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How Much Stuff Does One Pagan Need?

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Should I let go of my stuff?

Should I have a metaphysical yard sale, in which I sell my Cunningham books, my surplus of pewter jewelry, and my…

…ahem…

…crystals?

GET your hand off that… It’s priceless.

Should I rid my closet of the long, green, hooded robe I’ve worn twice, my Guatemalan patchwork jacket I scored for $7 bucks, or my black ceremonial duds? How about my malas, my God and Goddess candle holders (don’t you just love P. Borda?), or my copper OM chalice?

When I look at the shelf above my desk, I read the titles:

  • A Book of Pagan Prayer
  • A Pagan Ritual Prayer Book
  • The Book of Common Prayer (i.e. Episcopal Church)
  • A Canticle For Leibowitz (thank you, Themon, for the recommendation)
  • Sacred Fire, Holy Well
  • Creation Spirituality
  • The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life
and
  • Pagans & Christians

Is that too diverse?

What about my entire shelf of Bibles? I’ve got the Green, the NIV, the Aramaic translation, the King James, the Revised Standard, the Edicion Pastoral, the Good News Bible, and the New International Version.

I also have a Humanist Bible, which is a whole ‘nother story.

I like stuff. Most of us do, to some degree. But I wonder if this surplus of metaphysical stuff I’ve accumulated throughout the years gets in my way.

How much of this stuff do I actually use?

Not much.

You’d think I was a Witch or somethin’.

These thoughts occur to me as I continue with my ADF Dedicant Path studies. I feel like I’m studying to be one thing, but the stuff around me suggests that I’m something quite different. I’m studying to be an ADF Druid working within a Pan-Celtic hearth, as it were, but my stuff indicates that I’m really quite eclectic.

This isn’t a crisis by any means, but it is something to consider. What does our stuff say about us? And, how much stuff do we need in order to do our religion?

Is an excess of spiritual stuff an indication that you don’t have enough religion?

Should religion curb your consumption? And when it doesn’t — when your spiritual/religious work winds you up with tupperwares full of serapes, tapestries, and unused statuary — is it really nature spirituality that you’re practicing, or stuff spirituality?

It may sound like I’m romanticizing asceticism, but I’m not. Like I said, I like stuff.

I’m just beginning to question why I have so much of it.

This post is not designed to preach what is the right relationship to stuff. I’m just hoping to inspire some classic Bishop In The Grove dialogue about stuff.

I want to know about your stuff. 

Take a look around you. Look at the stuff on your shelves, on your windowsills, and in your dresser drawers, paying close attention to all of the stuff that’s connected to your spiritual path or religious work (whichever term you prefer).

What’s there? How much of us it being used on a daily basis? Any? All? Some?

Do you save your stuff for the High Holidays? Do you haul out the cooler of candle holders for your coven’s rituals, or has it been collected cobwebs in the corner?

Let’s all take a minute and talk about our stuff.

What We Are: One Pagan-American Response

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What makes Pagans valuable to America? What do we bring to the table? How do we exemplify American values? Looking back on the contributions that Jews and Catholics have made to our collective American identity, how do Pagans enrich the American identity?

– Star Foster

 

We are a million individual voices.

We share no unified belief, but we encourage the development of a personal and a communal practice.

We force our traditions on no one, but we seek to build community.

We are the unique, en masse.

We remember the Earth. Many of us deify Her.

We live liturgically, led most commonly by the natural rhythms of the changing seasons.

We worship.

We make offerings.

Many of us hold paramount the principle, “Harm None,” and we are constantly in a dialogue about what that means.

We live our lives in service to Gods, Spirits, or Ancestors, and, standing beside the humanist pagans, we seek to serve the living kingdoms of this Earth.

We honor the traditions of those who belong to our large, amorphous community, and, like other Americans, we struggle to honor those whose are outside the boundaries we’ve created.

We are no more valuable to this Nation than people of any other religious or social group, but we are equally as valuable.

