Marriage

“Behind Enemy Lines” – Rogue Wizard – The Fire of Fury – Part 11

/ Ed Raby Sr / Leave a comment

Happy Woden’s (Odin) Day

Rogue Wizard’s Journal: June 12, 2019

Wow, it has been a while since I have written in this journal.  Mostly because it has been boring as shit. Sure there was an initial buzz after the Red Grove Tree was finally laid to rest in flames, but then the reports became dull.  The fairie folk as predicted stopped fighting so hard for the salient that was trying to fight for the tree.  The wizards for their part advanced into the grove only to find the tree burning in magical fire.  It burned up quickly and a day later there was truly nothing left.

As far as the war went, the fae pulled back to a line they could defend better with fewer casualties.  The wizards saw this and now that there was no strategic objective in the area, they sent many of their forces elsewhere. The line stabilized and then most of the fighting stopped in this area.

Lunette and I moved fully the House Venus Mansion.  Lunette took the room next to mine, but mostly she just slept there.  The rest of the time she was with me talking (yes, talking) or she would turn invisible, shrink down and fly out and do some recon work.  For my part, I visited the Lioness when she was at the mansion or talked with Amber.  I was keeping a very close eye on what was going on and my ‘allies’.  I wasn’t going to be caught again unprepared.

Lunette’s recon trips brought back the information about how the lines had stabilized in the area. I also had committed a high crime in the faerie world, so there was a bounty on my head with them now.  A rather large one.  So I was behind enemy lines no matter where I was now. The search for me had all but disappeared because the mages had larger problems elsewhere.

I have spent the last few months doing one of the following. Reading and studying magical tomes and doing magical research.  Talking with Lunette and Amber about the situation. Finishing up my political science degree.  I received it in late May. Keeping up family appearances by visiting them once a week and calling them.  They call me more than I call them.

Lunette didn’t just do recon trips all the time.  She did set up a small alchemy station in my room. She did her own reading and research.  She seems a little happier now.  That kiss was the start of that but we haven’t done anything but hold hands since. She respects my mourning period for my wife and hasn’t pushed it.  She seems very much interested in building our trust level.

Two days ago would have been my wife and I’s 30th anniversary. May 1st was the end of the six months, but I decided that it might be more appropriate for me to end this period of mourning on our anniversary itself.  So two days ago. I opened a small chest that I have with stuff in it that reminds me of her. A few pictures of us, some jewelry, a negligee she used to wear.  I laid it all out on the table in front of me.  Tears were easy on this one.

I took off my wedding band and laid it in the negligee. I folded it around the band and then placed it back in the chest, I put the pictures and other jewelry on top, and closed the lid. I cast a protection spell on the chest.  Only I or my immediate family could open it now.  I set the chest near my reading chair. I cried myself to sleep that night and when I woke up I felt better.  I felt at peace about the whole thing, my wife finally laid to rest in my heart.

Last night, Lunette was with me and she looked nervous. I asked her what was up and she said she wanted to respect that even though she knew I had laid my wife to rest, at last, she didn’t want to push our relationship.  I asked her what kind of relationship she thought we could have and what kind of relationship did she want with me?

“I think I love you, Edward.  For the first time, my lecherous pixie heart loves someone and I think it is you.”

“Love? I don’t know Lunette, is that even possible for your kind?  Fidelity, particular sexual fidelity doesn’t seem to be your strong suit.”

“Would you demand sexual fidelity out of me?  Do you still hold that morality?”

“Honestly, no.  Fidelity has not much to do with sex if you ask me. It is far more important to be there for someone when they need you.  To be in their corner even when they disappoint you.  That’s real fidelity. Sex is a wonderful experience to be sure, but it is also just sex.  I don’t want to sound like I am diminishing its importance, but fidelity is measured more when the chips are down and you need someone to watch your back, not on where you stick your dick or who you spread your legs too.  I don’t think it is right to say you have some exclusive ownership to someone else’s sexuality, sounds kind of like a miniature form of slavery if you ask me now.”

“You maintained it with your wife, even after death.”

“Yes, but those were the vows I took, so I tried my level best to keep them.  I never slept with any other females but you, Elpis and her.  I loved Miss Salty too, but I never had sex with her although I can’t say the relationship didn’t have sexual elements to it, it certainly did. I came back to my wife so the vows we took were back in force.  That said my dear, you might say I have come, in part, to the more fairy way of thinking about the subject of sex now. I am simply not a one-night stand kind of guy. I have to feel I have a relationship with a woman that is loving for me to make love to her. There is still a spiritual side to it to me, a magical side if you will, and it’s not just a physical humping in the dark thing to me.”

Lunette smiled and nodded.

“Edward, I know I have tricked you a couple times, do you trust me?”

“Hmm.  I don’t know. You are a deceitful little spy these days.  Good at it too.  On what basis could you and I trust one another.  I don’t know what side you are on right now.  Like me, you are wanted by both sides.”

“There are three sides to this one Edward.  There is also the side of peace and coexistence.  Not just between fae and mage, but also with mundanes. ”

“You think the mundanes will be comfortable with creatures walking around that can kill them with a thought or spell or that are from their deepest nightmares?”

“No, not at first, but magic can be awakened in everyone. If that is so then, the idea of mundanes might be gone in time as well.”

She had a point, it was my turn to nod because this had been my working theory since high school.

“But to answer your question I am on the side of the survivors. I want you and me to survive.  But if you need more proof of my loyalty to you: I swear by the memory of my mother and father and the Red Tree Grove, that I will guard and protect you Edward and I will be a supporter of you through all of your remaining life – My troth upon it.”

I sat in silence for a minute or two.

“Hmm, sounds like an oath.  I guess I will say the same to you as it is only fair. My troth upon it.”

We sat and talked for a little while longer. Basically making sure we were on the same page and then both of us turned in for bed.  Well, I thought that is what Lunette was doing. I was down to my underwear when a knock came at the door.

“Edward, it’s me again”

I threw my t-shirt back on and told her to come in. She was wearing a purple robe that was tied and went down to her mid-thigh.

“Edward isn’t it customary to seal oaths in some way?”

“Yes.”

Lunette pulled her robe back and let it fall to the floor, revealing her naked body.

“Once, a long time ago, I offered myself to you like this.  You turned me down and told me to go home.  I thought afterward that you were a strong man to do such a thing. Now, I offer myself to you again.  Not as a star-struck teenage girl, but as a woman. A woman in love with you. A woman who wants to give her strength to you, and receive it in return.”

I stood dumb for a second.  I remembered what she was talking about.  I wasn’t ready for sex at the time so I turned her down.  But now…

“Lunette, we were lovers once.  It was about healing back then and lust, to be honest. But now, if you truly love me.  Do what your heart says for you to do. I will do the same.”

This morning I have awoken to find myself lying next to a beautiful faerie woman.  I can see her naked form laying sideways on the bed as she sleeps from my desk.  Her wings are behind her and folded so I can’t see them.  She is a vision of beauty and glowing in her own way. I feel the love I had for her once awakening in me again. Dormant but never gone. That’s just the way I am.

I don’t know what the future will bring,  But, I know that Lunette will be back to back with me in the end.  I can only hope we will remain survivors.

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!

“Taking A Few Deep Breaths” – The Rabyd Skald

/ Ed Raby Sr / Leave a comment

Happy Sif’s Day

These last two weeks have been interesting and challenging. I was in the doctor’s office on Thursday and as always a little anxious. I was there for my routine checkup and consultation. But as I waited I did some thinking.  I have had the following experiences this last couple of weeks.

  1. I have had more denials from potential employers in the last ten days than in a couple months previously.  It’s like all the applications I filed came back with nulls.
  2. At my current employer, I was passed over for a job and it was given to someone with no experience whatsoever.
  3. I have had another bout with The Grey and while it was not severe. The cause was known, however.
  4. I have had a doctor’s appointment and while a lot of the news was good, there was some news that reminded me I am getting older.   And that sucks by the way.
  5. The End of August marks one year that my wife and I have been back together after our separation last summer and that has lead to some very reflective moments about my marriage.

This post is about taking a few deep breaths and looking at each of these a little reflectively and spiritually.

Deep Breath. 

I guess I have to say the whole job situation has caused me to look at the basic fact that I have not really discovered what my new identity is. It is in-process both practically and spiritually and so there is that.  Mostly though the practical concerns will start to become forefront issues in the next couple of months I don’t find something better. For now, though my meditations center on who am I?

Deep Breath.

The decision at work at first angered me and then I just felt disrespected. It was like really, could have slapped all of us from the department any harder, especially those of us that work hard over here and have management experience?  Then I took a breath, realized that this is not my place, I am in my heart looking to move on to something better, so I might as well get about it.

Deep Breath.

