Plainly Pagan: The Quaker Journal of a Rural Neurotic

Modest Recommendations to facilitate "sticking together"

2012-01-03T14:19:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I wrote about my sense that Friends should stick together despite our many theological and practical differences. I think there is a need for, and I think we have the discipline and will to model a loving community that centers itself not on a set of shared "truths", but on a principle of love.    Sadly, my own community of Friends is greatly troubled and conflicted. They are making difficult decisions about who they are and how they should proceed.

I'm not sure about the right path, but it is good to spend time thinking about it. It is good to spend time talking about it with others. My husband and I both work on Sundays. We do not get much time to spend talking to Friends about these concerns so I am using this blog as a place to flesh out ideas among other Quakers. Speaking as a liberal Friend and as an attender at a local, rural meeting with very few members and attenders, I sense a need for Friends to spend more time in the following activities:

1. Talking to each other. I'd like us to spend time talking about our theo/alogies, core beliefs, emerging and developing beliefs, and philosophies. The point of this talk should not be to compete with each other or to create an orthodoxy or a hierarchy of truths. The point should be to get to know each other at a deeper level. Our community is not sustainable if we do not know each other at the heart and soul level.

2. Laughing with each other. When people share deep thoughts and religious action, it is very easy to get caught up in a kind of morbid seriousness. Life is far too important to take seriously. If we are able to laugh at ourselves, we are less likely to take offense. We are more likely to forgive. Try hating someone with whom you have just shared a laugh. You probably can't do it. Our community needs joy, and we can find it in each other.

3. Cry together. Like learning to laugh with each other, learning to cry together will strengthen our meeting. Learning to share our worries, pains, illnesses, and tragedies will be tough. Many of us are taught that it is unseemly to betray vulnerability. When asked how we are, we are taught to blurt out the cheerful lie followed by an insincere question. "I'm fine! How are you?" To become the Beloved Community, we actually need to care enough about each other to offer up the truth. I do not suggest that we use our meeting as a kind of dumping ground for toxic emotion. Certainly Friends who are also in the caring professions must be careful that they are not exploited for their psychological and counseling skills. However, we do need to know that when we are not fine, we can say so and know that we are loved.  The world is full of pain, and I think it needs us. We cannot offer mercy and comfort outside our meetinghouse doors if we cannot find it within.

4. Eat with each other. This can be tough with crazy schedules and with diverse diets. Dish to pass meals are great. Those of us who have very specific diets can share our favorite dishes with others and ensure that we have enough to eat, but the focus should not be on the food. Instead, it should be on the communion and fellowship. Breaking bread (or rice cakes, or corn thins, or gluten-free cupcakes) together reminds us that we are a family.

5. Learn together. We can and should continue to explore the history and practice of our faith. We can learn more about Friends who sit next to us in worship and Friends who worship in distant lands. Some of us have more experience or have studied more than others. Those who have spent more time on a given topic may facilitate a conversation. We can share books, watch videos, and even just "kick ideas around." I like the idea of "kicking around" ideas. It helps keep my learning playful and reminds me that while Friends value individuality, they also value corporate discernment. While Friends engage in individual devotions, we are not solitary practitioners. We can apply that same strategy to our learning.

6. Include the children (whatever their ages). Young people don't tend to stick around Friends' meetings. When they have wings to fly, they often fly right away. I think that it must be very difficult to be a child in a Friends' meeting. I have worked hard to help my children grow into the discipline of a silent worship service. I am proud of what they have accomplished. I have also worked to teach them about our Testimonies, and history and to see themselves as a part of the unfolding of a collective Quaker service to the world. However, I cannot help but notice that children and their parents are not always clearly welcome in the midst of all that stately and profound silence.

We "young family" types wiggle too much. We are undisciplined and immature in our bodies. We make noise and sometimes say or do things that are awkward or inappropriate. This is how we learn and grow. I think that grown-up Friends forget about all the bouncing energy and playfulness, the impatience, curiosity, and restlessness that is a child's birthright. I think they forget about the rebelliousness, hormonal surges, melancholy, and firecracker tempers that go along with adolescence. And they forget that as we age, and as we go through our own adult losses, romances, disabilities, illnesses, and passions we too may need other Friends to move beyond brittle patience to a more hearty and heartfelt welcome for folks in all stages of life. Let us learn to embrace the young, the goofy, the headstrong, the depressed, the coughers and snifflers, the forgetful, and the wigglers for they too shall inherit the Kingdom of God.

7. Lean into the messages. When I first began attending meeting for worship with Friends, I had read that Friends receive messages from Spirit which they feel compelled to share. I read that they must discern between the messages of their own egos, and those of "God." To be honest, I thought this was probably nonsense. However, I decided that if I was going to give worship with Friends a fair shot, I would "do it properly." To me that meant that no matter how insightful, clever, profound, or eloquent the message that popped up in my mind, I would keep a sock in it unless I felt certain that the message did not come to me through my own ego. I therefore thoroughly expected to never utter a single peep.

When I received my first message, it blew my mind. It was, as I have written before, a thoroughly unpleasant experience, but it was unpleasant in much the same way that giving birth is unpleasant in that it was still very, very good. The sensation of losing control was almost nauseating. My hands sweat and trembled. An idea (and not even an idea to which I felt any particular connection) raced round and round my head. Words formed as my heart raced, and then I spoke. That's how it happens with me. Maybe it happens with you in another, but equally profound way.

I think we should teach newcomers to trust that the messages will come. They do not need to be forced. We do not need to be the authors of the messages. There is another Author who only needs us to be the vehicles, vessels, and voices of those messages.   I think we should remind each other that the speaker is not the source of the message. The message may reflect the speaker's individuality, flaws, and mannerisms because although the note may be perfect, we are not perfect instruments. It is also perfectly fine when they come through someone else. The message and not the messenger is where our focus should rest.

We need to lean into these messages. We need to pay attention to them, treasure them, and allow ourselves to be excited by them. Too often I notice friends reacting to a message in much the same way as they would to someone with an unfortunate case of gas. They act mildly embarrassed and then pretend it did not happen. If it is poor form to discuss messages after meeting, that's really too bad. I'll tell you what. When Spirit sends a message through me or through the person sitting next to me, I'm not just profoundly moved, I'm excited as all get out. I mean...wow! That's a pretty amazing thing, isn't it?

8. Be like a family. It is important to honor the ancestors. It is even more important to feed the babies.   Our future grows out of our history, but it has to grow. We have to change. I notice that some Friends hold up the first generation of Quakers as a kind of generation of saints. Perhaps they were. But so too were the Quietists and the Conservatives, and the Liberals, and the Evangelicals, the Beanites, the Gurneyites, the Hicksites, the and the Congregational Friends. Revelation did not end with George Fox. Each generation had something to learn and something to teach.

There is nothing we can do about the tensions and the schisms that rocked the Quaker world in the days of our ancestors.  It is sad to think about their communities blown apart by dissent and anger. But perhaps we can learn to focus on the energy and light that was generated as a result of those explosions.  We can do more than just learn from their mistakes to become less cantankerous and contentious Friends today. Their conflicts, tensions, and reconciliations shed light on our path, and remind us that we are a growing and evolving people, and that as flawed as we are, we are the recipients of continuing revelation.

Let us continue to work with faith toward Peace in this new year.

A Dream of Confused Quakers: A Star Trek miracle

2012-01-02T12:23:00.000-08:00

Free association. Writing very quickly off the cuff.

I'm a Trekkie and I've passed that along to my children. Right now, in vacation-mode, we are watching a Star Trek marathon.   Several Star Trek episodes seem to focus on one or more of the Enterprise crew losing their memory and/or sense of mission. It is a good theme. Effective and entertaining. Lots of us feel a sense of loss of identity and mission. We're happily tooling around the Universe when out of the blue, we're swept by a beam and our memories, personalities, and ambitions become nebulous at best.

So whilst watching an episode in which Data, Troi, and O'Brien are behaving quite badly because they can't remember who they really are (Damned alien body invasion again), I was suddenly reminded of a dream I just had. The details are fuzzy, but it was about a small group of Quakers who couldn't remember just who they were or what they were doing. I was watching them and thinking about their condition although I could not speak to it. They were bewildered, but clearly well-intentioned. They only knew one thing and that was that they were Friends. They weren't quite sure what that meant, but it was a beginning.

Perhaps, I thought, even if they aren't sure what being a Friend means, if they just cling to each other, they'll remember. That's what happens on the Enterprise. They forget who they are and they forget what their mission is, but they stick together. Eventually, one or more of them remembers something about the Prime Directive and they are able to convince the others. At base, no matter how evil the alien or insidious the beam, or distressing the plot line, the crew always find in themselves the ethical core of the Prime Directive.

We live in a distracting world full of noises and blinking lights. Sailing about in our spaceship, it is easy to be ovewhelmed by all the unexplored territory. Going boldly where no one has gone before has its dangers. Friends are no longer wholly Abrahamic, monotheistic, or even basically theistic. We have invited Vulcans, Betazoids, Klingons and even androids to share our ship, to take the helm, and to be our crewmates. They come to us with different cultural values, different histories, and different assumptions. But if they believe in the Prime Directive and are willing to not only abide by it, but allow it to become their guide when the dangers of space invade their minds, wipe away all their sensor logs, and interrupt all their data streams, then you know that at the end of the story, the crew will get back together. They will reaffirm themselves as the people of the Enterprise, the people who believe in the Prime Directive. Their ethics, their morality, their actions, while disrupted and confused at first, will begin to align with that Directive. Sacrfices will be made. There will be close calls, but in the end, they'll stick together and they'll remember who they are.

And who are they? And who are we? We are a diverse people bound together by a Prime Directive. We may be confused about our mission, about our identity, and about our approach. Worf and Troi almost never agree. Spock, Kirk, and Bones are conflicted about the nature and direction of humanity, yet somehow, it is difficult to imagine an Enterprise made up only of "by the book" Star Fleet types. It seems that the Prime Directive is not best served by literalism or legalism. It is always bad news when the Star Fleet brass come on board and begin messing with the crew's process. You have to live in space to understand it. No desk jockey understands the Prime Directive in the nuanced, compassionate, and even maverick way that our fine crew understands it. And no Star Fleet engineer stuck on base knows just how much the ship can take. The Star Fleet engineers always warn their captains that "she'll fly apart", but they also manage to hold her together, usually by breaking all the rules in the manual. It is their creative tension that keeps her steady. Be cautious, be quick, and push it to the limits. We'll never truly know what she's got until we're willing to push past warp 9. Technical knowledge is great, but the Enterprise requires experience.

I've been witnessing a great deal of handwringing about the identity and future of the Religious Society of Friends. Lots of it seems to have to do with resentment against aliens in our midst who do not share our Earth values. They remind me of Bones grousing about that damned green-blooded Vulcan. What are we to do with this diversity? There are Vulcans who insist on cool,analytical approaches and who have peculiar, otherworldly philosophies. There are Betazoids who want to infuse everything with an emotionalism that often makes us uncomfortable. There are androids who seem (although we are never really sure) to not possess any emotions at all. In addition to that we have former members of the Klingon and Romulan Empires. And the Borg too!   They aren't Terrans. That's for sure. Their existence challenges our assumptions that the best worldview comes from our particular world. But they are all Starfleet. They are all believers in the Prime Directive and each, regardless of individuality of personality and culture, has wed him or herself to Star Fleet's mission of exploration, of seeking out new life. More importantly, they've bound themselves to the principles of the Prime Directive. For some it is a passion. For some it is a mission. For others it is a God. For some it is "merely logical." They all have a role to play and each of them will save the ship and its crew at least once in at least one episode. I suspect the same is true of Friends. Let's be careful who we beam off the ship. They might be the very soul who saves the day in the next episode.

Let's not begin a process of defining ourselves by exclusion. Let us have faith instead that whatever spiritual dialect we speak and whatever our religious species, we are drawn to Friends because we share a profound core belief, and we can be trusted to embody the wisdom of that belief. It is our Prime Directive, interpreted a bit haphazardly by some captains and quite strictly by others, but ever-present in our minds and hearts. It provides us with an unassailable core on which we have built our community. We have called in our Inward Light, our Guide, our God, our Christ, our Spirit. We have calmly acknowledged its presence and called it nothing at all. We have sought it in Silence and activism. We have interpreted it through our holy books, our dreams, our histories, our meditation, our scholarship, and our conversations. Our Enterprise has been our Testimonies, and it has been a good ship, although often under heavy fire and in need of extensive repair. It carries us where we need to go to search out new life and new civilization. It is the vehicle of our mission, our hope, and our principles. It is the medium of our ability to find life in the cold emptiness of space. But even it is not the center of who we are. Even if it is destroyed, the crew will survive so long as we stick together.  No evil plan has yet been devised that could permanently rob the crew of its devotion to each other and to the Prime Directive. It is unthinkable. I don't think the Writers would have it.

Live long and prosper, Friends. Qapla!

Resolutions: To cure a broken heart

2011-12-30T12:34:00.000-08:00

The Pagan Blog Prompt suggested a discussion of New Year's Resolutions. I don't, as a rule, make resolutions, but since I am currently engaged in making amendments to my life for other reasons unrelated to the changing calendar year, I thought it would be good to have a look at this.

I had finished the last class of the fall semester. Coming home after six hours of lecturing in high heels, I ran up my parents' stairs to find my father waiting for me with his iphone which has this neat little pulse-taking device. Mine was over 150 beats a minute. Naturally, my father was concerned. I've been having chest pains and anxiety attacks more frequently these days. I wake in the middle of the night in a panic and must take care to calm myself. My heart typically beats between 100 and 111 beats a minute even when I am most calm. My family has always called this my "squirrel heart", but joking aside, it has always been a bit of a worry to all of us.

Because my father was concerned, I made an appointment with a physician. I told her about my symptoms and brought her information from my last doctor's visits related to this problem. Last year I had an EKG and wore a Holter monitor. They found no problems, but thought I had costochondritis. Many years before I had sharp chest pains that felt a good deal as though someone was kicking me in the sternum. When my own doctor refused to see me saying I was just too young to have a heart attack, I ended up in the emergency room. Twice. The first time they gave me a sedative and the second time, in a better hospital, they did a bunch of fancy-schmancy tests and found that I have mitral valve prolapse, a mostly benign condition. MVP can be asymptomatic, but it can also manifest itself in what some call mitral valve prolapse syndrome which includes such symptoms as tachycardia, fatigue, chest pain, anxiety, and depression.

I'd almost forgotten about my mvp. I'd taken care to avoid stimulants such as caffeine, and was not much troubled by it until last year when I found myself revisiting my doctor for chest pains, tachycardia, and an elevated blood pressure. She did not find anything overly worrying and I let it go again until recently when my elevated heart rate and chest pains made it increasingly difficult to ignore. My new family doctor thinks it is my anxiety, but she wants to get more information before making further suggestions. I now have an appointment scheduled with a cardiologist who can review my history, do his own testing, and tell us what he thinks.

Meanwhile, I have realized that I must address what ails me. I'm not sure what the MDs will tell me, but I've often thought of it as my broken heart. My acupuncturist has been telling me that my heart is troubled. I can't remember her exact words, but the spiritual message I heard from her was that we needed to find a way to make my spirit feel safe enough to return to my heart. My heart is having difficulty feeding my life with energy. I wonder why.

When I engage in tarot, or prayer, or meditation, or this kind of free writing, I am trying to find answers. More accurately, I am trying to find the right questions? Is the question What is missing? or What is wrong? or What am I supposed to do? or Whom do I serve? or What is my purpose? or How can I heal? I just don't know and it really bothers me. I wonder how long my heart has been telling me that there was a problem. A long time I think given my history of anxiety and depression, but I was so focused on getting my doctorate that I always thought the problem would resolve itself when that goal was achieved. Now the goal has been achieved for several years now and I cannot escape the fact that my hearts still feels wounded.

I do not know what is at the root of my heartache, but I cannot wait to find that answer before I address the pain. I'll have to at least patch it up the best I can. To that end, I'm drinking more water and (decaf) teas to increase my blood volume. I'm using yoga and qi gong to relax and employing my old hypnobirthing methods and breathing practices to settle myself when my heartrate runs away. I'm taking herbs and supplements said to help with heart health, tachycardia, and high blood pressure.

My family doctor, cardiologist, chiropractor, and acupuncturist will continue to diagnose and treat me for my anxiety, stress, chest pain, and speedy heart. They can find out why my heart hurts, but it is up to me to find out why it is broken.

How I lost the joy of writing.

2011-12-06T08:18:00.001-08:00

Writing has been difficult for me lately. My inability to create blog posts is symptomatic of a larger condition. Basically, I can't get out of my own way. Lots of people say that writing is therapeutic, and I guess it is. But writing is more than that for me. It is integral to my understanding of myself as a human being. When I was little, I could feel the words traveling down my arms and dripping out my fingertips into the pen and then onto the paper. Words and ideas thrilled me, and I reveled in the ability to take the raw clay of thought and emotion and translate them into something that could be shared between people. It made me feel so much less alone.

Somewhere along the way, in the course of my perfectionism, I mixed up the need to write with others' assessment of my writing skill. Finishing a doctorate was difficult for me, not so much intellectually as emotionally. The work itself was fascinating and enjoyable, but the process of editing and revising was disheartening. In contrast to many of my fellow students, my dissertation process was a cake walk. I had a doctoral committee made of up nurturing and patient people. They were gentle in their criticisms, and because they were generous educators, I began the dissertation process with a strong foundation of support which meant that my work was less in need of correction by the time I reached the final stages. This facilitated the process significantly. Even so, the process required that I submit my dissertation chapters first to my interdisciplinary committee of three professors (one with a PhD in history, one with a PhD in Religion Studies, and one with a PhD in English). They each made their recommendations and I revised the work until the manuscript was complete. At that point, I could submit the work to them in its complete although still imperfected form. They made more (mostly minor) recommendations. I revised again and, after receiving their go-ahead, submitted the manuscript to my second reader. She accepted it with only minor recommendations. After receiving her seal of approval, I then had to send the manuscript to the dean's office which then sent it ahead to an outside reader. They don't tell you who the person is, but I believe in my case they chose a scholar working in Hawaii. Following that person's comments to which I had to formally respond, my dissertation was then submitted for reading and criticism to the dean's office. Working with my doctoral committee, I was then responsible for creating a response to the dean's comments. When that process was over, I had a final meeting with my doctoral committee. At this point they could bring up any final recommendations that had with the writing and/or with outside readers' recommendations. Additionally, I was working with a professional editor who, though a sweet and wise woman, was not going to pull any punches in her editorial approach.

The entire process had its merits. I was glad to know that the process promoted a high level of quality in my work. I appreciated the attention and care I received from my readers who were consistently enthusiastic and caring in their approach. My university encouraged a "nurturing" rather than a confrontational approach to scholarship. I've adopted this style in my own classroom with good results. On the other hand, I found myself exhausted by this process at the end of which I was thoroughly sick of all intellectual activities. While my process was shorter than those endured by others at my university, it still took longer to receive approval of the dissertation than it did for me to write the darn thing. Added to that were bureaucratic snafus. At one point one when I sent my dissertation for review, a college office worker deleted the document and did not tell anyone until months later when I inquired about its status in the review process. It was also an expensive process. I could either have purchased three large furnished Victorian homes or this doctorate that has provided me with a job that barely covers the cost of my so-called "income adjusted" student loan payments. Because I'm not able to make larger payments, my interest (and my related self-loathing and discouragement) keeps compounding and my debt, which will likely never be paid even if I lived to be 300 years old, is astronomical.

There are times when I feel pride in my accomplishment and take great pleasure in the knowledge and skills I gained in the process. But most of the time I really wish I hadn't done it. In fact, I'm ashamed of my motivation to be recognized as a thinker and almost feel that I deserve the low income, high debt, and diminished sense of self-worth that accompanies my doctorate. I earned that humility as payment for my hubris. What made me think that I needed or deserved recognition? If I had learned how to be content as a homemaker and mother, I would not be in the fix I'm in now and my children would not be paying for my desire to "be someone." I might even still enjoy writing.

I miss that feeling of exhilation and the rush of creativity I used to associate with writing. One of the most uncomfortable results of my ten years of working on my M.A. and PhD are that my joy of writing was severed from the act of writing. Ten years of criticism of one's thoughts and of one's expressions of those thoughts can be a bit discouraging. Because I am a perfectionist, a page of glowing remarks about my work was always completely undone by any mention of even the smallest error. After fourteen years of undergraduate and graduate discipline, writing stopped being fun.

But I'm trying to remedy that. I'm trying to relearn how to write for the joy of writing. This blog is often helpful to me in that capacity. There is a reason why I don't spend much time editing this. I submit these posts as raw offerings. I don't want to concern myself with the fussy details of editing. That sucks for my readers, but is a gift to myself. Sure, it embarrasses me when I find obvious errors in spelling or grammar. I'm irritated with awkward phrasing or repetitious word use. But learning how to write again without hearing the relentless voice of the critic in my mind is an important step for me in my recovery from university.

The next step is to be able to write without feeling that I must be solidly expert in the ideas I explore. I don't mean that I'm just going to spout off about shit I don't know about. (Look at that! I ended a sentence with a preposition, and I am not going to edit it. In your face, Perfectionism!) What it does mean is that I'm going to give myself permission to explore topics that I've not allowed myself to explore. I am going to challenge myself to use prompts in my writing to try to crack the ice that has formed over my thinking. I'm becoming so conservative and cautious. I need to nip that in the bud. To that end, I've found a Pagan blog prompt site that suggests topics on which a Pagan blogger may write. Sounds like fun to me.

To Gaze Upon the Beast

2011-11-02T13:53:00.000-07:00

Part I: The Problem

These past weeks, I've found it very challenging to write a blog post. When I've tried, all the words that fell from my fingers were bitter, angry, and despairing. Some days ago, I could not find anything to say that felt worthy of articulation. Indeed, I could barely complete a sentence. Most of my day was spent in this kind of caustic, emotionally abortive state. Half-formed resentments kept knocking around my head so that I could not quite grasp what I thought or how I felt. I just shriveled, hunkered, wilted, and crouched by my computer all day. I read the news on the computer obsessively. Finally, tearing myself away from Facebook and Truthout, I watched the news on the television. I felt even worse. The world seems damned and I feel helpless to save it. The sky was dark and the cold in my basement apartment bored into my bones. A hot, tearful bath thawed me a bit, but later I found myself on the couch beneath a blanket slipping in and out of one of the worst depressive states I've been in for a good long time.

I could not quite figure it out. I'm prone to occasional bouts of depression, but they are usually mild and fleeting episodes. Ironically, I suppose, depression does not get me down. Generally speaking, anxiety is my mental illness of choice. It is true that depression nearly drowned me almost a decade ago, but it rarely can hold me more than a few hours at a time since then.  That's why I was so surprised to find my anxiety swing over so decisively to that deeper darkness.

Whenever I have a feeling, I study it. Why am I having this feeling? Is it ephemeral and/or merely situational? Does it have a more complex or spiritually grounded component?  How might my physical condition affect this manifestation of emotional sensation? So I search my environment and body for irregularities. (I can't stand irregularities.) Perhaps it was that I had foolishly gone a couple days without my supplements. As one who occasionally suffers from episodes of what my husband gently calls "not feeling well", I know that I have to eat well, take supplements that support good brain function and mental health, stay physically active, and get decent amounts of sleep. When I neglect myself, I'm likely to become "off balance".    To my natural health regimen, I add aromatherapy, chiropractic, and acupuncture. I'm kind of high maintenance that way.

Perhaps it was the dismal gray skies and the damp chill. I'm not a real outdoorsie type, but I do find that I do tend to be solar-powered. Bright days encourage me to be active. Perhaps the dark and the damp compounded my morning doldrums and sent me slipping down into the gravel pit. (I often think of depression as a gravel pit with steep sides. Easy to find your way in. Dull as hell once you're there, but damned difficult to climb out again unless you happen to know the way.)

As is my custom, I fussed and worried about my feelings until it suddenly hit me what had happened.

I looked directly at the Beast.

Part II: The Reflection (always keep mirrors handy)

The Beast is a many-headed, malicious killer and it is everywhere. Look now and you will see it out of the corner of your eye. It is hunger, want, injustice, intolerance, hatred, war, bigotry, torture, pollution. It is grasping, cutting, strangling. It starves, cuts, twists, mocks, and brutalizes. Cut one of its hideous heads loose from its body and it seems that two more grow back in its place. Like the Medusa or the Basilisk, to look directly at it brings petrification and death.

And yet we must fight it. But how? How can we fight something so enormous and so frustratingly resilient? How can we fight something that we cannot even bear to look in the eye?

I think it was a conversation with my little girl that helped me with this question. She came to me in deep frustration that as a child she could not change the world. She was furious with herself that by the time she grew up and had power to stand up for the vulnerable, too much damage would already be done. How many more children will die? How many more species will become extinct?

I heard myself in her, but did not respond to her as "myself" but as "mother." This is basically what I told her. This is basically what I told the reflection of myself in her.

It is good that you want to fight that Beast. But it cannot be conquered by one person. Gather allies. Remember that there are people already out there, working, studying, advocating, healing, teaching. Generations of us have faced this danger and generations of us will face it again because we will not accept defeat as long as love exists.

Do not attempt to look directly at the Beast. The vastness and power of it will freeze you in your tracks. Instead, like the valiant mice in Aslan's battle, focus on the toes and heels and tails of the Foe if that is all you can reach.  Even the mighiest adversary cannot keep fighting if we cut the legs out from beneath him. Focus on what you can do rather than what you think you ought to do. Your little efforts, grounded in faith and inspired by love, may be just the thing to turn the tide.

Consider that even the pennies you set aside daily to help other children in the world add up quickly. You may wish to help a thousand children and regret your powerlessness to do so, but consider that the child who receives the gift of your pennies can make all the difference in the world. If your pennies save just one child, that one child can join in the story of humanity. Celebrate her voice. Celebrate her life. She may not be a multitude, but she is a beloved sister.

And always remember that however immediate and terrifying the problems that face us seem, we are creatures bound to the future. You are not done growing. Your job is to keep growing and keep learning. Keep getting stronger. Remember that none of us can fight on our own. The world has not been waiting for you to stand alone. The world waits for us to stand together.

Green Apron: Avoiding Plastic. Uses for Jars

2011-10-04T13:25:00.000-07:00

http://hystery-thegreenapron.blogspot.com/

Gratitude this Fall Equinox

2011-09-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

I recently responded to a post by a friend and sister Quaker Pagan blogger in which she expresses thanksgiving for the Fall Equinox. I thought I'd share her post here along with my own response. This is a good time of year.

http://aquakerwitch.blogspot.com/

I live in an agricultural region. Beginning in August, I notice the farm stands and their abundant produce. We see tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, corn and cabbage in our gardens, in the fields, and in the markets. In September, we add pumpkins, winter squash, grapes, and apples to the list. The nights grow more chilled, the air is not so heavy, and there are leaves dancing on the breeze even before the full autumn colors overtake us.

In the summer months and into August, I notice the green smell of corn ripening. In September, the air is perfumed with the scent of grapes and apples. The light has a more golden quality to it too. Sometimes, even in the darkening sky, the leaves turn their silver underbellies to the sun so that the world becomes like a medieval illumination.

I am thankful for this light. I'm thankful for the gathering of crows that fill the fields after harvest. They remind me that we are not alone in the universe. I am thankful for my own family, for our gathering together each night, and for the children's play. I'm thankful for white sails on blue lakes, for bushels of honeycrisp apples, cheerful mums, milkweed, wooly bear caterpillars, pumpkins, grape pies, casseroles, and cardigan sweaters.

Photograph Credit:

Amandolare, Sarah. "Summer Getaway: Ithaca and the Finger Lakes." FindingDulcinea. 29 May 2010. Web. 30 Sept. 2011. .

The Green Apron: On Avoiding Plastic in the Bathroom

2011-09-29T20:19:00.000-07:00

http://hystery-thegreenapron.blogspot.com/

On my other blog (much neglected I fear) I explore my life as a green homemaker. In this entry, I look at ways to avoid the use of plastics in the bathroom and ask for assistance with some remaining plast-icky problems.

Looking for Love

2011-09-14T14:15:00.000-07:00

I am reviewing some of my unpublished posts looking for raw materials and ideas. There doesn't seem to be much there I can use. There are more unpublished than published posts because I have a tendency to write things that are inappropriate for sharing with others. It is a shame, really, because I'd love to share some of my thoughts on various topics, but I find that my approach, as in the post "Let Me Tell You Where to Put That Talking Stick", might offend some readers. Other posts, while more polite in tone, are a bit too heavy on the navel-gazing and the self-pity. I find these posts really amusing, but I find that my sense of humor does not translate well into the blogosphere where people respond to me with what appears to be genuine concern. I guess most folks don't find depression quite as hilarious as I find it.

So what to write? I've been hovering between despair and a kind of...what? Sentimentality? Nostalgia? Moodiness? No. It is a more spiritual and vulnerable state for which I have no name. In the midst of my anxieties, I find myself reaching out into the world of spirit. I call upon God or ancestors, guides, energies, or angels. I don't care much who answers me so long as I don't feel so alone.

And I have felt very alone. I don't know how many times, in a fit of anger and disgust, I spit out the words, "I hate this culture!" by which I mean the greed, arrogance, cruelty, and thoughtlessness that seem to prevail everywhere I look. I avoid television news but can't seem to stop myself from reading news and watching it on the internet. It is appalling, and I am tired of that lump in my throat and the sting of tears as I read about yet another injustice, yet another cruelty, yet another abomination committed against the most vulnerable members of Creation. It is as though we have made a game of trying to outdo ourselves in debasement. What humiliations can we enforce? What standards of grace and kindness can we ignore? All decency and logic seem abandoned in the pursuit of power and wealth for a few while the rest of us scramble and cling to what little dignity we have left.

I have become cynical. I sneer and laugh at the gross ignorance I see around me. Wrapping myself in self-righteousness, in the protective gear of pride of education, status, and position, I protect my tender underbelly from the greater sadness that always threatens. But every so often, I peak around the edge of my disdain and take a direct hit. I never know just why, but sometimes a story of injustice, loss, or cruelty knocks the wind out of me and I just sit there and cry. Sometimes the fears I have that I will not be able to preserve myself and my family overwhelm me.  They paralyze me. My heart races and I tremble. I distract myself with the blinking lights of computers and televisions, but sometimes I cannot deny that there is darkness everywhere.

Except it isn't everywhere. The news is not an accurate reflection of the cultures that animate the United States. Media feeds on the macabre, the sensational, and the absurd. I won't deny that their diet is rich. They certainly have their pick of horrors from which to choose, but I am also trying to remember (as a hedge against despair) that the world is also full of love, justice, kindness, and good sense.

The other day, I saw a middle-aged woman with her elderly mother. The elder woman was awake but unresponsive. Her daughter talked cheerfully to the people around her. She spoke kindly to her mother although there seemed no hope that her mother could respond in kind. "It is bright outside, Mom. Better wear these sunglasses," she said as she gently placed the glasses on the old woman's face. The old woman, in her wheelchair, did not so much as turn her face toward the sound of her daughter's voice. I could feel my own fear, for myself, for my kids, for my own parents, grow and twist in my gut. "Please, God, protect me from this woman's fate."

In the parking lot, I again saw the two women. The younger woman was preparing to lift her mother into her car. Before she did so, she leaned forward and very gently stroked her mother's face and looked into her eyes, her own face warmed by a tenderness for her parent that the parent could no longer express to her child.

This gesture of love, so simple and so brief, was like a thousand sermons to me. I have been pondering over it for days. Here was a moment that did not warrant my bitter laughter, nor my contempt, nor a well-written rant.  It brought me up short. Whatever can it mean? In the moment of my witness, I thought to myself, "How much we love each other!" In the midst of our imperfections, our pain, and our weakness, how great is the Love that sustains us.  I have been so long in practicing my anger with the horror stories of life that I had quite forgotten just how majestic (though very quiet) the love stories of families, friends, neighbors, and perfect strangers providing care and attention for each other can be.  I'd quite forgotten too just how common they are.

Why?  Because we are human and that's what we do. Humans beings are called to love and we have obeyed that call. We are imperfect and inconsistent, it is true, but I will not believe the lie that we are wholly corrupt. I will not give up hope that, however often we fall and fail, the core of us is incorruptible, spun as it is of the very heartstring of the Universe.

As we drove away from the parking lot and to the grocery store, I began to wonder. Is the Dark really winning or is that just more spin? I don't deny the existence of inhuman evil, but maybe we just don't see how full of Love the world is. Perhaps the world is full of a power we cannot grasp and cannot see because our fists are clenched and our eyes are squeezed shut in fear. I had let my defenses down while I watched the woman and her mother, and this time I found the wind knocked out of me not by darkness but by Light. In the moment the woman stopped in the midst of her busy-ness and responsibility to caress her mother's face and smile into eyes that could not smile back, I felt my world shift. In that moment, she embodied Christ, and I was witness to the Presence.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't mean this to be an "everything is going to be okay" post. I don't mean to suggest that a positive attitude will stop wickedness in its tracks or heal all wrongs. I'm aware that the woman in the parking lot probably finds herself unsmiling, bitter, and exhausted more times than she would care to admit. Having cared for very young, very old, and very ill people in my own family, I know that love does not always manifest itself beautifully. I also can't pretend that the world is not full of anger, pain, humiliations, and monstrous cruelty. It is.

The world is full of pain. I'd be an idiot not to acknowledge it. But it is also full of Love. I just haven't been paying attention. Love is not grand or sneering.  It is not violent and does not force itself into our consciousness. We often miss it because unlike Fear, it does not loom over us. Unlike Rage, it does not cut into us. We miss it because it is usually not a grand thing.  So used to looking for danger, we often do not register the presence of Love.

" Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (I Corinthians 13: 4-7)

So I've been thinking about that if "thinking" is the right word. Perhaps a better word is "feeling". I'm experimenting with a possibility that maybe "my calling" is not quite so complicated as I have been making it. Perhaps it really doesn't matter whether or not I publish or whether or not I "make a difference" by being smart, or brave, or even very well-organized. I'm trying to minister to the world as the woman in the parking lot did for me. I am trying to be gentle, trying to be kind, trying to see each soul as a soul rather than as a competitor, an obstacle, an irritant. I am remembering that in this world, we are imperfect and therefore we love each other imperfectly, but also that within us, beyond us, and through us exists a more perfect Love. This is the Love that is our Source. It is the pattern and fabric from which we are made and, if we are willing, it is the template of our destiny.

I'm embarrassed to say it because it is such a trivial thing, but I've begun looking people in the eyes and smiling at them as gently and as genuinely as I can. I figure all of us, whether or not we are capable of response, is as deserving of such care as the woman in the parking lot gave to her mom.  I guess my experiment isn't much really. In many ways, smiling at folks is merely practicing the good manners my own mother taught me as a child, but, oh! the reward!   Sometimes, when I smile at someone, the worry or the anger or the boredom slips away from their face and they look back at me with the same kindness.   In those moments, I realize that I was never alone. In the grocery store, on the street, in the college, at the park, in long lines, ladies' rooms, waiting rooms, and traffic jams, I am surrounded by souls illuminated by Love. Knowing this makes the darkness seem a bit less scary. Seeing Love and acknowledging its presence is just the beginning of the service I owe, but it seems, perhaps, like a good place to start.

