There will always be those whose idea of what a better world would look like is fundamentally different from my own. There will always be disagreements about the best way to create that better world.

As such, I know struggle will be a part of that process. We will have to fight. We will have to counter those who would force us to live in a world that we don’t think would be better at all. We will have to try to iron out differences of opinions on how to go about creating a better world, even among our compatriots and allies.

But ultimately, I believe that ongoing struggle will continue to pay off. We will continue to make progress with each effort and things will move towards the better world we envision, even if that movement is slower than a glacial pace. And I can be satisfied with that. After all, my job is not to reach the destination. My job is to help move us just a little bit closer to it. Future generations can take it from there.

In closing, I would like to give a shout-out and due credit to Andre Henry. His discussion of hope in his book, All the White Friends I Couldn’t Keep, greatly influenced my views in this matter. In fact, he said many of the things I said here first and much more eloquently.

Introspection

#ChangingPathsChallenge2024: Journey

Leave a comment

I’m half tempted to just post a video of Don’t Stop Believin’ today and calling it good enough. But that feels like cheating, especially after writing such a short post yesterday. So allow me a moment, dear readers, to get a bit more serious.

Many say that life is a journey, and I think there’s a great deal of merit to that. From cradle to grave, we each wend our way through this world. We meet people. We contribute to our communities. We touch other lives and are touched in turn. By the time we reach the other end of our journey through this life, we have made many memories and left many footprints — usually metaphorically but occasionally literally — behind us. These things create a record of our lives, our travels, and our impact.

I think we often tend to mistake the destination for the journey itself though. We think the destination is the point. I think this often diminishes and disrespects the journey itself. After all, what if the destination is unimportant. What if there ultimately is no destination at all? Perhaps this is the journey of the wanderer or wayfarer, where the whole point is to see what there is to be seen? What if the goal is simply to touch lives and be touched in return?

Of course, when it comes to life, the final destination is the grave or the urn. (Alas, the EPA tends to frown on actually scattering your ashes these days.) Is there something that comes after that? I don’t know. But what I do know is that if there is, that will be an entirely new journey. I’m too focused on the current one to give it much thought.

(This post is part of #ChangingPathsChallenged2024. For more information on the challenge and a list of prompts, check out this post by Yvonne Aburrow.)

Introspection, Paganism, Religion

#ChangingPathsChallenge2024: The Sky

Leave a comment

When I first started exploring a Pagan path, I decided to go outside and sit in my yard, staring up at the sky. It was shortly after a full moon and I had been dealing with the end of both a relationship and a friendship. I sat there wanting to cry.

And yet, in my mind’s eye, I felt the presence of a goddess. I’m not sure whether it was any particular goddess, as I must have been mere days into my exploration of Paganism and polytheism. But I felt her watchful eyes upon me. It was fairly cloudy that night, and I also felt as if the clouds were her, covering myself and the whole earth with her cloak, offering comfort and some sense of warmth.

To this day, I often feel as if the atmosphere itself is charged wit the energy of the deities. Sometimes that energy is buzzing and active. Other times, it is gently soothing. Yet no matter what, it is always there, beckoning my own spirit to sense it and respond to it.

(This post is part of #ChangingPathsChallenge2024. For more information on the challenge, including a list of daily topics, please see this post by Yvonne Aburrow.)

Books, Introspection, Paganism, Religion, Witchcraft

Why I like being a Pagan: Exploring a journal prompt from Chapter 8 of “Changing Paths”

Leave a comment

Happy Friday readers! In this blog post, I continue working my way through Changing Paths by Yvonne Aburrow. Today’s prompt is from chapter eight, which is titled “Joining a Pagan Tradition.”1 I’ve chosen the following prompt as a guide and inspiration for this post:

What aspect of Paganism are you drawn to? Is it magic and witchcraft? Nature, the Earth, or the land? Ancestors? Trees, stars, and stones? A specific pantheon of deities or a specific ancient culture?