My bought with The Grey recently was brought about by a song played on the radio at work. It was my song to Miss Salty and it triggered the whole mess of feelings involved in that.  One thing they never seem to mention about being empathic is that emotions experienced in certain situations stay and lay dormant until something triggers them and then there you are all over again. Which triggers a whole lot of meditation on the problem.  My most recent meditations have led me to a question: What exactly is The Grey?

Depression?  It involves depression but there is that switch that goes off to protect me from the sadness so I feel nothing. In that state, am I depressed or something else entirely?  I think I might have had an introspective moment because of this that might lead to an awakening.   I hope so.

Deep Breath.

I took a lot of those deep breaths before I met my new doctor. I just passed 50 so the protocol becomes: ‘You need this test done, you need to start this medication as a diabetic.’  I am like – what is this malevolent magic that took place where all this was unnecessary at age 49 and 364 days but one day later, a whole list of evil fairies have comes and makes you vulnerable to a whole new crops of shit. I hope my new doctor is a good salesman and explains things well, because if you don’t sell me – Yeah, fuck that shit.

The problem is that all my health indicators indicate I am healthier than I was last year, but somehow my medicines need to be increased and new treatments engaged for possible problems down the road. I hate American medicine, they either engage in damage control after the fact or their definition of preventative medicine is purely put more pills in your body. Not my thoughts on how to approach my health.

Deep Breath.

I don’t take too much for granted when it regards my marriage.  Our reconciliation is in truth a work in progress. I simply acknowledge here that It still might not work, something I started when we first decided to go down this path to my family and something I remind myself of right now. I want it very much to work, don’t get me wrong. But I also acknowledge the struggle in my heart between how much do I have to give up as far as my personal happiness to stay married? I shouldn’t be looking at it that way should I, but I am, and that is very troubling to me.

  1. My wife and I have very different values now.  That is basically because I ‘fuck it’ to my former faith and she has not.  What is important to me is very different than what is important to her.  And it is growing more divided.
  2. Our goals are very different and trying to find common ground either involves a lot of compromises or straight up, from my perspective, me giving up a lot of my goals entirely.  I am growing weary of having to give up what I desire simply to make my family and friends happy, and that is exactly the state of mind I was in that caused me to walk away a year ago. Not good.
  3. I now know what aspects of a relationship with a woman I am missing and still desire. It creates a longing in my heart that I cannot seem to shake.

Deep Breath.

I think it is time to look within.  Discover who I am again and out of that might flow a lot of answers.  It is time to awaken and to take that first breath of who I am now.  It is time to find that person and become them.

Deep Breath.

I remain,

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!

“Objections to Christianity – Part 2 – Sin: An Imaginary Man-Made Problem” (Revised August 2019) – Odin’s Eye – Theological Objections to Christianity

/ Ed Raby Sr / Leave a comment

Happy Thor’s Day

August 2019 Revision Notes:

It has been almost a year since I wrote these originally starting in November of 2018.  When I got to the rotation in Odin’s Eye the last time where I was going to deal with these objections again, I saw no need for revision but rather simply laid it out there that no one had responded to them to that date and moved on into the rest of the Rotation for Odin’s Eye. 

This time though I feel that I need to spend four weeks of Odin’s Eye doing some revisions that will either clarify my position, add some other thoughts or edit for other issues.  Such edits will be marked by italics.  When archived, they will appear under the original post on this Page: My Four Theological Objections to Christianity

 Mostly though this is a cut and paste with some revisions. As the series goes on there will be more revisions as I can see the need for things to change a bit in the other three objections. In part two, I felt the need to add a few paragraphs for hopefully a clearer explanation. 

Introduction:

My loss of faith really started here.  I can actually go back to a message I was preaching on sin and salvation through Christ and the fact this quote from Dan Barker from Losing Faith in Faith ( a book I still want to read) was rolling around in my head.  I was trying to think of something that would make his assertion wrong.  I got up preached the message and sat down.  I can site this moment as the time my crisis of faith began. I realized he was right.

I realized there is no proof that sin rationally exists.  I only believed that because that was what I was told by a preacher and read it in the Bible.  Unless the Bible was truly inspired, then I had no natural or logical proof that there was this thing called sin, a sinful nature or my actions were righteous or sinful. God Himself had never come down and told me I was a sinner, that was men either in the form of preachers or the men who wrote the Bible.  Over time, I began to realize that sin has the same problem as the inspiration of the Bible – the Bible asserts it but never proves it.

Going back to my pulpit moment, I sat there thinking and my faith started to unravel.  I sat there thinking: “I make a living by telling people they are sinners so they will feel guilty, then they accept the ‘gospel’ and feel better.  Out of gratitude they throw money in the basket and pay me. WTF.”  It was a bad moment for me, and one that led to my eventual downfall over two years later.

Faith:

If you are a believer you take the existence of sin as purely a matter of faith.  Basically, if you believe that sin exists, you do it for the same reasons you believe the Bible is inspired.  You have faith it is true – you hope and believe it is true, but you do not have a proof or a rational argument to say it is true.  The Bible writers assume sin is real and a problem.  They never prove it, and the believer is left to take that sin exists as a reality and that God has solved it.  You believe all that without rational evidence.  It is purely a matter of faith.

Now I want to emphasize that this does not disprove sin’s existence, but it puts on the same plane as believing in a lot of things that we believe exist but have no proof of.  The issue then is should we order our lives on faith in the idea that man is sinful, or go based on our own observations of human nature and conclude that if anything we can have faith in the fact that all human beings are human. 

Religion:

I now think that sin is a man-made concept.  It probably originally. like so many things might have had a good intention.  To keep people from making bad decisions given the cultural context.  I mean sex without birth control and modern medicine can lead to deadly diseases and unwanted pregnancies. So you tell people not to have sex except with people they are committed to and get married to so the child will be legitimate. The practical side of this is the lessened risk of STDs and unwanted pregnancies. It is a wise course of action.

When just showing the wisdom of this to others doesn’t work, you throw in the wrath of God to bring about a more forceful form of persuasion – tell them it’s a sin against God and He will bring down his wrath on the one who sins.  This is where you make up the concept that sexual sin is an affront to God and he will send you to hell if you don’t repent of it and stop doing it.  It is ultimately a fear tactic that uses guilt to prevent certain behaviors.

The dark side of this gets worse though as people genuinely think they’re taking the side of God when the punish sinners.  The real problem with sin is that some people think they have risen above the concept of it.  They feel qualified to judge others using their religious beliefs. It gets worse because the said concept can be held by people in power who wish to impose their views on people to create a ‘righteous society’.  To force others to follow your moral code of some behaviors being sin and thus outlawed. The problem is the difficulty using reason to prove something is a sin.  It’s not self-evident.

Theology:

I don’t believe in sin as a theological concept anymore. I think in large part it is a bad one because all it does is produce guilt and then in a guilt-ridden state people can be manipulated.  I haven’t looked at this fully but I have a theory a large part of religious people have a poor self-concept and that is because they have a large amount of guilt associated with their ‘sins’.  This leads them to think they are bad or even evil people and the cycle of self-destruction begins.  You spend a lot of time putting on masks at that point to protect yourself from the social wrath of being a sinner while at the same time being wracked with guilt because you can’t seem to escape your sin. If it sounds like I have been there – yep.  I would say a lot of my initial causes of depression came from this struggle.  Yes, I am saying that religion, particularly the Christian notion of sin,  may have has a great deal of influence in causing my depressive issues.

My theology about mankind has certainly changed since I discarded man as a sinner.  I don’t think of myself as a sinner but simply a human being. I am not all-powerful, all-knowing or all-present; so I am going to make mistakes and there is really nothing I can do about it. I have needs that are normal.  Wants that are normal.  I have my reason and wisdom to guide me. I am not perfect and I make mistakes and have errors in judgment, but that doesn’t mean I am a sinner, just human. To me, life is no longer about overcoming sin and removing it from my life.  Rather, it is about discovering the virtue in me and causing it to grow. And there is a virtue in who I am as a human being if I look for it and develop it.  It’s about growing into the best human being I can be.

Note: Unlike the atheist, I have not discarded the idea of a spiritual side to mankind at all, but rather I am saying that sin is not something I believe is real about it.  Humanity is more complicated than he is all bad or all good. 

Spirituality:

This is why spiritually speaking I spend more time meditating on the Nine Noble Virtues as a way to learn where I need to grow. I am not trying to get rid of sin out of my life, praying that God is gracious, etc. I have come to see some things as normal and human, not sinful.  My goal now is to build character, not remove sin because I think sin is a made up imaginary concept.  I meditate on the good things, not the bad things.  I grow the good in me, rather than trying to deny my humanity by calling it sinful. I find it makes me much happier and far more at ease in this world.

One good example of this is my changing attitudes about sex and sexual desire. I feel sexual desire is normal in humanity and it is normal to feel a sexual desire toward a lot of different people.  Lust is made up to me unless you are using the term to describe passionate sexual desire which is neither good nor bad. What might be a factor in sexual desires is wisdom and reason saying that not all sexual interaction is beneficial. Some of it could be detrimental.  The real issue is that sex in and of itself is not sinful in any form. Enjoy, but be smart and wise. 