Nothing so plain about my Paganism

2011-08-02T19:03:00.000-07:00

It becomes increasingly clear to me that there is nothing clear (or plain) at all about my Paganism. I am, according to my own definition, a pagan person. I'm just really, desperately, depressingly tired of explaining what my definition is.

I had been operating under the belief that in order to communicate most clearly and honestly, I needed to be open about my paganism. I thought it would be dishonest to remain "in the broom closet." I am now entertaining the idea that by using the term Pagan (or pagan), I merely muddy the waters of communication making it far more difficult for me to assert my views in a productive way.

I believe what I believe. Based on my understanding of the history and theory of earth-centered and mystical spiritual traditions, I have called my beliefs pagan, and I continue to believe they are. Unfortunately, I have found that very few people, whether Abrahamic, Pagan, or non-theist, seem to resonate with my personal experience or definition of the term. It seems it would be better to simply communicate my beliefs and the context of those beliefs without attaching a label to them. In this way, I need no longer argue with those who actually believe very similar things as I do, but have bad associations with the term "Pagan". In this way too, I may communicate my spirituality without having to endlessly negotiate terms with or differentiate myself from folks who share my label, but who believe wildly dissimilar things and practice in a radically different manner than I do. It does me very little good to keep saying, "But I'm not that kind of Pagan." First off, it is such a waste of time. Secondly, it sets me up as an antagonist of people who would normally be my natural spiritual allies.

So that leaves me with a blog title that doesn't quite fit. I need to change it. Any ideas?

17th Century Quaker and Puritan Women

2011-07-24T18:10:00.000-07:00

Shifting gears from the 19th century where I spend most of my time to the 17th century, I have begun reviewing literature related to European women's religious experience in the British colonies. I am interested in exploring tensions between female believers in various time periods to see if I can tease out the contours of patterns that give rise to the strong conflicts between radical and liberal suffragists in the late nineteenth-century and which reemerged in contemporary America between Christian feminists and Goddess feminists. More specifically, I'm curious about the role motherhood plays in the development of these expressions of feminine/feminist spirituality both as lived experience and as symbol.

Honestly, I'm not sure how I'm going to do it. I have an idea that I might take the views of two (perhaps more) notable women in various time periods and compare and contrast their views. I had been working on a similar effort with Frances Willard and Matilda Joslyn Gage before I realized that I desperately wanted to go further back in time to provide myself with sturdier footing in this exploration. One could go back all the way to the mists of time, but I think, being an Americanist, I'll have to start with the colonial period. Limited, as historians tend to be, by the written record, my study will likely spend far more time on European American women than other groups whose lives are less well documented, but I foresee the need to consider indigenous American women's influence on the development of a feminist spiritual tradition fairly early on and to continue revisiting it as the history develops. I know, for instance, from my study of Matilda Joslyn Gage's spiritual writing that Haudenosaunee women play a critical role in the development of matriarchal theory. I am also curious to learn more about how African and African American women influence this history. I really have no idea at this point beyond the tantalizing bits of information I've gathered through the course of preparing lectures for my African American history classes. There are at least a few black female theological and spiritual thinkers to whom I can turn. Maria Stewart, Sojourner Truth, Anna Julia Cooper, and Jarena Lee spring to mind. Will I find their work tends to challenge or uphold the traditional evangelical Christian perspective? Will I find dissenting voices that aid in the development of a more radical gynocentric vision? I can't wait to find out.

There is a great deal to learn, and I hardly know where to begin. One has to start the research somewhere. My first stop was a short series of articles in Mathisen's Critical Issues in American Religious History, a satisfyingly fat text that I will be assigning to my (un?)fortunate students. Primary sources and articles on Roman Catholic and African experience were fascinating, but my focus remains on the Puritans and the Quakers in Mary Maples Dunn's article, "Saints and Sisters".

I'm pretty sure I've read this particular article before although I can't recall where. That's annoying, but it happens to me quite a bit. This is an older article so nothing too earth-shattering in its analysis of the differences between Quaker and Puritan women. Quakers and Puritans shared with the first century Christians a sense of living in the end of times. Living on a frontier in both geographical and spiritual terms meant that women found themselves caught up in the heady excitement and hard work of a beloved community fully cognizant of and engaged in their relationship to God and in the duties that relationship entails. There was work enough for all hands and therefore less fuss about whether or not those hands were attached to male or female bodies.

Puritans and Friends both acknowledge the spiritual equality of men and women despite the enormous social, economic, educational, and political inequalities of their respective societies. Because Puritans base their holy experiment on the Book, they are limited in their ability to develop this concept of spiritual equality. Biblical references to female sinfulness and inferiority, particularly as found in the Pauline epistles, did not give Puritans wiggle room. Despite this, Puritan women did test the boundaries of these limitations. Unfortunately, most of their efforts can be read in the records of heresy trials. What we know of their rebellion comes to us through the lens of their male accusers and judges. Anne Hutchinson's trial is most famous of these, but there were several. Dunn makes the sad observation that such brave women were "...more apt to perish than to publish."

Friends, on the other hand, did not take the Bible as their primary source of authority. Seeking more direct communication with their Source, they tended to either ignore or reinterpret texts in light of the Light. Friends were far less concerned with Paul's admonitions to female Christians believing they applied only to those who remained separated from the regenerating power of unity with Christ. In their assessment, the condition of inferiority and obedience to men required of women after the Fall no longer applied to those who were redeemed in Christ. Friends were more likely to refer to Hannah, Mary Magdalene, and Miriam to justify women's active roles in the ministry than to focus on Paul's advice that women maintain silence in the church.

Both Quaker and Puritan religious communities relied upon women's participation and highly valued female piety. After 1660, the Puritan congregational churches' membership shows greater female than male participation. Their numeric superiority did not translate to greater power. In fact, as the number of women relative to men increased, the power of women decreased. This is partially a result of the clergy's increased efforts to dominate all laypeople regardless of gender and partly a result of what Dunn describes as a tendency for women's activities to have less prestige than male activities. In the latter half of the 17th century decreasing piety in men leads to their absence from the churches which they abandon to the women who are expected to continue to guard the community's virtue even as the men turn their faces away from God and toward Mammon.

Quaker women not only attend church, they are among its most important ministers. Friends emphasis on indwelling Divine Light, spiritual rebirth, and the ministry of all believers leads Quakers toward acceptance of female public ministry. With their meetings' full support, women engaged in traveling ministry for prolonged periods of time under dangerous circumstances. Often such women left behind husbands and children to serve in this capacity. One is struck by the the contrast between a traveling female Friend risking death as a Publisher of the Truth with that of the housebound Puritan wife known in her church records only by her husband's name.

I am very curious, but not very hopeful that I will find more specific information about early Friends' attitudes regarding motherhood. The kind of literature that becomes more popular in the 19th century, a kind of maternal sentimental reflection, will come later. I'll have to work with the materials I have which, for early Friends, are much more God-focused than mama-focused. My own sensibilities, formed as they were by generations of Protestant piety, are shocked at the idea of a woman leaving her children on an errand to the wilderness, or even worse--to the scaffold. As I have not even allowed my children to be surrendered to the care of a babysitter for just one night, it is difficult for me to imagine leaving them for a year or forever...on purpose! My own sense of spirituality is firmly centered around my understanding of myself as mother. It is very exciting to see how definitions of motherhood emerge, assert themselves, and transform over time. My own family history partakes of multiple threads of this story. They are like strands of DNA. Physical traits seem to arise and disappear in cool and crazy ways. Likewise the traits of feminine spirituality in the British North American colonies and in the United States seem to appear, disappear, combine, and recombine over time in ways both expected and unexpected. It will be fun to trace this genealogy and fun to take a guess at what the next generation will look like.

Performance and Perfectionism

2011-07-19T11:16:00.000-07:00

I write this post hours after my participation in the 163rd anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention. Last night I dressed up in a late nineteenth-century suffragist suit and played the role of Anna Howard Shaw.   This morning, dressed as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, I delivered a speech on the front porch of her old house in Seneca Falls then led a parade of women 88 miles to the Women's Rights National Historical Park where I later delivered the Declaration of Sentiments for the rededication of the Wesleyan Chapel.

For two days, cameras have seemed to me to be like a swarm of insects around me. (And everyone who knows me well knows I am about the least photogenic human being who ever lived!). I've been pulled into conversations and photo ops with congresspeople, mayors, historians, bureaucrats, business people and tourists. When I'm in costume, people ask me all kinds of philosophical, political, religious, and historical questions. They disclose details about their experience and even of their suffering to me or they swoop in and put their arms around me, touch the fabric of my costume, or peer under my bonnet. Of course, I let them. It is part of the deal. They want to touch history, and when I'm in costume, I become a tangible link to another time.

I'm strongly introverted with an aversion to being touched, so there is a certain degree of psychic pain that goes along with every public engagement. On the other hand, I have made it my job to teach and perform. Therefore, the task itself comes easily to me even if it leaves me emotionally depleted.   In fact, I'm pretty good at it. My parents are both public speakers so I had the luxury ("luxury"?) of growing up in the wake of their charisma. I learned their techniques and found plenty of opportunities to practice as I was expected to converse appropriately with their coworkers, clients, parishioners, and students.

But I'm not constitutionally well-calibrated for public life. I can't eat on days when I'm teaching or performing. I often do not sleep well the night before so I function on adrenaline. When I come home, I chatter and gush to my family as a means of casting off the energy. This is generally followed by a sense of exhaustion, depression, and headaches. I need to be alone to recharge, and as I'm doing right now while writing this post, I often isolate myself for a period until I begin to feel more like myself and less like the character who possesses me when I'm in public.

Just a short time ago I was in a hoops, petticoats, boots, and bonnet. Now I sit here in my loose-fitting, ratty t-shirt and capris. My glasses, which I never wear in performance, are back on the end of my nose. I'm barefoot and curled up in my office chair. I feel much more comfortable, but also just this side of tears. It feels very much like I am just waking up from a kind of delirium. I have vague memories of hundreds of faces, dozens of hand shakes, and what felt like a hundred thousand cameras. Each person who spoke to me told me I did "an excellent job" that "it was really well done" and "just beautiful!"

But I know better. Though I managed not to make it obvious, I can tell you in great detail every error I made. My pages were out of order and a section of the speech was therefore neglected. I was horrified when I realized what I had done. Thankfully, after a couple beats as I realized that the next page before me did not follow the one I had completed, I simply moved ahead to the next section and concluded the presentation as if all was well. I could not afford to do otherwise as I was speaking without microphone before a large group of folks including several dignitaries. My voice could not falter. I could not shrink into myself or run away from the podium no matter how much I wanted to. I could not will the good earth to swallow me whole. So I carried on knowing that I would just have to cry about it later.

I"m trying to comfort myself with the knowledge that I won't be the first or the last public speaker to make a mistake, mess up a speech, or fall on my face. The autobiographies and biographies of the historical women I so admire make them look like giants of virtue, valor, and skill. But having read their private correspondence as well as their public record, I also know quite a bit about their insecurities and embarrassments. They were only human. It seems that I am too.

I don't like to make mistakes. Since childhood when I kept getting out of bed to recheck the homework I'd already spent several hours perfecting, I have feared failure. In school I worked into the night to get everything just right. Because my grades were so high, my teachers thought to challenge me by separating me from the other students and giving me more advanced and difficult assignments. It did not occur to me that getting a lower grade would ever be acceptable regardless of the complexity of the assignment. If I missed even one question, mispronounced one word, misunderstood one concept, I did not forgive myself. I just kept working harder and harder to perfect my performance so my teachers would not do that most horrible thing I could imagine which was to ask me why I made a mistake. Any grade lower than a 95 indicated failure. "What went wrong?" they would ask me and my entire little body just felt shriveled in shame.   Not surprisingly, with these standards coupled with the loneliness I felt in school, I woke up with knots in my stomach every morning and I was prone to tearfulness and anxiety.

That pattern did not let up when I went away to college. It did not let up in graduate school. I'm afraid it has not let up even today although it is certainly modified by the humbling realities of mothering. Although I'm well aware of how damaging my attitude has been to my health and happiness, I find I have a difficult time letting go of my perfectionism. It is just unacceptable, just inexcusable for me to screw up like I did today. Granted, no one mentioned it. In fact, people were full of praise. My parents who watched me speak assured me that that error wasn't noticeable and that no one would care anyhow, but I was just beside myself. As we sat discussing the event in a restaurant, I reflected upon my error, began analyzing how I had gone wrong, and found myself so close to tears that I could not swallow my root beer.

After I give a speech or teach a class, I like to come home and forget that I ever have to go out there again. Just for a little while, I can relax into the comfort of being "just a housewife" with people who call me "Mommy" and "sweetie" and who don't care if I can give speeches or not. What blessed relief that is! I am sorely tempted to hide away for good this time. On days like this, I feel as though I'd like to toss the boots and the bonnet right in the trash and be done with it. I'm disappointed in my performance and I'm beating myself up about it. In fact, I'm feeling pretty sorry for myself.

I cried through writing this post, mostly just because I'm really tired and really overwhelmed and like a little kid whose had too much stimulus and not enough sleep, I'm just not in control of my emotions. I wasn't even sure why I felt such a need to write at all. Certainly, I'm not being logical so goodness knows what errors I have made in this post! I suppose I wrote just to exorcise my demons. That's as good a reason as any to write, I suppose. But perhaps my demons are being exercised rather than exorcised with this obsessive compulsive rumination. Enough is enough.

I'll end with just one thing that came into my head unbidden as I was busily thinking what a failure I am. You see, there's this young woman who comes to Convention Days with her mother every year. She's a woman with an intellectual disability who uses a walker to get around. Most people seem to just ignore her and that's too bad because she knows pretty much all there is to know about the Convention, suffrage, and the fight for the ERA. On top of that, she has a great sense of humor and a joyful gratitude about being there in that historical place that is contagious. There were an awful lot of fancy-schmancy people who made an awful lot of fancy-schmancy speeches during Convention Days but I don't think any of them "get it" like she does. Her whole heart is in it, and she is just alive with it.

Each year when I see her, I make it a point to stop my march to greet her and tell her how glad I am to see her. After the march, I like to spend a few moments talking to her. This time, I found her sitting in the back of the Wesleyan Chapel with her mother. I was already beating myself up for being less then I thought I could be, but I walked back to where she sat with her mom and gave her the best smile I could muster. Despite the oppressive heat and the jostling crowd, she was just radiant with enthusiasm. She threw her hands up in celebration. "Congratulations on the 163rd anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention!" she exclaimed with utter delight.

I wish I knew that young woman's name. I wish I could let her know how she ministered to me today in the midst of my self-loathing and perfectionism.    She was just happy to be there and I'm awfully glad she was there too.   Out of all the flashing cameras, the compliments, the hugs and handshakes, hers is the face I most want to remember. I appreciate, I really do, all the other people who went out of their way to compliment my performance and thank me for my work. But there seemed to be a lot of that going around today, you know? We're all so political and polished in those kinds of situations ( you know, the ones with sound systems and hor d'oeuvres.) I was doing my dance too, moving from person to person reaching into my bag of smiles and charming comments, but she was just herself. She was on pilgrimage and fully appreciating the great good fortune of being there to celebrate one of the pivotal moments of human rights history.

I wish she could have marched with us under the suffrage banner. I wish the organizers seated her up in front with the dignitaries. It was for her and for all people who for a thousand reasons of birth, culture, or circumstance find themselves excluded from this nation's promises, that this long historic battle for human rights has been fought. As the people milled about us rubbing elbows with the who's who of the community, dropping names, exchanging emails, fussing with their cameras, and ignoring her completely, she just beamed at me in glad appreciation of a wonderful day.   She was beautiful.

While writing this long, self-pitying post, it came to me quite suddenly that I was happy, really happy to be with her. I hope I made her happier too. I hope I enriched her experience. That was why I started wearing the costume in the first place. It wasn't to impress people, but to share my joy of history with them. I hope I made her feel just a little bit more like she has a unique connection to Mrs. Stanton and the Convention. I'm not sure what other people really thought about my contribution today. Maybe they were being honest with me when they told me they were happy with my work,,, and maybe they were just being polite. I do know that my friend in the back of the building was happy with me. She was happy with me. She was happy about suffrage, and women's rights, and my costume, and the people, and the excitement. She was just glad that she could be there to see it.

"Congratulations on the 163 anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention!" You know what? She's right. We did it! We started a movement for human equality in Seneca Falls 163 years ago and made the outrageous demand for female suffrage. We stood up for equality and for each other. We did it together. We made lots of mistakes, and screwed up lots of speeches, and made lots of people disappointed and unhappy, by by God, we did it and we're doing it still. Perhaps that's all that really matters. So my speech wasn't perfect. So I spilled a plate of fruit all over the floor while speaking to someone I greatly admire. So I never can look anything but wooden and a bit frumpy in a photograph. So what? I can vote. I can teach. I can send my daughter to college, keep my own wages, and make my own legal decisions. And why? Because a whole lot of people decided it was better to look foolish and make mistakes than to sit home and feel sorry for themselves.

Maybe all that other stuff where we show off how important and clever we are is just bells and whistles. My friend in the back knew what it was all about. This woman who cannot live on her own, and who is more likely than any of us there to suffer the indignities visited upon women also can tell you just how much she is thankful for all that has been accomplished by people of good will, just how jubilantly she cheers for all of our continued efforts. She is a natural born teacher who doesn't let her disabling conditions stop her from using her voice to tell the story of our long journey toward human rights. I'm a bit ashamed that I allowed myself to brood about my imperfections and considered hanging it all up. She would never do that.   So now, time to dry my tears and get back to work. I'm still not thrilled with my performance, but I did my part, if not flawlessly, then at least enthusiastically. I embarrassed myself a couple times, but it was worth it just to see her again and feel buoyed by her hopefulness. I saw an awful lot of fine people today, but she was the most perfect.

Pagan Values: Toward a Peaceable Kingdom

2011-06-26T21:30:00.000-07:00

As this is Pagan Values Month, I thought I should comment on my own pagan values. I often comment on thea/ology and non-theism and ruminate endlessly on philosophical matters, but rarely do I write about how all of that affects me at a practical level. That omission is peculiar since in many ways Paganism is a very practical thing for me, a kind of every day thing that operates at seemingly mundane levels. My paganism affects me far more when I am sweeping the floor than when I am philosophizing about divinity and immortality. In this post, I'll explore one way in which I live out my values.

(Special note: I am not saying that all people, or all Pagans, or all Quakers, or all pacifists, or all vegans need to share these views. What I describe here is very specific to my own feelings.)

I'm a vegan and a pacifist. I see both these things as not merely directly related to my paganism, but as requirements of my paganism. There are, of course, high and lofty interconnected secular ethical arguments for these decisions, but the ethical arguments are secondary. In fact, they were an afterthought. I don't eat animals because I love them and I love them because they have souls and I know they have souls because I am a pagan. And I'm a pagan because I know that every living thing has a soul. Simple as that. Ask me to eat a cow or a pig and you might as well be asking me to eat a dog. In fact, I have a pet pig. She smells oddly like maple syrup and still I'm never tempted to eat her.

Perhaps vegetarianism was always in the cards for me. From infancy, there were always animals I would not eat because my parents had already decided that many animals were off the menu either because to consume them seemed unnecessary and absurd or because to consume them seemed unusually cruel. As a twelve year old, I decided to stop eating all red meat. I certainly could have given you a number of sound environmental, ethical, and health-related reasons for this decision, but whenever asked about it, I have always had to say that honestly, it was because I looked into a cow's eyes one day and realized that I could not seek that animal's death. So cows and pigs and all other mammals were off my menu. When I was a bit older, I also removed birds and fish, and when I was eighteen, I became a vegan.

That decision followed a trip to the Farm Sanctuary near my home. While the guides there provided me with compelling information calculated to encourage veganism, it was the experience of being close to animals that changed my practice. I had been able to ignore the agricultural practices that gave me my vegetarian luxuries of eggs, milk, and cheese. Since I was not eating the flesh, I could ignore that death is required for the mass production of these luxuries of animal products. The information about agribusiness was revolting, but it wasn't really what pushed me into veganism. Blame it on a beakless chicken and her similarly mutilated, but very much alive and engaging barnyard companions. In that moment, I was in relationship with her with the power to touch her, to look at her and allow her to touch and look at me. How then could I walk away from her and have an egg salad sandwich? I knew too much. More importantly, I knew that "chicken" could no longer be a generalized term. There is no more "chicken" for me. There is this particular chicken and that specific chicken. They are not interchangeable. They are individuals in my thinking.

This belief that I am in relationship to the world and that I meet other species as individuals to be honored rather than as collective species to be exploited has always been at the heart of my paganism. It has informed my daily choices and my politics, my lifestyle and my parenting. There is perhaps no convincing rational reason why I should view animals in this way, but neither is there any convincing rational reason why I should not. Many have tried to convince me that I am flawed, misguided, delusional, or even selfish in my refusal to harm other creatures. As I don't see how the deaths of soldiers and civilians can be justified even for such goals as "Victory" or "Lasting Peace" or "Our Way of Life", I also can't see killing this cow or that pig or this chicken even for goals of "environmentalism". My morality always starts with the integrity of a relationship between individuals and with the belief that I do not have more right than s/he who gazes at back at me to decide that her/his suffering or death is required.

In contemplating the tendency in many historical books to explain away the deaths of individuals, communities, or entire civilizations as necessary for "progress" or "peace" or "prosperity", Howard Zinn wrote:

"If there are necessary sacrifices to be made for human progress, is it not essential to hold to the principle that those to be sacrificed must make the decision themselves? We can all decide to give up something of ours, but do we have the right to throw into the pyre the children of others, or even our own children, for a progress which is not nearly as clear or present as sickness or health, life or death?"

But do I really need to apply this kind of ethical thinking to the lives of non-human creatures? I feel that I do. If I feel the presence- the intense and spiritual reality of another being, whether or not they are human, then I can't ignore my responsibility to care for them and seek their preservation. When it comes right down to it, I find that I am always focused on the individual, and I can't bring myself to stomach the idea that I have ordered the death of another being. Other environmentalists have tried to reason with me that my veganism is somehow less virtuous than whatever choices and practices they utilize. Perhaps, in some cases, they may be right, but it boils down to this: I know my own heart.

I come by my tender-heart honestly. I was raised by people who did not squash bugs. I, therefore, became a person who does not squash bugs. We catch mosquitoes and flies and release them outside. We help spiders if we find them in dangerous areas in the home (such as in a sink). I'm careful when cleaning not to disturb active spiders' webs. We talk to bugs in our house. I even recall on one occasion hearing my grandmother comment that she had grown concerned about an ant who failed to appear on her counter as had been its custom. I am mindful when sweeping, or shoveling, or raking. I watch where I step. My students have seen me making my way slowly across the quad stopping to pick up worms on the sidewalk so that others do not tread on them.

In considering this attitude toward bugs, I realized that I believe that I see them as individuals with souls deserving of compassion and respect. This is not surprising in a family in which children are reminded to be gentle with insects with expressions like "She's more afraid of you than you are of her," or "He has as much right to be here as we do," or simply, "Spiders are our friends."

When I tell you that I feel the same way about plants and have difficulty gardening or enjoying cut flowers or Christmas trees and that I have friends of the branched persuasion, you will see the obvious difficulties in this position. Human beings, of necessity, must bring death to other living things or we cannot survive. I may not eat animals or kill bugs, but plants die to sustain me along with insects killed by the agricultural process. I am not unaware of the necessity of a certain degree of hypocrisy in my life. Despite my efforts at living a green and peaceful life, my very existence as a citizen of the western world with all its pollution, abuses, and imbalances is a killing influence in the natural world. Of course it bothers me, but my goal has been, if not perfection, at least that I could feel that I have tried as hard as ever I could to live gently. When I screw up (and I do this often either out of laziness or ignorance or even lazy ignorance), I ask for forgiveness and try again.

I do not argue therefore, that one should attempt to kill nothing nor do I think it my place to condemn those who live differently than I choose to live. I tell you that my beliefs are pagan not because I believe they are universal or even common to Pagans, but because I feel, and have always felt, that it was evidence of my paganism, of my emotional and spiritual connection to the world of natural spirits, that I find that I cannot willingly take life. I feel that I have been asked not to, and I have been blessed with a personality and a situation in life that makes this a relatively easy goal for me to pursue. Gosh, I'd be a real jackass if I ignored both the calling and the gift and went ahead and had a cheeseburger!

In the time since I began writing this blog post, I have escorted an ant out over my threshold. I have been talking to flies trying to convince them to cooperate with my efforts to guide them out of my office in my net (the net my similarly tender-hearted husband bought for just this purpose). I have welcomed a spider walking into my house. I still feel sadness about individual bugs that I have accidentally harmed two or three decades ago. Why am I like this? Do I really like bugs all that much? I like some of them very much. Spiders for instance are quite fascinating and butterflies, dragonflies, and certain kinds of beetles are very pretty. I know that some, like honeybees, are useful, but others, like houseflies and mosquitoes are clearly nuisances and disease carriers. I do not think of them as intelligent or emotional in any human or even mammalian sense. I'd really rather not touch worms and centipedes if it can be helped and even the thought of maggots makes me want to gag. It turns out that whether or not they are repulsive to me doesn't matter. I still have just as strong an inclination to avoid damaging them. It is my practice, as a Pagan, to let them live.

The pagan value behind my pagan practice of non-violence to insects and all other animals is also a Quaker value. As far as possible I will be at peace with those around me and those around me include not just people like me. They include people unlike me. They also include other species, and not just those species most like ourselves in terms of behavior or intelligence. They include not just species (and persons) that we have found or trained to be useful, appealing, or entertaining. I must work toward peace with each individual I encounter. The little fly now on my windowsill and the tiny spider in pursuit are also individuals. Though the spider may kill the fly, according to its nature, I will not kill either of them. I act according to my own nature. I do not desire their death neither for fun nor human convenience. I am not called to harm them. I am called to listen and to observe. I am called to hear the song and see the Light that shines in all creatures great and small, adorable, beautiful, fearsome, irksome, and even revolting.

Maybe it comes from my family's Christian Progressive background. Perhaps I am trying to be "the mother heart" of God. Perhaps if my eye is also on the sparrow (and the worm, the slug, the chicken, and the housefly) I might hasten the advent of the Peaceable Kingdom. Or maybe I'm just a softie when it comes to critters. In any case, I guess its worth it to me, and I guess I'll keep on doing this whatever others say. Tonight, perhaps, I'll take a walk out toward the woods to talk to the fireflies. You'd be amazed at how illuminating they can be.

Paganism as Spiritual Strategy

2011-06-01T19:01:00.000-07:00

In this post, I aim to explore why I think I am a Pagan. This post will not define Paganism or Neo-Paganism more generally. These terms are very broad, and it is beyond my ability to express what is or is not a Pagan or Neo-Pagan experience.

1. I am Pagan because I believe that the natural world is ensouled. I can't define the soul or its capacity or limitations, but I experience it all around me.

2. I believe that the Abrahamic religions do not have a corner on truth and that their most valuable messages evolved from far more ancient insights which continue to be available to all human beings whose minds and hearts are open.

3. I believe that all thea/ological discourse about the sacred is just folks talking about something they'll never understand. I can tell you what I think God/ess is all day and night. I can be as clever and convincing as hell, but it still doesn't amount to a hill of beans. The Ineffable will be what it will be regardless of my cheek. We aren't going to expand or limit Divinity whatever we say, think, or believe. However, when we limit our conceptualization of the Sacred to that which most closely resembles the powerful, the conventional, and the abusive in our society, then we limit who we are and what we might become, and that's a shame.

4. So-- I believe that we should be mindful and creative with our theo/alogical language and musings to encourage ourselves to grow toward our potential. I believe that when we speak of "God/dess" we are reflecting our best hopes for ourselves into the Cosmos. When we dream of divinity, we can either sanctify all the meanness and injustice humanity has already mastered or we can sing out our human potential for brilliance, warmth, diversity, and love.

5. Language may only be a construct, but what a construct! What we build with our language is our choice. I am Pagan because I am playful with spiritual language. We need to remember that God is not male. Nor is God white or European or human for that matter. God is not even "God". That word too is merely a construct, a symbol, a signifier. Learning to imagine the Divine in many forms, genders, cultures, species, relationships, and concepts reminds me that the Sacred is not one objective thing or person but is manifest in all life and in all times. It helps me remember that I can find divinity in unexpected people and unexpected places. It helps me look for the Sacred everywhere and in everybody.

That's about it, I guess. My Paganism doesn't define whether I believe in God or Goddess or a singular or plural deity. It doesn't tell me how I should worship or with whom. Paganism is not what I believe. It is what I do. It is a strategy and a discipline. It is not an answer to my questions about life and death or the nature of the Divine. It is a pattern of thought and intent that encourages me to continue asking unanswerable questions. It encourages me to play and think and wonder and to try as hard as ever I can to understand not the Cosmic Mystery, but maybe just the little bit that resides in me and which is mine to share.

Lessons from Home Schooling: An Approach to Quaker Education?

2011-04-18T12:37:00.000-07:00

In considering the positions I have read regarding the issue of Quaker schools, I have found myself writing a bit here and there in response. Inevitably, my responses grow too long for comment and must become their own blog post. Here is one. More will likely follow.

Can Home Schooling models be utilized to extend the benefits of Quaker education to kids in public schools?

In the discussion about private Quaker schools, I am annoyed when all of us who can't use this option gripe at each other. Pretty senseless. The reality is that most of us can't afford private schools and/or are faced with the reality that there just aren't enough private Quaker schools available for Friends in the United States. Unless we plan to start building Quaker schools in every village, the discussion quickly become irrelevant for the lion's share of Friends. So where does that leave us? Home school and public school.

Sometimes I think the home school/public school/private school debate becomes a bit black and white. When we frame these choices as either/or, we miss out on all kinds of possibilities. Home schoolers don't do all their education at home. We often use our public schools' resources. We make use of community centers, libraries, museums, family, and friends. We buy, borrow, rent, or swap private lessons, curricula, lesson plans, and courses. Likewise, kids who go to public school do not receive all their education on campus. Their parents, like me, are teaching them at home too.

I like the idea of part-time home schooling for those kids whose folks cannot or do not wish to home school full time. What I've learned as a home schooling mom is that there is no real "school day." Learning can take place at any time. It can take place outside of the context of brick and mortar classrooms, and it doesn't have to fit within the rules of institutionalized educational formats. I believe we can extend home schooling principles to all Quaker kids as a means of ensuring that our children receive the best Friends can offer young people whether or not an affordable Quaker school is nearby.

Although I'm interested in the question of whether or not Friends' private schools are too expensive for ordinary folks, my primary interest lies in exploring alternatives to institutional mindsets regarding educational theory. My interest lies in the question of whether or not we are willing to meet people where they are. Do we have the will to provide a strong Quaker foundation for our kids whether they go to a Friends' school, a public school, or are schooled at home? Do our communities ( local, regional, national, and online) provide accessible materials and enthusiastic support to Quaker parents and Quaker kids? Are we responsive to the diversity of needs in our community? Are we creative? Approachable? Curious? Do young Friends feel welcome in our meetings? Do grown-up Friends give time and attention to the children of their meeting or do they segregate them, silence them, and ignore them? Although I'm not yet sure how we should proceed in light of the answers to these questions, I still feel that we can make it possible for every young person who grows up among Friends, whether a graduate of a Friends' school, a public school, or their parents' kitchen table school, to confidently say, "I had a Quaker education."

The Most Sexist Thing I've Ever Done to Myself

2011-03-26T21:03:00.000-07:00

I was always good at math. Algebra, trigonometry, and logic were my favorites. I worked on equations just for fun enjoying the way the numbers revealed themselves in such tidy order. I loved to think about the endless possibilities of intersections. It made me feel more connected to infinity to gaze at a line segment and think, "But it doesn't end there. That's just where the ink ends. The line goes on forever without end." The reality of a line as something more than anything that could be represented...the idea that the signifier is never as profound as the signified, tickled me as a child. I realize now that this pleasure was the same I feel when I play with language, but I developed my love of language and set aside my love of mathematics because I was a girl and "Girls are not good at math".

In the 9th grade, I aced my Regents math class. I either got a 100 in the class and a 99 on the state test or the other way around. I was assigned the seat in the front of the room and enjoyed my math teacher's enthusiasm and energy. The next year, by chance, I was assigned to a seat in the back of the room. I didn't know it yet, but my eyesight was getting weaker, a condition that would follow me into adulthood as I continued to engage in "close work" of study and writing. As a fifteen year old, I didn't figure out that my eyes were bad until I complained to my friend about the writing on the board and learned that she could see it just fine. My folks took me to get glasses, but the damage was done. I had fallen behind in my comprehension and enthusiasm for the material, had decided that I was a failure in math, received only a B+ (a shameful grade for me), and refused to take any more math in high school.

I'm amazed now that no one argued with my perspective. My parents knew that I preferred English and history just as they did. They probably also thought that pushing me in a subject I said I despised was unwise given the fact that I was already making myself sick and hysterical with stress. My father actually directed me to try to get only "C"s in my classes for fear that I would have some kind of break-down if I kept up my perfectionist ambitions. The guidance counselor advised me to take more math as it would be required in every subject, but did not suggest that I do so because I had any skill in the subject. I joked that if I were to become a wet nurse, I'd only need to count to two. I ignored the fact that my grandmother was always quick in mathematics. I ignored the fun I'd had with my father as he taught me algebra. I ignored everything my parents taught me about feminism, and my value as a person. I didn't want to ever risk getting another grade that might jeopardize my GPA.

Why didn't my educators encourage me by telling me that I had a gift in math? Why didn't they explain that mistakes and rough spots are part of a learning process that transcends the petty grading system? Although I had always had one of the highest mathematics grades in my class throughout school, I did not receive praise for my efforts. Boys who had lower scores than I did were "gifted." I was merely proficient. I was told that boys truly understand math even though in their boyish enthusiasm, they sometimes make more technical errors. Girls, being obedient and good at following rules, can master the technical manipulation of math facts, but are unable to truly comprehend numbers at the fundamental level. And I bought that bullshit. I swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. I convinced myself that "math is hard for me." When I took the required math classes in college, I aced the courses. One of my math professors even told me that it was OK if I left the class early since he knew I already understood the concepts and was often bored with the lessons. Even then, it still did not occur to me to consider myself "good at math."! I gave up on math because I was a girl and girls don't like math. We've haven't the heads for it.

But that wasn't the most sexist thing I ever did to myself.

I discovered the most sexist thing I ever did to myself just this month. Without realizing it, I've been recording the execution of this self-imposed injustice in this blog over the past three years. I'm so entangled in it that I think I will have difficulty extricating myself from it. I will have trouble even articulating it, but I think I have to confront it. I have denied my own experiences as a spiritual person because I convinced myself that my spirituality was a mark of my inferiority as a woman.

My life has been strongly directed by my embodied sense of that Presence. I've had visions and dreams, callings, and inspirations. These feelings have run the range of intellectual inspirations to visions that have pushed me onto my knees. The exchange may be as gentle as the feeling of expansive love to the almost nauseating, trembling, sweating rush of feeling I get before I find myself speaking in meeting for worship. In dreams, visions, and divination, I find that I am able to follow a silver thread through my life that continues to wind its way back to my sense of the Source and of a mission I feel I must fulfill. Like it or not, I have a calling. I've heard it, over and over and over again my entire life.

