I'm a little nervous writing this post because it has the potential to come out badly. When writing about faiths other than one's own, there's always the risk of sounding, or worse yet being, self-righteous, intolerant, condescending, smug, and a host of other bad things. So I hope to avoid that, and I ask my readers to bear with me if I fail.
I have several friends and acquaintances who are pagan, and present-day pagan beliefs and practices have always held some attraction for me, especially those of a Celtic flavor. I like the pagan calendar with its solstices and equinoxes and cross-quarter days, and the flow of the yearly cycle. I like the idea of calling quarters and invoking the elements (and even though we've come a long way from earth, water, air, and fire, and even though no one's going to be invoking the periodic table, I can still kind of connect the four ancient elements to the physical states of solid, liquid, gas, and plasma). I like the sense of connection to the earth, and the idea of aspects of nature having spirits, like dryads and water nymphs. (This is also something I like in Shinto, the idea of places having their own spirits, even little places like a particular grove or segment of a stream).
I know some people locally who attend ceremonies for those pagan holidays, and they sometimes sound kind of neat, and it seems that folks get something out of them and find a closer connection to the divine. I've sometimes felt curious about it and wondered what it would be like at attend, but I think I've come to the conclusion that even if I was invited, I couldn't participate. The most I could do is be there to observe, and then I would feel intrusive and awkward.
And that's where I run into something of a paradox. I know that there are pagans, these folks and others, whose beliefs and practices do draw them closer to God. (Or at least I imagine they do – they keep doing it and they seem like good people; I haven't had deep discussions about the faith of any of the pagans I know.) And if their religion leads them to love their neighbor and to find joy and peace and hope, then it's all to the good. And connecting with God in that way seems to me to be better than not doing so.
And yet I find within my heart the firm conviction that for me to do so would be wrong. Certainly not as wrong as murdering someone. Not as wrong as being intentionally cruel. But definitely something that for me would be sin, would draw me away from God, and without any excuse that I didn't know because I seem to know very loudly. Naming God as Allah or Dieu is fine; I can talk about Jesus or Yeshuva or even Joshua and know that I'm still talking about the God I know through my faith. But if I think about calling on God as Artemis or Thor or Osiris, a wall comes down. I can't do it. And it's weird because I know pagans who would tell me that of course no one believes in the old gods the way the Greeks or Romans or Egyptians did anymore, and that it's all just different aspects of the same divine reality. And that makes sense and seems like a perfectly reasonable way of connecting to God throughout all the different parts of life.
But it's not the way I know God. And I have to tread lightly here, because it's so close to saying that the way I know God is right and the way someone else knows God is wrong, and that's just a mess and who am I to judge how someone else should relate to God anyway? But to participate in invoking the old gods, even if I just thought of them as symbols of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for me would be tantamount to denying that I come to God through Jesus Christ and no other. Which I apparently believe. I don't claim that there's just one right way for everyone – I'm not God, how would I know? But there is one right way for me.
I'm a lapsed Catholic gone Unitarian Universalist. Some of my fellow church members are atheists. Some are Catholics and Taoists and Buddhists as well as UUs. My boyfriend is a nominal Muslim. He's gone with his father to the holy sites in Saudi Arabia. He believes in God. He avoids pork (but doesn't freak out if he eats it accidentally). I was listening to Benazir Bhutto's book "Reconciliation" in the car yesterday and she was talking about how Islam and the Q'ran as she understands them advocate for monotheism (Islam means belief in one God, basically, and Muslim means one who is supplicant to that God)... but that it says expressly in the Q'ran that people have different faiths and that that's okay. There are many paths. Of course, Christians believe that Jesus is the only way, so there's some discrepancy there. I tend to be much more comfortable with my Christian roots. I don't consider Christ my personal savior, but I love Jesus and his teachings. It's weird, but it's a testament to the diversity of humanity, I think, and it's something Islam in particular (at least the liberal thinkers within the faith) embraces. Let me scatter-brainedly bring it back home with a quotation from a Christian thinker: "There would not be a perfect likeness of God in the universe if all things were of one grade of being."
ReplyDelete— Thomas Aquinas ... Thanks for sharing, Kimberly. You always make me think.
While I'm currently wrestling with my own belief and definitions of the divine, there's some random thoughts your post brought to mind. Since I grew up fundamentalist, became a pagan, then wandered in atheistic lands for a bit until finding the Episcopal church... I think I have a odd, unique and somewhat conflicted view on paganism as it relates to Christianity.
ReplyDeleteThere are times where I still think/feel that if I'm worried about a lost cat, sending a prayer to Bastet makes more sense than anything. But the flipside, trying to mix pagan beliefs with Christian beliefs is a tad hard. Yes, I do believe that if there's some divine entity(ies) out there that the myriad of deities we see are just aspects of it. That if such a entity exists that it's so far out of our realm of comprehension using symbols that make sense to us helps. Very Jungian archetype thing. It's also why i think the saints in the Catholic church work so well. Because, honestly, while you may say to a woman who has a sick child that "God"/"Jesus" cares, it's easier to identify with Mary.
There are some things in pagan circles I find very visually stimulating and it definitely keeps you intune with the seasons and planets. I used to could tell you what phase of the moon we were in. Now, heh, I have no idea. It connects modern persons to the plant and animal worlds in a way that it's hard to us to do now with our city living. As we get less and less agricultural, we don't notice the cycle of life as well. Why worry about a good harvest and thanksgiving for that when you know even in the dead of winter you can just go down to Kroger and buy fresh apples?
All that said, I have a lot of bitter feelings toward "the pagan community" after 2007. As my therapist at the time mentioned it's a very navel gazing religion and there's just simply not a lot there in the way of organized community support. The fact that it's so small doesn't help either.
I think I've mentioned my stance on the reason for religious organizations. 1) To challenge you become a better person; 2) To comfort you when things are bad. If it does that, it's a good thing, imo. And if you can get it from multiple sources, more the better ;)
I do kinda like the ideas of the Catholic patron saints, but I can never remember any of them. And I sometimes enjoy the idea of there being nature spirits and things that are not human but are definitely below God and not to be worshiped - though of course I don't know if such things exist, but I'm a sf geek, so I like the idea :-)
ReplyDeleteI find my connection to the natural world and the seasons through the farmer's market and through being outdoors and being an ecologist - though of course that's not everyone's cup of tea, and since I'm not on the coast, phase of the moon isn't really important to me.
I'd like to know more about your experiences with paganism, but maybe here isn't the best place since it's likely to be more personal. I'm sure paganism can be done well, just as Christianity can be done wrong - it's just not the path for me.