Today is the 4th of July, and I affirm my intrinsic value as an American citizen, as a religious person whose religious expression is deserving of full protection under the Law, as a member of a community comprised of diverse, imaginative, complicated and creative persons, each of whom is deserving and worthy of the all the rights afforded to any other American citizen, and I affirm the value of all life, human or otherwise.

I am a Pagan-American.

If you are moved at all by these statements, or you feel these messages could initiate valuable dialogue, please share this post on Facebook or Twitter.

The Just Treatment Of Puppies And Old People

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My grandparents got a puppy. They shouldn’t have, but they did. They’re old and slow, and puppies are the opposite of those two things. But they recently lost a dog who had been their companion for years. And the new puppy, which looks a lot like their old dog except puppy-sized, is the most adorable, the most soft, the most lovable thing you’ve ever seen.

And so, they bought it. At a pet store. In a mall.

They did this in spite of the strong discouragement from their three, grown children who all understood that it would be more sensible for them to get an older dog, a calmer dog, one that would not demand so much of their attention. But once my grandfather held the little white mess of fur and puppy slobber, it was done. Sold. No arguments could persuade him otherwise. Cash spent, dog adopted.

The dog has since escaped from their house 3 times; once for a week, and the other two times for a period of a few minutes. The dog is a quick little thing, unlike–as I noted–the old folks. During the longer stint, the dog wound up in a shelter, and then a doggy foster home. She was well cared for, and probably would have been better off to have stayed there. But, after a chip-scan she was identified, my grandparents were called, and she was brought back to their home.

They’ve fixed the fence, but not the core problem. She’s too much for them to handle, and they can’t care for her.

So, we took her. We took her to train her. We gave ourselves a month, but in two days she was as trained as one could expect a 5 month old puppy to be. She, we came to understand, was not the problem.

Can You Teach An Old Man New Tricks?

Training a dog isn’t hard. Dogs want to please us. They want to do right by us. Especially the little ones. They don’t know how, but they have a deep yearning to do so. If we give them the right kind of attention, the right kind of discipline, they can succeed. The result of proper dog training is a peaceful, symbiotic relationship between dog and human, and this little puppy has shown that she’s capable of having that kind of relationship. She’s ready for it.

But my grandpa? He’s pretty much fixed in his ways. Has been for all of my life. His hearing may have changed, getting worse with each decade, and he shakes more now than he used to. But, fundamentally he’s the same man I’ve known for the last 32 years. Stubborn. Hard-headed. Frail now, but still capable of projecting the posture of a war-seasoned Marine.

He’s going to feed this dog from his plate no matter how many vets tell him he shouldn’t. He’s going to see this little puppy in her crate, and the first time she whines at him he’s going to let her out. She’ll learn to manipulate him, she’ll run the roost, and in no time he’ll wonder why she doesn’t behave. She’ll go right back to being the dog that they couldn’t handle.

It seems fated.

I could find a better home for the dog. The original foster family said they’d take her back in a heartbeat. But, it’s arguable if I would even have the right to do that without their permission. I want to. I want to give this dog to someone else, find my grandparents an old mutt they can love, and have it all go down smooth and easy, without conflict.

I want to correct the mistake they made when they bought this dog, but it isn’t mine to correct.

And, I’d only be making a new mistake.

The Freedom To Fail

Far too often we treat old people like puppies, deciding what food they should eat, what living conditions are best for them, how to schedule their lives. We condescend to them by insinuating that they don’t know what is best for them. We speak to them from a place of assumed superiority. I’ve seen other members of my family do it to my grandparents, and been horrified by it.

And now look at me.

They deserve better than that. They deserve the freedom to fail as much as the opportunity to succeed. You can’t take away one without the other disappearing, too.

But What About The Dog?

We’re going to bring the dog back. We do it with reservations, and with a laundry list of suggestions for how to better care for the puppy. We’ll spell out the do’s and don’t’s we use with our dogs, doing our best not to condescend or belittle, and knowing full well that our “Guidelines For Proper Puppy Care” may be completely ignored. We’ll check in on little “Patches” every so often to remind her of our blissful days of doggy training, but we’ll no longer take the lead. We’ll give back the control that we seized, and by doing so provide my 80-some-odd year old grandparents the opportunity to make different choices.

