In this episode, we discuss the importance of oaths and the consequences of breaking them. Oaths are a contract between two entities and there are terms on both sides of that. If the other side of your oaths violates the terms of the contract, then it is completely appropriate to address that and if in irreconcilable, it no longer binds you to your portion of it if that's agreed upon, then that's a problem.
00:01:50.760so this is complex and there's a lot that goes into it and i've seen
00:02:03.400it's baffling and and interesting to see how people have taken the value of oaths uh in my
00:02:13.400time and also true oaths are extremely important your word is very much your bond and when you
00:02:19.960formalize it in a ritual context with making an oath it's very powerful and very important
00:02:31.000and there's consequences for breaking oaths i've seen what i was going to say what i was leading
00:02:37.240off with i've seen situations where people feel that there is a conflicting oath that goes on
00:02:46.360or that there's conflicting loyalties and it seems and i know that some of this is human nature
00:02:53.400but our people are particularly susceptible to choosing the oaths that are most convenient for
00:02:59.800them and go and ride or die with those oaths but the oaths that they don't like they find
00:03:06.840a convenient way to weasel out of and it's completely unacceptable for you to ever break
00:03:12.440an oath with them but they can break an oath to you at whim because reasons um i think our folk
00:03:20.600have a very unreasonable imbalanced view of of othing um like i've seen people with their uh
00:03:28.840their kindred oaths always supersede their afa oaths for some reason and that reason is convenience
00:03:38.040because it's easier not to hurt your feelings, the feelings of your friends than to care about
00:03:42.920people that are distant from you. Oaths don't work like that. Another misconception about oaths.
00:03:50.040Okay. So I've seen other people that have taken profound leadership oaths and break those at the
00:03:56.520drop of the hat, like they're nothing, but sacrifice lots of things for very small,
00:04:05.080in cons or would seemingly less consequential oaths to uh kindred members or dude they came up
00:04:14.600with um so i think one thing about oaths is very important is make sure your oaths are
00:04:21.080not conflicting or done in such a way that if there's a conflict
00:04:25.480there's a resolution path and that leads me to the other thing i want to say about oaths
00:04:29.880oaths are a contract between two entities and there's typically terms on both sides of that
00:04:42.120if the other side of your oath violates the terms of the oath then it's completely appropriate to
00:04:49.740to address that and if in irreconcilable it no longer binds you to your portion of it if that's
00:04:57.580agreed upon. I think it's very reasonable to get the people who've chosen to enter into oaths to
00:05:03.360dissolve those oaths if the fundamental situations of life have changed. And there's
00:05:09.620honorable ways to try to do that rather than just running off and breaking your oaths.
00:05:14.780It's worth the time to renegotiate and come up with an equitable and appropriate solution rather
00:05:24.140than to just abandon one's responsibilities. And I think, you know, I think as grown adults,
00:05:30.380the older we get in life, we see more and more occasions in life where we're unable to continue
00:05:35.600with perhaps oaths that we've made that we shouldn't have made. I think one of the most
00:05:39.720obvious ones of those is divorce. And I think a lot of us, myself included, have been involved
00:05:44.760in divorce that were, you know, oath to be till death do us part and then didn't quite work out
00:05:51.420that way and it's unfortunate but it's still serious and there's still a debt on those i think
00:05:58.460another oath a lot of us have engaged in is uh baptism i know that's one that i feel bad that i
00:06:05.580i broke that oath so i think that we need to be realistic that there is consequences but it's not
00:06:14.460one and done and you're worthless for the rest of eternity if an oath is broken but they're
00:06:19.180very important and they need to be considered in the extreme before they're made. And I'd also
00:06:25.320venture to say they should be made sparingly so that they don't conflict and so that you can focus
00:06:31.140your seriousness on maintaining the commitments that you have made. And I think you also bring
00:06:36.180up the valid point of getting released from the oath, which is if the agreement is mutual,
00:06:43.420You know, certainly divorce is an example, but also, you know, I'm getting ready to move to somewhere where we can't be together as kindred anymore.
00:06:52.600I would like to be released from this oath that we have together. Absolutely.
00:06:56.420You know, and you know, you know, or I my life circumstances has changed and I cannot fulfill my oath as a folk builder.
00:07:03.180You know, I don't have time to do it. I would like to be released from the oath.
00:07:06.100You can be released from an oath in an honorable way.
00:07:09.380Um, but what you, what you don't want to do is slink away from it because again, you leave that
00:07:16.300piece of your soul behind and it's not, uh, you know, it's not coming back. Yeah. It's a finite
00:07:21.960resource. Um, the other thing that I want to say to that is, and I mentioned this a lot on this
00:07:30.500program and please don't take this, that this has come easy for me or that I'm perfect at this in
00:07:38.480my own life, we all have things that we're afraid of or make us uncomfortable. But courage is
00:07:46.680really, it's essential to the practice of Ausatru. It's essential to all of our virtues.
