Oct
Spiritually Material
What is the proper Heathen attitude toward affluence? Is wealth good or bad? Can poverty make a person more spiritual? Does wealth make a person materialistic?
Actually, those are all trick questions. One of the most liberating things about Heathenism is that we recognize that this world is as spiritual as any other. There is no separation of material and spiritual. We do not believe the nonsense that the spiritual realm is holy and that the material realm is somehow debased and wicked. We believe that they are not separate. Both are good.
Neither wealth nor poverty are indicators of a person’s spirituality. A person’s worth cannot be measured by how much or how little he owns. The only measure is by what he does.
Heathenism is one of the few religions which sees our material well-being as a spiritual thing. The Runes are symbols of the spiritual energies underlying our very existence. It is no coincidence that the first, middle and last Runes deal with the good things in our lives. Fe is the Rune of movable assets. Jer is the Rune of harvesting assets. Odal* is the Rune of those assets which remain constant.
Remember that the greatest form of gratitude is to use the gifts you are given. When we use the things of this world, we honor the Gods. If we profit from them, all the better.
The greatest way to honor a gift is to use it to your benefit.
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* There are occasions when the Odal Rune is placed at the end of the Elder Futhark. In others, Dag is the last Rune. I was taught that these Runes can switch places. My personal experiences bear this out.