Whether or not they do, ultimately, is up to them.

Have you ever been in this kind of situation? Do you have experience intervening in the life of a grandparent or parent? If so, what was that like for you?

Or, have you been in a position where your children or grandchildren have attempted to influence, or even govern over the choices you make? If so, would you be willing to share your insights in the comment section? I’d love to hear your perspective.

And, if you like this post, especially all the cute pictures of the dog’ens, please share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter!

The Day The Witches Took Over Church – UPDATED

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No one knew why the woman sitting beside the Orpheus Pagan Chamber Choir was wearing a black, feathered, Carnival mask, and I doubt anybody asked. Pagans are known to be eccentric with their attire, after all, and who’s to say she wasn’t paying homage to a deity or something? Tres faux pax to question a Pagan’s choice of bling. You’re treading on holy ground there.

Her display may have seemed a bit dark for 9:15am on a Sunday, but who was I to judge? Me, with my purple bow-tie and thistle blossom lapel flower, proudly donning purple to show my Pagan pride. I stood out just as much as she did from my mostly white haired, much more plainly dressed neighbors, and none of them were giving me any grief.

There was occasion for pagan pageantry on this morning, whether that be pentagrams and feathers or labradorite and velour robes. The Witches had showed up in force at the Unitarian Universalist church, and they were ready to cast a circle.

Who Are The Witches In Your Neighborhood?

The Sunday service at Jefferson Unitarian Universalists Church, appropriately titled, “The Pagan Next Door,” was led by a prominent Wiccan Priestess and Priest from the local Pagan community with the help of several UU Pagans. Unlike other UU services, where individuals representing a single faith tradition might sprinkle in bits and pieces of their religious language and practice into a standard UU framework, this was set to be a full-fledged, Wiccan rite.

Now, I’m not a Witch (and I can’t type that without hearing in my head a certain auto-tuned political parody), and this service was all about the Witches. The Four Quarters were called, Deity was presented as Lord and Lady, and a circle was cast — something that we don’t do in ADF Druidry. But that was all okay with me. I didn’t need for the service to reflect my own practice in order for it to be relevant. This event mattered for one simple reason:

It was a moment to practice proclaiming our legitimacy.

The occasion was worthy of a bow-tie.

Preaching The Legitimacy Gospel

The Priestess spoke for great length about the normalcy of Witches, and I found this to be particularly interesting. Covens, in seems, are as apple-pie as your HOA. Little Witch-kids are playground stomping next to little Christian soldiers, and big Witch-adults are ringing up your groceries, policing your streets and suing your insurance companies. Witches are just like you. Well…mostly.

I appreciate the sentiment, and I see the value in this kind of preaching (though I doubt the Witches in question would use the word “preach” to describe their sermon – another iffy word). But as I see it, that’s what they were doing. Making the case for normalcy and commonalities is important for people living on the fringes. Take if from a Gay.

Just a few days ago, LGBTQIA activists (i.e. “Queer Folk”) and supporters claimed a victory in New York after gaining the right to legally recognized civil marriage. That would have never happened without thousands of Gay-vangelists preaching the Legitimacy Gospel, not unlike what these two Witches were doing at the podium.

WE’RE HERE!! WE’RE WITCHES!! And we’ll meet you in the common area after service for coffee and snacks. Please join us. 🙂

This evangelism may not appeal to everyone out there, but it is necessary work. You’ve got to get in there and mix with the muggles, let them know you’re not a monster, and say quite plainly and with respect that who you are and how you practice your religion is valid.

First, though, you have to believe it yourself.

How Do You BECOME Legitimate?

Simple answer: you behave as though you already are.

My husband calls is, “acting as if”. Its a technique we’ve used to get us through some hard times, and I think it would be useful to Pagans who are seeking greater recognition outside of the Pagan community.