It is embarrassing to say such things in a society such as ours. I don't wish to seem insane. And I don't wish to seem as though I'm somehow unique and specially blessed. On the contrary, I feel, very strongly, that there are a great many people who, each in their own way, feel the same as I do. My evidence is that when I write or speak of these things, I watch people closely and very often I see that it is as though a veil falls from their faces. They turn to me with some relief an tell me about their own experiences. All my life people have told me their stories-- wonderful stories, poignant and holy, about spirits, dreams, prayers, sensations, and communion with the Divine. I am not alone in this. I suspect that there are far more of us with stories to tell than will ever be heard.

But I convinced myself that it was all delusion. You see, at the end of a doctoral program spent studying the heterodox, embodied, and mystical relationships women have had with the Divine over many centuries, I went to one...just one!...conference about the history of secular humanism. I was invited to deliver a talk about nineteenth-century Spiritualism and its relationship to women's rights and the American freethought tradition. I had a great time. These folks are my allies since both they and I have great concern about the damaging effects of religious fundamentalism on the development and maintenance of human rights. My contribution was well-received, and it was a thrill to finally feel like I was playing ball with the big boys.

It was indeed a boys' club. Of the speakers, I was the only woman. In fact, I was one of the only women at the entire event. I saw very few other women in the audience. This struck me as curious. I began to wonder if there was a relationship between secular humanism (at least the variety honored at that conference) and gender that deserved exploration. Following our presentations, I got to hang out with some pretty notable people at a dinner. It was thrilling to participate in their conversations and to soak in all the brilliance and wit they cast about so easily. But so much of their brilliance and wit was directed toward castigating spiritual people. They did not discriminate. Fundamentalists, spiritualists, New Agers, Pagans, Buddhists, liberal Christians were all deluded and misguided. I had reminded them of their shared history with Spiritualist feminists, and they were willing to concede the fact, but I knew they considered people like the dissident Quaker Spiritualists, the Theosophists, Goddess women, and radical women's rights activists I discussed a footnote in a more important history of Rationalism.

As I sat there, and for months thereafter, I dissected and deconstructed their celebration of Rationalism and their confidence in the non-existence of the spiritual. I analyzed their attitudes within the context of my own research and experience and found error, inelegance, and even blatant sexism in their approach. But I let it begin to hollow me out. I let it begin to change me. My confidence began to slip.

They had not experienced anything mystical or spiritual as I had so they said that my experience and those of people like me was delusional. It was "wishful thinking." It was socially conditioned. It was emotional. It was a product of misinterpreted physical sensations. There it was. Women (and foreigners, and people of color, and children, and poor people) are deluded by our inability to fully partake in the pure, enlightened intellectual rationalism characteristic of well-educated, white men. We are too physical. Too emotional. Too raw. Too religious. Of course, some of us, adept at following the rules, are able to become proficient. But are we ever truly as gifted? Was I not, I thought, just a fraud in their presence? When would they realize that I was a country parson's daughter and laugh me right out of the building?

They accepted me in their midst as an intellectual woman only so far as I was willing to submit my intellect to their rules of engagement. But I never belonged there and they treated me as I have grown used to being treated by so many of my male colleagues. They praised me, flirted with me, and talked right over me. And afraid of being considered "shrill" and "angry", I let them. I didn't want to throw myself out of Eden so soon after gaining admittance. "Boys are gifted. Girls are good at following the rules."

My intellect, armed with ten years of graduate education in the study of the history of gynocentric and feminist spirituality sounded an alarm and encouraged me to continue researching, continue fighting. But a part of me believed them...and I could feel parts of me dying. Bit by bit, I felt my measure of my connection to That Which is Holy slipping away. Before long, I found myself rejecting any position that struck me as "emotional", or "irrational", or "religious". Whether the holder of the belief was a man or a woman, I found myself dispatching their arguments with a kind of distorted, internalized sexist demand for "proof."

I raged about it here on this blog and in other forums. I used my arsenal of research and education to protect at least the facade of my feminist spirituality. But I spent so much energy defending the facade of my structure that I failed to protect my own heart from the deadliest attack. In the end, no one else was to blame for these years I've spent edging toward spiritual despair. I attacked my own faith again and again mercilessly and even cruelly. I belittled and discounted my own experiences, and angrily deconstructed all my hopes. Why? Because some clever men made me feel inferior. And I let them.

It was my own self-loathing and contempt for myself as a woman that led me to believe it was reasonable to hold my own knowledge and lived experience in contempt. It was my own internalized sexism that told me that my experience was less valid than their lack of it.

It has made me sad to realize that I'm the one who has inflicted this wound. All the depression and anxiety, all my sense of spiritual loss and futility, all my feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness in these past two or three years were my own doing. But it also makes me feel a bit relieved to finally see that the source of this pain was my own dishonesty about what I feel, what I think, and what I believe. It took just a nudge to push me away from who I am and to whom I belong. It now seems ludicrous that I should have made this terrible mistake. For the past twenty years of my academic life, I've studied how sexism affects women's intellectual, social, religious and spiritual lives How could I let the very backbone of my feminism and of my spirituality be broken? How could I be the one who delivered the most devastating blows? "Never apologize for what you know!" said my beloved feminist theory professor. I'm sorry that I did not heed her advice.

Ostara Forgotten

2011-03-21T19:37:00.000-07:00

I forgot to celebrate Ostara. In my adult life, I've never forgotten a holiday like that. I'm in charge of setting the religious/spiritual tone for the family. It is my job as the mother to make sure that the traditions are maintained. I'm the force behind the special holiday meals, the decorations, the gifts, and the storytelling. I'm the one who is supposed to make the magic happen. I'm the Easter Bunny. My children didn't even notice. We give them Easter baskets with books, candy, and toys each year at this time. Kids like that kind of thing. I would have thought they would remind me of the upcoming holiday. They noted the day, but only in the context of their interest in the advent of spring. It was as if all those years of getting baskets full of Easter toys didn't leave any impression at all. What happened? A few weeks ago when I asked them to tell me about their spirituality, they all said they were Quakers. When did they stop calling themselves Pagans? I'm not sure what to think about it.

Knee-Highs on my Head in the Interest of Liberty

2011-03-05T11:31:00.000-08:00

I am wearing knee-highs on my head in the interest of liberty. I'm trying to make ringlets by wrapping locks of hair around strips of fabric. It turns out that stockings are recommended for this task, and since I have a brand new box of knee-high nylons, I though I'd give it a go. If the end result is a lovely set of ringlets, I'll be quite pleased. Ringlets would be just the thing to make me look a little more like Elizabeth Cady Stanton as she appeared in the 1850s.

I also need to launder my costume and make sure I have all the right accoutrements (corset, hoops, petticoats, boots, gloves, brooch, etc.) Or perhaps I will track down my "rational costume" or "Turkish dress" (more popularly known as bloomers after Amelia Bloomer who popularlized them through her Seneca Falls publication, The Lily). Stanton wore bloomers in the early half of the 1850s to her family's great consternation. Her cousin, Elizabeth Smith Miller, introduced the dress and Stanton found it most sensible and freeing though she acknowledged that the outfit did nothing for one's hips. Indeed, I can attest to that fact from personal experience. This is the key reason why I wear the rational costume so infrequently. Typically, I am vain enough to sacrifice comfort for the more aesthetically appealing result of a tightly laced corset. Sadly, given my current painful condition of costochondritis resulting in pain in my chest and ribs, I might think better of the corset this time.

Meanwhile, as I plan the details of my costume, I am (re)immersing myself in all things Elizabeth Cady Stanton. I'm reading historical essays on her life and work as well as on Enlightenment feminst theory. I'm reading a biography and autobiography, and her letters and speeches. I find that this process is helpful whenever I am called upon to "be" Mrs. Stanton. People will ask such personal questions of her when I embody her for an afternoon. It helps to be able to not only be familiar with her theory, method, politics, and aspirations, but also with her childhood and children, her marriage, her housekeeping, her travels, and her idiosyncrasies.

Normally, I am called upon to make a speech as Stanton. Sometimes the task is quite simple and I need only give the speech just as she wrote it. Other times, I am asked to give a speech as her, but not a speech by her. In those situations, I have to channel her as I write, attempting to capture her tricks of speech and rhetoric. This time, I am not called to do any speech-making, but to sit down in conversation (before an audience of interested persons collected primarily from a large university campus) with the mayor of the town in which she most famously lived. So that means that I'm supposed to just be Stanton, to think and to react (believably) as she might have done if she were given the power of reanimating her great Soul in my body to have a conversation with the first female mayor of the first American village to host a women's rights convention.

The request to serve in this capacity was given not more than a month ago. I would have liked more time to prepare, but honestly, I doubt I would have taken the time even if I had it. I'm always busy with something that prevents me from preparing myself as I would like. My children's education doesn't happen on its own. There's Latin and math, history, geography, music, art, language arts, religion studies, and science to teach. My students expect me to grade their papers and to prepare lessons for every week. (How inconvenient!) I have readings therefore, in European and American history. I have to be aware of African American and women's history, and I must begin preparing lessons in environmental history and American religious history. Meanwhile, my own special research projects in Quaker history and theo/alogy are much neglected.

The dog keeps peeing on my son's bed. No matter how many times I sweep and mop, there are still masses of pet hair that seem to shift across our painted floors like tumbleweed across the desert. People insist on eating at least three times a day. They require someone to prepare the meals and do the dishes. Clothes must be laundered (and blankets, sheets, comforters, and towels too!). Occasionally, it becomes necessary to do something about the dust and the cobwebs and I can only ignore that sticky something-or-other so long before I must confront it head on.

I do not feel up to the task of embodying a woman who is credited for being the the chief intellect behind nineteenth-century feminist theory. Good grief! If my socks actually match my top, I'm ahead of the game. For that matter, if they match each other, it is one more miracle than I can expect on a weekday.

I do not feel up to this task and have questioned my sanity in accepting its responsibilities. My sister comforts me by reminding me that regardless of my performance, we will inevitably derive many humorous stories from the event. This is probably true. I find all absurdity, particularly my own, very diverting. Even if I fall flat on my face, it will at least provide me with years of self-deprecating hilarity to share at social gatherings. But wouldn't it be nice if I didn't fail? I think I'd like that even more.

In 1854, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was preparing a document to be read before New York State lawmakers in Albany. It turns out that despite her genius and eloquence, she too felt hurried, hassled, and ill-prepared for the task ahead of her. To Susan B. Anthony she wrote:

"I can generalize and philosophize easily enough of myself but the details of the particular laws I need...You see, while I am about the house, surrounded by my children, washing dishes, baking, sewing, etc. I can think up many points, but I cannot search books, for my hands as well as my brains would be necessary for that work...Prepare yourself to be disappointed in its merits, for I seldom have one hour undisturbed in which to sit down and write. Men who can, when they wish to write a document, shut themselves up for days with their thoughts and their books, know little of what difficulties a woman must surmount to get off a tolerable production."

To that I can only say, "Amen" before I save this post and get back to my own dishes. When my curls are good and dry, I'll take these knee-highs off from my head and observe the results. Perhaps I'll be lucky and it will work. There's reason enough to do my best (however insufficient my best may be) to remind people of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. If, in her name, I can remind other women that liberty has not yet been achieved for our sex, it will be worth any humiliation. Better to stumble toward liberty than to sit still and curse my fate.

"Men and angels give me patience!" I say with Mrs. Stanton, "I am at the boiling point! If I do not find some day use of my tongue in this question, I shall die of intellectual repression, a women's rights convulsion."

So wish me luck.

Guest Post by My Daughter, 002, on Equality: "Why can't we turn all the wrongs into rights?"

2011-03-01T18:59:00.000-08:00

My daughter, 002*, occasionally writes about her feelings and hopes for the world. She asks me to share them here, and I like to accommodate her wishes. I think it is important to provide a space where children are heard. This is her ministry.

"Men, women, children, blacks, whites, etc. all down to a single atom are all created equal and no one should deny that. We may all look different, we may sound different. But we can think, feel, love, and care (well, the atom's a little more different but that's OK) So, why can't we turn the wrongs into rights in the world? Even if we can't answer that question, we are all created equal no matter what."

She and I have long conversations about equality. She feels deeply about others' pain and their need to be loved. 002 worries about the equality of LGBTQ people and people living in impoverished and war-torn nations. She is concerned about religious and racial minorities and immigrants. She worries about animal rights and children's rights and women's rights and the rights of indigenous people. She turns down ice cream and cookies and cakes and pizza just to make sure she causes no more pain in the world than a human body must cause. When she does chores around the house, or receives birthday money, she tucks the coins and bills away in the UNICEF box and when the UNICEF letters come asking for more money, she sits down at the table in a business-like fashion and reads through the material so that she can see how that money is spent and what more needs to be done.

I worry about that sometimes. As a child, my father said I had an acute sense of injustice. I suppose I must have shared that with her. We both live in a state of near constant outrage at abuses in the world. But her energy and her innocence in the face of injustice revive me when I grow tired and cynical. There is something about a child reminding you how few pennies it takes to make a difference to just one person that revives hope and determination. Will I refuse to help one child because I cannot help all children? Will I refuse to be a neighbor because I can't be a savior? So the dollar is donated, and despair is defeated for another day.

In the warm months, she shovels dog poop in the yard (I pay her "ten cents a turd") and this money can be put in the orange box for UNICEF. "7 cents provides safe drinking water for 50 kids for a day." A shovelful of shit is all it takes for her to see herself helping 50 other children and then some. And so she keeps on shoveling.

God, it feels like there is an awful lot of shit to shovel. I find myself despairing until I look into her earnest little face and read the speeches she writes for me about justice and equality and how much love she has for the world. So I pick up my own shovel and work beside her. I teach her all I can about the history of human rights, peace, and justice work. I teach her, my little feminist vegan Quaker, about animal rights and labor unions, about slavery and factory farms, about picket lines and political prisoners, about marches, and speeches, and lives lived in obedience to the Light. And she takes it all in and keeps on asking for more. She keeps asking questions. In the midst of it, sometimes I feel weary and angry and low. "Why can't we turn all the wrongs into rights in the world?" she asks me. Why? As a mother, I rage against the world she must inherit.

But she doesn't waver. She doesn't quit.

"So, why can't we turn all the wrongs into rights?" You see her question in italics on this page, but I see it on a piece of lined notebook paper with little jagged edges. I see the misspelled words (I need to work on that kid's spelling). I see the large letters in pencil in her own childish handwriting. I see her serious face peering into mine asking me (again) to please share this with those who read my blog. I feel the weight of her question as a sorrow I fear I can't carry. I feel it as fear for her future. "Why can't we turn all the wrongs into rights?"

I don't know. I can never tell her. But she is not deterred from action. "Even if we can't answer that question, we are all created equal no matter what." No matter what. So to that principle, I'll remain true for her sake and the two of us can reach for our shovels and get back to work.

*My children have actual people names which I do not disclose on the internet. We have always, since their births, jokingly referred to them as Offspring 001, 002, and 003.

I'm not nuts.

2011-02-27T17:25:00.000-08:00

Looking again at the idea of mental illness as related to spiritual experience, I think that it is more likely that our culture is insane and that those individuals whose bodies continue to speak to them (in anxiety, in illness, in depression, pain, and fatigue) of the great, gaping, world-destroying unfulfilled need for love, balance, and relationship are the sane ones.

Sanity is merely a collectively agreed upon set of constructs. Guess who decides upon those construct? Not women. Not children. Not people of color. Not poor people nor queer people. Not peace lovers nor song writers nor daydreamers. Not the people who are outsiders, aged, eccentric, off-putting and wild. Only the parts of us that behave are allowed to participate in the nightmare construct of reality.

So I have come to believe that my faith that love and not might must prevail will only make make me more mad each day, and that madness is the only true sanity.

Defining My Non-Theism

2011-02-25T16:32:00.000-08:00

You can put me in the category of those who have a mystical/experiential relationship with divinity but who doubt intellectually. I may be deluded by either my emotional or my intellectual perspectives. When they are directly contrary to each other, I tend to settle into the hope that my emotional connection is more real than my intellectual doubts since my intellectual doubts leave me hopeless. Also, because my emotional experiences are very direct and immediate and my intellectual process is so dependent upon second-hand intellectual traditions of systematic theorizing, (most of which I've also been trained to doubt as a feminist) I tend to remain fairly "faithful" even in the midst of the most agonizing doubts. I don't like this situation. It actually causes me physical pain at times, but it is what it is. I think we must first define theism before we define non-theism. It is not, as I understand the term, merely a word indicating belief in "god" but a particular kind of belief about a particular set of understandings about "god." Wikipedia begins with:"Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists.[1][2] In a more specific sense, theism refers to a doctrine concerning the nature of a monotheistic God and God's relationship to the universe.[3] Theism, in this specific sense, conceives of God as personal, present and active in the governance and organization of the world and the universe. The use of the word theism as indicating a particular doctrine of monotheism arose in the wake of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century to contrast with the then emerging deism that contended that God, though transcendent and supreme, did not intervene in the natural world and could be known rationally but not via revelation.[4]" I do not believe or disbelieve that an entity or group of entities created the universe or is/was playing any kind of directing role. That kind of knowledge is above my pay grade. It also seems fairly irrelevant to my needs and calling as a human being. I am here. The world is here. My curiosity about how we got here is greatly overshadowed by my desire to know what I'm supposed to do now that I'm here. So I put aside the question of a Creator God. My only argument would be that apart from process theo/alogy, the conceptualization of a Creator God has been very anthropocentric and arrogant regardless of theological tradition. Perhaps we can't help it. Of course human beings will be most concerned with our place in the cosmos and most passionate about our relationship with that which we experience as divine. Of course, we are limited by human experience and understanding and can therefore only conceive of "that which is" within the confines of our own human constructs.
February 25, 2011 9:51 AM
.: Continuing with these thoughts, I have to admit right away that what follows comes primarily from my sense and sensations as an emotional/mystical person and not so much as an intellect. I apologize therefore to those who will find the following thoughts pretty sloppy. I have come to feel that my direct experience of the Divine is best not defined as a direct experience of All that Is, but a direct experience of that part of All that Is that is most concerned with the human psyche/soul/demon/spirit. This is what I (sometimes) call Christ and experience as the Inward Light. It is the Source that is guiding me to become most fully realized *as a human being* and more specifically, *as a human being who is distinctly myself* Very simply, human beings are not superior to other creatures. We do not need to feel that we are some pinnacle of Creation, but we do have our own human-ness to achieve. What does this human-ness look like? It looks like a lot of things. There's a great deal of wiggle room in what it means to be human, but in the end, I think all forms of human-ness will involve a great deal of compassion and thoughtfulness. Very simply, and without speaking more on the great diversity of strategies we might employ to this end, I believe that humans are called to be humane. All of my struggles as a person have been to integrate my animal instincts and experiences (physical and mystical) in such a way that I continue to evolve toward that goal. My evolving toward that goal depends upon my openness to my relationship with that divine Presence that I understand as Christ Within. Others don't call it that. That's none of my business. We are all called to be Ourselves in our own way. I feel we help each other best in this process by being authentic and compassionate...and by refraining from arrogantly assuming that our experiences are normative. So....isn't that Presence, that Christ, that Light just another name for "God". No. Not for me. It is a portion of that Ineffable Everything that many have called "God." It is the part that is more personally human. It is the part with which our species intersects and its values and demands are specific to our species. It would make no sense for this Christ-like Presence to speak to wolves or mollusks or viruses. They have their own calling. They must evolve as they are called to evolve. The Presence that I conceive as Christ/ Light is therefore a part of, but not the total of that which I might call "God/ddess" if I were inclined to use that language. I believe that I am most responsible to that Greater Ineffable Process by sticking close to the Guide/Christ/Light that speaks most readily to me as a human soul. I conclude this description with a note that I do not believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the manifestation of "Christ" but I do believe that his ministry shows him to be one who was certainly leaning very close to the Light.
February 25, 2011 10:37 AM
I would also add that I tend to be very Spiritualist. This goes along with my sense that since I am a human being, I must lean most heavily on human ways of knowing. My connection to other human spirits (both alive and dead) has usually the most vibrant and real connection I have to the knowledge that I am, in fact, part of a greater Process than I can conceive from my own limited perspective. The love and guidance I receive from these human spirits is very important to me. Like the Spiritualist/Progressive Friends of the mid-19th century, I tend to see human spiritual understanding as a series of concentric circles. We have a more profound and intimate knowledge of that which is closest to us. Our family and friends, our communities, and our culture. As we move farther away toward the outermost circle which explains the very nature of "God", we really know nothing much at all.

As a spiritual non-theist, I am not denying the existence of "God" but holding myself apart from that seeks to define, explain, or address the nature of "God". I don't think we can do that. I do think we can describe our spiritual experiences, but without any real hope of "knowing" that what we touch in those encounters is "the Almighty" or just a portion of the Almighty, or another Great Spirit, Concept, or Process that feels pretty Almighty relative to our limitation. Even a grown-up human being seems pretty god-like to an infant. I try to keep that in mind when I am reaching out into the spiritual realm.

Most of our spiritual experience, I believe, come from more immediate and human sources. This does not mean that I reject the idea that there is nothing beyond our human senses and affiliations (or the Divine Processes and Beings that are most intimately associated with us), but that I feel that we have enough to do to learn the lessons we have to learn right here in our human bodies. We are spiritual crawlers at this point. Some day we will learn to walk and run and maybe some day to fly. When I watch my children dance and climb, I know that I loved them just as well when they could only creep. I have faith that despite my limited abilities, I am still loved. I don't know the Name of those who love me, but like an infant, I have learned to sense when they are close.

And now, just because it is on my mind, my own little song of songs.

2011-02-24T12:50:00.000-08:00

I was just thinking of a song I often hum to myself or sing in the shower. It certainly isn't my best work, (in fact it is pretty juvenile) but it is really hard to forget something once you set it to music. I wrote the words when I was about sixteen just before I ventured into Paganism. It is sung to the tune of O Come, O Come Emmanuel. It is funny to see how I had not yet been informed by feminist theory challenging negative valuation of the earth. It is also funny to see what a crush I had on Jesus at the time. There's some definite sexual tension in these lyrics. Who needs vampires?

(Sung to the tune of O Come, O Come Emmanuel)

One evening as I walked into a glade,
beneath the beech trees and their gentle shade.
I thought I heard a voice of purest gold.
It said to me, "My child," and then behold!
The sky, the sky with lightning it did break.
There came a flood with angels in its wake.
As one came near she smiled a smile so soft.
I held her hand as I was born aloft.
No more did the earth my poor feet enslave.
My flight was swift. My heart, it was brave.
And then, behold, I gazed into his face, a face so lovely it made my heart race.
So there I stood alone before my God.
I could but weep I could but only sob.
Far too beautiful for my eyes to see.
Oh, how could one so lovely still love me?
And then, I sighed. Into his arms I flew.
"My child," he whispered, "I would die for you."

Boy, I miss that Jesus-as-Eternal-Lover faith I had when I was a teenage girl before I plunged into my matronly cares! I suppose it still lingers with me. I never was good at the whole "Lord Jesus" deal. I was always too much of a feminist for that, but Jesus as archetypal male manifestation of human compassion? Christ as the deep and sweet passion between divinity and humanity? As the intersection between Death and Life and Sex and Spirit and Right Now and Forever? Christ as the female Persephone? As Tammuz? As Balder? Christ as Beloved? As Lover? I want the Teresa of Avila raptures. Oh, yeah. Sing me a Song of Songs and sign me up for that hieros gamos any day of the week. I don't mind waiting for that Bridegroom.

Being Modern Artists of Quaker Faith and Practice

2011-02-21T09:36:00.000-08:00

The Peaceable Kingdom (1848) by Edward Hicks. Albright-Knox gallery

http://www.albrightknox.org/collection/collection-highlights/piece:peaceable-kingdom/

Gap from the "Tiny Town" series 2001/2006 by James Turrell
Light installation. Albright-Knox
(photograph by Jim Bush)
http://www.albrightknox.org/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/exhibition:new-installation-james-turrell/

I think of Friends' religious education the same way I think about education in general as both a college teacher and a home schooling mom. I'm very, very liberal/progressive/leftist, but I think that before we dive into the modernist and postmodernist stuff, we have to start with the classics. When I was a child, my father and I were walking through a modern art gallery. This stuff looked nothing like the representational work from the Renaissance to the 19th century that we had just viewed together in the adjoining building! Was this really "art"?

Dad pointed out that there was a lot more going on in that gallery than random paint splashes on canvas. To understand modern art, I needed to understand the history of art and the ideas modern artists were highlighting, accentuating, or challenging. To the untrained observer, modern art might look like an anarchy of paint, but I should remember to ground my judgment in knowledge and recall that a truly excellent modern artist only broke the rules after they had learned all the rules of their craft and had a strong foundation in representational art and its history. Because they had that foundation and familiarity, they could break the rules in meaningful ways. Though clearly quite different from their predecessors, modern artists participate in a long tradition of evolving and dynamic artistic expression.

As one who can be identified within the "non-theist", "universalist", and "pagan" manifestations of modern Quaker perspective, I might be considered one of the modern artists of Quaker faith and practice. Among us, there many conversations about whether or not it is important for us to be grounded in Christ-centered perspectives or whether or not it is important to learn about Christian Quaker history. I think it is clear to anyone who reads my blog that I do not feel that Friends must be Christian or even theist to be good Quakers. In the end, I believe we should be judged by our fruits. Our service and love, not our fancy theologies and philosophies, are what matter to those who need that love. That which many call "God" remains ineffable. We are called to serve, not to define.

But what does that mean for Friends? Does that mean that anything goes? No. I don't think so. In Quaker history, the individual comes to trust the Inward Light within a community of people who support each other through collective discernment and gentle discipline. We believe in continuing revelation and do not mistake our past for our God, but we also know that in coming to know the Light together, with patience, and over time, we are able to be a stronger force for love than we could ever be alone. That strength of collective discernment and discipline is part of who we are. When I became a Friend, I knew that I must ground myself in that tradition. I knew that it was a process and discipline that would take me years (perhaps my whole life!) to learn, but that my contributions would be stronger if I submitted myself to that process.

I am hopeful that Christian Friends who feel uncomfortable with my presence among them will come to see me as a sister. I am also hopeful that non-Christian Friends who feel resentful of Christian language will come to value the beautiful ways that Friends have lived their Christianity. Quakers have a history worth learning and contemplating. Friends were a peculiar people not just because of how they dressed and spoke, but because they were so bold in their understanding of Christ in their lives. We may indeed be a theologically diverse group, but I feel that Friends like me who bring new thea/ological and philosophical ideas to the Quaker tradition show more skill in our service to the world if we remember to launch our avante garde spirituality from a solid foundational knowledge of Friends' historical origins in radical Christian spirituality. We don't have to be Christian, but we should understand the history of Christianity, particularly as Friends have understood that term. We should understand the metaphors, narratives, and historical context of those who went before us so that when it is our turn to add color to the canvas, even our boldest and most unorthodox strokes will come from a skilled hand.

Fussing with my blog title

2011-02-17T10:03:00.000-08:00

I like the blog title, "Plainly Pagan." First of all, it utilizes alliteration which is one of my favorite little tricks. I also like the play on words. It bothers me to think that I might have to set this title aside and come up with something entirely different. If this turns out to be the case, it is unfortunate.

My problem seems to be a problem of community. Whatever labels I apply to myself in the privacy of my mind are just fine and dandy. Whenever I struggle with the labels many friends, including many who comment on this blog, have told me that it doesn't much matter what I call myself. But I think maybe it does matter. Many years ago I decided to surrender the term Christian not because I had stopped believing as a Christian according to my own conscience, but because I realized that very few Christians shared my beliefs and that my use of the term was confusing to those with whom I wished to communicate. I could have, as one of my professors wanted me to do, stay within the Christian framework and work to reform Christianity along with so many of my favorite feminist thinkers, but I did not feel like struggling eternally with the basics of definition. I wanted to believe as I believe with the freedom to move between the vocabularies of many faith systems and without the pull and drag of collective community expectations of Christian religious identity.
Paganism seemed to offer that to me. I loved the ability to utilize the broad range of mythologies and concepts found within ancient and modern Pagan narratives and philosophies. I felt that being Pagan allowed me to build many rooms onto my Christian foundation. I also liked this because it allowed me to continue believing and thinking as I had before as a liberal Christian without having to put up with sharing a label with fundamentalists. It was a relief to no longer have to say to my progressive comrades, "I'm not that kind of Christian." Saying I was a Pagan gave me, I thought, an immediate edge as one who self-identifies with a funkier, earthier, freedom-oriented spiritual tradition. We could start talking more immediately about more interesting ideas than how crappy and limiting Christianity is. I also relished the idea that people could tell right away that as a "Pagan" I am certain to be unlike the commercial variety of Christian. Specifically, I am not a religious bigot. Of course most Christians I have known are also not religious bigots, but try selling that line to non-Christians who are inundated with television images (sensationalized and simplified as the media is) of the wing-bat variety of "Christian" every time any kind of human rights becomes an issue. It was a relief to be free of the dead weight of what passes for Christianity in this country (at least in the popular media and press).

I was also certain that Pagan spirituality, like liberal Christian spirituality, was deeply concerned with ethics and of growing toward right relationship between peoples of different backgrounds and between humans and the rest of the living planet. While I value Christian environmentalism, I felt that Pagans' more diverse spiritual vocabulary protected Pagans from some of the nastier traps orthodoxy sets up for thea/olgians and spiritual problem-solvers.

Here's what I hadn't counted on and which is becoming increasingly evident.

1. I was living in an ivory tower. All my Pagan sources were academics and philosophers. I knew that most Pagans are not academics. I assumed that most Pagans were "just folks". I also assumed that these folks, unlike most "just folks" Christians, were more motivated to research and study. I was not prepared for the large amount of gross ignorance I have encountered among Pagans. I am discouraged by sloppiness in research, thought, and communication I have found among Pagans and by the community's inability to address this problem in an organized, educationally responsible way.

2. I was immersed in an educational environment that valued spiritual diversity. I was pleased to find that the Pagan sources I read were analytical and thoughtful in their approach to other religious disciplines and beliefs. Their criticisms grew out of this context. I was horrified to find such a large number of Pagans outside of my foundational Pagan sources are religious bigots at least as aggressive as Christian bigots. While I have occasionally encountered outright nastiness and ignorance from Christians regarding Paganism, most liberal Christians are at least polite and inquisitive about Paganism. On the other hand, I have found that friendliness and patience toward Christians is atypical of Pagans who are far more likely, not just to stereotype, but to viciously stereotype Christians.

3. I had assumed that a focus on metaphors of immanence, embodiment, and the interconnection of Life gave Pagans an ethical base that would influence them to lean toward pacifism, human rights, and environmentalism. I felt we could be guides to other spiritual and religious groups as they too developed metaphors of caring and cooperation from within their own traditions that would help us work together to sustain Life on this planet. I did not expect that so many Pagans would show such contempt and/or disregard for issues of social justice, environmentalism, and peace or for interfaith cooperation. I began to realize that the diversity of Paganism does not necessarily mean that Pagans will find more ways to talk about Peace, but that they can find more ways to justify war, violence, oppression, selfishness, and apathy.

So it seems that I am back to where I was way back when I was still calling myself a Christian but having to listen to myself repeating, "I am not that kind of Christian." I do not choose to justify my limitations with the word "faith". I do not turn my religion into a tool to justify greed, hatefulness, intolerance, or sloppy thinking. My relationship with Christianity and its foundational principles deepened when I no longer felt called to carry the label. And now I must say, I am not that kind of Pagan either. I'll wear this sword as long as I can, but I think, eventually, it too will have to be discarded.

The Light of Christ and my Kids

2011-02-01T19:28:00.000-08:00

Tonight at dinner, my children and I were discussing the history of pacifism among Friends. My daughter worried about the draft and said she would like to move to England or to Canada. My older son said he wants to stay here in Upstate NY and my baby said he wants to move to New York City when he is big.
The idea of war frightened all of them. My daughter is indignant when she speaks of war. She feels that the draft is just another form of slavery.

In the course of that conversation, we turned to the subject of belief in Christ. My daughter wanted to know if Friends had to believe in Jesus. I told her that many Friends do not believe that Jesus was a specially divine being, but that most Friends do and that we recognize that Jesus has been the source of Friends' understanding of the Light that is in all people. I also said that I feel that although many Friends, including us, are not Christian, we also believe that surely anything that conflicts with the love shown by Jesus is not of the Light and not something that Friends believe.

I told her that Friends believe that all people have a Seed or a Measure of that of God in them and that like any Seed, it only grows if we allow it to be warmed by the Light. I said that some people allow their seed to shrivel while others open themselves to the Light and grow and grow in that Light. I said that many Friends believe that Jesus was one who was very open to the Light and that the Light shone brightly in him. He is an example of one who shows us how to be open to that Light which existed before him, surely showed itself through him during his life, and is with us to this day.

My daughter said that this made more sense to her. She said she had thought that Christians only believed in Jesus because they were afraid God would be angry if they did not believe. She had felt this was foolish, but she said it made much more sense to her to think that Christians love Jesus as an example of one who was full of Light and Love. I said that we can think of him as an older brother and that we can look to him as an example of how to be loving in the world.

We talked about how young he was when he died and that many other people before and after him also were killed by angry and frightened people because they were true to their principles and because they defended the dignity of those who were less powerful in the world. My daughter asked me if by standing up for women, minorities, and the environment she might be killed too. At first, I was quietly frightened by her question, but I told her that I did not think so. I told her that I have stood for those things all my life and her grandparents before her have too. "We are stronger if we stand together than if we stand alone," I told her. But I do not know. I told her that she must learn to listen to the Spirit and answer her calling.

I'm glad we had that conversation. My girl, as is typical of her, was more talkative and inquisitive than her brothers, but my boys were listening. My older son was saddened by Jesus' early death and my littlest told me solemnly that he would be a Quaker even when he moved to New York City. These children are my friends as well as my offspring. They are my companions. They know my fear for them, but they also know that I believe in their goodness and kindness. I pray that we stand together. I pray that we stand strong in our convictions. I pray that we have courage to live up to the full Measure of the Light Within. My children must live in difficult times. Let them be wise. Let them be strong. Let them walk in the Light.

My Son and My Grandfather: Memories this Christmas

2011-01-06T12:16:00.000-08:00

My father found old videos that we had not seen in years and so this Christmas, the family sat together and watched. Most of the videos were much focused on my children as babies and small children. It was amazing and amusing to see them grow into vibrant personalities before our eyes. We laughed until tears ran down our faces to see and hear the kids as they did what kids will do to wrap us around their fingers with their innocence, mischief, and charm.

We kept watching the videos, hours of video, on and off all weekend. All squeezed together in the limited seating in the "sun room", we must have been a sight. Too bad no one thought to take a video of us as we watched, laughing and talking together about the funniest and most endearing memories. Grandma, now 94, had a position of honor in the blue chair. Opposite her, Dad sat in his great big armchair. He directed the activities as my mother, husband, sister, and I sat either on the couch or on the floor with three children either snuggled on laps or draped, lanky-legged, across the floor.

