Are We Crazy??

[Gunnora Hallakarva]

Heilsa All!

        Posting on the thread regarding churchgoing neighbors or friends who
think we're nuts for our interest in (and oftentimes passion for) the SCA...

        Why these folks don't understand it is that, for them, the church,
or their work, or Little League etc. make up their social interaction group.
Most big churches offer, in addition to the regular church worship services,
social activities such as (depending on the church) bingo, dances, ice cream
socials, men's retreats, women's retreats, summer camps for kids and
sometimes adults, sports, including baseball/softball teams, basketball
teams (many churches own their own playing fields, courts, etc. One church I
know of has a bowling alley in the basement). There are church dinners,
church arts and crafts, choir singing, etc. etc. etc.

        Many large companies likewise offer a comprehensive social
interaction group.  they have the same types of sports teams, offer banquets
and picnics from time to time, offer employees special tickets to plays and
movies, etc.

        So, for those who are really involved with church or their work as
their primary social groups, those activities make up their whole life. They
have no way to fit in anything extra, like the SCA.  It makes it hard for
them to see that the SCA offers all the same sorts of activities, plus the
added bonus of a little healthy escapism.  Pretty much all they see is the
costumes, and cannot look beyond what is, for them, an impossibly silly
notion of grownups playing dressup.  Never mind that church goers regularly
invest lots of cash in costumes that they wear only to church on Sundays
(the see and be seen in clothes).

        Mari and I have had long discussions concerning how, for some folks,
the SCA functions as though it were a religion.  Not because we worship the
king (ha, as if) or any such thing, but because it provides all the social
and emotional types of outlets that church does... including the feeling of
awe or numinous presence on those rare occasions you go to a special event
and get that "YOU ARE THERE" feeling of "it's REAL".

        I wouldn't waste any time getting mad about your neighbors' and
friends' bad attitudes.  After all, if they were actually your friends
they'd be supportive of your happiness.  And who gives a flip about what Joe
Blow Who You Do Not Know thinks?  I worry about what my SCA friends will
think of what I do; very rarely I worry about what my family will think.
The rest of the world can think what it will, because I am, first and
foremost, a medieval recreationist!  Capture your joy where you can find it,
and leave others to drag their selves through the muck by worrying about
what you do instead of searching for their own happiness.

        And, in the last resort, there's always that quote about getting the
log out of your own eye before worrying about the mote in mine.

Wassail,
::GUNNORA::

Gunnora Hallakarva
Herskerinde
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