Category: Highest Ideals

…and what are you actually DOING about that?

On By PaxIn Activist Alert, Bouncing off the Gods, Cross-roads, Highest Ideals1 Comment

Dear Friends,

I have unilaterally decided that there is entirely to much anger and fist shaking and fear and fear-mongering in the world.  I see blog posts and Facebook status messages full of woe and inevitably, when asked, the only thing a lot of these folks do with their outrage is vent it on their friends on FB or on their blog or what-not.  If you ask them about how they spend their free-time trying to make the world a better place and to improve the social/political/cultural ill or situation that they’ve railed against; inevariably there is a litany of reasons why they couldn’t possibly spend time on this or that or the other.

I am going to start calling people on it.

For the record, I currently do what I can where I can to do good in the world. Sometimes that is sharing information, sometimes that is volunteering time to my U.U. faith community, sometimes that is blogging about practice and work, sometimes it is work at the Pagan Newswire Collective, sometimes it is engaging in religious and spiritual fellowship in support of some of my friends and fellow Pagans and U.U.’s – either in person or online.

When I have money, and as an adult who has lived at or bellow the poverty line his entire adult life and who may have to work till the day I die just to get by that is all to infrequently, I give to causes I believe in.  When my jobs allow me I volunteer my time working for causes I believe in, at least I used too… I kind of lost my way for a few years on that score, and lost sight of my self along the way, but I am getting back together on that score….

For now, I am content to hold myself together in balance and seek Spirit. I am content, for now, to lend my hand or voice to another in need of reassurance or nurturing.  I am content to do these things as I look for ways to do more, hoping… to lend or inspire in many others the strength to change a world that seems so off the rails to me.

For now, I seek to stabilize and improve my own situation.

For now.

And for now, I am going to start calling people on spewing rage or mongering fear whilst assuming their own helplessness.

I would appreciate your prayers, your thoughts and words of encouragement, and what blessings you may give.

Sincerely,

Pax

Holy Libertas, Holy Justitia, and All You Holy Powers of Healing…

On By PaxIn everyday, Highest Ideals, Honoring the Heroes, Modern Pagan, Prayer, Religio-Americana, witchery1 Comment

Dear Friends,

In the face of recent events Pagan community journalists are looking at the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, a Democratic member of the U.S. Congress who was shot at in an apparent assassination attempt, and adding their prayers.  Pagan Elders and Teachers are encouraging us to pray and send energy, and to not only not despair but too find ways to Bend that oh-so -famous Moral Arc of the Universe more towards justice from the strange and tangled place our Nation finds itself in these day.  Pagan Authors and Elders are writing essays inquiring into the moral responsibility for the vitriolic climate that pollutes our fair Nations politics.

I am neither an Elder nor an Author, and only a sometimes hap-hazard Journalist.  I will find ways to act and work and do whatever it is I can do to bring positive change into the world and into my Nation, but for now, I also pray….

Holy Libertas, Holy Justitia, and All You Holy Powers of Healing

Hear Me, oh, Holy Powers.

Lady Liberty,

Goddess of Democracy, You who raises your Torch to light the way to Freedom and holds close to your heart the Laws and History and Ideas and Ideals that should be guiding us.  Inspire your children and friends and praise-singers and drum-beaters to action, let us stand in numbers too great to ignore and say

“No.  Not here, and not ever here!”

To the rule of violence and to the fear-mongering and rabble-rousing that has helped lead to this.

Swift Winged Justice,

Lady of the Scales and the Sword, who although blindfolded sees all.  I know that You cannot be everywhere at once, but please be in Arizona now.  Cleave through the lies and accusations and counter accusations and help the forces of Law to work Your wonders and to find the truths at the  heart of this matter.

All You Holy Powers of Healing,

Be with, sustain, and nurture those injured on that tragic day.  Be with, sustain, and nurture the families of the fallen, and the wounded, as they go forward from this terrible cross-roads.  Be with, sustain, and nurture all those touched personally by this horrible event and help them to to heal, to grieve, to find the comfort they need, and to continue.

Honored and Beloved and Mighty Dead,

Welcome the Fallen from this tragic day amongst your numbers, may they find peace amongst your numbers and reunion with their beloved families.  May your presences and inspiration be there for your families and for your spiritual descendants who have need of you in this trying time.

Blessed Be and So Mote It Be.

So Mote It Be,
Pax / Geoffrey

Reflections on Coming Out, Building Community, and Pagan Pride

On By PaxIn An Important Message..., Avalon Cares, Blame Sannion, Community Building, everyday, Food for Thought, Highest Ideals, Honoring the Heroes, Pagan PrideLeave a comment

Dear Friends,

So it’s National Coming Out Day today (or tomorrow depending on your specific Nation….) this international holiday celebrating GLBTA pride and identity is going strong after 23 years.

Now perhaps you expect me to wax philosophic about LGBT Pride and such… and admittedly I could… but in addition to being the beginnings of Samhaintide, we are in the midst of Pagan Pride season, and I’d like to talk a bit about that today…

Now while it’s focused on the Equinox, there are numerous celebrations across the U.S. and around the world that celebrate their Pagan Pride events in either October or as late as November for various local and logistical reasons; which is rather appropriate as many of the ancient Paganisms had much more localized holy days and festivals in tune with the local seasons and the rhythms of their particular cities and towns.  As I reflect upon my Pagan Pride this year I find my mind turning not only to the many Proud and Out Pagans serving their cities and towns as Public Servants, I am also reminded of those non-Pagans who are now desperately trying to back pedal from confused and ill-informed claims of having been involved in Witchcraft at some vague and undefined date.

I am happy to see Witches taking up the challenge and opportunity presented by this last story to Come Out with Pride.  I believe that by coming out when and where you can do so safely you can advance the cause of Religious Freedom for Pagans and Heathens in our nation and around the world.

I also find myself thinking about the many Pagan Pride events that will have vendors selling books and incense and various sacred supplies and statuary, and bling, and tchotchke’s of all sorts.   We are very good at trying to support some of our Pagan business-folk, as long as they are blatantly “Pagany”… but what about our Doctor’s, our Plumber’s, or Gardener’s and Grocer’s and the many many other areas or our lives where we could be supporting our fellow Pagans economically and demonstrating our Pride with our Pocketbook?