Then, in the midst of all the laughter and conversation of how funny our clothes and hair were or "how young we looked!" there were images of my grandfather in the months before his death. I'd forgotten just how old he had become and how tired and distant. In these home movies, he appeared so unlike the man in my memories who rode his bicycle to work into his eighties and always insisted upon eating with us at the kids' table. Although the video shows my mother and grandmother always nearby speaking softly to him and laying gentle hands on his head and back, he hardly seemed to recognize them. He looked frail and hollowed out somehow. His face had become pinched and and his eyes were troubled. It almost hurt to see him that way once again. After he died, Time gave me the gift of older, sweeter memories as a balm for the pain of his passing. I had not cared to remember him in the last years as we watched him withdraw from the world by inches.

My grandfather, who had a speech impediment and was a shy man, never talked much. Once, after the traumatic surgery that plunged him into dementia, he struggled to write his feelings. He gave the note to my grandmother to be shared with all of us. It read, "You are my family. You are my life." But we knew that already. No one who saw his gentle smile and the sparkle in his eyes could doubt it. How terrible it was to find an empty stare or a painful, confused expression on his face as he leaned in closer to death.

As we watched the video, I again felt the sadness of those times of his growing distance. I almost wished we could skip that part and move on to happier images. But the the video continued. We saw my mother lay my son, his great-grandson, on Grandpa's lap. And there it was. He looked down at the baby in his lap and smiled, that old smile he saved for us, his children and grandchildren. Even if just for a moment, he was Grandpa again with that sparkle in his eye and softness of expression that meant that when he looked at us, he saw miracles.

In the following few months before his death, the relationship between my baby and my grandpa was one of the few things that I could hold onto as evidence that Grandpa, though much changed, was still with me. My son learned to walk by holding onto his great-grandfather's walker as Grandpa moved slowly through the house. They were buddies. I don't know if Grandpa ever quite solidified his understanding of just who that kid was. He was, after all, sometimes unsure if I was his mother, wife, daughter, or granddaughter. He called my son, "The Boy". But that was good enough for me because he always said it with care. The name was less important than the knowledge that "The Boy" belonged to Grandpa as a member of his beloved circle. I remember my little boy saying good-bye to him the night before died. My heart is full of feeling when I think that some of the last words my grandfather would hear were some of the first my child would speak.

Grandpa would never know the character my son would become and my son would never know the character his great-grandfather had been, but as I watched the two gaze at each other in those videos, I knew their love for each other was quite independent of the trivialities of time, psychology, and intellect I so often confuse with spirit. Grandpa could have told me that. He did tell me that every time he looked at me with that twinkle in his eye that meant he loved me unconditionally...even when he could not remember who I was. It didn't matter how clever or pretty or successful I was. It didn't matter to him if I was snarly or sweet. I was his grandchild, his joy, and he loved me with the fullness of his heart to the very end.

We are not what we do. We are not what we know. We are not what we remember. We are not our names or our carefully constructed (and so easily forgotten) identities. That's all just human stuff and cannot endure. That thought scares me. It scares me so much I feel paralyzed with the fear. I think who I am has something to do with things I can control. I think that if I try hard enough and study long enough, I'll figure it all out. And I fear that if I'm not vigilant, I'll forget and All will be lost.

But the All can't be lost. I'm already in it and it won't ever let me go.

I'm not trying to deny the pain and evil that is in the world. I'm not trying to paint a picture in which all of us has just what we need. It is all too clear that such is not the case. I just know that when I go deeper than my ambitions and self-control, deeper than my insecurities and self-denial, deeper even than despair, I always find something else..something deep and wild and fierce. Love. Such an overused word, but I know no other words that equal it. I wish I could show you instead in that instant I saw it and understood. It was on that video in that fleeting moment my grandfather turned away from the painful confusion in which he lived, gazed into my baby's eyes and loved him with all he had. One life beginning. One life ending. Both of them well-loved. I'm glad I was there to see it.

Guest Post by My Daughter 002 on Gratitude

2010-12-27T09:02:00.000-08:00

We are all part of a very important speck that is on a very important marble that's in the bag of the galaxy that is made of the fabric of the universe. So be thankful that you are here. Be glad that you were born. Be spontaneous because you are living. Be happy that you are loved.

Words by my daughter, age 11
Image of a field near our house.

Happily Ever After

2010-11-26T07:54:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite stories from my father's ministry is about the time when he was counseling a young couple preparing for marriage.

"You know in wedding ceremonies when the bride and groom each take a candle and light a third candle together saying that now their lives have become one?" Dad asked them.

"Yes," the couple say together, eyes all round and dewy, hearts all-a-twitter in their rush of love and commitment.

"Well," says my father, "That's bullshit."

The bride will remain her own person and the groom will remain his. No amount of love and commitment will make them into a composite entity.

We like to believe in happily ever after scenarios. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl engage in comical moments of sexual tension. Girl misunderstands zany circumstance and leaves boy. Boy runs after girl and publicly announces his love for her. Girl pauses dramatically to cause a few more moments of satisfying sexual tension before flying into boy's arms. Onlookers cheer. Everyone lives happily ever after. They never add what happens after the happily ever after. Girl finds that boy is inordinately pleased by the sound of his own flatulence. Boy discovers girl's latent self-loathing perfectionism. Girl meets boy's mother and finds her intolerable. Boy realizes that boy's mother is exactly like girl, tells girl so and then finds himself sleeping on couch.

And that's just for starters. Eventually the relationship will involve the inclusion of people the boy and girl love together- friends, relatives, children. And eventually boy, girl, and related loved ones will suffer tragedies, illnesses, set-backs and anxieties, addictions, disappointments, and death. Such is life. Falling in love doesn't shield one from sadness. In fact, falling in love probably will magnify it since now in addition to suffering through one's own fears and sorrows, one also has to participate in the suffering and sorrowing of others. Is it even worth it? Yeah. Why? I don't know. It just is. You deal with it.

I notice that people treat spirituality like a love story. When we find the image of the Divine that makes us fall in love, we want it all to work out perfectly. We want a happily ever after. We want God to be the guy on the white horse who always shows up in the nick of time sweeping us off our feet and carrying us to bliss. Well, good luck with that. When my husband was making deliveries of heavy appliances to evangelical Christians, they told him that if he only gave himself over to the Lord, all his physical labor would be easier. Despite what the evangelists said to my husband when he was delivering their big-ass refrigerators to their boiled hot-dog stinking homes, God will not make your physical burdens lighter. God will not save you from disease and death. God will not make you smarter, richer, thinner, or less addicted to cigarettes. We still have to obey all the rules of the world we live in. Gravity still applies. So does the need to use your head.

Bad things happen to good people. All the time. Praying doesn't change that. God doesn't save kids from dying because people prayed real hard any more than God makes kids die because their parents didn't pray hard enough. Human reason, justice, and hard work save us. Except when they can't. That happens too. To quote from the Princess Bride, "Life is pain."

"Well," you may say to yourself, "This was a very negative blog post. What's the point?" I guess my point is this: I believe that we fall in love because we witness that of God in someone else and feel called to commune with it. I'm not just talking about romantic love, but all kinds of love. Sure, there are the purely hormonal, biological, instinctive and selfish motivations of our attractions, loyalties and connections to partners, parents, and offspring. There's nothing wrong with that. That's how we survive. But there is something more there too. I'm convinced of it. Each time I fall in love with another human soul, my love for the Divine magnifies. Each time I more fully realize the uniqueness and difference of each beloved Life I encounter, the more deeply I rejoice in the Vastness of the Ineffable.

That's a recipe for Joy but not for happiness. Loving more deeply means deeper and greater pain. Only when we keep our love of the Divine at the selfish, hormonal swooning stage do we walk around in bliss . Let the love deepen and you'll find the Divine is the most tragically beautiful relationship of all because eventually, you'll be asked to love more and more and more until your whole being is caught up in it and your heart breaks wide open so that you cannot help but feel the raw tenderness and wild longing that has been drawing us to each other and toward the Source since the beginning of time. Pull back the veil and we reveal Darkness darker and Brilliance brighter than our little human minds can bear. So why not leave the veil unturned? Why not shield ourselves from falling so desperately, helplessly, foolishly in love with a Divine Spark that we know will burn? I don't have a clue. Wish I did. It hurts like hell, but that's the way the Story goes.

Thanksgiving. Yuck.

2010-11-24T15:19:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is upon us. I never liked it much. It joins the list of other holidays I never liked much. We don't celebrate Labor Day because my husband always has to work on Labor Day. We don't celebrate Veterans' Day because I'm a pacifist and it weirds me out. I don't celebrate Columbus Day because I think celebrating imperialism and genocide is gauche. Likewise, I'm not into Thanksgiving. Kind of a crappy holiday, don't you think? First off, we have the historically insensitive Pilgrims and Indians theme and since, as I've mentioned before,I'm not into a celebrating genocide, I'm not about to give my children a sanitized version of history. This makes sharing the story of the first Thanksgiving an exercise in perennial liberal rage.

And I'm not especially thankful this time of year. It isn't that I'm not thankful, it is just that I'm not especially thankful in November and I see no need to pretend that I am. You can't make me be thankful. (This gives me the same morbidly violent sensations I feel when some chipper person says to me, "Smile!")

The entire thing smacks of corporate and political manipulation. I don't want your damn candy corn nor your cornucopias made in China. I'm not interested in nationalism, or patriotism, or jingoism, or candied yams. And if I didn't spend time with friends and family earlier in the year, there was probably a reason.

It isn't that I'm against a celebration of plenty. I'm all into folk traditions. I enjoy ancient holidays arising out of the natural and agricultural cycles, but here in NY, harvest is well over. My family and I celebrate the harvest in August which is much more timely and therefore much more satisfying.

And then there's the whole "Turkey Day" thing which offends me as a vegan. You can imagine that as a pacifist vegan Pagan, I'm not so much into the butchering of living creatures to celebrate the implantation of the genocidal Calvinists into New England.

We could do Tofurkey. But then the other problem with Thanksgiving is the whole gender issue. Being female, I've watched the women in my family knock themselves out every year trying to make everyone happy. The house has to be clean. Everything must sparkle. The tablecloth and the center piece and the matching dishes for a bazillion surly, aggravating, conservative relatives who will not notice either the table cloth or the centerpiece but who will make a comment about my diet, my clothes, my child rearing style, and my politics. In the end, some long-suffering female person who normally is a community activist or a scholar will break down. "Oh my God! I've forgotten the effing squash!" No one needs that.

What is going on with this holiday that turns us into bitchy monsters? We're thankful so that means that the women work like servants all day so the men can sit around and fart? No. I don't think so.

And it isn't like the men want us to act like servants. It isn't like they even care. They would be completely content to have us join them in the farting and football watching. My husband, who insists on traditional food, is just as happy if it comes out of the box and if he's the one who prepares it. He doesn't care if I made the pie from scratch. The guys didn't ask for our servile behavior and obsessive compulsive interest in making the perfect cranberry sauce (which no one will eat anyway). We bring that on ourselves. Each year, generations of women who normally could giving a flying...er...fig...about cooking gather together to just "whip together" a banquet which of course stresses us out beyond our capacity for rational thought. Somehow, despite generations of feminist sentiment, we revert to this Victorian angel of the home mentality on holidays which can only carry us so far before we begin making snide comments to each other regarding who is doing the most work and whether or not the carrots are cut in the proper manner.

Imagining our sensitive, feminist husbands as Neanderthals who don't appreciate our domestic labor, we scurry around the house yelling at children who leave toys around. Happy frickin' Thanksgiving. Pick up your toys! Were you brought up in a barn?! And where is your father?! Then, in a paroxysm of martyrdom, we drag ourselves into the living area, flushed from the hard work of cooking and yelling at children to talk to the farting men as if they are infants, or as if they hated us or why would sit there farting when the effing squash is missing g@ddammit! And it doesn't matter anyway because I can't eat any of this because I'm so fat. I'm fat, right? You can tell me. You think I'm fat, don't you!? Bastard.

So some time ago, we decided that as rational human beings (most of the time anyway) with college educations and concerns that move us way, way beyond our kitchens, we would make peace with Thanksgiving and our remaining bewildering gender issues by ordering take-out food. We used to order Chinese take-out but now all the restaurants are closed on Thanksgiving. Now what will be do? Here's my solution to the entire holiday. I say screw Thanksgiving! Let's just skip it.

(The above is an exaggeration. We don't really ever get the house sparkling clean).

Slow Brain Drip and Blank Spaces

2010-11-22T13:44:00.000-08:00

My blogging seems to have slowed down to a trickle. My family has been sick on and off for weeks and most of my energy has been dedicated to housekeeping and teaching. Additionally, I feel as though for the past three years my intelligence has been dripping out of my brain. Drop by drop, I become less interested and less interesting. Bit by bit I'm losing confidence in my abilities as a thinker. I suppose that's what happens after the doctorate is earned and real life sets in. I had a great deal invested in believing I was a smarty pants. Today I am far less convinced. The good news is that my entire identity isn't tied up in how clever I am. I love being a homemaker and a college instructor. My children and my students are funny and sweet, and they make me happy. I wanted to be brilliant but being maternal may be an even better deal.

I've also (maybe)temporarily removed the "Pagan" from my Plainly Pagan blog title. I'm still Pagan but the term is in the shop for repairs. One thing that may be happening is that I find that I don't feel that I share community with most Pagans in any way that is related to our shared Pagan beliefs. Part of that is because I'm not sure that I do share many Pagan beliefs with other Pagans. That's fine. Not being able to connect to their spirituality doesn't stop me from enjoying the words, wisdom, and friendship of Pagan friends. It just feels awkward for me to call myself a Pagan when I know that pretty much every single person will assume I mean something I do not. I like my words to facilitate rather than hinder understanding. Anyway...I've been working on those thoughts and I'll have to see where they go.

I also think that I'm thinking of my Paganism in the small p way these days. It has become an adjective rather than a noun. I don't think I am a Quaker-Pagan. I am a pagan Quaker. The adjective "pagan" modifies the noun, "Quaker". I'm also a feminist Quaker, a female Quaker, a maternal Quaker, a teaching Quaker, and a liberal Quaker. My beliefs are pagan because they are earth-centered, spiritualist, and pantheistic. (except when they are non-theistic and that's pagan too). But I identify with Friends. I'm not all that sure that they identify with me, but I have confidence that over time, I'll acquire a convincing Quaker patina.

That's all I have for now. *sigh*

Friends and Educational Reform (Part 1 ?)

2010-10-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

I just read an interesting editorial here Although I applaud any call to ease off on the national pastime of blaming teachers for all of our educational woes, the editorial ends on a sour note for me when it shifts blame to kids and parents. Blaming poor and working people for failing to provide the same educational benefits available to well-educated, middle-class, and upper-class families hardly seems fair either. Of course, I wish my students would take advantage of libraries, museums, and galleries and I wish they would read more and apply themselves. However, I also understand that academic success is a learned behavior that is not supported by the realities they face in their communities and families.

Our problem won't be solved by deciding who is to blame or who is responsible. We are all responsible and the solution will be complex. We might start with decreasing class sizes and increasing teacher independence. Politicians should keep the f8ck out of academics. Their job is to ensure that teachers get the funding, support, and tools needed to implement their plans. Peer oversight and development would allow teachers to actually utilize educational theory and practical experience without having to deal with some political ass who doesn't know pedagogy from pornography.

Parents can be better educational partners when they aren't dealing with being overworked, under or uninsured, and underpaid. Kids will learn better when they aren't hungry, poor, and stressed out by their parents' burdens. We especially need to reevaluate how we treat motherhood in this country. The poverty rate for women and kids is ridiculous. Maternal and infant mortality rates are shameful in the United States. Women's health issues continue to be a major problem, and the continued wage gap between men and women is especially troublesome as more and more families rely on women's incomes.

We also need to reassess the persistent message that the purpose of education is to get people jobs. This is dangerous when trying to motivate students. In a recession, if a kid sees that educated people are unemployed or making little, they see little reason to continue. If they know people who make "good money" and never went to college, they see little point in applying themselves. (My grandfather used to call people like me "college-educated idiots.")

If the colleges are inaccessible to working people (psychologically and financially), the antagonisms expressed between college-educated and working people will continue and will be exploited by reactionaries who seek to convince working people that intellectuals are a "liberal elite" who lack common sense and are therefore destroying the "American values" working people adore. Such bullshit, but it seems to be a pretty effective message.

Also, if we continue to focus on a message of education simply as job preparation, we ignore the fact that our economy and technology are shifting so quickly that the specific skills they learn for work will become obsolete before their careers are over. If they lack basic skills in literacy, cultural awareness, and citizenship, they may make a compliant workforce, but a very lousy citizenry. Our nation needs a competent, technologically savvy workforce, but it also needs a thoughtful, curious, and politically engaged population with a solid understanding of our diverse cultural heritage and a nuanced understanding of the institutions of government. Working people need the skills learned in the humanities to continue to advocate for themselves and their children.

We need to emphasize funding for the arts, humanities and sciences not only to give our people access to the intellectual wealth of our nation, but to emphasize a message that we actually care about ideas and learning more than we care about popular culture, making war, and scandal.

I can think of few areas of immediate community concern that are as in need of Friends' attention as education in general and public education in particular. If we are to live and grow toward greater spiritual integrity and grace within our testimony of equality, I cannot see how we can fail to address the growing educational chasm between the privileged and the poor in this country. The hatefulness and bigotry now being peddled as politics is an insult to Friends' belief in the inherent worth and divinity to be found in each human heart. If I believe in that of God in everyone, then I am also committed to serving that of God in everyone. I must be as concerned about poverty, education, and opportunity for my neighbors' children as for my own. Educational reform seems to be one of the proper spheres in which Friends may demonstrate the power of peace and equality. It is an excellent opportunity for us to show how it is possible to value the unique gifts of individuals within the context of corporate responsibility and integrity. Additionally, since Friends have such a proportionally high number of college-educated, financially wealthy, and academically connected folks in our Meetings for Worship, we are uniquely situated to provide important perspectives on this national debate. Friends who are not wealthy or as well-connected must also contribute from their experience and knowledge. Those of us who have much to offer but little power, must remind more culturally empowered Friends to work in service rather than in judgment.

I know that many individual Friends and groups of Friends are already engaged in this conversation. I'm looking forward to hearing more about some of that here. My perspective is limited. It reflects my own regional viewpoint along with my professional experience as an adjunct community college professor. I'm looking forward to hearing new ideas and perspectives from different parts of the country, from other countries, and from different vantage points on the educational continuum.

A Boy in a Skirt

2010-09-19T21:03:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, a boy came to school on Halloween dressed in a skirt and a teacher had a fit. He was a nice kid, really quiet and a bit marginalized and she humiliated him as she made it clear that she would not tolerate boys dressed as girls. What I learned from that was that even playing at gender transgression (male to female anyhow) was apparently very upsetting to some people and that made me think hard about my value as a girl. If he had debased himself by looking like me...well then what did that mean for me?

It was also, I think, a beginning for a kind of core belief that to humiliate anyone regarding their gendered behaviors is inhumane. I think because he was the kind of boy who I would have characterized as gentle and even feminine, one of the few boys who didn't frighten me or mock me, I felt anger at his treatment than I would have otherwise. For some reason when *he* dressed in a skirt, I didn't feel like he was making fun of me. There was sensitivity in it somehow and I think that's why he made the teacher so angry. If he had been a jock, I really doubt the teacher would have come down hard on him like that. She probably would have thought it funny. But he wasn't *that* kind of boy. I sensed that for some reason, he was the kind of boy who could not be allowed to cross-dress because the idea of it wasn't absurd enough to be funny to the other jocks and that made it *dangerous*.

I was really angry that day with that teacher. Really angry. And I find, oddly enough, that I'm still angry about it today. Or sad. Yes. I guess the right word is "sad"- for him, for me, and for the teacher too. Just an old childhood memory. Funny how they haunt us.

In Praise of Depression

2010-08-20T05:51:00.000-07:00

This post is inspired by a post by George Amoss about genes, depression, and spirituality found here
I was going to write it all in the comment section but it just got too darn big.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident!" she shouted, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

"As she cried out the words she felt a mind moving in on her own, squeezing her brain. Then she realized Charles Wallace was speaking, or being spoken through by IT

"'But that's exactly what we have on Camazotz. Complete equality. Everybody exactly alike.'

"For a moment her brain reeled with confusion. Then came a moment of blazing truth. "No!" she cried triumphantly. "Like and equal are not the same thing at all!"

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

Dear George,

First I must tell you how really important this post is to me and how very much it not only resonates but inspires, as Poirot would say, "the little gray cells." And speaking of gray cells, I that anyone who is familiar with my own blog knows that I have struggled with depression and anxiety most all of my life. "Struggled", however, is not always the word with the right connotation. I have also noted in my dealings with many Buddhists, and Pagans, and Christians, and even with atheists that my sadness is often counted as a spiritual failing or at least as a barrier to my ability to be joyful/rational/successful. It makes people very uncomfortable to see my sadness. It makes them more uncomfortable, I think, that I am not very interested in ridding myself of it. Alleviate it? Retreat from it? Take a break from it? Sure. But rid myself of it? No way. To quote from Star Trek's boldest captain, "I need my pain!" It is the sensing device I use to recognize my call to service in a battered world. It does me no good to bend to the will of those who want me to medicate myself into complacency. My brain is different. It is not defective. Again from Star Trek (this time Dr. Crusher) "If there is nothing wrong with me, there must be something wrong with the universe."

There are those who counsel me that my tendency to melancholy and even to occasional bouts of despair is a disease to be treated, a spiritual barrier to be overcome, a darkness upon which light must be shed. But, I don't see it that way. I have seen my own depression and doubt not as a barrier between myself and "God", but my strongest connection. Every moment of profound spiritual revelation has come to me through this darkness. The world and everything in it comes to me in a very raw, heavy, painful way sometimes. But the flip side of that is empathy and compassion. I try to understand the world through my intellect, but the world comes to me through my emotions. Every decision I make is a result of the fact that I know that I cannot shut myself off from the world's pain. As a Pagan, I know the Sacred resides in the body of the Earth, in my body and in the body of my fellow creatures- all interconnected. What harm we do to another we also do to ourselves. I believe that, but also I feel it and so I am very motivated to confront it.

Lastly, I want to mention a few who have inspired me to believe that the brains we have, neurotypical or not, are the brains best suited to answering our spiritual calling: Hildegard of Bingen, Margery Kempe, Emily Dickinson, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Charlotte Perkins Gilman,Margaret Fuller, William James, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Leo Tolstoy...the list goes on. Surely their value in the world was not in spite of the pain they carried, but also because of it.

Thanks, George, for writing as you do, for thinking as you do...Thank you for holding up darkness and difference for healthy examination and for challenging our cheerful brethren to remember that black sheep happen too. Ain't nothing wrong with your brain.

With love,
Hystery

That Fear May Be Transformed...

2010-08-04T09:51:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you my woes. I was one of those "sensitive children" prone to worry and shyness. As an adolescent, I became depressed and flirted with eating disorder. As an adult, I continued with bouts of depression and debilitating anxiety even as I forged ahead with marriage, college, and graduate school. As a young mother, I had post-partum depression. I have an obsessive compulsive personality and multiple phobias. I have a license but haven't driven anywhere in years. I shake at the thought of having to call people on the phone and become panic-stricken at the thought of having to be near medical doctors. I am particularly nervous around male doctors and men I don't know well. I can't shop on my own and when I do shop or eat out, I avoid male salesclerks and waiters like the plague. I won't ask for directions and become agitated when anyone who is with me does. I live with general anxiety disorder and clinical depression. Most uncomfortably, I'm a hypochondriac which means that for me, every physical symptom, real or imagined, signifies my imminent death- and worse, my separation from my beloved family. In the past two days, I've been weepy as I calculate that if I survive for five years, my youngest child will not be quite 11 years old and may not remember me. Maybe it would be better for him if he didn't.

A bad spell of hypochondria puts me in crisis mode. My entire existence settles around the fear and the process of alleviating that fear. This might involve cruising the internet for evidence that I'm not actually dying (this generally backfires as the internet is full of horribly sensationally-phrased and worrisome "medical" advice that boils down to "whatever bump, tingle, discoloration, ache, or fatigue you have is cancer. Contact your doctor immediately, but it is probably already too late."

During an episode, I can't sleep well. For hours or even days at a time, my throat feels constricted, my stomach unsettled. I shake and cry. I am distracted and unsettled in my routines.

During these times, I drink calming teas and practice Qi Gong and meditation. I exercise and take extra supplements. When I am not too distracted to eat, I try to become even more mindful than I already normally am of my diet to avoid foods that trigger or exacerbate anxiety. Thankfully, over time, I have learned multiple ways to address the stress of "my condition" as we sometimes call it, but everyone in the family knows what is meant by the polite phrase, "She isn't feeling well."

In between these bouts which have been occurring more and more frequently this year, I turn my thoughts to mortality in general. Increasingly, the focus of my spirituality is in trying to reconcile myself to the overwhelming fear of losing my loved ones and myself to the inevitable obliterating process of catastrophe, disease, and death.

It is important for me to also share that there are moments of joy and laughter too for me even in the midst of anxiety attacks. I am still here. Contrary to the wretched commercials for anti-depressants one sees on television, I do not live in a world of muted grays barely aware of life around me. I still can laugh at life and at myself. I can still think thoughts that transcend my fear. I am still capable of loving, and hoping, and dreaming and all the good stuff. I am still productive, motherly, curious, and even happy. There is so much stigma and well-meaning misunderstanding about psychological difference that one fears disclosing one's "mental illness" (how I detest that term)for fear of losing the respect of friends and colleagues who may begin to see a disease rather than a person. Like living with a physical limitation or chronic pain, one who lives with chronic psychological limitations and pain also lives a full life. It may be quite different from others' lives, but I do love it and I am thankful for it. It has given me insights that would have otherwise remained hidden. I have become more attuned to others' suffering, and I often sense others' secret pain before they tell me. My dark thoughts are very dark indeed, but the joy of my life is far more brilliant as a consequence. I weep with joy at least as often as I weep with fear and sadness. Little things- light on a blade of grass, the silver underside of a leaf, a stranger's smile, are exquisitely beautiful to me. In my sometimes unsettled mind, I am almost always dying or overjoyed at being alive. For me, life is very raw, very miraculous, very tenuous. I take fewer things for granted.

But I do apologize that I am so needy and fearful and melodramatic. It is tiresome, I know, to those who love me and look after me. I am a "high maintenance" human being. Even though I know myself to be a reliable and competent worker long-used to navigating responsibility in the midst of fear, I have hidden my weaknesses as well as I can from most people (who would want to give responsibility for teaching and writing to a nutcase like me?) But I've chosen not to hide it from my readers. Spiritual writing that is not honest is also not effective. So I write this despite my discomfort. This is neither the first nor the last blog entry I will share here that exposes my inadequacies, weaknesses, and absurdities (although I will try to make it funnier next time).

Here is where I am radically honest. Here I expose the truths of my life. I have no patience for a spirituality that glorifies the Light of the Ineffable but ignores that S/He exists also in shadows. I still have great hope that my fear will be transformed into a deeper Love and Peace. So I offer my fear and lay it bare, ashamed as I am, with faith that this too can be transformed.

Part 2 of TheAlogy: A Spiritual Method of Inquiry: Stories as Vehicles of Truth

2010-07-06T08:29:00.000-07:00

First off, I apologize for the fact that this blog post was written just as it poured out of my head. Very fast. The grammar and punctuation is a mess. Let's call this "an organic piece."

I think it is clear that people's stories themselves are very rarely representative of truth. In fact, so often, our stories are anything but. One thing I work hard at is showing my history students how our narratives and witness are always biased and distorted according to our cultural filters, our gender, our lived experience, age, sexuality, etc. If "fact" is so hard to determine through the vehicle of the human mind and words, then imagine how much harder it is for human beings to convey a perfect "Truth" with their words.

But that's not really what I meant by the use of narrative as a vehicle. I didn't mean that our words themselves convey the message but that the message is conveyed in the act of the telling, in the will itself to tell, and in the will to listen.

Clear as mud! LOL

The phrase that comes to mind (probably inappropriately) is "ears to hear." I used to listen to my father reading the gospels and would hear the words "whoever has ears to hear..." and I knew that this was when what Jesus was saying was really deeply important but was not immediately clear in a mundane sense.

I want to address two important components of my sense of narrative as a vehicle of spiritual inquiry. The first thing I want to address is empathy and compassion. When I'm listening to others in a normal context, I'm often upset by how absurd and imperfect they are. However,when I listen with my spiritual ears, I find that my sense of them shifts.

Understand there is *no* way I can explain how I do this. It is not rational in any way I can determine. When I listen to people in this way, I can often know things about them, a truth beneath their words. People are always telling us about their lives if we are listening. I listen to the way they pause or how their voices catch. I watch their faces.

As a child, people often told me things that they probably ought not to have disclosed to me. But I was the preacher's kid, so they weren't always clear about boundaries. I did learn how to sit with someone and hear them without showing anger or disgust. Once as a teenager, I said something about the uselessness of Vietnam. My uncle, who was trained as a medic but never went to war, exploded in anger at me. It was a curious moment. I never heard him raise his voice before and I have never heard it since. I listened to him rant some ridiculous conservative war-mongering stuff, but what I heard was his sense of profound guilt that he was safe when so many others he cared for died and his sadness and fear for his younger brother who did go and who still suffers today for it. It was an extraordinary experience for me. He was telling me a story but I might have just mistaken it for stupid anger if I hadn't been listening.

Another example from my family is when we asked my grandfather what happened to his sister who died in the '20s. "She burned up," was all he would say. That was all he needed to say. The memory of that shortest of stories, the loss and the horror and the pain of it, makes me cry even today.

Very often, people have disclosed information to me that they had kept hidden and I find that I already knew it. The only way I can think to explain this is that the words themselves, the desire for one human being to be known and loved by another human being opens a conduit between them.

I also find that one can listen deeply to written narratives. I like to practice this with primary sources. My students and I practice a creative analysis. Beneath lies and misdirection, banality, politics and pedantry, I often find this exquisite...what is it? Truth? No. Let's just call it a Song. It is a human song of desire and fear...so much like the cry of an infant.

And this is the thing that calls me to answer that of God in others, even when I find them cruel, or ridiculous, or stupid. I hear their imperfection and need as one hears a baby's cry and I find I cannot hate them. It is their need for each other and for the Divine that is "the Clue", "the Message in a Bottle" that directs me back toward the Sacred every time. We *need* each other- not just to stay alive in our bodies but to stay alive in our souls. The worst injuries any of us can receive is to have our ability to connect to others injured or severed. Those who are thus soul-injured are those who are most likely to bring hell upon the earth.

I also find that people will tell the most amazing stories of survival and love and justice. These are good stories to hear and this tells me that the human soul is resilient and just as well as injured and searching.

The next thing I want to share is the idea of metaphor. Here in the west, we have used vision-oriented metaphors. Feminist theory and methodology suggests that we need to also use metaphors of listening. Visual metaphors have focused on light and dark. What we see is the object of our sight. We consume it with our eyes. We measure, assess, and judge it.

The sight metaphors have de-emphasized interactions with the objects of our observation. The words themselves limit the suggestion of reciprocity between the viewer and the viewed. In essence, we create "I" and "it" Subject and object.

Now with a hearing metaphor, we begin to have an I and a thou. Both the listener and the listened-to are subjects.

So when two people are telling their stories, where is God? Is the sacred in my story or in yours? It is in neither place. It is not in the stories (both are only relative expressions of experience), but it is in the telling and the sharing of the story where the Divine exists. When I listen to you deeply and my desire is to love you at the level of your soul, then I am following Christ's commandment that I love other human beings. Not what you think or do or believe or say, but who you are. That part of you that is immortal and beloved. And this love leads us to the Love of the Source my friend, Daniel so often speak of with such stirring eloquence.

Btw: Madeline L'Engle does the most amazing job expressing this ability to listen beyond the words in her book A Wind at the Door. She calls it "kything."

TheAlogy: A Spiritual Method of Inquiry

2010-07-05T08:47:00.000-07:00

My belief, as a Friend, is that the definition of theology as the study of a body of doctrines seems particularly incongruous with my belief in "that of God" in everyone. There seems little point in there being "that of God" in any of us if "The Answer" is simply provided in texts inspired by God. I also cannot accept that a faith founded on Love would content itself with a merely rational approach to understanding the Divine. Since when have the most profound Truths been wholly rational? I can only assume that there is a reason for us to have an Inward Christ and that this purpose might be that we may know "experimentally", if you will, by direct interaction with That Which is Sacred. Perhaps the reason for our communion as a worshiping people is to share these experiences with each other so that we may strengthen one another in our powers of love, generosity, and faithfulness to this Light. If that is the case, then I think we need to dispense with any reliance on systematic theologies as they have been historically defined.

At the time I was deciding to become a Friend, I was also writing my dissertation in the field of Women's Studies in Religion. This meant that I was very deeply engaged in research methodology and inquiry into the nature of spirituality from the feminist perspective, and more specifically, from a radical spiritual eco-feminist perspective. In short, I was looking into how an individual's experience with the Divine could be defined through the hermeneutics of embodiment, through culturally feminine metaphors and through direct experiences. I am interested in the approach to and method of inquiry far more than I am in any particular answers one might find. In the end, it was Story, or narrative that most seized my attention. It is in story that we wed our experience and imaginative interplay with potential with our ability to organize and convey that information. Basically, the point of contact between your reality and mine is through Story. That is where we find Truth together. Whether it is the story of one's faith or the story of one's day, we begin to know ourselves as creatures both embodied and spiritual through the stories we tell.

It was the embodied metaphor and the personal narrative that was most interesting to me. In addition, I found that act of questioning fascinated me as both evidence of the tenderness and humility needed to acquire knowledge for oneself and the willingness to be open to the witness offered by "the other." One thing that attracted me to Friends was a focus on the experiential and their use of queries rather than texts. The queries, I think, are a good example of how one facilitates a narrative-based faith of continuing revelation.

I noted in my Meeting that the queries were never answered in any formulaic way but were presented as a means of deepening the atmosphere in which we drew together in silence. Out of that deepening came ministry that was clearly both in response to collective inquiry and a manifestation of the speaker's unique experience. Had the queries had specific answers we were all to know by rote or by predetermined and standard methods of inquiry, we would have been shut off from that rich, embodied, and unique ministry, from those experiences and narratives of the Divine's work in our lives. We may joke of "daffodil ministry" but I have found profound revelation in seemingly banal statements received as spoken ministry in meeting for worship. Again and again I am moved to tears and find myself trembling in the knowledge that I am actually in the presence of Something (don't ask me to define it) that I could never come to through intellect alone. There is no good rational way to explain this. It is just so.

I also frequently find the spiritual practice of narrative, first-hand witness in Friends' blogs. These narratives do not define the nature of God for other worshipers, but rather invite other worshipers to participate in equally authentic experience with the Divine. And so as a blogger in the community of bloggers, I have found myself responding to (deepening to) queries and engaged in the telling and hearing of stories. I wander about my "real life" as one affected by these stories I read online. Fear, grief, pain, mourning, loss, renewal, urgency, faith, love, patience, awe- all of it echoes in me and calls forth from me an authentic response. They are all singing love songs to the Divine and I find that as I have developed relationships with them and with their stories, I cannot stop myself from joining them in the song.

