Put Down Your Pitchforks!
This is the fourteenth in a series of guest blog posts by up-and-coming author, Suzanne Hersey. Her first book, Faith Food Family, is available now from Iaconagraphy Press!
Okay, put down your brooms, pitchforks, torches, or other weapons for just a few minutes and hear me out. This is not me telling you that you have to live or practice a certain way. This is my journey, and maybe walking alongside me for a few minutes here will help heal a wound or thousand just a bit.
Christ did not make me change my path; He did not say that I was broken because of who I love or how I connect with above, below, and in-between. My mother was an Irish Italian Catholic and she put magick into her food every single time, the unknowing Kitchen Witch: food as love. People drove me away from an institutionalized religion that has already strayed so far from what it should be. But once it was my home, a sanctuary during the darkest times in my teenage years; a place I could run away to and feel safe when my older brother’s addiction terrorized me. There were two priests at the church my family belonged to who started laying the road to who I am today. Father Blute told me I could be anyone I wanted, do anything I wanted in life, if I would simply be kind and learn when to let my faith be my shield and sword against pain and hate. He let me be the first girl to serve as an Altar Server in our parish. I carried the cross that was so much bigger than my tiny self on May the first, out to the courtyard, and I stood there, and we laid flowers for the Virgin Mary, and I felt Her presence, calming and strong, and I knew then that womanhood was powerful. Father Steve was young, handsome, and so wise. He was there to help and be a friend to me and to my parents as my brother’s addiction ate away at all we were. He was there to help my brother find recovery. He was there many years later, after leaving the priesthood, to stand silently at my mother’s funeral and then wrap me in the arms that had so many times sheltered this damaged little girl and told her that I was loved by Christ, because of my damage, not despite it. It was in great part because of those two men that I tried to teach Sunday school; tried to give those sixth grade students, so attached to their phones, a tiny glimmer of hope that there was something bigger out there, connecting to them, if only they would see the bigger picture. I tried to teach them that Faith takes work, sacrifice, and study, and love. Beyond all else, love.
When the people finally pushed me too far, lecturing my children on how being anything but heterosexual, abstinent, and obedient was unacceptable and that their friend who took his own life because the pain he would not share with anyone had just gotten too much would go to hell, I gave it up. I leapt onto the path I was truly born for and I started to teach my kids, their friends, and anyone else that would hear me that those things were not the truth. They were all perfectly themselves: we all have work to do all of the time and we need to move forward but maybe, just maybe, not leave Christ behind, on a cross, punished for that which the people do.
I talk about having the Gods, Goddesses, and the “Other” in my home, not just those that are a part of my practice, but also those that my loved ones and guests connect with. My children are still Catholic, though they practice in their own way and they live more Christ-like than the church teaches, like the Prophet intended: with kindness, respect, and acceptance. When they come for dinner, and when I go to meals at my siblings’ homes, Christ is there. It is like seeing an old friend that I don’t keep up with all that often, and He is checking in and proud and happy for the life I have built. If you come to my Hearth to share a meal, your Gods come with you, and I welcome Them. I may not become close friends with Them, but I serve Them a loving, magickal meal, as I would any respectful guest. Got Fairies? Yup, they are more than welcome to sup with my Puckwedgies in the pretty little ve in our yard. Work with Kali Ma? She is welcome to my softest chairs, fluffiest pillows, and playtime with my cats.
I know so many of us have been damaged by churches, people, bibles, and fundamentalism. But are we not doing the same by shutting out the Prophet who tried to change the world? Are we not disconnecting in some way from the conscious collective if we shun Gods or Goddesses that want to meet us? Maybe They don’t expect to have our devotion, our attention even, but if you love and respect the Witch They work with, shouldn’t you do the same for Them? If we expect, as outliers, to be accepted by our communities, should we not do the same in some way?
If you give a mouse a cookie,
If You Give A Mouse a Cookie, by Laura Numeroff
He’s going to ask for a glass of milk.
When you give him the milk, he’ll probably ask you for a straw.
When he’s finished, he’ll ask for a napkin.
Then he will want to look in a mirror to make sure he doesn’t have a milk mustache.
When he looks into the mirror, he might notice his hair needs a trim. So he will probably ask for a pair of nail scissors.
When he’s finished giving himself a trim, he’ll want a broom to sweep up. He’ll start sweeping. He might get carried away and sweep every room in the house. He may even end up washing the floors as well!
If you give a Goddess a cookie, She will ask for a sip of wine. When you give to Her the wine, She will probably ask you for a flame. When you light the candle for Her, She will tell you a secret. When the secret is shared, She may go from you with the one that brought Her, but that secret will be yours to keep and grow. She did not pass through and leave you empty, though you do not worship Her. She took that cookie, wine, and flame and left you just a little bit more magickal….
