Considering My Options
Jan. 30th, 2009 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloAilz 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?
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?
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 02:34 pm (UTC)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!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 10:25 pm (UTC)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 ;)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 01:53 pm (UTC)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.