Delphic Maxim #3: Worship God

This is part of my commitment to posting once a week on the Delphic Maxim.  This first post was originally added to my personal journal, and I am cross posting it here for the sake of continuity.  There has been some editing on my part to clean up the writing, correct spelling, and properly credit others of ideas they presented me.

 My only response to this seems simply to be “yes”. I've gone through a lot of phases of divinity. I've spent large amounts of time considering different ways to worship, what worship means, and what form of worship is best for each god or divine presence. I've never been without praise, awe, humility, and reverence. I understand these concepts are tricky to grasp and mean different things to different people. That's a whole other series of essays I don't want to cover right this moment.

Huge swathes of my life, my time and my plans are all part of doing and being in the name of my gods or divine energy.

For me, this knowledge of divine is innate within me. I have first hand experience that drives me in my faith and makes me certain I am on the right path doing the right thing for me.

A couple things I want to point out here for clarity. Worship does not mean that I follow blindly, refuse to acknowledge imperfections or flaws, or that I feel compelled to impose my will or beliefs on others. Also, ritual that defines worship does not have to be complex or ornate. The structure of ritual does not have to be either rigid or brittle. Worship/ ritual can be deep, meaningful, impromptu, and unique each time. I know that what is or is not worship can be touchy to a lot of pagans as is the whole idea of whether worship is a good or appropriate thing. For me, worship is a needed part of my life and practice. 

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Delphic Maxim #2: Obey the Law

This is part of my commitment to posting once a week on the Delphic Maxim.  This first post was originally added to my personal journal, and I am cross posting it here for the sake of continuity.  There has been some editing on my part to clean up the writing, correct spelling, and properly credit others of ideas they presented me.

I'm an American and the laws in this country are mostly good rules that I agree with. Day to day life I generally strive to obey the laws in paper and spirit. Some laws like rules of the road are not moral issues but just a set of guide lines that we need to follow as a society to get along. I actually value these guide line laws more than the “moral” ones because that's what makes day to day coexistence possible.

All that said there are laws I'm morally opposed to, anything that attempts to obstruct gay marriage or that may limit a gay/bi/trans person's ability to work in a chosen field or live in a certain area. I'm also against any laws that restricts women's reproductive rights or rights to health care of any variety. I'm against laws that enable corporations to care less about their workers or the community in which they do business. I'm against laws that allow banks and other money lending groups to give money out at rates or in amounts that the group knows an individual will never be able to repay.

There is a lot I can do to combat this within the scope of the law and I do that. I write to my representatives. I go to protests and marches. I raise money for awareness and to support my causes. I stay as well informed on these issues as I can and have learned how to politely but firmly discuss my view with others to help raise individual awareness. I support legal challenges to laws I find unconstitutional and I've had occasion to bring the threat of legal action down on those not following the letter of the law.

Often time legal means of change, in a country like the USA are better than illegal means. It distances one from “extremism” which has become a four letter word in our political discourse. To be extreme means to hate you opponent and to be willing to slaughter to get your way, pair this with 9/11 and your cause is rejected before you even have the chance to really present it.

Beyond that, we're a country that is as a whole willing to listen to different perspectives and views. Our lack of homogeneity makes it hard to get any one thought enacted or to standardize curriculum, but it also makes us used to the idea that there are other views and that these views have validity or something to teach us. I think one of the few good things about a 24hr news cycle is that it shows people have interest in what others have to say on a national and global level. The pundits our loud, annoying, and offensive, but that you can make a living shouting is something uniquely American.

This doesn't mean I'm opposed to illegal means of supporting my cause when I believe it will do more good than harm. I think Martin Luther King Jr proves that sometimes one needs to make extreme and illegal moves to get ones point across. When an establishment is so prejudiced and opposed to your view that they will not allow you to get permits for a march or an assembly, sometimes the best thing one can do is go ahead with the march or assembly anyway.

I would help plan and perform a gay marriage in any state regardless of legality. I would help a woman or group of women seek reproductive independence in a safe medically sound manner regardless of cost or legality. I would teach youth a full sex education class including abstinence and I would reject ever teaching a child intelligent design because anything less is an insult to knowledge and a mockery of what our schools systems are in place for.

Were there a draft right now, I would help contentious objectors avoid going to war. If there was a draft right now and women were not included in the lottery, I'd help anyone who wanted avoid the draft as no draft that effects half of a fit population can be fair or just.

There are forms of eco- “terrorism” that I can't help but admire.