My academic curiosity kicks in and I also cannot help but see how this relates to my study of feminist thealogical inquiry. What I find is that it all fits in rather nicely with standpoint theory and other feminist methodological positions variously called "autography" or "autoethnography" in which the act of writing self-reflective and emotionally engaged pieces becomes a form of exploration. Blogging, I would say, is a typical form of autography which we distinguish from autobiography because it is more concerned with detailing the contours of the emotional/spiritual life than with cataloging the events of a life. Friends' blogging, therefore, was immediately interesting to me in the context of my research because it provided me with such fascinating examples of autography and autoethnography. Of course these are secular terms, but when applied to the spiritual life, the result is a kind of narrative-based process in which the goals of objectivity are de-centered in favor of methods of inquiry long considered questionable, marginal, and irrational.

Let me be very clear that I do not advocate a reversal in which we discount rational inquiry. I'm rather a fan of rationalism actually as I hope has been made clear in other blog posts. I do think that rationalism does not, by itself, provide us with all of the answers that humanity seeks. We are also emotional and intuitive creatures (both qualities long associated with the feminine- a cultural trick that I should probably address in another post.) Any theo/alogical perspective that does not incorporate the intuitive and experiential nature of the human brain can never give us all that we seek. When we dismiss that which we "know experimentally" as irrational, emotionally-driven, "merely anecdotal" and therefore unworthy of being called true knowledge, I believe we are turning our back on the Light. So many of us, myself included, are so mired in our training to ignore any source that does not prove its rational qualifications. But the Light is too powerful for us and will find us anyway. We will feel its warmth even if we are too afraid to turn and face it. We would do better to move toward it, to participate with it, but we are wary. We explain it away. "Perhaps it was just a feeling," we say to ourselves. "It will pass." Sentiment and intuition make us uncomfortable. We scramble for hard definitions and comfortable systematic, formulaic, intellectual definitions of "God" or "Science" or "Philosophy" or "Culture". We want to know. We want to be in control. We do not wish to be swept away in a rush of feeling. So when I sit there in meeting and hear a Friends' gentle, simple ministry, I am furious with myself for the tears that run down my face, for the trembling in my limbs, and for the sense that I have been plunged far more deeply in the human experience than I truly care to venture. This thing that Friends do together- this defies all the old rules. Any outsider might laugh at us. "So a few words were spoken in the silence. So what? You know nothing more than you did before and yet you fall apart in tears as though you have no control!" But as standpoint theorists Bochner and Ellis ask, "Why should caring and empathy be secondary to controlling and knowing?"

The Discipline of Listening as Tool for Christian and Pagan Friends in Conflict

2010-07-02T16:39:00.000-07:00

Oftentimes I have read Christian Friends' comments regarding the frustration of Meetings and online conversations that are, if not openly hostile to the Christ-centered Friend, at least not supportive of him/her. This is a serious concern and a hard thing for me to hear. It is especially hard when Christ-centered Friends suggest or even openly advocate that Friends be limited to Christians only. My perspective is often the opposite and so I want to argue and bluster when I read such things. To hear these things makes me feel unwelcome and defensive.

On the other hand, I have sympathy with the desire to worship only with Christians although it makes me sad. There are times when I want to only be around women (I went to an all women's college not because I disliked men but because I knew I'd grow better without their presence in the classroom). Sometimes I only want to be around my immediate family who knows me so deeply I do not have to fuss with defining and redefining terms. If I were a Christian Friend, wouldn't I want a place where I wouldn't have to be careful about speaking openly of my devotion to Christ? Wouldn't I weary of having to use terms that made others comfortable but missed the core and spirit of my meaning?

What I hear from some Christocentric Friends is that I am welcome in the greater community and I am a part of the family but that there are times when they wish to exclusively use a scripturally based, Christ-centered faith and practice and that having to include other faith traditions becomes a burden. Christian Friends should not have to always pretend they are OK with my Pagan language any more than I should have to pretend I am always OK with their Christian language.

But I still think we need to find a way to be Friends together in a way that not only transcends those differences but is honest about them. You don't transcend anything by ignoring it.

I am troubled when folks skim over differences and pretend that everything is fine. Respecting differences does NOT mean pretending they don't exist. It doesn't mean insisting on some kind of bland language that will cause no offense. "Great Spirit who is all things to all people or who may not exist at all...and that's cool because it's all cool..." There is no true peace possible when we will only hear those stories that make us feel good and that agree with our own experience. We must also have the strength to hear ugly things, discordant things, outrageous things.

There are many, many times when we listen faithfully and do NOT come to a place of agreement. We aren't clones and we aren't all right. If we could immediately find Truth without discipline and discernment there wouldn't be much point to any of this. This is work as well as blessing. The fact that I keep colliding against the hard edges of other people's truths keeps me from getting soft.

So I'm not suggesting that the point of listening deeply to others' stories is to develop an "it's all okay" attitude. Far from it. When I am listening to someone's spiritual statement, whether that person is New Age or Christian or Pagan or Buddhist, or a freethinker or whatever, I ask myself the following questions:

What led them to this statement? Do they make it in a disciplined and thoughtful way or are they feeling cornered and frightened into it? What are their experiences? Am I having trouble understanding because of language, ethnic, cultural, gender, differences?

Most importantly, I ask, "What are the fruits of their belief system?" Although I may find them "goofy" or "conformist" or ""jaded" if the fruits of their spiritual journey are full of the kind of love I still call "Christ-like" then I can be content with the differences in our personal approaches. If on the other hand, they talk a good game but I see that their spirituality is unethical, mean-spirited, contemptuous and lazy...well then I have another choice. I can labor with that person. Perhaps I have misunderstood. Perhaps they were feeling cornered or were in a state of awkward transition. Perhaps I was. Maybe I was the one being undisciplined, mean-spirited, contemptuous and lazy. (It happens.)

And sadly, maybe the answer is that I can't always share community with every soul I meet.

My very first Quaker experience was a conference led by a Friend. He called it "Spirituality and Silence." In attendance was an African immigrant Christian who was once a Muslim, two Buddhists, a Benedictine nun, an Eastern Orthodox priest, another Friend, a Christian, and me, a Goddess-woman from a strong liberal Protestant tradition. Actually, it was almost good enough to be a joke..."A priest, a nun, two Buddhists and a pagan walk into a conference..."

Before we arrived, we had each written an essay about the topic "Spirituality and Silence." We had no other guidelines. Throughout the conference, we were given readings on methodology and theory and asked to periodically read our essays out loud. We engaged in the "Quaker process" (a new one for me at the time) of waiting in silence after each person spoke.

We did not agree with one another. Not even close. But it was one of the most profound spiritual experiences of my life. Silence bracketed hard words, grieving words, thrilling words. At first our desire was to overlap each other, to jump down each others' throats, to seek to gloss over differences or to dismiss one another. Then as we grew used to the practice of silence, we began to actually hear each other. And then we actually began to hear ourselves. The discipline of deep listening removed us from the lazy practice of just blurting out belief statements. We weren't so careless about our own messages. We were more honest as we became more interested in being authentic and allowing others space to be authentic than we were in "getting along." Our questions were more intelligent, our challenges more helpful, our entire process more disciplined.

More importantly, our process grew increasingly more loving. There was a greater integrity at work in that room of diverse believers as the goal of winning the argument fell away and was replaced by the desire to speak clearly and listen carefully.

So this is my message to all my dear Christian f/Friends. I do NOT want to change you. I'm so glad you are who you are. I do not need you to think as I do. I do not always have to understand you and I do not always have to be understood for our relationship to have value. Your faith in Christ brings strength and illumination into my life. I want to listen to you more carefully. I want to know you better so that I might glimpse the Divine shining through you. And I hope, very much, that you might also see it in me, for all my difference.

Country Girl in a City Meeting

2010-07-02T13:39:00.000-07:00

I missed Meeting again this week. My husband only has every fourth Sunday off so we have limited opportunity. This week we thought we'd go to the urban meeting because my youngest has wanted to go to "his school". We don't have a First Day School at our Meeting so the kids like to visit the city where there are so many other kids. On their website they indicated that their summer hours are different than their ordinary hours. Since it is not summer yet, I thought we'd arrive there quite a bit early. We were twenty minutes late. I have a personal policy that I do NOT walk into any meeting for worship or church service late. Oh well, it was probably for the best. I don't really belong there.

The Meeting is a liberal Meeting in an urban setting about an hour's drive from our house. Although we've attended on and off for two or three years, I can't seem to get comfortable. In fact, I feel like a foreigner in their midst (much as I do amongst other bloggers). When they speak, they speak of events and assumptions with which I cannot identify. Their metaphors and illustrations are all about large crowds of people, about pavement, tall buildings and busy schedules. They are urbane and I am provincial. They speak of organic food co-ops and of flowers struggling through cracks in the sidewalk. I live a short walk from the nearest farm amidst a riot of flowers, grasses, and trees against which our sidewalks struggle to survive. Theirs is a world of street traffic and fancy restaurants, of parks and shops and traffic- and mine is a world of vineyards and orchards, of greasy spoons and tractors.

The meeting is full of professional women and men who speak casually of things that I know cost more money than I earn in a year. Most significantly to me, they do not seem to realize that their meetings, their retreats, their conferences, and their vacations are not accessible for most people on earth. Why should they know? We're as mysterious to them as they are to us. Their city is a very isolated urban area in the midst of vast stretches of rural landscape. While there is much reason for those of us in the country to travel to the city, there is little reason for them to venture far afield. No one comes to my village. They pass through it. "You live where? Oh, yes, I think I drove through there once!"

Funny that there should be so much difference between their home and mine. Travel for any more than half an hour in any direction from the city, and you're in the countryside where we don't have therapists, gurus, yoga instructors, and chemical sensitivities. We have family doctors, schoolteachers, exercise videos, and headaches. Life moves at a different pace. Don't get me wrong. We are just as busy but the business has a different flavor. There's no rush hour traffic where I live and we don't have quite so many sirens. We have a noon whistle and the church bells play hymns for the entire village to hear.

You'd think that such differences wouldn't matter. It isn't as though I'm a complete hick. I have lived in cities and I have plenty of friendships with folks from all walks of life. So why do I feel so insecure and off when I attend that urban Meeting? After Meeting for Worship, my husband and children go off to enjoy the hospitality hour. I wander off on my own and look at the brochures and booklets. Sometimes I make a show of speaking happily to my children or husband so that people can see that I am not completely sour and unsociable. I make an art of moving between my family, the front hall and the cloak room in a manner calculated to appear to look purposeful although its only true purpose is avoiding conversation with anyone.

I'm terrible at small talk. Awful. I have no interest in discussing nothing in particular--but one can't launch into deep conversations with strangers unless one knows the rules. "Hello. Nice day isn't it? I wonder if Mary Magdalene and Jesus had a sexual relationship?" or "Thank you for your message in meeting today. What do you think about process philosophy? Postmodernism? Semiotics? Star Trek?" Right. People who are good at talking to other people about the everyday things of life and who know how to laugh and share a few words over coffee cake don't realize what a gift that is. I might as well be walking around with a name tag that reads, "Tedious Insufferable Nerd."

I can hear that the city folks share so many of my values, my politics, and my beliefs but for some reason when I am amongst them, I find myself craving home and the people who live there. I think part of the problem is that I don't know the rules of city small talk. (You city folk may not think you have rules but you do!) I overhear the conversations and am just baffled. What are they talking about? I may as well be in a foreign land. They mention streets and projects and committees and events with which I am completely unfamiliar. And I just feel lost.

I think of Dad's country churches peopled by elderly ladies with snowy heads of tight curls and big red-faced, jovial men who clap each other on the shoulder with work-roughened hand. "Well, how the hell have you been!" I think of green bean casseroles eaten in slightly musty church basements with folks who wear "slacks" and sit on "davenports" and whose families have lived in those villages for "pritti-near ta two hunnert years." I know how to behave with these people. I know to speak fondly of my grandparents and assure folks that they are doing well. I know to laugh with the ladies about how loud the little boys are and how there is always laundry. I know to mention the weather and how beautiful it is but shouldn't we have a bit more rain? And yes the kids are growing fast and no, it doesn't seem as if we need another traffic light in town. I know to talk about the festivals and the road work and the colors of the leaves this fall and whether or not I think the snow is any deeper this year or if the raspberries ripened early.

One would think I'd feel more at home talking to people who share my beliefs, politics, and educational background as so many people in the city do. Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed great conversations both online and in person with "city folks." The deep conversations, the academic, intellectual, and passionate conversations are almost always with you folks from more urbane settings and/or with folks like me who are country-bred but university-influenced. And I do get lonesome here in the country. No one wants to hear me talk about process philosophy and feminism here in the country any more than they do in the city. In fact, I'm pretty much a puzzle to the folks around here. They are kind to me, but they laugh at me too. That's OK. At least here I'm home. I'd rather be an ugly duckling here in the country than a swan anywhere else.

Spirit Addict and God Genes

2010-06-28T15:22:00.000-07:00

Check this out. The God Gene

Isn't the idea of a "God gene" interesting? And horrifying? If such a thing exists, then I must for sure have it and it is troubling to me. Problematic. Concerning. I'm not supposed to be so spiritual. I'm supposed to know better. Except when I'm supposed to know better than to buy into the idea that just because something "makes sense" it equals Truth. Except when I'm supposed to know better than to attribute that which exceeds human knowledge to some divine sky buddy. Except when I'm supposed to know better than to buy into simplistic jackass dismissals of profound religious experience. *sigh*

I can imagine Yoda right now, "The God gene is strong in this one, it is." (The fact that I use Star Wars to illustrate my spirituality is, I imagine, yet another of my problems).

In uncomfortable honesty I say that I've been struggling mightily with my spirituality. I carry it around like a mental illness and I try to laugh it off. There are times when I envy the orthodox because they do not seem rationalize their experiences, but as a member of a liberal community (spiritual liberals and intellectual liberals), I find that my form of religious experience is suspect even to myself. I treat my spirituality as one might treat an addiction. I cannot stop myself from it, and yet I am ashamed of the attraction. I crave spiritual writing,tarot, meditation, contemplation, prayer, sacred texts, holy images...and believe none of it.

The relief I experience when other Friends actually admit that they have an emotional, body-centered experience in meeting rather than just a vague sense of liberal satisfaction in the goodness of the universe or the potential of humanity or whatever is a profound relief to me. If I am mentally ill, at least I'd like some company.

Damn God genes. Blessed God genes.

Calvinists, Quakers, and Spiritualists. Oh My!: A Breathless Account of Local Religious History

2010-06-24T19:08:00.000-07:00

If you ever watch Star Trek (and everyone should), then you know that one little change in history can have unexpected consequences (Ask Captain Kirk after he lost Edith Keeler). In history, we like to play with sci-fi scenarios but we call them historical counterfactuals (mostly because our students stop taking us seriously when we endlessly quote Klingon proverbs). Here's one (a counterfactual not a Klingon proverb): what might have happened if Calvinists hadn't so wretchedly committed to the idea of infant damnation?

As it turns out, I'm not going to entertain that counterfactual because I find it much more entertaining to tell you what happened because they did not abandon that notion. Wacky things happened. It led to Spiritualism and Paganism and Witchcraft and radical, wise-ass Quakers. It led to free thought and free love and communes of all kinds. So hurray for the doctrine of infant damnation! Without you, American history would not be worth my time.

(Note that this blog entry is grossly simplified because this is the kind of topic that flings me off in all kinds of tempting directions that will be of no interest to most human beings. Seriously, I've written hundreds of pages on this topic. Imagine how dull!)

*1*
There are (at least) two currents of religious thought in the U.S. by the early 19th century that interest me. We have Calvinism with which we are pretty well familiar. Miserable stuff. We also have more liberal traditions which, because they are liberal, are also diverse so it is difficult to lump them together. There were the deists, of course, about whom we hear so much in our history of the Revolutionary War and there were Unitarians who evolved from Calvinists and the Transcendentalists who evolved from Unitarians. There were the Friends who have a long history of annoying Calvinists and there were wild and crazy Baptists and Methodists too. By no means was there monolithic agreement on what it meant to be Christian in antebellum America.

*2*
Two very interesting things happened in the 1820s. The first was the schism between "Hicksites" and "Orthodox" Friends. I put these terms in quotation marks because neither group chose their own designation and both designations are not quite accurate. The "orthodox" Friends were actually decreasingly orthodox inasmuch as they were increasingly connected to the methods and values of American Protestant evangelicalism (See *3*) and the Hicksites, including Elias Hicks, thought it really cheeky of the "orthodox" to attempt to characterize them as all blind followers of Hicks as if they were all intentionally a bunch of wayward schismatics. They felt that they were being orthodox too. Indeed, except for the fact that the "Orthodox" had more power and money and numbers than the Hicksites, we might just as easily say that the "Orthodox" Friends were being schismatic and not the other way round. One could very easily argue that the Hicksites were reacting to increasing tensions created by wealthy and powerful urban Friends' desire to get cozy with the wealthy and powerful evangelical Protestants. So who was schismatic? It all depends on perspective.

In any case, in the early 1820s, Presbyterian minister, Eliphat Wheeler published a challenge to Quakers in the Christian Repository to which Friend Benjamin Ferris responded. These letters are published as the the Letters of Paul and Amicus and are over 500 pages long. They are well worth reading despite their length because they so excellently delineate the key differences between Calvinist and liberal Quaker religious thinking of that time period and address issues not only of predestination, infant damnation, the divinity of Christ, the Trinity, the sacraments of communion and baptism, atonement, and the role of clergy but also issues like slavery, colonialism, missionary work, bible societies, and comparative religious studies. The letters regarding "Hindoos" in India are most interesting and show important distinctions in Quaker and Calvinist approaches not merely to missionary efforts and colonialism but to attitudes regarding diversity and the value of non-Christian perspectives.

In reading Amicus, one is amazed at how very readily he might fit into a contemporary liberal Christian Quaker context. Amicus was clearly influenced by the emergent popular availability of scientific and philosophical works both secular and sacred. He obviously read widely and deeply (and he reminds me that I should watch less television and spend less time online). In fact, as I read him, I think, "Hey! I would have fit in with Friends even back in the day." But I would be premature in this assumption. The problem was that Amicus hadn't considered how much his thinking didn't fall in line with the most powerful Friends of that time whose thinking on many key issues was more in line with Paul. Such Friends were particularly distressed by the fact that Amicus was not clear about things like the divinity of Christ and they were a bit put out by his comfort level with other religious traditions.

By 1828 Friends had split in two. Not everyone who sided with the Hicksites was a rip roaring radical but lots of them were and those people continued to challenge the country's religious status quo with all their new-fangled ideas about social equality and diversity. Friends like Lucretia and James Mott, Martha Coffin Wright (read out of meeting for marrying a non-Friend), Mary Ann and Thomas M'Clintock, Amy and Isaac Post, Jane Hunt,Rhoda de Garmo and Daniel Anthony were among the more radical Friends. These were the folks who got themselves involved in such capricious activities as abolitionism and woman's rights. They worked with those crazy Methodists and Baptists I mentioned earlier who shared in their belief that it was high time Christians stop condemning everybody to Hell and start creating the Kingdom of God on Earth. Which brings me to...

*3*
The Burned-Over District. In 1825, New York State opened the Erie Canal and the commercial and cultural destiny of the entire nation was irrevocably altered. Indeed, I would say that the Civil War was won in 1825 (but that's a whole 'nother post which you'll never see here because I'm really not that interested in it.) Western New York went from backwater to bustling in a matter of months. Indeed, Rochester became the fastest growing city in the nation.

Folks from New England and Pennsylvania (Calvinists and Quakers)arrived in large numbers. Imagine sending off your son or daughter to the wilds of the west. (But, Mother! I'm going to Rochester, not Timbuktu. They have post offices and stores and churches there and everything!") Fathers and mothers didn't listen and they fussed and worried over the state of their kids' souls. As well they should have. There were far more bars and brothels in western New York than there were churches...at first. So they sent along itinerant preachers. Scores of them. Evangelists rained down on Central New York like a cloud of locusts. Of these, Charles Grandison Finney was the most popular and the most influential of the evangelical revivalists but he had lots of competition for the souls of Upstate New Yorkers.

Because there were few long-established centers of religious authority in the region, new religious and spiritual trends could develop relatively unmolested by established denominational hierarchies. Mormons, Shakers, Christian socialists, Millerites, Spiritualists, and many other groups either emerged from this transitional cultural milieu or moved there to escape more restrictive environments. In the developing urban centers of such places as Troy, Syracuse, Utica, and Rochester, the rapidly shifting population of working people, including many moving onto points even farther west, discouraged the development of a centralized societal authority and community-mindedness. While the old families, churches, and political parties of New England could command a certain amount of respect and compliance, there existed no such structures in New York State to prevent a proliferation of dissenting opinions and religious strategies. Into this environment, evangelical preachers of all stripes came to spread whatever word they believed the people most needed to hear. The people responded by the thousands to a multitude of spiritual leaders, lecturers, and innovators.

*4*
Meanwhile, a group of abolitionist, free thinking Hicksites who had grown too radical even for Hicksite tolerance levels were sharing meeting for worship at the Junius Ponds meeting house. Persons associated with this group were the Posts, M'Clintocks, Hunts and a young attender, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Lucretia Mott, on one of her frequent visits to sister, Martha Coffin Wright, was helpful in their organization and sympathetic to their aims but she never belonged to this group who would rename themselves Progressive Friends in the 1850s (with a young woman named Susan B. Anthony as one of their early clerks). This group of Friends, as loyal readers may recall, was also the group primarily responsible for organizing the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls in 1848. They were also behind the emergence of Spiritualism as we shall see in *5*

*5*
1848, two young girls and their parents move from Rochester to a rented house in Newark, N.Y. where they begin to report hearing spectral rapping noises. They visit the Posts in Rochester where Amy and Isaac become convinced of the legitimacy of the rapping sounds and interpret them as a manifestation of the divine Spirit. Spiritualism spreads through the ultraist Quaker population in Upstate New York, then onto other strongholds of liberal Quaker population. Quaker meeting and Spiritualism share characteristics. In both there is a period of expectant, waiting worship sometimes punctuated by a ministry given by an individual who acts as a mouthpiece for the Spirit. In both, the ministry of women and girls is recognized and encouraged. The fundamental assumption is equality of souls. Both Hicksite Friends and Spiritualists react strongly against Calvinist teaching of predestination and infant damnation. In a time during which the death of loved ones (particularly children and women in childbirth) was relatively common, Spiritualism offered formerly Protestant believers an alternative view of afterlife. One's loved ones were not only well and well-loved in Divine care but could continue to communicate their love for those they left behind.

Friends were the first to attribute religious significance to modern Spiritualist manifestations. I believe one can still see their early imprint. Nineteenth-century Spiritualists were actively involved in the free-thought movement, in abolition, women's rights, and other human rights reform movements. When the Spirits spoke, they always seemed to side with the downtrodden. They were always champions of the lowly. It was not long before Spiritualism began to draw converts from the Protestant denominations. People, especially women, were weary of dark Calvinist sin-centered doctrine. As women had particular care of infants, children, the disabled, the dying, and even of the bodies of the dead, they were particularly motivated to take up a spiritual system that denied concepts like eternal damnation or the damnation of infants. Women also flocked to a faith that not only allowed, but encouraged female leadership and public speaking. As Spiritualism grew increasingly popular throughout the English-speaking world, audiences grew accustomed to seeing women public speakers address all the important and controversial topics of the day (often under Spirit trance). Free speech, free produce, free thought, free love: all were topics addressed by Spirit. The early American civil rights and Spiritualist movements were inextricably connected in these early years.

*5*
Over time, the Spiritualist movement evolves in various directions. Some of these directions are just silly and freakish (women pulling fully formed apparitions out of their what-nots) but others are significant. The Theosophical Movement grows out of Spiritualism and provides a popular forum for interfaith research and comparative religious studies. Theosophists combined American Spiritualism with an interest in Eastern philosophy and mysticism. The introduction of Buddhism and Hinduism to American religious liberals irrevocably changed the history of religions in the United States. Significantly for the human rights movement, leaders such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage shifted their suffrage focus to serious criticism of phallocentric religion by the close of the nineteenth-century. As a result of her involvement in Spiritualism and Theosophy, Gage became a prototypical American Neo-Pagan and suggested that women should begin referring to the Goddess as well as to God in their systems of personal spirituality. Together, she and Stanton wrote extensively about their religious ideas. Their challenge to the patriarchal Christian Church was applauded by the more radical, intellectual members of the suffragist groups but drew condemnation from most including Susan B. Anthony who feared their radical spiritual position would alienate more conservative suffragists.

Susan B. Anthony has her way for awhile but over time, fragile thread by fragile thread, we weave a history of "alternative spirituality" in the United States. It is a parti-colored tapestry. The strands are not always clear. I've had to spend some time teasing out the connections, searching out private letters and rare quotations and references. Often I find an individual has a sense that they are evolving away from the religion of their youth in isolation but I do find that there are predictable references to certain movements, traditions and authors. One of the predictable references is to liberal Hicksite and Progressive Friends whose history is so neatly interwoven into the fabric of American religious liberalism.

Some may say that radical Friends lost their way. I don't think so. I think that the growth that resulted from the schism had significantly positive outcomes for humanity. I think that what happened here in the Burned-Over District was a manifestation of obedience to the Light that resulted in an elevation of the rights and dignity of the human being. I'm proud that I have inherited this crazy history. I recognize that it is not "Friends' History" writ large. Friends in Ohio or Kenya or even England might think this was just some peculiar or even perverted understanding of Quaker belief and practice. Progressive Friends' influence on the development of American Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism, Freethought, and Atheism is atypical Friends' history. But it did happen. Friends invented American Spiritualism. Spiritualism morphed into Theosophy. Theosophy informed the beginning of American Paganism. All the above religious movements were intricately interwoven in the emergence of feminist spirituality and human rights activism. It may be a wacky Friends' history peculiar to this wacky place I call home, but it is Friends' history nevertheless. It did the world good, and I will not apologize for it.

Definitions

2010-06-15T09:41:00.000-07:00

Since I began hanging with Quakers, I've found myself wonder whether or not I am a Christian.

So I found a whole mess of definitions. Here's the first:

–adjective 1. of, pertaining to, or derived from Jesus Christ or His teachings: a Christian faith.

Um...actually, this one isn't particularly helpful since it is a wee bit vague. Let's move on to definiton #2

2. of, pertaining to, believing in, or belonging to the religion based on the teachings of Jesus Christ: Spain is a Christian country.

Let's look at the evidence. I was born into a Christian family. I was baptized by my clergyman father. My family history includes several other Christian ministers including my Great Uncle George and my cousin Emily (a pioneering woman ordained as a Methodist at the turn of the century), and even Jonathan-Sinners-in-the-Hands-of-an-Angry-God-Edwards. I went to a Christian seminary (where I had a 4.0 average btw) and I have a personal library chock full of bibles, biblical commentaries, concordances, ecclesiastical histories etc. I went to Sunday School. I taught Sunday school. My mother and sister taught Sunday school too. I studied Christian theology and history in my spare time as a teenager. I studied it formally as an undergrad and in graduate school. I attended church at least once a week and sometimes as often as three times a week. I even married a man whose middle name is Christian, one of the prettiest masculine names ever if you ask me. I read my children bible stories and buy them images of Christ and Mary and take them frequently to places of Christian worship.

So maybe I am a Christian. Certainly I would maintain that I am culturally Christian. Let's move on. Here's definition #3.

3. of or pertaining to Christians: many Christian deaths in the Crusades.

OK. Distinctly unhelpful. #4,5,and 6 may be more helpful:

4. exhibiting a spirit proper to a follower of Jesus Christ; Christlike: She displayed true Christian charity.
5. decent; respectable: They gave him a good Christian burial.
6. human; not brutal; humane: Such behavior isn't Christian.
–noun

I still frequently use the term "Christian" to refer to behavior that I consider especially merciful, gentle, compassionate, peaceful and loving. In this sense, I try not to behave in a manner that is "unchristian." I try to imitate Christ as I understand him. This is why I am a pacifist. It is why I refuse to work in any endeavor that I cannot square with the notion that humans are meant to be servants to one another. Does this make me a Christian? Let's move on to definition #7.

7. a person who believes in Jesus Christ; adherent of Christianity.

Ah. This is where we run into problems. I do not believe in the special divinity of Jesus of Nazareth. But then neither did many of the first generations of Christians. I do not like to conflate the historical Jesus with the mythological/metaphorical Christ. I am much more likely to embrace an interpretation of Christ as an energy in which all human beings may partake which was exemplifed rather nicely by the "historical" Jesus (and then the historical Jesus is really a literary Jesus really but that's a whole 'nother issue for a whole 'nother blog entry).

So do I believe in Jesus Christ? Sort of. My belief lies somewhere in the range between liberal and radical interpretation. If you were to ask me to say that this metaphor has to be my primary metaphor of deep meaning, then all bets would be off.

How about this definition?
8. a person who exemplifies in his or her life the teachings of Christ: He died like a true Christian.

Couldn't a person who had never even heard of Jesus fit this definition? As I understand it, humility, compassion, and profound love for humanity are all very Christ-like. Very few Christians I have met are Christian according to this particular definition whereas a good many people who don't identify as Christian truly do fit under this category. I'm not sure I qualify for this definition. I think my recurring passionate desire to punch Sarah Palin in the face may exclude me.

And I'm a pagan. Surprise!

1. one of a people or community observing a polytheistic religion, as the ancient Romans and Greeks.
2. a person who is not a Christian, Jew, or Muslim.
3. an irreligious or hedonistic person.
–adjective
4. pertaining to the worship or worshipers of any religion that is neither Christian, Jewish, nor Muslim.
5. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of pagans.
6. irreligious or hedonistic.
One who is not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew, especially a worshiper of a polytheistic religion.
One who has no religion.
A non-Christian.
A hedonist.
A Neo-Pagan.

Huh. Interesting.
I am not a polytheist nor do I belong to any community of polytheists. I am not hedonistic. Do I have a religion? That's difficult. I don't suppose I do. I have a spirituality which is not, perhaps, the same thing. I'm not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew but on the other hand, I've established that I may be at least marginally and nominally Christian given my strong cultural background in Christianity. I would have a hard time justifying myself as a Pagan based on this definition but then this is not a definition written by Neo-Pagans.

Turns out that these days, definitions are not very helpful for describing where a soul belongs. Maybe they've never been very helpful.

Rooting Around for my Calling 2/ (an old post just now published)

2010-06-15T09:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I traveled for almost two hours to deliver a speech on the relationship between women's spirituality and women's rights to a chapter of the American Association of University Women. The speech was well-received which pleased me considering that I had developed laryngitis after a week of the flu and had a much-diminished speaking voice. Still, after speaking in barely a whisper all day, I put on my nineteenth-century dress and bonnet, stood before them and managed to project that raspy voice across the room for the duration of the speech and then for the questions and conversation that followed. The event began at 6:00 and we finished up after 10:00. So I'm tired today and my throat hurts but...

There is something about speaking in front of groups that fills me up in ways that I cannot describe. I feel strange taking a check for the work because I feel they have already paid me. That a group of people will allow me in their midst, will hear me, will let me move them...I owe such a debt for this gift.

When I was little, I watched my father don his clerical robes before the service. As I watched him, I saw him transformed from "Daddy" to clergyman. The most impressive were the black robes with their rich fabric and black velvet trim that emphasized the sweep and flow of his gestures. As he stood before the congregation, I was enthralled by the force and beauty of his baritone voice which projected easily to the back pews. There were times when he spoke of God and raised one hand toward heaven just as a ray of light streamed down from the stained glass windows.

How could this be the same man who, when dressed in jeans and sweatshirts would be far more likely to ask me to pull his finger than to turn to God? It just was. People in our congregations were sometimes troubled when they realized that he was not a saint. Over the years, there was an accumulation of injury to my father's gentle soul perpetrated by those who thought the role of a minister is to a sacrificial lamb to be exploited and used up. There were few to feed him. Few to hold his spirit in the light and finally, he burned out. There is a special brutality reserved for country preachers by their congregations. Today my father, who calls himself an atheist, would tell me it was all just theater. It was all "bullshit", an act and nothing more.

But I don't buy it. When I was a baby, my father had a dream that changed his life. As he and my mother sat in church one Sunday, he turned to her and told her he had something important to tell her. "You're going to join the ministry." she said unexpectedly. He could not understand how she had known. Turns out that she too had a dream that night. From that point on, my parents and I moved from home to home so he could complete his M.Div. and then provide service to multiple country churches. Being a Methodist minister's kid is a bit like being an army brat. We moved around a lot. The bishop would call and we would move. It was not until I was older that my father became a Congregationalist and we were able to settle down. Even so, the church was at the heart of everything we did. Until it wasn't.

When my father left the church, it was life-altering for all of us. It was, in fact, a relief. All members of a clergyperson's family are pressed into service. No getting around that. It was good to have some fresh air, to say "f-u" to all the nastiness and vindictiveness of those churches. It was good to have the freedom to explore our spirituality away from the confines of even the limited orthodoxy of the liberal Protestant tradition.

It was also jarring in a way that I am just now beginning to explore. What does it mean to me that my father has rejected what he always described as "his calling"? Was it all some grand delusion in which my entire family, our congregations, and communities participated in for almost twenty years? And what of my calling? What of that? Am I deluded there too? or is there something More at play here

A Personal Genesis Narrative: Relationship between my Paganism and my Christianity

2010-06-15T06:30:00.000-07:00

It has been noted by some (Daniel) that I come to Paganism from "a deep faith in the God of Jesus." The question put to me basically was how and why that happened.

Childhood

Of course, as many already know, I was reared in a very liberal Protestant household, the daughter of a country minister. I was a small child when my father was in seminary and lived on campus at Colgate Rochester Divinity School and Crozier Theological Seminary. Dad graduated from Colgate Rochester the same year that Martin Luther King Jr.'s nephew graduated and the King family was in attendance. There is a very strong Civil Rights connection at that seminary. Additionally, Walter Rauschenbusch (the Social Gospel) was also at Colgate way back when. That's my genesis narrative.

Following seminary, my father served several rural communities as a Methodist minister before he switched to the Congregationalist Church (UCC) when I was a teenager. His final church, which he served just before I entered college, was a dysfunctional church. It was after a really painful and public experience there that we "left the church." At first blush, it would look like this was the painful experience that led me to a rejection of my faith. Let me say, however, that it wasn't quite as simple as that.

Throughout my father's ministry, he grew increasingly liberal (a neat trick when you start off as a long-haired anti-war protester). We always said that our family was doing a dance along the spectrum until we finally dropped off the left-most edge. He started off introducing inclusive language and feminism to his churches in the '70s and ended by marrying a lesbian couple in the '90s. In the end, what we believed was that the institutional church discourages Christianity. Our faith in Jesus was never tested. Our faith in the Church was destroyed.

