Wiccan Whirlpool

About a year and a half ago a man joined my coven.  He told me he was looking for “family.”  He immediately wanted me to accept him as a member of our First Circle, or first degree, based on work he’d already done elsewhere.  Ok, I thought.  He met with us, he likes, us, he wants to feel like he’s a part of the tradition.  I looked over his stuff, and while not nearly what we’d expect from an online student in the tradition, it was acceptable for what I’d consider to be First Circle work, so I granted him a certificate.  ON HIS OWN, he decided to sign and have notarized our tradition’s Oath of Practice.

A few months later, the requests for granting a second degree started.  I was a little torn.  Yes, there’s precedent for grandfathering someone into 2C, but I was wondering what was up.  So I gave him the password and username for our lessons and told him to go through his work and pull out examples he felt met the assignment criteria of the lessons and get it to me for evaluation.  That was too much work.   How about if he brings me all of his work, and I go through it.  Ok, I thought.  Maybe he doesn’t understand how to use the website, got locked out, and is too embarrassed to tell me.  Maybe he isn’t sure he understands the criteria.  I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, and look all of this stuff over again.

Yep, it’s more advanced work than what I took for 1C, but it isn’t NEARLY what we expect of our 2C people.  Second Circle is clergy training, and we take our clergy training damn seriously.  He didn’t like that.  I told him that if he did all of the reading required AND completed the clergy association examination I’d be willing to look that over instead, but offered no guarantee.  Months after this, no complete examination, he willfully breaks his Oath of Practice, and he leaves my coven and bad-mouths me and my tradition to a large group of people in an essentially public online forum.

Did I let him have it loud and long over breaking his Oath?  Yep.  In private, over the phone.  He had called *me,* as he often did.  Started complaining about Christians again…which is what sparked the conversation.  Suddenly, my tradition has all of these restrictive rules and we’re telling him how to think, and that’s just WRONG.  Then no, I was right, it was just his pain medication talking–at which point I nearly lost my mind.  After growing up with an alcoholic, I have NO patience whatsoever for someone trying to ditch PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY over a substance.  I told him that was BS, and laid out exactly how I felt.  Disappointed, hurt, angry, used, and betrayed.  My faith had been belittled, as had my intelligence.  What exactly, after all this, had he actually wanted from me, my coven, and my tradition?  Some title or degree?  No answer for that one.  He didn’t seem to handle someone telling him something straight out very well.  The next day he left my coven, even though I told him he didn’t have to–he simply had to decide if he was actually a member of the tradition and willing to uphold his Oath, or not.  Rather than face a group of people with whom he had worked to integrate himself for over a year and tell them he took that Oath under false pretenses he FLED.  He called AGAIN the next day to explain that this was probably for the best for everyone, and how much he wanted to keep my friendship, and not let all this business get in the way of that.  He liked having my kids call him “uncle”…Not long after, he attached himself to this self-styled Elder on another list of mine, and ditched that connection, too.  Their bonding moment?  When I called *this* guy on his thick B, and refused to back down when he tried to make me look irrational just for asking questions about his presented-as-fact “opinion.”  Dear gods, ask for PROOF of a statement?  How dare I???  Here was someone else who doesn’t like Christians or Christianity and sees all of monotheism as “The Enemy.”

Now he’s kissing his butt by bad-mouthing me and my tradition.  Yep.  We have “absurd” requirements for advancement for someone who thinks that a ULC ordination is the pinnacle of achievement.  We are PROUD of that fact.  He let *me* save face by leaving instead of me throwing him out?  For shame.  Now he’s an oath-breaker AND a liar.

This is someone who tried very hard to get everywhere in my tradition without any work.  This is someone who came to ME asking to be included.  This is someone who called ME for advice, and for an ear when he needed to talk.  This is someone who gave me and my family GIFTS, to the extent that it made me uncomfortable–and I told him so.  This is someone who pushed to have the coven incorporated, and donated a sizable sum toward that end (which is being returned).

And all of our horrible rules?  Try this out: We insist UP FRONT that if you’re going to join our tradition, you must accept a statement called The Affirmation of Acknowledgment, that says you AGREE that a person cannot hold an entire faith responsible for the actions of one, and a person cannot hold an individual responsible for the act(s) of a religion.  That, and you have to acknowledge that the other faiths on the planet have a right to exist, and that other people have the right to have those faiths, just as you have yours.  And last of all, that YOU MAY NOT BE RIGHT about everything.

Wow, how restrictive is that?  If you agree, you can join.  If you don’t agree you aren’t welcome here.  If you SAY you agree just to get in, but it turns out you didn’t *really* agree, you can’t tell US that we are wrong for telling you to put up or shut up.

This is someone nearly twice my age who has the spiritual maturity of someone less than half of it.  GRRRR.

Shut the hell up, you.  Tuck in that tail, and keep on running.  Your book is in the mail with your money.  Don’t call, and don’t come around.  I don’t have time for back-stabbing, oath-breaking liars.