When Does Sharing Become Proselytizing?
How a recent interaction in my comment section made me think differently about faith, conversation, and the way we connect online
Like a lot of online creators who toil away in relative obscurity, I bitch a lot about wishing more people went out of their way to actually engage with my work. But sometimes I just cannot with the way certain people go about it and walk away thinking “eff this guy” for whatever reason.
For example, I recently blocked someone who had been commenting on my Medium articles fairly regularly lately. And full disclosure? I do stuff like that a fair amount online, as I don’t tolerate any type of rudeness, including sexualized or combative comments.
But this particular person wasn’t really being rude, per se. He didn’t insult me or try to start an argument. His comments always sounded a bit AI-ish for my taste, but they were also usually polite and encouraging. Pretty much every single one of them also came jam-packed with multiple quotations from the Quran, though, regardless of whether my article had anything to do with religion or spirituality.
So this time, I guess I just hit my limit and thought, I really don’t enjoy reading these anymore. I also thought a lot after the fact about why I felt that way.
Because I’m a very openly spiritual person these days. My writing — especially here — explores everything from tarot and folklore to angels, saints, ritual, and all of the strange little corners where religion and mystery like to overlap. Someone expressing their faith doesn’t usually feel so off-putting to me.
So why did it this time?
When Every Road Leads to the Same Destination
I assume everyone has a friend who somehow manages to bring every single discussion back to their favorite hobby:
You mention you’re tired after work. They immediately come back with how marathon training fixed their energy and suggest getting into it yourself (for the jillionth time).
Maybe you mention making soup. Somehow, that becomes a lecture about cast iron cookware versus non-stick.
You mention watching a movie. Five minutes later, you’re listening to an enthusiastic monologue about cryptocurrency, vintage tractors, or competitive bird photography that you in no way signed up for.
Most of us know someone like this. And if we’re being honest, most of us have probably been that person at least once. (I know I have, especially in my younger years.)
Spiritual beliefs work in very much the same way
Given the right context, sharing a meaningful scriptural passage because someone asks about grief or hope can be beautiful. Offering a thoughtful perspective during a discussion about faith can enrich certain conversations, as well. But only when whatever you’re putting out there is at least somewhat adjacent to what the other person has already chosen to talk about.
It’s way different when every conversation arrives at exactly the same destination, regardless of where it started.
And that pattern extends way, way beyond religion or spiritual beliefs.
People who are into politics are especially bad about this. But folks who are either for or against artificial intelligence do it, and productivity gurus can be pretty bad about it, too. Even we occultists and woo-woo spiritualists do it, even though I have peers who seem blissfully unaware.
Different beliefs. Same shitty habit.
And it’s honestly not about anyone expressing their faith for me. It’s about feeling like the original conversation I started somehow became secondary because of some stranger’s one-track mind.
Every Spiritual Path Teaches More Than Speaking
So many spiritual traditions place tremendous value on speaking the truth. At the same time, they’re also meant to promote qualities that receive far less attention online than they probably deserve — wisdom, discernment, patience, humility, compassion, genuine listening, and all that good shit.
But those qualities have something essential in common.
They all require a believer or practitioner to make room for another person. Because when something changes your life, sharing not only feels awesome but downright generous. And sometimes it truly is, but only when the context makes sense.
As an occultist, I could probably find a way to connect almost any topic to… say… tarot if I tried hard enough, because I genuinely love talking about that topic.
A discussion about careers? Pull a few cards. Someone mentions a crossroads in life? Time to give Hecate a shoutout. An article about creative burnout? I could happily spend half an hour explaining how Saturn has been unfairly blamed for everything since roughly the invention of calendars.
That doesn’t automatically make those contributions helpful, though. Or appropriate. Even fellow occultists would probably start eyeing the exits after a while if every single peek into my weird little brain always led to the same tired, played-out altar.
Discernment isn’t just about knowing what is true. It also means developing good instincts for when a particular truth even belongs in a conversation in the first place.
