{"id":9356,"date":"2014-01-01T01:10:43","date_gmt":"2014-01-01T06:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paganpages.org\/content\/?p=9673"},"modified":"2014-01-03T18:34:42","modified_gmt":"2014-01-03T23:34:42","slug":"spiritual-seeker-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2014\/01\/01\/spiritual-seeker-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Spiritual Seeker"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m not a joiner. You could say that I\u2019m a hermit forced by circumstances to socialize. And, to be honest, this has put me at a bit of a disadvantage during this spiritual search. In books like Man Seeks God<\/em>, Devoted<\/em>, and The Unlikely Disciple<\/em>, the authors get out there and get involved. They take part in worship services and interact with the faithful.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n

I could blame it on crippling anxiety. Or, I could say I just don\u2019t have time. Both of those are true. But, it mostly boils down to the fact that I don\u2019t want to get involved with a faith in that sort of\u00a0 significant way until I am sure that it is a path that works for me.<\/p>\n

I am getting involved in little ways that allow me to stay within my comfort zone. I\u2019ve written before about Christian-based online parenting seminars I\u2019ve taken part in. I\u2019m also reading holy books, and having some discussions with friends who follow different faiths. Also, because my son attends a Catholic school, I\u2019ve been forced to brush up on some teachings from my (Presbyterian) upbringing.<\/p>\n

One of my favourite ways of getting my toes wet in a faith is the Torah Stitch by Stitch<\/a> project. Each participant is stitching four verses from the Torah, which will later be assembled into a large scroll. My verses are Genesis 21:19-22, which read:<\/p>\n

Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.\u00a0 And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow.\u00a0 He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.\u00a0 At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army said to Abraham, \u201cGod is with you in all that you do.<\/p>\n

Now, to be totally honest, I don\u2019t see myself converting to Judaism. I like bacon cheeseburgers too much. But, I am enjoying the meditative process of stitching a piece of a holy book. I consider myself a very proficient cross stitcher, but my knowledge of Hebrew is limited to the tiny bit I\u2019ve picked up through tarot-related Kabalah studies. So, I\u2019m having to pay very close attention to my stitching. It is refreshing and enlightening, and I\u2019m also combining one of my favourite activates with my spiritual search.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m curious as to how Pagan Pages readers combine their faith and their hobbies. I\u2019d love to hear about any projects you\u2019re working on, especially wide-reaching projects like Torah Stitch by Stitch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m not a joiner. You could say that I\u2019m a hermit forced by circumstances to socialize. And, to be honest, this has put me at a bit of a disadvantage during this spiritual search. In books like Man Seeks God, Devoted, and The Unlikely Disciple, the authors get out there and get involved. They take part in worship services and interact with the faithful. I can\u2019t do that. I could blame it on crippling anxiety. Or, I could say I just don\u2019t have time. Both of those are true. But, it mostly boils down to the fact that I don\u2019t want to get involved with a faith in that sort of\u00a0 significant way until I am sure that it is a path that works for me. I am getting involved in little ways that allow me to stay within my comfort zone. I\u2019ve written before about Christian-based online parenting seminars I\u2019ve taken part in. I\u2019m also reading holy books, and having some discussions with friends who follow different faiths. Also, because my son attends a Catholic school, I\u2019ve been forced to brush up on some teachings from my (Presbyterian) upbringing. One of my favourite ways of getting my toes wet in a faith is the Torah Stitch by Stitch project. Each participant is stitching four verses from the Torah, which will later be assembled into a large scroll. My verses are Genesis 21:19-22, which read: Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.\u00a0 And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow.\u00a0 He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.\u00a0 At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army said to Abraham, \u201cGod is with you in all that you do. Now, to be totally honest, I don\u2019t see myself converting to Judaism. I like bacon cheeseburgers too much. But, I am enjoying the meditative process of stitching a piece of a holy book. I consider myself a very proficient cross stitcher, but my knowledge of Hebrew is limited to the tiny bit I\u2019ve picked up through tarot-related Kabalah studies. So, I\u2019m having to pay very close attention to my stitching. It is refreshing and enlightening, and I\u2019m also combining one of my favourite activates with my spiritual search. I\u2019m curious as to how Pagan Pages readers combine their faith and their hobbies. I\u2019d love to hear about any projects you\u2019re working on, especially wide-reaching projects like Torah Stitch by Stitch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":188,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/188"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9356"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9054,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9356\/revisions\/9054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}