In my case, sexual fidelity is part of my marriage because that is the oath I swore as a Chrisitan that I still honor. If it wasn’t, having sex with another woman would not necessarily be a violation of fidelity as there is no sin to it, but one might challenge my wisdom.  Like it or not people get jealous and envious and that can lead to relationship issues. There are also cultural expectations to consider which do have an effect on how a person is perceived. This is not about sin anymore is the point, but rather what effects it might have on relationships and troth issues may or may not be affected depending on the specific nature of oaths of fidelity. 

Conclusion:

After concluding that the Bible is a human book with no proof of inspiration and the sin is a concept made up by the writers of the Bible.  There are only two things left on my four objections to Christianity.  The first is the other imaginary thing the Bible creates which is the solution to sin being Salvation in Christ and finally, the god of the Bible seems to have very suspect standards of justice.

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!

“Asatru and Fidelity” – Of Wolves and Ravens – Fidelity

/ Ed Raby Sr / Leave a comment

Happy Tyr’s Day

Discussion:

“Fidelity is the will to be loyal to one’s Gods and Goddesses, to one’s Folk, to one’s self, and loyalty to one’s friends was as valued as highly as loyalty to one’s family.”

Principle: Be loyal to those who have been loyal to me.

Fidelity or Loyalty, also known is Asatru as Troth, is something in certain areas I have struggled with from time to time. That said, when I was first embracing the Nine Noble Virtues after my recent affair, I didn’t list it as number one or even two as the virtues I needed the most.  It actually finished in the middle much to some people’s surprise at the time.  I will get to why I assessed Fidelity at that level in a moment.  The real issue first is what is fidelity?

This is the only time I found the website Ravenbok a little disappointing because they focused on two issues marriage and loyalty to the gods. In marriage, the point out the obvious in the idea of sexual fidelity and loyalty to one’s vows to one’s spouse.   They do that being loyal to the deities of Asatru might be challenging.

My definition of Fidelity goes much further than that, and recent experience has allowed me to visualize and define it much more completely.  My definition includes the following loyalties to be aware of: The divine, family, self and friends. One principle comes from the definition that friends are treated like family in the case of loyalty.  The other principle is my stated principle which is to be loyal to those who have been loyal to me.

It is this reciprocal understanding of loyalty that is instinctual to me and it is a double-edged sword. First, it is inherent to my being.  My personality type (INFJ) is focused on this idea of standing for each other and reciprocal loyalty, to violate this would be a violation fo who I am in a lot of respects.  It is not impossible to do, but very difficult.  It means that usually, it will be the other person who breaks faith with me before I break faith with them. That I have only broken up with one girl in all my years of dating before I got married, the rest broke up with me. Universally ‘friends’ walk away from me before I have ever walked away from them.

The other edge to the sword is to understand my loyalties are interconnected but loyalty to self is essential to maintain balance. I often maintain loyalties to others at the expense of loyalty to myself and that usually ends in disaster. By making sure it is central and all other loyalties are related to it, I can overcome this, but it takes a lot of thinking to make sure I am being loyal to myself.  It is not as instinctual, so I have to work at it.

In the end, it is not if I will be loyal or show fidelity in a relationship, but why that matters and that is why I ask why I am in each relationship constantly now. It all centers on if that relationship also reflects loyalty to self now.  If it doesn’t then there is something wrong with it that can lead to problems. To fix it, I need to ask how I can change the relationship so the fidelity in it is reciprocal again.  If it can’t be changed, then it is time to acknowledge that it might be that the other person is disloyal and the relationship needs to be abandoned rather than me showing blind loyalty to it.  Time to walk away before I get hurt.

It is treating myself like a human being and being loyal to myself is a new learning process when it comes to loyalty.  In this case, thinking of loyalty in terms of the wolves and ravens helps a lot and gives me the visualization I need most of the time.

Website: Ravenbok – The particular page is: The Values of Asatru

To the Wolves and Ravens:

“Feed the Wolves, but Listen to the Ravens first.”

Needs (Geri):

I never made any progress in understanding fidelity until I learned that seriously considering what I need and want is important.  Learning to feed the wolves is important because if they don’t get fed they go rogue on me.  The morph into a monster that.  In order for my relationship and the fidelity that is in them to bring virtue and strength, what I need has to be equally considered with the other person.  If I don’t consider what I need in that relationship, it will fail in the end because the wolves will become famished and then lash out.

Wants (Freki):

This includes not just need but want.  If I find myself giving up my goals and desires more often than the other person this is going to be a problem in the same way as needs can become a problem.  I would say learning to feed the wolves is the best way to keep them from going wild, from becoming so hungry the consume me and those I love.  This forms the best way for me to understand loyalty to myself.  “Feed the wolves”

Reason (Huginn):

Yes, reason does say to be considerate of the needs and want of others in relationships and the nature of loyalty.  Fidelity, however, is a two-way street and my problem is not showing loyalty but in making sure I receive it in return. That by being loyal I am not losing myself.  Fidelity is about being true to all relationships and that includes the one you have with yourself.

Wisdom (Muninn):

Finding the wisest path that offers loyalty to self while maintaining loyalty that is reciprocal is the challenge these days. Learning that loyalty to myself is important is one thing, living it given it is more natural for me to sacrifice than to embrace my needs and wants is not a natural act. It however essential as I have learned from painful experience. The big challenges remain: 1) What do I mean by loyalty to the divine? and 2) What level of loyalty to myself is required that finds balance with loyalty to others? It is these two questions that keep me writing and meditating.

Conclusion:

I am still learning, but I can’t deny the value of the view of Troth or Fidelity that the followers of Asatru have.  I have been asked by some why I came back to my wife and from her side, it was the end of denying she was part of the problem. From mine, it was meditating on the value of the virtue of loyalty and coming to a painful realization that the problem was not loving my wife enough, but loving myself enough so I could love my wife enough.  Only time will tell if I learn this enough and fast enough to make all my relationships stronger.

Still Walking,

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!

“Year Ago Retrospect (Part 4) – Closure in Walking On” – The Rabyd Skald – The Grey and The Wayfarer – Part 19

/ Ed Raby Sr / 1 Comment

Happy Frigg and Freya’s Day

Warning: To my family and friends, this one is going to be as truthful as the old Rabyd Microphone so be advised.  Mostly I feel the need to write this series for therapeutic reasons.  This also a long post so be prepared to give it some time. 

This is part four of a Year Ago Retrospect. These are going to take the place of my normal journal posts this week in a mini-series:

Click Here for Part 1 

Click Here for Part 2

Click Here for Part 3

All of what has come before in this series has been about getting to this post. I want final closure on a lot of this and so writing is for me a way of working through all that.  How successful I have been with this will be revealed in time. I don’t want to write on this stuff again.  There are scars and aspects of some of this I will probably carry for the rest of my life, but I want to speak of them as little as possible and only when I have to do so.

This last post will take the form of me having one-sided conversations with some of the various people I have mentioned already.  This is an idea given to me from a book that was suggested to my wife and I called – Words Can Change Your Brain by Newberg and Waldman.  It has a way of bringing closure but also I have another objective.  Some of these people I no longer have contact with and I just want to say my piece to them as if they were there and then walk away.  My life awaits and it is time to start living it more fully.  I can’t do that with these emotional weights on my back. If I carry anything as The Grey Wayfarer, it needs to be only what I need to carry.  This shit isn’t something I need anymore. I am hoping this is a way to put it all down and walk on.

So who am going to talk to?: The Dirty Pig, My Former Congregation, Miss Salty’s Family, Miss Salty, and two conversations with myself – The Old Me and the New Me.  Basically a list of people I need to walk on from and one person that needs to move on. This is going to be painful.  But also completely necessary for ‘Final’ Closure.

To the Dirty Pig:

I have rehearsed what I would say to you if we ever ran into each other again many times, it boils down to the following list.

  1. I trusted you to handle things as my friend, you said you would, but you never really were my friend, just a poser who pretended to be so for his own advantage.
  2. If you even hold your hand out to me know I already have a response that goes something like this:  “Take that hand and shine it up pretty, turn it sideways and shove it up to your ass.” Sorry, that it is as warm and friendly as it is going to get.
  3. I should have known because the trail of bodies that represents former ‘friends’ of yours that lays behind you in a long line and now I am just one of them. Does it ever bother you, that people are so disposable to you?
  4. What hurts the most, if the roles had been reversed, is I would have given you the benefit of the doubt and time to think things over some more because I cared for you as a friend. It hurt even more because you tricked me into not confessing to my congregation so you could play that to your advantage – you were a coward and stabbed me in the back.  You did me personal harm and damage even though I never did any to you.  Had to ‘teach me a lesson”. What a self-righteous and sanctimonious fuck you are.
  5. I really hope that you get over your narcism and pathological tendency to bend the world around you to the lies you tell yourself. You need help.
  6. If you really care for the church, resign as a moderator and don’t be involved for a few years. Better yet, never again.
  7. I wish you a long but miserable life. I hope what goes around comes around is true for you. I have no desire for revenge because it is stupid, but know this – if an opportunity for justice presents itself to me, I will not hesitate to take it.  You have no friend in me anymore, I am your enemy. Your best course of action is to mind your own business, and if you see me, walk the other direction. I will certainly do the same.