This feels like another one of those prompts where I’ve spent this entire blog exploring the underlying question, so it’ll be somewhat challenge to distill several years of thoughts into a single cohesive post.2

I think the first thing that comes to mind is the memory of how the idea magic drew me to witchcraft (and Paganism in general) almost immediately back in 1998. It wasn’t necessarily even the thought of self-empowerment that comes with the ability to work magic, though that definitely was a factor. There was some part of me that almost craved a sense of wonder and magic — something existing just beyond the humdrum of everyday life — all my life. I remember being a kid and imagining that I could feel the flow of magical energy all around me. So imagine my delight when I read Cunningham’s book3 and realized that some people thought that was actually real. To make a pun of it, I was enchanted.

Of course, as I matured as a witch, I also began to appreciate what I might call the magical of the mundane. I came to appreciate that the separation between a magical life and a mundane one was actually illusory, which is an idea that appealed to me ever since.

I gravitated toward the Norse deities and Freyja over a period of a few years after exploring a few options. For example, i spent about a year studying Irish mythology and trying to connect with the Tuatha De Danann. This was mainly because I found a young gentleman at my local witch shop who was also studying and was a member of Ar nDriacht Fein, a Druid group4 founded by Isaac Bonewitts.

However, my friend and I discussed some of our other interests, and for me, that included the runes, which I had begun studying (at the suggestion of my first boyfriend, no less) even before I decided to leave Christianity.5 My friend noted that I practically lit up when I started talking about the runes and the lore that was often woven into interpreting and understanding them. He commented that while I clearly enjoyed learning about Irish mythology, I did not have that same passion for it. So he strongly encouraged me to seek to build a relationship with the Aesir and Vanir instead. And that’s how I eventually became a Freyjasman.6

As time went by, the ancestors became increasingly important to me. This was especially true as I learned more about seidr and other shamanistic7 aspects of Norse magic. Of course, my first introduction to the idea of honoring the ancestors likely came from my time with ADF, which includes calling and honoring the ancestors in their ritual structure. But it became more important as I began a more practical and intimate practice of working with the ancestors on a more one-on-one level.

As for honoring nature, I have very mixed feelings about the relationship between Paganism and nature, at least how it often seems to be viewed in the greater Pagan community. As someone who grew up in rural Pennsylvania, went hunting a couple times (I quickly realized I had neither the patience nor the overall temperament for it), and grew up camping, I had a great deal of appreciation for nature. I still think much of nature and spending time in nature is wondrous and important. I also think that preserving nature is crucial.

And yet, as an old rural boy, I sometimes feel that many Pagans romanticize and even idolize “nature” in a way that doesn’t resonate with my experiences with nature. I often find myself wondering if any of them have actually taken a hike in the woods or spent much time in the parts of nature not meticulously maintained by people.

Also, I feel like some of my Pagans tend to forget that humans are a part of nature, and that includes our tendency to build structures, societies, and the amenities of civilization. The “nature vs. human civilization” divide sometimes seems overblown to me at times.8

I think for me, this is a topic where my perception of Midgard vs. Utgard is instructive for me.9 On one level, I tend to view them as symbolic of the (relatively) secure places established by human civilization and the untamed places in the world that exist beyond those boundaries. I also think that we as humans need both of these places and that human survival requires us to cross into those untamed places at times. I also think that once you start thinking about these ideas, the boundary between Midgard and Utgard tend to get much fuzzier than we first thought.

That was probably quite the tangent though. At any rate, I hope you’ve enjoyed this latest insight into the things that have drawn me most and meant he most to me in Paganism as I practice it. I’d love to hear your own thoughts in the comments!

