Asatru Folk Assembly - Introducing Faith to the Family (from VNS Episode 8)

00:00:00.000 all right so william s coming from an atheist background raised that way by my parents how

00:00:13.840 would you suggest beginning to introduce faith to my family uh kids especially go ahead and take a

00:00:21.120 swing at that daniel i think first and foremost the practice of also true is uh ancestor worship

00:00:30.000 and while sometimes we sometimes in the last couple of hundred years

00:00:38.480 particularly we've over rationalized the existence of divine beings

00:00:46.880 so getting the first step toward that i think is

00:00:50.640 the worship of ancestors you know your grandparents for instance if they passed

00:00:54.800 on those are people that you've known touched

00:00:56.800 held shared meals with and happy memories with so i think

00:01:05.040 the first step toward embracing that is the worship of ancestors

00:01:13.520 um apologize guys bear with me our entropy

00:01:18.080 is not working again for some reason unfortunately

00:01:22.960 so i'm trying to get that fixed what i will say is in the meantime um

00:01:33.520 i like daniel said i think that um ancestor worship is

00:01:42.160 the most accessible path to that um because i think that when you have pictures you know

00:01:50.000 and i'm not sure if your parents are with you still or if you're if your grandparents are

00:01:54.240 still with you but when you have pictures on the wall of people that your children can see

00:02:00.960 they know those people existed there's not a question there's no you know fundamental

00:02:06.720 existential questions about the existence of gods these people clearly existed

00:02:12.160 And it's so fundamental to human nature in all of our expression to be able to commune with our ancestors, even people that don't, don't admit to it or don't like to, we speak to our dead loved ones often, even atheists do it without thinking about it.

00:02:36.120 you'll have something you want to you want to share or you want to ask your grandpa about or

00:02:45.820 you know you'll you'll come in those moments where you're in your feelings and you'll do that

00:02:49.960 I think encouraging that in a more structured way with your children is a really good start

00:02:55.260 and I think if your children can believe that your ancestors listen on from beyond the veil

00:03:02.700 It makes it that much easier to get your children to to believe in the gods.

00:03:09.400 I'm not sure. I'm not sure the ages of your children.

00:03:16.060 And I think that makes a difference whether you're starting them out fresh or whether you're trying to get older children who have been atheists to be to become religious.

00:03:27.220 One of the things is I would stress, especially with the rest of your family with older children, is is openness.

00:03:39.120 I think it's a huge ask to demand that someone goes from no belief to devout faith with nothing in between.

00:03:49.100 I think that's a it's a very big ask. And I think that's kind of a nonstarter for a lot of folks.

00:03:54.420 So in the AFA, we try not to do that. What I would encourage people to do is to be open and to reach out to make an offering to the gods and see what happens with an open heart, an open mind.

00:04:10.520 and just literally say that, say, Hey, I, you know, I don't know if you guys are out there,

00:04:16.940 but I hope that you are. And here is an offering, you know, some incense or some meat or a shot of

00:04:25.700 whiskey or, you know, literally whatever that's respectful and say, Hey, you know, I'm here and

00:04:32.480 I'm listening and see what happens. And I think you'd be surprised. Um, some really great things

00:04:37.280 can happen from just that. Also, I would encourage you to get with your local AFA membership and get

00:04:44.540 your family to participate in a ritual or at least to witness a ritual. The power when a group of

00:04:53.460 people come before our gods is there's a synchronicity that's built and there's a momentum

00:05:00.980 that's built that makes us worth more than some of our parts when we're doing it as a family or

00:05:07.200 as a, as a group, as a congregation. Um, and those are occasions where I've, I've seen that

00:05:15.280 light come on in people's eyes where all of a sudden the gods are real to them. So I would

00:05:20.220 encourage those kinds of experiences. You can't, you can't force a belief and you can't force a

00:05:26.080 relationship, but that openness, I think is a key in, uh, in moving that forward.

00:05:32.560 matt can i add something to that absolutely you can so it's interesting you said that and you

00:05:39.800 mentioned you know bringing your family to an uh an afa event so i'm going to tell a little bit of

00:05:45.080 my story when i first joined the afa um so i'd uh you know i had found a folk builder in north

00:05:52.240 carolina through a facebook group that was related to focus heathenry but not necessarily just afa

00:05:59.920 and uh they put me in contact with a guy here in south carolina and at the time

00:06:05.440 at the house anyway it was just my myself practicing and my daughter who was mine at the

00:06:11.120 time and i got invited to i believe it was a winter finding event which was only about an

00:06:19.160 hour from my house told my wife i said you know i'm gonna me and lauren are gonna go check that

00:06:24.140 out and my wife made fun of me about this stuff she's like oh you want to pretend to be a viking

00:06:28.700 you're gonna go pillage our neighbors houses la la la so i told her we're gonna go check this thing

00:06:33.340 out and um she said well i'm gonna come with you and i said why are you just gonna make fun or 0.62

00:06:39.740 whatever she's like no i just want to make sure you're not bringing our kid around some you know

00:06:43.180 weirdos or whatever so my wife tagged along and uh we we gave uh we exchanged gifts to pray that day

00:06:52.940 i remember looking back at my little girl and again she was overcome with emotion because it was

00:06:58.140 it was finally real and uh we finished up with the ritual and uh shared a meal and did a sambal

00:07:05.740 which is a wonderful icebreaker i always recommend that to for newcomers to participate in sambal

00:07:12.220 and before we got out of the driveway heather had applied for membership the austral folk

00:07:16.220 assembly and it was less about the connection with the divine it was more about the connection

00:07:19.980 within the community so there's always little stepping stones there and we talked about

00:07:24.220 ancestor worship i think that's a that's maybe a second step i think uh getting involved with

00:07:30.140 the community and seeing what it's about in real life is probably the most important thing you can

00:07:34.540 do you know it's it's not the popular answer but i think that it's true when you see something

00:07:46.380 it's easy to come into this or come at this from

00:07:49.660 from regular 2020 modern american society or western society in general and be unsure and

00:08:02.060 feel that maybe it's silly or not really you know not really feel like it's a real thing

00:08:07.100 and you can't not feel that when you're at uh when you're at one of our events or better yet

00:08:14.860 when you're at one of our Hoffs. Practicing it in real life, especially with other real people,

00:08:23.520 with families, with good looking, nice people, it makes it very real. Being able to see that we have

00:08:33.360 Hoffs that you can reach out and touch them. And as silly as it may sound that they're on Google

00:08:37.720 maps like they're a real location that legitimacy makes it easier for people who are just starting

00:08:45.080 out or who haven't considered house a true before to feel like it's a real thing and to take it very

00:08:50.760 seriously and i think that does go a long way

00:09:07.720 We'll be right back.

Asatru Folk Assembly - September 27, 2023

Introducing Faith to the Family (from VNS Episode 8)

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