Category Archives: Religion

Paganism, Religion

Community and Life

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100_0078.jpgPax posted an entry today talking about building Pagan community.  It’s well worth reading, and I highly recommend checking out.  (I also recommend checking out Pax’s blog in general.)

As one or two of my recent entries may have indicaed, the thought of community has been on my mind a lot, so Pax’s post really rang home with me.  I especially appreciated the following comments that he made when discussing the nature of Paganism:

I would observe that for the different Pagan faiths and paths there seems to be an overall theme of development into being a better person (personal growth and perhaps enlightenment, although it is not neccesarilly phrased as such) by practicing certain rights, and developing our relationships with the Divine (or the All That Is) and with the Spirits of the World Around Us (Elements and Land Spirits), and living certain  (intertwining and overlapping) virtues and values, and by building our relationships with others in our groups and faiths and societies through those virtues and values and practices…[Emphasis mine]

I’d say that overall, Pax pretty well sums up many of the central themes unfolding as I follow my own spiritual path.  But lately, it’s that last part — the part I emphasized — that has really been waying on me.  There is an aspect to my spirituality that is very dependent on my connection to others and my place in community.

In the past, I’ve explored the theme of passion and living life to the fullest, which is another important aspect of my walk.  To be frank, with a patron goddess like Freyja, it’s kind of hard not to take a passionate, fully-involved view of life.  And in some ways, I see this concern with community as a natural outgrowth of such an approach to life.  After all, the people we interact play an important part in our lives and are often an integral part of enjoying it to the fullest.

I think it’s safe to say that most of us are not hermits or recluses.  I know I’m certainly not one.  (Indeed, over the past few years, I’ve discovered just how much of a people person I really am.)  As such, while we may need, enjoy, and even cherish our moments alone, our lives would not be complete without sharing our lives and many of the special moments with others.  Indeed, I would argue that time spent with others is what actually makes a significant number of those moments so special.

Community enables us to help, heal, strengthen, and rejuvenate each other.  It makes even the strongest individual even stronger.  It is that glue which enables us to build something that is greater than each of us — both individually and collectively.  Because in the end, that whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

(The picture in this post is of the participants of an open Lammas rite sponsored by the now defunct Pagan Outreach Center back in 2006.)

 

Religion

Faith, Reason, and Unreason

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My second semester in college, I took an Honors Program class titled “Thought and Science.” Another appropriate name for this class would have been “The Philosophy of Science.” The class focused mostly on the philosophical underpinnings of the scientific method, how it works, and some of the common problems (such as researcher bias, which can even be unintentional).

Towards the end of the semester, we got onto the topic of pseudosciences and the difference between a pseudoscience and actual science. During this discussion, our professor, Dr. Holt, spent a lot of time discussing evolution and the debate over evolution and literal 7-day creationism. His lectures were fascinating, and I found much of what he said quite compelling and informative. I came out of his class with a much better appreciation for science and evolutionary theory even though I was a creationist at the time.

The most memorable event in the class took place during our lab period of the semester. During that lab, Dr. Holt decided to talk about and demonstrate the things that he felt made humans stand out from the rest of the animals: culture and art. He brought in a tape of various styles of music — most of them traditional songs from around the globe. When the second song began, he mentioned that there was a traditional belt dance that was associated with this new song. He then proceeded to demonstrate that dance.

We spent the next hour watching our professor — who had spent the previous few months educating us about observation, inductive reasoning, and many similar topics — perform and talk about several different dances from various parts of the world. It was a fascinating and amazing class, one that had a strikingly different tone from the rest of the semester’s lessons.

The main idea that I took from that experience and have since expanded upon from that point is that there is more to this world than science and what can be observed and rationally dissected through it’s methods. I learned that science can explain the interaction between light and atmospheric particles that create a colorful sunset, but it takes a poet’s soul to be able to express the sense of awe and beauty that comes from watching it. Some things about the human experience move beyond the rational and are even irrational at times. These things are by definition beyond science.

To me, religion encompasses the rational, the trans-rational, and even the irrational. In effect, it brings together and sums up the entire realm of human experience. This is something that science cannot do.

At its best, religion builds upon science. It takes the observations and rational explanations of science and merges them with the wonder of emotional and spiritual experience.