Building Community Without Turning Every Conversation into a Monologue
Writing online is weird sometimes. One minute you’re chatting with someone from the other side of the world about books, birds, or bread recipes. The next, you’re wondering how a discussion about houseplants somehow deteriorated into a debate about artificial intelligence or whether pigeons work for the government.
Every comment we leave and every conversation we join helps shape the communities we build for (and around) ourselves.
Read the room before pivoting to your favorite topic
Every creator has subjects they could happily discuss until sunrise, and I’m no different. Mine tend to correlate at least loosely to topics like folklore, symbolism, storytelling, and whichever historical oddity I most recently stumbled across at 2 AM while researching something completely unrelated.
But while enthusiasm is contagious, redirection usually isn’t. So before responding to someone else’s work, I try to pause for a moment and ask myself a simple question:
What is this person actually inviting people to talk about?
If whatever I was about to say doesn’t relate well enough, I either come up with a better approach or shut my cake-hole. Because most people feel way more seen when you respond to the ideas they chose to put out there, not the ones you wish they had.
You’re a guest, not a guest lecturer
You don’t walk into another person’s home and immediately start rearranging their furniture, do you? (Unless you do, in which case, please stop.) Well, comment sections deserve much the same courtesy.
Creators spend hours (if not days or weeks) building spaces that feel meaningful to them. Entering that space in the spirit of genuine curiosity facilitates a completely different experience than arriving with a prepared speech tucked under your arm.
So ask questions. Share a personal experience (if it’s relevant and appropriate). Build on a detail from their post that genuinely resonated with you, and leave room for the other person to answer back.
Trust your presence to do some of the talking
People don’t need constant reminders to eventually catch on to what genuinely matters to you, especially over time. If kindness shapes your life, they’ll see it, and if your faith or spiritual practice gives you peace, they’ll pick up on that, too.
The people you follow and converse with online eventually figure out who you are and what you’re about just fine on their own. You don’t need to jam your favorite talking point into every single interaction.
Leave room for someone else to surprise you
As creators, we spend an enormous amount of time putting together content and midwifing it into the world. And if we’re lucky, readers occasionally hand us some pretty cool gifts in return.
When a reader gently expands a conversation in a direction that’s actually relevant and respectful, it makes me glad I shared whatever it is that I shared. This literally never happens when someone wrenches the steering wheel out of my hands and hijacks the dialogue in some weird, preachy direction that was never on the itinerary.
Build a campfire, not a stage
Stages have performers, but campfires have participants. You’re way better off treating other creators’ comment sections like the latter.
Consider the way people gather around a fire because they hope to leave warmer than they were when they arrived. And everyone contributes something pretty darned cool, usually — memories, laughs, questions, frankfurters. Marshmallows. (Mmmm, marshmallows.)
Most creators do what they do because they’re hoping to build that kind of community. I really, really try to respect that when I’m interacting with someone else’s work.
So, Was I Too Hasty?
Doubtful, although even I have to admit that I probably pull the trigger on the old block button a little too quickly when it comes to some of the people who rub me the wrong way online.
Mr. Quran seemed to be looking for opportunities to share his faith wherever he found them, but unfortunately, I was looking for conversations about the topics I’d actually brought up for discussion.
Sucks to be him, I guess.
As someone whose life includes a very eclectic mix of tarot, folklore, ritual, Christian mysticism, and enough odd spiritual rabbit holes to keep several librarians employed full-time, I don’t ever want to become the occult version of that guy. I’d rather make people I interact with feel glad they engaged with me than leave them wondering how on earth we wound up talking about Lucifer or Elder Futhark runes when they wrote an article about tomatoes.
Because sometimes the most memorable thing we can contribute to another person’s spiritual journey isn’t a quotation or an argument they absolutely weren’t looking for when they logged on that day. Sometimes it’s simply the feeling that, for a few minutes, someone cared enough to participate in the conversation they were already having.