Blind to bondage.

When I created this blog, I chose to call it "One Once Bound," noting that I was bound to sin, and that I am now set free. In a fair number of my posts I attempt to echo that idea with text that suggests that I had a problem, but I learned something new and suddenly don't have a problem anymore... only to find myself still struggling and needing to learn more.

Throughout all this, I think it's fair to say I've still been bound up in a sense--serving a master that demanded my worship and surrender, a master that I feared to leave and claimed that I would be nothing without it. Sounds a lot like God, right? Here's the problem--that's not the master I've been afraid of.

I could make this post centralize around idolatry in general, but here I want to talk about my heaviest, most imprisoning idol. An idol that since I was eleven years old, I have worshiped and yearned for. I poured out all I had for this idol, gave myself away and even was willing to completely lose myself, to throw away my entire life and become a completely different creature. Again, sounds a bit like how a Christian is saved, becomes a new creation in Christ, and surrenders their all to him (but that is a bit different than what I'm referring to).

I started this blog after I left my life of totemism, after I decided that I would no longer practice what was basically witchcraft in order to become a wolf and lose my humanity. However, the idea itself of becoming a wolf (a werewolf in particular) has still very much been an idol. Whenever I've felt weak, I've run to that idea and allowed myself to give into it emotionally, sensually, and even sexually through masturbation, clinging to this idea that if I gave myself to the idea of becoming a bigger, stronger creature in every way possible, I would find strength that I felt I had to have. Something else I noticed just tonight however, was that I didn't simply run to transformation fantasies when I felt weak. I've searched for it in everything--the feel of fur, things on TV that reminded me of werewolves, even in just seeing animals in general... anything that gave me an excuse to fantasize, I nonchalantly searched for without even realizing it.

The picture of a man's relationship with an idol is painted very well in Isaiah 44. Here's an excerpt:

¹⁸ They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand. ¹⁹ No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?” ²⁰  He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”

Basically, this passage is saying that someone who worships an idol, even though their worship may be blatant, they aren't aware of what they're really doing. Lesser idols, in my experience, can be looked at in one's life and identified as a problem and be readily dealt with. Major idols however, are ever-present, and through many venues are worshiped by a person... without that person even realizing that it's idol worship!

I know from here it will be a heavy battle to let go of this idol in my life, but at least now it's been revealed for what it is. This now requires that I very deeply examine my heart for the furry fandom as well as the art form in general, and see if I'm using it as a venue to worship transformation, or to truly worship the one, true God.