This post is part of an interfaith synchroblog on the topic of religion and science. Please check out the other participants’ contributions to this event:

Religion, Society

Interfaith relationships

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Today is where I finally give in to another “cosmic conspiracy.” For those who may not be familiar with such things, a “cosmic conspiracy” is where a topic or train of thought keeps coming up in my daily life to the degree that I begin to suspect that the very universe is conspiring against me to force me to face and grapple with that particular topic or train of thought. Today’s “cosmic conspiracy” (I use the quotes because I refuse to accept the idea that the universe really conspires against people) has to do with the topics of interfaith relations and interfaith dialogue. Actually, I’m just going to use the word interfaith relationships because I believe that dialogue is just a natural part of relationships, so it makes sense to roll the latter into the former.

A lot of people are talking about interfaith relationships right now. And I think that’s a great thing. I’m all for interfaith relationships, myself. It’s a good thing, too, because there are a lot of them in my life.

For this post, I’d like to try and focus on what interfaith relationships are really all about and why they’re important. Obviously, any answers I give will be my personal answers. Other people may see things differently and therefore may disagree with me in part or entirely. But as someone who engages in interfaith relationships regularly and seeks to increase my involvement in them, I think it’s important to explore my answers to these questions.

First, I would like to point out that faith traditions do not have relationships. Faith traditions are abstract concepts. Abstract concepts do not have relationships. Relationships require actors with personality. So people have relationships. Those people’s faith traditions just come along for the ride. Certainly, those faith traditions may influence and otherwise become reflected in the relationships, but in the end, the relationships are really about the people. No relationship — interfaith or not — works out unless those involved really grasp the truth of that statement. Because anything that isn’t about the people involved isn’t a relationship at all.

People surround us every day of our lives. Some of those people are going to be of different faith traditions. When we come into contact with those people, we have to make a choice. We can ignore them and pretend they’re not there. While such a choice may make sense in isolated cases, the effort of ignoring someone we see regularly can be inconvenient and even quite difficult. This is especially true of this person is a coworker, a friend’s significant other, or otherwise has any sort connection to us that would make avoiding any relationship altogether nearly impossible.

We can treat a person with hostility, keeping them at arms length. Again, this is rarely an effective strategy. In addition to being problematic if the person is someone we might be forced to have some sort of relationship with for other reasons, it takes a lot of energy to maintain and live in a state of hostility. That sort of thing tends to take its toll on us.

Our final option is to engage the person and establish a relationship. That relationship can be casual or intimate, depending on numerous factors. But in the long run, this choice is usually the healthiest and most convenient one.

I will also admit that on personal level, I enjoy building relationships. I love people and I love interacting with them. So I’m certainly biased in favor of this last option anyway. However, I will note that my bias does not necessarily negate the accuracy of my analysis of the other options.

Once we’ve accepted that engaging people in relationships is the best option, we are faced with another choice. We must decide whether we will allow our individual faith traditions to come into the picture. There’s certainly no rule that states that we must discuss our faith traditions into every relationship we have. In some cases, avoiding the subject makes perfect sense. For example, it’s not relevant in my relationship with my coworkers, so I generally don’t bring it up.

However, our faith traditions are usually important to us as people. As such, not discussing them with the people we relate to creates and maintains a certain amount of distance in our relationships. After all, it creates a part of us that is “off limits” and closed off to the other person. While this is acceptable in casual relationships where other factors are more important, it will not work with close friendships and other intimate relationships.

Similarly, the other person’s faith tradition is important to them. If we refuse to discuss and engage with their faith tradition, we have created an impediment for close relationship. I might as well change the subject abruptly every time a close friend brings up the topic of his children. I have no doubt that the net result would be similar.

There are other reasons why I find interfaith relationships both necessary and important, and I hope to share them in a future post. I also hope to discuss some of the pitfalls common in interfaith relationships. But for now, I would like to close by reiterating that like any relationship, interfaith relationships are about people. They are important because people are important. At least that’s the understanding I choose to live by.

This post has been submitted to the October 2008 Interfaith Dialogue synchroblog. The following is a list of other participants in the synchroblog.

Be sure to check out my fellow synchrobloggers!

