Blessed Ostara!! A reflection on (inter)faith and family.

Back when I first started this blog (and, let's face it, when I still needed something to write about, lol), I did these "[Insert Sabbat Here] In a Week" series, where I would share a little something every day for a week leading up to each sabbat. I really should do that again! Especially since I apparently have never done it for Ostara and therefore have nothing to link.

Bah.

Anyway, I obviously didn't plan this year very well, either, and I notice that's kind of a trend when it comes to Pagan sabbats and even Jewish holidays. Matt's really no help, either, as he tends to forget when his own holidays fall. ;) I'm hoping that, when Kit joins us, we'll both be a little better at remembering.

I’ve actually been thinking a lot lately about our currently-small interfaith family and how it will be after Kit is born, especially since that seems to be a big topic of interest once people learn that Matt and I are of different faiths and religious backgrounds. Sometimes people are actually quite surprised to learn that we’re not only not-Christian, but we’re nowhere even close to the same religion!

I know y'all aren't surprised by that, though. :)

Ostara is the perfect time to reflect on this, as Matt and I have, in some ways, found balance in our lives in respecting and celebrating each other’s faiths. The Spring Equinox is the time for finding balance once again after a very dark period, and starting a month or so from now, we get to find that balance again as we try to integrate Kit into our daily and spiritual lives, a balancing act that won’t happen overnight.

We’re fortunate that our moral codes are, for the most part, a result of secular rather than religious reasons*, and we plan on instilling those same values into Kit as he grows up. They’re pretty simple and spread across both our religions and those of others, anyway, so I don’t feel that morality is going to be an issue. However, I do feel that being interfaith family will go beyond mere morality by also teaching him – and us! – about accepting others for who they are and what they believe.

*I could go on and on about how religion isn’t the only path to moral decency, but that may be fodder for another post!

I believe that being an interfaith family is actually going to work to our benefit, as there needs to be an inherent level of respect, communication, and love between each spouse to make the relationship work, and those traits will indubitably leave a mark on their children, whether intended or not. Not that these doesn’t exist between spouses of the same religion, but growing up in a household where both parents were the same faith meant that differences in theology or morality, if any, didn’t have to be discussed as often, if at all. Our practices and moral code were just “how they were”, and I just assumed that that’s how everyone did it until I started exploring another faith for myself.

Kit is probably going to end up learning an awful lot as he grows up with Judaism and Paganism, too, with a bit of Catholicism for good measure. I know that, when I started my Pagan journey over half my life ago, I was surprised to find out that many of the customs I celebrated with my Catholic family were derivatives of a belief system (or several) that existed thousands of years before Christianity ever came to be. It’s with that knowledge that I now feel an even deeper sense of belonging when I celebrate holidays with my family, as I can see how my own customs as a neo-Pagan and those of Pagans in ancient cultures can align almost seamlessly with Catholic or Christian ones.

Judaism and Paganism are a little more difficult to amalgamate in that, unlike Christianity, Judaism did not necessarily adopt many Pagan beliefs or customs into its own practices, but strove instead to create a faith all its own (though it did take Jews a while to become truly monotheistic!). While Christianity is more adding a twist to a combination of Jewish and Pagan rites and practices, Judaism and Paganism instead stand pretty separate, as they have for thousands of years.

Fortunately, seeing it that way – that Mommy and Daddy both have their own religions, and the histories of both of those had separate but very real influences on the majority religion of their country – may actually help Kit see bits of his own interfaith upbringing in the practices and traditions of his friends who follow mainstream Christianity.

In short, Kit will be raised with our two direct religions as focal points, and the others will be in the background, though they'll be of no less importance. In addition to family events and local ones through groups in which we’re involved (Central Maryland Pagans, I’m looking at you!), we’ve decided to also visit a local Unitarian congregation to celebrate with other families, both interfaith and otherwise, and to hopefully all get some more exposure to what else is out there.

It’s definitely going to be an interesting ride, and I’m sure that, for all the times we try to impart some wisdom and knowledge on him, he’s going to end up doing the same for us, possibly in even more poignant ways than we can imagine. :)