I have written and thought about this a few times before, and expect more of it in the coming year!  When I can go into any Gay bar or LGBT Community Center and pick up a LGBT (local) community publication or community directory listing not only GLBT owned and themed businesses and professionals… everything from bars and beauticians to real-estate agents, doctors, plumbers and electicians and bankers and lawyers…. as well as private listings in some LGBT communities; why is it that you have trouble finding ANY of the same sort of information in Pagan community venues?

I can only hope that some of those Pagan Pride event tables are being held by local Pagan bankers and Pagan real-estate agents and other Pagan business-folk working to network within and support their local Pagan communities in the same way that I see in similar events within the Queer community.  Remember that this is only going to be more important as we weather the current economic woes!

Then my mind turns towards the causes and charities that I can support and work for as a conscious invocation of my Pagan Pride.  Causes like the Officers of Avalon‘s non-profit charity Avalon Cares, and the Military Pagan Network and the Heathen community Open Halls project, and the organizations like Cherry Hill Seminary and The National Pagan Leadership Skills conference.  I am also reminded of those Pagans who are standing up for Religious Freedom and Fairness and Justice, speaking Truth to Power in the Halls of Justice; as well as those who are gaining the full legal recognition and equal access for their faiths.

This year of 2010 began with contemporary Paganism taking it’s place upon the World stage as a World Faith at the Parliament of World’s Religions in Australia, and I am damn proud of that!

I think of my friends and co-conspirators at the Pagan Newswire Collective and our diverse efforts to help connect our local and national communities and to provide news and information of interest to and reflecting the Pagan and Heathen world-views; while at the same time being a resource for our larger communities to get factual and accurate information on the many paths of contemporary Paganism.

Now I do not deny that there is a LOT of work left to do in order to secure true legal Equality and Religious Freedom for the Pagan paths, and I will probably always hold the opinion that we could do more to build connections and relationships that build and strengthen a beloved Pagan community; but I also cannot deny that there is a heck of a lot to be Proud about Pagans!

Peace, and Pride,

Pax

NOT an ‘Earth Religion’?

On By PaxIn Bouncing off the Gods, Food for Thought, Highest Ideals5 Comments

Hello friends,

So thanks to the wonders of Facebook I came across this article about the voyage of the Plastiki, a catamaran that is largely made from recycled materials and is sailing the ocean to highlight the dangers of over-fishing and ocean pollution.  This is how I learned about the Eastern Garbage Patch.

“The ocean’s fragility they witnessed in the place where much of the world’s discarded plastic ends up, the “eastern garbage patch”. This, the focus of their voyage, is a floating “continent” of debris. Nothing that the crew had read in advance could prepare them for what they found navigating an area twice as large as the North Sea. “You don’t see it at first,” De Rothschild says. “But when you get into the sea, and under the water, you realise that it is all like a soup, millions and millions of tiny fragments of plastic, suspended in the water. It is mostly microscopic, but once your eye adjusts you start to see the reflectiveness of some of the larger pieces. The red fragments stand out most clearly.”

The garbage patch was first identified 12 years ago within the “North Pacific gyre” – a vortex where the ocean circulates slowly because of light wind and extreme high pressure systems. Oceanographers have since suggested that perhaps 100 million tonnes of plastic are held in suspension in these waters. One of the things that the Plastiki voyage has demonstrated is just how durable modern polymers are: the pressurised bottles of its hull have hardly been knocked out of shape, let alone broken up by the 8,000-mile voyage. “That’s why just about every plastic bottle that has been made still exists,” De Rothschild says.

The voyage has been overshadowed by the more graphic pollution of the BP oil spill, but even that is dwarfed by the scale of the problem the Plastiki highlights. While the deaths of seabirds and marine life in the Gulf of Mexico are still being measured in the hundreds, according to the UN Environment Programme, plastic debris causes the deaths of more than a million seabirds every year, and more than 100,000 marine mammals. Back in 2006, the UN concluded that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic. Since then the problem has only grown.”

~ from the Tim Adams article at Guardian.co.uk observer (full article here)

Its odd, but I was having a very good and deep conversation with some Heathen friends of mine today and one of the topics that came up was the definition of Paganism as an “Earth Centered Religion” and how that does not always theologically apply to all forms of Contemporary Paganism.  It was a great discussion and some fascinating points were made.  Although it’s a very good thing I hadn’t seen this article first or I would have probably been a lot more pissy on the topic…

This evening…

(or is it morning? I think it shall NOT be evening until I’ve had some sleep no matter the clock hour.)

… anyhow my mind, upon reading the article above, began to turn back over the years to the many times I have seen both online and in person various members of our Pagan community sneer and whine when some Pagans define Paganism as an ‘earth centered religion’.

Not the engaging and a reasoned and reasonable discussion of earlier this evening, nor the less frequently encountered but entirely reasonable “Well, so and so is making very big blanket statements about Paganism….”; no, I meant the knee-jerk “So-and-so (often Starhawk) doesn’t speak for me…” or “(insert name of whiner’s Tradition here) isn’t centered on the Earth it’s centered on the Gods”  or “Well those neo-Pagan fluff types can drum and chant about the Earth all they want I’m going to do the real Paganism over here…”

Usually involving/followed by a lot of noise and flouncing to the effect that their Paganism is concerned with The Gods and the Ancestors and the really kewl [sic] stuff and doesn’t worry the Earth…

To which I would like to say,

“Why NOT?”

Setting aside, for now, the fact that the Earth is increasingly in trouble and it is the only home we have right now…

Does someone really expect me to believe that the Holy Powers and the Ancestors are HAPPY or PROUD at the way our societies treat this precious jewel of a world or ours?   There is a patch of floating plastic and debris floating in the Atlantic that is large enough to have earned a NAME!

Is it possible that you could stop your whining about how superior your particular form of Paganism is long enough to actually do something useful to your larger community (i.e. the world) that would both honor your Gods and your Ancestors and do something useful to help ensure that when We are the Ancestors that there is a healthy and beautiful world with enough nourishing food and clean water that our descendants may enjoy their lives rather than cursing our selfishness or laziness?

Now I would love to be able to say that I have been walking this talk for a long time.