Paganism, Religion

On Holy Passion

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Late last night, I ran across a copy of a typed transcript of a letter I sent to some college friends back in 2003. A month or two before that, we had talked briefly with each other during a get-together of old friends. During that conversation, both Tim and Kathryn had asked me about my spiritual path. Circumstances really didn’t lend themselves to the lengthy, private conversation their questions deserved, so I wrote them the letter instead.

As I read the letter, I thought about how I might write it differently today, after five more years of coming to understand my spiritual path more fully. In that spirit, I thought it might be nice to post a few excerpts from it and offer a bit of commentary.

For this post, I would like to focus on what I said in the letter about my patron goddess:

If I were going to try to describe my sacred lady in a single word, that word would have to be ?passion.? Or perhaps ?passionate? would be better. To her, life is one great passion which should be embraced and nurtured. To her, there is nothing worth doing that should not be done with great, unreserved intensity.

Naturally, she is a goddess who finds the passions of love and love-making sacred. Indeed, it is my experience that her love is a sensual love, even when it is the sensuality of a tight embrace between friends. (Indeed, communing with her often has the residual effect of heightening my awareness of my own senses.)

But her passion is not limited to romance and eroticism. It spreads to any and every undertaking in every aspect of life. This often makes her quite determined and single-minded when she sets her mind to any course of action. And she is inclined to nurture this quality in her devotees.

To this day, the initial description of Freyja still follows this same pattern. To me, understanding my lady’s passionate embrace of all life and her desire to share that passion with those who come to her is central to understanding her very nature. Those who wish to find her are likely to do so where life is not only revered, but celebrated and lived to the fullest. Some of the moments that I have most strongly felt her presence include times when I was dancing at a nightclub, having dinner with friends, or in the middle of a lively discussion at one of the local coffee shops.

I have come to understand that this is because to her, life itself is one of the sacred mysteries to be explored, enjoyed, and cherished. Her way is not one of self-denial (at least not self-denial for its own sake or as an end in itself), but one of responsible self-indulgence. It is one which honors life’s joys and sorrows (the latter being an inherent shadow side to the former) and recognizes them as sacred.

One of the other things that I have noticed as I’ve felt her presence and even conversed with her in these celebratory settings is that these joys and sorrows are meant to be shared. Her passion for and celebration of life are not meant to be a solo pursuit to be cherished alone. But instead, these are things that are meant to be celebrated with others, so that others may experience them and catch them. To put it another way, these are things that are meant to be contagious and be encouraged to spread like wildfire.

Of course, not all celebrations of life must be chaotic and wild. One of the other things that I have learned lately is that there is such a thing as a “cool passion,” much like the glowing embers of a carefully tended fire rather than the raging inferno. This approach to life has its place as well. Indeed, one of the challenges of following my goddess is coming to understand when each type of “fire” is most appropriate.

Religion

Religious tattoos

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This morning, as I was leaving the 7-Eleven to head into work, I glanced at a guy still standing in line. My path took me close enough to him that I noticed his tattoo on the side of his neck. While I can’t be absolutely sure from a two second glance, I’m relatively certain that the tattoo was of Jesus’s head. For some reason, this struck me as totally odd.

I honestly can’t say why it struck me as odd. I’ve seen plenty of religious tattoos in my life. Indeed, in my faith community, tattoos that have some sort of religious or magical signficance are rather commonplace. (Indeed, there are days where I feel like I’m the oddball among my friends for not having any such tattoos.)

I’ve even seen tattoos with signficance within Christianity. I’ve seen crosses and doves before. Some of them are quite beautifully done. And yet, a tattoo of Jesus’s head struck me as weird. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s just some weirdness on my part. In the end it doesn’t matter.

I’m curious, however. Does anyone here have any tattoos of religious signficance? If so, what are they? Why did you get them? Do they serve any sort of purpose in your mind?

Religion, Sexuality

Spiritual Sexuality and Sexy Spirituality

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The question for this post comes from Rygel:

Why do you try to reconcile your spirituality with your sexuality?

The short answer to this question is that I had no other choice that was ultimately reasonable. I am both a spiritual person and a sexual person. There’s no escaping that fact. This means that when confronted with these two aspects of my choice, I had four basic options.

