But sometimes, it's really hard to do that when I get confronted with the...er....we'll call them intemperate (not that I'm blameless on this matter, as those who read my hockey blog well know).
I refer the reader to this post on another blog (and not a bad blog, either). The second-to-last comment made me beat my head on the table in mental agony, because--though well-intentioned--it was pretty poorly-phrased and didn't come across very well (to me anyway).
I do know who Al Billings is, and I know of his issue with Steve McNallen and the AFA. I am also aware that McNallen was in the past intemperate with his folkishness--and that what I have seen from him lately is a great deal more moderate. But honestly, trying to make Billings out to be a non-entity who isn't worthy of being listened to isn't exactly going to make friends or influence people if you know what I mean.
Know what I mean?
As for Folkishness, I've made my thoughts on the matter known in this space before--the Gods call whom they call, regardless of that person's outward appearance or parentage. In that same vein, I offer a quote from a mailing-list post about the subject of the Billings/McNallen fight:
Frankly, if a[n] Ethiopian baby is adopted by a Swedish couple and grows up to run a restaurant promoting modern Swedish cuisine, he probably has a stronger claim on having a nip off the old folksoul than *I* do (and, besides, I hear the food is quite good). There is often an unwillingness among US heathens to factor the value of a land, and its spirits, in one's spiritual makeup, which I argue is a significant oversight on our part.
And that's about how I feel, too.
Know what I mean?
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2 comments:
You know, I can trace my family back, on both sides, through each generation that's lived in America - I know not only that I am of European stock, I know exactly what cities my last European relatives lived in, before immigrating to America. I know that I'm German / Prussian, Scottish, English and Irish by blood descent. I'm proud of my ancestors, and proud of the lands they came from. These are the lands of my ancestors, and this knowledge gives me...no, it entitles me to the religion of my heritage, as I am directly descended from wise and mighty Teutonic and Celtic...Christians.
Gotta agree with you, there's more to being Heathen than ancestry and heritage.
Having lived in America for most of my life, and having lived in northern Germany for the past few years, I have to agree with the point made about a tendency toward unwillingness among American (Vinlandic) Heathens to factor in the power and influence of the land and its spirits. From my own experiences, it does make a difference, and I think the quote you cited makes an excellent point. I'm not entertaining the idea that living here makes one a better Heathen than living in America (I don't believe in the notion of one Heathen being better than another), it just makes a difference - one I could not have predicted before having experienced it for myself.
I always laugh a little when I see people talk about this faith being "in the blood". If that were true, then I (who can show paperwork of my Germanic ancestry back through the generations to at least the early 1700s) should be running the AFA, not the mostly-Celtic McNallen.
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