February 2006 Archives

The powers that be over at the Paintball Review Forums decided to permanently remove the Religion and Philosophy forum. (They also axed the World Politics forum, but I tended to stay out of there as a rule, and don't mind it's disappearance.) I have to admit that I'm a bit saddened by this. While I certainly respect PBR administration's right to make this decision -- and even admit that they probably thought long and hard before making the decision -- I can't think about the handful of awesome, respectful, and insightful posters there. I'm going to miss that.

Anyone who has spent any time at any sort of religious forums quickly discover that creating an atmosphere that attacts and keeps the kind of discourses people can truly enjoy are few and far between. So when you find such a place, you tend to latch on to it. Oh, don't get me wrong. The R/P forum at PBR had its problems But compared to a lot of places, it really managed to rise above the "noise" and get some great discussions going.

The only other forum that I can think of that might come close to that is the CPPA Forums. Unfortunately, it's a forum that tends to focus on Christianity and it's promotion -- and rightfully so. That means that I can't be quite as open and forthright as I felt I could be at PBR. So I guess I'll need to start looking for a new place.

This evening, I was catching up on reading my favorite blogs. During this process, I ran across a post by Stacey (not to be confused with The Sentinel/Stace) in which she talks about what she terms "the pastor disconnect." In it, she discusses the dismay that ministers experience when they realize how much time they spend doing administrative work for the church compared to the amount of time that they spend doing "ministry" -- all of the stuff that they anticipated when feeling "the call."

As I read Stacey's thoughts, I could't help but think how it relates to my feelings on Pagan clergy. As I've made it clear in the past, I'm not a huge fan of the concept. But as I read about "the pastor disconnect," I found a new perspective from which to dislike the whole idea. As I read Stacey describe what new ministers go through when they realize how administrative their job is and how that's not what they were expecting at all, I couldn't help but thinking of someone like my friend Jasmin (or myself) eventually having a similar experience as a Pagan minister. After all, most people I know who are interested in becoming paid Pagan clergy want to do so because they want to help others grow spiritually and otherwise. So as the infrastructure to support such an effort grows, I can see these people becoming disillusioned by the increasing amount of administrative work that they'd have to do in order to keep the infrastructure running smoothly. Just like the Christian ministers that crash and burn because of this, I can easily see this becoming a huge issue for many would-be Pagan ministers -- maybe more so, as we Pagans tend to be quite free-wheeling and often seem to dislike any structure that gets "too complicated" anyway.

I don't know. Maybe paid clergy would still work out in the Pagan community. Maybe those who felt called would somehow manage to make it through it, just like so many Christian ministers do. Personally, though, I can't help but feel there has to be a better way. I don't know what it is. (My initial reaction would be to suggest getting people who like to do administrative stuff and pay them to do only that while the "ministers" like Jasmin do the stuff they're strong at. But I know churches that in theory try to do that, too. And it just doesn't work out.) Hopefully someone will figure it out.

Personally, though, if I ever decide to start doing any sort of "ministering," I still think I'd rather do it as some sort of professional counselor rather than as a paid head of a Pagan church. In the end, I just think it'd be a more workable solution for me.

I realize it's been a while since I posted anything. To be honest, life has been a bit crazy, recently. My project at work has hit a critical point, and I've been putting a lot of time and energy into sorting through some difficulties we're having. In fact, in about half an hour, I need to leave to spend a few hours at work this morning. Yes, I have to go into work on a Saturday. But I refuse to pity myself over this.

Needless to say, by the time I get home, I just don't have the mental capacity or motivation to sit down and write. I certainly don't have the capacity to write something interesting or witty, which is something I still feel I need to work towards whenever I write. I hate to feel like I'm writing something that no one -- not even me -- will ever want to read.

However, my life hasn't been devoid of all things non-work. I did manage to get a few odds and ends done around here. This past Wednesday, I took a two hour class in bead-making. The class used Italian glass and a propane-oxygen torch. Amazingly, I made it through both hours without burning myself a single time. Being the clumsy person I am, that's saying something. It was an interesting experience, and I think I kind of like bead-making. The instructor was quite pleased with many of us. She said that some of us (including me, apparently) were already showing a certain level of control in the process (learning where to hold the bead in relation to the flame so that the glass is malleable but not flowing uncontrollably is a bit of a trick) that usually takes several hours of practice to develop. This afternoon, I'm going back to the studio to pick up my beads. I'm anxious to see how they turned out. Maybe I'll even post pictures.

I enjoyed the experience enough that I'm seriously considering signing up for the next class and participating in a few of the "Open Torch" classes. Open torch is actually more of a lab where you get three hours with a torch to work on your own at your own pace. These sessions are good for experimenting more and improving technique. Also, my mother's interesting in giving it a try, so I'll probably end up taking the intro course with her again in a couple months.

I also had a bit of a personal conquest here on my MT blog. I have MT configured on this site so that I can set up blogs on multiple subdomains. This means that the CGI scripts are set up in the main domain. Well, due to Internet Explorer's attempts at security, the Typekey comment validation system wasn't quite work right. Basically, people could sign in with their Typekey account, but the comment page would never show them as logged in. All SixApart offers as a solution for this problem is instructions on how to set up IE to get around the problem.

Now, I'm a stickler about certain things. I'm strongly opposed to the idea of asking readers to adjust their web browser's settings -- especially their security settings -- to make my web page work correctly. So I did a bit of research, studied the MT code, and found a workable hack to fix the problem on my end. So now, if you're using IE and choose to use Typekey to comment, everything works beautifully.

As an aside, I highly recommend using typekey. For starters, it's free. Also, by using it, I can make you a "known good commenter," which means that your comments will never end up in the junk comment bin by mistake. (So far, I've never had that problem, but I've heard of other MT users finding "real" comments in the junk filter enough to be concerned about it.) Plus there's also the handy fact that if you use Typekey, I can actually view all of your comments on a single page. I like that kind of functionality.

So that's my life in a nutshell. Maybe I'll have more to write later this weekend. After all, I am going to a psychic faire this afternoon (weather permitting).