The path veers

I've had the flu for the past couple of weeks and have had a lot of time to think since I didn't feel like doing anything much. It's been a bit bothersome because I didn't necessarily like the direction my thinking was taking me but if you're on the path and there are no exits, you either stop dead in the road or you keep going.

The bottom line is that while I tried very hard to have Celtic Christianity be it for me, I just don't believe in Jesus anymore. Not as the Son of God. Not as the Messiah. Not as my Savior. I do like my church, however and that is the problem. I want to continue there and be a part of it, including the altar guild but what the rituals mean to me isn't what the rituals are meant to mean.

Sadly, our church is dying out, I think. We have more people dying than are coming in and it won't be long before we can no longer sustain ourselves financially. The Vestry is in a near panic as it is with no real answers in sight. Our county consists mostly of evangelical/fundamentalist types with the majority being Catholic and Lutheran of the Wisconsin Synod or LCMS. Liberal churches just don't flourish here. And to be honest, driving to BD is a long enough trip for me. I'm not up for driving to another county should our church close its doors.

I still lean toward the Pagan though and I think trying to deny that is just a waste of energy. I wanted to remain Christian because it has been my heritage, my lifelong culture and the most familiar to me. Easter was coming up and it used to be my favorite time of year, so I was trying to find the magic again. But I couldn't find it. I couldn't force myself to believe something I don't. I even went so far as to wish I had never learned the things I learned about the Bible and the early church just so I could live in ignorant bliss.

But ignorance isn't bliss and I don't want to live or believe a lie anymore.

So I will embrace the path set before me and hopefully no longer live with guilt or anxiety anymore. I return to the Goddess, to Brigid, to Lugh and rest finally without this burden on my back any longer. I feel lighter but there is a sadness to leave behind what was so much a part of my life.

I hope I have grown, though, from the person who was looking too desperately for a niche to fit into and will let my journey take me where I'm supposed to go.