Quaker Pagan Reflections

On Saturday, Peter and I went to our friends Kevin and Beth's house for a potluck and schmooze. While there, we finally got to meet R. and C., two new neighbors of theirs they'd been telling us about for weeks--Quakers from the midwest who had recently moved to the valley. It was really terrific getting a chance to get to know them. It turns out that they have been having difficulty settling in to either of the two local meetings, perhaps because they so loved the meeting they used to attend which apparently had a really great kids' program. Now, I think of the first day school at Mt. Toby as one of it's strengths, but then, I'm comparing it against Pagan groups I've known, who are lucky to acheive a critical mass of kids at any gathering, or to have any meaningful programming at all. (I'm not putting down the Pagan world, here, just noting that, as a relatively new religious movement, it's something we're still struggling with.) In any case, t...

"Ms. Bishop, are you a Witch?" Picture it--I'm about to give a reading quiz to a group of less-than-prepared high school students. They, of course, are thinking that a diversion would be sweet right about now. And one of them has just the thing. Turns out, he's done the inevitable, and Googled my name. "Ms. Bishop, are you? Are you a Witch? Are you a _practicing_ Witch?" So there I am, clock ticking, a stack of quizzes in my hand, and for once all student eyes are on me. And about 50,000 things are going through my head at once, including: - The urgent question, what does this kid think the word, "Witch" means? - The urgent question, what do all the other kids in this classroom, and every member of their extended families, think the word "Witch" means? - The comic comeback, "Nope, I stopped practicing and now I'm the real thing." - The importance of the separation of church and state. - The reasonably large population of...

It's amazing how, no matter how many of my wishes in life are granted, I am able to see a bad day as unfair... Odd how the down days feel like personal wrongs, but the good stuff gets accepted as only my due... (Wry smile.) Meanwhile, it's hot, and the classroom where I teach 9th grade English is hotter, and is incredibly loud with the sound of ventilators directly outside the windows... which encourages students to be loud, too, as does the fact that the school year is ending and, well, if possible, they want to be here less than I do. I love my job. I did the "happy dance" when I got it two years ago. I love my co-workers, I have a mentor who not only thinks I can teach, but has the insight and experience to understand teaching--it's not empty praise when it comes from that quarter, and that has been incredibly helpful. More than that--I've finished my prep for the day, I think I have a reasonbly good handle on what I'm teaching for the next week and t...

I'm finding myself craving a Pagan gathering lately. Pagans, for those who are not Pagan, like to gather in groups of 40--2000 people for camping, bonfires, drumming, rituals, and workshops. Some of these gatherings are like family reunions, or compared to the magically-reappearing village of Brigadoon. Others are wild and frenetic affairs, with three-story-tall bonfires, all-night drumming and dancing, and appearances of Pagan celebrities (BNPs, or Big Name Pagans, if you're feeling polite; Big-Nosed Pagans if you're feeling a little satirical) and festival-wide radio stations making weather reports and announcements. I haven't yet been to FGC (Friends' General Conference--the Quaker equivalent of a gathering, for those of the non-Quaker persuasion) so I can't really say how like or unlike a Pagan gathering that is. Perhaps very--perhaps not. I do know that when Young Friends hold their annual camping weekend at our local meeting, the afterglow they bring in...

I teach English. I teach school, and I'm new enough at it that I'm still wrestling with questions of my identity as a teacher, and my idealism about teaching is barely touched with the frost of cynical experience. And I teach English, that discipline second only to Social Studies in provoking both thought and outrage with what we teach. Books, ideas, and words--learning to think, learning to feel for others (in fiction or in life), and learning to speak your truth--that is the real curriculum, when you teach English. And I teach English. That's important on a whole lot of levels, including a newfound sensitivity to owning the Pagan part of my spiritual identity. Too late--even before this blog and the Quaker Pagan page went up, enough kids in my school had Googled me that I was out "of the broom closet" before my first year in the classroom had ended. Right now, though, I'm wrestling with how Quaker leadings and testimonies fit into my classroom. My kids l...

One of my fears in starting this blog was that I will eventually find myself under attack by either certain Pagans or certain Quakers who find it objectionable that I self-identify as a member of both groups. I think I'm more afraid of this coming from the Quaker side of the aisle, actually--probably because, having been a Pagan in some sense for most of my life, and in a formal sense for twenty years, I feel pretty comfortable in that identity. I've been around long enough, and accepted by enough men and women I deeply respect long enough, that I have no worries about being denied the keys to that particular castle. With Quakers, I'm a little more sensitive. Early on in my convincement process (to use the Quakerese) I posted some of my thoughts on it on an earlier website I owned, and joined a Quaker web ring. All was well for a while, until one day my link to the ring simply failed to function. When I contacted the owner of the ring for tech support, I learned that, by ...

There are a lot of reasons I'm starting this blog right now. But I think I'd rather jump in in the middle than at the beginning... I'm going to start with yesterday, and what came up for me over breakfast. I always listen to the news on NPR as I get ready for work. And yesterday, NPR ran a story about the sentencing hearing for Zacharias Musawi. As part of the coverage, they described the testimony of the surviving friends and family members of 9/11 victims... and I found myself reflecting on my own experiences at that time. I remembered my initial sense that, well, at least I didn't know very many people in New York...followed by the dawning realization of just how many people in New York I did know. Actually, it turned out that more people than I could have imagined were in harm's way on that day. I remember, for instance, telling my daughter, then in middle school, that her best friend who had moved to Queens over the summer was nowhere near the WTC--only t...