I can’t.

I am learning to recycle, trying to shop smarter and reduce and re-use as well as recycle.  I am trying to figure out how to walk this talk and I for one am rather thankful that there are Pagans out there who are more experienced at this and are already putting thought and action into this sacred trust.

The other side of the coin, of course, is that we are not separate from the Earth.  Humans are a part of nature, despite what some of my more radically Earth Centered bretheren, that HUMANS are a PART of the Earth, Humans are OF Nature.   Not, or at least not solely, nature and the Earths enemy.

Try looking forward to a sustainable future featuring humanity shall we?

Just saying,

Pax

Hate is NOT a Pagan Value

On By PaxIn Food for Thought, Highest Ideals, Modern Pagan, Pagan Ponderings, Unitarian Universalist8 Comments

(note simul-posted to the Pagan Values blog)

Sadly, prejudice and bigotry are nothing new within the Pagan movement.

Over the years we have, in our many Traditions and communities, wrestled ~sometimes quite publicly and messily and nastily~ with racism and misogyny and misandry and patriarchy and religious intolerance (aimed both at other Pagan faiths AND at religions outside the Pagan community) and with homophobia and with radicalism at both ends of the political spectrum.

I remember a discussion with some friends once where we had been discussing the history of the U.U. congregation I am a member of.  We had discussed both the Sexual Revolution and the current struggles around GLBT rights and we had also discussed the U.S. Civil Rights movement and ‘America’s’* struggles with racism and sexism. In the U.S., as befits the once boundless optimism of our Nation, the dominant discussion or idea is that “we dealt with that….”. My friends and I came to the consensus in our conversation that bigotry and homophobia are not things that you wrestle with once and are done with. These are things that peoples of conscience must continually look at and wrestle with and that each generation must have its own showdowns with.

So too must Pagans continue to wrestle with the hostile spirits of intolerance and fear and bigotry and hate, again and again.

Lately I have been encountering, within some forums and blog comment sections, some Pagans being extremely vocal regarding the “evils” of Christianity and Monotheism.  Now, I would and do not mind criticism of Christianity or other religions.  There is no denying that any religion, ANY religion, is capable of injustice and fanaticism fueled evils.  Especially when those religions are tied to a State or are wielding social and political power akin to a State.  A reasoned and reasonable critique of any religion is not out of order.

But these so called ‘defenders of polytheism’ have been crossing the sometimes hazy line from criticism into bigotry with the advocacy for violence against Christians, with the active and regular denigration of other faiths if they are Monotheistic, and the extremely toxic levels of condescension and insult that those who voice objections to the above are subjected to.

Our Pagan ancestors were, by and large, extremely tolerant of other religions.  Some of these same voices of intolerance look to the history of Pagan Rome and mutter “too tolerant…”

When one tries to point out that there are Christians and Jews and Muslims who are active in Interfaith work and doing good in the world and working for a fair and just society for ALL regardless of religion; these ‘critics’ will immediately try to equate all Christians and all Catholic Priests and all Christian Clergy with child molesters, or all Muslims with terrorist extremists or the Taliban, OR they will try to suggest that when monotheists are engaged in good works and in Interfaith work and work for justice and tolerance that they are somehow FAILING as monotheists in accordance with Christian or Jewish or Muslim doctrine?!

When attempts are made to point out the injustices and deep wrongs committed within the Ancient world when various forms of Paganism were the dominant cultural and political forces, these wrongs are brushed aside by these fanatics as merely the result of complex historical and social and political forces as having nothing whatsoever to do with the religions or religious values of the Ancient Paganisms;  whereas when someone tries to use similar arguments about more recent history or current issues as they relate to Monotheistic religions these same fanatics brush aside such arguments as missing the point or as fueled by their critics ignorance of the true evils of Monotheism or the particular Monotheism under discussion.

The tragic irony here is, of course, that in embracing such an Us Vs. Them mentality, they have embraced some of the very same and very worst of the Dualistic mindset that is admittedly of monotheism’s problematic legacies in our world.

Many Pagans, and many of the ones I most deeply respect, would tend to agree to varying degrees with Deborah Lipp’s excellent essay Putting the “poly” in polytheism…

Fundamental to our values, I believe, is pluralism. Everything we believe, even the lines we draw in the sand, must be rooted in plurality. There are many gods, many paths, many truths.

Monotheism has “mono” as a root value. One God, one Truth, one Right with all other things Wrong. This is a net negative for culture, I believe.

Polytheism allows us to worship many gods, few if any of whom are “jealous Gods.” None of them seem to demand that we worship Them and Them alone. Kali has never asked me to cease worshiping the gods of Wicca, and vice versa. Doing one thing fervently, wholeheartedly, with body, mind, heart, and spirit, does not prevent Pagans from doing another, very different, thing with the same wholeheartedness.

One can disagree with some of the more extreme and fundamentalist forms of monotheism WITHOUT wishing them ill, and without painting all Christians or monotheists as being either fanatics or fools, one can criticize Christians without cheering on the prospect of violence against them, and without constantly trying to stain ALL of a particular form of monotheism with the blemishes of one portion of the whole.

If some group of Pagans were to employ some of the same tactics and attitudes about another of the current Pagan religions that these critics employ against the monotheistic faiths, especially Christianity, one would probably be banned from lists and comment sections quickly and the posts would be widely decried as intolerant and bigoted and not even worth discussing.

Hatred, unlike anger, serves no useful purpose.

Anger can give one energy to get something done, provided you actually engage in some careful thought how to harness it, and provided that you are actually doing something useful and productive with it.  Hatred just lashes out, repeatedly and endlessly, often at the nearest available target with no regard to reason or logic.

Why then should we continue to dignify with our attention the venomous ravings of people who have nothing better to do than spit on another faith tradition rather than speaking and singing praises to their own?  When this spleen venting is the only response they can come up with to the injustices of the world and they cannot come up with so much as ONE useful, or constructive, response, why should we as communities continue waste our time  upon them?

