I was tickled by the question. I’m not going into who asked it or their personal motivations. Today I found something that motivated me to answer as well as helped me to find that answer.
Admittedly, I’ve been spending most of my time taking care of my family and working. I haven’t been to a mass where I haven’t been a member of the team in far longer than I can accurately remember.
But rest assured. My philosophy and religious beliefs are strong. Probably as strong as they’ve ever been.
My little 09/03 child will be raised with the philosophy of Thelema.
I’ve found that I don’t proselytise, but I do promulgate. I am a priest, I will perform pastoral counselling, but I don’t preach. I discuss and most importantly I live. I live in my beliefs.
I met someone one year at Dragon*Con. We became very good friends at the event and talked quite a bit online after the event. She was stuck in an environment
where she seemed trapped by duty to family and relationships. She seemed unhappy. We talked a lot and I tried to convince her to be happy with her own nature. Not to be afraid of it. To try the weird things that she felt inclined to do but feared to see if they really met her dreams and expectations. Yeah, I went thelemic on her; but really never wanted to push Thelema on her.
She changed a lot over the next few years. We had her out to visit us twice. Both times were amazingly enjoyable. Admittedly, we never had enough of our creative business venture figured out to drag her in to join us.
She’s now video logging. And an entry that came down this week (today?) made me very happy. It is wonderful because it feels like so many of the conversations we had. But she’s found it entirely on her own and puts it out there in her voice. It’s infectious and you can see how truly happy and full of conviction she is.
I miss seeing her very much. But it is yet another thing to make me sure of my convictions, my beliefs, and my direction.
The video can be seen on her vlog or I’ve embedded it in the event you’re blocked from her vlog site behind this cut