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Well, fuck.
Today is shaping up to be one hell of a fucking Monday.
I’m worried sick for two separate friends, one who I have a fairly good idea of what’s going on, and another, where I have no fucking clue and I am warring between asking for details and my native instinct which says it’s none of my damn business and to mind said business.
My industry and fandom in general are shitting the bed in truly spectacular fashion and have been for the past few days where I alternately am horrified and spectacularly enraged at the bad behaviors on both sides of the damn issue and where anyone daring to take a middle or moderate position is immediately branded a traitor to a cause that I didn’t know we had to join in fucking lock-step.
And on top of this, the Columbia J-School review of the Rolling Stone UVA rape article basically boiled down to they should never have trusted the source, not, oh, I don’t know, the journo should have done her fucking job and y’know, reported and followed *all* leads, not just the cherry-picked one that fit her thesis. Ditto the editors and fact-checkers. Gods, I’ve had professors who would have annihilated me for that sort of error. On the same hand, do I think people should be fired over that error? I don’t know. I’m not in a position to know and make that sort of judgment and I’m rather sick of people making those sorts of judgments when they’re not in on the situation. That level requires information and direct closeness to the situation that I sure as shit don’t have and neither do most of the people I am reading. But gods, that doesn’t stop them from mouthing off from a place lacking of even a grain of compassion or empathy.
Speaking of errors, I made a rather spectacular one recently too and I’m correcting it, but sometimes it’s not enough and it all winds around to a concept that isn’t really mine it’s my husband’s, because it’s not a concept in Wicca, and it’s this:
Grace.
As in Divine Grace.
As in the idea of salvation and forgiveness of sin. As in the belief that it is possible to learn from our mistakes and the past and become better people, rather than dragging our errors behind us forever and ever like some sadistic and psychotic ball and fucking chain or being punished for said errors for ever and ever, because gods, what fuck ups we are and should be punished. As in the idea that unmerited mercy (because let’s be honest, no one is ever going to fucking agree what actually fucking merits motherfucking *mercy*) is a gift and one to be given over and over, unstintingly, because for the love of all the gods that ever were or ever will be, we need all the help we can get.
As in, for a damn fucking change, can we assume the best of people and ascribe humanity to the people on the other side of wherever from us instead of immediately assuming the fucking worst?
Is that just too fucking much to ask?
Apparently.
Apparently forgiveness and compassion and empathy are too rare and expensive for anyone to deploy anymore.
I’m just done.
I feel like shit. I hate making mistakes, but I also refuse to be crucified for them or treated like shit because I made one. I work to make amends. I work to understand. I work to forgive and remember, remember, fucking remember, that the others are there and just as human and fallible as I. I never deny the lived experience of another person, because I know, there but for the grace of all the fucking gods, go I.
We’re all just human.
I know I’m not alone.
I won’t let this drive me from the internet as it has driven so many of my friends. I will not stop believing in the innate goodness of my fellow human and their ability to overcome enormous and terrible odds. Because I have seen us do it before.
I will stand.
From one screw-up to another, I believe in us. I believe that we can be forgiven, even though as a Witch, I don’t see why we need to forgiven for just being us. I believe that we can make amends and restitution and reparation without those actions being used to punish and torture us into the opposite extreme. And that we can know where that line is and push back when we’re pushed to suffer more than whatever the crime or error warrants.
I believe in balance.
The only Unforgiveable in my lexicon is this. Refusing to acknowledge the humanity of others and refusing to take responsibility for our own actions and lives. There it is again. Balance.
We’re not all aggrieved and we’re not all agressors. The truth is always somewhere in the middle.
Which is where you’ll find me. Because I’m with the Hindus on this one. Grace, for me, is the ultimate key required for spiritual self-realization. If you want, call that salvation. Unearned, unasked for, unremarked mercy, and the possibility of a future filled with hope.
Yeah.
I don’t know if this makes any damn sense.
tl;dr Beloved Gods, show us mercy. For we have none to show for ourselves.
