Struggling with collision of faith and family

This past Saturday, I took my parents out to dinner at TGIFriday’s. While there, our waitress asked me about my pendants. I normally wear two pendants:

A silver pentagram which is a little bigger than a dime. It has a bear at the top point, walking on all fours.
A brass spherical cage, which contains a piece of amber resin.

Both pendants are religious in nature and are deeply personal to me. I’ve had a handful of people ask about them, and I’m usually quite happy to answer their questions. In fact, the only two times I’m hesitant to say anything are as follows:

When I’m at work (or a work-related function) and there are customers around
When I’m with my parents, especially my mother

Sadly, this situation falls into that second category. And I could already see my mother’s expression when the waitress asked about it. The problem with being the sole witch in a family that consists mostly of evangelical (and even fundamentalist) Christians is that it can certainly strain family relationships a bit.

After a brief hesitation, I simply told the waitress that they are religious symbols of significance to me. I think she realized I was being somewhat avoidant (and I hated that I was being avoidant) and let the matter drop. Fortunately, the subject quickly changed.

Then again, maybe that’s not so fortunate. One of the messages that I keep getting over and over is that I need to be more open with my family. I need to let them into all aspects of my life. The problem is, that’s difficult when there are certain aspects of it that they don’t really care for. Certain subjects cause hackles to raise.

In fairness to my parents, it’s not just them, either. Any time the subject of my faith comes up around family, I get defensive. I automatically expect a problem. And that’s not fair. Not only that, I’m beginning to wonder if on some levels, my own family is unconscioually reacting to my own defensiveness. It wouldn’t surprise me.

But at the same time, I still haven’t found a good way to overcome my first reaction in such situations.

Yes, that’s never easy. You have good insight into it, though.

Imperfections of a Mortal

July 7, 2008

I would have said it anyway but than again i’m still young lol. religion can get in the way of lot of things but it shouldn’t.

It does and it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense hehe… I’m so new at ALL of this and have no one I can find in the area to start me on a path in any direction… I don’t write daily that’s the only thing… I mean I write here on OD, but I don’t think that counts LOL, boring everyone to tears with my life. AKA Novio

Novio

PS- I tend to have a very black thumb when it comes to plants hahaha!

~*Jodi*~

July 8, 2008

Your family may be just reacting to your own defensiveness. Try not worrying so much about what they say or think and just be honest and open. It’s worth a shot. Even if they don’t agree with you, they can still listen to you. That’s what family is supposed to do.

What are the significants of the pieces of jewelry that you wear? I figured you might tell us in the entry, but you didn’t.

Truth_Finder

“In fact a lot of them are nursing wounds because they chose not to put on the plastic face in an attempt to be more honest about their hurts and struggles. They weren’t always received well as a result.” RYN: Boy do I know this one. 😐

Seraiah

Just be as open about it as possible, and eventually your parents will be too tired of it to argue about it anymore. It worked on my family 🙂

I’m looking for a Pagan/Wiccan symbol of new beginings/spiritual rebirth for my diary… can you give me any hints?

NCPagan13

RYN: Because I won’t do it. LOL! No, because he has opted to teach ritual studies, and this happens to be the next topic in the list. Actually, our buddy Whitelight requested it, so Joe’s really going to step back and turn people loose on it.