Acceptance of what is leads to perception of what I can do and what I could be. It’s different than settling; settling closes my mind off from the possibility that things could improve.
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Dirty Sci-Fi Buddha 
Judging each case on its merits, as individual cases, has a great deal to recommend it.
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Kept wondering when/why I followed you… I liked this post, then went to your authors page on Amazon: “I love dogs, eastern spirituality, mysticism of all religions, and the willingness to consider all sides of a position. Aren’t the most interesting heroes streaked with some villainy and aren’t the most interesting villains potentially heroic? Thanks for reading my stuff and if you’re a writer, I wish you inspired drafting and insightful editing!”
So now I know.🙂
(And I love dogs too, especially collies)
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Learning to understand and offer solutions instead of just complaining about a situation shows a great deal of growth in mindset. One that many are not ready for, unfortunately.
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I think solutions can be hard to come by sometimes with tribalism. You can be trying to work with somebody or a group of people who have a tribalistic mentality and sometimes they just can’t get past an us/them mentality to be open to any type of solution that comes from a belief system or perspective outside of the group. I feel like sometimes the first work that needs to be done in those situations is the work of creating a safe space where each side can say “it’s okay for you to think differently and it’s okay for me to think differently and we can still have conversations and find ways to work together in community matters…” I’m looking at this from the perspective of someone who left a high demand religion a couple of years ago with a very heavily defined sense of tribe (us vs. them thinking can be pretty intense for members of that group), and that definitely colors how I see that issue. Sometimes in those situations it’s a struggle just to have the other person think you have an equal right to be part of any sort of solution making process. Says the woman still viewed as an Apostate who clearly joined ranks with Satan the moment she resigned her membership. (I don’t identify as a Christian at this point, but for that group it wouldn’t have mattered if I had joined another Christian group that still what they would have thought). I’m not kidding, just describing. That’s really what is taught and what is thought by many members in that group. And I’m not trying to be a pill, nor am I trying to trash that particular group for the sake of this discussion, it’s just my experience is that sometimes tribalism can be deeply entrenched to the point where the other party doesn’t even think you should have a seat at the table and it’s really hard get past that.
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It seems to me that changing how you view the world is not only an important step in personal recovery, but the very first step toward changing the world. True change comes from deep understanding. I am presently reading ‘
The Righteous Mind:
Why Good People Are Divided
by Politics and Religion’
By Jonathan Haidt
Haidt is a moral psychologist who observes mutable international cultures in this quest. It is interesting and highly readable.
Changing the tribal view is tough. Your actions were, and are, heroic. God luck.
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That was meant to be ‘ good luck’, but I enjoy these mistakes and always wonder if they are mistakes. My own god would always be kind and have a huge sense of humor.🙂
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Thank god. 😉
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I totally laughed my proverbial backside off when I saw the “God luck!” If only it were the literal backside as well, but no such luck 🤣 I can *totally* endorse a deity that is both kind and has a fabulous sense of humor! And thank you for the book recommendation, I will add it to my list of things that I plan to check out!😊
I personally don’t see what I did as heroic and I don’t want you to or anybody else to see it that way either. It is true that I paid a heavy personal cost (walking through hard and soft shunning is never easy), but people have paid worse and they pay worse all the time. I maybe would have felt more heroic if I had stayed, pushed for change and then got ex-communicated. But I will be honest and tell you that I have so much going on in my life that I decided I just needed the process to be as easy as I could, so I used an attorney to make matters simpler with this particular Church (because again I felt that was best given my own circumstances) and resigned. I was young and in a very vulnerable place when I joined that church, and believe it or not I did it because of a dream I had and my interpretation of that dream. Prior to that I would have said that there was too much in their doctrine that I couldn’t agree with, but I felt like it was the path I was meant to be on at that time. Me at 45 would say that that was a pretty bonkers reason, but I would not have met my husband and we would not have our children if I had not done that. I can never regret them, and he has been very good to me in ways that I needed given my particular background. It was not an easy place for me to be, because some of the teachings for that church aren’t exactly friendly to my natural state of being, and I was ready to leave a good couple years before I did but my husband asked me to stay in at that time for our family and I agreed to do that. Once he was in a position where he wanted to leave, I made sure that I could respect and handle it in a way that would honor the needs and wants of our children. If either had wanted a parent to stay and continue to go with them I would have. Internally for several years now I have had a more Unitarian perspective on things, and while I’m happy to be gone and the process was brutal, I would have made sure neither child had to walk that path alone as long as it was what they wanted. For quite some time the staunch tribalism of that group was something that I could not agree with, but I made the decisions I made at the times I made them because I felt like they were important for my family. So, no heroics. Just trying to do the very best I can, like we all are. Thank you again for your kind words and the book recommendation! Wishing you the best, 😊 Ariana
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he·ro
noun
1.
a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.
Everything here only further convinced me.
I was born Catholic, married the second time by a Unitarian minister, tried a bible study group in an international setting and finally shredded the book page by page…
I am now a ‘nothing’ or maybe an ‘anything of spirit’. I follow zen, but keep my mind ready to hear the message in a smile, birdsong or blog moment. I am a suffi-buddhist-hindu-judeochristion-wicca girl. All are welcome here.
A hard row which I did not handle with much grace. More like a rock slide.
I admire the clarity and courage.
God luck with it all.😊
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You are very sweet. Still don’t think of myself that way.
That is it very interesting mix, it isn’t common that I run into anybody else who’s comfortable with Wicca. I had a good friend my freshman year of college that I lost touch with many years ago that was Wiccan. I agree with the “all are welcome” here philosophy. It even applies to members of my former church, just nobody except one person who lives out of state from there is really interested in that unless they’re related to me by marriage at this point. But perhaps that will change in time, who knows. When you leave a group like that, that wants to overwrite everything about your identity, there is a lot of rebuilding that goes on. I was a member for 19 years, and because I’m not interested in appearing hypocritical if at all possible, I lived my life by the standards they asked for all of those years. In some ways it feels like I started out on an entirely different life, and I spend parts of each day reflecting on who I want to be and who I actually am and get the chance to be in my life now outside of that group. I find the most honest answer I can give about anything spiritual at this point is “I really don’t know” and that I’m not going to tell anyone they have to think like I do. Thanks again for brightening up my day🌻
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