In our case, we aren’t recognized as a “legitimate” married couple, but we act as if are. We treat each other as if the world already saw us as legitimate, both privately and publicly, and in so doing we begin to create a life for ourselves that functions similarly to any other legitimate relationship.

In the case of the Witches, most churches won’t have anything to do with them. They villainies them, misconceive them and distort that which they hold sacred. But on this Sunday, the Witches greeted people at the church door, congregated in the commons area, and shared the limited variety of crackers and coffee available. They handed them program leaflets, passed the collection plate, and most importantly shared sacred space with people who do not identify as Pagan. They acted as if they belonged.

And they did. We did. We were welcomed, and it was a good feeling.

Maybe I’ll Be A Churchy Pagan

I intend to return to the UU church on a less witchy Sunday to see what a normal service is like. I’ll be sure to wear a bit of purple and I’ll plan on engaging with parishioners about my spiritual journey, the evolution of which I feel needs to be examine and unpacked longer form.

See, I am on my own personal quest for legitimacy. As much as I know, I still must re-learn constantly how to act as if my path–my life– is legitimate. I must learn and re-learn the language that best communicates what I know in my heart and what I practice before my altar to people who may practice and believe differently than me.

I take inspiration from the Withes, though, and their churchiness. Perhaps I’ll follow their lead.

What about you? Do you find any challenge in acting as if your spiritual path is legitimate? Have you ever been in a position where you were able to preach the legitimacy gospel? If so, please tell me about in the comment section.

But first, be a kind blog-lover and share this post on Facebook or Twitter.

Post Updated on July 4th to include links to Orpheus Pagan Chamber Choir and Jefferson Unitarian Universalist Church.

Rules Of Reverence: The Sacred And The Silly

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My grandma says in Spanish, “¡Jesus!” whenever someone sneezes. Its the cutest thing. The “-soos” part of the word is always pitched just a little bit higher than the “heh-“.

“Heh-soos!”

I love it.

My husband and I were over for dinner recently, and after a sneeze and a ‘soos, I said jokingly, and in English:

“Jesus!”

She laughed a little, and then got a scolding expression on her face.

“Mateo…”

It was funny, though. Saying “Jesus” after a sneeze is funny. Who does that? I don’t think my grandma ever realized that she was saying the first name of the deity she’d been praying to all her life after each sneeze. Not until, that is, I said the word in English.

“JESUS!”

The irreverence was titillating, even for my 80 year old, Catholic grandmother.

What Are The Rules Of Reverence?

In exploring the idea of using Gods for our own purposes, I wrote that we need to respect the Gods we worship. We need be weary of commodifying them; turning them into an essential oil, or a hair product. They aren’t designed to meet our needs. That isn’t how it works. They, like us, may have areas of expertise. But who wants to be treated like they’re just a resource, and little more? I know I don’t, and I wouldn’t imagine a Divine Being would either.

I received a number of insightful comments to this post which reminded me of the importance of humor and mirth in ritual. Stodgy religion? Bo-ring. Its important for a community of people (i.e. Pagans) who actively engage with the world as thought it is a magical place, populated by unseen, mythical, fanciful creatures, to keep it light. Don’t take yourself so seriously, prancing around in your serape or cloak. Its a little laugh-worthy, what we do, remember.

[An admission: I’m a kilt-wearing, cloak owning, Renaissance festival attending Pagan, myself. I’m all about the dress-up, and I know the difference between a role-play game and religion. I’m just sayin’ – we’ve got to keep things in context.]

But how, then, are we to find an acceptable standard of reverence? What does it mean to be a reverent, devout, polytheist Pagan?

Sometimes I Miss My Dogma

Beware the oncoming Pagan blasphemy: There’s something to be said for dogmatic structures. They’re kind of useful in holding a group of people to a standard. Dogma ain’t always a bad thing.

Unless it is, or course. The universe is expansive in ways we can’t even fathom, and our little attempts at packaging it up and labeling it always fall short. Our dogma, right as we may think it, is always, from another perspective, wrong. Its also used to subjugate, alienate, judge, and suppress countless forms of natural, healthy, human expression.