* (as we U.S.-er’s of a certain generation are still wont to refer to our nation… sorry Canada, Mexico, and Central and South America old habits die hard…)

Hazards to U.S. Freedom of Religions

On By PaxIn Activist Alert, An Important Message..., Highest Ideals1 Comment

Dear Friends, Pagani, and U.U.’s,

Patrick McCollum, Wiccan prison Chaplain and respected Pagan Elder is in the news lately (summary of some of the stories at The Wild Hunt) because of a lawsuit in federal court to fight for religious freedom in the California Prison System.

“In 1997, after the settlement of a case involving a Wiccan inmate, the California Attorney General’s Office asked Rev. McCollum to serve as a Wiccan chaplain, making him the first government-recognized Wiccan chaplain. [3]. Subsequently, he has served as a statewide correctional chaplain for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. According to the Finding of Fact by the U.S. District Court[13] in McCollum, et al. v. CDCR, et al.,

“Plaintiff Patrick McCollum is a Wiccan [footnote omitted] clergyman who became a volunteer chaplain at the California Corrections Institution (“CCI”) Tehachapi in January 1998. By February 2000, McCollum served as a volunteer, non-salaried Wiccan chaplain for all 33 CDCR correctional institutions.”

He is currently engaged in litigation in the US 9th Circuit Court (McCollum, et al. v. CDCR, et al., C 04-03339 CRB) challenging the California Department of Corrections’ “Five Faiths” policy [4] which recognizes only five major world religions for inclusion in California’s prison chaplaincy program. A summary judgment was filed on February 23, 2009 [5], claiming that Rev. McCollum did not have proper standing in the case, and is currently under appeal[6]. Appellants’ brief was filed on November 19, 2009. Three amicus briefs in the case have been filed by (1) Americans United for Separation of Church and State [7] , the Anti-Defamation League[8], the American Jewish Committee, the [[Interfaith Alliance], and the Hindu American Foundation, (2) Interfaith Community Representatives (i.e., numerous individuals and organizations “committed to facilitating dialogue between the faiths and ensuring that all faiths are treated fairly,” including the American Correctional Chaplains Association), and (3) Florida Justice Institute and Legal Aid Society of New York City.

Rev. McCollum is a member of the American Correctional Chaplain Association, the Program Chair for the National Correctional Chaplaincy Directors Association, and the Chaplaincy Liaison for the American Academy of Religion.

On February 5, 2008, Rev. McCollum testified before the U.S Commission on Civil Rights [9], and his remarks were widely quoted in the Commission’s report entitled “Enforcing Religious Freedom in Prison” [10]””

~Taken from the Wikipedia entry on Mr. McCollum 02/22/10 4:37pm

There is an excellent audio  interview with Patrick McCollum over on Anne Hill’s Blog of Gnosis.

The results of this case could affect Religious Freedom rulings across the United States.   Please, please, take some time to listen to this interview, and to read up on the case.  Especially if you are living in the U.S.

Peace,

Pax

Updates

The On Faith blog has a great guest editoral related to todays topic…

So there’s this guy at Church sometimes, and I am a little weird-ed out by him…

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, Bouncing off the Gods, Food for Thought, Highest Ideals, Love Unto All Beings, Notes on the Journey, Pagan Values Blogging, Unitarian Universalist, witchery5 Comments

Dear friends and readers of all sorts,

Today’s post is, well complicated, and says some things that may be uncomfortable to read or to think about or discuss, but it’s something I have been wrestling with as of late… so here goes….

“Unitarian Universalism is a non-creedal religion.”

That’s one of the things one often hears when U.U.’s are trying to explain our religion to others.  This is usually followed up by a discussion of the Principles and Sources.  But the U.U. faith was born out of the complex intermingling of (very) liberal Christianity from Unitarian and Universalist streams of Christianity over the last 200 or so years,  and intermingled in the 30’s through the 50’s with  Humanism, then the U.U. faith was born in the 60’s and was then invigorated in the 70’s and 80’s with the influx of Paganism.  We U.U.’s are a complex new people with some very diverse and ancient roots.

But, Christianity is there, sometimes waiting to be dealt with.

I am not the only Pagan to be wrestling with the big C lately, there were some rather virulent comment streams over at the Wild Hunt that led Jason to institute a Comments Policy…  Cat at Quaker Pagan Reflections has mused a bit on Christian ways of viewing history through a rosy lens…. and Kayliegh at Kalisti: An Apple in Pandemonium recently mused about the persistence of ancient Paganism despite Christianity’s coming to power in ancient Rome…

For YEARS I have been decrying the knee-jerk anti-Christian bigotry one sometimes hears or sees expressed in Pagan community spaces.  Over all, when it comes to those Pagans who can’t stop talking about their Christian pasts or upbringing and especially who cannot let go of or move past anger or grievance with Christianity, I have to agree with Cat Chapin-Bishop,

“But when you take the time and trouble to write, not of your encounters with the gods, nor even of your personal journey from Christianity to Paganism (for I note that most of the offenders on this one are ex- but not post-Christian) to give me news bulletins about how uniquely terrible the religion of Christianity is, perhaps I may be excused for wondering how much room you have in your spiritual life for your own gods, if you must spend so very much of your time howling at the gods of others?” ~ Cat Chapin-Bishop from her post Turning our Backs on Jesus: a humble request

Of course some of this is influenced by the fact that I wasn’t churched as a kid.  My family prayed at the holidays but there wasn’t really any serious involvement with Christianity or a particular denomination.  So I came to Witchcraft and Paganism with as clean a slate as it is possible to have living in a dominantly Abrahamic culture.

I was, as a Pagan and a Gay man, wary of the more radical and angry elements within Christianity but I also had dear friends who were Christians through whom I could see that there was goodness and decency to be found within the core message and practice of that faith if not in the words and actions of some of it’s loudest proponents and largest organizations.  It was after reading Bishop John Shelby Spong‘s excellent books including Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, that I could acknowledge that had my life taken other directions I could have happily become a Christian.  Reading that book was, at the time, a truly revelatory experience for me as it not only opened my eyes to the detailed history of the Bible as a text/tradition.  It also opened my eyes and heart to a true understanding of how one could actually be a Christian and live a life of love and decency and compassion actually engaged with the Teachings credited to Jesus.  Sadly, despite a number of both dear and decent friends who are Christians, I had somehow always viewed them as the rare exceptions.  Especially in the face of the angry and narrow and hateful words and actions of so many many prominent Christians observed over the course of my lifetime.