To  My Former Congregation:

This has three parts:

  1. To those of you who voted to fire me.  I have forgiven all of you but you as my former flock disappoint me as much as I may have disappointed you. I may have hurt you, but you hurt me back which I don’t think you could classify as ‘Chrisitan’. If you see me and are not prepared in some way or form to say you are sorry, then just keep walking.   I stand by my statement that I feel I was judged, not for the nine and a half years I loved you and cared for you, but for the one bad decision I made at the end.
  2. To those who didn’t vote to me fire – thanks for listening and remembering. I have talked with many of you but I don’t know if I have talked with all of you.  I am glad you listened to me and remembered my teachings over the years.
  3. To those that have asked for forgiveness directly – thanks.  Most of you have left the church with much the same observations of the Dirty Pig as me.  So I am glad I am not alone.  You are always welcome at my door, just call first.  Some of you are friends and will remain so.

To Miss Salty’s Family:

I offer my apologies to you.  I know my reaction if it had been my niece, daughter, etc., would have been much the same as yours. That said, I feel your largest problem was that you couldn’t accept that Miss Salty had grown up.  The one thing for sure is I would have never hurt her or asked her to do anything she didn’t want to do.   You probably won’t believe this but the whole thing was indeed mutual from the very beginning.  Sorry for the feelings caused, but I don’t expect your forgiveness.  You don’t have to.  You can take comfort in the fact that the way she broke up with me was such I will have trust issues with her for a long time, and there isn’t really much of a possibility of a relationship in the future in any case with me being back with my wife. I wish you all health and happiness.

To Miss Salty: 

Of all the messages I had to write in this post the one to you Miss Salty is the hardest.  I have imagined how this conversation would go many times and it comes out different each time.  I am hoping by writing it this time, it will be more concrete.

I ain’t going to lie, I miss you. But I struggle with who exactly I miss. Was it really you or the character you were playing?  Was it MaKala, Miss Salty, Elpis or someone else?  I do know that whoever she was, she came into my life at a very cold, dark time and offered a lot of warmth and light. For that, I thank her, whoever she was.  She was truly the salt in my life that gave it flavor at the time. She will always be Miss Salty to me. There will always be a small piece of my heart that loves her. It is just the way I am.  I don’t know if not being able to get rid of love completely for a woman I have loved is a blessing or curse sometimes.  Please don’t take advantage of it.

I also know that I try very hard to remember the good and to forget the bad but without too much success.  I don’t know what to do about that, I am hoping someday to get some personal counseling on it. I still write poems but they are difficult because you are remembered every damn time. August 2nd, I found myself crying over the remembered emotions from last year and so it is the pain that is hardest to get over. There a hole missing in my life that no person or thing seems to be able to fill now. Maybe with time, it will.  I hope so. There is also a scared over slash in my heart that is still healing but it bleeds still on the inside.

I want you to live life. I want you to find someone that loves you for you.  Be who you really are and find the person who loves you for who you are – all the good, bad, ugly and the beautiful parts of you. You are worth that. Never forget you are worth that.

I applaud you for at least having the courage to do what you did and you did it to my face. Unlike one I have already talked to above, you were far braver.  I am sorry he used you to get to me, but that is his nature.  I said it before and I say it again – The Dirty Pig is not your friend.  Remember that.  Remember you are disposable to him if no longer sees a use for you, I found that out the hard way.  Please don’t be another one of his discarded people. Don’t let yourself be another one of his ‘friendship’ casualties.

I just wish how you did it was different, so I didn’t have so many questions.  That said, trying to contact me with answers would be a bad idea unless you can find a way that doesn’t involve social media (you’re blocked for obvious reasons) or direct contact (I am not sure how I would take that).  I will just have to learn to live with my ignorance.  It wouldn’t be the first time I had to do so.

I hold nothing against you, but one thing.  I think you need to tell people and yourself the truth about your role in all this being mutual and not me manipulating you.  You know that is not true. I think you need to show some courage and face the consequences of that truth. I don’t know if I would ever hear about it, but I think for your own sake, you need to do it. Being truthful with yourself is a hard thing – I know. But it is better that way.

I have said goodbye before to you and yet, despite it all, you are there.  All pictures are deleted or destroyed, the books were thrown away along with the first aid kit. The rock you gave me also gone. I deleted The Hedge completely.  I have tried to be very thorough in getting rid of any reminder of you out of my life, and yet, there you are.  Sometimes in troubling dreams or in thoughts when I see or read something we used to talk about. Songs we talked about come to my ear, and there you are. I have tried to say a permanent goodbye so many times in my heart but can never seem to make it have the effect of healing I want.  This is going to be a slow goodbye for me, I can tell. No getting around it.

It has been a year since I heard those words from your lips – “I can’t do this” and they still echo in my heart like ripples back and forth on a pond.  I am trying to love my wife more and more each day, but your ghost or the ghost of what I thought was you haunt me.  Worse still is the possibility that someday we might very well run into each other, and then I am not sure what my reaction will be.  I guess if that happens, it will speak for itself.

Goodbyes are difficult for me and I am coming to the painful conclusion that they might be impossible regarding you.  I don’t know yet, I have to walk this out and see.  You hurt me and yet, I find it impossible to hate you.  You left me lonely and alone and yet…I don’t feel any malice.  Maybe somebody can help me someday with this. I hope so because it makes things more difficult than they need to be. The Grey gets triggered because of it and it would be nice if that stopped happening.

I would say goodbye, but your ghost still follows me. So its ‘goodbye’ in quotes for now and maybe someday, with enough time, you will haunt me less. I hope so.

To My Old Self – Pastor Ed:

You need to go, buddy.  You sacrifice too much of yourself and then you end up hurting yourself and people you love.  You have long been a liability to yourself.  You need to go. You’re a good guy, but you are also self-destructive.  You need to go. I know some people will miss you and I will too, but you cost me too much over the years to maintain anymore.  You need to go. You are just not a really good friend to me anymore. You need to go. You make yourself vulnerable and people take advantage of us. You need to go.  Goodbye, Pastor Ed.

To My New Self – The Grey Wayfarer:

It’s time to get up and walk again.  You have had your conversations here on the side of the road and now, you need to get up, grab your spear, pull your cloak around you, whistle for the wolves and ravens and walk on.  It’s time to move on and be yourself.

Don’t look back. You’re not going that way.  If some choose to catch up with you and talk to you that is one thing, or people cross your path again that is OK.  Old friends and those you know are always welcome to walk with you for a time. But you know it is dangerous to look back and think of all the would haves and should-haves.  It’s the path behind and there is no changing where your footsteps already are.

Time to walk into the future.  Time to face the unknown with courage, honor, and truth.  Time to live your life, be self-reliant, work hard and give generously as you can.  Time to maintain disciplined steps, keep getting up when you fail and stay loyal to those who have shown themselves loyal to you. Keep walking.  The ghosts of the past are going to haunt you from time to time, but find a way to be at peace with them and keep walking. The Grey Storm is going to come from time to time. Learn to walk through it and be better for it.

Time to truly become,

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!

“Year Ago Retrospect (Part 3) – My Marriage – The Rabyd Skald – The Grey and The Wayfarer – Part 18

/ Ed Raby Sr / 3 Comments

Happy Wooden’s (Odin) Day.

Warning: To my family and friends, this one is going to be as truthful as the old Rabyd Microphone so be advised.  Mostly I feel the need to write this series for therapeutic reasons.  This also a long post so be prepared to give it some time. 

This is part three of a Year Ago Retrospect. These are going to take the place of my normal journal posts this week in a mini-series:

Click Here for Part 1 

Click Here for Part 2

An additional disclaimer might be necessary here – I am talking very openly about my feelings and struggles I have had and am having with my marriage. Two things: 1) My wife and I are in the process of rebuilding things and, given recent experience, are painfully aware of the weaknesses in our marriage. That said we are working on it but both of us are no longer naive enough to believe that things will always be cool without working on them. 2) I am not going to speak for my wife’s feelings on things currently.  That would be rude and presumptuous on my part to do that, but I am going to be very open about mine.  This is about sorting things out in my head, not looking for excuses or reason to call it quits.  It is more an honest assessment of the situation, so I can move forward.