But even when its wrong, it has a purpose.

Rules Are Made To Be Broken

What I loved about being surrounded by dogma was that I had the option – the inner freedom – to resist it. If I decided, on my own accord, that the dogma was bunk, I could make that known. Sure, that might alienate me from those who accepted it blindly. But at least it was something for me to engage with. I could argue with it, one way or the other.

Now, as I float down this amorphous Pagan river, I have nothing concrete to argue with. No dogma? No dogma to resist. This is, for many Pagans, a point of pride. We’re proud that we aren’t subject to an oppressive, dogmatic monolith. We’re free, right?

But rules will eventually form. They do so organically. Even in an open Wiccan circle there are a whole set of unspoken rules of how to act, how not to act, and those rules are enforced explicitly or implicitly. Either way, they’re there. And its natural for them to be there. That’s what happens when people form community. They form rules of engagement; standards of practice, and systems of shared belief.

Rules matter for something. I don’t accept that in order to be Pagan, to walk a Druid path (for myself), or to take part in any other tradition that we must throw all sense of structure to the wind.

The question is, how do we find a balance between our desire for personal freedom and the legitimate need to have a standard measurement in our community?

Say It In Spanish

“Jesus”, for my adorable grandma, means something different in Spanish, post-sneeze, than it does when she’s saying the word in her rosary. The context and the usage determine what is appropriate and what isn’t. While she has a sneaky sense of humor, and she did appreciate my irreverent act, she was also made a little uncomfortable by it. It came a bit too close to what is, for her, a very sacred idea. I respect that, and after the joke had been made a few times, I dropped it.

Her example, though, is useful for the modern Pagan, seeking to find balance between reverence and irreverence. What does it mean to be a devout Pagan? Know yourself. Know what those lines are for you. Understand the topography of your own inner spiritual world, and hold true to that. Then, when an irreverent joke is lobbed your way, you can see where it lands and you’ll have perspective as to how much damage it could actually do.

Mirth, humor, playfulness – these things all work to counter-balance our sense of reverence and serious religious expression. They give light to another side of that expression; a crucial side. They’re the bird call and the puppy bark. They are the millions of ways that the Sacred intersects with the Ordinary, imbuing it with magic. Reverence is remembering that both sides serve a purpose; they serve one another. The Ordinary and the Sacred are kin.

Call A God, Then Grab A Tissue

So next time you sneeze, say “¡Heh-soos!,” or, “Ganesha!” Then, laugh a little and remind yourself that even the most devout, sincere religious person looks a little silly in their garb and getup. The silliness is a sacred part of the process. Be silly. Be reverent. Then…

“HEH-SOOS!”

Bless you…

If you found this silly post to be entertaining or insightful, please tweet it or Facebook share it with your friends. As always, your comments are welcome here. I’d love to know how you balance the sacred and the silly!

Pill Popping Deities

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She skipped around the circle, waving sparkers in the air and laughing like a toddler. It was a non-conventional way to cast a Fire Circle, I suppose. But then again what’s convention to a mis-match gathering of MeetUp Pagans holding ritual behind a Unitarian Universalist church?

Could you imagine a more anti-convention convention?

The Fire Circle was a sub-circle, if you will, of an even larger elemental circle. It was intended to provide the participants with some Wicca 101 on the relevance of the element of Fire, and I found the whole thing to be a little boring. I could have been at home reading Cunningham if I’d have wanted some simple fire metaphors. I’d hoped for a Full Moon ritual that dug a little deeper. Instead, I got sparklers.

But then the Fire Priestess began talking about Gods. My ears perked up. Maybe this will rekindle the embers.

Apollo’s good to use… or you could use Isis… or for creative things you could use Brighid… There are good Gods to use from just about any pantheon…

Huh. What an interesting use of the word “use”, I thought. Using Gods to cure what ails you. Using Gods to get what you want out of life. Huh. How consumerist. Pill popping deities; making use of them in order to – what – be pain-free, blissful, satisfied?

