Thoughts and epiphanies
Just last night, I was told by a cool drag queen "If I had what God gave you, I'd totally use it"; I have to admit that I'm still not sure if it was my face, slight boobage or my lack of hair or some combination of any of them.
It was an interesting thought. Strangely, my first reaction other than the internal bounciness, and the instant shyness that something like that induces, was the thought of, "God didn't give me this". I thought of hormones, and the (hopefully unrelated) fact that 2 years ago, I was in the process of losing my hair and still trying to come to terms with it. I thought of the physical state I'm in and how someone could see something good in it.
It wasn't until this morning that the realisation hit me that, if you look at the concept of "what God gave you" in a certain light, it doesn't mean what you were born with. I know, I know, it's a pretty basic thought; it just hadn't struck me in a Christian sense until now. From a Pagan point of view, the concept of some sort of fate, or being an actor playing out some parts in a story, is nothing new. It just took me a while to think of what God, in a Christian sense, gives to someone isn't just a birth/pre-natal thing, it's a full-on Life thing. I don't want to indulge in that thought too much, because it leads to some conclusions that I'm not fond of, but it's going into my spiritual toolbox for later use. It's especially handy for the alopecia as, even when I think about it, I'm not angry at any divine plan to inflict this on me because I'm not exactly angry about the alopecia in general. Sure, it'll get to me, BUT I'm not angry about it.
Anyway, back to "what god gave me"; I was pretty bouyed by that concept for most of the day, until someone in work (the night-porter) got into a conversation with me about religion. He basically stated as what was essentially an axiom that what he believed in was the God of Jacob, and 2 other guys. He went on about how he hated the Muslims, and how he never got on because theirs was the God of Jacob and Ishmael. That pretty much blew away a lot of my good feeling from my mini-epiphany that morning. Here was someone who was basically saying, "They don't worship the same God I do". Now there is someone where my typical train of explanation along the lines of, "We have different connections to Deity", will not work.
Maybe I was in a particularly receptive mood, not particularly to anything outside of people, but I let that tear down my standard line of defense, because there are people who simply believe that their Gods are separate, immiscible entities that could never share the same thought-space; that the ideal concept of Deity in their belief systems could not be two shadows of the same object cast from different points of light. I mean, that's how I look at it myself; as a human, if there is one single Deity, there is no way I could fit the entire concept in my mind, so for it to work, I break that concept down into a number of smaller, more managable constructs. That's standard my apologist's "please don't smite me" explanation to folks. After manning the stall of a pagan society in college during freshers, you get good at your attempts to reconcile people from two completely separate belief systems without the need for either side to cede any ground, other than the mere acceptance that the other way might work better for some people.
I guess I just realised that my ideal scenario of reconciliation just doesn't work some times.
Still, if it helps anyone, "what god gave you" and when he gives it to you in your life are two separate things.
It was an interesting thought. Strangely, my first reaction other than the internal bounciness, and the instant shyness that something like that induces, was the thought of, "God didn't give me this". I thought of hormones, and the (hopefully unrelated) fact that 2 years ago, I was in the process of losing my hair and still trying to come to terms with it. I thought of the physical state I'm in and how someone could see something good in it.
It wasn't until this morning that the realisation hit me that, if you look at the concept of "what God gave you" in a certain light, it doesn't mean what you were born with. I know, I know, it's a pretty basic thought; it just hadn't struck me in a Christian sense until now. From a Pagan point of view, the concept of some sort of fate, or being an actor playing out some parts in a story, is nothing new. It just took me a while to think of what God, in a Christian sense, gives to someone isn't just a birth/pre-natal thing, it's a full-on Life thing. I don't want to indulge in that thought too much, because it leads to some conclusions that I'm not fond of, but it's going into my spiritual toolbox for later use. It's especially handy for the alopecia as, even when I think about it, I'm not angry at any divine plan to inflict this on me because I'm not exactly angry about the alopecia in general. Sure, it'll get to me, BUT I'm not angry about it.
Anyway, back to "what god gave me"; I was pretty bouyed by that concept for most of the day, until someone in work (the night-porter) got into a conversation with me about religion. He basically stated as what was essentially an axiom that what he believed in was the God of Jacob, and 2 other guys. He went on about how he hated the Muslims, and how he never got on because theirs was the God of Jacob and Ishmael. That pretty much blew away a lot of my good feeling from my mini-epiphany that morning. Here was someone who was basically saying, "They don't worship the same God I do". Now there is someone where my typical train of explanation along the lines of, "We have different connections to Deity", will not work.
Maybe I was in a particularly receptive mood, not particularly to anything outside of people, but I let that tear down my standard line of defense, because there are people who simply believe that their Gods are separate, immiscible entities that could never share the same thought-space; that the ideal concept of Deity in their belief systems could not be two shadows of the same object cast from different points of light. I mean, that's how I look at it myself; as a human, if there is one single Deity, there is no way I could fit the entire concept in my mind, so for it to work, I break that concept down into a number of smaller, more managable constructs. That's standard my apologist's "please don't smite me" explanation to folks. After manning the stall of a pagan society in college during freshers, you get good at your attempts to reconcile people from two completely separate belief systems without the need for either side to cede any ground, other than the mere acceptance that the other way might work better for some people.
I guess I just realised that my ideal scenario of reconciliation just doesn't work some times.
Still, if it helps anyone, "what god gave you" and when he gives it to you in your life are two separate things.