A little background.  We have been married for 30 years now.  It almost wasn’t 30 years. My wife and I have known each other since we were children, we dated on and off through middle school and high school.  In early 1989, we got back together and in February of that same year, I proposed to her.  We got married that June on the 10th.  From that time on our life has been basically revolving around two things: 1) Our lives as a pastor and his wife and 2) Our children.  We always talked early on about how we wanted a few kids early so later in life we could spend more time enjoying each other but life began and slowly these two things dominated our lives.

Through the years we were pastor and wife through four churches and we raised our kids.  The last one graduated in 2011 and that is when the seeds of our troubles really began.  Mostly, I guess my expectations that we would do more together felt a little short-changed. It was one of those moments when you are done focusing on the kids and you look at this person you have been with and go – who are you again?  I would say to any couple that hits an empty nest stage, even if you think you are in good shape – go get a marriage check-up with a counselor.  There are probably things that have been unsaid while you have been raising the kids that need to be said now as it turns back into the two of you.

For me, things started south at about the same time I started school in 2015.   I know I wasn’t supported in that decision by my wife.  It bothered me because I was facing the reality of the fact that the church was never going to support me so that retirement was an option.  I was basically going to have to stay preaching until they put me in a box and to be honest, that image did not appeal to me.  The thing is my wife and I had drifted by that point because even though the kids had grown up she kept injecting herself into their lives. At the time I felt that if I was a priority on my wife’s list it was down near the bottom and I didn’t feel at all supported as I tried to do something to make a better life for us now that the kids were gone.

Over the next three years, a gap began to develop between us.  It became pretty much church, the kid’s life, and other small talk items. As someone who hates small talk, this began to drive me nuts. As early as 2016 I began to think about divorce because from my perspective it seemed our marriage worked great for her but it sucked for me. Throw in at that point a lost faith and frustration with the Dirty Pig and his control of the church and my mind is pretty much in a very dark place about the whole thing.

As I have said before in this series, my plan was to finish school, get a new job, resign from the church and file for divorce.  I wasn’t going to provide a better life for someone who hadn’t been supportive and didn’t seem to care that from a financial point of view we were in the middle third quarter of our life and down by 35.  Time to get off the bench and put up some financial offense.  My view was if she wasn’t going help with that, I needed to either play on my own or find a new teammate.

My affair with Miss Salty accelerated my departure from the church and it also caused the troubles in our marriage to be brought to the forefront.   My wife and I spent the next three months separated including our 29th anniversary.  We had a couple conversations and the same problem presented itself from my end.  I never fall out of love with a woman completely.  That was true for my wife as well. I just didn’t feel at the time I had the right kind fo love. I felt also that my wife and I’s passive aggression had also hammered most of my love right out of me for her. I just could bring myself to love her the way a husband should love his wife.  Plus all the practical concerns listed above.

I filed for divorce in middle June and given the 60-day waiting period before a hearing, we were slated lat August and that would have been that.  It was an interesting test at times because when the severance was denied my letter written in response said that the main person they had hurt with that decision was not me but my wife who had to shoulder all the bills seeing I was not working. I had also wanted to give her some of the money to help her transition, but that was no longer an option. It demonstrates that I wasn’t out to hurt my wife in any way on this.  I just wanted out of a relationship that at the time wasn’t very good for either of us.

Then Miss Salty left me for the last time and I found myself alone, again. People remarked later how quickly I made the decision to return to my wife.  It was a 10 day or so wait.  I remark back it only took Miss Salty about 3-5 days to get over dumping her fiance and moving on, so what is their point?  My main concern was I knew that Miss Salty was no longer an option for me.  My two choices: 1) go to something new or 2) try to fix things with my wife.

My decision to try to fix things with my wife was predicated on a few factors.  1) I would never be able to trust Miss Salty again with my heart, so that was done. 2) My children had remarked that I hadn’t really tried to fix things with their mother. True. (I want to give a shout out to my daughter if she reads this – a lot of your comments my dear were spot on – take a bow girl, you probably saved your parents’ marriage.) 3) There was that little bit of love for her left.  That said, it was my wife’s reaction that ultimately made it work. For my kids’ sake, I contacted my wife and asked if we could try to work this out.

My wife listened to me and then she talked.  She did something I didn’t expect.  She forgave me.   She also took responsibility for her part in all the crap that went on before.  She didn’t tell me it was all my fault and she listened to my story and believed it.  Long story short, we got back together, I canceled the divorce with like two days to spare and we took a mini-vacation where we spent a lot of time naked in bed talking and doing what married couples do when they’re naked in bed.  We got counseling and moved into our own apartment on our own.  It isn’t perfect, but we are working on it.

There is one element of church nonsense that happened during the whole thing I feel the need to address.  When word got out one member of the church, Miss Salty’s aunt; she tried to contact my wife about what an evil person I was. How I had committed a felony, had a teenage girl problem, etc.  My wife’s friend basically told my wife to tell her to shove off as a busybody and move along with the reconciliation. My wife was kinder than that but the basic advice was followed to tell people to mind their own business.

Later in counseling, our counselor made the simple observation that the affair was a typical one that had nothing to do with Miss Salty’s age, but our marriage being shitty.  When a marriage doesn’t help the people in it, these things happen because you are vulnerable. For my part, I simply fell in love with someone who started to meet the needs I had that my wife was not meeting.  That’s it.  Anything else people want to think is Bull Shit.

If there is any possibility this still might not work, it lays with me and a few issues that are between us because of who we are:

  1. I place a high value on my freedom to act as I see fit. I don’t like a constraint.  I accept the few constraints that our marriage puts on us because it is a marriage, but outside that I want the freedom to do what I want and what is best for me.  That could pull us in different directions.
  2. Part of my problem related to this is that I tend to help others at the expense of myself.  This leads to a building up of a deficit emotionally that eventually will blow up like a bomb.  If someone doesn’t make a point to stop and ask me genuinely how I am, or as an INFJ I will go on my merry way on destruction.  My wife has learned not to take my “I’m OKs” at face value which is good, but I still have to watch myself on this and on occasion do what is emotionally right for me even if it seems selfish to others.
  3. My values are rapidly changing.  My social mores are also changing. This means in our religiously mixed marriage, I a Deist/Pagan don’t see things as evil or sinful anymore.  As a Christian she does and so compromise is definitely the order of the day. I measure things in terms of building virtue and benefit to each other, not avoiding what is wrong or bad. If our values get too far apart, our counselor said it could still be our marriage downfall.
  4. Our compromises have to be genuine give and take.  I call bullshit pretty quick if I don’t feel they are.  Some things are still in tension because of this and it is going to take time to work them out. With our values, she and I have to really watch this because it is pretty significant if a couple values different things from one another. You can still love one another and the marriage can still fail because of this.
  5. My Weaknesses are now pretty apparent.  I miss certain things about another relationship that speaks to these weaknesses.  I either have to go without or find alternatives. In some of these areas, there is no alternative so it becomes a major internal battle.  I concede now that I could very well lose those battles.  I’m am indeed vulnerable to these things.

I am not trying to create doubt here, but state the reality of where I am.  I view marriage as a pagan would.  In particular, the brand of paganism that renews vows every year.  This forces you to be constantly working at it to make it mutually beneficial, rather than just taking it for granted as a lifetime commitment does. It is far more realistic in my opinion and the vows don’t set you up for failure.

That said, our vows are Chrisitan ones, so the basis for me is gone except for my commitment to the Asatru Virtue of Fidelity. I still honor the spirit of those vows for that alone and nothing else. That said, one aspect of Fidelity is loyalty to self.  It is possible given our different faiths/values that loyalty to my marriage and loyalty to self might come into conflict. How I view the virtue of Fidelity is starting to solidify with self at the center and all my other relationships in a circle around it.  If that circle is broken or weak in some spots, it needs to be addressed or changed but the center needs to always be strong.

One part to go and that will be me directly addressing some of the people I mentioned in this series so far. For now, know that my wife and I are good and we are working to be great.

I remain,

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!

“Year Ago Retrospect (Part 2) – Church Nonsense” – The Rabyd Skald – The Grey and The Wayfarer – Part 17

/ Ed Raby Sr / 3 Comments

Happy Moon’s Day

Warning: To my family and friends, this one is going to be as truthful as the old Rabyd Microphone so be advised.  Mostly I feel the need to write this series for therapeutic reasons.  This also a long post so be prepared to give it some time. 

This is part two of a Year Ago Retrospect. These are going to take the place of my normal journal posts this week in a mini-series:

Click Here for Part 1 

In Part 2 of “Year Ago Retrospect,” I am going o deal with my other break up – with my faith and my last church.  The major trouble with the church started the moment I let certain people know I was having an affair with Miss Salty,  Most notably The Dirty Pig.  But I need to do a little background on my relationship with him first so you know why his betrayal was so painful. It is this relationship that is central to the Church Nonsense so bear with me.

