The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/tag/conversion)
The Norse myths are laced with a melancholic focus on the end of an age. Karl Seigfried notes that today it also feels as though a way of living is passing. But just as Ragnarök leads to a rebirth, so too might our own times – if we are willing to work for it.
New Pew research shows most Americans who change religions do so by age 30, often drifting away rather than rejecting belief outright. As religious affiliation declines, many are not abandoning spirituality but reshaping faith, meaning, and identity outside traditional institutions.
As a professional musician, I’m brought right into the heart of the service on the holiest of holidays. It’s a great vantage point to learn about things I would never otherwise be exposed to.
Like a “Sunday Catholic” who is extremely devout on Sunday mornings but lives a decidedly un-Christian life for the rest of the week, we can all too easily make grand speeches over the drinking horn at blót but neglect to put intention into action when we step out into the wider world. Are we honoring the ancestors in our lives? Or are we dishonoring them?
We were all, in some way, seeking the capital-T Truth – and if we thought we had found it, it made sense to want to share that with others. I hadn’t been sure of the Truth since I was a child, and, for me, that amorphous uncertainty was the point. Having someone, however well-intentioned, try to save me, or convince me – or even to convince themself that I was already saved – felt like the opposite of helping.