Religion In Every Day Life
Some religions require prayer at multiple points throughout the day. Some requiring gathering with others in worship on one day out of the week, or on special Holy Days. Some require tithing, or adherence to certain dietary restrictions.
What do all of the above have in common? They are ways to attempt to mold religion, and your experience with your God/dess, in some way with your day to day life. Why? Because in many ways, even to the most devout, our religions and spiritual experiences don't directly corrolate with our daily lives.
Sure, you may think to give thanks to the Goddess if something with extremely low odds happens that is beneficial to you at the time. One of these miracles that can also be referred to as incredibly favorable coincedence. What about the rest of our lives though? When you work hard on a project for work and your work pays off, do you offer thanks to the Goddess? Some might, but why? After all, you reaped the rewards of your own work. Your hard work, perserverance and intelligence resulted in your success. From that perspective, the only reason to give Her thanks would be to thank Her for not sabotaging it. But why would you expect that She would? Why would you think She even took an active concern about this project of yours? (Unless of course you asked Her to. Then, depending on what it was, She just might have. Or She might not have.)
The fact of the matter is that we live in a day and age where most of what we accomplish, most of what we do, has nothing to do with our religion. It has nothing to do with our Gods. It is just part of the life that we live. It doesn't necessarily stand opposed to our religious doctrine or commands from Deity. It is just separate from our worship and communion. Is this wrong? I don't think so.
The problem then becomes how do we keep our faith alive on a daily basis if we don't work in a religious capacity? How does an accountant keep the Goddess deeply rooted in her daily life? How does she keep the Goddess from being relegated to special days when it is time to think about Her again?
This is where some of the things mentioned above come into play. Even they fall short at times though. If you worship one day out of the week, how do you keep your God a part of your life for the other six days? If you have dietary restrictions, how do you keep your God present in your life when you aren't eating? The truth is that however much time you devote out of your day to your Deity, you sooner or later come to the question of what is going on the rest of the time.
If there are these portions when your God/dess is not the primary focus, or any focus whatsoever, is this acceptable? Are there little ways and reminders that help us out along the way?
There are various things you can try. I wear a pentagram around my neck, but it is under my shirt so nobody tends to notice. It is so commonplace for me that I don't even think about it during the day. Many times I don't think much about it when I put it on or take it off either. There are many days when it is just jewelry.
There is also one tattooed on my arm. This I tend only to see when I am in the shower. It is no constant reminder. It hasn't been since a week or two after it was placed there when the skin had healed and I couldn't remember what it looked like to not have it there. This is not to say that the necklace and the tattoo don't serve their purposes, but they are not red flags during the day.
Some of you are familiar with some other suggestions I have thrown out there from time to time, more focused on communication. Waking up every morning and saying good morning to the Lord and the Lady and telling them you love them takes little time out of your day. Nor does it keep your mind focused on them for the rest of the day.
This could in fact be a good thing, because that means your mind is focused on what it is you need to do, which as I have indicated above may have nothing to do with your religion.
I guess the question that I am posing is, do we need to focus more than the casual thought on a daily basis on our spirituality? Do we need to draw a greater spiritual presence into our life than just when we go to church, temple or circle? Or when we teach Sunday school or lead the worship team? Do you feel we are expected simply to live our lives right and give that extra focus at such specific times (or on other joyful or painful special occasions), or are we expected to fully make our God/dess part of every moment. If the latter, how do you feel this could be accomplished, and are you succeeding?
Just some thoughts on religion and every day life, or something close to it.
What do all of the above have in common? They are ways to attempt to mold religion, and your experience with your God/dess, in some way with your day to day life. Why? Because in many ways, even to the most devout, our religions and spiritual experiences don't directly corrolate with our daily lives.
Sure, you may think to give thanks to the Goddess if something with extremely low odds happens that is beneficial to you at the time. One of these miracles that can also be referred to as incredibly favorable coincedence. What about the rest of our lives though? When you work hard on a project for work and your work pays off, do you offer thanks to the Goddess? Some might, but why? After all, you reaped the rewards of your own work. Your hard work, perserverance and intelligence resulted in your success. From that perspective, the only reason to give Her thanks would be to thank Her for not sabotaging it. But why would you expect that She would? Why would you think She even took an active concern about this project of yours? (Unless of course you asked Her to. Then, depending on what it was, She just might have. Or She might not have.)
The fact of the matter is that we live in a day and age where most of what we accomplish, most of what we do, has nothing to do with our religion. It has nothing to do with our Gods. It is just part of the life that we live. It doesn't necessarily stand opposed to our religious doctrine or commands from Deity. It is just separate from our worship and communion. Is this wrong? I don't think so.
