Fear, Perceptions, Reality, and Seeking the Middle

“So I finally caught the Baptists yesterday who keep leaving all that literature in my doorway and told them to stop,” I tell my friend in passing. It's a big victory for me, they've been leaving this stuff for me at work at least once a day and at my house 2 or 3 times a week. There's nothing I can do about it at work, where the pressure to provide amazing service makes it too awkward to do anything, but there's no reason for these people to come up to my house. They aren't from within my neighborhood, but they van in and hustle from door to door dropping pamphlets with a train on it asking if I'm on the rails to hell and asking how can I be “sure” I'm on the right track. While amusing to view the first time with their Harry Potter-eque train stop asking what, to me, is the weakest argument to join a faith ever created, they become a nuisance fairly quickly. If nothing else, it's a waste of paper—and waste like that is against my religion.

“Wow, your balls. I'm always impressed how brave you are!” She jumps in. She's shaking her head, at me though and I wonder what's going through her mind. We might be best friends but she's in Massachusetts and I'm here in Alabama. The physical location distance makes guessing exactly her reaction and meaning harder than it used to be. I never thought that your physical place in the world would give so much context to my thoughts. Even being outside of modern culture as I strive to be, doesn't make me immune to it's projections or the subtle assumptions continually pushed on my thinking.

“Maybe it was too forward? Are you sure you're safe?” She continues.  My deep thought face usually give away when I need more context, and it seems my friend can see it just fine over skype. This is all for the best as her words prompt a visceral almost visual portal from her mind to mine.  I can practically smell what she's thinking and feeling.

She's seeing the deep south—the white cross burning Alabama. And of all the southern states, Alabama might as well be the poster child for the Bible Belt intolerance in the USA. The Alabama, that even in my liberal haven of Huntsville, just a few short months ago denied a Wiccan Priest the right to give the invocation at the town meeting (the situation has been rectified and it appears to be one man's prejudice as opposed to the community, but it doesn't mean we don't feel the blow less—after all it only took that one man to keep us away from our right to participate in the rotating invocation program). Even though I am white and my fiancee is white and we live in an upscale end of the state, she sees this simple religious difference and the attention I bring to it as threatening. She's imagining people stoning me and police joining in. She's seeing my home in flames and riots in the street. She's seeing someone grabbing me as I leave my job at night and taking me and doing terrible things to me because I told the Baptists “no” to any more literature at my home.

It's not her fault, it's part of our collective unconscious image of the South (an image that admittedly is fueled more strongly up north than here in the south, but southerner's are not ignorant of this portrait). Truth be told I have this same image in my own subconscious. It's why I knew exactly what she was worried about. She and I have seen discrimination of all kinds and people range from rude to scary. We think intolerant south and our mind jumps to violent-- an action that I'd be hard pressed to decide which of us fears most.

I weight every choice I make about announcing difference based off of this possible outcome. And it is totally crazy. I am not a prime target for any of these scary images. A young polite white girl in upper middle class suburban America, if a little rural, is perhaps as safe as you can be. My Hindu friends are in far more risk than I am. And yet I see their quiet guarded choice to share their food, their faith, and their culture, gently and carefully—and I think, if they can do it, the least I should manage is telling the Baptists to please stop leaving their literature at my door. I understand their mission but they need to understand a polite no thanks if they are ever going to be successful in their mission.

“You jump to the idea that I'd just tell people I'm Pagan too fast,” I tease my friend because again I can see what she's thinking. Up North, especially in college, I would just announce I was pagan when the topic turned to religion. I came out loudly and often. I never softened the blow and on a few occasions, I was intentionally inflammatory. I like to think I grew out of that before I moved, but what we would like and what is true is not always the same.

In any case, I did not tell the Baptists what faith I believe in, I didn't see how it was appropriate or their business.

“Here, you tell them you've found your faith already and they assume you're another kind of Christian. They don't tend to ask, usually telling them you are completely satisfied with your current faith practice and relationship with God/Divine sets them wrong footed,” I tell her.

“But you can't just tell these people no,” she begins.

