Ramblings of a Pagan Guy: Stupid Cliches we use

Over the years, I have found that many a person has this strange idea when it comes to the Pagan faiths. It as if, you know as soon as one converts, they [the pagan] are thrown back to the middles ages. People have this rather quirky notion that pots and pans turn into wands and broomsticks, that tables and chair turning to sacrificial altars and stone circles. At best, many people think that once one devotes themselves to the God and Goddess, reality bleeds away is magically replaced with Hogwarts schools and Weasly like houses. At worse, they believe that our God and Goddess are just whores, or the Christian devil. With this miniblog series, it is my hope to not only document my time growing as a Pagan, but to address these and many more misunderstood concepts so that we will be see as people. We are not the demons some people try to make us out to be.

When I somehow manage to get myself out of bed, which usually involves an unnecessary amount of screaming and cursing, I liked to start my day out with a little ritual. I enjoy some lemon aid, more toast than anyone should eat, and a nice helping of thinkprogress for my news. While every news program, website and blog has a agenda and bias of some sort, I find that thinkprogress at least makes it tolerable for a bit. While I was scanning the numerous stories of how Mitt Rommy managed to screw yet another thing up, and even more numerous comments on it, I found a random link to "10 Cliches Christian's should never use". Written and later expanded upon by Christian Piatt, it gave some interesting insight to how some "religious" sayings can just be mean, or down right insulting. From the first paragraph I knew it was going to be good;

"We Christians have a remarkable talent for sticking our feet in our mouths. When searching the words most commonly associated with “Christian,” the list ain’t pretty. I think part of this can be attributed to a handful of phrases that, if stricken from our vocabulary, might make us a little more tolerable. Yes, these things may mean something to you, but trust me, non-Christians don’t share your love for these tried-and-true cliches."

If you are interested here is part one and part two.

Religious Nuts Exposed: God Bless America (2012)

 

Awarded to the Westboro Baptist Church

The Westboro Baptist Church (or WBC) is an Independent Baptist “church” known for its extreme stance against homosexuality, other religions, and anything else that tickles their fancy. They are also known for their greatly offensive protest activities against fallen service men/woman and high profile aka popular people. In this special section, we will explore their hateful and distorted “divine” teachings and expose them for what they truly are, a hate group who uses religion for personal power.


So, I was planning to take a break from How the WBC Fails series to take time to write about other things in my life, most importantly my faith. I really want to take the time and write about the many wonderful things my faith has gifted to me. I want to write about how it opened my eyes and calmed my mind. I want to write about how the God and Goddess has helped me so. While many others may see Paganism as of the devil, we who are actually informed, see our faith, our religion, our heart, as joining with the natural world and coming to terms with ourselves. Yes I know it's a run on sentence, but I really don't care :) For the most part, this is still the case. Ramblings of a Pagan Guy: Light and dark is sitting in my draft section ready to be finished. However, I just had to point Firefox over to twitter (and Facebook). As anyone with a desk job can tell you, this is disastrous.  

A how to guide to kill the WBC! Wut?

Rambling of a Working Guy: Working with People (2)

 
No matter what field of work you are in, be it in the office building, a stall at the local mall, Best Buy or Walmart, even a game room with hordes of children or street corner doing… whatever it is you do, there is always that one thing that pisses us all off. The customer, source of all evil (and income) for our way of life. From pure idiotic actions and sayings you wonder how they continue to reproduce. Ramblings of a Working Guy talks about the various "joyful" events these idiots give us.

During this festive time of year, we are suppose to inspire and spread cheer, good will, and peace to all. What actually happens is declaring all out war with anyone. Sad really. I mean just look around you, you have malls crowded with hoards of rampaging gits ready to spill blood for some stupid toy, you have people (really really) pounding down doors to get into stores, you have this silly "The war on Christmas". Not to mention the people who just enjoy complaining and causing drama. So in the spirit of this "festive" time, I thought I go about listing the common complaints we retail workers have to deal with every single year.  

Ramblings of a Working Guy: What Parents should be

And why you see here is a rare sight of a parent giving a damn

No matter what field of work you are in, be it in the office building, a stall at the local mall, Best Buy or Walmart, a game room with hordes of children or street corner doing… whatever it is you do, there is always something that pisses you off.  Come my working class brothers and sisters; let us take some joy in the idiocy that is the source of our discontent, the customer.

So I'm just sitting here doing a whole lot of nothing, and you know what comes to mind? Is Lee doing well at work? I wonder if the new inventory will be in soon. Should I start on the list for myself and Lauryn now? Should I order more tickets? I wonder what Monday's reports will show about my various tweaks to the game room. How is the FEC doing? Should I ask Lisa for another meeting to throw around some more ideas? Maybe I should think of something to get us and the restaurant working more closely together? Oh crap, I need to visit three more day cares on Tuesday to make up for what I missed on Friday...

That's right its all about fracking(*1) work.

It's eleven at night, and all I can think about it is work. Where normal people would be watching TV, killing internet dragon or even sleeping, I am up worrying about a million different shit things. What is even worse is the fact I am ok with it. Despite all the complaints about the customers I have, I really love my job (mostly), and I don't mind the work. I’m a fracking horse, people. A horse. But living my life with a smile plastered to my face is making my teeth hurt, not to mention my soul and sanity, So like any other normal person, I need to bitch and moan sometimes to let off the steam. To many times we of the working class are treated as slaves and pets, all because someone with a dollar has a attitude.

Believe it or not, we do not give up our humanity when we put on a uniform. 

Yes I am a person, and you are too. But you know what? Today isn't about the million and one customers who need to burn like the sun, or be merrily thrown into traffic and laughed at. This is about a really cool story bro, and you know what really makes the cool stories? It's the customers that don't suck. The story of one such customer is what I want to share with you today.

Rambling of a Working Man: Some place to start, right?

No matter what field of work you are in my Working Class brother or sister, be it in the office building, a stall at the local mall, Best Buy or Walmart, even a game room with hordes of children or street corner doing… whatever it is you do, there is always that one thing that pisses us all off. The customer, source of all evil (and income) for our way of life. From pure idiotic actions and sayings you wonder how they continue to reproduce. Ramblings of a Working Guy talks about the various "joyful" events these idiots give us.


Humans.

Despite the races of ape’s best efforts, the whole of the human race still exists within the natural cycle. We can be cruel and destructive like the raging unrelenting storm, yet loving and caring like the spring in bloom. Two completely different sides of the very same coin. With a wide range of moods, ideas, and beliefs, it's amazing we have lived together this long. Have you ever worked with people? Answering phones, taking and asking questions, or even general customer care? From constant nonsense rambling, to the constant put down and belitting, one wonders how the job department continues on… If this wasn't bad enough for my fellow workers, there is the one customer that takes this all to a whole new level. The idiot. While some of their childish unintelligent crap and be amusing at times to watch, most of the time they just leave you with a headache.  This series of the book of stories is to share with you some for the just wonderful stories I have from work.


And so, I would like to share some of these with you now.