Footnotes

  1. I will note that this is the first chapter in part two of the book, where Aburrow shifts focus to exploring and following Pagan spiritualities. For those who are not interested in becoming a Pagan, I acknowledge that the rest of the posts in this series and (and the rest of Aburrow’s book) may not be as directly applicable or even interesting as part one. As such, I understand if you choose to skip the rest of this series, though I hope you’ll at least consider sticking around. After all, you may find ways to apply my own thoughts and Aburrow’s book to your own spiritual path (or lack thereof). Either way, I wish you well. ↩︎
  2. Me being me, I may abandon all pretense of cohesion fairly quickly. ↩︎
  3. Many of you undoubtedly know exactly which one I’m talking about. ↩︎
  4. I’ll note that ADF (whose new website I just noticed) is a bit different than some Druid organizations in that it does not limit itself, its members, or its groves to Celtic reconstructionism. It welcomes and encourages the exploration of any and all Indo-European cultures, their myths, and their religious traditions. However, my friend and the proto-grove he hoped to established were focused on Irish myths and culture. ↩︎
  5. This is where I make most of the Heathens reading this post groan (or worse) by confessing that my foray into the runes started with getting a copy of Ralph Blum’s “Book of Runes.” Don’t worry, though. My studies quickly expanded to sources more rooted in Norse cosmology, mythology, and lore. ↩︎
  6. Okay, Odin occasionally shows up with some lesson he wants me to learn or a change he wants me to make. But my practice and devotion is definitely focused on Freyja. ↩︎
  7. I forget where I picked it up from, but I’ve adopted the practice of describing practices that bear similarities to various shamanic practices as “shamanistic” while reserving the term “shamanic” to refer to practices that are part of a vocation in certain cultures. ↩︎
  8. In the past, I’ve asserted that the sexual (and other) energy often found at a rave in the city is as much a manifestation of nature as an idyllic site in the forest and I’m inclined to stand by that claim. ↩︎
  9. My brain is also slow-baking a retelling of the myth of Thor’s encounter with Utgard-Loki where Utgard-Loki is the protagonist, protecting the untamed places from Thor and his compatriots, whom he saw as invaders. I think this retelling would underscore the dangers of destroying the untamed places by imposing too much order on them. But I’m just a witch who thinks a certain level of chaos is needed for life to thrive in the end. ↩︎
Books, Introspection, Religion

My religious deal-breakers: Exploring a journal prompt from chapter 5 of “Changing Paths.”

Leave a comment

Hello readers and happy Friday! Time to tackle another journal prompt from Changing Paths by Yvonne Aburrow. This week, we’re looking at chapter 5, which is titled “At the Crossroads.” Unlike the previous two chapters, I easily fell in love with the thought of blogging about one of the journal prompts at the end of this chapter. And boy, is it a doozy!

Make a list of features that any religion or philosophical system that you would consider getting involved in should not have. Your list could include beliefs, values, rituals, metaphors, and practices.

Before I start pulling out my “laundry list” and discussing it, I should note that this is today’s list of my deal-breakers. I’m not sure everything would have been on my list back in 1998 when I was making my break from Christianity. After all, my only goal in 1996 was to make peace with the fact that I was gay. I didn’t plan on changing any other aspect of my faith at that time. But that’s the thing about such lists. They change and grow as we do. We need to allow them to change. Maybe we’ll add new items to the list. Maybe we’ll take some items back off it, or at least clarify what exactly it is we’re opposed to. But let’s get on with my current deal-breakers.

Homophobia and Transphobia

Homophobia would have definitely been on my list of deal-breakers back in 1998. In fact, it was the original deal-breaker that kicked off my deconstruction process. Being a gay man who had realized that denying my sexuality and denying myself fulfilling sexual experiences and relationships was unhealthy for me, I realized that I needed a religion that accepted, embraced, and celebrated my sexuality instead.

Back then however, I did not know much about tans issues. In fact, I’m not sure I had even heard of being trans. If I had, I probably thought it was some sort of “extreme gayness” rather than something different (though often related) to sexual orientation.1

But as I got to know trans people, I saw how their own struggles were often similar to my own. Furthermore, my own trials, tribulations, and harms at the hands of my religious upbringing caused me to experience empathy and compassion for trans people. As such, I want a religion that accepts, embraces, and celebrates them as much as it does me me. In fact, this leads to my next deal-breaker.

Bigotry, Exclusion, and the Establishment of Second Class Members

That same compassion for myself and trans people continued to expand outward, causing me to oppose all bigotries and the various ways a religion might exclude certain groups of people or even treat them as second class members if they were accepted into the religion at all. So I began to see ableism, racism, and sexism as deal-breakers as well.

I will note that I don’t understand these issues and how they express themselves as well as I’m familiar with homophobia, its manifestations, and its effects. I’m still learning about transphobia too, for that matter. So this is an ongoing process for me and one that I doubt I will ever truly complete.