When I first came to my last church, the two of us hit it off.  He made the observation that I was going to be myself and that people would just have to deal with that and from then on I considered him a friend.  A lot of people think they know this guy so when I talk about this stuff, they think I am lying about his character and actions.  You need to understand that I knew him a lot longer than any of them.  We were friends, we did the same small group together for over nine years, I did him a lot of favors over the years and while I never asked him for anything he would on occasion give me something or help me out. I know the Dirty Pig from long experience and only after he betrayed me and I looked back did I see the painful truth that I suspected, but could never prove and didn’t want to believe was true.

Our friendship was good; not best friends but solid and he was a part of my circle. Note that for me, an INFJ personality type to say that is significant.  But also I knew the emotions of the man as an empath and sometimes what he felt was troubling.  It was contradictory to what I felt he should be feeling at times.  Amusement when something was pretty tragic. Over time I would say it was like a cat looking at mice as far as his emotions. Given that he had been a cop all most of his career, somewhat understandable although a little uncomfortable. There was always this element of ‘my viewpoint on life is superior and people better respect that’ with him.  He also was highly competitive and I never saw him happy when he came in second in anything.

We got along fine for a long while but our friendship got strained more and more as time went by. I am very accepting of people’s flaws and other viewpoints and he is not. The first real issue I noticed there was a problem here was when I was trying to get a modern worship team started. It was going OK, but he would make comments like ‘that hippie music’ and such.  He said he didn’t mean much by it, but it had a negative effect. I went away for vacation and when I came back he basically tells me that the worship team is no more.  Funny, as the pastor I was constitutionally in charge of ministry – the spiritual head of the church.

I had dealt with powerful influencers in the church before.  If thy are for the most part benevolent then the best course of action is to make them allies if possible. The problem with the Dirty Pig is I would classify him as a traditional obstructionist. That is the preferred a very traditional view of what a church service and function were. If he didn’t like something along these lines, he would pretty much not support it or even actively block it.

His basic tactic was to control the agenda of the church by using his position as the moderator to channel what was talked about and what was not.  I am now firmly convinced in that church, in particular, the moderator is the most powerful position because of this and should have term limits because of it. He also added the fact he maintained a good relationship with enough people to vote both on the council and in the congregation to get what decision he wanted. If the church grew or added people who did not share his view, something would be said by him that would cause them to either backdown or stop attending.  The church could never really grow too big because that gets harder to control and the people in it were his supporters with only a few people that were detractors.

One thing that really bothered me about his attitude, but I could never do much about, is his belief that by being cop he could also be a good pastor.  I would probably tell him now there is no direct correlation and he has no fucking clue what he is doing when it comes to building a church and ministry.  But it is all irrelevant to me now.

In the summer of 2016, I took a sabbatical of one month. I had two issues at the time 1) my faith was starting to crumble, and 2) the church was not going to be able to support me long term unless changes were made and there was no way effective change was going to be made as long as the Dirty Pig kept interfering in everything new I proposed that he didn’t like.  When I got back I wrote a letter to the church board outlining my problems and what needed to be done. A good chunk of it was directed at the Dirty Pig and his church political control, and he knew it.

There were only two responses: 1) One guy who understood I was right said so privately but also didn’t want to fight any more about it.  He stayed on the council long enough to got something for his departed wife done as a memorial and left the church.  2) A second guy who was not on the council challenged the business dealings of the church and was basically silenced through the Dirty Pig’s moderator power. Everyone else stayed in line and stayed quiet.

After that, I basically said to myself:  “This church is going nowhere as long as the Dirty Pig runs it.”  I am just going to come, preach and help people where I can.  I had a couple years of education to do and then I was out. I could do the job and then walk.

Then, of course, Miss Salty came along and kind of upset all that. One day in April of 2018, at a prayer meeting, she bounces in and announces that the Dirty Pig is no longer her favorite person, but I am.  I could see his face.  That “I don’t like to finish in second’ look all over it. I am not saying there was anything romantic in his intentions toward Miss Salty, but like all people who came into his life with problems he always wanted to be the one that ‘fixed’ them, so he could pat himself on the back. The sides were set at that point.

The following events are as best I can reconstruct them in order and true as I know:

  1. Miss Salty and I announced our affair to her aunt and my wife on Sunday evening.  Monday, the Dirty Pig got the news from the aunt and I headed over to his place of business to talk.
  2. I had written my resignation and gave it to him.  He argued four things: 1) That I shouldn’t resign, 2) That I was going to ruin my pastor career, 3) That I was going to not have a future career in anything else. and 4) That I needed to dump is Salty because she was ‘a deranged little girl’ that is never going to amount to much and be an embarrassment to me. My responses: 1) No, I am going to resign. Inside my head, I knew he would use this against me to control me. 2) Didn’t give a shit anymore.  3) Maybe.  But as my one friend would say later, people don’t really care why a pastor leaves the ministry when they switch to something else.  He is right. 4) That’s an interesting opinion of a woman who has a very high opinion of you Mr. Dirty Pig.  I told him I didn’t know where this relationship was going but I knew I loved her and wanted it to be mutual.
  3. One might argue that at this point I should have known the Dirty Pig was dirty, but he told me he would do as I asked and read my resignation and would handle things as my friend. Given all I had done for him over the years pretty much because he was my friend, I was grateful. I trusted him to do the right thing in this regard because of our friendship, and it is what I would have done for him.  I had not seen him be dishonorable in that regard and that was my downfall with him.
  4. On Tuesday, Miss Salty and I broke up the first time.
  5. Wednesday, The Dirty Pig calls me up and asks me to revise my resignation to not have the confession line.  His reasons: not wanting to start gossip in the church and not wanting to drag Miss Salty into this.  I felt the reasons were sound and because I was planning to tell the story myself the next Sunday after, I agreed and told him I would get it to him in the next couple days.
  6. On Friday, I handed him the revised resignation, no confession line in it.
  7. From a conversation I had later in July with Miss Salty, I was made aware that it was also Friday and about the same time that he called her asking her permission to tell the story.
  8. Sunday The Dirty Pig reads my resignation and then tells the story.  This information got back to me as well as the information that the congregation had been whipped into a lynch mob for all practical purposes. I knew then I could not go back and talk to them now as from their perception I was hiding something, which was never my intention.  The Dirty Pig absolute dragged Miss Salty into it and used her, and had every intention of starting gossip in the church to use for his own purposes.
  9. I was also told there was a plan in place to vote for my resignation or to fire me.  They already even had the ballots from one report I got.  That speaks to a lot of intentional planning for a certain result long before the announcement was even made.  Hmmm.
  10. Second Monday, I texted the Dirty Pig as to what was going on?  He never responded and still never has said one thing to me since.
  11. Miss Salty and I began our second dating cycle on Tuesday, In retrospect, my need for someone to talk to given the whole weight of this made me open once again for this relationship.  I was hurting and she was there.

I was fired and then denied any kind fo severance.  They even made it retroactive to May 27th, 2018.  I could probably just walk away from it if it had been fairly treated but I wasn’t.  The deck was stacked against me and I didn’t know it until it was too late.  A person I love was used against me and a congregation I loved turned against me by the Dirty Pig.

Later on August 2nd, as a related in part 1, all this came to the attention of Miss Salty who couldn’t believe The Dirty pig would do that to her..probably.  Through my sources, I learned she called him up when she read my post on August 2nd about this and asked him to refute it.  He wouldn’t talk to her or give her an answer. I guess that was right after she hung up on me for the last time.  After that, she gets high and drunk all the way to the end of the 3rd probably. She found out the hard way what I knew from early June –  I was no longer relevant to the Dirty Pig and now she knew neither was she.

The fact is I now know one thing about him.  If you are no longer of use or you are going to tarnish his precious reputation, he has no problem discarding you. His view of friendship is purely utilitarian.  I would have given him love enough to squash all the rumors and I certainly would have at least have given him time to think about things.  I would have also made sure both sides were represented fairly.  I would take heat for him as a friend too.

There was a ton of rumors at the time and 95% of them were nonsense. Some of them affect my reuniting with my wife so I will deal with them in part three. But I want to set the record straight about my relationship with Miss Salty from May 21st, 2018, to the time of my resignation.

  1. We never had any physical contact beyond holding hands once, hugs and a kiss on the forehead from me to her. There was no sex or sexual conduct.
  2. Our relationship was a lot of ‘I love you’s’ and genuine concern for each other’s happiness and welfare. At least for me, I can’t speak for her.
  3. There were no other women, girls or whatever.  Just Miss Salty.
  4. Miss Salty was a legal and functional adult at the time of this, the entire time. No crime was committed.

