Honor

Honor, to me, is that drive to do what one thinks is right even, or especially, when that is the hard thing to do. Or at least that is part of it. It is that instinct which gives your partner the bigger ice cream cone as well as standing up in the face of injustice or racism. The Scary level of those things are quite different yet they both speak of a standing which is solid. It is not ‘harm none’ as much as it is ‘how does it help’. But even that sounds pithy.

It is finding one’s Moral Compass and then staying with it. This does not mean rigidity. Knowledge changes over time and things which make perfect sense at 20 are often seen as horrible consequences when one is 40. There must be a continual reassessment of how to follow one’s Moral Compass. Of course, this is based on the assumption that you are a thinking, discerning human. I see lots of people almost everyday who would not know what to do with personal discipline and would take this as a concept of ‘making your own rules’. And in a way that is true, but for the person who understands (at least part of) why society makes the rules we live under and which rules are important and which rules can be changed, there can be a wide range of personal discretion. When someone acts with Honor, they have chosen the ‘high road’ and did what they thought was right.

I will add more as I get there…

Language…

The phrase “a made-up word” made me think today. All language is ‘made-up’. I thought that it was interesting that I had never realized that language is not some divine gift… it’s a learned action and response. I am not sure if I really thought that language was divinely inspired or not but it sure seems like it. Just a thought.

Honor

I have said in my ‘About me’ that I work on the principles of Honor and Nobility. I am going to be working on explaining what those little words mean to me. If we do not have a common understanding of the terms we are using then there never can be successful communication.

So… yeah… I will get to this after I pick up my wonderful Husband from work…

Ahhh… the joy of reading something not on a syllabus…

Of course it was on a syllabus, just not one of my current classes. It is “Women of Sufism”. It is obviously apologetic and even overly so. I haven’t a clue what the real state of affairs in Islam is in relation to women and our (gasp) being creatures of the Divine too; however, I don’t think that she gives a clear picture. It certainly is a beautiful vision, but she makes such a point of this vision that I don’t believe her.

But I am not reading it for that. Because I do not have a tradition which gives me ideas about how to communicate with my Divine, I look for pieces and pockets. However, I need to remember that none of these women really existed. They are all part of a mythology which was built up around them. There was a Rabi’a and there is an Irene Tweedie. But the messages we get from Rabi’a are different than what we get from Tweedie because we are closer to Tweedie (as I think that she is still alive or just recently passed) and her mythology has not had time to build up around her. In any case, I am looking at their relationship with their Deity. At least in theory, Sufis look at their Deity as a Beloved. Their Best Friend and the focus of their lives. Of course, the framework of their ideas about the way that the Universe works is completely different. I don’t agree with asceticism or punishing oneself for imagined transgressions. So I am not sure how I think that this will help, but I am attracted to the extremes, I guess. It also puts me into perspective about how much energy I put toward my Spirituality. But it seems that often their relationship with the Divine is more of a conversation than a speaking to the sky as I find most Abrahamic prayers. Which segues to…

I am working on the idea of ‘worship’. In my vision, the Universe does not need to be told that it is wonderful and terrific because, being All That There Is, the Universe knows that. On the other hand, there is something to be said for the acknowledgment that the Universe is significantly bigger than us (even though it is made up of all of us). On the third hand, the best way of honoring Guidance is to follow it, so maybe doing what I think is following my Path is a form of worship.

I have run out of hands, LOL, but I do miss the constructed ritual time that the tradition of Christianity gives someone. I know that I can make time and do things so that I have constructed time, but there is something about going to a place and having the ritualization of that time, especially when it is someone else who gets to do it and plan it. I just want to be a passive observer sometimes. I have often said that I am Episcopalian Pagan surrounding by Pentecostals.

I am not sure where I wanted to go with this, but I thought I would throw it out there for discussion.

Why would Pagan read about a Nun?

There have been a couple of posts on the Blogging Nun which seem to ask the question: Why would someone who didn’t follow Church teaching want to be in a Monastic Order?

Well, I can only tell you from my viewpoint. I am drawn to the thought of monastic life. It can be very hard in the secular world to be able to carve out time for inner reflection. Of course, I have made life choices which make it even harder.

But I think that it is the ritual and regularity which attracts me. In my philosophy, there is something to be said for prayers which have a thousand years of meditation soaked into them. For me, (and what is a blog about other than me) I just can’t believe in the mythology of Christianity. I can’t believe that an All-Powerful-All-Knowledge would create a system which would create such misery. The idea of being able to regularly sin against God is horrid but to do it without meaning to is just appalling to me. If it works for you and you believe it to be Truth, I am happy for you. I just can’t buy into it.

Again, this does not mean that I do not think that one should not work at being a better person nor does it mean that I am a cranky goat who doesn’t care about the world around them. Nor does it mean that I haven’t thought about my spirituality.

Welcome to my Blog…

This probably won’t get updated until after my wedding but I was inspired by the Blogging Nun and thought I would start my own.

We can start here…

My name for That Which is Larger Than Us is the Universe.

I try to have Honor and Nobility, although I often don’t.

I think that the Universe is large enough for all of us to have our own idea about how to honor It and no life-affirming, healthy way is really wrong. (annoying, but not wrong)

I no longer believe that any of the mythologies we live with are, in fact, Truth; however, please see the previous statement.

Just because a writing considered sacred is very old, doesn’t mean that it’s more correct.