Self-Denigration

This was another deal-breaker that I had back in 1998 and likely the second one I added. My evangelical upbringing had stripped me of any sense of self-worth with its constant messaging that I was a sinner in desperate need of grace, which I had been literally taught was “mercy that I did not deserve.” It was this messaging and the toll it took on my self-esteem that eventually made me realize that I needed a clean break from Christianity altogether. 2

I need (and fortunately found) a religion that embraced me as the wonderful person I am, full of inherent value and worth. Sure, I’m not perfect and needed to improve in many ways. But I am valuable and am worth improving due to that value. My improvement as a person has become a gift I give myself rather than something I have to do to try to appease some deity (and then grovel before that deity when I fail to meet his standard.)

Hell (or Any Other Eternal Punishment)

This is another deal-breaker that was quickly added if it was not on my list in 1998. As I made friends outside of Christian circles after coming out as gay and relying on them for emotional support, I struggled with my belief that these same people were going to be condemned to suffer for eternity simply for believing the “wrong” things. It seemed unfair and cruel, especially considering how much they were helping me keep myself together at the time.

Later, I began to think about the whole idea of hell and realized that in general, the idea of tormenting anyone (or allowing any to be tormented) forever was pure cruelty. I could not believe any deity worth respecting — let alone worshiping — would do such a thing.

This line of thinking eventually led me to thoughts that caused me to add the next two deal-breakers.

A Focus on Retributive or Punitive Justice

As I got thinking about the cruelty of hell, I also began to question what justice was altogether. I began to realize that retributive justice and punitive justice made no sense to me.3 It does nothing to restore those harmed by injustice or improve their circumstances. And even the argument of reform does not make sense if the punishment only comes at the end of the wrongdoer’s life. There’s no time for them do anything positive with their newly reformed ways.

A Focus on the Afterlife

I came to realize that there had to be more to this life than treating it as a test for getting into the preferred afterlife or gaining more converts to join you there. I began to sense that this life was what is important and what we did here matter for what the results here mattered. As such, I realized I needed (and thankfully found) a religion that not only offered insights into how to live a good and happy life here, but sought to celebrate that life for itself.

Divine Command Theory

Divine Command Theory is the moral philosophy that morality is noting more than the divine dictates of God or a group of deities. I am not a fan of this model, because it makes the entire concept of morality arbitrary. I also find it strange — and a bit of circular reasoning — that some religious people will tell you that God declares what is good and also that God is good. If God gets to declare that he is good like that, it is a meaningless statement.

I prefer to find a standard of morality that exists outside of the arbitrary dictates of an authoritarian figure. And that brings me to my next deal-breaker.

Authoritarianism

As someone who values critical thinking and independence, I am not a fan of authoritarianism. I certainly don’t want it in my religion. i want a religion where i can think for myself, grapple with the beliefs and values presented to me. I want the freedom to question and argue with the religious leaders — and even the deities themselves. And it’s even better if they celebrate me for doing so.

I like to think of my relationships with my deities as being centered on dialogue and cooperation, not subservience and unquestioning obedience.

Exclusive Claims to Truth and Totalizing Systems

Aburrow introduces the concept of totalizing systems later in the book (Chapter 7) and defines4 it as “an exclusive or sectarian system that also subsumes all other paradigms rather than accepting that other paradigns exist alongside it.” I have seen too much value in other religions — including religions that I probably would never follow personally — to just discount them as unimportant, let alone invalid. I much prefer approach that states “this is what we do/believe and others are free to believe/do as they please.” Which brings me to my next deal-breaker.

Proselytization

I have no desire to have people convince me to join their religion, nor do I wish to convince others to join mine. I strongly believe that the search for meaning and a connection with the numinous is a deeply personal one driven by an individual’s needs and context. Trying to force people to fit their personal journey into some predefined box strikes me as a sort of violence.

This is not to say I won’t share information about my religion with others. And if someone expresses a desire to follow my religion, i will gladly help them along in that process. But that is only if they come to me seeking such aid. I do not wish to go out actively seeking converts, let alone trying to convince people they need to convert.

Monotheism

I”m not sure this is a deal-breaker so much as just something I no longer believe. I don’t think I could believe it at this point. I think a polytheistic or animistic view of the numinous makes far more sense.

A “Three-O Compliant” Deity

This term is my own invention and a bit of a nod to my career as a software engineer, which is full of such jingoistic buzzwords. What I mean by it is the qualities that some monotheists attribute to their god: omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence.5 I actively reject the notion that any deity possesses the first two qualities and I have my doubts about the third.