“Why not? I'm sure they hear no all the time.” I ask, intentionally being dumb. I want her to either think about that fear or I want to actually hear her articulate that ugly horrible irrational fear we hold in our hearts of lynchings and brutalization because I won't accept an infinite number of pamphlets from a Baptist church.

“Don't joke,” she chides, “these are not rational sane people. These are not people you can reason with. These are not people whose next move you can predict. These are the kind of people who picket soldiers funerals, and who send their children out to preach the word of God as manipulative tools. These are people who attack OBGYN clinics because one of their services include abortion. These are people who preach abstinence only and would prefer people live in disease and poverty than offer out condoms and birth control. These are people who think they are warriors of God and are not afraid to inject violence into a situation to get what they think is right. These are not safe people to disagree with.”

The thing is: she's not wrong. I've never physically been to a soldier’s funeral, let alone one that was picketed but I've met people who proudly announce they've picketed funerals. I've met folks who will look you dead in the eye and wish violence and harm on homosexuals. I've know people who don't believe in vaccines or medicine or whatever for “religious reasons”. It's so common, the pharmacist who was offering me a free flu vaccine took my hesitation as a religious objection, she was quick to apologize if she'd offended me. I had to explain to her that I was not morally opposed to vaccines, simply afraid of shots. We laughed, but part of me thought it was more disturbing than funny that it's so common here to refuse medicine a pharmacist is prepped and apologetic if she stumbles into that territory.

Alabama only has two abortion clinics in the state. While there is a legal battle to rectify the situation, there is a law on the books that says all clinics which offer abortions have to have Dr.s that work out of the hospital (hence why we only have two in the state now). The one here in Huntsville is under 24hr surveillance by a church group that photographs everyone who goes in or out of the clinic and posts their picture online to alert people to who is “pro abortion” or “had and abortion” or “helps people get an abortion”. I don't know a thing about the Tuscaloosa clinic, but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't have a similar group photographing everyone.

I've been approached by children with ages from 8-14 who want to let me know “God loves me” or want to “invite me to bible study” or want to ask if “I've accepted Jesus as my lord and savior”. Sometimes their parents are around and other times I've been alone with a wandering child. I wonder about these parents. How could they believe their children are prepared for contrary answers from strangers or do they assume that no one in their community holds a contrary belief or do they believe so completely in the persuasive power of a child to over ride contrary feelings? Oh, the stories of my “daring” with some of these children would terrify my friend. I don't want to scare her anymore.

But how do I let her know it's ok? Really, I'm going to be fine.

“These Baptists could be Those Christians but that's not the vibe I got from them. I think they just wanted to share the word,” I finally settle on, because there are Those Christians, and they are all around me. There is one of Those Christians at my work and she is technically my superior. The careful dance I have to do to not lie to her but also not reveal how scary, crazy, and inappropriate she is for work (to me for all settings) is something I'm making a mental note never to bring up to this friend as we speak.

“Well they shouldn't be going door to door like that,” she huffs, “it's crazy. It's intrusive. It's pushy.”

“I know and it's weird to go up to a stranger's house, knock on the door and share your most personal religious belief with a stranger and insist that your soul's truth is their truth. Not that these Baptists were sharing anything personal in their brochures. Do you think people really convert to avoid the potential of Hell?” I ask.

I already know what my friend's answer is. We are pretty much on the same page about fear conversion, but I want to hear the tangent again or any other if it helps move her from her own fear for me. She lets me change the subject and we go on.

Weeks later this conversation lingers with me. I don't think about it often, but I'm a Northerner living in the South. I don't think of myself as a Southerner, while I've adjusted to how things are here, they can still stir me up in a way only a Northerner could take affront. Door to door conversion happens up north. People handle it differently. Sometimes they are rude. Sometimes they are cold. Sometimes they are polite but not open to the message even when they agree to pray or listen to the bible. I assume sometimes they are open to the message and convert or churches would invest in a different method of conversion.

The point is that up North, people might scold you for being too mean to doorstep witnesses, but most people would think since it's your house it's your right to respond to the disturbance as you saw fit. Very few people would be afraid for your safety for rejecting the message or the visitor. Heck there are a lot of people I know who were Christian of some sort and claimed to be Satanists or Pagans just to shock the witnesses. People saw these antics as funny or mean or too much work, but no one came back and said, “was that safe?”