The first option was to ignore or repress my sexuality and focus on my spirituality. I actually tried this approach through various methods for over a decade. It not only didn’t work, it completely backfired. It drove me to such depths of misery and despair that I almost self-destructed. So I eventually gave up on it.

My second option was to completely walk away from my spirituality and focus on my sexuality. I suppose there are those who might argue that this is exactly what I did, since I left Christianity. (More than one person has accused me of walking away from God because I felt it was more convenient to “live with my sin.”) I respectfully disagree with them, as my choice to follow a Pagan path was much more complex than that. But at any rate, the idea of rejecting spirituality altogether was simply not an option for me. I’ve always been a spiritual person, and I couldn’t imagine my life any other way.

My third option was to accept both my spirituality and my sexuality, but try to keep them divorced from each other. I’m not really sure how this would work or what it would look like, but again, I also know this would not have worked for me. I want to be a whole person, and living a split life where half of you is compartmentalized away from the other half does not make you a whole person. Furthermore, given the nature of my spirituality, such a dualistic approach to life would simply not work. I serve a goddess who sees spirituality and sexuality as a beautifully blended and related whole. (In fact, this is such an essential part of my faith that I once wrote an article titled “Sacred Lust.”)

That left only the one option for me. My sexuality and spirituality had to come together, embrace one another, and find a way forward as a united whole.

Health, Humor, Religion

It rarely pays to argue with a goddess

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One of the interesting things about Freyja acting as my patroness and primary guide is that she often puts in her two cents on my health and any matter related to it. And while she certainly reaffirms my right to make my own decisions about what I should do, she both makes her opinion about the best course of action known and is brutally honest about the consequences of a bad decision I’m considering.

Consider, for example, a brief exchange we had tonight at dinner. After working at the shop all afternoon, Belinda, Amy, and I decided to go to dinner at Red Lobster tonight. The three of us sat in a comfortable booth enjoying our meals. After I finished my chicken linguini alfredo (one of the great ironies of my life is that I eat at Red Lobster at least once a month despite the fact that I don’t like seafood or fish), I pondered the possibility of dessert. After all, I absolutely love their ice cream sundae with the big chocolate chip cookie on the bottom. I considered it when Miss Thing decided to make her thoughts known. The exchange went something like the following.

Her: I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Me: But it’s so good!

Her: Yes, but you’ve already had enough to eat.

Me: I can manage it!

Her: You also had the pina colada with dinner.

Me: I know, but I probably won’t come back for a few more weeks, and I really want the sundae.

Her: Okay, let me lay it out for you. Then you can choose whatever you want.

Me: Lay it out for me?

Her: Your digestive system is already a bit out of whack due to your recent changes in exercise and eating habits. You’ve eaten a large meal and had a drink. Before you order the ice cream, you might just want to stop and ask yourself how much time you really want to spend in the bathroom this evening.

Me: You mean….?

Her: Well, let’s just say that if you have the ice cream, you might want to move the television in there as soon as you get home so you don’t miss your shows.

I eventually saw reason and went without dessert tonight. Hey, it was my choice. But all the same, it sure feels like she play dirty some days. 😉

Family, Personal Development, Religion

Struggling with the collision of faith and family

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This past Saturday, I took my parents out to dinner at TGIFriday’s. While there, our waitress asked me about my pendants. I normally wear two pendants:

  1. A silver pentagram which is a little bigger than a dime. It has a bear at the top point, walking on all fours.
  2. A brass spherical cage, which contains a piece of amber resin.

Both pendants are religious in nature and are deeply personal to me. I’ve had a handful of people ask about them, and I’m usually quite happy to answer their questions. In fact, the only two times I’m hesitant to say anything are as follows:

  1. When I’m at work (or a work-related function) and there are customers around
  2. When I’m with my parents, especially my mother

Sadly, this situation falls into that second category. And I could already see my mother’s expression when the waitress asked about it. The problem with being the sole witch in a family that consists mostly of evangelical (and even fundamentalist) Christians is that it can certainly strain family relationships a bit.

After a brief hesitation, I simply told the waitress that they are religious symbols of significance to me. I think she realized I was being somewhat avoidant (and I hated that I was being avoidant) and let the matter drop. Fortunately, the subject quickly changed.

