Sometimes I think there’s a good reason for blind faith, religious ignorance, unwavering piety. Sometimes those seem like a much easier choices than being inquisitive, being contemplative, being patient with your own uncertainty.

The dialogue around the last post extended deep into the theoretical as well as the practical, even spawning an interesting offshoot post on ecological polytheism, and a resurgence of questions about an American goddess named Columbia.

The explosion of ideas did a number on me. I didn’t realize that it had until I tried to approach my shrine this morning and perform my daily ritual. I couldn’t turn my brain off, and I kept wondering — But who am I making these offerings to, exactly? What is the point of this thing that I’m doing?

This quick-shift back to a state of doubt and questioning might come off to some as a sign of an adolescent faith. But if that’s true, what’s the alternative? A religious practice or paradigm that is no longer close-examined? A fixed piety? If that’s the case, then perhaps the people who are unwilling to engage in a discussion about the nature of the gods (or God, if that be their god), the origin of divinity, or any other such complicated subject simply have it easier. Their religious tradition can grow without the tampering of every little question, every “wait but....”

Clearly, though, I cannot be comfortable with such a religious tradition.

I question. I always have. If there’s anything about me that’s fixed, perhaps it’s that.

Some people suggested that my difficulty in conceiving of how a god might have a human origin is a holdover from some part of my Christianity, and that it may be the lingering perception of God’s infallibility that is making it difficult for me to imagine myself (or anyone I’ve ever known) as being one day thought of as a god. Fallibility or infallibility didn’t even enter into my mind when I wrote that post, though. The question wasn’t whether or not gods are, by nature, infallible, omnipotent, omnipresent, or any of the other descriptives of the Christian god, and the fact that those concepts were thrown into the mix only confused things for me.

If there was any holdover from the Christian tradition of my past, it may have been that they conceived of God as being responsible for, or an undercurrent to all of what exists. Let me repeat that: all of what exists. I’m well aware that this is not how Pagans conceive of gods, but consider for a moment the (perceived) difference in magnitude between a deity which is understood to be the origin of all creation, and a deity that, in the future, will once have been me.

You see what I’m saying? Different scale, right?

On one level this is all theoretical, but on another it is not. This information, these questions, they had an impact on how I approached my shrine today. They affect how I proceed in participating in my religion, and how I prepare myself to be in dialogue with people from other traditions. None of this seems trivial to me.

P. Sufenas Virius Lupus asked in the comments:

“Is it that you worry that you’ll be “mistaken” for a god, with the implication that you’re not and likely never could be; or, that you’ll be recognized as a god, and what that could mean about your own potentials now and the responsibilities you might have in the future that you’re not comfortable with? In other words, not that it’s a mistake to recognize you as a god in the future, but instead that it’s a mistake to not recognize your own divinity?”

(emphasis added)

These words are messy. The food won’t stay in its own little compartment, and all of a sudden the divine peas are mixing with the divine meatloaf, and I’m not sure what divinity is even supposed to taste like anymore.

Semantics, people say dismissively when I get worked up in one of these states. But these semantics are rearranging my furniture, and I’m not sure where to sit or stand at the moment.

Help?

When you find yourself uncertain about the definitions, the functions, the meanings or the purpose, what do you do? If religious ritual is the thing that centers you, but it is also the thing which is informed by the very stuff you’re questioning, what do you do?

Should I make offerings to the future me-god for some guidance?