Northerner's don't look at door to door witnessing in the south the same way they do in the North. There is fear injected into rejecting the visitors. There is all this old news reel footage in the back of our heads from the 60s from the fight for racial equality—not even related really except that there is violence and Christian religious symbols overlapped. If the South reacted that way to racial equality, how would it react to religious—I guess that's the leap we make. What can I say to my southern friends, it makes sense in my head. I think the basis is that we've seen the south use religion as a weapon and we've seen the south be violently afraid of difference. Hence all Christian people may use their religion as a weapon and be particularly afraid of difference. Forget that this footage is from the 60s and never mind that the same can be said for people everywhere. We've seen it happen in the South and we're not about to forget it.

Southerner's do not look at door to door witnessing the same way. In my fiancee's work area along probably about a third of the people there have gone door to door or have programs in their church that does this work which they heavily support. This is a done thing that we are supposed to allow. When I talk with them about how unwelcome these pamphlets are, how wasteful all the paper is, how awkward the meetings are, I got blank stares at first. Sometimes I get a “who cares” question. I mean obviously I care and I would hope the people going door to door care too.

So here I am, a Northerner, who believes I should have a right to reject religious intervention at my home but paralyzed by a the monster of Violent South that the North has a love affair with and further hindered by the carte blanche acceptance of the practice in the South. I can't just shake off my perceptions or the perceptions of others but I have to find an truth within the tangle that will suit.

The more I think on it, the more certain I am that I've done the right thing for the Baptists and for myself. I hope one day I can think of my mingling identities as a more unified compilation. I hope that one day all this baggage of prejudice and judgment will wash away, and that there won't be fear as a first or second consideration in my own personal decisions. Until then, I hope to continue to have a discerning glance that can review my own perception for prejudice and can pick at where there may be truth and where there just may be rampant unreasonable fear.   

Forgiveness and Guilt from One Faith to Another

For me spring is about freedom and life.  It's about energy and love.  My honoring the season change involves exercises like fairy joy bubbles, taking lots of photos of seasons' change, watching the progression of flowers' growth and learning something new about local flora and growing, if I wasn't moving yet again shortly I would be halfway through growing some flowers herbs and veges.  I go outside for walks and being grateful and I will be coloring eggs.  These are all my expressions of love and joy and being absolutely thrilled for the spring.  I don't think I can begin to put into words how sacred and joyful spring is. 

Now for Catholics, spring/Easter season (because nothing is supposed to be related to weather) is far more complex.  In my mother's case spring brings up a lot of concerns regarding guilt, forgiveness, and sin.  I suppose it's only natural, she's fasting right now in the lenten season.   She's meant to consider Jesus' sacrafice, and I know that Good Friday, the day Jesus was on the cross, has always been particularly hard for her.

As a child, I can remember being very confused over Good Friday.  My mother always took us out of school, whether we had the day off or not, which fluctuated.  We always colored eggs and baked sweet bread we would wrap around the eggs.  We would always refrain from using technology from the hours of 2-4 because apparently that's when Jesus was on the cross and you should spend time in quiet reflection. 

Everything about the time seemed so muddled to me.  Because this horrible violence is happening to the savior at our hands for our sins, but there's this deep excitement because on Sunday Easter is happening soon.  Without this horrible violence and betrayal there would be no miracle.  It's still very confusing to me, though thankfully no longer as painful.  Wouldn't the deeper miracle have been for the people to recognize Jesus and to save and protect him?  What could he have done with all that power if he didn't have to rise from the dead?  If he came for peace and a better world then how does this violence do anything but perpetuate what is wrong in our world?

It is a pleasure to me to not have to ask those kind of questions or have this worry that there is something deeply wrong with me.  I was horrified by so many aspects of Catholicism and not able to work through it the way other followers seemed.  I felt like I was bad and wrong twice, once for what happened and again for not being on the same page as other Catholics. 

My mom is still Catholic, we inevitably end up discussing guilt and forgiveness.  One thing she said to me that really struck me to core to our discussion was: "To be really and truly sorry and able to repent means that you won't do those actions and more.  So if you repeat the same actions again, it means you weren't really sorry and couldn't really be forgiven in confession."

