by Aldus Marius on Tue Oct 02, 2007 6:49 am
Salve, mi Corneli!
I can't scare you...you're a Roman!! That one single thing, that commonality, overrides all else in the Societas Via Romana. We're rare enough, we're thin enough on the ground, that we can't really afford to turn any Roman away for any reason not having to do with his or her personal conduct.
Na, I save the light projectiles for the kinds of people who use religion to try to tell me what to do, think, feel, or believe. You know, the ones who say I can't just find God, I have to find Him in church--their church, of course; or that if I haven't undergone this-or-that ritual I'm not a real adherent; or that if enough people are made nervous by the way I am, I need to either become someone else or leave the assembly. (I actually took them up on that, out of respect; which is why I celebrate my God down by the creek in the middles of thunderstorms, and not anywhere more mannerly or constricted.)
Nobody persecutes here, and nobody evangelises. Each member comes into the discussion with his or her own background, preconceptions, sometimes misconceptions, experiences and beliefs. We share them in a spirit of enjoying each others' company and of expanding our awareness of the wisdom that dwells within every tradition. Some of us have had unhappy encounters with other sets of beliefs, or sometimes with our own, and our comments will reflect this at times. But for a friendly, level-headed, yet heartfelt conversation about spirituality, our own and others', the Collegium Religionem is one of the most comfortable venues I've participated in...the other one being late nights backstage at the Renaissance Faires, where philosophy and spirit wheel as freely as the falconer's birds, or the stars overhead in their courses.
We've always heard "Christians" and "Romans" in the media presented as if they were two opposing sides of something. Frequently forgotten on both the Christian and the "pagan" ends of the debate are that very many of the early Christians were Roman citizens, including military men like myself (thus giving the lie to those who held that Christianity was only fit for the weak).
I've a bone to pick with St Augustine of Hippo, who in his City of God dismissed just about all the Roman cultural values as mere pride and vainglory. Those values mean more to me than anything any Church official, of any denomination, has to say about them. Furthermore, I don't find them incompatible with the values of Christianity; to put it in computer talk, either OS, if run properly, will turn out a damn fine human being. Anyone who can respect that approach has nothing at all to fear from Wolf-Marius and his variable cohort of small but vigorous dogs. >({|:-) }(:o}
In amicitia et fide,
Aldus Marius Peregrinus.