Keeping the Sacred Flame

A place to discuss the religion and philosophy of the Sacred Flame, HeartShadow's personal religion. Also random other thoughts of HeartShadow's as she feels like posting them.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Minion Day FlameKeepers

They exist in every religion: those people that show up for the holy days, or even regular services, mouth the correct responses at the correct times, and then disappear. Those people for whom faith is an obligation to be taken care of as quickly as possible and then ignored for the rest of the time as something meaningless.

What does that mean for the faithful? It's difficult to work had at something and love it, and see someone else treat it as garbage. So what does it mean? Nothing.

Spirituality is something where you get out of it what you put into it. There are no shortcuts, no easy answers. No quick and dirty ways to enlightenment. The people that treat spirituality is something you do for an hour on the weekends or a social obligation are missing what it can be, certainly, but that's their loss.

It's very easy to get caught up into a comparison game. Who is more spiritual? Who's getting the most out of this? Am I getting what I "should be" out of this? The truth, though, is that all of that is completely irrelevant. You get what you give out of your spiritual life. It's personal, and it's your own work that matters. You can't do another person's work, and they can't do yours.

Someone else using FlameKeeping (or any other religion) as a social stepping stone or other non-spiritual purpose is not a threat to you or your religion. It's just a waste of their own potential.

Questions:
What do you put into your spirituality? What do you get out of it?
What do you think of people that treat spirituality as one more weekly meeting? Do you do that? Do people you care for?
Why are you a FlameKeeper? What do you bring to it? What does it bring to you?
Personal thoughts

3 Comments:

  • At 11:05 AM, Blogger Star said…

    Interesting points, and certainly valid ones. But... I don't know, I feel like there's a little more to it than that. Obviously I'm not coming at this from a Flamekeeping perspective, so maybe that's the difference here. FWIW, here's what I'm thinking:

    I think what you're saying applies very well to personal spirituality. I don't think it holds up as well in a group setting.

    Because... When a person joins a religion, they are no longer just one person working on their own personal goals. They are a part of a larger group (however loosely-defined and organized) all working toward similar goals with similar tools and similar ideas about how to get there.

    You said it yourself: "Spirituality is something where you get out of it what you put into it." What if "you" here isn't a person, but a religious group or a whole religion? Members who don't put in the effort (whether because they're there on their own personal agenda or because they're just unmotivated) are decreasing what the group as a whole can do. They might not be actively dragging it down (though that is a possibility with those who have their own agenda), but by not "putting in" anything they are ensuring that the group will never "get out" what it could if all of its members were active. Because without them the group simply can't "put in" as much.

    All of which is not to say that anyone ought to be making it a competition about who's the better fill-in-the-blank. I would agree that such speculation generally serves no good purpose. I'm not sure whether there really is a good way to handle this sort of problem, in the end. No matter what the minimum standards are, no matter how high they are set, there will always be someone who will just meet them. Try to force people to go beyond that and you get into the "if you want me to wear thirty-seven pieces of flair, then why don't you make the minimum thirty-seven pieces of flair" syndrome. Subjective judgements about being a "good enough" fill-in-the-blank are just always going to wind up like that, I think.

    However, I do think that it's a perfectly valid concern and that handling it isn't as simple as saying, "Not my problem." Because if you're a part of the group, then yes, it is your problem.

    All of which you may find totally irrelevant or not applicable, of course. :D Just my two cents.

    I hope this all makes some sort of sense. I've been reworking it for about an hour now trying to get it to say just what I want it to, and I've come to the conclusion that I need to just give up and post it.

     
  • At 11:43 AM, Blogger Vieva said…

    I think we also have an inherent difference on what spirituality might *be*, as well.

    I don't think spirituality is a group concern. One can make a group of spiritually-minded people, and do things as a group .. but it always comes back to the individual.

    Religion is a /system/ of how to find the same place and do the same things, but the religion in and of itself does not create a group.

    As always, if someone is going to be a deadbeat in a group, they should be removed from the group. If people wish to worship the Flames together, they shouldn't be forced to deal with people that aren't going to TRY. (try and fail is very different from not trying).

    But spirituality is a personal pursuit. You can't drag other people down with you unless they let you.

     
  • At 12:51 PM, Blogger Star said…

    Hm. Okay, I think perhaps I'm just confused. (Also, sorry if I got a little long-winded in my comment, or if I do here. It's not my intent to just, like, go off on you--I'm just trying to express myself clearly! *G*)

    I think your use of the term spirituality is confusing me. Not because I don't agree with it as you use it in your reply to my comment--I do. (See the second paragraph of my response.) It's the useage in the essay that's confusing me. On the first read-through, it looked to me as though you were using it interchangeably with "religion". On a second look, it seems as though you kind of go back and forth between that and what you expressed in your reply to me. (So part of my confusion is my own fault--sorry about that!)

    For example, look at the first three paragraphs together. You start out talking about the set of people who put minimum religious effort into their faith (that is, the external stuff that does involve other people, like going to services). Then you ask what that means for the faithful, and then go on to tie that question to spirituality and talk about it like it can be treated as a social obligation, which implies the potential involvement of other people. But then in the fourth paragraph you do talk about it like a personal thing that isn't affected by other people. The final paragraph is a mix; it confuses things a little by re-introducing the religious effort concept, but does seem to separate that from spirituality.

    Does that make any sense at all?...

    After rereading it a few more times, I'm thinking maybe your point was that just going to services (or the equivalent) isn't enough, that one has to put in the spiritual effort as well if one wants anything out of a religion. But I think the way the first three paragraphs especially work together makes that point kind of unclear and confusing.

    Again, though, just my two cents, and I could very well just be reading this really weirdly or something. (It's Monday morning--these things seem to happen on Monday mornings.)

    (And ugh, I did wind up going on and on again. Sorry...)

     

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