To me, and I have no doctrine to back it up, we are most sorry for things we can not help.  I feel guilty and sorry that I have so much while others have nothing.  But what's the real solution to that, how do I "not do that again" or make that right?  Do I give up my position of privilege and join other people who are homeless?  How does that help?

I feel awful that two things I value most, my creative ambitions and my relationships with my family clash.  Each suffers from my experience with the other.  When I'm with my family, I think of the writing or the book assembly I could be doing.  When I'm working on my projects, I think about how long it's been since I've spoken to my family, but if I stop and have a word with them, how they will draw me away from the work I'm doing.  I feel torn between the two, and as if I must sacrifice or compromise one for the other.

I often feel morally compromised at my job, unable to give the best advice because it may look like the boss trying to dictate an employees affairs when really all I want to do is give the best advice in the most straight forward way.  To protect my own interests I stay silent, but it's not genuine to who I am or the most I'd like to give people.

I need/want/hope for compassion and understanding regarding these struggles and others like these the most.  Am I going to keep having these struggles?  Of course, the only way I know how to stop these struggles is to stop living.  That doesn't make me feel less sorry about them, or less like there is a sense of wrongness in our society that these are some of the choices and compromises we make. 

I might wish that if I were sorry for it, I'd be able to fix it or stop it, but that's not always my experience.  I think part of why my mother struggles so much is even though that's her doctrine, it's not her experience?  I think that's why each year we have the same hurt sad conversation.

 Beyond that, to me, forgiveness/compassion is a choice that we have to make to ease others and ourselves despite the fact that there may be nothing they can do to ameliorate of make the situation right.   We are all only human individuals, and singularly we can only do so much.  I think meeting people with both compassion and realism is needed to make the world a better place.  We don't have to allow wrong actions or be silent in wrong actions, but we need to see a whole picture of a person along with realistically what we can expect or do.  

 This idea that we can change everything that's wrong in our lives or ourselves is a great tool to critically look at every option we have and all possible solutions and I do think we need to be thorough in our search for self improvement.  On the other side we need to respect where each person may be and that we are imperfect beings in an imperfect world.  We would like not to repeat the same wrongs but sometimes, even when it's avoidable we're going to make the same mistakes.  It's more about what you as a person do next, than the kind of mistake you made to start.

Pagans Coming Out and the Ripple Effect of Being the 1st or Only Representive

It was December and the middle of the Christmas rush. We were doing a daily huddle to keep the team leads informed and in good spirits during this crazy time for the store. We'd just finished recognizing those who'd done an “amazing” job and we were moving on to “vibe” (this is where we make personal connections with guests that makes them more satisfied with their service and hopefully creates a loyalty to our brand) moments with the guest.

Everything was completely normal. I was happy to be in the huddle and I felt part of something larger, not the way we do in religion, but the way we do when we're a huge team sharing an ordeal together. No matter where you stand on Christmas, there is only one retail worker experience and it's agony. We need eachother's support to make it. We hadn't gotten to the sales goals or stats and already I was ready to dive in to do my part.

Our “vibing” moments was going along normally, and one woman shared her ability to sell a store credit card, which pleased her guest because it will save her 5% on all purchases in the store every time she uses it. We were about to move on to the next person's “vibe” moment when one of our bosses said to her:

“No not that story, you have to tell the one about the witch!”

The woman whose addressed looks. At first I think they are using witch to mean unreasonable demanding and mean guest. It fits with our vibing agenda to turn around potentially bad reviews into positive ones by dealing well with hostile people. I was surprised though that our boss would ever refer to a guest as a 'witch'.

Then the woman addressed shoots me a nervous glance and my stomach drops. See this woman works in HR usually so she knows the story she is being prompted to tell may be touchy. She also knows via our facebook friend relation that I am pagan. It's an open secret in store, as I think she pointed it out quietly to our other HR representative and to our owner so they could all be pc. But I've never actually shared in person with anyone at the store that I'm pagan, I don't see how it's appropriate really.

