Tamar Joshua Rowe

I think it's finally got to the point where I have to make a decision.

It's a decision that I've been putting off since first discovering Wicca at 12 - can I still pay lip service to a faith system which, quite frankly, sickens me? Do I want to? Hell no. Do I have to? Well, that depends on what I can reasonably exclude myself from.

There's no denying that this is a Christian country. I don't like it, but I have to live with it until I get fluent enough in the language of a country that isn't conditioned like that (are there any?) and can move there. I also attend a Christian school, and have done so since I was 10. My best friends have been active in their churched lifestyles (Vicar's daughter and Jehovah's Witness in my C.P. school; a pair of fundamentalist evangelicals, a group of wannabe gospel singers and a few Black Catholics in my current school) for as long as I remember.

... Let's start with a history, shall we?

( Read more... )

Anyway, the issue now is with Choir. I like singing in the same way as good exercise - you feel you've accomplished something if your lungs and diaphragm hurt after. And to tell the truth, the free speech therapy doesn't hurt. But it's a school choir, and so the songs are up to the music teacher.

A few years ago we sang 'Ave Verum' (in Latin) at the summer concert because the headmaster was leaving and it was his favourite hymn. Now we seem to be singing something religious every term, and I don't like it. This term it's gospel, and I am really not liking it.

I cannot fucking wait until I'm at the other end of the country.

*sigh* It's a 'lesser of two evils' problem, I think, but I don't know which is the lesser. Give up singing, or sing evangelically? Both are bad choices. I want to stick to principles, but is it just the weakling's way to give up something that I enjoy because of personal discomfort? I don't know. Advice?

Here we have a classic example of a holiday stripped of all religious significance until it, like the others, is another chocolate-eating holiday. It has the very slight edge of being more of a 'chocolate on pancakes' holiday, but still it is a chocolate holiday.

I mean, we all know the origins of Shrove Tuesday/Fat Tuesday/Pancake Tuesday/Pancake Day - to dispose of the 'rich' food in the house before Lent, and the associated fasting, starts the next day.

Some people still give something up for Lent, of course. But generally what they give up has nothing to do with pancakes at all. Yet still the pancakes persevere. More and more, a person will pig out on Pancake Day and then not act any differently on Ash Wednesday.

I find this strange, but entirely in keeping with what I know of people. -_-;;