![\"Brendan](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2015\/06\/Brendan-Myers-GCG-2015.jpg\")
<\/a>Druid and philosopher Brendan Myers had a blog post a few days ago titled Spiritual Negations: Ten Ideas in Religion and Spirituality Which I\u2019m Very Sure Are False<\/a>. The list is a good antidote to some of the spiritual crap I see floating around the internet. Brendan\u2019s spiritual negations include \u201cnothing is eternal\u201d \u201cyou are not born sinful\u201d \u201cyou do not have a soul mate\u201d and my favorite \u201cthere is no such thing as the Law of Attraction.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m a devotional polytheist, so it\u2019s no surprise I disagree with his statement that \u201cthe worship of the Gods is not what matters.\u201d But based on previous exchanges<\/a> I think Brendan and I are closer on this point than it seems at first. It all depends on how you define worship<\/a>.<\/p>\n There is another disagreement in the list, and that\u2019s what I want to focus on in this post. Brendan says \u201cyou do not have a destiny.\u201d Here\u2019s his entire paragraph:<\/p>\n Each of us is absolutely unique in the world: there will never be another person like you, ever again. From this obvious fact, it does not follow that any of us are particularly selected for anything. There are no forces at work in history or in the soul which,\u00a0a priori<\/em>, pick out one person or another for any kind of greatness. You are not \u201cevolving\u201d and you are not a \u201cchosen one.\u201d Your spiritual books and teachers might be telling you that you have special knowledge or talents, or that you are an \u201cold soul\u201d or an \u201cindigo child\u201d or that you are awakened, or ascended, or the reincarnation of an important historical character. You\u2019re not. You\u2019re the same as everyone else here on earth. Completely unique, completely irreplaceable, completely different from all others \u2013 but not necessarily special for that reason alone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There is nothing in that statement I\u2019m going to argue with. If reincarnation is true then some of us are old souls, but \u201cold\u201d and \u201cwise\u201d aren\u2019t always synonymous. Each of us has the inherent dignity, worth, and sovereignty<\/a> shared by all creatures, but beyond that, our greatness or lack thereof comes from what we do, not who we are. I\u2019m not a special snowflake and neither are you.<\/p>\n But you still have a destiny. Actually, you have two.<\/p>\n There is the destiny of your talents<\/strong>. Each of us has a set of skills, interests, and capabilities that is, in Dr. Myers\u2019 words \u201ccompletely unique, completely irreplaceable, completely different from all others.\u201d There is something in life that you are particularly well-suited for. What interests you, above all else? What brings you joy, above all else? What are you really really good at?<\/p>\n But the question of your destiny isn\u2019t only about you. What does the world need? Soldiering is an honorable profession, but we could really use some more peacemakers. We have plenty of factory farms, but we could use some more farmers who use organic, sustainable methods. Christian theologian Frederick Buechner said \u201cthe place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world\u2019s deep hunger meet.\u201d<\/p>\n Can you make a living at that intersection? Maybe you can, maybe you can\u2019t. That\u2019s another good argument for a guaranteed basic income<\/a> \u2013 it would mean more people doing necessary things they\u2019re really good at instead of struggling to fit into a system just to keep food on the table.<\/p>\n But if you\u2019re called to do something, making a living from it is a secondary consideration. If you\u2019re a writer, write. Write early in the morning, late at night, and on weekends. If you\u2019re a gardener, tend your crops even if they\u2019re growing in planters in your apartment windows. If you\u2019re a priest, bring your priesthood into your day job \u2013 not to proselytize, but to embody the virtues of your Gods for all to see.<\/p>\n Finding the destiny of your talents is not easy. It requires research and exploration. For those of us whose destiny lies outside the mainstream, this may take many years. Your deepest desires are what you really want, not what you\u2019ve been told you\u2019re supposed to want. I was well into my 30s before I accepted that climbing the corporate ladder and getting rich wasn\u2019t going to make me happy. But being a Druid and a priest, doing the things I write about here, and funding it all with a job as an engineer? I\u2019m quite happy with my life as it is now.<\/p>\n There is the destiny of your choices<\/strong>. \u201cDestiny\u201d carries the implication of inevitability \u2013 something that\u2019s going to happen whether you want it to or not. The destiny of your talents is advisable but it is clearly not inevitable. You may never find that point where your deep gladness and the world\u2019s deep hunger meet. Or you may reject it because the social pressure to conform to something else is too great.<\/p>\n The destiny of your choices is not inevitable, but it\u2019s looks an awful lot like inevitability.<\/p>\n Whenever you make a choice, you say \u201cyes\u201d to one thing and \u201cno\u201d to everything else. But you don\u2019t just say no to the choices you rejected, you also say no to everything that would have followed those choices. Shortly after I graduated college, I was dissatisfied with my job. I looked into going to graduate school full time. But I already had a car payment \u2013 quitting my job would mean losing my car. The decision to buy a car \u2013 that seemed so simple and necessary at the time \u2013 had effectively eliminated the option of going to graduate school full time. With the loss of that option I also lost all the experiences I would have had as a full time graduate student and I locked myself into a series of experiences (and future options) in full time employment.<\/p>\n Make enough choices \u2013 including choosing not to choose and including choices you don\u2019t recognize as choices at the time \u2013 and eventually you find yourself on a path that looks like destiny, even though it is simply the cumulative consequences of your free will<\/a>.<\/p>\n What choices have led you to where you are today? Where are they leading you in the future? Do you like the journey? Do you like where you\u2019re headed? If you don\u2019t, make different choices and change your destiny. This is one of the purposes of divination: not to show you what must be, but to show you what will be. If you don\u2019t like the future the cards show you, do something to change it.<\/p>\n Can anyone who doesn\u2019t like their life simply choose to change it? In theory, yes. In practice, it\u2019s complicated\u2026 and it\u2019s much harder for some than for others. Even in this country where everyone is supposedly created equal, your privileges, hindrances, and opportunities are strongly influenced by the circumstances of your birth and your environment. Anyone can make different choices and in doing so make their life better \u2013 and if we\u2019re talking about your<\/em> life, that\u2019s your best bet for improvement. This is one of the core principles of Self-centered Paganism<\/a>.<\/p>\n But putting all the responsibility on the individual and ignoring the system is not only uncompassionate, it\u2019s impractical. If we are committed to justice, we\u2019ll build a society where living a decent life doesn\u2019t require heroic effort for anyone. We\u2019ll build a society where everyone has the opportunity to live out the destiny of their talents. We\u2019ll build a society where no one is restricted because of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or any other differentiation. We\u2019ll build a society where ordinary folks have the same opportunity as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush \u2013 to do irresponsible things without having their lives ruined by the prison industrial complex<\/a>.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll build a society where the destiny\u00a0of choices \u2013 even bad choices \u2013 never leads to a preventable death<\/a>.<\/p>\n Perhaps building that society is part of your destiny.<\/p>\n The future is not fixed. I\u2019m not a special snowflake and neither are you. But you still have a destiny. Actually, you have two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":3661,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[33,140,130,694,131,4,5],"class_list":["post-3655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-practice","tag-brendan-myers","tag-destiny","tag-fate","tag-frederick-buechner","tag-free-will","tag-pagan","tag-paganism"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a><\/a>
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