Lately, I am realizing that a part of my spiritual journey in the moment is to explore my relationship with Jesus and his teachings. They from one of the Seven Sources of Unitarian Universalism after all, and have had some influence on contemporary Western culture as well.

This has been highlighted again and again for me in the last few months at moments in the services at F.U.C.O where a particularly Christian hymn is sung or where Christian teachings are being referred to in the Sermon.  The need to explore and meditate on my relationship to Christ and Christian teachings was brought to the surface most strongly at the Solstice Service that the Pagan group at church Mystic Grove sponsored, it’s actually something like the 10th annual Solstice Service, but it was only recently taken up by the Grove, it was originally started by our previous minister!  Gotta love a U.U. church!

Anyway, the Winter Solstice…

Somehow, in the busy rush of the Season, and with everything going on I had missed out on the fact that the Service was being held in our Fellowship Hall and not the Sanctuary.   (Reasons of tradition and logistics at work there, although it’s gotten to be such a big event there is discussion of getting the Sanctuary for next year…)  So I turned the corner into Gore Hall and saw that the Service was in the Fellowship hall and not the Sanctuary and at first I felt a disappointment.   This disappointment kept getting deeper…

As I realized it later, that disappointment mingled with the general stress of the Holidays, and the stress of being my first Holiday season after the break up with The Big Guy, and somewhere along the way that sinking mood plumbed into some of my emotional depths… to where I have, over the years, stuffed a lot of anger and resentment over a lot of things…

At the time, all I knew was that I was seethingly angry!  Full of opposition and resentment, I could not look across the courtyard to the Sanctuary without feeling a simmering resentment that Solstice was in Gore Hall (despite my later, confirmed, intellectual knowledge that there were probably good reasons of Tradition and Logistics for this…) and NOT the Sanctuary.  I was in NO head space for ritual or services, and so I left and went over to the R.E. building to help set up for the potluck and the Solstice  Bonfire Vigil.

I ended up having a good time that night, but I also knew I had to do a lot of thinking about that night.

Not a few days before I had thanked Reverend Roberta for her lovely sermon and how it had given Christmas to me as a religious holiday as a U.U., yet in the face of this strange dark and mercurial mood I was wrestling with I decided to forgo Christmas Eve Service.

It took some time for me to un-knot and untangle my feelings and thoughts, but I realized that I had pushed aside but not actually faced or dealt with my  feelings of resentment and anger at Christianity and how some of it’s more fanatical branches attitude towards other religions and towards some segments of the population; and even more anger at how the more liberal branches don’t ever seem to me to be nearly loud enough in their condemnation of the bigotry and intolerance being perpetrated just as much in their name and their Gods name as in the name of the more fundamentalist and Talibanesque branches of Christianity….

In setting aside these strong feelings and opinions over the years, as “not fair” or “not worthy” or …something…, I wasn’t allowing myself to really feel the anger and the upset, I wasn’t really letting it go I was just stuffing it away somewhere where it could sit and fester and lurk within my mind and heart.

If there’s one lesson I have learned in the last few months as I have thrown myself back into spiritual practice and meditation like a drowning man for the shore, it’s that if something comes up, be it a thought or a feeling or whatever then you need to BE with it for a while before you can truly let it go.  There can be something very important in those fleeting thoughts and feelings.

So I have been thinking about my own ambivalent feelings about Jesus and the Churches that have come from his teachings, the Unitarians and the Universalists had many things quite  right even before some of them joined into this sea-changed something rich and strange that is Unitarian Universalism, in my humble opinion.

A kind a loving God would NOT send anyone to Hell.

Jesus need NOT have been divine in order to bear his God’s Message.

Christ’s teachings, of love and compassion are much more to the point of Christianity than any literal bible verse.

As far as I am concerned the only Word is Love, and everything else is a story or an allegory or a metaphor; so I guess I would have been a VERY liberal Christian had my life taken another path.  If I would have gone to Christianity.

Yet still, I find myself feeling a little awkward about my own feelings and thoughts about Christianity.  In a lovely and thoughtful post recently, Cat reminded folks that many if not most of those Christian ancestors of ours converted at the point of a sword.  As a Pagan and a history buff and as an intelligent person I cannot deny the sad simple fact that one seldom discussed aspect of the history of the spread of Christianity is that it is a centuries long history of genocide against any and all who dissent or disagree or who stood in the way of whatever The Church and then later The Churches wanted.

Pagans and Christian Unitarians and Christian Universalists, all good heretics all in a row…

At the same time I must in fairness and honor admit that Christianity also brought us Bach and C.S. Lewis and Shakespeare and the U.S. Constitution and so many, many, wonderful things along with the baneful.  One cannot, and SHOULD not, ignore the contributions of Christians in the efforts to end slavery, encourage women’s suffrage, stand up for civil rights, and to stand up for GLBT rights, to stand and fight for the separation of Church and State and Religious tolerance…

Lately, as I mentioned above, there have been some virulent and extreme and in some cases breathtakingly bigoted and hateful comments about Christianity made on some of the Pagan blog comment streams.  Folks making sad and disturbing jokes about killing “ash-zombie’s”  (as in Catholics observing Lent), and others who have discussed the evil and bigotry of Christianity and how Jesus and Jehovah are false Gods and Islam and Christianity are false religions… you know the exact same sort of stuff that they whine and freak out about when OTHER religions say the same sort of things about THEM?

So I spoke up…with only a touch of my usual (and in some circles and Circles infamous) zen-like calm…

“Wow,
Thanks ______ and ____________!
This whole comment thread has it all!
Ignorance (in behavior if not in education) and hatefulness and bigotry!
The complete dismissal of the validity of another religion.
The complete dismissal of the divinity of another religions god.
Even casual jokes about killing other people because of their religious beliefs!
Could you two PLEASE go vomit forth your hatred and bigotry elsewhere?
Thanks again,
Pax”

(Can you believe that people have called me, ME, reactionary?!  I should turn the marrow in their bones to boiling lead…*)

So anyhow after a LOT of heated back and forth drama of the type that has erupted all to often on that forum lately someone asked…

“Pax, I don’t know much about you. I wonder if you’re chagrined, though, that your post opened up another of the running battles that, frankly, are getting kind of old here.”