There Really Isn't Much Difference Between Me as Christian and Me as Pagan or
I Had A Way Leftist Christology to Begin With

So is this where the Paganism comes in? Well, almost. It is important to note that from the beginning of my religious education, I was surrounded by my father's academic experiences. I watched him doing his research with his concordances and his interpretations and as I aged, I began reading these books too. At age 13 I received my calling to ministry and throughout my teen years was reading his seminary books, histories, sermons and theologies. He had lots of unorthodox stuff too so I was early introduced to the Nag Hammadi Library and the idea of Gnosticism. Dad didn't dumb down his conversations with me so conversations with him might be about the historical critical method, ethics, the Priestly author, or Jesus' sexuality. Not ordinary Sunday school stuff. By the time I was an undergrad, I had a really unusual view of the church, of religion and its history. And on top of this, I spent lots of time studying religious history with a particular interest in the development of Protestantism in the United States.

I mention all this because the idea that I lost faith in the God of Jesus assumes a couple things that aren't exactly true. Because I was taught to view Jesus' God (or at least the God of the primitive Christians) as an historical composite of multiple ancient traditions upon which generations of believers from multiple cultures overlaid their own assumptions, values, and interpretations. In short, I believed that the God of the Bible was an invention. I challenge the notion that the Bible was any more inspired than any other spiritual narrative. This belief was strengthened by my seminary and graduate work in religion studies. Because I was trained from day 1 to doubt the perfection and superiority of the religion of my childhood, I never experienced a crisis of faith as I've heard many other Christian to Pagan converts have experienced. My love for Jesus is as strong today as it was in my childhood; more mature and complex perhaps, but just as strong.

I've Never Sacrificed a Goat

So why Pagan? First off, to be more accurate, I am Neo-Pagan. The distinction is important. Paganism was brutal (as was ancient Judaism if we are to believe that any of the Bible was historically based). I am a New Pagan and we don't go in for things like sacrifice of people or animals. In fact, most Neo-Pagans are more gentle than most Christians I know. Lots of pacifists and vegetarians. Lots of people who literally wouldn't hurt a fly. (Do what you will shall be the whole of the law so long as you harm none and all that jazz.)

Also, My methodology is standpoint theory and I'm a postmodern thinker (can't help it. I was an undergrad in the '90s! lol). I am intentionally creating a spirituality from historical and mythological sources. But those are only some of my ingredients. With other "Goddess women" and spiritual ecofeminists, I am also brewing this new spiritual tradition from social justice traditions (feminism, civil rights, gay rights, animal rights) as well as stuff like midwifery, "alternative" medicines, natural health, environmentalism, pacifism, and psychology. Because we are doing this so intentionally, this gives us a good bit of freedom to discard elements that are inappropriate to our time and condition and to reshape others. While there are some Pagans who are attempting to faithfully recreate a Pagan past, my understanding is that most Neo-Pagans are highly aware of the creative process of creating a new spirituality out of old metaphors. We really wouldn't go back to the Bronze and Iron Age Religions any more than most Christians would really want to go back to first century Palestine. On the other hand, we do tend to elevate (and this is a topic for another day) Neolithic prepatriarchal religions. Paganism most folks know is a degraded form of an earlier, more egalitarian period. The anthropological jury is still out on this theory but we know enough to indicate that as well as having nasty and brutal ancestors, we also have peaceful and gentle precursors. How much of the Goddess Religion is based on supportable evidence and how much is based on wishful invention is not something I want to address here, but if we're going to make up a Pagan past to emulate, that's the one I'm going for! (For readings in this feminist branch of Neo-Paganism look to Marija Gimbutas, Carol Christ, Charlene Spretnak, and Mary Daly.)

Quakers in Funky Pagan Clothing

But I can't speak for other Neo-Pagans. We're too diverse. I will say that Neo-Paganism is dramatically different from the classical Paganism most of us studied in high school. Pagans and Friends have a lot in common at the practical level. They share deep concern for environmental and social justice; they share profound respect for the individual's direct communion with the Divine; and they deemphasize or reject the power and importance of professional clergy.

I believe (and have always believed) that the Divine Energy is imminent and that there is, in truth, no difference between us and God/dess. I very comfortably integrate my Christian ethics into my Neo-Paganism because there is no conflict between the command to love unconditionally with my Neo-Pagan fascination with cultural difference and ecofeminism. Finally, I am a process theo/alogian which puts a different spin on my ideas of the relationships between the Divine and the Mundane (which are all intertwined, merged and certainly non-hierarchical).

The Gods are Me. I am the Gods. And the Force is Still With Me.

I speak of Hel and Hecate in the same way I speak of Job and Mary Magdalene. The psyche is peopled by characters who teach us what it is to be human. Just as I never took the Christian scriptures literally, I never take mythology literally. I recognize that these were stories told by ancient peoples with pre-scientific worldviews. Such views continue to be helpful despite their apparently irrational origins. Indeed, they are helpful because of their irrational origins. I play with myths the way an archetypal theorist does. I find also that as a woman, I benefited from work with feminine archetypes from the Virgin Mary to the chthonic crone goddesses. Exploration of the Dark Mysteries, the Female Mysteries, is what helped me through miscarriage, pregnancy, and clinical depression. In fact, I am certain that this spiritual perspective saved my life.

None of this play means that I worship any of these figures above the One. I may be a complex monotheism or a pantheist (or maybe a pan-en-theist? It really depends on my mood), but the Force is still with me. The Divine remains inscrutable, ineffable, or as my first religion studies prof. said, "God is not some cosmic bellhop." I don't mistake either Christ or Isis for the Divine any more than I mistake myself as Humanity.

I had this dream about flying...

I had dream once in which I was in my Dad's church and I discovered that I could fly. I rose up to the ceiling and realized that I must fly higher but could not find a door out. So I smashed the stained glass windows and soared into the sky. The Church could not contain me, but I never forget that it is there that I first took flight.

So I sing hymns every single day and read my Bible. I also play with my tarot deck, speak to the spirits of my ancestors and wear an image of the Serpent Goddess around my neck. I write and teach about the connections between Paganism (out of which comes Judaism and Christianity) and Neo-Paganism (which arises out of Christianity and Judaism.)I find no conflict in this. I reject any Paganism that undermines my belief in the fundamental teachings of Jesus and I reject any Christian message that undermines my belief that we all (people and animals and plants and rocks and trees)belong to Mother Earth and that we share both Soul and Body. Practically what this means is that I am called to Love. No changes there.

My crisis has nothing to do with an interruption or violent breech between the faith of my childhood and my spirituality as it is today. My crisis arises out of motherhood, out of the maturation of my ability to love to a point just this side of terror. What if it is all an illusion? What if my religious experiences (which led to all that academic study and debt) are all just products of seizures and wishful thinking? What if like good old Granny Weatherall, I'll just blink out, forever divorced from the Soul and souls I love and to whom I've dedicated my entire life? This is the worm that twists in my heart and subject of a future post.

A Pistol Made of Toast

2010-06-10T13:27:00.000-07:00

My mother-in-law warned me that boys are different from girls. "I never bought my boys guns," she said, "but they'd chew their toast into the shape of a pistol." Of course, I assumed that I would never have her problems. My boys would be perfect angels far more interested in Botticelli and Brahms than with bazookas. "Come read to us from the works of Emerson, Mother!" they would beg. "Can we please listen a little longer to the sonata?" Right. Not so much. Every day I listen to the sounds of starship battles and the clanging of imaginary swords. I hear the shrieks of the dying and the battle cries of enraged warriors on the great, bloody battlefield of my living room sofa. What happened?

I was raised as a pacifist and I am raising my children with the same values. We speak frankly and frequently about our concerns with interpersonal and international violence, and we challenge our children toward compassionate and creative problem-solving. Just this past week my son brought me great pride when he stood up, for the first time, to his great-grandparents' thoughtless patriotism out of his concern for America's involvement in the wars. I have made it very clear to my children that violence is unacceptable and that there is nothing honorable about warfare.

But I do not discourage my children from reading, talking about, or engaging in fantasy battles. Here's why:

For both kids and grown-ups, play (whether in acting out roles or experimenting with metaphors and symbolic thought through art and language) is an essential human process allowing us mental space to experiment with emotions and situations we may face physically and psychologically. Literary and mythical descriptions of violence help us learn to identify and deal with aggression, sorrow, and betrayal. Examples include epic battles and martyrdom in classical and spiritual literature as well as within children's literature. The utilization of these linguistic and artistic symbol forms should not be confused with the manifestation of these symbols. I would not want my kids to engage in actual sword fights against evil nor would I want them knocking over money changing tables and driving people out of temples. I would not want them to literally surrender their bodies for martyrdom, or to literally jump on a white horse to champion a lost cause... but I do want them to use this imagery to understand how one gathers up emotional energy for the "battles" they will inevitably face in life. I want them to use fantasy and play to practice with emotions involved in intellectual and emotional conflict. In this I think of my mother, a champion of the rights of sexually assaulted women and children. On her office wall is a picture she drew as a child in which she made herself a knight with a sword ready to slay the dragon. My mother is a pacifist, but make no mistake, she's a fighter too. She carries the dragon-slayer within her.

Another reason I've learned not to fuss overly much about play that uses violent imagery is that it seems to help my male children deal with their anger. Our son is much larger than an average child so we have been particularly careful to train him as a pacifist. We do not allow him to play with toy guns because we do not wish to support an industry that glorifies and institutionalizes violence. On the other hand, we don't interrupt their play with guns and swords they make with sticks. Talk about a losing battle! Just as my mother-in-law warned, I have learned that a piece of partly eaten toast, a funny-shaped rock, an index finger or an upside down toy dinosaur all make excellent toy guns. What's a pacifist mom to do? My boys are gentle as lambs yet they seem to gravitate toward this play.

I don't worry because the men who are raising them also played at these games when they were children and are now pacifists and feminists. Also, in watching them "play fight", I see them engaged not in violence but in restraint. I see them practicing verbal negotiation, muscular and emotional control, and even a kind of cooperative choreography as they carry out their "battles". They are learning how to withdraw and how to stop. They are learning how to control themselves. It takes a lot of effort to stage an epic sword fight complete with dramatic vocalizations and sound effects (what is it with boys and sound effects?!) and have no one get hurt in the slightest.

I see this play at work with my older son and his little brother. The five year old has no fear of "fighting" with the twelve year old. It is all a dance. The twelve year old has great control. He learned it from rough housing and playing with the older men in our family. Indeed, when boys play with older, more powerful men, they are not just learning about power; they are learning how to refrain from using it. Long ago I read how important it is for male children, who will one day occupy powerful bodies, to learn about restraint in the process of learning about their increasingly muscular and powerful bodies. Within a context of loving discipline and education, the adult demonstrates restraint in play and teaches the child the same. When they wrestle together, or play in sports and other physical competitions, the child is learning that body has power that is controllable. To quote Mr. Rogers who advocated that children physically express their anger through words and play in his song about anger, "I can stop when I want to. Can stop when I wish. I can stop, stop, stop any time!". The body is a strange evolving creature, a constantly new challenge for a child who must become familiar with its sensations, emotions, and powers so that they can use them responsibly.

That is the point of play. People who will one day have the power to hurt or kill smaller, weaker, more vulnerable people, also need to have lots of practice understanding their bodies' and emotions so they will not be tempted to do so. When anger overwhelms my children (as it does all human beings at some time) I hope they will naturally fall back lessons learned in play and realize that they have choices. They have restraint and intellect as well as strength and speed. I hope that within those inevitable moments of violent temptation, their bodies' will recall lessons of restraint and control and give their brains just enough time to recall themselves to peace.

A Misfit's Thoughts on Bullying

2010-06-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

When I was a little girl, I woke up almost every morning with a cold knot of dread in my stomach. I would then scan my body for any potential signs of illness. There was always a small hope that I would be sick enough to stay home and not have to face the other children and my teachers at school. I could look forward to a yearly bout of bronchitis and there were usually a couple "mental health" days that my parents gave me when I had been so hysterical with sadness the night before that they felt it best to keep me home and quiet for a day. Most of the time, however, if I felt just a little ill, my folks would say, "You can stay home if you think you are sick enough." They always left the decision to me knowing that my unyielding honesty would end the internal debate and I would go off to school. My heart raced and there would be a lump in my throat but I was not truly "sick." There was no way to get out of it.

I hated to leave home because whenever I did, I stopped being my parents' well-loved daughter. I stopped being the "bright" girl my uncles and grandparents loved and started being a monster. In school I was a "brain" and a "nerd". I was that obnoxious know-it-all girl who raised her hand to answer the questions and who used all the long words (probably just to show off). I was the "snob" that no one invited to their parties or allowed to sit at their lunch tables. I was the girl you spoke to only when you needed help with your homework.

My teachers didn't make it any easier. Seeing that I did well in school, they gave me separate lessons above my grade level and asked the other kids to try to catch up to me. If I scored any lower than a 95, I could expect my teacher to say in surprised disapproval, "What happened?" To please them, I studied from the time I got off the bus to the time I went to bed. On one standardized test given to our entire grade, my teacher offered a candy bar to anyone who could beat me. The guidance counselors gave my grades out without my permission to my peers who then found me and laughed at me. If someone misbehaved, they were forced to sit next to me so I could "be a good example." There were boy brains too but they had friends and received compliments and acknowledgment from the other kids and the teachers when they did well. Being a female brain disqualified me from girl status. I was terrified of the boys who, when they weren't ignoring me, were staring or making sexually suggestive statements to shock me. One boy asked if he could kiss me so he could collect lunch money from another boy who dared him to do something disgusting. On a couple of occasions, they threw things at me as I passed. The girls mostly kept their distance and though usually not cruel, felt it best to let me keep to myself.

And I did. I still do. The only time I leave my family is to teach classes or give public presentations. I am very hesitant about social gatherings. As an adult, I have attempted to locate places where it is safe to be myself, where the topics I love, and the stuff I know does not cause people to roll their eyes. It takes a great deal of emotional energy for me to go out amongst others. I was never, ever any good at pretending to be something I am not. I am an intellectual. I can't help it and I do not apologize. Even so, I'm been shamed for it so often that I prefer to keep it hidden at home.

There are some places one would expect someone like me to be safe. On the board of an interfaith group, I was told that my intellectual approach was "too masculine" and therefore considered aggressive to the other women (Other women who maligned my religious beliefs, sent emails that my scholarship which they had never read, was of poor quality, and that I was also a bad mother). My last bad school days memory comes from a doctoral seminar I attended when I was pregnant for my third child. Sitting at a conference table with other Ph.D students, I felt safe to fully engage as a person of intelligence until another doctoral student interrupted me and told me that when I spoke, she lost interest because I used words that were too big. In that moment, I shrank in shame and sat silently until the next break when I left the table and found a quiet room where I cried until it was time for the conference to break up for the day. No one came to find me. No one apologized. At another doctoral seminar, I gave a presentation about my plans to engage in Pagan scholarship. Later, a group of students provided a demonstration of "therapeutic" drama in which they pretended to stomp my scholarship to death and throw it out a pretend window. I sat there silently and watched as the group of student actors mimed beating my ideas to death and other students laughed. No one said a word in my defense.

And that brings me to the point. If I had witnessed something like that happening to someone else, I would have done something. Being the misfit, the monster in the midst of all the cool kids for so many years has made me aware of other people's pain. I can feel it like a live thing in the room with me. It is intolerable. I can't stand to see strong people exercise their strength and popularity against the weak or the marginalized. I won't stand for it and so I get myself into an awful lot of trouble. But it hurts me so much less to stand with someone than to witness their pain in silence that it is worth the effort.

In online discussion groups, I find that it is very common for people to attack and malign those who are different. Maybe it is because they can't see the pain in the other person's face. Quaker discussion forums aren't much better than other forums. The discourse is more outwardly polite. There isn't as much obvious name-calling (unless you know what to look for), but I'm often shocked by the anti-intellectualism, religious bigotry, classism, cruelties and snide nastiness of various little in-crowds of Friends.

I don't know what I am called to do about it. I could withdraw from the Quaker blogosphere but then they win (again) don't they? I know I must continue to challenge myself to be among people despite my distaste for their cruelties, and sadly, no group of people, no matter how noble their philosophical pedigree is immune from the bullies. Just as when I was a child, interactions with "Friends" sometimes leave me with a gut twisted in anxiety and tears in my eyes. Such is life.

The only thing worse than the bullying I've received for being different all my life is hearing someone later say that they witnessed the attack and felt it was wrong. And then I'd wonder, "Then why the hell didn't you say something at the time? Why did you let that person browbeat me, and misrepresent me to score points with their buddies? How could you stay silent as you watched me dissolve into tears of hurt and frustration?"

When I see someone being attacked, I say something. I don't care if you are on "my team" or not. If the game is unfair, I'm going call foul. I know how much it hurts to be singled out as today's sacrificial misfit. I can't address this to the bullies. The bullies don't know who they are so they aren't listening or perhaps their confidence in their personal beliefs makes them feel justified in their attacks. I don't know. I'm talking to the rest of you. You don't have to agree with someone's perspective to protect their dignity. Don't be a coward. We are called to serve the demands of justice, equality, and compassion. Take care of each other. Take care of the misfits. They are God's people too.

Paganism: A religion or a category of religions?

2010-06-08T13:11:00.000-07:00

I submit that the term Pagan is more appropriately used as an umbrella term to describe a family of related religions than as a word to describe a singular religion. In this way, "Pagan" is parallel to "Abrahamic" rather than to "Christian."

1. If diversity and self-definition are so important to Pagans, is it really in our best interest to continue to pretend that we belong to the same religion? I think not. I think too much of our diversity is sacrificed in this strategy and I therefore suggest that we begin to acknowledge that "Paganism" may describe a family of loosely related religions but cannot be used to describe a singular religion without further marginalizing and compromising the religious experiences of Pagans whose beliefs are not recognized as normative or popular.

2. Secondly, emphasis on Paganism as a singular, though diverse religion may have unintended limiting consequences on further development of individuals' and groups interpretations of Pagan experience. For instance, already I have read that Pagans are earth-centered. (Many are not) or that Pagans cannot be pacifists (many are.) Drift toward orthodoxy is a danger in considering Paganism a religion rather than a family of multiple spiritual perspectives.

3. Finally, I am concerned that utilizing the term "Pagan" to describe a singular religion is an act of imperialism in that such use of the term assumes that practitioners of indigenous and/or ancient religions can be utilized and co-opted by Neo-Pagans with little or no regard for concerns of cultural context, history, or tradition.

Is "Pagan" parallel to "Abrahamic"?

Categorization of anything non-Abrahamic under the rubric “Pagan” is problematic inasmuch as it subsumes critical historical, cultural, and thea/ological differences under a definition of Paganism based not on who we are but on who we are not. Even more problematic is the assumption that Paganism is more than a category of religious perspectives but a religion itself. We have been defined against Abrahamic religion. I intentionally use the passive verb here to indicate definition by default. Although we have reclaimed a word used pejoratively to describe those who do not fit within the category of "Abrahamic" and that's fine. In fact, that's great. I have not given up on the idea that the word "Pagan" may very well indicate a commonality transcendent of specific religious categorization, but I do think we should stop saying that Paganism is a “religion” which assumes a common belief system, and come up with another, more careful term for what Paganism is and that acknowledges that it encompasses multiple religions. Paganism is a “_____”, comprised of multiple, diverse religions that often, but not always are characterized by “_____________”. I don’t have the words to fill in those blanks, btw. I’m still too early in the thinking stages and, as I’ve said, I’m just too unfamiliar with the depth of other Pagan spiritual perspectives to dare to fill in those blanks right now.

I suggest a shift from the use of the term Pagan to designate a singular religion to the use of the term to designate a family of religions. Abrahamic folks share historical and theological traditions. They are members of the same family of religions but not members of the same religion. In suggesting that the parallel term to Pagan is "Abrahamic", rather than Christian, Muslim, or Jewish, I am not looking to sacrifice solidarity but suggesting that we are more diverse than we have allowed and that those differences are more important than we have acknowledged.

If we were to look within just one of the Abrahamic religions, we see great diversity that already tests the cohesion indicated by the term "religion." Technically, Greek Orthodox, Southern Baptists, and liberal Christian Quakers are all “Christian” but they are practically so far apart in theology that it would be unreasonable for them to approach each other outside of a framework that immediately acknowledged those profound theological and historical differences. They do, at least, share a common emphasis on "Christ" although their definitions of that term vary dramatically. Do Pagans share at least one common definition that would place us all within one religion? I honestly don't think so although probably, we could subdivide several Pagan perspectives into a smaller handful of "religions". Perhaps, for instance, we might consider feminist, earth-centered Paganisms with historical roots in western Romanticism as a religion. If such were the case, then Kemetic Reconstructionists and Dianic Wiccans can coexist as Pagans much as Hasidic Jews and Roman Catholics share an Abrahamic identity without pretending they are in the same religion. Dianic Wiccans and ecofeminists, despite many differences in theory and practice might be classified in the same religion although of different denominations as are Roman Catholics and Baptists.

Who We Are or Who We Are Not

I am not Wiccan. This is a statement of fact but it is also often a defensive statement with all the snarly negativity that implies. There are lots of Wiccans and they have published, organized, and educated the non-Pagan public. As a result, "Paganism" in the popular media and public understanding is often synonymous with the most well-recognized and popular forms of Wicca. In my experience, this means that before anyone knows who I am, I have to explain who I am not. Sometimes, I find that folks won't believe me. They argue with me along these lines: "If you are Pagan, and Pagans are Wiccans, then you must be Wiccan. Further, if you disagree with what I understand to be Wiccan, then you must not be a Pagan." Irritating... but not Wiccans' fault...at least not entirely.

There are lots of times when I feel the urge to just give up. I'm so sick of being told that I'm not a Pagan that I've almost come to believe it. I know I am not alone. One can find a cautionary narrative in the history of first and second century Christianity. What we came to recognize as orthodox Christianity was no more than the outcome of a game of spiritual Survivor. Last person standing wins and the last person standing is the person with the most power and the best PR.

But Wiccans are NOT orthodox Christians. Every single Wiccan with whom I have worked or communicated would be horrified at the idea that they are seeking to create an orthodox Paganism. My Wiccan friends are not standing in for orthodox Christianity and I do not wish to play the role of the ill-fated Gnostics. However, I am concerned that although we lack the intention to repeat this scenario, an orthodoxy and orthopraxy may emerge not out of our intention to purge Paganism of difference but out of our unwillingness to honestly engage the differences-- thereby tacitly supporting the unquestioned philosophical supremacy of the most popular Pagan groups. I see casual statements about Paganism as a religion as well statements indicating a belief that one's personal beliefs are universal or nearly universal to Pagans generally evidence of this drift toward a popular orthodoxy.

I express this caution but I am not discouraged. Now is the time to ask the hard questions and to engage in the difficult discussions. Neo-Paganism is still in its infancy. Its admission into the world of ideas is still tentative. The academic world is just now beginning to take our scholars and our narratives seriously. We need not worry unduly that our inability to define Paganism as a religion is indicative of intolerance among us. We have always been more diverse than even we have acknowledged. We are simply emerging into that time in our history in which this discussion of "religion" became inevitable. As non-Pagan academics and thinkers become more and more aware of Paganism as a legitimate category of religious expression, we find that they are not yet clear on just how diverse we are. Too many of us remain unpublished, undocumented, unacknowledged (at times because of unequal access to publications and/or because solitary and isolated practitioners have a much harder time with networking). Therefore, those of us who don't fall nicely into the more popular categories can concede the success of better organized and publicized Paganisms and bow out, we can become defensive and bitter, or we can find a way to assert our right to the term within a more carefully defined and celebrated diversity.

Our ability to see differences and to develop a conversation based on those differences emerges as the internet brings solitary, isolated, and marginalized Pagans into contact with more organized, community-oriented Pagan groups. We are beginning to see which perspectives are privileged. We are beginning to see that some of our assumptions of what are Pagan "essentials" are not universal. I think that despite the discomfort of some of these conversations and confrontations, they are really to everyone's benefit. We are able to see, at the experiential level, the drama of our the-logical, philosophical, and practical differences. At times, the dissonance is jarring enough to promote questions: What does "Pagan" mean anyway? Who defines the term? Who frames the conversation? And more importantly, who is excluded from participation in that work? These can be uncomfortable and even saddening questions, particularly as we fear that the loss of the religious category might erode acknowledgment from the non-Pagan world, but I think the benefits outweigh the risks.

I see these questions and challenges not as a tragedy of disunity but as a more promising and honest context for promoting true and lasting relationships with each other based on mutual understanding and respect. While it is certainly more comfortable to believe that other "Pagans" are just like me, it isn't honest. I'd rather get to know other "Pagans" who do NOT share my religious beliefs, worldview, or assumptions as they are rather than imagine them as I'd like them to be. No true peace comes from gazing in the mirror and pretending you are the entire world.

So where do we even begin this conversation? Especially, how do those of us on the margins of Paganism/Neo-Paganism begin this conversation without coming off as merely angry with Wiccans for being more numerically successful than we are? This conversation cannot be about sour grapes. It has to be more than temper tantrums growing out of sense of being overlooked. The problem is not merely one of intrafaith dialog among other self-defined Pagans (although this is difficult enough), but identification in an interfaith world that continues to use "Pagan" inaccurately, dismissively, and pejoratively. The existence of a popular default hegemony of eclectic Wicca (which I see as imposed by non-Pagan popular media, publishing, and academic worlds still only providing token space and attention to Paganism despite our difference) silences meaningful and challenging interfaith discourse. In my interfaith work, I find that I end up having to both defend Wicca as “not Satanic” before I even get a chance to define my own in some ways very different spiritual path. It would be easier to avoid this defensive posture if we made it clear to non-Christians that though we maintain strong loving bonds with each other, we are not all members of the same religion any more than Muslims, Christians, and Jews are members of the same religion. Our ability to honor our differences without glossing over them or ignoring them could serve as a model for Abrahamic peoples whose differences have engulfed the world in wars for thousands of years. We can only have fruitful conversations when we are willing to meet others as they are rather than as we wish or imagine them to be. The hegemony of the popular is easier, but it is a poor substitute for true peace.

For related views, please see
The Great Tininess and Pagan Godspell

Friend Thomas M'Clintock

2010-05-29T08:23:00.000-07:00

"Religion has been emphatically embodied, not in speculative theories, but in practical righteousness, in active virtues, in reverence to God, in benevolence to man- the latter being the only sure test of the former." -- Thomas M'Clintock in the National Anti-Slavery Standard, 1841

Thomas M'Clintock was an abolitionist Friend who was among those who separated from Genesee Yearly Meeting in 1848 to form a Progressive Friends meeting. One month later, he and a number of other Garrisonian abolitionist Friends would provide the backbone of support for the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, NY. His wife and daughters were among the principle players in the organization and execution of the Seneca Falls Convention and in the Rochester Convention that followed. Thomas was one of the signers of the Declaration of Sentiments which demanded, among other things, the elective franchise for American women. Part of a vibrant history of human rights activism, William Lloyd Garrison wrote to Thomas, "You have a soul capable of embracing the largest idea of humanity..."

Lucretia Mott called him "a biblical scholar of some renown." He edited the first volume of Elias Hicks's Sermons (1826) and in 1831 worked on the eight volume publication of Works of George Fox. As a leading Hicksite luminary and reformer, Thomas M'Clintock's leadership was critical in the formation of Progressive Friends in the late 1840s. After their split with Genesee Yearly Meeting, the Junius meeting of Progressive Friends (later known as Friends of Human Progress)continued with their work as abolitionists and advocates of women's equality. Their meetings were congregational and non-hierarchical. Women and men met together and members were not required to agree on doctrine or creed. In October of 1848, Thomas M'Clintock wrote The Basis of Religious Association, which stated, "The true basis of religious fellowship is not identity of theological belief, but unity of heart and oneness of purpose in respect to the great practical duties of life."

Friends belonging to or associated with the Progressive Friends meeting in Junius/Waterloo included Daniel Anthony and his daughter Susan B. Anthony, Amy and Isaac Post, Thomas and Mary Ann M'Clintock, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (who worshiped with Friends in the late 1840s and 1850s). Lucretia and James Mott were present at the Genesee Yearly Meeting in which Progressive Friends separated themselves from the larger meeting. She gave vocal and written support to the dissidents and assisted them in their organization.

The emergent women's rights movement of the mid-nineteenth century was led and inspired by Quaker advocates of women's equality among whom Thomas M'Clintock wielded great intellectual and moral influence. It is unfortunate how little attention has been paid to his life and legacy. Lately I've been thinking of him, thankful for him, and looking forward to learning more. I'm realizing now how much I owe his open-minded approach to religious association for my ability to make a spiritual home among Friends.

For information on Thomas M'Clintock and Progressive Friends in New York see

Judith Wellman's The Road to Seneca Falls (2004)

A Call to Fall in Love with People who Irritate Us for the sake of Divinity

2010-05-20T09:25:00.000-07:00

The theme of my thoughts these days has been on little, pernicious stereotypes as related to self-identity. The consideration of "identity" has always been a focus for me as a feminist thinker. As I mature, I note that my own identity is increasingly liminal and border-crossing. It frustrates me at times to never be able to fit neatly into any categories. I would enjoy, just for a moment, to see what it is like to be an easy fit with another group of human beings, but I know from experience that "fitting in" is so psychically uncomfortable to me that it is worth the extra effort of forging friendships based not on commonalities but on time, conversation, and love.

Very many of my strongest connections to others come not from an easy compatibility but from the hard work of laboring with another person through the differences. If, as I believe, the Divine is beyond measure and beyond definition, and if, as I believe, each of us is a unique manifestation of that Divine Energy in our physical and spiritual "bodies" as well as in our perspectives, it is imperative that we reach out to each other as we are not as we believe we should be. I am but one spark of the Divine driven by a desire to join in the company of Light. Too often, I seek out those who are most like me. Worse, I try to make others into my own image, but to mistake my own reflection for the inner Light of another soul is to surrender myself to a tragic and profound loneliness.

So much of our identities are both constructed and relational and yet one would never know this from the way that folks lob defining words at other people like weapons. Words are tricky things. They help us communicate ideas even as they interrupt the freedom ideas require to grow. There are a million things I could say on this topic but I will focus only on one bit of advice. Instead of defining the person sitting across from you, that person who frustrates your conceptions and definitions and irritates the snot out of you with their "wrong"-ness, try listening to them instead. Listen deeply and patiently. Listen passionately and faithfully. Let them tell their own stories. Let them define their own words. Hear them into Fullness. When you are unsure, ask for clarification. Perhaps they are using your cherished words differently than you do. Perhaps their experience taught them different truths than the ones you love. Be cognizant that it is possible that they too are learning what it means to be a human being and that they too are doing the best they can in the circumstances of their own lives and that miraculously, you have met them, this facet of the Divine, this Spark of Life, in your own travels. A million circumstances could have kept them from you and yet here they are with you! Here is another story, a story you have never heard before, and you may hear it if you are willing. This is a miraculous and joyful thing though it may also be hard and bitter in the execution. All Thought is seeking to know in all the ways that Knowledge can be found. It takes an Infinity of us to accomplish this. All of Life is yearning for Itself. Honor your own experience and do not apologize for it. It is a unique manifestation of the Divine that only you could accomplish. But remember, you do not hold the entirety of the Divine in your heart. If God is anything, S/He is a Process, a Relationship, a Love Unfolding. All of Life is yearning for Itself. We are called to desire each other, to touch each other. We are called to listen and to fall in love with the "Other" though the Other may be very strange. I cannot explain the mystery of falling in love with difference and finding there my deepest Self. But it is a good thing and I want more of it.

How Can A Pagan Environmentalist Not Like Being Outside?

2010-05-19T10:24:00.000-07:00

How can a Pagan environmentalist not like being outside? Easy. I just don't. Doesn't that mean that I must not be a real Pagan and I must not be a real environmentalist? Apparently not since I am clearly an environmentalist and I am clearly a Pagan and I clearly do not like being outside. A zebra with spots! Good Lord! I am proof that such an animal exists. Let me explain my deviance.

1. There are lots of insects outside. I love insects. They are endlessly fascinating and beautiful comrades in my journey through life. I refuse to kill or injure them--- but I'm also not keen on having them land on my lips and eyeballs. I'm not thrilled about mosquito bites either and I can live without bee, wasp, hornet,or yellow jacket stings. I find it distressing when an insect, the fragile and exquisite handiwork of my Creator, dive bombs my potato salad. Being outside seems to invite this unpleasant insect attention.

2. I am almost always too hot or too cold even indoors. In Upstate NY, the weather changes rapidly. My children went swimming for the first time this year during the first week of May. Later that week it snowed. We have snow in May and heat waves in December. We have ice storms, windstorms, and lightning storms. These are great and interesting phenomena but I prefer to be indoors during them. I also find that prolonged exposure to our more typical forms of weather which consist primarily of icy cold, clammy drizzle, and muggy heat bums me out. I do like to spend time outside sometimes, but I like it to be purposeful and I like it to be limited in duration.

3. Indoors is where people read and talk. I find these activities stimulating Outdoors they throw spherical objects at each other and insist that I help them with yard work. I do not enjoy these activities.

4. The outdoors is very dirty. I do not like to feel soiled. Yucky.

5. I live in rural America. The outdoors smells of flowers. And manure. Mostly manure. Do the math. Also, one of our primary crops is cabbage. Have you smelled cabbage fermenting in the fields?

I always say, "I love Nature...in theory." This is a joke. Mostly. But I do love Nature. I support it as best as I am able and hope to keep learning how to increase my abilities to be Nature's ally. I am a committed Crunchy Green Earth Mama. I breastfed all my children well past the age at which they could engage in stimulating conversation with me regarding the merits of breastfeeding. I am a vegan who chooses locally grown and organic foods (when I can get them in a region that has a growing season of about six days somewhere near the end of August). I stand opposed to wastefulness, consumerism, commercialism, capitalism, and unnecessarily shiny fabrics. I support environmentalist causes, read environmentalist publications, and teach environmentalist topics to my students. I just happen to not like gardening, outdoor play, or having to stand anywhere that is too sunny, breezy, nippy, or damp.

My "God" is in Nature. True. But my "God" is also in intellect, in conversation, in relationships, and in thought. These things are natural too. Just as lots of Christians do not really like to spend their entire day worshiping in the temples of their faiths (often there is a funny smell), I do not really like to spend my entire day in what others perceive as the temple of my faith. So I will continue to honor nature in my own way, here by a window. The trees are indeed, lovely, dark and deep. But I have kitchen floors to sweep, and lots to read before I sleep, and lots to read before I sleep.

A Dream: Quakers and an Earthenware Pot

2010-05-06T06:51:00.000-07:00

I dreamed that blogging Friends were looking at evidence of Jesus' life among us. It was a crystal bowl of exquisite design said to belong to Christ and his followers. Various Friends discussed their beliefs related to this ancient evidence. I remained unimpressed by the vessel because it appeared to be manufactured at a later date and betrayed a European and even American artistic and industrial background. The glass was too clear and the edges too crisp. Even so, it was impressive, old, and fragile. In fact, it was so old that it was chipping away. One could see that underneath was an even older vessel made of red clay. I could see the hand-turned pot beneath the shine of the crystal and I could even touch the earthenware bowl's base where it was completely exposed at the base. Touching it sent shivers right through me.