Today is shaping up to be one hell of a fucking Monday.
I’m worried sick for two separate friends, one who I have a fairly good idea of what’s going on, and another, where I have no fucking clue and I am warring between asking for details and my native instinct which says it’s none of my damn business and to mind said business.
My industry and fandom in general are shitting the bed in truly spectacular fashion and have been for the past few days where I alternately am horrified and spectacularly enraged at the bad behaviors on both sides of the damn issue and where anyone daring to take a middle or moderate position is immediately branded a traitor to a cause that I didn’t know we had to join in fucking lock-step.
And on top of this, the Columbia J-School review of the Rolling Stone UVA rape article basically boiled down to they should never have trusted the source, not, oh, I don’t know, the journo should have done her fucking job and y’know, reported and followed *all* leads, not just the cherry-picked one that fit her thesis. Ditto the editors and fact-checkers. Gods, I’ve had professors who would have annihilated me for that sort of error. On the same hand, do I think people should be fired over that error? I don’t know. I’m not in a position to know and make that sort of judgment and I’m rather sick of people making those sorts of judgments when they’re not in on the situation. That level requires information and direct closeness to the situation that I sure as shit don’t have and neither do most of the people I am reading. But gods, that doesn’t stop them from mouthing off from a place lacking of even a grain of compassion or empathy.
Speaking of errors, I made a rather spectacular one recently too and I’m correcting it, but sometimes it’s not enough and it all winds around to a concept that isn’t really mine it’s my husband’s, because it’s not a concept in Wicca, and it’s this:
Grace.
As in Divine Grace.
As in the idea of salvation and forgiveness of sin. As in the belief that it is possible to learn from our mistakes and the past and become better people, rather than dragging our errors behind us forever and ever like some sadistic and psychotic ball and fucking chain or being punished for said errors for ever and ever, because gods, what fuck ups we are and should be punished. As in the idea that unmerited mercy (because let’s be honest, no one is ever going to fucking agree what actually fucking merits motherfucking *mercy*) is a gift and one to be given over and over, unstintingly, because for the love of all the gods that ever were or ever will be, we need all the help we can get.
As in, for a damn fucking change, can we assume the best of people and ascribe humanity to the people on the other side of wherever from us instead of immediately assuming the fucking worst?
Is that just too fucking much to ask?
Apparently.
Apparently forgiveness and compassion and empathy are too rare and expensive for anyone to deploy anymore.
I’m just done.
I feel like shit. I hate making mistakes, but I also refuse to be crucified for them or treated like shit because I made one. I work to make amends. I work to understand. I work to forgive and remember, remember, fucking remember, that the others are there and just as human and fallible as I. I never deny the lived experience of another person, because I know, there but for the grace of all the fucking gods, go I.
We’re all just human.
I know I’m not alone.
I won’t let this drive me from the internet as it has driven so many of my friends. I will not stop believing in the innate goodness of my fellow human and their ability to overcome enormous and terrible odds. Because I have seen us do it before.
I will stand.
From one screw-up to another, I believe in us. I believe that we can be forgiven, even though as a Witch, I don’t see why we need to forgiven for just being us. I believe that we can make amends and restitution and reparation without those actions being used to punish and torture us into the opposite extreme. And that we can know where that line is and push back when we’re pushed to suffer more than whatever the crime or error warrants.
I believe in balance.
The only Unforgiveable in my lexicon is this. Refusing to acknowledge the humanity of others and refusing to take responsibility for our own actions and lives. There it is again. Balance.
We’re not all aggrieved and we’re not all agressors. The truth is always somewhere in the middle.
Which is where you’ll find me. Because I’m with the Hindus on this one. Grace, for me, is the ultimate key required for spiritual self-realization. If you want, call that salvation. Unearned, unasked for, unremarked mercy, and the possibility of a future filled with hope.
Yeah.
I don’t know if this makes any damn sense.
tl;dr Beloved Gods, show us mercy. For we have none to show for ourselves.
