Considering My Options

[poliphilo]

Ailz and I have been thinking that  we should check out the Unitarian church- that maybe we'd find we were Unitarians.

So I was reading up about them. They're OK.  Maybe a little on the serious side. I can't find anything to disagree with.

But they're a gang. And I don't want to join a gang. I don't want to go round sporting gang colours.

It suits me better to be out on the margins. It always has done.

Which is why it works for me to attend an Anglican church. Anglicanism is the state religion and everyone who isn't specifically something else is Anglican by default.  Anglicanism isn't a gang; it's an atmosphere. If I became a Unitarian I'd be signing up for something, but by continuing as an Anglican I'm just going to church. There's a difference.
 
I've always been afraid of being co-opted, of becoming one of the crowd.

Or worse, of becoming a spokesman for a particular crowd- where you have to say what the crowd thinks (which is actually what the leader of the crowd thinks) not what you think yourself.

You see them on TV-  the spokesmen and spokeswomen. So carefully turned out, so carefully spoken.

I pity them.

I was like that when I was a vicar. It killed the mischief in me. And what's the use of a priest without mischief?

Comments

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

A friend attends the Unitarians irregularly, and I've been along with them on three occasions. I found them unbearably smug and utterly blithe about cultural appropriation. The message I got from them was 'we have taken the best from the world religions and combined them in one superior religion'; it seemed to me as though in doing so they had completely disregarded the cultural traditions that inform those religions, and set themselves up as morally and intellectually superior beings who see beyond all that superstition to the profound truths that, like, God is love, man, and you shouldn't be hurting people. In short, it seemed like a white liberal middle-class organisation for feeling good about yourself, with a surreal gloss of mid-Victorian earnestness.

I know this isn't everyone's experience, and certainly in the area of queer rights I have the utmost respect for them, but I was still astonished by how tiresome I found them and how little desire I had to go back.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's rather what I feared. I can't be doing with earnestness. My local Anglicans are rough and ready and not the least bit smug.

Still I believe the Unitarians have a ritual with a chalice where- instead of drinking from it- they SET IT ON FIRE! That's got to be worth seeing.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

You could BE the leader of the crowd... I do think it is perverse of you to NOT want to join something because you agree too much with it, but you DO want to join something where you don't agree. It's like joining a football team because you want to play cricket.

But, you are allowed to do that, it isn't a criticism.

And I am not sure if we are all Anglican by default. Not unless we are baptised that way.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is perverse. I'm a contrarian, I suppose. I need something to kick against. I feel it's one of my roles in life to point out the holes in things.

But mainly I'm a loner. I don't like belonging. As soon as I feel I'm being sucked in I start pulling away.

As for being Anglican by default, it's sort of the way the Church itself sees things. If you aren't definitely something else it'll have you- and bury you!

[shullie.livejournal.com]

But mainly I'm a loner. I don't like belonging. As soon as I feel I'm being sucked in I start pulling away.

I love to read what you think - and I am so glad that there is someone else who feels like that... though I do miss the feeling of rising spirit.. when the energy has been created.. the whispers of prayers, the almost tangiblehum of liturgy and quivers of hyms... createing a swirl of excitement and worship...

i miss being part of something bigger creatingso much positive energy, so real that you can almost touch it.

I was told that I was to Xn to be a 'real' pagan... and too pagan to be a 'real' Xn...

I miss fellowship I supppose...

as for mischief... i think that's a positive.. hallelujah for the trickster... where would be without her ;)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I got that too- my Pagan friends and associates were suspicious of my Christian past.

It remains to be seen what my new Christian friends make of my Pagan past. The thing is I refuse to apologise for any of it.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

And what's the use of a priest without mischief?

This is... wow, an amazing sentiment. I'm going to let it percolate a while.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It shocked me rather. I've been wondering ever since posting it whether I hadn't gone too far out on a limb.

Thanks for your response. I find it reassuring.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

The Trickster has his or her place...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly!

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

I was going to write that, too. Mischief is good!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Not only good, but necessary.

[zoe-1418.livejournal.com]

The religious communities I've actually officially "joined" in adulthood have been Episcopal (Anglican) and then Unitarian Universalist. I've been sort of Quaker-on-the-side, loving the philosophy (seeing "that of God" in everyone; listening for "that of God" to speak in yourself) but missing the liturgy. Now, as you know, I'm planning to visit the Episcopalians again. And they vary SO greatly here in the U.S., from diocese to diocese and even parish to parish.

I don't think UUs here are necessarily smug... but I've seen the type -- interestingly, I also had that experience when I first went from evangelicalism to liberal Episcopalianism -- a sort of patronizing "well, we know better and eventually you will, too."

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ritual is important to me too. I don't think I could be happy with a set-up which was all hymns and improvised prayer. I want something that connects me to the past.

Which is probably why I've never tried the Quakers- even though my mother comes from a Quaker family.

[zoe-1418.livejournal.com]

Our Quakers -- at least this particular brand -- don't even do hymns/prayer. They have silent worship -- which i sometimes appreciate greatly -- punctuated, if and when someone feels "led," by someone standing up and speaking for a minute or two, then more silence, then maybe eventually someone else standing up...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That might suit me.

I like the idea of it, anyhow.

I had a set of magnificent Quaker aunts. One of whom lived to be a hundred. They had been suffragettes and ban-the-bombers. A couple of my early nineteenth century Quaker ancestors were prominent in the anti-slavery movement.

[shullie.livejournal.com]

i don't think I would be able to cut the mustard as a Quaker... to quiet..lol

*them not me.. and that would be the problem!*

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

If I'm going to go to church I want candles and vestments and a nice bit of ritual.

The sitting quietly I can do by myself.

[sovay]

And what's the use of a priest without mischief?

Do you think you'd make a good priest now?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Possibly. But I don't think the church authorities would agree.

The other thing is I don't have the energy for it any more.

[sovay]

The other thing is I don't have the energy for it any more.

I was mostly just curious. I think painter and poet and photographer are fine things to be.