And I thought, "What if this is real? What if he was real?" And I thought how much I wanted to believe not in the beautiful crystal form but in the rude, red earth beneath.

May Day Contemplations

2010-05-04T07:15:00.000-07:00

May Day is one of my favorite holidays. We usually go to our favorite Mennonite greenhouse and buy plants and flowers and then give them anonymously to older family members and neighbors. "Anonymously" is maybe a stretch. I imagine they know that we are behind the new hanging basket of flowers outside their doors. They aren't stupid. Still, it is fun to sneak up with the blooms and then sneak away to admire the gift from a distance.

This year we didn't do anything for May Day. My husband's new work schedule combined with my unusual teaching schedule temporarily eliminates most possibilities of religious observance. Nevertheless, this May Day, though uncelebrated, did not go unrecognized in my heart. I spent it contemplating my status as a Pagan and wondering at my inability to draw close to others who share that identity.

It is curious to me that the more Pagans I know, the less "Pagan" I feel. On the other hand, I am finding that I am more and more likely to consider myself "Quaker" without the hyphen. The words I have used to describe myself have changed since my father baptized me as a toddler. Since then I have been a consecrated soul though the words that describe the consecration shift. The funny thing is that my spiritual sensibilities don't change much at all over time. The same feelings and core beliefs I had as a young Christian girl are the same ones I possessed as a Pagan teenager and young adult and as a Quaker Pagan mother. Perhaps the feelings are processed, analyzed, and organized differently within the context of my educational and evolving experiential context, but basically, I haven't changed that much. Certainly, I have not had a "conversion experience" so much as I have played with words and metaphors for what my heart experiences wordlessly and this has resulted in an evolving terminology.

I am a "solitary practitioner." I have a shelf of familiar Pagan and Wiccan books. As a young woman I was more likely to play with ritual, prayers, altars, and candles but I never took such play seriously. I recognized it as play and believed that the play itself was the worship. It was signal to my unconscious self that now was a time to release the rational and the cerebral and to relax happily into a world of dream-like symbolism. Had someone asked me then what books to read to understand Paganism, I would not have suggested any of these books (unless I knew that they were also capable of that kind of play). I was far more likely to suggest academic texts written for non-pagan and/or feminist audiences. If asked if I believed in any of it, I would have said that performing a ritual or saying a prayer or invoking a spiritual entity was really an engagement with a deeper, less accessible part of my own psyche and therefore a means whereby I could engage with the Divine less encumbered by the linear, rationalist chains I drag around. My Goddess is Hel but is she a real Goddess? And I would think, "What is real?" But if you pressed me more, I would say that She is a manifestation of memory, pain, and desire and therefore real to me and that She, like me, was a part of a Mystery Far Greater and Wilder. But is Hel a living Goddess of static and historically verified form whose worship I could honestly pass on to others? Hell, no. I'm just not that kind of Pagan.

On another shelf I have books of more academic interest for the study of spiritual feminism. Marija Gimbutas, Mary Daly, Charlene Spretnak, Mary Condren, Merlin Stone, and Carol Christ share space with books by Christian feminists like Rosemary Radford Ruether, Renita Weems, and Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza. I'm far more interested in these conversations than in discussions of faeries and gods which have never been anything more than imaginary playmates for me. Give me a good sacred debate about ethics and history. I do not need the author to identify himself or herself as Pagan. Some of my favorite "Pagan" writings come from Transcendentalism, Romanticism, and Theosophy. I confess that I have never read Starhawk. I tried, but it didn't take. I found Margaret Fuller and Matilda Joslyn Gage more to my liking.

I recognize the equinoxes and solstices and celebrate our family's Pagan holidays of Halloween and All Souls' Day, Yule, Bride's Day, May Day, and the Sauerkraut Festival (Lughnasa). On Halloween and All Souls' Day we leave apples on the graves of our ancestors and loved ones. On Yule we seek the Holy Child in the woods by candlelight. On Bride's Day we bake a cake and decorate the house with silver and white. On May Day we seek flowers (and Mennonite bulk foods) to celebrate the return of green. At the Sauerkraut Festival, we welcome home family from around the country who join us in feasting on local produce. We watch the parade and walk around the village remembering childhood then come home to play dominoes and share stories around the old dining room table with the elders.

If someone were to ask me how I worship, I would say that I do it by hanging laundry on the line and if they asked what I believe I would say that I believe that all that exists is en-souled. I would say that we are paradoxically one and One and that this is all I know of God. I would say that humanity is the tenant and steward of Nature (though perhaps we will soon be evicted for our abuse of this office). I would say that love is our mission and life is our school. If you asked by what principles I organize my life I would say, "Simplicity, Sustainability, Pacifism, Equality, and Compassion." And if you asked what I am here to do, I would say that I am here to learn and to share what I have learned. And what of sin? I would tell you that sin is to willfully live apart from one's calling and to willfully separate another soul from theirs.

I think I would not have questioned whether or not to use the term "Pagan" to describe myself if I had not begun blogging and if I had not then been introduced to so many other Pagans in the blogosphere who seem to take the forms and the history so much more seriously than I do. I think, perhaps, what is happening to me is similar to what happened to my family when I was an adolescent. It came to pass that we learned that what we understood to be essentially "Christian" was not truly what other Christians believed and practiced and since we were the minority, it was easier to stop calling ourselves Christians than it was to try to conform to them. In that time too I found that "Pagan" also defined my essential Christian faith and was indeed a better term since it encompassed not only love for the collective and individual souls of humanity but for the entire Cosmos. I found in it that death and grief and light and hope and pain and passion and paradox all have a home in the Divine.

On this May Day, I contemplated my Paganism as I rode through the countryside on the way to the grocery store. I know nothing of covens and little of ritual. My interest in mythology is academic. My Paganism is in the orchards and the farm fields and in the vineyards. It is in the cemeteries rich with ancestors. It is in my woman's blood and my maternal fear. It is in grief and longing and hope and hunger. It is in the land, in my bones, in the way my husband smiles at our children and in the May Day flowers still waiting for us at the Mennonite greenhouse. I owe no allegiance to any pantheon. Mother Mary/Sophia/Christ, Hel, and Aslan most often populate my symbolic landscape but they are only shadows of that which hovers in and about and through and near me as I hang socks on the laundry line. I don't need to name that. I don't need to know. I don't even know what questions I would ask although I know the answers are "Yes and always."

And here my sentiments outstrip my sense so I must stop. Perhaps it is not important for me to know if I am properly Pagan or properly Quaker or properly Christian or properly non-theistic. I suppose I am not properly anything except myself which is what I am called to be. And perhaps that is just exactly enough.

Solitary Sunday

2010-04-27T14:22:00.000-07:00

During the college's spring break, I was able to attend MfW twice. It had been months since I was able to spend time with Friends in worship. I even had the truly wonderful treat of having a f/Friend visit me in my home where we talked and laughed and cried together. She told me that I in a necessary Dark Night of the Soul and encouraged me to continue forward with Friends' guidance. I long for that although I am yet too shy to ask for help. Sadly, I'm back in my regular academic schedule in which I teach every Sunday and am unable to attend worship. It will take some greater effort on my part to push myself toward Friendly assistance.

My current schedule has a three hour morning class followed by a three hour break followed by a three hour evening class. Typically, my parents have taken me out to eat during the break but since the entire family schedule has changed to accommodate my husband's new work schedule, I was on my own for the day. So this is what I did:

After my first class was over I walked down into the basement of the building where I share an office with my father (another history prof) and our office mate, a criminal justice professor. Of course on a Sunday neither of them are there and the office is all mine. And when I say "all mine" I mean that their stuff dominates the room, but I can sit at my little desk in the corner with the computer that doesn't work on it. Sometimes I use Dad's computer to watch Britcoms or Star Trek online. There's a fridge, t.v./VCR and a microwave in the office so it is quite comfortable. Dad keeps oatmeal in the bottom drawer of his desk so I made myself a bowl and went to the vending machine down the hall and bought some chips and peanuts (which I mixed with a little box of raisins I've been carrying in my pocketbook) and had my breakfast/lunch/dinner for the day. While I ate I read Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Estes. Then I read Paul Tillich's Courage to Be. I read the Bible I carry in my pocketbook with my raisins. I also sat in silent waiting worship for several minutes but found that it is just not the same without other Friends nearby. I lay my head on my desk and tried to think of nothing for a few more minutes in the hopes that seeking nothing would lead me somewhere. I think I may have dozed off for a little while. I stood up and did some Qi Gong and then did some yoga. I read some more. Then I walked back upstairs to teach my next class.

And that was all except that it felt significant. I'm not sure what it accomplished but it felt like an important afternoon for me wedged as it was between The Great Depression in the morning and The Battle for Suffrage in the afternoon. It felt lovely to be so quiet and lonesome for so long. But what did it mean? I don't think I know yet although I sense that something is changing in me very slowly and much against my will. Part of it is the slowly evolving decision to not have any more children. (The rational part of that decision was really made years ago but my emotions have been very slow to acceptance). Part of it is a diminishing sense of my own youthfulness as my students seem to get younger and younger. Part of it is the sense that many doors are closed to me and that I am losing my curiosity about what is beyond them. Part of it is a sense that there is still a gateway ahead of me that I have feared to approach. Even so, and against my conscious will, my feet carry me in that direction although I am grumbling and crying in fear with every step. Soon, perhaps, I will see who beckons me beyond that gate and I will run forward eagerly. I think I may have caught a glimpse this solitary Sunday but I cannot recognize the face yet. I'm still scared and not ready to give up my fear. Not yet. But soon. Yes. I think it will be soon.

A Guilt-Ridden and Unreasonable Rant About Earth Day

2010-04-23T08:05:00.000-07:00

Apparently, it has been a month since my last post. For some reason, I've not had much to say here. But Kevin has made me feel guilty so I'll think of something to say. ;-) And speaking of guilt, perhaps I should comment on Earth Day.

I don't like Earth Day. Yesterday, as I was washing my second hand dishes under a trickle of water, I was thinking how much I dislike Earth Day. I dislike Earth Day for the same reason I disliked school. I dislike Earth Day and school because I have always been a "good girl."

I was the child who always followed the rules (unless they were unjust and I was making a statement). I ate my vegetables, stayed away from drugs and alcohol, and kept a chaste distance from boys. I did about five hours of homework a night and had a personal policy of reading all my textbooks about 5 to 10 times depending on length. I studied three hours for every quiz and six hours for every test. I helped with housework, was polite to my elders, was scrupulously honest, went to church every Sunday, and raised my hand to answer all the questions my teachers asked. In fact, the teachers used to ask questions like this, "Does anyone besides M. know the answer?" The other kids hated me.

I was teacher's pet (which basically meant the privilege of being assigned extra work at an advanced level and being held to a standard of having to earn above a 96% on everything I handed in), but it did not protect me from feeling tremendously guilty when the teachers stood in front of the class and chastised us collectively for failing to perform. I understood intellectually that I was not included in these lectures, but emotionally, I was torn apart. In fact, in fourth grade, I cried every single day after school. At times my parents pulled me out for a day just to give me an emotional rest. I'd get so worked up about making sure my teachers were happy that I would become exhausted and hysterical. My perfectionism consumed me to the point at which my father insisted that I intentionally try to get only a C on my work. (I did not obey that request.)

The problem was not just that I was a perfectionist who felt totally condemned by my every tiny error, but that I was also an empath who identified with all the other children as the teacher yelled at them. Unfortunately, I was not yet sophisticated enough to differentiate between my sense of them as emotional people and my sense of myself. When another child was chastised, I felt chastised. When someone teased another kid, I went home sick with emotion.

So last night as I was washing my second hand dishes under a trickle of water, I realized why I dislike Earth Day. It is because I am still a good girl. I still eat my vegetables and have been a vegan for years. I changed over all my light bulbs years ago too. I buy locally and/or organic and live by the rule, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." I mow with a non-electric push mower. I don't ride in airplanes. My rugs are made of recycled bottles. I recycle everything, carry reusable bags, and hang my laundry on the line. Hell, I even wash my laundry by hand sometimes and make my own laundry soap. I even make and wash my own reusable menstrual rags. I breastfed each of my children for years and wore them in a sling at my hip. I'm crunchy as hell. And it isn't like I want to be. I do it because it is what is required of me as a child of this planet. And I'm always, always, always looking for new ways to be "good." I drive my family crazy with it. Every time they turn around there's another product, food, or practice that makes it onto my list. No palm oil (depletion of orangutan habitat). No American-grown tomatoes (avoiding the practice of abusing virtually enslaved migrant workers). No items manufactured in China or India (workers' rights violations and environmental irresponsibility). I won't even give money to several charities that fail my ethics requirements for environmental responsibility.

So on Earth Day when the lectures on "what we all need to do to save the planet" start, my guilt reflexes go into full throttle just as they did when my teachers stood in the front of the room and lectured us all on our failure to master fractions or to listen quietly to instructions. I knew I wasn't the direct object of their scorn, just an unhappy participant in the giant failure of society that was my classroom. Every word of condemnation seems to weigh on me. "You! You are the selfish, western imperialist bitch who will be responsible for the failure of our culture! Mother Nature will crush you!"

What if I'm not doing enough? I know I'm not doing enough! (Perhaps we just can't ever do enough if it is already too late.) What more can I do? What more can I give up? This morning I was thinking about how I've been careless about my notebooks. What if the glue and ink in them is inhumane and environmentally toxic? My God! What pain have I caused by my love of the convenience of essay pads? How many hundreds of ways have I unconsciously participated in western society's relentless imperialist degradation of the planet? How have I failed?

And then I get angry. Really angry. Because here's the real deal. Lots and lots of us are busting our asses trying to be good, trying to learn and grow and be more aware, more conscientious, more tender-hearted in our relationship to our planet and all the life that relies on it. Lots of us are good kids who Love our Mother, but it doesn't count for shit when those with power-- industrialists, capitalists, politicians, world leaders-- just keep screwing the planet over. I'm not going to get into what their reasons might be or what might be standing in their way from making real, lasting, effective change. It seems to me that they're all a bunch of selfish, greedy, assholes. And if they aren't assholes, then they are cowards. We're dying here and they keep playing games, the most popular of which is "Let's See How Rich and Powerful I Get Before I Die." Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm judgmental. I'm simplistic. The world is a complicated place and my idealism doesn't really work out in "the real world." Fine.

But here's what I want for the next Earth Day. When it comes time for the teachers' lectures on what we all need to do to save the planet, why not spare us good kids for once? Just give us one day off from our obsession with trying desperately to do the right thing. Trust me, we're working on it. We're thinking about it all the damn time. I get to be a member of the first generation that doesn't believe they will do as well as their parents and who doesn't believe their children will have a better life. Make a point instead of lecturing the factory owners, the corporate bullies, the rich folks who la-de-da their prissy asses in cars and houses that are too damn big, the politicians who sell us out and the world powers that push us under. We can all recycle every damn thing we've ever owned, turn off all our lights, and eat only hemp from now until Doomsday and it won't save us as long as the Big Boys continue to deny that global warming is happening (or else sell us cute stuffed polar bear toys to make us feel better), pump toxins into the air and water, deplete our resources, screw their workers, and then greenwash the entire sordid affair with some cutesy commercial..."now with the cleaning power of baking soda!" (as if baking soda itself doesn't have the cleaning power of baking soda).

So happy Earth Day. I'll be hanging out menstrual rags I made myself out of second hand flannel sheets and organic cotton diapers on a laundry line I purchased from a maker of non-electric goods over a lawn I mowed with a push reel mower. So keep all your Earth Day celebrations and leave me the f--ck alone. I don't want to feel guilty, discouraged, and responsible right now. Direct your lectures and your consciousness raising to the people who sit in board rooms justifying decisions of horrific consequence for the sake of profits and power. Give me the day off. I'm tired and I'm sad and bone-weary from fighting. I don't feel like celebrating Earth Day.

P.S. I write this in honor of all my friends who are also doing their best to save the planet in their own ways (and they don't all have to be the same ways, btw) despite the relentless bad news we keep receiving from scientists and experts who are scary enough as it is and probably keeping some of the information from us so we don't all collectively soil our pants. I'm thankful for you. I thank you for keeping me afloat in all my fear as the end of all things approaches. You're all good kids and good companions on the journey (through hell).

My Daughter is Watching Me

2010-03-27T21:01:00.000-07:00

I think I may be ready to fight again. As I wash dishes, I listen to my eleven year old daughter telling me her plans for changing the world. She wants to be an organic farmer raising her animals humanely so that even her vegan mother will feel comfortable drinking the milk. She wants to be an environmentalist, a feminist, an artist. She raises funds in our family to give to people in need and can tell us how much it costs to immunize 50 children against polio. As I run hot water over the plates she tells me about how far our small amount of money can go if we share it with people with greater needs than our own. She wants to give to PBS, to UNICEF, to wildlife protection and she plans to give all of her birthday money away. So much like me when I was a child, she is full of fight and idealism. She can be moralistic and judgmental but she is also relentlessly compassionate. She is champion of the underdog everywhere. Even when she was a tiny thing, her face would grow fierce when she heard about an injustice. She hangs on my words and devours the books I give her about social justice, environmentalism, and peace.

I don't want to be the one who tells her the world can't be changed. I don't want her to see me broken.

So I'm going to keep fighting. I'm going to give each speech and walk into each class like a prize fighter. Justice. Equality. Peace. Compassion. I will teach these things. I will sing about them, shout about them. I will whisper them into my students' ears and write them on my children's hearts. I will not let my daughter see me break.

I am small. I am female. I am poor. I am neurotic too with more phobias than I can list in a blog, but it doesn't matter because I am going to uphold my own promise to Integrity. I will speak the truth. I will not apologize for my knowledge. I did not go to college to get rich. I got my doctorate so that I could learn to tell the stories of those who dared and thereby infect others with courage. I cannot promise that I will not feel frustrated. Money is tight, opportunities are scarce, and acknowledgment is rare, but I will not let these be my excuses for a failure to do what I am called to do. I educated myself so that I could serve the world not myself.

I will never be famous. No one will remember my name when I am gone. I will never be rich and I may never escape my debt but I am not here to be rich or famous. I educated myself so that I could be useful. And dammit, I will be useful. I will make each day an act of faith and use all that I am to magnify the Light I find in every heart I encounter. I will sing, and laugh, and dance, and write with everything I have. As long as there is Good in the world, let me serve it. It is true. I've been sad and tired. I've felt bitter, misused, and discouraged, but it is time to lift my head. Yes, I think I'm ready to go out fighting again. Look at me square my shoulders. Hear me raise my voice. My daughter is watching me. I cannot fail.

Superstitious Nonsense or How I Keep Alive in this Churning Sea of Evil

2010-03-15T07:39:00.000-07:00

My parents and I ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant yesterday. After the meal, we contemplated a small plate of fortune cookies. My father pushed the dish toward me and I picked up the cookie nearest me. Then he indicated to my mother that she must make her choice. He was not just being polite. In fact, I realized, he was waiting to see which one was destined for him. "You're awfully superstitious for an atheist," I said to him. I can't remember what my own cookie indicated about my future. I think I did not pay it much mind because I had already negated it. You see, I viewed my fortune before completely consuming the cookie. This messes with the cookie vibes.

There are certain protocols one must follow in order to ensure the safety of one's family. Women in particular must be careful to admonish loved one's toward safe travel whether it is out of state, just down the road, or even just down a flight of stairs. "Be careful. Travel safely. You won't get there any faster if you speed. Don't tailgate. Drive defensively. Call me when you get there." We also give advice to avoid falling into ovens and to be mindful of the tines on plastic forks lest one should inadvertently bite one off and choke on it. We ask people to mind that they chew carefully, walk slowly, look where they are going, and watch what they are doing. We give this advice not because it helps anyone. We don't live with complete fools. We give this advice because the advice is magical. It protects our family from harm.

When I am to be separated from family members, I am careful to say,"We'll see each other later" not "I'll see you later." You see, I might see them later in a morgue and that would be no good. On the other hand to "see each other later" implies that both of us will have life and the power of sight. These details are important. One must always tell someone you love them before they go away for any length of time. If you don't, you increase their chances of death. Also, if you are angry with them or treat them badly in any way, you put them at higher risk. God is cruel that way (if I believed in God but of course I don't.)

When I was a child, I liked to do my homework on the hardwood floor of my bedroom. Sometimes I would get tired and want to rest my head for just a moment as I wrote. But I didn't. Why? Because if I did, the pencil lead would lodge itself in my eye. That was a fact. Also, it was important to not look out my windows at night lest the undead stare back at me. And one must be careful to decide on which side one sleeps. If I slept on my right, that would indicate to my murderer that now was the time to kill me. Unless he wanted me to believe that was his plan and the real danger side was the left... in which case I should sleep on my right side to fool him. Unless he expected me to second guess myself...

As an adult, I believe that to allow any person who is not a member of my family to drive me anywhere is to tempt fate. Likewise, I only allow my parents or spouse to drive my children and then only when it cannot be prevented. I will try to go with them because my presence in the back seat of an overcrowded vehicle has protective powers. Likewise, I have found that if I pretend that I have a break pedal on the passenger's side of the car, my husband does not run into other vehicles on the thruway.

We have a creek in the backyard and a tree house in the woods. You must ritually remind children not to drown or fall. Additionally, since we live in a house with three living spaces separated by two staircases, one must daily remind children not to tumble down stairs. "Hold onto the railing. Don't fall. Be careful. Don't trip on the cat." My grandmother is elderly so I scan the floor for things that might make her fall. There are the obvious things like loose carpet and toys but what about that twist tie or a tiny bit of paper? If I saw such a thing and did not pick it up immediately, she might become inexplicably entangled in it and fall to her doom. And whose fault would it be? That's right. Mine.

You see, one has to take a rational approach to the unpredictability of life and make the appropriate plans for health and safety. I don't believe in God, but I am careful to correct myself whenever I grow frustrated and indicate that "I hate my life." No. No. I don't hate my life! What I mean to say to anyone who is listening is that "I dislike my life as it is now and would prefer a more healthful and fulfilling lifestyle. That's what I meant to say and that's what I mean- just in case there was any unfortunate misunderstanding.

You see, I don't believe in angels (mine is named Jasper) and I don't believe in faeries (actually it is much better to refer to them obliquely as "the wee people" or "them that be"). I believe we are subject to the laws of science and that my use of divination cards is a rational exercise in creative exploration of the unconscious. Reincarnation is yet another form of wishful thinking (my special pendulum with the shiny faceted black plastic bead on the end of the old string indicates that I was a emotionally distant Asian business man in my prior life. Other assessments are inaccurate because only the shiny plastic bead has the right powers.)

It is silly to keep talismans and charms although I have found that a certain turquoise ring is excellent for safe travel. I have a goddess figurine who brings me success and a bronze cow who controls my temper. Little angel figures hung here and there in my home return my loved ones safely home. Rocks keep Grandpa's memory alive and a tiny fetus doll carried in my purse intensifies my maternal connections to my offspring.

OK. So maybe I'm just a little superstitious. Just a smidge. But mostly I take care of myself and my family with good sense and planning. Wear a seat belt (you know the first time you don't- even if you're only just sitting in a parked car, you'll die). Exercise and eat sensibly. Don't smoke or drink. (And you should probably hold your breath when you walk by smokers because second hand smoke will kill you just like that). Eat organic food. Take your vitamins. Every day. Or else you will be suddenly stricken my every disease you have ever read about on the internet.

I think these are wise precautions. And really, you don't want to go overboard with worry to the point at which you are engaged in ridiculous magical thinking. As frightening as the world is, beyond wholesome discipline and sensible precautions you can't keep evil forever from your door--although I do find that the image of the roaring lion I keep in my entryway seems to help.

Unqualified Hireling Ministers

2010-03-01T16:38:00.000-08:00

My position on the issue of education and ministry grows out of my origins as a minister's kid. In fact, my earliest memories are of life on a seminary campus where I lived with my father as he completed his graduate work. In my world, professional ministry was not something one took on until one had completed both undergraduate school and three years of graduate training. Those men and women who began serving churches in anything other than in the roles of student and assistant before they completed this necessary education were irresponsible- like public school teachers without grad degrees in education, like bus drivers without licenses, like psychotherapists without clinical training. How can one possibly accept a paycheck for professional ministry until one has the educational background and preparation in biblical scholarship and ministerial skills? Following are reasons why you should have a graduate degree before you become a professional member of the clergy.

Reason #1 Your religion and its sacred texts are more complicated than you think.

Despite what many people apparently believe, you actually can't interpret the Bible just by reading it "spiritually." As it turns out, there are methodologies with which one should first become familiar before speaking authoritatively on biblical texts. When interpreting ancient readings, it helps to know just a little about biblical criticism and history- unless, of course, you want to believe that God created all other civilizations to be helpful tools for our spiritual revelation. I tend to believe that other civilizations weren't thinking, writing, and behaving for our benefit but for theirs. Therefore, to interpret their literature, I find it helpful and respectful to acknowledge that it is possible that one cannot directly translate their motivations without first knowing something about their culture. But that's just me...and every other responsibly educated social scientist out there.

That's not to say that one has to be entirely academic when reading spiritual texts. I do believe there are human and spiritual commonalities across time that transcend cultural difference. I also believe that one can receive amazing wisdom in very non-linear, emotional, and inexplicable ways. It is sometimes beneficial to read the Bible "spiritually". Hell, I once received an important message from a fortune cookie. You just never know. So, I have nothing against spiritual interpretation per se. It has a role to play, but a hell of a lot of the the nonsense I've read and heard from many Christians might be eliminated if they had clergy who knew that a pericope was not some kind of exotic fruit.

Reason #2 Churches are full of human beings with complicated needs. They need people with expertise and training not a Pollyanna with a Christ complex.

You can't just go into a church, which is a financial and social body as well as a religious one, without being prepared to deal with the fiscal, emotional, psychological and business needs of that community. A Masters of Divinity is a three year graduate program that prepares professionals to encounter these difficulties. It probably should be a longer program but that's what we've got now. One hopes that those who possess this graduate education will continue to discipline themselves with continuing education and experiential learning. My own father did post-graduate work in clinical psychology after he earned his Masters of Divinity. Education is not a catch-all or a cure-all but it certainly does minimize the number of potential clergical dick decisions such as when my friend's untrained "Pastor" advised exorcism for her children. Being all revved up in the spirit of Jesus ain't going to cut it when you find yourself facing a budget shortfall or a case of child abuse.

I'm still floored whenever I hear about anyone in the paid ministry who has not completed a graduate education. How does that work, exactly? With a graduate degree, one can justify asking for a salary. A qualified minister has undergone coursework in topics such as biblical scholarship, theology, hymnity, and pastoral counseling. Their parishioners can expect a level of expertise, discipline, and access to information that will enhance the well-being of the community. But what if they just show up for work filled with the Spirit of the Lord but pretty light on credentials? What gives them the right to dispense religious teaching any more than the next person? Because they want to? Because they have a special interest? I'd like to teach anthropology to grad students. I've taken two introductory classes in community college. That should qualify me, right? My husband would like to fly a helicopter. He does own a model that actually flies. Maybe that's enough. I say we let him wing it. My father used to assist in autopsies. I say he should give surgery a shot.

Sure, some people are called to the ministry. Fine. So minister. But when you get paid to do that work, you set yourself up as one with authority to whom people in really serious trouble will turn. People respect that authority and they can be hurt by that authority. Badly hurt. I've seen it happen far too many times. This is why responsible people insist upon certain protocols in determining which individuals may provide which services and under what circumstances. Professional clergy must be responsible to a set of standards to which they are held not only by their congregations but also by a governing body outside the congregation.

I see the role of professional clergy as educators, advisors, and administrators. Their usefulness rests in their training and they should be trained to execute the tasks of research, counsel, and business. Their spiritual authority should not exceed that of any other member of the congregation. We should not hire clergy primarily because of their enthusiasm for their faith any more than we should hire college presidents for their enthusiasm for academics. How would that look, anyway?

"And why do you think you would make a good college president?"

"Well, I like to boss people around and I've visited several colleges.I know where the bathrooms are, and I look good in a suit. I'm an excellent bullshit artist and I really want this institution to succeed."

"Well, then, you're hired! What more could we want? I predict that under your unqualified but enthusiastic leadership, we'll achieve all the goals of our five year plan!"

Let me be clear. I am not against emotion, faith, and enthusiasm, but I do differentiate between professional clergy and faith-led ministry undertaken as a spiritual endeavor. As a Friend and as a spiritual person in general, I believe that all are called to ministry. I do not believe that any one person's calling, no matter how fancy or famous, is intrinsically superior to any other person's calling. For some of us, our ministry is obviously traditionally spiritual. For others not so much. We're all precious snowflakes that way, relying on each other to collectively express the fullness of humanity none of us can achieve on our own. We all have something to bring to the community which is why I so appreciate unprogramed Friends' meetings. None of us has authority beyond that borrowed from the community itself in the process of corporate decision making. We recognize that certain members have certain strengths, gifts, training, and talents that will serve us powerfully in specific situations, but do not assume that such gifts qualify them to dominate the discussion or the community in general. I recognize the unique wisdom others can bring to a community but I reject that anyone's wisdom is so unique that they, without any kind of academic or professional training, is better qualified to interpret scripture, advise others in distress, or make executive decisions. I believe we are all spiritual equals. No one has the right to assert any personal authority over any other human being.

We would expect that in addition to that enthusiasm, professionals and community leaders should have the training and background to justify giving them so much access to power. So this is why I am baffled when congregations hire clergy without educational and experiential backgrounds designed to prepare them for them for the position. Enthusiasm alone does not qualify anyone for practical authority. Or maybe I've missed something. Is there a religious wisdom meter out there of which I am not yet familiar? Is there some kind of spirit breathalyzer that can indicate when a person is drunk on the Lord and ready to lead a group of people in their religious life? What gives them the right to assume leadership in a community of potentially endangered, vulnerable human beings? Are they at least given a list of emergency numbers to call when some twenty year old "minister" first comes across a domestic violence victim or a pedophile in their congregation? Are they prepared to deal with it when the parking lot needs paving or the belfry has bats? Mightn't it make a teensy bit of sense to actually require that before someone takes on the role of leadership that they have taken just a few classes, at least, to prepare themselves for the professional clergy? It seems to me that a congregation that hires a minister with less than a graduate degree is like a family that hires a thirteen year old for a babysitting job. The kid's probably a great sitter so long as absolutely nothing unexpected happens while you are away. Likewise, a minister without training will probably do a great job so long as they are placed in a church without any problems. Have you ever been to one of those churches? Me neither.

The Irritating Crusader

2010-02-27T11:45:00.000-08:00

Once again I have made a statement in defense of what I believe to be right and once again, I regret it. It isn't a big deal, just a comment on another blog. I wish I hadn't done it. This Friend is weighty and admirable. I know he can make short work of me if he acknowledges me at all. He is older than I am, more experienced and more intelligent. But there was an unkindness in his words that felt like a punch in the gut. There was an injustice in his message that I could not leave alone. Perhaps he did not mean it to be so but for all his intelligence and weightiness, he wrote as one who is too removed from the experiences of want, of need, and poverty to understand how deeply they cut. Though I admire him greatly, his plate is full and his words dismissed the shame and rage felt by people who fight all their lives for a few crumbs. And I could not let that stand. So I commented. I sure do wish I hadn't. Who cares what I think? How annoying everyone will think me. How out of control.

When I was a little girl, my family was strolling through a mall. It was a rural mall that appealed to rural people and someone had set up a display of taxidermy. Among the stuffed animals was a wolf. Earlier that year, I had read an article in the Weekly Reader about the attempt to reintroduce wolves to Yellowstone against the opposition of ranchers who shot and poisoned the wolves out of fear that they would hunt their livestock. For whatever reason, it struck me as grossly wrong that any creature should be threatened with extinction after a process of systematic vilification and misunderstanding. I read all the books in the elementary school library I could find on wolves then I moved on to the high school and public libraries. I even began a group of other little girls who got together to do research on wildlife and to write essays on our findings. We called ourselves the Society for the Restoration of Canis Lupus. My father's best friend owned hybrid wolves and I arranged to have him bring them to my elementary school to introduce the younger kids to the creatures. I knew that the Big Bad Wolf wouldn't stand a chance as soon as they got to touch and play with the real thing. I remember feeling so proud when I began to see happy pictures of wolves on display outside the primary school classrooms.

So there I was in the mall looking at this stuffed shell of a creature I had come to respect as kin and for whom I had taught myself to fight. The disgust I felt that someone had shot, disemboweled and displayed it as a prize threatened to overwhelm me. I don't know how long I stood there but I suddenly became aware of my father gently saying my name. "Come on, now," he coaxed as he led me away. I was small for my age and not in the least bit physical or athletic but I realized that my hands were in fists and that I had been moving toward the taxidermist. I'm not sure what I planned to do once I got there but I knew it was going to be ugly. My father knew, though I did not, that my body had a mind to go hit that man, to tear into him, to lay him low for his crime. I let Dad draw me away. He laughed at me a little bit as he always does when I start to lose my cool. "You have an acute sense of injustice," he teases.

It would not be the first or last time I would lose my cool in that way. Once, while sitting on my father's lap listening to my liberal father and my conservative uncle discuss politics, my uncle decided it would be fun to bait me by making disparaging comments about homeless people. I began to argue with him and he argued back as if I were a grown-up. It was a game to him but deadly serious to me and as he mocked poverty, I grew more and more upset until my father, stepped in. My father's voice held a warning in it when he told my uncle to stop. This was no longer a game. Sitting on my father's lap, I realized that he was physically restraining me from flying across the table and attacking my uncle.

I was the girl who took her eighth grade science teacher to task for his homophobia in front of the other students. I was the girl who got kicked out of homeroom for refusing to pledge allegiance to a flag. I was the woman who walked up to her department chair in a crowded hallway and told him that I was disappointed with his sexism and expected that he would correct the behavior (I also expected he would fire me on the spot). I was the woman who sent an email to the entire campus including the college president expressing my alarm at a racially insensitive fund raising drive then crawled into bed and cried all day as I waited for the angry responses. I hated all of these experiences.

Over and over and over again I do this thing and every time I've felt sick to my stomach and guilty and tearful for it. Even as I write or speak these things there is a part of me screaming, "Shut up, for God's sake!" But I never seem to be able to do so. This is not a gift. Others with finer tuned morality and greater understanding than I can ever boast will do much better things for the world. I will likely never hold a decent job or exercise any real power because I am never able to choose discretion when I taste injustice... and I taste injustice every day. I do not believe that my truth is universal but I do not seem to be able to withhold my truth when I think justice or compassion is insulted. If a thing is wrong, I say so...and often alienate everyone around me.

Does this make me heroic? Maybe sometimes. Maybe. But mostly I think it makes me an ass. There are too many times when I make a grand speech and then realize that I jumped the gun, misunderstood, or used lousy judgment. I'm too hard on people, humorless, and impatient. I am, and this is no surprise to anyone who knows me, a judgmental person. I am embarrassed by this. But what else can I do when I know that someone weaker is being shamed or bullied? I know what it feels like to be in that position and then later to hear from a witness to the event, "I was going to say something but..."

