Agnostic

As I stated in my previous post, over time I've become a bit agnostic on the whole concept of witchcraft, spellwork, etc.

In theory, it does make sense to me in a way. The explanation is that life is made of energy. According to science, energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed from one form to another. Most people who do believe in witchcraft, believe that they are working with these energies when they cast a spell. It is for similar reasons that I believe in the concept of the soul, as well as reincarnation.

I do like to believe that there are things that can't be explained by traditional science. I've always had an interest in the supernatural and paranormal. I'm the direct descendant of my home town's local fortune teller. I've had experiences that I can't explain, known things I shouldn't know. I still have my candles, tarot cards, oracle cards, pendulums, and other things typically associated with witchcraft. I'm still in the process of (slowly) reading through several of my witchcraft/pagan related books, which I still plan to discuss in a book review on this blog when I finally finish a book.

But sometimes I'm too intellectual as well. I'm skeptical in the same way that I'm skeptical of "the power of prayer" that mainstream evangelical Christians speak of. Just like with prayer, in my more active Pagan days, when I first began experimenting spiritually, I've had spells that "worked", as well as some that "didn't work". Of course it could have all been in my head; the same could be said for when "God answers prayer", I suppose. Perhaps it's less God (or a spell) working, and more the act of "praying" or "making a spell" that makes things work, because it opens up your mind psychologically to whatever it needs to be opened to in order to solve the problem.

I find myself wondering, again, whether my beliefs are shifting as part of a natural progression of change, or whether it's another symptom of the overall events that have gone on in my life the last couple of years. In the last couple of years, I've located my father, become homeless, moved into a home, contacted my father, started jobs, quit jobs, had my finances run amok, among other things. Throughout all of that, my motivation for most things I enjoyed, not just spiritual growth, waned, as my depression worsened. Now, for the moment at least, I've been gradually coming out of my funk. Maybe the first step is to just ease myself back into spirituality, before trying to reassess my actual beliefs on certain aspects of it.

Daily Practice

 One thing I didn't learn very well growing up: how to actually live out your faith. Sure, I learned the basics, such as The Golden Rule, which is a large part of my life even today. But obviously, people of any spirituality - or none at all - hold The Golden Rule and similar concepts as key components of their moral codes concerning how to treat others. What I never learned was how to express my spirituality in a way unique to my personality and my understanding of the Divine. My family was very active in the church. Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings, Wednesday evenings, youth group, church Christmas/Easter plays, that kind of public spirituality. But at home, the most spiritual we got was praying before meals, and reading the traditionally read Scripture passages on Christmas Eve. Aside from these practices, and from occasional periods of "family Bible time" here and there, the only other time they would show any practice of spirituality at the home would be during times of conflict. During these times, they would typically whip out their KJV Bible and read some kind of passage that they could basically twist into some rendition of "I'm a good parent, you're a bad son, God's going to punish you for your disobedience".

This seems to have carried into my adult life. Even though I have a chosen spiritual path far different from that of my parents, one that encourages and allows for personal exploration (and indeed, emphasizes personal experiences as an important facet), I struggle with ways to keep my spiritual practices fresh and consistent. My Celtic Daily Prayer prayerbook helps, and around this time of year I tend to become more consistent due to my practices related to the winter holidays (Advent, Christmas, Yule, last year I even experimented a little with Hannukah just to get a feel for it, and a recent UU-specific invention called "Chalica"), I still am at times lost as to how to live out my spiritual beliefs in day-to-day life. I'm working on becoming more aware of everything around me, the more spiritual nature of life. But I still feel like I need more structure to improve my self-discipline.

Therefore, something I may gradually incorporate after the holidays, will be the First Degree Curriculum laid out within the AODA. As I've previously mentioned, I am planning on delving more in-depth into that organization once I get out of grad school and get my career goals more settled. In the meantime, though, maybe if I start to incorporate elements of their practices into my life now, then by the time I get to that point, I will be already have become more self-disciplined in my lifestyle. I really do need to work on self-discipline.