Even as I tell others to respect the limits of public land and the rights to private property, I know I don't do so myself. When I see something interesting on my drive I do pull over to investigate and often photograph it. I have no idea if the land is public or private. I don't know if I'm trespassing and whether I've put myself it to true and deep danger. I know I'm a curious and impulsive person who felt called and responded. This one in particular I'd agree is petty and stupid, but not morally wrong. In some ways, I think attempting to bar access to land is the bigger moral imposition.

I've never been good at obeying that which I don't respect. It's often prudent to work within the law and to at least give lip service to the ideas or intent behind the law. It's not a moral mandate. Heck, one of the Gods I follow is Colombia and even she doesn't make it a Godly mandate to follow the law. Liberty, justice, and truth first for her and the law will follow from there.

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Delphc Maxim # 1: Follow God

This is part of my commitment to posting once a week on the Delphic Maxim.  This first post was originally added to my personal journal, and I am cross posting it here for the sake of continuity.  There has been some editing on my part to clean up the writing, correct spelling, and properly credit others of ideas they presented me.

My first and instinctive response to “Follow God” is a simple “no”. It doesn't last long, but part of me violently rejects the idea that I am a being meant to obey or follow above all else. Chalk it up to my problems with authority figures I guess.

Coming to Gods, was a long and slow process.  I started my journey into paganism by leaving God.  I felt divine and "other" presence and I realized it wasn't though the Abrahamic God.  I didn't know what I was feeling, but I thought it might be pagan, so I settled over in this direction.  

For the majority of my time as a Pagan, I've been without Gods of any sort.  I've had guides, local guardians, land spirits, and plant spirits.  I've called on angels.  I've traveled to a place where there is nothing but divine energy and where I was made to understand that everything in all worlds and planes is a form of this divine energy.  Such a thing is so far removed from human motives, it can be hard to consider a God though I never had trouble classifying this Energy as Divine.   

I was Godless until I moved to Alabama and was literally greeted by the local God of the region.  We've been working together and getting to know one another for almost two years.  It's still a state that is not at all natural to me. We negotiate a lot. We are fluid and respectful of each other. 

 The word follow is too forceful to describe the interactions between myself and my Gods.  Its tangled up in the Christian sense of surrendering the self and restricting one's nature to please a deity. It takes away my will or what I want from the equation entirely and simply requires I kneel to all demands. Objectively, I realize follow doesn't have to have any of these implications.  Emotionally, it's a word I reject often before I've thought too much as to why.

There are all sorts of way to follow. Before I had Gods, there was still something sacred, worthy of respect, and bigger than me in the world. I took time to acknowledge, admire, and learn from this nameless experience based thing. Often this feeling came from the natural world for from random acts of kindness others demonstrated. It was something I valued as transcendent and core to my own life. These were moments in time that I needed to honor and that I would cherish and carry with me. I think this could qualifies as following God so long as the idea of God in general is not required to have too many human characteristics or human like will.

 If following God means to acknowledge and honor God then most moments of most days I'm the model of this maxim.

On the other hand, if following God is something that's done without question, without discussion, and without hesitation then I really only have a 50/50 track record.

Furthermore: I don't think Gods inherently know what is best for a human or for me in particular. I'm not certain one should follow every edict a god may choose to make.

Star Foster thinks there are two bits of criteria to judge one's ability to follow god. She asks us to consider:

“1. Is what we are pursuing godly, sacred and of high virtue?

2.Are we following that instead of trying to drive the train ourselves?”

I have no qualms with her first meditative question assuming what's godly is paletable.

The second concern bothers me though. I'm all about driving my own train. Gods might be like life's GPS, but I should be able to take a left when they want me to take a right.  My ability to go "off program" is especially important if while traveling to said destination I want to explore the farm stand over on the left, or I notice heavy construction to the right and want the GPS to re-route me away from there.  GPS's don't know all the driving conditions or all the possible stops a long the way, which is a great analogy for pagan gods who are not all knowing or all powerful.  They may be leading me to a grocery store but not know about the farmers market I spot along the way.  I know where I prefer to shop at.

The point: there are perfectly good benign reasons not to follow Gods. Indeed I wouldn't even necessarily call a farm stand stop directly disobeying Gods so much as leisurely following. While my interactions with a more human minded deity is very new, there has already been a time where I went left when deity said right and they just re-routed me to where they wanted me to be because in that instance it meant that much to them. If Gods can do this, I don't see what it matters how willingly or immediately I follow. When they want me to get there, I'll be there.

We all know what if best for ourselves or at least this is a core truth we should all strive to find with or without Gods. I think we need to follow the call that works best for oneself whether that involves Gods or not.
 

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