Again, I’m not sure this is a true deal-breaker as it is something I just cannot believe anymore. I think the deities have their limits.6 I also believe that the deities are still growing and learning, so they can’t possibly be omniscient.

Closing Thoughts

That’s quite the list. I’m not sure it’s complete (after all, I didn’t cover sexual ethics in general), but I think it’s a great first attempt. As I noted, I reserve the right to update this list (possibly in a future blog post) in the future.

As I wrote this post, I also thought it might be interesting to explore what I want in my religion now that I’ve indicated a bunch of things I don’t want. I may have to do a future blog post on that subject.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear from my readers. Do you agree any of my deal-breakers? Do you disagree with them? Do you have other deal-breakers? Feel free to share them and your reasoning in the comments below.

Footnotes

  1. I will note that this has often been the position that anti-gay Christians — especially the conversion therapy proponents — have taken, either explicitly or implicitly. Often, their ideas about homosexuality and being trans is deeply rooted in strict gender roles and gender stereotypes. So everything that breaks from patriarchal cisheteronomativity tends to get homogonized into the same bucket. ↩︎
  2. I want to note that this statement is describing what was the best choice for me at the time. This is not a prescriptive declaration about what others should do. I fully acknowledge that others have managed to find a version of Christianity that affirms their inherent worth and value. That just isn’t my story. ↩︎
  3. This applies to more than just my theology, by the way. I’m deeply troubled by the way our criminal justice system seems to focus on punishing criminals. Sometimes, proponents of the current system will argue that they’re actually trying to reform criminals. However, research has shown that punishments are not a good method of reform. So that argument falls flat in my opinion. ↩︎
  4. I suspect this is actually a definition they got from another source, but I don’t recall what that source was or whether they cited it. ↩︎
  5. Recently, I’ve noticed some people — mostly atheists criticizing the Christian god — also mentioning omnibenevolence. It’s a term we never used when I was an evangelical Christian, but we certainly believed God was omnibenevolent. We just phrased it as “God is love.” So I have considered re-branding my term as “Four-O Compliance.” Also, for anyone wondering I have my doubts about whether any deity is truly omnibenevolent, either. I tend to think that the nature of the Divine is more complex than that. ↩︎
  6. This is where I note my controversial opinion that I don’t think any theist actually believes that their god is omnipotent. For example, start asking Christians about the problem of evil or how they justify eternal conscious torment and they’ll start saying things like their “all-powerful” god can’t be in the presence of sin. That sounds like a limitation on their god to me. ↩︎
Gender and Sexuality, Introspection, Memories, Religion, Sexuality

Growing up evangelical and my family’s approach to discussing sexuality: A personal reflection

2 Comments

[Content Note: Sexuality, evangelical approaches to (not) teaching kids about sexuality, brief mention of exploring my own body as a young child]

Twitter user @TheVictoryTori tweeted a great question earlier today:

[tweet 1118517593839755266]

I offered my own experiences in a thread and got into a short conversation with Tori.  I want to rehash and expand upon those thoughts here, because this is an area I struggle with to really recall and understand just what I was taught and how.

My parents were not against sex education.  They didn’t really believe in abstinence-only education. Sure, they wanted and expected my siblings and I to remain celibate until we got married. But they didn’t think that keeping us from learning about how sex and condoms work was the way to ensure that happened.

My family — and my church, for that matter — were also not deeply into the purity culture. We didn’t get inundated with books about the importance of remaining celibate until marriage. I don’t recall hearing many lectures about how having sex  would make us used up tissues, previously chewed chewing gum, glasses of water that had been spit into, or any of the other harmful metaphors other evangelical kids have been stewed in while growing up. (One of my junior/senior high Sunday school teachers may have invoked one of those metaphors once upon a time, but that’s it.)

Instead, the messaging I received was more subtle and often even unspoken. It created a sense that sex and all things sexual simply were not talked about and a sense of discomfort was left over the entire topic.

To give a concrete example, I bring up a memory from…early elementary school age (I think? Maybe a little younger?) My parents, my sister, and I were all in the living room, watching television. I was sitting on the floor cross-legged with my hands in my lap. At one point (I don’t remember why I originally did it), I ran the edge of my thumb along the head of my penis through my pajama bottoms. It felt pleasant, so I did it again. I repeated this several times, enjoying the sensation each time. After a couple minutes, my mother noticed and said sternly, “Jarred.  Stop that.”

