About Industriousness
By Hariulf OR
As OR members, we are expected to live our lives according to the Nine Noble Virtues. Of course, this is not an easy task and it’s even very difficult at times. But we all join the OR by our free will and it’s by our free will that we have accepted to work to promote the OR and Odinism. It’s by our free will that we accept to strive to live by the NNV. Nobody forces us; it’s our own choice. Among the NNV, there is one that I find very important if we want to see our Sacred Faith advance: INDUSTRIOUSNESS
First what does it mean to be industrious? According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:
INDUSTRIOUS: constantly, regularly, or habitually active or occupied
And according to the Cambridge Dictionaries Online:
INDUSTRIOUS: having the characteristic of regularly working hard
From these definitions we can deduce that industriousness means working hard and consistently being active. We can also see that it’s indeed a very important virtue if we want to see our religion growing and advancing; if we want to achieve our various projects. Without hard work, we can achieve nothing! Nothing will be handed to us on a plate! We must work hard to obtaining what we want!
We are of course fortunate to have some very industrious members in the OR, people who, as Hengest said, are “bread makers”. They are people who give much of their time and energy to the Odinic Rite; people who sacrifice their free time in service of our Faith, our Folk and our Family. But we must also be honest and admit that unfortunately the “bread makers” are a small proportion of our membership. The majority of our members are those Hengest calls the “bread eaters”. They don’t help. They don’t work. They are not active. They just sit waiting for others to do the work for them. They don’t strive to live by the NNV of Industriousness. I find this really sad because the OR is a revolutionary movement, because the OR is at the Vanguard of the New Awakening and so I think that its members must be industrious and must be active.
I must admit that I recently became really disappointed and frustrated by the lack of industriousness, the lack of activity of a large part of our membership. It’s really sad to see that so few people are ready to step forward, that so few members are ready to work, to help. I can understand that all our members can’t spend a lot of time working for the OR, after all we all have families, jobs etc. But it doesn’t mean that we must do nothing. I think that each of us can sacrifice a little of our precious time to work for the OR, to help its advance. After all nobody forced us to join the OR. If we join it, it’s surely because we want to see it advance, grow etc.
We are all volunteers! This is our own choice. I have great difficulty understanding why people join an organization like the OR and just wait for others to do the work for them. For me it’s not an Odinic way to act. It’s very selfish.
Each of us can help in one way or in another. We all have skills or talents. We all have ideas, something to say, or something to share. We all have the capacity to write an article or a report for the ORB. We all have the capacity to write a complaint when a newspaper attacks our sacred Faith. We all have the capacity to support initiatives like the Folk Spirit/Folk Soul CDs. We all have the capacity to organize an event for the International Guardians Weekend. This is not limited to a small part of our membership. We must all do our best for our Faith. We must all be ready to make some sacrifices.
The examples of activities listed above may seem unimportant, but how can we be ready to work and support more ambitious things if we are not able to support and work on smaller projects? It’s maybe not the most exciting thing to write an article or a report, to write a complaint, but they are things that must be done. Because if we, the OR members are not able to do these things, nobody will do them for us.
As Odinists it’s our sacred duty to do all we can to advance our holy religion. We all want to see our Faith and the OR growing and prospering. But to achieve that, we must work hard, constantly and regularly!
WE MUST BE INDUSTRIOUS!
Hael to the Bread Makers!
