Ok , so I just read Bishop J.W. Stansell's blog on to wear or not wear. I found this article quite interesting and found that he dous have quite a valid point. However, due to my very eclectic beliefs, I do not feel the clergy shirt and collar represents who I am as a minister or may be misleading to others seeking help.In fact, most of my ceremonies, ect ivolve wearing a robe, again, not appropriate for public. I do however, wear a pentacle, though this dousn't bring in the masses for help, in fact this is also misleading because many Pagans will come up to me and when they find out that I am also christian, they turn their noses up to me and walk away. So my question would be, how would we outerly show who we are, in case of such emergencies where someone will need a minister to talk to? And how do you get around the situations of telling them what you truly believe?
As an Empath, I attract people and people will just walk up to me out of the blue and give me thier life story in less than 5 minutes of talking to me. ( not bragging, just an empath trait) I ususally just listen , give them advice, encouragemet or whatever I am led to do to help and they often leave feeling alot better. Now that I am a minister, this is something we should tell them, right? But I know the second I open up my big mouth and say "christian witch" or "mystic" everything that I did to try and help them would be gone. One ear and out the other and nothing would have been accomplished. If I say that I am a minister, this will also open up a can of worms and a million questions about my faith, which will ultimatly end up in a bad situation because many people do not understand.
So those of us who walk eceltic beliefs and lifestyles, I'd like to hear how you deal with this, or do you? Apart of me feels like we shouldn't have to hide in the shadows because we choose to walk our path differently, but society forces us to do that. I'd like to hear some opinions or whatever.
Thanks