My sister, having no idea what was going on, asked what I had done?  My mother simply said, “Don’t worry about it.”  And that was the end of the conversation.  There was no follow-up conversation after the fact.

In hindsight, I suppose (and hope) the message my mother meant to get across was that touching myself there in the middle of the living room in front of everyone wasn’t appropriate, and I should really do that sort of thing in private. (Indeed, I’ve met many parents since who do a great job of affirming their children’s desire to explore their own bodies while gently reminding them that it’s a thing best done in private.”)  But to a young boy in the early-to-mid single digits, my take-away was more like “touching myself there is bad.”

I’ll also note that my parents never really talked about this part of my body.  Other than how to make sure I got it cleaned well. So my understanding of my own penis that I got from my parents could really be summarized as (1) it’s where my pee comes out, (2) I need to make sure it’s clean, and (3) I shouldn’t touch it (except to clean it, of course).  So I think this left me feeling like that part of my body was “dirty.”

Then in fifth grade, we watched a health video that talked about puberty and sexual reproduction. I learned about how men’s bodies produce sperm which fertilize the eggs that women produce, which then becomes a baby, which the woman then gives birth to nine months later. (I don’t think the film really got into fetal development or the various stages therein. But hey, it was just supposed to be a video to give us a basic understanding of how our own bodies work and reproduction.) When I went home, I mentioned to my mother (I think) that we had watched the video, and she nodded and said an off-handed remark that if I had any questions, I could ask her.  I never asked her anything. That was partly because I had no questions and partly because the way she said it made it seem like it would be an uncomfortable and awkward conversation that she really didn’t want to have anyway.

We ended up watching the same video in sixth grade as well.  This time, as I mentioned on Twitter, I noticed something I hadn’t the previous year. The video explained (and demonstrated with crude animated drawings) just how the sperm managed to get from the man’s body into the woman’s body. (My brain at the time: “He sticks his [penis] where?!?!”) I found the revelation shocking, disturbing, and maybe somewhat traumatizing (given my understanding of my own penis as I discussed above, who can blame me?). Of course, a number of classmates noticed my shock and discomfort, and they found it amusing and took a few (mercifully brief) seconds to tease me about it.

I  never did talk to anyone about my reaction or my feelings. Again, I didn’t feel comfortable talking to my parents, given the general “we don’t talk about this” vibe I always got in the rare instances the topic had come up.

And that “we don’t talk about that” vibe and what I had internalized about my own genitals kept with me. It affected how I felt about myself when I discovered masturbation as a teen, given the intense sense of guilt that I was doing something wrong, but knowing it felt way too good to ever stop. It also meant that anything I learned about non penis-in-vagina sexual activity came from classmates rather than my family (and my school’s sex education department sure wasn’t going to cover it!).

So that’s what my own experiences growing up and learning about/discovering my sexuality. As I said, it wasn’t so much any explicit messaging that was a problem for me, but the unintended messages I took away combined with a lack of feeling like I could truly talk about these things.

In closing, I hope this post wasn’t too personal or explicit for anyone.


Gender and Sexuality, In and Around Rochester, Introspection

The Honor of Listening

1 Comment

Last night, I attended a trans* panel discussion facilitated by the Empire State Pride Agenda and hosted by the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley.  It was attended by approximately fifty people and the presenters were incredible people whose stories were well worth hearing.  What struck me is that those who planned the event took great care to choose presenters that demonstrated the great diversity of expression in the local trans* community.  Speakers included a transwoman, a transman, a crossdresser, and a genderqueer individual.  Each of them shared a brief glimpse — there’s only so much one can share in ten minutes — into their lives and their experiences embracing their gender identity and gender expression.  I wish more people had been there to hear these incredible people speak.

To me, it was an honor to listen as they shared a part of their lives that is rather intimate and personal.  I imagine that for them, it was an act of courageous vulnerability.  After the discussion, I approached the various panelists and thanked them for sharing their stories with me.  Each one of them responded with, “Thank you for coming and listening.”

