As we celebrate the life and work of Alexander Rud Mills this month, I took some time to re-read “The Call of Our Ancient Nordic Religion”. I would encourage all of you to give this book a read. It is very important that we look at our history, celebrate the roots of modern Asatru. One can tell that Mills was an incredibly intelligent man and an accomplished writer. it is easy to recognize the ways his ideas differ from our own and the ways he was not able to entirely shake off the deeply ingrained Christianity that had conditioned our folk for a millennium. What I think is much more important is to take note of the courage it took to start out on this journey back home to our Gods. What I think is especially important is to see the ideas that he did take up that laid the foundations for what we have today. Reading this book again a few things really stood out to me. One thing is that he understood clearly that life is good, that mankind is not inherently dirty and sinful. More than this, he recognized that our Folk and our Gods are not separate from one another, God being holy and good and man being dirty and disgusting. He knew that we ought to take pride and dignity in who we are and strive to be noble and stand nobly before Gods that are connected to us and who want to see us succeed and be winners. Mills saw a return to dignity before the divine and he had the courage to set out on a new road and begin reforging our bridge to our Gods and our destiny. Our faith and our folk grow and evolve, hopefully we are all closer to perfection with every year that passes. We learn more, we mature, we dream. Hail and thank you to those that had that spark of inspiration, those who laid the foundations that we are blessed to be able to build upon.

Matthew D. Flavel
Alsherjargothi,
Asatru Folk Assembly