Circle Of Moms and Paganism

With the ebbing and flow of controversy over Pagans "being allowed" to enter the Faith Blog contest, and fervor over the word Pagan itself, I thought I'd take some time to discuss these in turn, along with a few posts on Pagan Values. (Including hopefully a guest post with the Pagan Mom Blog for her Month of Deity.)

To those who would exclude Paganism from the ranks of the Faith Blog contest, I'm disappointed. Death Threats? Hate Speech? You've got to be kidding me. This blog contest is supposed to (I thought) to be about helping each other out, celebrating our SIMILARITIES and overall helping Bloggers find new followers. Many of the faiths presented here have a "Golden Rule". I'm pretty sure none of us want to be threatened for being different. I've gotten face to face death threats before for being Pagan. It's not fun, and it didn't change my belief structure.

This "whole faith thing" is supposed to help us shoulder the burden of life, not create new ones. It isn't about, and shouldn't be about "us versus them".

Let's be frank, I love my friends. That's why they are my friends. I'm not friends with someone just because we have the same faith. I'm friends with someone because we have things in common, they understand my weird sense of humor, sometimes we have similar view points, and even when we don't, they still love me. I'm not going to like every person that claims we have the same faith. I certainly don't expect them to love everything I have to say.

This also means I don't give a crap what label they use for a faith or IF they even have one. I have Jewish friends, Atheist friends, and friends from all faiths. I don't care if you worship your kitchen sink, if you're a cool person about it, I'll bring you cute soaps for it.

The vehemence I've seen come out of this contest is reprehensible. Is that what you want to teach your children? That your God only loves the people from your congregation, or even just your home? Even if you don't agree with someone's path in life, that doesn't give us the right to decide they don't deserve a life.

Let's try and see the things we ALL as people of faith have in common, rather than the things that make us different.

For the moment, let's take a step back and try to see each other as people. Not a Christian, Pagan, Jew or Muslim. Let us try to see each other as People. That's the first step.