“Thank you for listening.”  They didn’t thank me for filling out the provided postcard asking my state senator to support the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act currently before the New York assembly and senate — which I did do.  They thanked me for listening.  I think that’s because listening is important.

While listening is not sufficient by itself to be a good ally — a good ally is then motivated to act on what zie hears — listening is an essential first step.  Getting to know and understand the people a person wishes to support and be an ally for helps them understand how zie can best help them rather than doing well-intentioned, but unhelpful or even hurtful things out of ignorance.  Also, I think that learning to listen and engage with the stories of others — trans* people in this case — humanizes them, generates empathy for them, and hopefully builds a desire to support them and their fight for equality and justice.

Over the next couple days, I hope to talk more about trans* issues, including blogging about a video one of the allies from the panel discussion recommended I blog about to encourage further discussion.  But today, in my mind, I’m still listening.  I would invite you to listen as well.

Gender and Sexuality, Introspection, Politics, Society

If I’m going to be an ally, it can’t be about me

Leave a comment

Some time ago, I had a friend who liked to be “helpful.”  He loved to do nice things for others.  He loved talking about all the nice things he did for other people.  It got annoying rather quickly.

Mind you, there’s nothing annoying about helping other people.  In fact, such expressions of altruism, hospitality, and compassion are something I personally value greatly — and think everyone should value greatly.

There’s also nothing inherently wrong with sharing stories where one helps another.  It’s often a good way of raising awareness of the problems and needs of others.  If my friend Becky mentions in passing that she gave our mutual friend Ralph some extra grocery money, I might respond by saying that I didn’t realize Ralph was strapped for cash and ask if he’s okay.  I might even contact Ralph and ask him if there’s anything else he needs.

No, the problem with my friend’s behavior was that he was bragging.  What’s more, it quickly became clear that his intentions were not so much to help others but to draw attention to himself in that “look at what a great guy I am” sort of way.  In time, I began wondering if he cared about the people he helped at all beyond a way to show off what a great guy he was.

I thought of this friend as I got involved in a conversation over at Fannie’s Room regarding those people who wish to be seen as, to paraphrase Fannie, heroic allies of women or racial minorities (or QUILTBAG people or any other marginalized group) for the simplest and most basic things while they ignore subtler, more complex, and equally important (not to mention more common) manifestations of marginalization.

While I certainly agreed with the point Fannie was making, I took it one step further:

You know, I never really got this mentality.  I have no desire to be a “heroic feminist ally.”  Quite frankly, doing so would strike me as making being a feminist ally all about me.  (Do I really need to spell out why this is problematic?)  Personally, I’d much prefer feminists give me an honest critique of where I do well and where I need to improve.

I want to expand on that point.  When a person is acting as an ally to others, it’s not about them, and it’s inappropriate and rude to make it about them.  People who wish to be an ally — whether it’s an ally to women, QUILTBAG people, racial minorities, or some other group — need to understand this fact quite clearly.  Without doing so, one isn’t much of an ally.

On those occasions that I write about feminist issues as a man — or should I ever right about trans* issues as a cisgender man or racial issues as a white man — I don’t do so in order to gain praise.  I do so to help out women (or trans* people or people of other races), and I believe I wholeheartedly have a duty to do my best to help them.  Part of helping them means not drawing attention to or accolades for myself in the process.

That’s why of all the blog posts I’ve ever written, the blog posts I write about women are probably the ones I think hardest about and fret the most over.  It’s easy for me to write one about gay male sexuality, Pagan spirituality, or my past experiences as a fundamentalist.  I’m intimately familiar with those subjects on a personal level.  When I write about issues that affect women, I’m writing about someone else’s experiences and struggles as an outsider.  That calls for great care and attention, because it’s not about me at all.

And that’s the way it should be.

Introspection, Memories

Anticipation

Leave a comment

When I was younger, I had trouble sleeping on Christmas Eve.  I would lay in bed thinking about all the presents I would be getting, wondering which of the toys and other things I asked for would actually be waiting under the tree for me the next morning.  The anticipation would keep my mind wound up too much to allow it to slip into unconsciousness.

As I grew older, the problem faded.  As I got older, the magic of all those presents began to wear off — to the point where as an adult, my first thought when family members ask for gift suggestions is occasionally, “great, more crap I don’t really need and don’t have a place to put anyway.”  This is good, as I’m not sure that I could handle the sleep deprivation now as well as I did back when I could still count my age using only my hands.