It got me wondering – Is that what the Gods are? New Age Prescription Drugs?

Pick Your Poly-Pleasure

Polytheism, by nature, seems to create less pressure for the believer than monotheism, because polytheists have options. If something sours in the God/human relationship, the polytheist can go elsewhere. There’s a pretty big Deity Dating Pool for the modern polytheist, especially if you’re not particular about your pantheon.

Like yoga? Think Vedic. Love Loreena McKennitt? Call on the Celts. Perhaps you’re feeling a bit in the mood for something spicy. Google Santeria. Its all there of you. Grab a shopping cart. Go God gaga.

The monotheist, on the other hand, has a single choice, and if it doesn’t work with the big One, to Hell with ya’.

Admittedly, I’m being a bit flip with my characterizations. There are probably plenty of polytheists whose practice is eclectic and sincere, and plenty of monotheists who don’t feel trapped in their “personal relationship with God.”

It just seems like there are an awful lot of Deity options for the polytheist, and its a popular approach to make use of those options as we see fit. I don’t agree with that approach. I don’t think the Gods should be in service to me. It should be the other way around.

I Like My Gods To Be Big And Powerful

Call me an old fashioned Pagan, but I like to think that Gods & Goddesses are bigger than me, more powerful than me, worthy of respect. They’re here with me and inside of me — yes — but they are also outside of me and expansive in ways that stretch the imagination. This is why they are worshipped. This is why offerings are made to them.

I either believe that, or I believe that the Gods aren’t real. They’re just devices of psychology. They’re fiction. Narrative. They’re all in my head. And, if that’s the case, I should pick and choose which god I want to use. I should let my god or goddess serve me.

But I’m in the “Gods Are Real” camp, and in light of that I feel that I should be very deliberate about how I approach them in speech, action, and even in my very intention. Am I trying to get something from them? If so, am I offering anything in return? How do I speak to them? At a recent ritual I attended, the Priest commanded –literally commanded the spirits to be present.

Um… rude.

I don’t have years of context for how most Pagans approach Deity. As I’ve written before, I grew up in the Christian church. To a great degree the Christian God was supposed to remain a mystery. Any attempt to fully understand him was futile, because unknowability was part of his deal. The best thing you could do was learn how to relate to the portrait of him that was presented in scripture, as well as whatever part of him was experienced and expressed through group worship and tradition.

But there’s no common pagan scripture, and in the case of the Fire Priestess I’m not sure I really care to join her in commodifying the Gods.

So what then?

Photo from allthingslabyrinth.com

Bring Back The Mystery

I’m not sure what Gods are for certain, and I appreciate that mystery. I think participating in something that is impossible to fully undertand (like science, for example) leads to amazing things. You discover a lot about the world you live in, and the world that lives in you.

In suggesting that Gods are more than just salve for the soul, I’m also not suggesting that they be treated like just any another person. I don’t really desire a BFF relationship with the Gods, nor do I want for them to be my therapists. I do seek out guidance, and I look for signs of their presence in my life. But I think it is a misstep to treat Gods as though they are human, just as it is a misstep to treat them like designer drugs. They are not human. They’re beyond human.

How do you wrap your mind around that? You don’t — I don’t, at least. I just have reverence for the very idea of there being something which exists in that way. Worship, then, is an attempt to further understand where my humanity intersects with that mystery. How do I, a human being, come into contact with a God; with a raw, powerful, mysterious, creative force? How will I know when its happened? What will it feel like?

These are the questions that inspire me to attend these rituals, even after a disappointing encounter with a sparkler. This is why I approach my altar in the morning to make my offerings. Seeking the answer to these questions fuels my religious life.

I Do Really Like Sparklers, Though

We do the best we can, us religious folk. Sometimes we hit on something deep. Other times, we just look a little silly. But, we try.

Perhaps I should cut the Fire Priestess some slack. Maybe she’s got a deeper connection to Deity than I’m giving her credit for. Maybe her sparkly wand and fiery voice did exactly what she’d intended them to do — start a fire inside of me. Inspire me to forge something new — like this blog post.