The other things that burn me:

  1. That I was never informed at any time of what was happening by any official channel of the church.  I was also fired without once being asked if I could come and defend myself in any way. If it hadn’t been for a few friends, I wouldn’t have known shit.
  2. I currently make more money where I am now and have more benefits than the entire almost decade I served that church.  It seems one mistake costs you a lot of years where I was there for people, held their hands in tragedy and backed and encouraged them. Severance isn’t just about the money.
  3. Very few from the church have come to me to talk to me about this.
  4. They actually sent Miss Salty a voting ballot about my fate. I love the dual accountability. Hammer for me; free pass for her. After all the time they said I was being too soft on her and not treating her like an adult, what they do? Treat her like a child, and actually make her decide something about someone she loved. I applaud her for throwing the thing in the trash.
  5. Because I was fired, I can’t even list anyone from the church a reference because primarily I don’t trust any of them.  But it would be impractical and counterproductive too.
  6. I preached for nine and a half years on grace and forgiveness.  I gave people a lot of grace and we as a church even forgave a couple that actually stole from the church and welcomed them back in. Me – throw me to the wolves.

Some of the rest of the church nonsense comes into play in my marriage discussion, so I will leave it until then.

One last thing, some argue this is the reason for my leaving the faith. Not true, it is more the final crash from a falling faith that started falling back in 2015-2016. My objections to Christianity are theological and philosophical and I will be rewriting them soon in Odin’s Eye for the next month or so.  All this really does is make me thankful I left the world of church politics and hypocritical Christianity behind.  I haven’t been in a church for a service since May 27th, 2018 and I feel so much better for it.  The only justification for a pagan for being hypocritical is making it right or conflict through fire and steel for honor sake.  I will have a message for my church and the Dirty Pig in my last post in this series on Frigg and Freya’s Day.

I remain,

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!

“Year Ago Retrospect (Part 1) – The Breakup” – The Rabyd Skald – The Grey and The Wayfarer – Part 16

/ Ed Raby Sr / 3 Comments

Happy Saturn’s Day

Warning: To my family and friends, this one is going to be as truthful as the old Rabyd Microphone so be advised.  Mostly I feel the need to write this one and the three that will follow for therapeutic reasons.  This also a long post so be prepared to give it some time. 

Year Ago Retrospect will thave three parts:  The Breakup, The Church Nonsense, and Marriage.  I will also write a conclusion post on Frigg and Freya’s Day that is a message to a few people who I no longer have any other avenue to say something to if they read this series and hopefully some final direction for myself.  I am hoping these posts and writing about the events in them will give me some clarity of what to do now that it has been a year.  I knew The Grey would be strong this week, but so far it has been almost overwhelming so…

These will take the place of my normal journal posts this week because in a very real sense they are me journaling my feelings.  Today –  The Breakup.  Moon’s Day – The Church Nonsense.  Wooden’s Day – My Marriage. Frigg and Freya’s Day – Conclusion.  I apologize for any hard or difficult feelings this may cause. I have no doubt that this will cause some.

That said, I feel if I don’t do this, I am going to lose it with memories so strong right now.  The feelings they are causing are so difficult it is hard to keep it together. I need to write about this.  Why? Because it is time to get this out of my system because it is affecting me negatively.  Writing as therapy.  One other thing – please wait to read all the posts before passing complete judgment on me.  Here we go.

A year ago yesterday, my affair with Miss Salty ended with her breaking up with me and then pretty much blocking me on every social media avenue leaving me pretty much alone, lonely and bleeding from my soul. It has now been a year since I have had any sort of contact with her. Life in the Grey has been very difficult ever since.

To understand why this was so, I have to go back a some months before that, so today as a matter of therapeutic writing and to set my side of the story straight as far as I see it, I am going to recount the events of this relationship from roughy January of 2018 to the breakup and a little beyond.  I want to then end with the implications for me today, now that it is a year later.

It is hard to think of this but in January 2018 I was a respected minister of a small church.  That said I was struggling with my faith and had been in that state for several years.  My theological objections to Christianity were there and I was finding no answers and the fact that I was making a living doing something that was based on a faith I no longer had didn’t help my psyche. It was causing quite a crisis of conscience.  I was trying to preach my way back to faith, and it wasn’t working. Then my organist died.

This was significant because it marked the end of an era for my church.  Our pianist had died a couple years before and my main singer had died just a few months before the organist. With my long-time organist dead, there was nothing left in the music realm that I had started with nine years before.  We were also fairly good friends. I liked Jim and understood him and respected him.  I was grieving about it but no one was asking me how I was.

That is the peril of the modern ministry, you look after everyone else but no one looks after you. Into my grief walked Miss Salty. She had been a part of my church since October of 2017 when she left her home because it was an abusive environment. I had befriended her and was trying to counsel her through some issues.  When she saw my grief and depression she recognized it right away and asked me several times how I was doing.  It was honest and genuine and she really wanted to know. She was the only one asking me this genuinely.

At this time, it kind of took our friendship up a notch.  We began to talk a lot and I soon was very amazed at how open I was with her.  The more I got to know her, and she got to know me, the easier it was to talk to her.  I have never had a person get me so quickly and understand me so well that I have been that transparent.  Not even my wife.

I never believed in a soul mate before.  I always looked at relationships with people as something you had to work at because none of them were perfect. But my relationship with Miss Salty began to challenge that notion.  My own marriage at the time was hostile with that kind of passive aggression that makes things mostly unbearable. I had been going to school for three years by this time and my basic plan was to finish my degree, find a new job and then very seriously consider divorcing my wife because it wasn’t working.  If Miss Salty had not come along, I would probably have continued at the church and be finishing the divorce part of the plan right now.

I started to see Miss Salty not just as a friend but a confidant. She kept my secrets and me hers. Looking back my feelings of romantic love started in about late February 2018, a month after her 18th birthday.  I know what people think at this point, so let me stress this, her age didn’t factor in other than had she been under age my responses to some of the events that followed would have been different. I have far too much desire to keep my own freedom to break the law.

She was from the time my feelings started until the end of our affair a legal adult and I am very certain she had the capacity to understand what she was doing. She is smart and has enough life experience to know what people understand is right and wrong.  Our relationship started as a friendship and a damn good one.  The circumstances and our choices that followed led to what happened.  Two people in pain, drawing comfort from one another is how this started. Nothing more and nothing less.

I want to shorten this part of the story, but suffice it to say from February until late May my feelings of love grew for her.  I kept them to myself. I have never been good at starting romantic relationships.  According to her, she started feeling the same in late March.  She was going through a tough time then and I reached out to her and then as April and May went along we grew very close.  I went to her graduation and the day after she flat out asked me if I loved her. I wish she had never asked because I have this thing with telling the truth.

I said yes because it was true. It lasted a week before it came unglued in that neither one of us could take the pressure of trying to keep up the lies to cover this up. She told her aunt and I told my wife. My wife left and we separated. Two days later I was feeling I was going to go down hard, so I deliberately pushed her away to protect her from the fallout. She was smart enough to figure it out and a week later reached out to me saying she wanted to try again.

That week had some other shenanigans I need to talk about because they factor into the breakup later.  On that Monday I handed my original resignation to the church moderator (from now on referred to in these posts as The Dirty Pig) for him to read to the church. The Dirty Pig tried to lecture me; which rubbed me wrong, but he had been a friend for a long time, so I trusted him and handed him my church-key.  The day after Miss Salty and I split the first time he called me and asked me to change my resignation by removing the one sentence that confessed what I had done.

His reasons were that he didn’t want to start gossip in the church at that time and that he didn’t want to drag Miss Salty into this. In retrospect, he read me pretty well.  He knew I still genuinely loved my congregation and Miss Salty and he used both those things. He knew I trusted him and he used that against me as well.  I turned my revised resignation into him on Friday and probably within a half-hour, based on something Miss Salty told me, but she didn’t realize it was a clue to me figuring this out, the Dirty Pig calls her up and asks permission to tell the story. Miss Salty and I were not talking at the time because we had broken up, or The Dirty Pig would have never been able to pull what he did next off.

He reads my resignation and then tells the whole story. My revised resignation didn’t have a confession line anymore, so the whole thing made it look like I was hiding something.  I had planned on showing up the next Sunday to explain the situation myself,  but as I got the report of what happened, I knew that was no longer possible without causing the congregation some major pain.

I am going to stay with Miss Salty here and talk about the church thing in more detail later in my second post.  I have three things that cause The Grey Storm from this time period. The other two besides the breakup are the church issue and my marriage.  But the foremost is the breakup with Miss Salty.

We would date two more times. The second time was truly “let’s try this out”.  She broke up with me on the day I was returning from my friend’s house in Houston, TX in late June. She never gave me a reason that time, but I wrote about it on my blog at the time, because this time I wasn’t going to just suffer in silence.  She cut me off, but not completely as she kept one social media avenue open.

It was through this avenue that we restarted our friendship because both of us missed that.  The problem was staying just friends.  It was soon friends with benefits. Not the actual physical kind as this entire time we were separated by about 40 miles of distance with neither one of us having a transportation method to see each other.  Things might have turned out very differently if we had possessed this.  The one thing I expressed early on is that I loved her and I knew I couldn’t remain just friends. After a couple days she sends me a short video expressing that she still loved me too.