Then again, maybe that’s not so fortunate. One of the messages that I keep getting over and over is that I need to be more open with my family. I need to let them into all aspects of my life. The problem is, that’s difficult when there are certain aspects of it that they don’t really care for. Certain subjects cause hackles to raise.

In fairness to my parents, it’s not just them, either. Any time the subject of my faith comes up around family, I get defensive. I automatically expect a problem. And that’s not fair. Not only that, I’m beginning to wonder if on some levels, my own family is unconscioually reacting to my own defensiveness. It wouldn’t surprise me.

But at the same time, I still haven’t found a good way to overcome my first reaction in such situations.

Religion

Amway without the soap indeed!

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For the past few years, Fred Clark over at Slacktivist has been doing an in-depth critique of the book Left Behind by LeHay and Jenkins. I began to read through this review about a month ago and have enjoyed Clark’s analysis, which has covered literary, theological (Clark himself is an evangelical Christian), and political perspectives alike.

Yesterday, I ran across this installment, where Clark takes a step back from the book’s plotlines to discuss one of the concepts touched upon by the book, evangelism, in a broader context. Primarily, he speaks of a shift from evangelism as hospitality to evangelism as a sales pitch, expanding upon a familiar (or at least familiar to anyone who’s been involved in the evangelical Christian community) metaphor:

…it is not “one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread,” but rather one fat man trying to convince another fat man that he’s a beggar in order to close the sale on another loaf.

The rest of of the post goes on to talk about how this approach to evangelism amounts to a sales pitch with little or no product to go with it (in fact, the title of my post references another great comment made by Clark). I highly recommend reading the whole post, as it’s quite insightful.

Religion, Society

A Multi-Faith National Day of Prayer?

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Today, the following email was forwarded to me:

Merry Meet,

The National Day of Prayer is this Thursday May 1st. Our Coven has been watching and listening to the media on this and we decided to organize a group prayer meet to create positive change in our country though our Pagan perspective. This is also to enhance the day of prayer as Pagans and to show our faith and religious morals since many right wing groups want to make this a Christian day of prayer only.

If anyone would like to join us our group and others from our area will be at the Ontario County Court House, (27 North Main Street, Canandaigua, New York 14424) May 1st, ironically Beltane, at 7PM. Please bring a friend and a self contained candle to light as we silently pray for our country and for positive change. Signs are welcome so long as they are relevant to the topics of the day and are not vulgar or inflammatory to other religious groups.

Parking in the back of the court house is free and plentiful.

We look forward to coming together as a community and be counted as part of the solution.

Blessed be,

Shelly O’Brien and Heidi Gleber
High Priestesses- Coven of the Sacred Pentacle
Local Coordinators Fingerlakes Pagan Pride

First, let me say that for those who are close enough to the Canandaigua area to participate and are inclined to do so, I would highly encourage you. I suspect that this could be a great experience for many people.

I have to admit, however, that a National Day of Prayer makes little sense to me. To be honest, I tend to think of prayer — even corporate prayer — as a deeply personal thing. The idea of setting aside a “special” day to honor it and practice this spiritual discipline in a highly visible manner seems a bit odd and foreign to me. (I also tend to wonder how Christians in particular reconcile the National Day of Prayer
with Christ’s exhortations against “public religiosity,” which even address prayer specifically.) Personally, I don’t think I would feel comfortable participating in such an event because of how I see prayer, though I support everyone who feels differently and honor their right and choice to participate.

I also wonder if we might want to be careful about setting up religiously segregated prayer groups for the National Day of Prayer, as well. If we are to take a day to celebrate prayer as a nation, it seems that we should do so as a nation rather than as separate groups within the nation.

Now, I realize that not every Christian, Jew, or Muslim would be willing to pray alongside Pagans. (Heck, some of them are quite unwilling to pray alongside certain members of their own faith!) But some of them are, and it seems like it would be wise to use this opportunity to build such bridges. I think a group of people from radically different faith groups praying together would be a far better statement — not to mention a powerful act — than splintered groups of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans, and other faiths doing their own thing.

Who knows? Maybe that’ll be part of next year’s National Day of Prayer events. To the folks gathering to pray in Canandaigua, I wish you the best with your gathering this weekend.