If what you’ve read here started a fire in you, share your thoughts in the comments. Start a wildfire by tweeting this post, or Facebook sharing it with your friends!

Casting Faith

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The new head of the company told me on Thursday, in a calm and steady tone, that we have reached the furthest point we can in our working relationship. We need to accept that we’ve done everything we are capable of doing.

In short – you’re fired.

Ah…THAT’S why he closed the door when I came in here, I thought.

I told him that I understood, and I did. I haven’t been a big money maker for the company. And while the business always considered itself to be more family-run than big-box, money is money. You make investments where they bring returns. Cold comfort to someone who just got laid off, but I can see the logic.

I told him that I didn’t harbor any bad feelings about this. It made sense. On the bright side, I’m leaving the relationship much better off than I was before. I told him all of this, in essence reassuring myself to him. He listened, and he smiled. He was polite and patient with my process. After all, I’d never be coming to him again to ask for support or money; the least he could do was afford me a few minutes of my keep-your-chin-up-edness.

We exchanged a few pleasantries, made note of the details that would require tending to, then bro-hugged and said goodbye. We parted ways.

Just like that, a 4 year partnership is unceremoniously de-partnered.

Every step I took between the office and the car felt heavy and deliberate. Slower than normal. I narrated the next several minutes in my head:

Step, step, step, breathe… This is the world now…. step, step… Everything has changed… breathe…. Everything is different. And you’re ok.

Before This River Becomes An Ocean…

The next morning, during my devotional, I turned over an oracle card that represented Brighid’s Flame. The card had the word “Faith” up at the top, and the message was to trust that things are going to work out.

Faith, huh? So… I’ve moved away from Christianity, embraced a Druidic tradition, accepted “Pagan” as a word to describe my current spiritual and cultural expression, and the message from my patron deity is to “Have faith”? Did a Celtic Goddess just go all televangelist on me?

Or, in keeping with my previous posts written during Pagan Values Blogging Month, am I faced with the challenge of exploring a value that is more than just a pagan value?

Time To Pick My Heart Up Off The Floor…

I got back to my hotel and sought out comfort where I could find it. I made phone calls to all the people who didn’t just break up with me, and I reassured myself to each of them.

This is a great opportunity, I told everyone, for me to have a fresh start. A blank slate.

I wasn’t in denial about it. I didn’t pretend that I was unshaken, or that I wasn’t all lumpy throated and salty eyed. I was just deciding to take the good and take the bad, Facts Of Life style, and to own up to a more holistic view of the situation.

The truth is, this is a great opportunity. I’m poised to begin new partnerships with people who really want to work with me. I have support coming from many different areas of my personal life and my career.

But am I willing to believe that truth? Is that believing an act of faith?

I Reconsider My Foolish Notion

Pagans are so centered around practice. We define ourselves by what we do, not by what we believe (generally speaking). But faith is all about belief, isn’t it? How do we reframe faith as something that you do instead of something that you have?

Could we imagine ourselves crafting faith? Could the act of engaging with a belief — as I’m currently doing when I frame a job loss as an opportunity gain — be understood as a faith-working? A faith-casting? A magical act?

When you do simple magic, like sending a prayer to the Gods on a burning piece of paper, or crafting a sigil to represent a change you wish to see in the world, there’s a moment where you are required to charge that magical working with your energy, and then release it. Once released, you’re supposed to forget about it. The act of forgetting is an important component of the working. It’s the whole, quit looking and just let the water boil thing.

Perhaps that’s what “having faith”, or a phrase that I’m becoming more fond of, “doing faith,” might mean. I decide what this situation is, looking at all sides of it, and then I stop thinking about it; I forget that I made the decision, and I allow everything to unfold around me. I do faith by acting on my chosen belief that a firing, in this situation, is better described as a timely transition between business partners, and that plays out in my conversations with loved ones, with colleagues, and even with my readership.

This post is me faith-ing.

