Quaker Pagan Reflections

Cat has been involved lately with a spiritual accountability group through our Quaker meeting. The idea is that small groups of Friends meet and talk on a regular basis to help each other stay fresh and focused in their spiritual lives. It got me wondering, what would “spiritual accountability” (or “spiritual faithfulness” to use a term I like better) mean in a Pagan context? I have no desire to be part of a spiritual accountability group in a Quaker context. I think I do a pretty good job of holding and living out my Quaker values. I listen for God. I look for the integrity in other people. I hold myself low down to the Truth. I stay rooted in experience. I participate fully and deeply in corporate discernment. And I know when I need to lay things down to simplify my life, and one of the first things I would lay down, if I had one, would be a spiritual accountability group. But I am not as good a Pagan as I am a Quaker. Spiritual faithfulness as a Pagan would mean… Rememberi...

One of the conversations I didn't get to have at NEYM this year was with Will T ., who said at one point that he'd like to talk with me about my relationship with Herne. I'm pretty sure Will is not looking at converting to Paganism anytime soon. Instead, I suspect that his me . Mountain Lion. by Julie Langford interest was meant as a friendly conversation-opener, since he knows that Herne is important to I like Will, and would be happy to talk about almost anything with him. This conversation didn't happen, though, and that's maybe just as well. It's hard to talk about Herne. It's hard when I'm among Pagans, and, yeah, it's probably a bit harder among non-Pagans, but for some reason, it's difficult at any time. I am not sure why... I know that some Pagans have the habit of adopting any "cool" sounding spiritual this-n-that. You know the type: they meet a shaman who speaks of their relationship to, say, the Elk spirit, ...

OK. This one's going to be a bit notional. Here goes: I've been challenged by A. Venefica of Symbolic Meanings and Mahud of Between Old and New Moons to participate in their mythology synchroblog on duality . You might think that would be an easy task, for a Pagan trained in two traditions of Wicca. After all, Wicca is known (sometimes a bit sneeringly ) among other Pagans for its duotheism . The Mysteries of Wicca are expressed in terms of duality, and especially that of gender. Male/female. Goddess/God. In Christianity, the world is understood through relationship: the relationship between a Father and his children (and especially, his Son). In Wicca, the world is also understood through relationship: a sexual relationship between the Goddess and the God, and a parental one with the world that is the product of their union. The world is not made, not created, but born out of that love. (I am aware there are variations on this theme. Please do not write me and no...

So here I am, back reading more of Marcus Borg 's Reading the Bible Again for the First Time : Taking the Bible Seriously but not Literally . I'm making a slow job of it--in part because Peter has had the book for a while. Partly, though, I just find Borg... thin. I may have to stop every two or three pages when I'm reading a meaty Quaker writer like Lloyd Lee Wilson , just to reboot my head after I hit my personal limit for Scriptural references, but I can feel the weight of both thought and Spirit pulsing through the pages. Borg is easier to read, on the one hand... but less absorbing on the other. I take it that he's the the theologian that fundamentalist Christians love to hate . His two big insights--that the Bible is most useful for it's metaphorical truths (what I, a Pagan, would call myths, in a positive sense) and for its metaphorized (mythologized) history of a people's relationship with Spirit--seem pretty straightforward to me. And the reading...

I was recently at Jeff Lilly's Druid Journal , and a post and comments thread there evoked something from me I've been trying to say since summer, though it has never come out right before. Maybe it isn't right even yet, but it's the closest I've come... As we've written before, Peter and I deliberately sought out workshops and activities at New England Yearly Meeting this past August that we hoped would be challenging to us. Obviously, we're what would have to be termed, not just liberal Quakers, but universalist Quakers. At different times and in different ways, Peter and I both have taken a look at Christianity, as it is currently practiced and understood in our culture, and determined that, to say the least, it did not "speak to our condition." I've never been Christian--Peter was at one time, but walked away. (That's a story I hope he'll share some day, so I won't touch on it here, for him.) Instead, the religious path t...

