do you not have any siblings? do you not understand how delicate these situations can be? If I come right out and ask him and I am right I have just lost a brother do to his shame. He has inlaws who are the very worst examples of christian people who do this to him all the time. they give his kids crosses and things. If I come right out and ask him and I am wrong I have still lost a brother due to the implied insult. it is difficult having a witch for a brother. I pray for him, but I fear he will be lost.
Is he in the habit of doing shameful things to you? I still don’t understand why you would automatically assume that it would have been blessed in some ritual? If he gave you a pair of socks would you have the same concerns about them, or is it just because this is a plastic representation of a tree and you think Wiccans worship trees? I promise you they can tell the difference between a real and a fake one.
Yes, I have a sibling and stepsiblings. I am the one who has the most concnern and connection for our shared family history (doing the genealogy, etc), so I would be the one most likely to find something related to our past and give it to her as a gift.
I follow a religion considered Neopagan (though not Wicca), all my extended family are very Christian, most extremely fundamentalist Protestant (my sister is not fundamentalist). My sister attempts to understand and respect my religious views though she doesn’t understand them and I am sure prays for me a lot. My parents, who know at least that we are non-Christian though not that we are specifically following a Neopagan religion, do indeed go out of their way to inundate us with emails, gifts, etc that are very specifically and overtly Christian, frequently proselytizing, including occasionally attempts to proselytize my young child (and for that reason, I am much more careful about monitoring her interactions with them than with her other grandparents).
I have never given any of them anything that was blessed in or involved in any sort of ritual or related even remotely to my religious path, nor would I dream of doing so. I certainly do not take family mementos and do so before passing them on. It would be deceitful, dishonest, disrespectful and totally against my religious principles. I would lay odds that if your brother is indeed having his inlaws shower him with such items, he is going to be hyper-aware of how such is perceived and be careful
not to give you something that in any way, shape or form has been involved with his religious activities just to make sure he
isn’t like them.
It also might help to know that Wicca is not a proselytizing religion nor do I know of any Wiccan who chooses to use a plastic tree as part of any ritual rather than a real one.
I agree I would find it insulting if, given absolutely no track record of ever having done such and knowing that my sister knew how
I felt about getting stuff that was not of my religion, that she would automatically assume that just because I was not Christian I would do this to her. Putting a plaque on it, sticking a statue of Jesus on it, sending it back with a rosary, or some of the other things that are suggested would simply be rubbing salt into it. Would I disassociate from my sister because of it? Absolutely not. I would be ticked at her and tell her how disappointed I was that she was tarring me with the same brush as those Christians who do such things, but cut off a relationship with her----no way.
Unless you have explicit evidence to the contrary (ie it was covered in pentagrams or something), I would suggest that you assume the best of your brother and see it simply as an expression of family sentiment (which is exactly what I think it is). If you cannot do that, take it quietly to a priest and ask him to bless it, then never mention it to anyone again. Either way, it needs to be resolved quickly. Having this doubt tearing you up is going to have a much worse effect on your relationship with your brother than any mere object ever could. It is going to be the ever-growing “elephant in the room” in every interaction with him.
And who do you pray to?
).