I’ve always been a little reserved in the Kemetic community due to my age. I became a part of my temple at eighteen, and will be turning twenty this year. I am among the youngest in the House, as well as in the (for want of a better word) fellowship of Kemetics I have found on facebook and tumblr. I hold back because I worry my age, my lack of experience, and my scant research into the path we follow will cause people to dismiss me. This isn’t a Kemetic problem, I think, or even a Pagan problem, but a problem for all young people practicing a faith when they were raised in another one.
Judgments are easy to make. It’s simple to say a teen is only interested in a religion to be different, to shock, to be cool: we all know that many teenagers struggle with self-worth and their place in society. It’s easy to say that Pagan who doesn’t look deeply into the history of her gods is “a fluffy eclectic” and we all know we like to pick on eclectics who decree a warrior goddess who protects the king to be a goddess of lesbians, sex, and marijuana.
I don’t want to give people a reason to make those sort of judgments about me. I have my reasons for not being much involved in research, and I can hardly stop myself from being young; but recently my desires have changed. I want to participate in the community at large, I want to be able to be a source of information, but I am not qualified for it. In terms of personal experience, in terms of knowledge… I’m not ready.
When I was seventeen, I began to prep for what I’d been waiting for for several years: the application to take the Kemetic Orthodox beginners’ class. I revisited the question over and over again: did I really want this? What did I plan to do, to become? I would sit before my altar and ponder it all, glancing through the candlelight to look on my icon of my beloved lady, Bast. One of these nights, She spoke to me – not the tender mother who had so long protected me, but the regal queen I’d begun to realize She was.
“You’re becoming an adult, Avonell. And very soon, our relationship, and everything you know, will change.”
She was right. Everything has changed. And though I am now legally an adult, I am still growing mentally, religiously, and personally. Now, one more step toward change and growth has come to me. I, who have so long denied any identity as a reconstructionist, who have painted a mental image of recons as stuffy, nose in the air, people whose practice was dry with the dust of temples and tombs… have found my dormant interest in studying our religion’s past to be awake and hungry for books. I’m chewing through The Ancient Gods Speak, with The Daily Life of the Egyptian Gods on the way, and a bargain-priced copy of Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many is hiding in a shopping list with my last two textbooks.
After so long, am I now a Kemetic recon? Maybe. I think there is a lot to be said for the recon’s path… a lot more than the dress-up and arrogance my younger self associated it with. For now, I’ll stick with Helm’s new term of Historically Informed Polytheist; because those of you who know me know that I am quite hip. 😉
Their Love Flows Like Wine 
This post really struck a chord with me. I joined the House of Netjer when I was young too. I had someone I really respect tell me then that I was lucky, because I have my whole life ahead of my to grow and love the gods — that I didn’t have to come into it later. At the time it felt like an odd compliment, but now I realize that having ‘grown up’ in the House of Netjer, even if I wasn’t born as a child of a Shemsu, has impacted me profoundly, and given me opportunities for growth I never would have had otherwise. In a lot of ways this makes me really happy for you – because it’s a wonderful thing, to grow with the gods.
Please don’t feel sheepish because of your age, however. You are a member of the community, you are a Shemsu, and you can contribute however much you can commit to. Age doesn’t limit that. Chances are good that unless you tell them outright how old you are in a conversation, people won’t care about your age, just what you’re saying. 🙂
HIP indeed, and wise beyond her years! I’ve always respected your writings, hon, whether they were based on bookish or experiential knowledge. How many trips around the sun you’ve made? Doesn’t mean diddlysquat in my book. ^_^
I concur with pretty much everything you say! It feels good to know that I am not alone. I think my own inexperience and my own age leads me to question my “legitimacy” in the Kemetic Community due to my age. But I think you prove age is just a number! You awareness for your self and situation show more than your age. And its true that your age can’t be held against you. And being in your 20s…what a gift eh?!?! Let’s be proud of it!
I think you and I were in the same beginners class.
You and I? Nope, but your wife and I were!
That was it. 🙂