And I responded…

Dear ____,

You ask…
“Pax, I don’t know much about you. I wonder if you’re chagrined, though, that your post opened up another of the running battles that, frankly, are getting kind of old here. ”

Yes, yes they are getting old.

Though I am not a Wiccan, I have chosen to base my faith and life as a Witch in large part on the ethical and moral teachings to be found within Doreen Valliente’s Charge of the Goddess. I strive to live a life of Beauty and Strength, Power and Compassion, Honor and Humility, and Mirth and Reverence. I strive and struggle, all the blessed time, to follow Her law “Love unto all beings…’ As She counsels in (what I personally consider to be) Divinely inspired poetry, I strive ever towards my highest ideals letting nothing stop me or turn me aside.

I would LOVE to not have this sort of thing going on here.

But when I see people making casual jokes about killing “ash-zombies” meaning Catholics and other Christians observing Lent (comment mercifully deleted, I would like to think because of my request); when I see people making casual comments about how Christians are all deluded or evil or hypocrites, or how Jesus and Jehovah are false Gods (which puts the Jewish people where exactly I wonder…), or how or how anyone who believes otherwise is also deluded or a fool…

How can I NOT stand up?

Especially believing in the power and Power of Words, to touch and transform minds, and hearts, and to touch and transform the very atoms and cells of all the worlds; when I see people wielding words of anger and encouraging the worst sort of casual bigotry… with the sort of jokes and comments that, were they directed at Pagans on a Christian forum would (and frequently do) result in outrage and apoplexy…

How can I NOT stand up against these things?

… Even as I wrestle with my own ambivalence about Christianity…

Peace,
Pax

A lot of evil has been done in the name of Christianity over the centuries, and a lot of evil has been done by Christians.  Does this truly balance the good done in the name of Christianity and by Christians.  I believe so.

I know that even as militancy and extremism and fundamentalism run rampant in both Christianity and Islam, I know and can see that there are also Christian and Islamic people of decency and open-mindedness and tolerance and compassion and faith standing up against these tides.

There is good and bad in every faith, in every person.  There is good and evil done in the name of all Gods at some point or another, people of every faith have done wrong unto another in the name of their faith or with the conviction that their faith somehow justifies it.  I know these things and try my best to stand against intolerance, and ignorance, and hatred when I am confronted with them.

Yet still, there’s this guy at Church sometimes, and I’m a little weird-ed out by him…

Peace,

Pax

* A fairly obscure reference, for those not familiar with him, to the improving works of Sir Terry Pratchett

It’s SO on!! (imbolc poetry blogging)

On By PaxIn Brigid, Full Moon, Highest Ideals, Honoring the New Year, Imbolc Poetry Blogging, Poetry, Prayer6 Comments

So I was going through my Witches Datebook/Organizer the other night and it occurred that I hadn’t heard anything about this years Imbolc Poetry Blogging?!?  I was alarmed!

I am also realizing that I should probably read Anne’s Hill’s Blog of Gnosis a little more often…

“Life is hard enough; why shouldn’t we take all the full moon weekend leading up to February 2nd to celebrate this patroness of the arts and healing, and read her a poem or two?” ~ Anne Hill, in 5th Annual Brigid Poetry Festival

This event has been going on for years now, and is one of those deeply cherrished events in the Pagan Blogosphere; I would like to encourage any of you Podcaster’s out there to take up this event as your own with an Bridget or Imbolc Poetry reading in one of your February episodes?

My first Poem is actually a repost of a my prayer for Haiti…

A Witches Prayer for the Haitian People

I Pray to You oh Mighty Mother and Forceful Father

I respectfully call out unto All the Holy Powers of the Universe,

Please bring all of Your Love and Compassion and Blessings to bear,

On the Island and the People of Haiti in this time of pain and suffering,

May the Holy Powers of Air inspire them and help them to communicate with their far flung families,

May the Holy Powers of Fire warm them and bring the healing of bodies,

May the Holy Powers of Water quench their thirst and bring the healing to their hearts,

My the Holy Powers of Earth feed them and lend them strength,

Blessed may You be,

Blessed may they be,

So mote it be.

Peace & Poetry to you and yours, and blessings to Haiti,

Pax

Great Work and Life Balance

On By PaxIn Book Reviews & Recommendations, Community Building, everyday, Food for Thought, Highest Ideals, spiritual practice2 Comments

Our journeys should be like wilderness paths where sometimes the walk is fairly easy and sometimes we are walking uphill, or through tough terrain, we must occasionally find ourselves at cross-roads and make a choice of which way to go, we sometimes must acknowledge that this was not the best path and soldier on and sometimes we must back-track and try again, otherwise we are simply standing still.

Hello Dear Friends and Pagani!

So, this last week my dear friend Fey has been writing in her blog and facebook about her recent wrestling matches with some of her own personal demons, those painful memories and terrible experiences that are a part of so many of our lives.  On her podcast SpiritsCast she even had a guest host discussing the issue of having personal demons and how one can deal with them.

I have been leaving comments on her blog and facebook sharing some of my own recently learned/encountered lessons about being compassionate with oneself in the spiritual journey and how it is perfectly natural for past issues to come lurking to the surface and that the important think is to keep moving forward on ones spiritual journey and with ones spiritual practice.  I applaud her courage in not only facing these painful parts of her past and being ready to acknowledge and wrestle with and accept them as parts of her self, she is truly on the journey towards what T. Thorn Coyle calls Self-Possession.  I also must applaud her willingness to be so open with this struggle, but it’s not that surprising given her nature as not only a spiritual practitioner but a teacher.

It is a strange dance we who are on a spiritual journey sometimes end up doing…

There is our work and career life, what we are doing to feed the body and keep it clothed and sheltered and such.

There is also the everyday life, household chores and fun things with friends and hobbies we engage in for fun and to feed our spirits a bit.

Then there is the Work, either  discussed as the Great Work of Magic, the journey towards Self-Possession, seeking conversation of ones Holy Guardian Angel, or as the Spiritual Practices and/or Religious Observances that lift and sustain us in our spiritual journey.

