Then I have to go through the business of explaining myself. Disconcerting it is indeed but valuable. For in the process of explaining, I rediscover why I have always been a follower of Asatru since first reading the Religion of the Northmen.
Why me, why do I believe ? The simplest reason is that the monotheism of my upbringing is philosophically and morally bankrupt. The problem of evil remains a problem. No theologian has adequately explained why the one God who created all, knows all, is all powerful and so forth, so devised the universe so that a portion of all sentiate beings is condemned to damnation after death and error and agony before.
The whole monotheist world view makes the universe a giant game of solitaire played by some capricious entity who changes the rules at whim and condemns not only those who can not accept the changes but those that never heard of them. An odd and vengeful being he is this God, and I feel that, given my perception of his malice, I could not submit to him even if I believed in him. It would be so undignified.
I stand dumbfounded as I hear his followers tell me that he created the universe out of nothing. They are astonished when I suggest that then, really, the universe is made of nothing. They can not comprehend that the meaning they blather about is much more a myth by their description of things than anything they see as myth in what I believe. How can that which is made of nothing, that which is essentially just a dream of a deity, have meaning.
I on the other hand, know that it was not the Gods that made the universe but the interaction of the universe's primeval elements which created the Gods who then went on to shape the world in their image.
The universe, to a follower of Asatru, is a work of art and life. The Gods stand for life in an eternal struggle against chaos and death. When man stands for life, he stands with the Gods. When he creates anything, he is one with them.
But the follower of Asatru knows tragedy as well. He knows that the order of the universe and the Gods as well shall fall. Shall die in glorious and bitter defeat.A new world may arise but the dragon's shadow will fall over it as well. There are no Sunday School or Kindergarten happy endings. Odin, Thor, Frey, all our brave heros and comrades among the Aesir and Vanir will face that which we face, death. And in this, our Gods become heroic as no other Gods are. No other Gods face doom.
At which point my monotheist friend gapes.Yes, I say, my Gods face Death and you ask why follow them? Because death and life are intermixed. Because my Gods are close enough to my own nature for me to admire them in their ceaseless joy, courage, fertility, and creativity in their life, and of course to try to emulate them in their facing of their own doom. Because to die well, as they shall, will give the new world a clean start.
No, I do not beg anything of my Gods. They gave me in the very creation of man and woman all I need: life, mind ,will ,emotion. What else could I want ? When I address them, it is in admiration as to acknowledge my part in what they have made. It is to call upon that which is of them, in me. After all, the Gods did not make man to worship them. They have no need of that. They made man as a work of art, as a reflection of them in Midgard.
Reflection is the key. I follow Asatru because it reflects the world , the mythos of the Northman at once joyful and bitter, cosmic and homey, comic and tragic, unbelievable and full of truth, is I think, a genuine paradyne of reality. impersonal, personal and transpersonal. It does not tell me what to do but it shows me how to live.
Lastly, Asatru does not claim to be the only truth but a truth discovered by a people. For others, there to are other truths. So Asatru, like all Pagan Religions is tolerant. Disrespectful at times perhaps, but tolerant. It does not therefore, try to press people into molds. That particular horror is the pastime of the monotheist, each of whom, thinks that his is the only way.
Here I stand, Pagan, follower of Asatru, mistrustful of structures and churches in general. The Gods made me a free man, not the servant of a dogma, or a nation, or a God. They made me of the substance of the universe, of ultimately, their substance. So if I wish to care for myself, I must tend this Midgard as best I can and guard it.
Hail Odin, Hail Thor, Hail Frey and lovely Freya. My love and everyone's, if they but knew it. Hail to all my friends among the Aesir and Vanir.