‘Cause I Gotta Have Faith…Oh, I Gotta Have…Faith

There’s no simple conclusion — either to this post, or to my situation. And that’s the point. Its all a process. I get up in the morning, and the world is new again. A blank slate. A new post, still unwritten. The opportunity for a fresh take on my life, using my words and the active engagement with my beliefs as a willful act of creation, is laid out before me.

All I have to do is trust…believe…

Cast faith.

 

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Pagans Have Values, Too, Say Bloggers

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Now that we’re nowhere near consensus on how to use the word “Pagan”, how’s about we wander through an even hazier meadow…

What are our Pagan Values?

I’m jumping the gun a bit, being that the Third Annual Pagan Values Blogging and Podcasting Month is scheduled to begin on June 1st. But I thought it might be useful to spend a minute trying to understand what exactly a “Pagan Value” might be, and to ask the question, What makes a Pagan Value…pagan?

Entry-Level Exploration

Before I go there, I’m going to get a little “101” with it. Sometimes it’s best to start with a simple question.

What exactly is a value?

My American Heritage Desk Dictionary app, the default resource I use when typing with my thumbs, lists this definition:

A value is a principle, standard, or quality considered worthwhile or desirable.

Using this as a starting point, what happens if we add in the word “Pagan”? How does it change things?

A Pagan value is a principle, standard or quality that Pagans consider worthwhile or desirable.

Is this statement true? Can we imagine such a value?

Consider the following questions:

Do all Pagans have shared principles? If so, how do these principles differ from those shared by people who would not choose to identify as Pagan? What happens when they don’t differ much, or at all? Is it possible, for example, that there is overlap between Pagan principles and Christian principles? Were such a thing to happen (as I think we will find it does), can the shared principle be truly claimed as either Christian or Pagan?

Maybe a question to ask is, Who came to the principle first? If the Pagans beat the Christians to the principle, do they get to claim it? What’s the motivation behind that kind of race? A quest for superiority? Thirst for the truth? Dunno.

Do all Pagans have shared standards? Are we talking standards of behavior? Standards of academic integrity? Standards of social accountability or etiquette? There is no central Pagan dogma, so there is no standard set of beliefs. We’ve seen evidence in the last week that there isn’t even a singularly acceptable title for the whole group, nor an agreement that the group is even a group at all. How do you arrive at group standards when the group is sort of a non-group?

Do all Pagans have shared qualities? This may be the easiest of the three to approach, but we might also fall into a trap of describing the qualities of Pagans we’re most exposed to, unaware that these qualities may not be universally applicable to all Pagans. Again, we find qualities that are both specific and universal. Still not sure what to do about that.

Double Edged Values

What else happens when you tack on the word Pagan – or Christian, or American, or Family, even – in front of the word “Value”? Does the new group-specific phrase serve a entirely different function than the word might on it’s own? What is the purpose of distinguishing one group’s values from those of another group?

I’m going to nudge forward here and suggest that drawing value-borders around a group allows people within the circle to judge the behavior, the actions, the worth of the people outside the circle. When that judgment is paired with a given or assumed authority to condemn, the opinion can become a tool for victimization and oppression.

This might look something like:

I hold up this Group Value, and by doing so I assert not only what is good and right about my worldview, but what is not good or right about yours.*

*Insert religious debate/argument/war here.

People sensitive to the Christianist, Islamist or any other Fundamentalist assault on…well…anyone who doesn’t share their Group Values might recognize the behavior I’m describing.

It Must Begin With The Individual

I don’t have the answers to these questions, nor am I certain that they’re the most useful questions to be asking. I’m not a trained philosopher by any stretch. But, I think I’d be foolish to go charging ahead into philosophical territory without at least trying to get clear on a few important concepts.

I think my approach to this June’s blogging assignment will be to describe, as best I can, what my values are first, and then see where else these values might be shared.

If these questions sparked an idea, please share your thoughts in the Comments section of the post. I’d love to know what you think about this notion of Pagan Values, or about values in general!

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