I have wondered if I was made to be this way. It seems an awfully mean trick to play on a little girl. Aren't we supposed to be sugar and spice and everything nice? I just ended up bookish, moralistic, and socially conscious, a combination that earned me the distinct privilege of having other kids roll their eyes at me whenever I spoke and throw stuff at my head when I walked down the hall. Though the other children did not care for me, I cried and raged whenever I saw another kid treated badly by a teacher or the principal. Even the early stories from preschool seem to suggest an inability to accept hierarchy or injustice and as I age, though they promised me I would mellow, I find that I get myself into more and more outrageous situations. My father pulls me back whenever he can. He acknowledges the injustice that is tormenting me, but he gently reminds me to use my head and think before I act. I am now in the habit of seeking his counsel before communicating with wealthy and powerful folks since I am most likely to lose my temper with those who have nice manners, pretty cars, and lousy ethics.

On the days when I believe in God, I have asked why I continue to humiliate myself by telling off people who are so powerful that they need only dismiss me with a chuckle. Is all of this some part of the plan? And what kind of crap plan is that? Why do I believe that I am some kind of modern day David with slingshot in hand? Probably there is no plan am I'm just maladjusted. I'm no David. I'm much more like one of those little aggravating yappy dogs, nipping and growling as if to make up for its ridiculous small size. I suppose being told off by me is akin to dealing with an especially persistent fly. After each encounter, I am ashamed of the scene I made and quietly thankful that I was not crushed. I know one day I will not be so lucky.

You shouldn't complain

2010-02-23T18:17:00.000-08:00

I want to quit my job.

It turns out that relatively speaking, it is a sweet job. I get a great deal of independence. I get to talk about history to captive audiences who give me great reviews and who do a great job stroking my ego. It pays very well per hour and gives me lots of free time. It is even fun most of the time and being a community college professor, I may even be making a difference every so often.

But it isn't enough. It isn't what my heart desires. It isn't my calling.

I'm an adjunct. Most of the full-timers (most of whom don't have a doctorate)treat adjuncts like we're part of the family but only as contemptible, backward cousins. We don't get benefits. We have no job security, no union representation, and receive only a fraction of the pay for the same work regardless of our levels of expertise. I feel that injustice every day not only when I try to pay bills but whenever a full timer gets to take over one of my classes at the last minute or doesn't bother learning my name despite the fact that I've been there teaching generally two to four classes a semester for several years.

There's no chance I'll advance. Hell, I tried to suggest that I could teach religion classes for them but was told that I wasn't qualified. (My doctorate is in religion studies. The head of that department has a master's degree in communications.) The library wouldn't even let me take out material I needed for my classes for some time until my father came and gave them hell for it. (He's a full-timer so they listen to him).

I shouldn't complain. Even though the pay is lousy and I have absolutely no job security, I get to read, research, and present material to groups of people. These are things I love. I love the theatrics of teaching. I love the conversations with the students. I love the challenge of learning new things every week. Sure, it was only meant to be a starter job for me until I got my writing career going. Turns out there's no time to write when one is teaching Western Civilization, U.S. History, African American history, and women's history, grading papers, and dealing with students. I'm just not organized enough. If I keep working, maybe I won't notice as my spirit bends to this new reality. Hell, maybe if I stay busy enough, I won't notice when it breaks. It was stupid to think I would be a writer one day. We can't all be writers, right?

Sometimes someone tells me I should quit. Such people are never the people who rely on my income. We barely get by on our combined salaries and my husband has taken a hit in both pay and insurance this year. I could write a book about all the horrible and unethical things that happen to working class guys like him. (And when I say "I could write a book" I don't mean it literally. I'd never have time and no one would pay me for it.) Even working twelve hour days he can't pay for my student loans and our medical and living expenses without my help meager as it is. Our budget has always been an austerity budget. No frills for us. No vacations or fun purchases. No carpets on the concrete floor. We have second and third hand mismatched furniture. One of the kids is on an old couch we make up at night for him. Another sleeps on a cot. My husband and I don't have our own bedroom so we sleep in the living room on a fold-out couch. The kids and I wear hand-me-down clothes. We shop only in thrift stores and buy second hand toys for Christmas. Without my parents' help, we'd surely need government assistance.

But I shouldn't complain. What other kind of job would let me stay home with my kids? That's a real luxury. I shouldn't dwell on the fact that the job requires a graduate education that cost six times more than what they pay me a year and I never mention that I've looked for other work but find that academics offers pretty slim pickings for people like me. If it weren't for this job, I'd be working in some office or doing not for profit work and that would probably kill me. I'm not a real "works well with others" person. I'm happy only if all eyes are on me or if I'm left entirely alone. Not big into having to deal with politics and human interaction. Yuck. I tend to become dangerously depressed in those situations. I've been dangerously depressed before so I tend to be pretty careful about putting myself into situations that might threaten a return of that condition.

I fear that I've never been much of a realist. In my dreams, they pay my husband a fair wage and give him benefits that actually allow us to see the doctors in our community without having to give up buying luxuries like food. In my dreams, I could use my doctorate to get a job teaching for people who recognize me as an expert. In my dreams, I have time to write- not just blogs and notes for class but novels and tomes and treatises. In my dreams, I would not fiercely regret my decision to go to college. I wouldn't wake up every day feeling sick and sullen. I wouldn't have aged as much in this last year from stress-related stomach pain, migraines, and body aches. I wouldn't have to witness my husband working in situations that have resulted in bruising, injuries, night terrors, and a diagnosis of PTSD. (All while putting a good face on it so as not to worry me.) And since I'm dreaming, how about a vacation? In almost fourteen years of marriage, we've only had one family vacation and that was a weekend in Buffalo. On the first day my son broke his hand and on the last day, I had to have an emergency appendectomy. I'm not complaining...I'm just saying.

So I shouldn't complain. Everyone else's job sucks too- probably worse than mine. I hear about it all the time. No one likes going to work so why should I? What makes me so special? I must think I'm some precious princess if I think that a person should be able to follow their calling. Turns out that we do what has to get done just to stay afloat. Life isn't fair and no one is going to make special concessions for little old me. As my paternal grandmother used to say, "That's called growing up." So I guess I'm growing up. I'm realizing that being an adult means living with a dull, aching unhappiness but remembering that lots of people have it worse. In the end, that's the take-away lesson. No matter how shitty life is, it can always get worse. You shouldn't complain.

Martin Luther King, Susan B. Anthony, and Jesus

2010-02-18T10:46:00.000-08:00

Jesus is important to my thinking and theology as a figure who provides me with inspiration and example but I do not think it is possible for me to believe that Jesus was a divine figure. I do not see him as the central figure around whom the fate of humanity is decided any more or less than a hundred other historical figures who populate my imagination. As I've read history, I've seen that his words of peace and love are neither unique nor original to him. He was a product of his community, his religion, and his circumstances. I am thankful for that confluence of influences that so magnified his beautiful message but that does not make him alone a Son of God. I am unimpressed with biblical "evidence" that he was uniquely divine. It is hard to take seriously documents that were written with the sole intention of proclaiming his divinity. We really don't know anything about him outside of what the gospel and epistle writers choose to tell us. Due to the various literary natures of the gospels and epistles that record the first and second generations' attitudes about him, we are not privy to information that people of our own generation might wish to ask. Outside historical and archaeological sources are limited in the extreme. Indeed, there is almost no historically credible biographical information about him at all. What we have about his birth and life outside his ministry is clearly apocryphal at best...and I'm being generous. What the gospels and epistles prove to me is that there were communities of people who believed in his divinity and that their belief was profound and life-altering. It does not tell me what Jesus felt about himself. It does not prove his divinity.

I'm also not keen on the notion of assigning divinity to other human beings regardless of how many profound lessons they have offered humanity. In my research in feminist theory and history, I've seen the deification process approached in figures like Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King. Every year, there's a new batch of literature glorifying these folks. Within their own lifetimes, the process of deification was already underway. Why? I think it is partially a natural reaction to thanks for their accomplishments and grief for their loss. I think it also has a great deal to do with political expediency. The glorification of the individuals most closely associated with an unpopular or struggling cause has been an effective means of promotion for said cause. The unfortunate side effect is that the darker, more complicated, and more radical elements of the deified individual's work and personality are usually downplayed or intentionally obscured to maintain the popular image of special (and politically tolerable) human value. No one wants to hear that Dr. King was a sexist or that Susan B. Anthony undermined the work of more radical feminists. No one wants to know about their temper tantrums, their grandstanding, their inability to acknowledge or make good use of the talents of others.

Think how carefully one must tread today when speaking of either of these Americans who have been dead for a mere handful of generations. I have been attacked by people who did not care to hear me speak one critical word about these individuals. Although my criticisms grow out research dedicated to social justice for women and people of color, I am perceived as a danger to the integrity and strength of black history and women's history by certain members of my audience who believe that any criticism of their heroes profanes the cause. But these folks, however famous, were not perfect. In fact, like all people everywhere, they could be sorrowfully flawed.

On one occasion when I was giving a speech about Matilda Joslyn Gage (whose history and contributions were willfully undermined by Susan B. Anthony), I included uncomplimentary historical facts about Anthony that were pertinent to my presentation. A woman stood up and chastised me for including this information. Even in her life, Susan B. was known as "Saint Susan" and boy, oh boy, some people won't let me forget it. Following the presentation, the woman sought me out again and, after first indicating that she didn't know much about history, said that it was a shame that people like me were spreading such "lies". It was as if she feared that the entire suffrage movement would fall apart if dear Susan turned out to be merely human after all. (Imagine if I'd told a group of people that I think Jesus probably had sex!)

One sees the same reactions at work with Dr. King. Very little effort is put toward understanding how his belief that women were inferior to men undermined the work of his female co-workers such as Ella Baker who was, arguably, at least as important to the Civil Rights movement as Dr. King himself. One hears little about the role that male clergy played in stymieing the work and obscuring the accomplishments of African American women. Sure, within academic circles, such things are open to discussion but what would happen if such a thing were to be expressed in a popular forum? With so many outwardly racist Americans still resentful that we have a Martin Luther King Day, is it wise to criticize him too loudly? I think that may be the fear at work in the case of these American figures who are currently undergoing a process of near-deification in popular sentiment. It irritates me because it ignores the truth and the truth, however ugly, is better than a pretty lie.

I also call for disciplined study rather than deification because such shallow and romanticized views of our leaders undermines their humanity. Not only their flaws but their radicalism, their relationships, and their fears become lost to us. When we sanitize them, we lose much of the blood, grit, and passion that made them worthy of acclaim in the first place. "I could never be like one of the suffragists," say my women's history students sadly. "They were different. They were braver than we can be."

Bullshit.

I've read too many letters and journals of these "superhuman" women to believe that. I happen to know that they were scared to death, overwhelmed, overworked, bitter, angry, frustrated, selfish, self-glorifying, self-loathing, insecure, scattered, ordinary, tired-to-the-bone human beings. They weren't angels. They were human. And that's OK! What good does it do to glorify a saint? Sigh in enraptured admiration all day long and it won't accomplish a thing. But what if you were to emulate the hard work of another human being who you know to be imperfect...just like you? They made terrible mistakes and kept going. So can you. They suffered shame and loss and kept going. So can you. They were defeated again and again and suffered moments of faithless despair then kept on going. So can you! Angels don't make footprints for us to follow. People do.

So I don't believe in making gods of men and women. I'd rather shine a light on their failings as well as their feats. Don't ask me to rhapsodize over any historical figure no matter how glorious their reputation. When people get all glassy-eyed and reverent, I'll just roll my eyes. So if my job is to go knocking heroes off of pedestals, what do I think about divinity itself? Don't I have any faith that there are certain people who are especially chosen and in whom dwells a fierceness of Spirit that leads humanity forward out of the darkness?

Well, I do. Sort of.

I believe all of us are that person in the right circumstances. I'm no especial fan of Dr. King or Susan B. Anthony but I celebrate their good work. In fact, I'm thankful for it whatever flaws I find in their histories. I think both were occasionally and disappointingly self-serving but I know they also served the Good. If I deny any attempts to deify these "larger-than-life" characters, I do not deny that there is an intersection between their work and divinity. Their communities created them and used them. Were they also used by the divine Source? I think they were. I think we are used in spite of ourselves and I think Jesus must have been as well even when he didn't want to be. ("Take this cup away from me" and all that jazz.)

But I also think that it is a mistake to view any of us as having any uniquely salvific qualities. We do not exist outside of the context of our histories and communities. King did not work alone but was upheld, celebrated, taught, and magnified by his community, a community that was already in engaged in the intellectual, legal, and social struggle for justice long before King was a twinkle in his (also impressive)daddy's eyes. Susan B. Anthony didn't invent suffrage. She was a product of her Quaker upbringing and education and her immersion in a community of suffragists who taught her the ropes of the movement, wrote her speeches, and sustained her efforts. Likewise, Jesus a product of his community who for thousands of years developed the ethical and spiritual richness of Judaism. They raised him up, called his personality into being, taught him from childhood, supported his ministry, then magnified his work. He was not dropped into human history out of the sky. He was one of us. Nothing more and nothing less. And you know what? It was enough.

A Message from a Quaker Gen X Woman to her Elders on Kicking Ass and Taking Names

2010-02-11T10:36:00.000-08:00

I'm a woman and I'm a Quaker. Knowing only these facts, one might think that I must be a pretty "nice" person. But I'm also a member of Gen X which means that I was reared in a generational context that benefited from the work of Baby Boomer feminists who challenged the expectations of female behavior. Unfortunately, those very same Baby Boomer women who raised and educated my generation have not completely escaped the strictures placed on their own behavior when they were little girls.

I'm going to make a blanket statement about liberal female people of a certain age. I know it is not completely true because my good friends and my mother also belong to this generation and this statement does not apply to them. If it doesn't apply to you, don't worry about it. I'm not talking about you. But it does apply to some of you. Here it is.

You have a problem with anger. You still buy into the idea that women should refrain from showing aggression. You are too nice. Worse, you insist that younger women be "nice." You take perfectly good kick-ass social justice crusades and make them unpalatable with your washed-out, saccharine, Hallmark card approach. You alienate younger women when you look down on our tattoos or our colored hair or our combat boots and piercings. You squelch our enthusiasm (Don't you remember your own 1960s enthusiasm?) with polite committee work and the insistence that we watch our mouths. God forbid any of us express rage and hurt at the injustice in the world. God forbid any of us use off-color language.

Here's an example:

As the youngest member of an interfaith group, I was excited about a woman who publicly challenged the Roman Catholic Church by becoming a local Catholic congregation's priest. She and her entire congregation were excommunicated but they kept right on serving their community. They refused to surrender their claim to Catholicism. They refused to back away from their faith in human equality in the body of Christ. I was mightily impressed and inspired. That woman has guts. This is a woman who was not afraid of offending. Offend the pope himself? Why not? The pope is wrong! Get kicked out of the church for the sake of her faith in Jesus? Bring it on! So I said, enthusiastically and with deep admiration, that she "kicks ass" and I was excited that we were going to meet her.

During the next meeting of the board members, of whom I was the youngest by decades and the poorest by a long-shot, I was admonished for supporting violent language patterns that undermine peace in the world. Was I acknowledged for the presentations and programs I had recently organized and worked despite the financial burden it was on me? Nope. Was my oft-expressed commitment to pacifism and women's rights acknowledged? Nope. Was I labeled "angry" and intentionally embarrassed in front of the other women on the board for using the expression "kick-ass"? You betcha. 'Cause apparently, that's a problem. Their spending habits that actually support injustice in the world? Not a problem. Their big old gas guzzlers and inhumane diets? Not a problem. Their failure to support any "interfaith" program that "might offend local Christians"? Not a problem. But me using the word "kick-ass"? That kind of language, apparently, is really the foundation of violence in the world.

At a doctoral seminar, European American Buddhist women scolded me for expressing anger about social injustice. I was not enlightened enough. And we're not talking about me stomping around and shouting. We're talking about me making the point that it is inherently unjust to make statements indicating that those who suffer in the world do so because they have failed to "draw positive energy to themselves". When I insisted that poverty, sexual violence, warfare, hunger, and abuse are inflicted upon the weak by the powerful, I was out of line and that many of our privileges and powers in the West are undeserved, unjust, and even indecent, I was being negative. I was being angry. And that's not "nice."

Well, f--- "nice".

Now don't get me wrong. I don't think we should go around swearing and cussing for the sake of it. Vulgarity gets old fast when it is overused. But I'm all for vulgarity if it accurately expresses a feeling or propels a person out of apathy and into action. It also acts as a release valve in an increasingly tense social context. As my father always said to his daughters, "They are just words. They have only the power we give them and I'd rather you girls swore than hit someone." And believe me, swearing has prevented me from hitting someone on more occasions than I can count.

I want to make it clear that I don't believe that we can be careless with words. They do hurt. I know that. In fact, it is a big part of my work as a feminist academic, but I believe that we are called to use language that honestly reflects our experiences and feelings even when those words are rough to hear. While I also believe that we are called to refrain from terms that are cruel or which undermine our brothers' and sisters' humanity, I do not believe we are called to ensure that other people feel comfortable.

So for all you female Baby Boomers out there who have told me to play nice, tone it down, and watch my mouth let me remind you to live up to your own legacy. You are the generation that produced the Bitch Manifesto. You shouted against war and shook your fists at patriarchy. You marched and protested. You broke the rules and beat down doors. You were radical, uncompromising, glorious and proud. You kicked ass and took names.

So shove over and give me a turn or join me here with your fist in the air. But don't tell me to be "nice." It ain't gonna happen. Not in this generation anyhow.

In which I contemplate dropping my Quaker and Pagan spiritual labels

2010-02-06T14:38:00.000-08:00

Note: This blog entry is written by an arrogant, judgmental, unpleasant woman who very likely has hormonal problems. It is full of stereotypes, off-color language and offensive characterizations. If you are very precious, highly evolved, or in a foul mood, you might not want to read this.

*** *** ***

I am a Quaker Pagan. Some people might call me a "Quagan." But not me. I wouldn't because though "Quagan" is a fun word to say and oh-so-cute, as a general rule, only other "Quagans" know what the hell I'm talking about. "Quagan" is a fun label but not very useful when one is trying to establish one's spiritual character among those who are neither familiar with Quakers nor Pagans. It was ever so much easier when I was a Methodist back in the days before my father threw a enormous clergical hissy fit and became a Congregationalist (a few years before he decided to chuck it all and become an atheist. Who knew Congregationalism was the gateway denomination to unbelief?) Back when we were Methodists, I never had to explain anything (except maybe why it was that we, the minister's family, never prayed in our house. That always confused people.) Labels are so much easier to carry when they are well and adequately defined. Has anyone ever in the history of the world had an adequate definition for the beliefs and character of Quakers or Pagans? No. I thought not. Major pain in the ass. Maybe I'll drop them both. I'm so sick of explaining myself.

Or maybe not. Why would I want to drop my Quaker label? Why would I want to keep it? Very selfishly, being a Quaker makes me safer than being a Pagan makes me. In a room full of religious hostiles, being a Quaker provides me cover. No one ever threatens to take your kids away because you're a Quaker. I've seen that happen to Pagans. Also, people are more likely to assume that you are Christian or at least in community with and friendly to Christians (which in my case is quite true). This makes it easier to communicate with them since they are not already pissed off with you before you get started.

Being a Friend means that I can rear my children within the recognized context of pacifist community. That means a great deal to me. In fact, it has been critical. Being a Friend places me within a context of lengthy, respectable radicals. (They were outrageous in the 17th century, irritating in the 18th, pompous in the 19th, and endearing in the 20th ("So quaint, so peacable, those Quakers and their dear, funny hats!") When I say that I'm a Quaker people don't think kinky sex and funny velvet robes. Quakers don't wear funky, off-putting jewelry of naked women (which actually I see as a point against them. I loves me some funky Goddess jewelry.) When I say that I'm a Quaker, no one wonders if I'm going to perform blood rituals or sacrifice a goat. I find it relaxes me to be able to identify my spiritual orientation without having to disavow the worship of the devil. (Important note: Pagans don't worship the devil.)

I also like being able to describe my spirituality without having to talk about "the Goddess" or faeries or spirits or any of that jazz. You can be doing so well with a new acquaintance but just watch how tense the conversation becomes when you mention your devotion to a Goddess. Whoo, boy! Let me tell you, I've been there! But who gets weirded out when someone proclaims their profound respect for integrity, equality, and peace? Note the difference.

"I value integrity." (No smirks. A few enthusiastic nods of approval.)

Contrast that with:

"I honor the Germanic Goddess of Death." (Major smirks and a few uncomfortable coughs.)

See the difference?

Friends' testimonies and their emphasis on the Inner Light resonate profoundly with me. Friends' conversations, intellectual challenges, and spiritual insights animate me. And I like Friends. I just do. I like them a lot and I want to be associated with them. I like their intellectualism and their liberalism. I like that they seem dominated by aging, idealist baby boomers, who are, let us be honest, among my most favorite human beings in the world. I love to be around people who speak of vegetarianism, liberalism, feminism, and pacifism without apology and without stinking of patchouli. It makes me happy down to my toes when they want to be around me.

So why would I ever drop the label? Well, I guess it could be boiled down to this one thing: I've never been good at group work. It is usually so much easier for me to do my work, including spiritual work, on my own. There are times when the exquisitely slow and deliberate pace undertaken by Friends makes me want to bounce their sagely, pacifist heads together. Oh, yeah, I guess I should add that I'm a little angry and so I'm always having to watch myself around Friends. I like to cuss and use colorful language and posture and bitch and Friends look askance at such behaviors which only makes me want to shout "F--- You!" even louder. Kind of reminds me of my sister when she was a teenager when our Grandma said, "You're hair is always getting into your eyes. Doesn't that bother you?" to which my sister replied cool and calm as can be, "No, but it bothers you and that's why I do it." Sometimes, Friends make me want to be an asshole.

But these reasons for choosing to drop the Quaker label are pretty weak and pretty juvenile. The funny thing about juvenile desires is that they tend to fade as one matures. I don't stomp around in combat boots anymore. I'm not the same girl who stood up abruptly and threw her chair against the table when the president of our college came to sit with us. I'm not the same girl who skipped graduation so I could march up to the second story of an academic hall in an old circuit rider's clergy robe, combat boots, and a World War I army helmet just so I could lean out the window and flip off all my graduating classmates, the faculty, and the administration beneath.

I've mellowed. It has been several years since any nurse has had to threaten me with security and I haven't yelled at a salesperson, made a scene in a doctor's office, shouted at hunters from my car, or sassed a judge in years. Now, that's not saying I won't go berserk ever again. I just might. I have these itty bitty seizures that make me lots of fun if you push the wrong buttons but as I age, I am less and less likely to tweak and more and more likely to respond appropriately to stress. (Note, no nurses, doctors, salespeople, hunters, or judges were ever hurt in the making of my temper tantrums ... and I feel much better now.)

I might think that my tendency to fly off the handle at people makes me a bad Friend. Except that's ass backwards...er...I mean to say, that's misguided. The Light shines whether we want it to or not. It shines when you swear and it shines when you fight. It shines when you tell the whole world that you do not believe in Light and that shining is for sh!theads. The Light can survive temper tantrums and dark moods. It is unaffected by cynicism and acid wit, and unmoved by drama. It shines and shines and shines on you, and in you, and through you, and in spite of you and even if you kick and scream, when you hold yourself in the Light long enough, you'll start to grow. You will lean toward your Source. Friends are good at holding people in the Light. Sure, they overuse the expression but that doesn't negate the fact that they do, in fact, hold people in the Light. They have discipline. They have method. That's a cool thing and I want it. I'll put up with an awful lot of smugness, arrogance, and middle-class judgment from Friends if they'll just keep holding me in that Light.

But what about my Pagan label? See, that's a whole 'nother story. To be a Quaker, I need to be a part of group. I need to learn to love within the context of corporate worship and growth. As a Pagan, I'm allowed to make sh!t up as a I go along. Very appealing. Also, I'm good at it. I also get a great deal out of being a Pagan that I'm not likely to give up. If I dropped the Quaker label, I wouldn't stop believing in equality, simplicity, peace, or integrity. I believed like a Friend long before I ever heard of them. By dropping the Quaker label, I would be making the statement that I no longer care to worship with these people. I do not choose to accept the discipline of this community but I would not give up the beliefs. But if I drop the Pagan label, it wouldn't have anything to do with community. I don't have a Pagan community and I never have. I'm a solitary practitioner. I became a Pagan on my own, did the research on my own, and worship on my own. Not surprisingly, I find that I have very little in common with most other Pagans, particularly Wiccans. I respect them fine but we just don't have that much in common. They assume things I do not. They believe things I do not. They do things I do not.

So maybe I'm not a Pagan? Hell, yeah, I'm a Pagan. I'll be just a little arrogant and say that maybe my graduate degrees in heterodox spiritual studies qualifies me to make that call. I'm just not an orthodox Pagan. (Note: there really aren't any orthodox Pagans-- just annoying people who think they know more about truly subjective experience than others.) I often call myself a Protestant Pagan in that I pretty much set aside all the superfluous (they used to call it "popish" in the bad old days) qualities of most popular forms of Paganism and bring it down to a direct and simplified awareness of the connection between Spirit and Nature. O.K. So that's really not that uncommon among Neo-Pagans but the stereotypes of Pagans as theologically sloppy, New Age goofs wearing unnecessarily silly costumes and playing with unnecessarily silly pseudo-medieval toys is so strong that I continue to feel the need to distance myself from it.

When I want to ditch the Pagan label (but not my Pagan awareness and practice) is when I've been to a Renaissance Festival and seen just one pair of heaving, velvet-clad boobs too many or hung out in some shop that sells magickal paraphernalia (made in China) or I've read some blog or heard some person tell me something about what the faeries like and don't like and that we're still in the "Burning Times". These are times when I want to walk around with a big old sign that indicates that I am NOT remotely as silly and undisciplined as these people.

All right, calm down. I can hear the cotton-crunching sound of a hundred panties in a twist. I'm not saying that you other Pagans who read this blog are silly and undisciplined. I'm saying that lots of Pagans are and that it gets really, really old to a liberal Pagan in much the same way that liberal Christians get really tired of listening to fundamentalists. I also get pretty sick of undisciplined Christians as well (although that's another post). I know and you know that there are a good number of us who do good research and approach our spiritual paths with discretion, honesty, intellectual integrity, and compassion. But there are so many fruitcakes tripping merrily around frickin' maypoles and believing (uncritically) in angels and totems and ghosts and the power of positive thinking and moonbeams and buttercups that it is hard for anyone to buy that Pagans actually have discipline and method. Bottom line: It makes it hard for me to get a decent job in academia and I sure do love food and housing and other perks of employment.

It is all so unfair. As it turns out, Neo-Pagans, like Friends, tend to be an exceptionally well-educated crowd. Pagan scholarship, though overlooked and undervalued, is cutting edge. Our spiritual and ethical relationship with the Earth is a model of justice the world desperately needs. Even so, I continue to hear Pagans contrasted negatively with Christians. Pagans, according to these critics, lack the well-developed ethics of the Christian community. And whenever I hear this, I launch into my speech about process thealogy, standpoint theory, environmental justice and...that's when another Pagan comes running into the room using words like "widdershins" and "sky clad" and I throw my proverbial arms in the air (my real ones are probably engaged in obscene gestures) and I tell myself that I should swear off Paganism. But I never do.

Here's why. *sigh* Because I still believe that the Paganism I practice counts for something and because as a Friend, I believe in integrity. Paganism is a critical part of who I am. The Light that shines on me dances as it passes through a Pagan prism. The Voices that call me and the Images that beckon me are Pagan Voices and Pagan Images. I could try to stop that from happening but I'm kind of thinking I'm not the one calling those shots.

So perhaps this is just a cross to bear. Quakers don't get me. Pagans don't either. I don't fit in anywhere and I'm uncomfortable with the labels. I'm a little sick of explaining myself and I'd like just to slink away. But what kind of minstry would that be? If there is a foundation to the ministry I've been called to do it is in these two things: Know yourself and tell the truth.

So the Quakers are smug and the Pagans are silly. Oh, well, sh!t. So am I. These are my people like it or not. Grimace, scowl, roll my eyes and keep on loving them. Labels stick for a reason.

S.O.S. Trapped in a Gray Box

2010-01-22T09:07:00.000-08:00

I find myself in a gray box. Outside the box, the world waits for me. It waits for my contributions, my skills, and my gifts but I can't seem to leave the box.

Lately I seem to be just pacing and swaying in place, nearly paralyzed by my inability to move forward with any plans or goals. Ha! What plans and goals? A million years ago I knew what I wanted but today I feel completely uncertain of where I want to go, what I want to accomplish and even who I am. Since completing my doctorate, I've been demoralized and frozen, completely disgusted with my inability to grasp onto any ideas that would propel me forward.

I suppose part of it is that the momentum of my graduate work finally dumped me into a reality that I had not fully anticipated. I have a useless degree, a dead-end teaching job, and no ambition. (What happened to my ambition? I used to have loads of ambition.) About two years have passed since graduation and I just continue teaching despite the fact that it gets me nowhere.

Most troubling of all is my sense that I have wandered away from my calling, that Voice that beckons, chides, and challenges me toward my mission. Did I take a wrong turn somewhere? All the old tools that used to help magnify that Voice seem to have lost their power. I strain to hear but the Voice is all but stilled.

And this writing sucks. Sucks. I can't even do this anymore. I don't know how many times I've tried to write a blog entry only to abandon it partially completed. I'm bored and discouraged, and disappointed and increasingly pointless as a human being. A waste of education. A waste of time. A waste of sentiment. A waste of skin.

But I do have faith- just a very little held in reserve. If I did not have this tiny fragment of faith, I would not write this entry and I would not push the publish button. I know that while this is poorly written, self-pitying, irrelevant crap, someone will read it and will offer some small nudge. Perhaps there is a little tear in a corner of this gray box. Perhaps I will see the light and move toward it. And so now I push the publish button and wait....

Guest Piece by my Daughter: "Kill the War not the Person"

2010-01-15T07:48:00.000-08:00

Yesterday on our way to the grocery store, my little girl got out her notebook and wrote a short speech. She asked that I put it on my blog as a message for the soldiers. It is a simple message about personal responsibility for war which reminded me strongly of Universal Soldier, a song my parents used to play when we were kids. My father was an MP during the Vietnam War. He entered the Air Force full of machismo and war lust but soon found himself protesting the war and refusing to fight. His hard-won pacifism led him to the ministry and was a dominant philosophy of my childhood. It meant not only that we do not glorify war or choose to serve in the military but that we work hard to eliminate domestic and international injustice that leads to violence. We don't have a draft anymore but we do have too many young men and women disadvantaged by social, economic and educational inequality who find themselves serving in the military because they feel they have no other good options. My father has worked hard during his life, first as a clergyman and then as a community college professor, to empower young people to become thinkers rather than fighters- to fight injustice with words, and wit, and compassion rather than with weapons. I think he will be proud of his granddaughter's following statement.

"Do you believe in a God or Goddess? Do you think that he or she would want you to kill one another? Would you want to kill your brother or sister? If you don't want to kill, don't. Please stop the war now for the sake of the world."

Universal Soldier

The Miracle of Epiphany Eve

2010-01-06T15:38:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I secure the velcro fastening of my red and blue hat under my chin and shrug into on my hooded maroon coat. Sitting on the steps, I pull on my boots and two pairs of gloves and zip up a second coat (a bright orange affair with reflective tape)over the first before clipping the leash to the dog's collar. It's cold outside and I've given up looking cute and feminine. So what if I waddle around like an over-bundled child in a snowsuit? My husband looks indulgently at my multi-colored, toddler-esque form as he pulls on just the normal amount of grown-up outerwear and we head out the door with the dog for her evening walk.

Outside the temperature has warmed to the low twenties but the wind still flicks icy snow against our faces as we walk down the road to Snicker's favorite pit stop down the road and across the bridge near the overgrown burdock plant. The whole world is mantled and muffled in fresh snow. Our familiar landscape is transformed. Even the burdock plant takes on a sacred, otherworldly appearance. It also looks delicious, as though someone coated it thickly with vanilla frosting. I tell my husband this but say little else. Usually, I'm much more chatty on these walks but tonight feels joyfully somber. There is something uncanny in the silence and in the pearlescent glow of the deep snow under the street lamp. When we speak, we keep our voices low. Otherwise, there is only the sound of the dog's snuffling nose as she burrows playfully in the snow and the muffled crunch of our boots on the snow-covered pavement.

As we turn back to the house, I see movement in the woods on the opposite side of the street. The dog tenses and brays just once, long and low, as five deer emerge single-file from the woods. They stop in the street under the street lamp on the opposite side of the bridge and gaze at us for a long enchanted moment before they leap over the guard rail and into our yard, run down our sledding hill by the pig pen and across the lawn to the creek and woods. It was all over in less than a minute but if I ever I have achieved childlike wonder in my adult life, it was in that minute. "Wasn't that cool?!" I keep asking my husband breathlessly, "Wasn't that amazing?!"

We share the dog's curiosity about the slender hoof prints in the snow and even consider following them to the creek but we have responsibilities in the house and the hour is already late. So we continue to the front door past the snow-covered holly bushes. Our children greet us on the front porch, sticking just their heads out the door so that they appear like a rosy-cheeked, smiling-eyed totem pole magically manifested in the streaming golden light from the front hall. Children cast their own spells and I am caught up again in their laughter and warmth. But even in the midst of sending little ones to brush their teeth and fussing with the ordinary task of putting away the clutter of winter garb, part of me is still caught up in the memory of the deers' gaze. Indeed, I am so enraptured and absent-minded that I do not at first notice that my husband had stopped by the car to retrieve the children's Epiphany candy. I am reminded when he looks at me meaningfully, and I notice that he has tucked his armload of sweets awkwardly under his coat to hide the surprise.

Tonight is the last night of Christmas. Before they go to bed, the children set out their shoes for the Wise Men and La Befana to fill with treats. La Befana is dear to children and children are dear to her. Long ago, she intended to join the Wise Men in their quest for the Holy Child, but she was so busy with her housework that she missed her opportunity. Today, she makes up for lost time as she follows the perpetual footsteps of the Magi as they travel from home to home in their quest to honor the Holy Child within the hearts of all children who welcome them. She flies behind them on her broomstick to fill the children's shoes with candy, a sweetness for their journey, a blessing for the divinity within each human child.

I too long to find the Holy Child. I too have allowed my housework and study, my fussing and worry to delay my quest. "Soon," I promise myself. "When these papers are graded. When these bills are paid. When these floors are swept." But there are always more papers to grade, more bills to be paid, more floors to be swept. "Soon," I keep promising even as I look up from my broom to find that the wise men have left me behind.

But not tonight. Tonight is a night of Deepest Magick. It is a night of Epiphany and Revelation. It is the night when Gods and Humanity may rebind the frayed edges that Reason relentlessly teases apart. When those deer stood looking at me in the liquid light of a gathering snow storm, I felt my own soul rebound within me. At my husband's side, in the quiet night, I wondered if I could bear the weight of a joy allowed to flower fully rather than nipped in the bud before it has the chance to bend the tender stalk. "Soon," I say to myself, "this will be over and I'll be more sad than before. As beautiful as this is, as connected and whole as I feel, all of this will pass and there is nothing any of us can do about it."

"Hush," a voice answers me. "You are alive right now. Be alive. Be glad. Eternity lives in a moment."