The problem then becomes how do we keep our faith alive on a daily basis if we don't work in a religious capacity? How does an accountant keep the Goddess deeply rooted in her daily life? How does she keep the Goddess from being relegated to special days when it is time to think about Her again?
This is where some of the things mentioned above come into play. Even they fall short at times though. If you worship one day out of the week, how do you keep your God a part of your life for the other six days? If you have dietary restrictions, how do you keep your God present in your life when you aren't eating? The truth is that however much time you devote out of your day to your Deity, you sooner or later come to the question of what is going on the rest of the time.
If there are these portions when your God/dess is not the primary focus, or any focus whatsoever, is this acceptable? Are there little ways and reminders that help us out along the way?
There are various things you can try. I wear a pentagram around my neck, but it is under my shirt so nobody tends to notice. It is so commonplace for me that I don't even think about it during the day. Many times I don't think much about it when I put it on or take it off either. There are many days when it is just jewelry.
There is also one tattooed on my arm. This I tend only to see when I am in the shower. It is no constant reminder. It hasn't been since a week or two after it was placed there when the skin had healed and I couldn't remember what it looked like to not have it there. This is not to say that the necklace and the tattoo don't serve their purposes, but they are not red flags during the day.
Some of you are familiar with some other suggestions I have thrown out there from time to time, more focused on communication. Waking up every morning and saying good morning to the Lord and the Lady and telling them you love them takes little time out of your day. Nor does it keep your mind focused on them for the rest of the day.
This could in fact be a good thing, because that means your mind is focused on what it is you need to do, which as I have indicated above may have nothing to do with your religion.
I guess the question that I am posing is, do we need to focus more than the casual thought on a daily basis on our spirituality? Do we need to draw a greater spiritual presence into our life than just when we go to church, temple or circle? Or when we teach Sunday school or lead the worship team? Do you feel we are expected simply to live our lives right and give that extra focus at such specific times (or on other joyful or painful special occasions), or are we expected to fully make our God/dess part of every moment. If the latter, how do you feel this could be accomplished, and are you succeeding?
Just some thoughts on religion and every day life, or something close to it.
posted by Wanderer at 12:53 AM
7 Comments:
Why would you feel the need to keep your mind focused on them during the day?
Are your deities the type that get mad if you're not thinking about them, like jealous girlfriends?
Wouldn't it be far more appropriate to think of them when they're relevant to anything and not when they aren't, like we do with anyhing else?
Good subject. First- although you didn't really ask this question, may I address the giving thanks issue? For me, it's not so much about having to say thank you for each little thing, but of maintaining an overall lifestyle or mindset of thankfulness. It doesn't change God for me to thank him, but it does help me to be less selfish and more grateful for life itself. So I say thank you a lot.
On living my faith, I do feel a need to focus on my faith more than once a day ritual or a weekly gathering. But over time I've come to see this, for me, as less of a mystical thing and more of a lifestyle. I don't always maintain the same-hour-every-day-meditation and prayer ritual that I used to. But I do a whole lot more of living out the realities of what I believe.
A big part of that change has been having a child. It's so natural now to teach her how to incorporate our beliefs into every day life, without being overly "religious" at all.
For instance, (this may not be a great example, it just came to mind) last night we read in a book that referenced slavery. I took a minute to explain how owning slaves used to be acceptable to some people, but god never thought it was okay and now it's against the law. And that everybody is the same in God's eyes; no one can own another person. (She then astutely commented that her dad and I act as if we own her and then i had something of a dilema, but that's not my point here.) Normal incorporation of faith into life. I think God is honored by this more than regularly scheduled showy expressions that lack depth and change nothing.
MC - "Wouldn't it be far more appropriate to think of them when they're relevant to anything and not when they aren't, like we do with anyhing else?"
This is basically what my thought process was. My thoughts were more geared toward the question of what constitutes this "relevance".
Further, one thought process that I was trying to convey, that reading over my post again it appears I somewhat failed to, was the question of how significantly these gaps betweent "relevant" points might negatively impact one's faith. Further, what some people's alternatives to this might be.
Cindy - Good points. It looks like you have a smart kid on your hands. Good luck with that. ;)
yeah- we've known we're in trouble with her for some time. It's scary when you realize your child (which is pretty much everybody's child, by the way)is smarter than you and all you can do is hope they don't amass too much information too quickly.
If there are no "gaps" between points of "relevancy" then you have an "obsession" which is never good.
I hadn't considered that angle, MC, but it is a very good point.
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