I admit, though, that the anticipation of giving has also grown since then.  There’s something special about knowing that when someone opens that almost perfect gift[1] their expression and reaction may actually light up the room.  It’s an anticipation that doesn’t keep me awake half of Christmas Eve,[2] but it’s something that gives me that extra thrill and desire to go on.

I also think there’s something to be said for anticipating the joy of another person, as it takes us outside of ourselves for that moment and makes us more other-focused.  Sharing in the joys of others adds to both our joy and theirs, and it makes life that much better.

What joys do you share?  What things do you anticipate, both during this season and throughout the world?  Have you ever had that moment where you’re looking forward to something so much that you can’t sleep?  Can’t concentrate on your job?  (Don’t worry, I won’t tell your supervisor.)

Note:
[1]  This reminds me, I need to answer my own question on a recent open thread.

[2]  In fairness, this is at least in part due to the fact that I’m not (quite) as hyper or excitable as I was in my youth.

Gender and Sexuality, Introspection, Personal Development, Society

Let there be equality, and let it begin with me

Leave a comment

As I’ve considered thinking about Wednesday’s post about the way various women are portrayed in the book “Destiny,” I started wondering what I had hoped to accomplish with the post.  After all, it’s not like I expect future authors of the Rogue Angel series to read my post and try to improve the series’ portrayal of women.  I simply don’t have that level of influence.

In many ways, I think I was engaging in a bit of navel-gazing, though I consider it much-needed navel-gazing.  You see, I’ve never picked up a book and given much thought to how many female characters there were, how those characters interacted, how they were portrayed, or what other notions about women were being reinforced — implicitly or explicitly.

Having spent many months learning more about feminist thought and how society perceives and treats women from fantastic bloggers like Personal Failure, Fannie, Ana, and Mmy, I felt it would be a good exercise to step back, try to see past my own privilege, and consider my reading material in a different light.  In effect, I was seeking to become a better ally to women.

I must say, it was an enlightening experience.  In the course of seeking to recall the book and write a post about it, I found a number of problematic themes to write about — more than I even originally expected to find.  These are things that I would have overlooked normally.  Or if I had noticed them at all, I would have shrugged them off as minor things, rationalizing that with such a powerful, independent woman like Annja as the main character, such things couldn’t possibly matter.  The kickass woman made everything alright, right?

Well, no, I don’t think so.  Positive and negative portrayals of women — or any marginalized group, for that matter — are not mutually exclusive, and the tendency to ignore the latter when the former is present only allows the negative ones to flourish in the culture.  So learning to spot these problematic themes is important.

I think for me, the best example of my normal oversight of this sort of thing came from when I went to write the post and could not remember any women in the story other than Annja.  I had originally boldly declared that the book failed the Bechdel test on that grounds alone.

And yet, as I mined the book for quotes and details for my posts, I ran into two other women in the story.  One woman (Maria) I had forgotten completely.  The other woman (the unnamed server), my brain had surreptitiously rewritten as a man, demonstrating that I’m still perfectly capable of assuming that a man is the default human.  That was not a comfortable realization, let me tell you.  I find myself wondering how many other women in the story I have invisibilized simply by forgetting about them or remaking them into men in my mind.

It would be easy to blame the culture and say that I only did these things because it’s the way my upbringing and experiences have conditioned me to think and behave.  While that’s certainly true, I think that’s a terrible excuse.  After all, I am a part of that society and my actions contribute to the same conditioning of other people unless I do something about it.  And ultimately, I am the one person in the world I have control over.

So writing the post has further awakened me to something about the society and myself that I don’t like.  So now I’m looking to change things by changing myself.  I am currently in the process of reading “Solomon’s Jar,” the second book in the Rogue Angel series, and I’m choosing to read it more mindfully.  I am looking out for female characters so that I can remember them.  I’m looking for problematic themes while reading them, rather than thinking about them after the fact.  I’m keeping an eye out for whatever messages the book might try to send me.  It’ll be interesting to see what I have to say about the next book and my reaction to it.

If I can raise one or two other reader’s awareness, that’ll be a bonus.