![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The more I hear about the current generation, the more I want to smack them. Parent makes agreement with other adults. Grown kid of parent comes along and arbitrarily changes agreement, and is snotty too.
Speaking of generations, and communities, what the fuck is it with the Bay Area pagan/heathen community that makes them still only pay lip service to the concept of community? I mean, fuck, community means sharing the hard stuff too, not just the fun stuff that you go to for a social life or entertainment!
For over 25 years, I've never seen more than a handful of the around a thousand pagans in this area actually pitch in and help out when a regular, involved person needs real help. Oh, they'll work a spell, or some equally half-assed thing, but they won't actually "work" unless they get some sort of benefit or ego-boo out of it. But unless there's drama, glory, of some other such, they expect the person to silently solve their pressing need and continue to "serve" the community as well!
When a previously able-bodied person ends up disabled, they cluck, cluck, make sympathetic noises, send "healing" for a little while, and then leave the person in the dust. Rides, accessibility, helping with PT, cooking, shopping, all that? Too much trouble, too busy, this is where we've "always" held events. Then they wonder where so-and-so "went".
If a person is gravely ill but not quite dying yet, they won't even do caretaker relief!! Oh, they'll show up for the rituals and ceremonies involved with passing, but heaven forfend they'll actually be available when the slow decline is happening. If you really cared about the person, wouldn't you interrupt your busy speaking, teaching and mouthpiece of the gods schedule to come see your old friend while they were still lucid? I know it's easier to do a short ritual, but could you at least have tried?
You want to serve your community? Then be there, not just for the fun, but for the work, the support, and the pain, too. Stop letting your rituals, ceremonies and accumulation of woo points get in the way of helping your friends and chosen spirit kin. If you become an example to the younger generation, they just might be there for you when you are ill, disabled, needing help, needing company.
Otherwise, what good are you to the gods, if you won't even help your own among the living??
Speaking of generations, and communities, what the fuck is it with the Bay Area pagan/heathen community that makes them still only pay lip service to the concept of community? I mean, fuck, community means sharing the hard stuff too, not just the fun stuff that you go to for a social life or entertainment!
For over 25 years, I've never seen more than a handful of the around a thousand pagans in this area actually pitch in and help out when a regular, involved person needs real help. Oh, they'll work a spell, or some equally half-assed thing, but they won't actually "work" unless they get some sort of benefit or ego-boo out of it. But unless there's drama, glory, of some other such, they expect the person to silently solve their pressing need and continue to "serve" the community as well!
When a previously able-bodied person ends up disabled, they cluck, cluck, make sympathetic noises, send "healing" for a little while, and then leave the person in the dust. Rides, accessibility, helping with PT, cooking, shopping, all that? Too much trouble, too busy, this is where we've "always" held events. Then they wonder where so-and-so "went".
If a person is gravely ill but not quite dying yet, they won't even do caretaker relief!! Oh, they'll show up for the rituals and ceremonies involved with passing, but heaven forfend they'll actually be available when the slow decline is happening. If you really cared about the person, wouldn't you interrupt your busy speaking, teaching and mouthpiece of the gods schedule to come see your old friend while they were still lucid? I know it's easier to do a short ritual, but could you at least have tried?
You want to serve your community? Then be there, not just for the fun, but for the work, the support, and the pain, too. Stop letting your rituals, ceremonies and accumulation of woo points get in the way of helping your friends and chosen spirit kin. If you become an example to the younger generation, they just might be there for you when you are ill, disabled, needing help, needing company.
Otherwise, what good are you to the gods, if you won't even help your own among the living??
