A story from my (fairly recent) past.

“For mine is the ecstasy of the spirit, and mine also is joy on Earth;
For my law is love unto all beings.
Keep pure your highest ideal;
Strive ever towards it, let naught stop you or turn you aside;”

The Charge if the Goddess
Doreen Valiente

Allow me to lay the scene. A couple of years ago I was back in the old hometown. I don’t live there anymore, but I am not that far from there and occasionally I have reason to go. I was leaving a store and ran into someone I knew from High School. Someone whom I had admittedly had a crush on, early in my High School Career.

Well, my friend saw me and we began to talk. Catching up a bit on things. She had been married, but was no longer. I of course have never been married. We discovered that we both had IM accounts, so we traded info. As we were talking, she asked me what religion I was (no one ever asks me this), and I, not being as out of the broomcloset as I am these days I simply said “I am a Unitarian Universalist.”. A true statement, I was even going to A UU Fellowship at that point.

Anyway, she says to me “What’s that?” I explain a bit about UUism. I don’t think she really got what I was saying, but she let it pass. We parted with promises to look for each other on-line and I went on about the rest of my day. Later that evening, I was siting in front of my computer, which is where you will find me most evenings, doing whatever it was that I did then. My IM client notified me that she had popped on line and so we started to chat about whatever random stuff was coming up. Then she asked me if there was anyone from High School, who I would still consider dating. My response was “Maybe. You?”

Now of course what I meant was “There might be some one I would consider dating from High School. Is there anyone you would consider dating from High School?” She completely misunderstood. She started gushing at me (don’t ask me how you can gush over IM, but she pulled it off) about how she had been wondering who she would be spending her life with and about how she thought maybe the Lord was leading her to be with a black guy (I am an African American, buy looks, though not really by culture).

She then started to list out all these rules that any guy who was going to date her would have to follow. There were a bunch of them, but I only remember 2. The first was that she did not have premarital sex. Well, I could live with that, it’s not that big a deal. The second, the deal breaker (not mind you that I was really interested anyway)  was “You must love the Lord and His only son Jesus Christ.” Well, I don’t even believe in Jesus.

So, I tell her that all those things are fine, except one. She immediately assumes that it is the premarital sex thing (a reasonable conclusion honestly), because a lot of guys have issues with that. I tell her no, though that that is not a problem. I then go up in her list of rules and quote back to her “You must love the Lord and His only son Jesus Christ.”

She then told me she didn’t understand. I told her that I am not a Christian. She asked me what I was. I told her that I am a Pagan. She said “What’s that?” So I began to tell her of worshiping the Lord and the Lady, but she didn’t understand. So, in a moment of inspiration I said “Have you ever heard of Wicca?”There was a pause….it lengthened….and finally “Yes, I have heard of Wicca.” I replied with “Well, it’s kinda like that.”

She then begins to tell me about how she has heard of Wicca, about her landlord and landlady who she had had that had been terrible to her and how awful Wicca was and how much better than that I was and finished off with “They’re practically witches!” When that last line came across I was glad that I was not on the phone, because I laughed out loud (because of the “practically witches” part, not because of any deprivations she may have been forced to endure because of her 2 landholders, that is unfortunate, but there are assholes in all religions).
So, she goes on about how I need to go to her church, “You can wear jeans there and they play rock and roll!” she says. I know I won’t enjoy it, I have been to a lot of Christian churches, what goes on there leaves me cold and bored (and usually asleep) but I consent. I pick a Sunday and go to the early service. I wonder if she will be there, but she isn’t. I sit through it and it was pretty much what I expected. Dull. So I go to my little UU fellowship after that to, wash the taste out of my mouth as it were.

The next time I saw her on-line I told her I had gone to her church, she wasn’t as excited as I thought she would be, but seemed mildly pleased. She didn’t ask me any questions about my experience there or what I thought of it or anything. We didn’t talk much after that. The next time I saw her she told me that an old mutual friend of ours had Died (Oh, Mkwa, if you are reading this, ask me about it, ’cause you knew him too). I was sorry to hear about that.

~ by nightsinger on July 3, 2009.