So she begins hesitantly never looking at me after the first guilty glance, “I was working in grocery when a woman approached me and asked for me to help her find spicy peppers. We're looking for these peppers and I'm trying to gather more information asking, how spicy and if there's a certain type of pepper she's looking for?”

“The woman just says, 'No it doesn't matter, the spicier the better. They just have to be really hot.'”

“So I respond, 'Wow you must be making so crazy chili or do you just like really hot foods?'”

“And the woman says, 'No I'm a witch and I need the peppers for a spell. Doesn't matter what kind just that they are as hot as possible'”

Noise immediately breaks out in the huddle and our Hr lady must stop telling her story to wait for the ruckus to die down. She's a little flushed. Half embarrassed I think and half enjoying everyone's reaction. If anyone had been paying attention to me they may have noticed I am the only one in the group not to react at all, because I am frozen now. I want to leave huddle as quickly as possible, because in this instant it becomes clear again that we are not really a unified team, not in the way I was feeling before anyhow. How could I possibly fit into a group that reacts like a bunch of classroom bullies the second witchcraft is brought up?

Our boss is nodding to the huddle, and making a joke about how we better hope we get service right for this woman or she might put a spell on us too! She makes it clear that our HR is a true professional for dealing with this woman. Even though she's just a normal lady and the fact that our HR lady basically badgered what she wanted the peppers for out of her doesn't seem to count. Our desire as a corporate to “make connections” with the guest in this case results in learning something that is apparently hilarious and/or outrageous about our 'guest'.

I've been sitting on this experience for almost two months now because it was too emotional to tackle. I think I've come to some conclusions.

The Good Stuff:

-My HR lady was embarrassed to tell the story. It has to count for something that at least human resources knows it might not be a great idea

-My HR lady did not immediately think of this moment to share as her “vibing” with a guest, which means, that no matter how unusual the instant may have been, it's not something that she's been mulling on or disturbed enough by to stand out in her mind.

-Even the bigots where were making fun of this woman felt comfortable talking about witchcraft, no one found the subject taboo or potentially dangerous like invoking the devil or inherently evil. The PR campaign to normalize the modern witch has done that much.

-The team's reaction could have been worse. People were generally surprised or amused no one seemed angry or upset.

The Bad Stuff:

-That anyone thought this was an example to tell in huddle is of course bad. If someone hunting for beads for a rosary had come in would anyone have found that worth telling?

-That one of our bosses feels comfortable to joke like that in a large mixed work group on the clock is kind of terrible. She's making fun of a guest and a religious practice in one fell swoop. I don't make fun of people who ask for a latte without espresso after all and that's far more ridiculous than wanting spicy peppers.

A personal reaction I had that shocked me at the time, but I've been able to reflect on now, is that I was furious with the woman in the story for telling anyone she was a witch and that the peppers were a spell. I was horrified with how angry I was at her. I mean it's her right to say what she wants about her faith or in this case practice to anyone at any time. I'm for National Pagan Coming Out Day. If you can safely come out do it loud and do it proud! Let them see the whole person the mother, worker, friend, volunteer, work out friend, who also is pagan.

And here this woman is 'coming out' as it were or 'being out' (what they don't tell you about coming out is that you have to do it over and over and that it's never easier or safer or more ideal) in the store and I'm angry about it. I have no right to feel that way period, but it's particularly hypocritical because of how much I advocate pagans to come out if they can.

I was dissecting her practice and finding it wanting based off of a three minute conversation I hadn't had with the woman! And I knew I was being a terrible person and doing everything I say I won't but I couldn't seem to stop this spiral in my mind. Below all this vitriol was the simple 'why do I feel this way?', 'what set this off?', and 'can this woman really be the core of so much anger?'

It took me days to realize that I wasn't mad at the woman, not really. And I don't really think any of those terrible things about her practice or what she did. Taking the time to breathe and mediate allowed me to open up my empathic center and to see literally hundreds of different perfectly reasonable scenarios for her actions. Because her actions were 100% reasonable. How many blog posts do we see all the time where we hear this story from the woman looking for peppers' perspective? The hypothetical person often considers the consequences of their actions. They have to because our number one question has to be: will talking about this put me or those I love in danger?

