Person of Faith

I am a blogger, but not a blogger of faith.  I like my blog, I like talking about cooking, my family, my life.  I don't talk about politics if I can avoid it, I rarely talk religion, and well, I try to avoid anything controversial.  At least here.  On my private personal blog where I am able to be slightly anonymous, though not very well, as I've been out here a long time, and have been followed from blog to blog happily, I do sometimes say things that could be controversial.  And I have no problem doing it.  neither here nor there has enough readers anymore that I have to worry, and I haven't had a troll since I left the blog I created after Aiden was born.

Anyhow, after that strange little blurb, I do have to say that while I don't blog about my faith, I am not ashamed of it, I do not hide it, I am a very happy out of the broom closet witch.  If you know me, you know my beliefs.  I do not hide them.  I also do not throw them in anyone's face.  Faith is a discussion that only comes up if someone asks me about it, you will not find me bringing my own faith up unless something like what happened yesterday happens.

What happened yesterday?  A blogger got extremely upset that Circle of Mom's contest for the best 25 faith based blogs included pagan moms.  Here is the link.  Read it, and then come back.  That way I don't have to quote her here.  You back?  Was that as disturbing to you as it was to me?  I would think, as a mom of faith, any faith, you would be disturbed.  Isn't this kind of hate mongering supposed to be done and over with? 

Anyhow, this blogger went from being #2 on the list to being removed from the contest.  Some people say she removed herself because she didn't want to be part of a list that allowed such evil things, and some people say she was removed by Circle of Moms, because she violated the TOS with her hate filled post.  I don't really care, I'm just glad she's not on the list anymore.

What gets me now is that this incident, this hate filled post, this spewing of some of the nastiest prejudice against my faith I have seen in a long time has had the opposite effect than I think she was looking for.  If you look now at the list of moms, you notice that the pagan mom she attacked the most is now in the #1 spot.  With more than a 300 point lead.  What she did, with her hate, was get the pagan community to rally up and support their own.  It got those of us who usually don't involve ourselves in these contests, who don't make our faith a big part of our online persona, stand up and say, hey, I am a mom, I am a faith based mom, I am pagan, I am proud, and I am for sure NOT EVIL.  And then we vote for the pagans on the list, and if you are like me, vote for the muslim and jewish moms on the list as well, since the main point of this mom's post was that the Christian Faith was the only faith, the only right faith, and well, even though she only attacked pagan blogs, muslim and jewish moms aren't christian moms and are probably lumped in with her idea of those who don't deserve to be on the list.

I may be in a religion that is thought of as a minority, but we have proven ourselves to not be less, and to be more, than anyone expected.  And I am proud to stand up and be a mom of faith, a pagan mom of faith, and know that those in my faith are standing up and shouting WE ARE HERE and WE WILL BE HEARD but not in a nasty hate filled way, and my heart, it is full of happiness that one of ours is in the #1 space.

Anyhow, this got a bit out of control, but if you want to vote, for whomever floats your boat, here is the link to the contest.  One of the things I liked the most about this whole thing:  I found new blogs to read.  And one of them was even of the Christian variety.  She had some awesome looking recipes.  :)