I had a somewhat interesting experience with spontaneous prayer today. Heavy snow is often good for that. Our Fulbright exchange teacher, Mr. R., carpools with me to and from work each day--a very reasonable arrangement, since I'm his mentor teacher this year. I've enjoyed the exchange of educational ideas a lot, and the cultural exchange has been pretty rich, too. The initial difficulties I had , trying to communicate with him around religion, have mostly resolved since my earlier post on the subject; on a day near Samhain , he was asking about American Halloween customs, and somewhere in the midst of my multi-cultural, multi-religious attempt at explanation, something clicked. He made the connection between Hindu traditions honoring ancestors and the dead from his native India, and my family's Samhain practices. There was a brief, deeply awkward silence--as a Christian and (I thank Marcus Borg for the terminology) a Biblical literalist, he disapproves of Hindusim--and...

Image: Courtesy Oddworldly I’ve decided to try spelling it “G*d.” I once saw a Jewish author do that. It was thirty years ago and I no longer remember who the writer was, but I recognized at the time that he was echoing the practice the ancient Hebrews had of never speaking the name of the Holy One. I think that practice came partly out of a deep, visceral nervousness about too lightly invoking a Name of such Power, but I think also it was a way of reminding themselves of the transcendent and ineffable nature of their God. YHVH was father to His children, but He was also creator of the universe, and it was an awfully big universe even back then. You could call Him Papa, but you always knew He had a special secret name besides; a Name that spoke of infinity and eternity and thus would never fit on a human tongue. I’m probably projecting more onto ancient Hebrew theology than was really there. Modern Christian ideas about infinite-and-eternal-God may descend more from ...

Not too long ago, I was visiting the home of a close Pagan friend of mine, and I made mention of "God" in a conversation which included Laura's very bright and inquiring son. Laura stopped me, saying, "In this house, when someone says 'God' we always ask, 'which one?'" And it's true--adopting monotheistic language can make polytheist, panenthest, animist, and nontheist points of view invisible. Laura, of course, was politely insisting I not marginalize her son's religion (and hers) in her own home. The irony, of course, is that we're co-religionists, she and I. I don't mind at all Laura calling me on apparently privileging monotheism, particularly in the context of her family life. But if I describe my experiences among Friends at NEYM this year in any detail, I'm going to wind up using a lot of words and phrases that may give my Pagan friends reason to get a little nervous about me "going native" in my time amon...

I had actually never attended any part of a MerryMeet before this week. The last time one was held in New England was back around 1989 or 1990, and I didn't know anyone in The Covenant of the Goddess back then. At this point, though, I know lots of people, though there were many I'd never met in person before. That, of course, added to the fun. Drake Spaeth and I both had the eerie sense that we had, in fact, met before, owing to our photos being familiar to one another through the Cherryhill Seminary faculty page , and through emails relating to Cherryhill. I finally got to shake hands with Michael York , who I've known online for ages, but never before met in person, and Laura is right--he has the most remarkable eyes I think I've ever seen...and is utterly, utterly charming. Alas, I did not really have time for a proper sitting on the rug, let-down-your-hair, let your mind run free conversation with either of these fellows, nor with Andras Corban Arthen , whom...

All posts in this series: Part I: Getting (and Losing) That Old Time Religion Part II: Coming Home Part III: The Fool's Journey Part IV: The Underworld Part V: Seven of Cups Part VI: A Letter and a Kiss Part VII: Morticia Loves Gomez Part VIII: Nora Part IX: Felicia Hardy and the Tower of Babel Part X: When Babel Fell Part XI: Community 2.0 Part XII: This Forgiveness Stuff I wish I could convey the essence of a small Pagan gathering, like the one the Church of the Sacred Earth hosted the Samhain of that year. Combining the best features of an elementary school sleepover, a college dormitory bull session, and a Thanksgiving dinner in a large, boisterous family, weekend-long retreats like that are one of my favorite aspects of Pagan life. Picture, please, a woodstove popping vigorously in one corner of a ramshackle farmhouse. Music plays in the background--maybe a a track from the Libana album, A Circle is Cast --and there is a babble of happy, animated voices coming from every ...