One thing I haven't seen in these blogs is “what happens when there is a fellow pagan in the audience when a group of non-pagans tries to talk out their experience”. For the record I was angry, upset, and helpless in that situation to address the hurt because my boss was condoning/encouraging negative reactions to this outing. In a lot of ways I'm glad she did choose to 'be out' because it told me something about these people I might not have found out until after we were friends.

I'm mad for her and I'm mad for myself. That a conversation which took maybe minutes is all the representation we as pagans have. It's a huge responsibility she took on to be that pagan face and now her words have to stand up to people who’ve made up their minds already, in an out of context situation, basically rigged so she can lose. She's been strawmanned and she'll probably never know it. How brave of her to reach out given that these are the very least negative consequences that could have happened.

Beyond learning something ugly about my boss and some of my co-workers, this has further solidified my extreme distaste with the hospitality/retail capitalist system in the US (and probably other countries). But that's a mammoth, I'm going to have to tackle in a separate post.

From Someone Who Values Knowledge and Living Together in Society More Than They Value the Pleasure of Fickle Gods

You know I occasionally do a google + hunt of all things pagan to see what's on the top page. Probably because it's Halloween time this post came in on the top of the page (warning reading the post linked to may cause anger among other non-believers).

It's ok with me that Pennie De is against paganism/the occult/ religion that doesn't involve Jesus. As far as I'm concerned, her accusations of Satanism is just a born again Christian acting like a born again Christian and I can over look it.

I am deeply disturbed by where she writes: “ ....the one thing that always ticked God off the most was when His people adopted the customs of the pagans. It was an abomination to Him”

First off Christians have borrowed and stolen so much from ancient paganism, exactly what does one decide to cut out?  This isn't an accusatory statement, it's virtually impossible to be immersed in a culture and not borrow at least their building style.  Modern pagans have a similar challenge in identifying what is Christian bias in our culture or thought system and whether it has a place in a pagan religious structure.  I understand her lament regarding familiarizing the self with certain rituals, finding comfort and meaning in them, and then having to go back and either re-structure them, or acknowledge they have no place in your life for various reasons.  I like to think this is neither a Pagan, Christian, nor Convert thing but something all thoughtful people must do from time to time in their practice to stay authentic to who they are now. 

Secondly whether Halloween itself is pagan or not is kind of debatable.

Thirdly, are you really going to cut yourself off from new thought, technology, discovery, and culture because a Christian didn't come up with it? This seems like a knee jerk reaction to the word pagan more than anything else.

It's one thing to try not to just pick and choose bits of other pieces of other people's culture for your own entertainment or personal fulfillment without true consideration or thought, but it's another entirely to reject all that is not of your religion.

Isolating yourself from society and how others interact with the world will stagnate a faith. It's not just about people passing a faith over for something “cooler”, it's about a religion's slow loss to make deep meaningful connection between different people and the world around them. I think religion loses a lot when it can no longer make connections between one person and another, when it can't be inserted into one's day to day life, when a deity requires one withdraw from society instead of going out and interacting.

I know Pennie De never intended to withdraw from society, but rather she aims to remold it in a manner pleasing to her God. I suppose I don't understand why an all knowing all powerful deity doesn't choose to be the change ze wishes to see in the world. I don't understand why such a god with the means forces zir follower's to withdraw from the world and abstain instead of sending them forth to live richly and deeply with others. Why is such a God angered by zir followers looking at and sharing in other's customs? Why would adapting these customs to further worship the one true god be harmful? If it so deeply offends why does this God allow it on this earth period?

I am saddened for a group of worshipers that are supposed to have an all powerful God but whom seem to be constantly retreating into their own faith and circles away from an open group conversation. I am afraid of people who reject knowledge and learning out of hand because their God or their people didn't come up with it. Let the information or tradition succeed or fail on it's own merits.

Also, should Pennie De ever read this I'd like her to know that I, like her, will probably be at home praying on Halloween.  The difference it that my prayers will be to my Gods, guides, and ancestors. Instead of combating evil or trying to cajole others into changing I will be thanking them for what I have and asking them for guidance in what I want to accomplish in the new year.  I hope that Pennie De finds her prayers as deep and fulfilling as mine will be, though I can't exactly hope her prayers are answered.

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