This week: Personal Reponsibility Edited by: Annette  
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| Dear readers and writers or spiritual texts, I am Annette and I will be your guest editor for this issue. |
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Personal Reponsibility
In my last (also first ever) Spiritual newsletter in 2015, I talked about beliefs in fiction. I made a few suggestions on how to use spirituality in your fiction stories. I got some good replies too, they are all listed in the bottom with a link to that old newsletter if you want to check it out. It's short and sweet and still relevant for fiction writing.
Writing about beliefs in fiction made me wonder about living a spiritual life in the real world without being religious and how it ties into our interactions here on the site as writers.
Should you hold yourself to the same standards that you hold others? Yes, absolutely.
Here is what it all means.
Each one of us uses this site over the internet. We are all behind screens. Each of our words will be read by another person. But they will not see your face or hear your voice. Not only that, the fact that we are an online community means we come to each other without any introduction from a third person. We didn't meet in school, at work, in a bar, at church, at someone's birthday party. This means we don't know each other at all.
Every word we write here in newsfeed posts or blog posts is bringing us one step closer to knowing who we are to each other. Sometimes we'll drop a reference to religion or politics. Sometimes we'll rant our frustration about something happening in the real world. Some of those things will be well beyond the scope of Writing.Com's function as a peer reviewing site.
These are the times when we have to remember to be each other's spiritual keeper across any differences that we would have in a heated discussion about religions or politics. If someone writes something that you object to, your choices are to either logically and respectfully state your opposing opinion. Or simply keep scrolling. At no time should we ever feel that our beautiful, peaceful, friendly site is a place to troll each other.
Another part of personal responsibility that we have to each other is to keep our promises. Even when the words "I promise" aren't actually spelled out, many of us make a lot of promises. Each time we offer a contest or an activity, we are making a promise that those will be administered and completed in a timely manner.
I will be the first to admit that I have botched that part a few times myself. I had to learn to respect my own limits on time and energy that I can give. I had to learn to turn down responsibilities that others asked me to take over.
We all get tired, tied up by events outside of the site, or something happens that keeps us from fulfilling a promise we made to the community members here. It happens. Life happens.
This is also where our spiritual responsibility to each other comes in.
It goes two ways. The first who has to say something is the person who made the promise. Contact all of those who had an expectation of you. Send them an email explaining why you are delayed or why something is not happening. You don't have to go into excruciating personal details. A simple "Life is overwhelming me right now," is enough.
The other side are those who had an expectation. It is now time to be gracious. Accept the apology or explanation. If you have the time, energy, and capability, offer to help. If not, let it go. Just don't worry about whatever was promised to you. You can live without a review, without a merit badge, or award on your writing.
In the spirit of making your day brighter, I hope the two trinkets in this newsletter bring a little color and a smile to your day.
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My last Spiritual newsletter "Beliefs in Fiction" was from 2015  . I got the following replies:
Steve adding writing to ntbk.  wrote: Thanks for writing the NL. Your topic is intriguing and your choices were well suited to the topic.
I often use the NLs to garner reviewing material and I was able to review quite a few from this one.
Write on!
Copenator out!
Joto-Kai  wrote: Definitely time to try this. Oddly, my Holy Champion Sigrun and my Faith Healer Carolie don't need this so much; I started with religious-naive people. But Carolie's best friend, Kissla - she was born a medieval mafiosi - well, when a thug devotes her life to good, it's clear I need to know her religious upbringing.
My characters are all inherently religious people, good bad and indifferent. My avoidance has been an act of laziness. Maybe soon here, I'm going to rectify that!
Jimminy Jingle!  wrote: Glad to see you here Annette ! Wonderful thoughts about religion in fiction. I think the vast majority of books that I read alludes to religion in some way. It seems to me that much of the religions allusion involves prophesy. I also think prophesy is the tool that truly drives my favorite books to be my favorite books. When I think of religion, I wonder about the foretelling and what will come...
Thanks for sharing!
redbarron
wrote: this was very interesting, and helpful. I've had to work with my best friend, boy-friend, just through our relationship so much about religion. it used to be so hard on me that he was not a Christian, and he likes paganism. it made me feel lonely that he did not understand where I was coming from, but I have learned to deal with it, and appreciate paganism too, it is just that mine gets me by so much, but your article here, is amazing and I will probably not invent a new religion, maybe I will, I am not sure where my writing is going, but writing.com helps a lot. thanks for this.
TM wrote: I have written fiction stories that have Christianity as the religion I reference. I have found that if the story is written in a way that the religion is obscure or loosely described it can keep the reader guessing until the ending. At which time all the lose ends can be concluded or left open to the readers interpretation.
Elfin Dragon-finally published  wrote: It's interesting that I read this particular newsletter on either using or inventing religions. My dad and I were discussing different religions and when the greatest rise in cult religions took place today. (it was around the 1870's) Anyway, the topic came up for us because I was telling him that I wished I had him at my door a couple weeks ago when a couple Mormons showed up at my door. Now, I don't have anything against people practicing their own religions but if you show up at my door you better be prepared to either be laughed at if you make a "ridiculous" statement or defend what you believe. These two stated, "the book of Mormon is in the Bible." (sorry, I laughed) In fact, it's the other way around. Several chapters of 2nd Kings is written word for word in the book of Mormon. They left. The point of this? Do your research if you want to use an existing religion. There are a lot of facts which particular religions will not tell you unless you go searching for it. Always question and never be satisfied until someone answers you and shows you references from more than one source. It's how we learn. And I love the fact God gave us the brains to do so.  |
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Spiritual: September 09, 2020 Issue [#10361]
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