Serving Ma'at and Other Random Thoughts

"The ethical conceptions of 'truth,' 'order,' and 'cosmic balance' are encompassed in the Egyptian term ma'at, and the personification of those principles is the goddess Ma'at. The goddess represented the divine harmony and balance of the universe, including the unending cycles of the rising and setting sun, the inundation of the Nile River, the resulting fertility of the land, and the enduring office of kingship; she considered to be the force that kept chaos(isfet), the antithesis of order, from overwhelming the world. Hence ma'at was a complex, intertwined, and interdependent sense of ethics that tied personal behavior-such as speaking truthfully, dealing fairly in the market place, and especially sustaining obedience to parents, the king, and his agents-to maintenance of universal order. To transgress one aspect of ma'at threatened to encourage chaos and overwhelm order. To live according to ma'at was also fundamental to personal existence."

Source: The Ancient Gods Speak: A Guide to Egyptian Religion edited by Donald B. Redford

I was thinking over that as I was sitting on campus after I had gotten out of Accounting while I was trying to ignore the mass of emails flying into my inbox about what's going on with Z. Budapest. And it crossed my mind that serving ma'at should be something that people should do whether or not they actually follow the Kemetic gods. Now before you jump me for saying that let me explain. To others serving ma'at would just be living their day to day lives doing good. Like volunteering or even that random act of kindness toward a stranger. For example, today I was helping a friend take the food her club collected in a food drive down to the Second Harvest food bank truck. I don't think any of the people that were helping out serve ma'at. Or most, if not all, of the people that even donated food do either. But does that stop them from doing something that could be considered serving ma'at? No because I think the concept of ma'at is something that is seen in other religions and irreligious morals and ethics but under different names. Or even another one. My mother's Christian. After she picked me up from college and went to go get her phone card we pulled a double drive thru. We went to Burger King to get sandwiches and then over to Wendy's for fries and frosties. While we were standing at the register at Wendy's waiting for someone to take our order we ended up overhearing the two behind us. I'm guessing it was a mother and son. But the son said that he wanted something, I was guessing that he wanted a frosty instead of his drink or something like that but my mom said she didn't hear exactly what it was but we both did catch that she said no because she didn't have the money. As we were standing there I was thinking about turning to them and giving them the coupon I was going to use to get my frosty since that's what I thought I heard them talking about. But after we had gotten our food and before they ordered theirs my mom went up to the women and gave her the couple dollars that was left over from our order. We didn't stick around long enough to find out if the guy did actually get what he wanted. We actually left the women with a confused look on her face. >.<; But its things like this that I see as doing ma'at. I know my mom knows nothing about the concept of ma'at or any of the mythology that goes with it. Does that stop her from doing for others? Nope.

And I lost my train of thought. >.<; Damn emails about Z. Budapest. Can you spell drama? Seriously. If you've written a chant that you didn't want getting changed from Goddess to God then why didn't you do something when it first happened? 30-some-odd years ago(or something like that)? Why all of a sudden start hexing people now over it? And seriously. What's so wrong about a dick? We kinda need that to reproduce. Women can't asexually reproduce last time I checked.

Though it does bring up something I've been pondering the last couple days. In creation how many myths say it was a male deity and how many say its a female one? While creation is something I don't completely dive into and believe one myth over the other its still an interesting thought. All the creation myths I can remember say it was a male deity that created everything. Well ok. I should say there there has to be at least one creation myth out there that it was a female. Because I don't think Dianics acknowledge a god. Though I could be wrong. All I know is that they're goddess worship. Beyond that I know nothing. I might look into years from now as a passing interest. I have no interest in worshiping solely female deities. I love the gods that I've been able to interact with and I want to meet more. Does that make me such a terrible person for wanting to get a long with every human and deity regardless of gender? If anything I've been more like one of the guys. I always got along more guys than girls. It never bothered me. I never really saw a person one way just because of their gender or skin color or even as their orientation. People were people. To me it didn't matter what they looked like. It was all about how they acted. If someone acted like a racist piece of shit then why should I bother with them? But if someone was kind and someone I could relate to easily then great.

I think I went off on a random tangent again. That might get me in trouble one of these days. >.<; Ah well. I think I may end that here for tonight then.

Dua Ma'at!
Senebty