The Great Work of Magic (or Magick for those that prefer…) is about a LOT more than mere spells, or even about ritual or magic.  It is about work with and deep awareness and acceptance of every aspect of our selves and lives.  It is about ethics and attitude and outlook, it is about mind and body and soul, it is as much about our physical and mundane lives as it is the spiritual and magical.

Yet in engaging in the Work as we begin to progress and move forward we will find all of our old issues and all of our history coming back up for us to actually accept them and deal with them, rather than trying to sweep them aside or bury them or run away from them.  This is usually the point where we start finding excuses as to why we can’t possibly continue with this set of spiritual practices, we get uncomfortable with some of the emotions and ideas and realizations and memories that may arise.

In discussing meditation and spiritual practice and discomfort and learning, Pema Chodron a Buddhist Nun and Monastary Abbot and Teacher says…

“Generally Speaking, we regard discomfort in any form as bad news.   But for practitioners or spiritual warriors — people who have a certain hunger to know what is true– feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back.  They teach us to perk up and lean in when we’d rather collapse and back away.  They’re like messages that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck.  This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.” – Pema Chodron in the essay This Very Moment is the Perfect Teacher from her book of essays When Things Fall Apart

I know in my own journey there has been a lot of running around playing shadow tag with my self and my past over the years.  Yet as I really begin to engage, once more, in my spiritual journey I also find myself finding a lot more of the me I used to be years ago.  Happiness and humor and courage and strength and some small measure of hard-won wisdom.  I had let a lot of these things lay dormant and dusty like a neglected altar in my soul.

Fey’s recent postings, and my own recent experiences and readings, have high-lighted something that I realize is extraordinarily important to remember, especially for us Contemporary Pagans.

The spiritual journey, and the experience of living our religions and paths, and our experience of spiritual and religious communities, should be many things; welcoming, safe, nurturing, enlivening and invigorating.  They should not always, or perhaps never, be entirely comfortable or easy!

Living ones faith or spirituality, truly trying to live up to your values and ideals and principles, really engaging in a committed and ongoing spirituality and spiritual practice should challenge us!

We should occasionally have to accept a wrestling match with our own personal demons.  Demons of our pasts, whether of terrible experiences from our pasts or of our own past failings and mistakes; they are there in each of our lives and we must be willing to actually look at and explore and deal with them.  There will be times where in living our goals and ideals and principles where we must wrestle with those times where our guiding values conflict with what is going on around us; sometimes the best and truest way of living our values is to do the more difficult thing.  Our journeys should be like wilderness paths where sometimes the walk is fairly easy and sometimes we are walking uphill, or through tough terrain, we must occasionally find ourselves at cross-roads and make a choice of which way to go, we sometimes must acknowledge that this was not the best path and soldier on and sometimes we must back-track and try again, otherwise we are simply standing still.

Having said that, I will also say that all of this courage and wrestling must also be balanced with humor and compassion for ourselves!  Courage in our spiritual journeys means also having the courage to say “Not Today…” or “I’m not ready yet…” or to ask ourselves “Why am I so NOT wanting to deal with ______ right now?!”.

Some days, despite our deep and purposeful commitment to healthy eating (for example) we want that dark chocolate and a glass of sweet dark red wine.  Some days we just do NOT want to go for our daily walk or to the gym.  Somedays we are just Not feeling as much like Ritual (or Circle, or Ritual, or Blot, or Church, or what-have-you) as we are in just having some me-time.  As long as we can look at these times and honestly say to ourselves that it is because in that exact moment that is what we need…. a little nurturing, a little comfort food, a little rest, or a little time for ourselves to just be, then that too is a very important part of our spiritual journeys!

Peace,

Pax

Goings on at Cherry Hill Seminary!!

On By PaxIn An Important Message..., Community Building, everyday, Highest Ideals, Modern Pagan, Pagan Pride, Pagan Values BloggingLeave a comment

Dear Friends and Pagani,

I hope, fervently, to someday pay off my student loans, get myself a  Bachelors (4 year degree) to add to my Associates (2 year) and eventually take classes with Cherry Hill Seminary.

They are an organization currently holding Seminarian classes on a variety of topics of use and interest to those seeking to work within ministry within the Pagan faiths.  You can read more about their Mission, Vision, and Values here.  In my searches to add them to the sidebar—> —> —>

I came across this address by the outgoing President of the Seminary which, I think, hi-lights the work of and need for this organization!

Peace,

Pax

UPDATE 01/19/2010
So Jaime over at Witchful Thinking posted an excellent overview of some of the many benefits of Cherry Hill getting professional Accreditation! (here)

Prayers & Work for Haiti…

On By PaxIn Activist Alert, An Important Message..., Highest Ideals, Pagan Values Blogging, Prayer, Unitarian Universalist, Witches VirtuesLeave a comment

Dear Friends and Pagani,

As you doubtless know a 7.0 earthquake has hit the island nation of Haiti.

(Stories on CNN, The New York Times, and New Jersey(dot)Com’s coverage of Wyclef Jean’s calls for donations to the Haitian charity Yele, on his Twitter feed)

In the midst of my everyday and my crazy schedule, my heart has been going out to the people of Haiti and I am trying to figure out how best to help.

I am particularly sympathetic to this issue as someone from Anchorage, AK.  The 1964 Good Friday Quake‘s devastation is something every Alaskan school child studies.  While I now live thousands of miles away, I also live with the knowledge that what historical records we have of the tectonic activity of my hometown says that there is a large earthquake every 20 years or so.  Anchorage is nearly 20 years overdue…  so my prayers and sympathies are very much with the people of Haiti.

When I have the chance I hope to take a candle and a card to the Haitian Consulate here in Orlando, which has a large Haitian population.

In the meantime I will donate what little I can to the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee’s earthquake relief fund (here) and for the moment am just spreading the word.

(more info on the UUSC at their site, and on wikipedia)

There is also an evolving discussion of the different avenues of donation going on at the relevant article on the Wild Hunt.

It is through there that I also found a list of Green Charities operating on the ground in Haiti, if you are as minded of long term aid as well as short term relief you might consider donating to them as well.