In late July, she did something I didn’t expect.  She asked me to marry her.  I haven’t mentioned this to anyone but my wife and our counselor until now. At least I don’t think I have, but it is probably time to do so. I said yes. A little untraditional but I was happy to accept because I was very much in love with her.  For the days leading up to the last breakup, I was never happier.  I have never felt like that before or since.  I finally got a job interview and things were looking up.

August 2nd, 2018 is a day I will not probably ever forget.   I got up and everything was normal in the sense that Miss Salty and I were loving and she even gave me a pep talk for my interview. I borrowed my mom’s car feeling on top of the world and I nailed the interview and got offered a job.  I felt great, better than I had in years.  I was finally taking the first steps to all that I wanted at the time.  On the way home, she texts me that we need to talk.  I knew something was wrong because the usual “I love you” was missing.

I had written on the subject of the Dirty Pig’s involvement in my firing and what I had ultimately discovered above a week before this on The Rabyd Microphone.  Miss Salty finally got to read it that day and she was upset.  I think she thought I was lying about some of it, but I wasn’t.  The hammer dropped.  We had talked the day before about her drama class and how she was a good actress, and I mentioned I would have liked to see that. That moment she told me that I already had seen her act.  That some of the things she had been doing with me were an act.  I told her I didn’t believe her and started to cry.  The conversation was one of me asking ‘why?’ through my tears and her going through a lot of reasons that didn’t make sense to me and still don’t.  I guess in retrospect I am just a stupid old man that fell in love with the wrong woman.

The problem for me now is I still have more questions than answers.  I don’t know whether she was genuine or not.  I know the next day she got high and drunk.  That is the actions of someone in love trying to forget it.  I know I cried for the next few days and felt very close to losing it. Like my sanity.  I suppose the spirit that would become The Grey Wayfarer was born at this time, and it kept me sane.  It also probably helped that a few days later on Facebook she had posted a picture of her holding hands with someone else.

The questions remain: 1) Did she love me or was it truly an act? 2) Is it possible that I loved her but she didn’t love me back?  She sure fooled me if that is the case.  3) What does this say about me now? 4) Will this scar in my heart ever heal?  Probably not completely.

It has been a year; I still struggle with this.  I suppose it is a testimony to the fact my love was genuine toward her and that makes me feel somewhat decent about the whole thing. I wasn’t acting or lying that was for sure.  I wrote once that maybe she was the smart one and did what needed to be done so neither of us would face the ire of our respective families. It would have been a hard relationship for those we love. But to be with one’s soul mate?  Maybe she was to me, but I wasn’t to her. I don’t know and it is this ignorance that haunts my thoughts.

All I know is my personality is such that I never truly fall out of love with any woman I have loved.  I just don’t seem to have the capacity to completely kill that love or even be angry at that woman.  Even with my wife, I never wished her ill or was angry enough to harm her.  It was this love for my wife, as small as it was that lead me to reach out to try to reconcile. But that is the story for another The Grey and The Wayfarer.  Until then maybe some of you that have taken the time to read all this can offer me some wisdom as to how to deal with my pain over this. I don’t believe time heals everything, I think this is one thing that will remain with me for the rest of my life.  But is there a better way to cope?

Yes. I know I am an idiot. But it is something I struggle with.  Miss Salty gave me a couple final instructions: 1) To try to find someone else and 2) focus on my writing.  In the end, the second one has led to this blog: The Grey Wayfarer. But, it also means that the memory of her haunts my steps every time I write.  I have lost something and I wander to find it and wonder if I ever will.

I remain,

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!

“Fantasy Hedge Nuptials” – The Skald’s Lyre

/ Ed Raby Sr / Leave a comment

Happy Saturn’s Day

Musical Journal:

I doubt anyone but a very few who have followed me for a long time would understand the meaning of both the image and the title of this post. Only one person, that I know of, knows the full meaning of what I am writing about and the songs I am about to select.  Only one person knows why this is the day I choose to post them. Whether or not she even reads me anymore, I have no fucking clue.  But if she does, here are my thoughts on a day that was supposed to be something but turned into nothing.

What I do know is that I have been either calm because I have been busy, but every time I have too much time to think about things, this comes up and the combination of sadness and rage begins. I handle it, of course, like I always do, but it means shutting down to the cold side. That is not the side I like very much.  My other alternative is music. The problem is the songs I find in my memory or that I think revolve around this non-existent event that was supposed to be today.  Only one-way then left to deal with it – write about it and get it out of my system.

Disclaimer: This is a raw one, so be advised.  Although I might just post the songs and leave it at that.  You know that is probably the best idea:  Just a playlist this week.  Make your own meaning out of it. Me – I am just trying to sing my way through The Grey.  The one thing I will say is not every word of every song applies to how I feel about this whole thing, but there is some line in every song that does.

Playlist:

400LUX – Lorde:

All of Me – John Legend:

Familiar Taste of Poison – Halestorm:

Just Give Me a Reason – Pink:

Somebody That I Used to Know – Gotye:

Bonus Tracks:

Bad Romance – Lady Gaga:

Incomplete – Back Street Boys:

A toast then, to the fantasy hedge nuptials that never came to be.  Too bad, because at least the music and poetry would have been epic.

I remain,

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!

“Early Pagan Culture – Asatru (Part 2)” – The Pagan Pulpit

/ Ed Raby Sr / Leave a comment

Happy Sun’s Day

Announcements:

We don’t pray here – we figure God, the gods, goddesses, or whatever powers that be either know already, don’t give a fuck, or are busy with more important matters than our petty stuff. We also kind of assume that they expect us to do stuff that we can do for ourselves and that we will do them ourselves and not be lazy. We also believe in being good friends, so we don’t presume on our friendship with the powers that be by asking them all the time for stuff while giving them nothing in return.

We also don’t take an offering here.  We figure the powers that be probably don’t need it.  Let’s be honest, offerings are not given to the divine powers, they are given to an organization to support it.  Just being honest. God, the gods or whatever never sees a dime, farthing or peso of that money; it all goes to the church, mosque or shrine.

Theme Song: “Ancestors” – Lila Lilly

youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWcMO8020X4&w=1072&h=603%5D

 

Meditation:

Image may contain: 1 person, beard and outdoor, text that says 'Proud Odin's Sons When I give you my time I'm giving you a portion of my life that I can never get back. Please don't make me regret it.'

 

People’s time has value.  Learn to respect that and you will go a long way to understanding how to properly influence people without manipulation or coercion. Also by making people respect your time you will go a long way to learning to respect yourself.

Text:

See the source image

If you want more details about Asatru, I can’t recommend this book enough.

Sermon:

My focus as I read the book in this first section on Asatru’s ‘history’ was to note at what spiritual concepts were being developed.  As the people migrated but as agriculture also became more prominent. People began to settle but some continued to move around and engage in trade. Governments began to form as a way to deal with human interactions and threats.  In all of this spirituality and religion began to develop.

In all of this certain spiritual concepts and ideas were started and began:

  1. The hearth or fire becomes sacred both to spirituality and religion at this time.  The fire was life and progress but also dangerous so it had that mysterious quality to our ancestors that they began to see as spiritual.  Home and hearth develop at this time as more than just nice feelings but as the center of belief in the gods.
  2. Various pantheons began to spring up all over Northern Europe and the idea of being spiritually inspired becomes common.  It is the nature of many of the words that mean inspire that also correspond to the god Odin as his name and the root of ‘inspire’ are the same.
  3. The number three becomes sacred.
  4. There is some evidence that by the bronze age, a trained priesthood existed.
  5. Magic as a concept begins and is practiced.

In the Norse lands, you begin to see the development of rituals involving ships, wagons, phallic men with weapons. There is a golden-haired goddess.  You see carved representations and pictures that probably represent the earliest forms of Odin, Thor and Freya worship. Marriage rituals are started here.

The point of all this is to point out that Norse ancestors were developing a fairly sophisticated form of religion and spirituality long before Christ and Christianity.  Long before any of the invasions by the Abrahamic religions.  The people that would become the Vikings, were very much about the hearth, home, fertility, and being courageous in battle.  What we need to understand is that no one was forced into this, it is simply what happened as these people looked at the world around them and tried to find answers to the things they didn’t understand.

Pagans respect each individual own spiritual walk.  They don’t impose their views on others because that is not how their religion developed.  Each person participated as much as they wished in the way they wished.  You actually see this very early on. It is a deep understanding of these ancestors that Asatru takes as its roots.

Parting Thought:

 

Image may contain: one or more people, beard, text and closeup

What you are is apparent to everyone.  Live your life and the accolades will come to you as you deserve them and who you are will be apparent.  No need to brag about it.  Those that do are often lying.

I remain,

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!