Large Fierce Mammal

Written words are visual guides to the making of sounds that, when uttered aloud, convey meaning. An example is the word “label”.

A label can be a physical object that, when applied to another object, conveys important information about it. What it’s made of, how to use it, how long it may be kept, and the best means of storage before use or consumption. Things like that. These sorts of labels abound in today’s world and are vital to navigating the perils and pitfalls of acquiring and using the commodities we take for granted to feed ourselves and our families, clean our homes, ourselves, and possessions, and maintain our surroundings. To wipe our bums and blow our noses. Cure a headache.

And then there’s the other kind of label. This kind also abounds in today’s world, but less as a means of conveying important information than as a short cut around understanding. Understanding requires a desire for knowledge, and a willingness to be observant. To think and draw conclusions. Unlike labels of any description, these attributes are not common in the world. If this type of label is applied to a controversial thing – a firearm for example – or worse yet, a person, the label alone comes to replace the true substance of that to which it’s applied. That’s how we get terms like “gun violence” for example, flying in the face of the fact that violence doesn’t come in flavours, and notwithstanding the implement that is used to bring it about, there is only violence, and it springs exclusively from the mind of its perpetrator.

Similarly, there is no “gay love” or “straight love”, there is only love. There is no “gay marriage” or “mixed marriage”, there is only marriage. There are no “women’s rights” or “gay rights”, there are only rights. In not one of these examples is there justification for tagging violence, love, marriage, or rights with a qualifying label branding it as something different from every other expression of it. The term “racial hatred” doesn’t define a special brand of hatred. There is only hatred, and “racial” is the excuse for its existence – a label. The same goes for “religious intolerance”. ~ Wordly Wisdom Wednesday – Beware of Labels

Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Pagan, Wiccan, Atheist … you name it. It makes no difference what label you apply to yourself, nor even if you apply one at all, for the name holds far less significance than the fundamental and visible expression of your beliefs, and by that I mean the way in which they govern your behaviour. On those rare occasions when someone, learning that we LFMs are not Christians, inquires as to what then, exactly, we are, my reply is usually an iteration of this question – “Why don’t you watch me, see how I treat the world and how I live my life, and then decide for yourself from there?”

On even rarer occasions, when I feel the tone of the query calls for it, I fix them with a look that lasts until they start to seem uncomfortable, and then answer, “Noble Savages.”

So then, in the face of a question that doesn’t come with any tone of insult, judgement, or enmity; my answer isn’t born of any ire that someone had the temerity to ask such a personal question, nor is it intended to belittle or deliver a sarcastic barb. Simply put, there is no label, nor any 30 second sound bite I can deliver, that will even come close to explaining to a casual passer by the depths of my mind and Spirit. What truly matters to me, and the kind of Man I am, will be revealed in the expressions of those things, as found in my words and deeds. Anyone truly interested in knowing the answer to the riddle that is me, you, or anyone else; of any Tribe, Clan, or Nation – and yes, of any Species – will find their answers there without even uttering a word of inquiry.

There are many people today who have embraced the word “Pagan” as a simple and handy statement that their spirituality does not subscribe to the religious doctrine of any of the so called “main stream” faiths. For others, it holds additional meaning as a statement that they find their Truth in the old ways that held sway, most particularly in Northern Europe, before the widespread adoption of Christianity. More recently, let it not be forgotten that the people who lived here in North America before the arrival of Christian missionaries, had lived, loved, feasted, starved, thrived, died, warred and found peace, all in an understanding of their place and context in Nature, for thousands of years before anyone showed up to redefine their Truth as sin. For still others, most recently Pope Francis, “pagan” (uncapitalized) means non-Christian. In this use, it shares a bunk with such other terms as “gentile” and “infidel” in defining one who is not of the fold that contains the speaker.

In Truth, no aspect of cultural diversity, in all its wondrous variety, need guarantee conflict any more than other fundamentally entrenched matters of difference. Would it make sense for restaurants that serve Greek, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Thai, and all the other families of ethnically identified cuisine, to get up on their hind legs one day and declare bloody war against each other with the point of establishing, once and for all, whose cuisine will reign supreme through the slaughter of Chefs? Of course not, even though food – its production, preparation, presentation, and consumption – is one of the foundations of any culture.

The matter, then, is not that we are different from one another. It springs from zealotry, and that, dear reader, is born of the idea of chosenness – that you and yours hold exclusivity of right as the beloved and preferred of your deity, or even political doctrine. Chosenness in spiritual terms goes far beyond the smug feeling that you have it all figured out, and all those other poor buggers got it wrong. At its worst, it creates the belief that holds with the obvious assessment that where there are chosen, there will of necessity also be rejects, and from that position is a very short step to making the comparison of superiority over them. To having the right to force your beliefs upon them, or to subjugate them in punishment.

Now, all this may seem a lot of fire and brimstone to make the point, but here it is – any expression of celebration in this darkly fearsome, beautiful, and magickal time of the rolling year, be it spoken or erected in physical form, as in a Christmas Tree, wreath of any kind, or greeting entering your ear, to name some examples, needs must be taken as that. An expression of celebration. He is lessened who takes the celebration of another as justification for anger, or evidence of superiority or inferiority in the eyes of anyone, on any plane of existence.

Unless, of course, they’re celebrating your own imminent demise; but knowing the difference between the intentional offering of overt offense, and a sincerely peaceful and joyful expression that invites no quarrel, is something we all should be learning from the process called “growing up”.