A Witches Prayer for the Haitian People

I Pray to You oh Mighty Mother and Forceful Father

I respectfully call out unto All the Holy Powers of the Universe,

Please let all of Your Love and Compassion and Blessing to bear,

On the Island and the People of Haiti in this time of pain and suffering,

May the Holy Powers of Air inspire them and help them to communicate with their far flung families,

May the Holy Powers of Fire warm them and bring the healing of bodies,

May the Holy Powers of Water quench their thirst and bring the healing to their hearts,

My the Holy Powers of Earth feed them and lend them strength,

Blessed may You be,

Blessed may they be,

So mote it be.

Peace,

Pax / Geoffrey Stewart

An Update…

Shortly after posting this I received an e-mail from PeaceNext, the social networking site of the Parliament of The World’s Religions, with a link to a CNN(dot)com list of charities working to aid the nation and people of Haiti…

Power and Compassion…

On By PaxIn Activist Alert, An Important Message..., everyday, Highest Ideals, Honoring the New Year, Love Unto All BeingsLeave a comment

Dear Friends and Pagani,

As I look forward into the new year, and to the personal projects I am working on and those affiliate with my local U.U. Church, I also am looking towards causes I can support and campaigns I can look forward to raising funds for in the future.  I wanted to share a few good and inspiring causes here, these will be added to the Charities listing on the Online Pagan Resources Page…

Peace,

Pax

ps- I have, on occasion, been accused of being an idealist… they might be right…

Every Human Has Rights…

Every Human Has Rights – Campaign Highlights from Every Human Has Rights on Vimeo.

More information on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, here, and here.

The Charter for Compassion

Standing On The Side of Love

This campaign, originating within the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, has already started work and campaigns for Immigration fairness and reform, and for GLBT Civil Rights and Marriage Equality.

The Elders…

The Elders are an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by Nelson Mandela, who offer their collective influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity.

A number of examples of this work can be found on their webpage, but one excellent example can be shown in former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s video address to The Parlaiment of Worlds Religions.

President Jimmy Carter addresses the Parliament from Parliament of Religions on Vimeo.

Spirals and Arcs

On By PaxIn everyday, Food for Thought, Highest Ideals, Pagan Ponderings, Pagan Values Blogging, remembering, Samhain1 Comment

“Let us remember that the arc of a moral universe is long

but it bends toward justice.”

~Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 1962

In this season when so many of us will be remembering our own Ancestors and a variety of Honored and Beloved Dead, casting Circles,  dancing in Spirals; it is both funny and synchronous I now find myself contemplating an Arc.

It started as I was surfing through FaceBook  the other day, and someone had posted about how they couldn’t believe that they were seeing GLBT folks being added to Federal Hate Crimes legislation here in the U.S.  They were surprised, and amazed and overjoyed, to see it happening in their lifetime.  I am glad for them, and a little saddened that it should come as such a surprise to folks.

I am really not all that shocked or surprised at this development.  As a Pagan and a Gay man I have seen a lot of changes already in my lifetime.  I was born in March of 1972.  Later that year the American Psychological Association removed homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, its authoritative list of mental disorders and illnesses.

Surprised?  No.  Gladdened, yes; and heartened, and inspired to pick up some torches I had dropped recently,  but not surprised.  I AM surprised that it took so many average people of conscience so long to see the rightness of equal rights and human rights, but we humans can be pretty dense sometimes.   I am something of an idealist, or so I have been told, and I have every expectation that I will see true GLBT equality, and Gay Marriage, in my lifetime; because these  are right and true causes rooted in morality, honor, love, and justice.

As the example of Dr. King, and the U.S. Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s shows, when people of conscience and faith gather around shared values they can change the world for the better.  We can change the world for the better.  So now, in this season of Samhain,  when I remember and seek ways to honor the memories and spirits of my Beloved and Honored Dead; I find my mind turning to those causes of equality and justice and rights that some of them lived and died to help bring about.  I find myself wondering…

“What can I do?  What can we in the Pagan community do?”

(And YES, as a matter of fact I did go there, I DID say that oh SO scandalous “C”-word!)

I have said here before, among other places, that Paganism is a religious, spiritual, and social movement made up of several overlapping and intertwined religious and regional communities.  Recently I am debating about that definition with myself.  Juniper from Walking the Hedge made some excellent points in An Open Letter to the Pagan Community that, Yes, we are a community actually and could we please stop arguing that point and look at how we could be a better and more functioning one please?

Yewtree over at the dance of the elements bog, in her post on Community among Pagans and Unitarians, makes the point about how Unitarians (British cousins to the Unitarian Universalists) who, like U.U.’s are of many faiths, gather around and covenant within and are unified into beloved community by shared values and principles and moral beliefs.   I know that part of why I have become a Unitarian Universalist is that going to Services and seeking to covenant around the Principles of Unitarian Universalism allows me to better act upon and live  the virtues and values I have embraced as a Witch.  These facts and this ability of U.U.’s to covenant and create beloved community based on shared values was, I now realize, part of what inspired the 2009 IPVBM.

We are a Community and we share similar and interwoven and interconnected values.  We do not all share the exact same list, nor should we, but our lists and their key points have enough in common that I think we could engage in a little forgiveness about past infighting and Pagan drama and work together in service of our many Gods, living our values and faiths, and stand up for what is right and honorable and true and loving and good; so, inspired by the example of some of the Honored Dead, what should we do?

Beth Owl’s Daughter reminds us that Freedom of Religion is one of those Rights that is not simply handed to us, we must be willing to stand up and invoke and protect our rights.  Even with legal protections in place we can face hardship and injustice simply for our faiths.

In a similar vein, T. Thorn Coyle in her blog post for IPVBM 2009, observed that we in the U.S. have let much of our public policy debates fall to the arguments of (predominantly) Christian Conservatives and Secular Liberals.  Where is the diversity of voices one would expect in the Great American Melting Pot?

Here in the U.S. 1 in every 8 people is going hungry, and across the U.S. and the world, poverty and the recession are hitting folks harder and harder.

Then too, there are those who seek to line their pockets and fill their pews while stepping over the blood and bones of children and helpless old women.

What would our Ancestors think of thse things?  What DO our many  Goddesses and Gods think of that?   Do such things serve the All That Is?  Most importantly, what are WE as people of conscience, and values, and many faiths; what shall we do about these things?