00:07:53.640And it's something that our folks specifically are very, very lacking in today. And we're working
00:08:02.200hard to rebuild that but when we think of courage as you know there's people with bar fight courage
00:08:09.480and that's the courage that so many of our men think about you know courage in battle and that's
00:08:15.000that is a important courage and in times where it's necessary that is a truly profound and one
00:08:25.320of the greatest courages but on the day-to-day in 2022 a courage that we often lack is a social
00:08:32.840courage to say something that may hurt feelings or to say something that may cause people to
00:08:40.360make you feel uncomfortable and so rather than taking the courage of a 20-minute phone call to
00:08:48.360honorably ask for release and dissolve an oath in an appropriate way we would rather send an
00:08:56.600angry email and just abdicate our responsibility because we feel it's easier and it may be easier
00:09:03.800in the moment but it's not easier in the long run and i challenge you guys to stand up and have
00:09:10.520social courage as best you can that's a challenge for all of us that's a challenge for me i don't
00:09:15.240like letting people down or hurting people's feelings or having awkward conversations with
00:09:20.600people like i get it but it's important that we rise to that it's important that every time we
00:09:25.640realize the only thing holding us back from something is fear that we conquer that fear
00:09:31.560and that we don't allow that fear to dictate our actions that we live up to the odenshof motto
00:09:37.080of do right and fear none so i'd encourage you guys to do that
00:09:40.600Finn says what if we have broken oaths in the past I'm gonna let Alan get to this I think he's
00:09:48.160probably got some more meat on it but I want to just throw out there try to fix it the best we
00:09:54.640can do we don't forgive and erase that's not real there's an actual damage that is caused when you
00:10:01.600violate an agreement to the best of your ability try to fix what you broke if there's a way to
00:10:08.860compensator to fix a party that you've wronged. Do that first. Yes, take responsibility and
00:10:15.680apologize. That's great. Ask forgiveness. That's great. But fix what you broke as close and as
00:10:23.800best as you can. That's the first step in those things. And then try to counterbalance them by
00:10:30.500worthy deeds from here on out for the rest of your life. You can't take that away, but you can put in
00:10:37.860good over top of the bad and make a better make a better product at the end it's not a one and
00:10:45.080done proposition this life is as short as it is it's long too um and you've got a lot of years
00:10:52.520that you can try to right wrongs that you've done and try to you know overcome that balance
00:10:58.100and end up in the you know end up in the black instead of in the red as it were alan what do
00:11:04.760got i like how you go i'm gonna let alan take this and then you take every then you say everything i
00:11:09.560was going to say um but it's uh you know it is a fundamental precept of the way that we uh recognize
00:11:21.560the debt that we owe each to each other um and that's that's behind the concept of paying where
00:11:28.440guild or shield um when you break an oath and because and there's a long boring story i'll tell
00:11:38.980some other time um but the but but it is about the difference between the horizontal relationship and
00:11:45.000the and the i did that backwards vertical relationship versus horizontal relationship
00:11:49.660the you know the the thing that we see out there in a lot of the world right now is only god can
00:11:56.040judge me because and that is you know one of christian precepts is that your holy relationship
00:12:01.120is only vertical you know it's up that you know on that axis but for us the holy relationship is
00:12:07.160between each other the bond that we share as a folk is uh you know is also holy um and and when
00:12:15.900that bond is broken then you have to do something to heal it um and and it absolutely is to go back
00:12:24.580and try to fix what it is. And it can be simple things. Yes, you apologize. And you talk about
00:12:33.900something that takes courage. Go to somebody that you've wronged and say, I admit what I did was
00:12:40.720wrong. What can I do to make it right? And accompanied by some sort of outward act.
00:12:50.100you know here's here's a bottle of your favorite bourbon let me wash your car here's some eggs that
00:12:56.860my chickens laid you know that i will give to you to try to make this right um so
00:13:03.200healing that broken relationship heals your soul too because you know when you break off that oath
00:13:10.760you break off your soul and that's the only way to restore it is to you know just to dig down and
00:13:16.320make it right. It's tough. Take some courage. Most things that are worthwhile do. Finn also asks,
00:13:30.720is an oath we make for ourselves important too? If we say, if we say, I swear an oath to myself
00:13:38.860and I will do this or that to improve myself, is that important? What are your thoughts on?
00:13:46.320Yes, it is absolutely important. And it certainly can be a mechanism to help you manifest that intent. You have to be careful about what penalty you impose on yourself.
00:14:05.240You know, I'm sure, Matt, you may be thinking the same example that I'm thinking of, you know, but I will do, you know, I will be able to do 100 sit-ups by December 31st or else I will, you know, cut my ponytail off or something like that.
00:14:28.540I mean, you know, so you just if that helps you generate the energy that's required to manifest that in yourself, then absolutely it is.
00:14:38.520It can be a critical motivator. But what you also have to do and that's and that is that second component, what you should what I would stay well away from is like the penalty free oath.
00:14:52.060I swear by all that is holy that I will do thus and so, and then if you don't do it, you know, you're just out in the ether.
00:15:01.960You know, I swear that I will do this or else I will, you know, never drink beer again.
00:15:11.840Okay, that will help you make that happen, but you have to either fulfill the oath or engage the penalty.
00:15:22.940that's what i'm trying to get around to so something important with that is not only is
00:15:27.020it a motivator for you to follow through with your oath but it's a way for you to even out the cosmic
00:15:34.060penalty for you not doing it if the oath you know if there is a this or that and you accomplish one
00:15:42.060of those then you're not losing out uh with your weird or your orlog um the other thing i'd say
00:15:49.820is it really depends one of the things that separates oaths from just saying something
00:15:58.060is you tend to formalize it um if you make an oath in front of the gods or you invoke powers
00:16:04.620to witness your oath then it's no longer just an oath within yourself it is something that's played
00:16:10.300out with the you know interest of other parties and in that sense absolutely it's binding
00:16:18.940so i i think that don't do it lightly you know you don't want to you don't want to just do it
00:16:25.860on a whim because you don't want to attract that attention in a negative way absolutely