A Pagan’s Christmas Message

November 29, 2011 By Teo Bishop 39 Comments

I’m in Nashville, home of the Christian Contemporary Music Industry, home of LifeWay Christian Stores, and home of the Southern Baptist Convention. This week, in a kind of radical re-immersion into Christian culture, I’m going to spread the message about Jesus to Jesus-people, and I’m doing so in the most subversively effective way imaginable: through catchy melodies and rhyming lyrics.

Caroling. This Pagan is going to sing Christmas carols to Christians.

I’m going to sing songs about the Virgin Birth, the upbringing of a Messiah, and the ascension of their Lord and Savior into the cloudy realms of Heaven (which is really a theme more suitable for Easter, but which often shows up in the more Jesus-y Christmas songs). I’m also going to sing about snow, which wasn’t a part of the original Jesus birth-narrative, but which is pretty, and white, and threatening to fall at any given moment from the cloudy, Tennessee skies.

Why am I doing this?

Don’t think I haven’t asked myself that question a few times.

I feel like this is my karma; I am called to engage with what feels uncomfortable or unreconcilable, both in the world and within myself, so that I might find ways to bring those disparate parts into a state of peaceful balance.

It’s kinda my thing.

I’m hoping to create harmony even while experiencing internal dissonance. This is a radical approach to reconciling my personal conflicts, I know.

It would be easier for me to dismiss Christianity altogether, as some of my fellow Pagans have done, and in the process negate all it teaches about compassion, forgiveness, and kindness, focussing on instead on the faults of its adherents and the limitations of its theology.

It would be easier to proclaim that my current expression of Paganism is superior to my former experience of being Christian. Anyone can claim superiority, and many do. I could say–quoting some new, scholarly, archeological tome–that mine is a more historically accurate, perhaps even culturally relevant religion. Mine is older, rooted deeper in the sacred dirt of human history, and therefore I have greater insight into the inner workings of the spiritual world.

But, I’m not taking the easy route. Instead, I’m going to have a hand at being a Pagan who helps Christians be Christian.

I’m kind of obsessed with interfaith dialogue, and the thing I’m discovering is that the real challenge in it is not what happens when you are in conversation with others; it’s what happens when you are in conversation with yourself.

Can you hold up your current beliefs and practices against seemingly contrary ideas without feeling threatened, or broken, or like you made some mistake in becoming who you’ve become? Can you sing about Jesus to people who believe something different about him than you do and still remember who you are?

These are the question I’m asking myself as I’m rehearsing songs about Little Baby Jesus in a manger.

Before we can have any kind of meaningful dialogue with another person, we must first spend time reflecting on our own ideas and beliefs. For me, a convert of sorts, this act of reflection can feel quite conflicted. The term I used to describe the process in my post, On Converting a Christian to Paganism, was inner-interfaith, and I think there may be no better two words to explain what’s going on with me right now.

But rather than letting this dialogue only take place in my head (or on this blog), I’m bringing it out into the open. I’m allowing my inner conflicts to become incarnate in the world, and I’m doing so in a way that forces me to be a little kinder to them. Perhaps, too, I’m working through a new understanding of the Christian narrative and what it offers Christians and Pagans alike.

We forget about the Divine, about our sense of wonder, mystery and magic, and through that act of forgetting we experience an absence of the Sacred. It was always there: immanent, ever-present, ever-willing to be known and experienced. But we forget, and when we do we feel alone.

Transcendence, then, means less that the God of these Christmas carols is distant from His creation, and more that the very idea of “distance from the Divine” is illusory. With that in mind, Christmas, and my singing of Jesus songs to small crowds of Christians, becomes an affirmation of a value that Pagans can and do affirm; that in the moments when we’ve forgotten that the world is holy, that our lives are sacred, and that the Great Mystery is woven into the fabric of all things, it still is.

It is, it always was, and it always will blessedly be.

So I say, “Ho, Ho, Ho! Merry Christmas, Jesus folk. The Sacred is as close to you as it is to me. Call on it, and welcome it into your hearts. Let it come to you through the melody of your favorite Christmas song, and inspire you to be a kinder, gentler, more compassionate human being.”

Then, when the singing is done, I’ll return to my little hotel room, light my candle, close my eyes and experience the sanctity of my own breath. I will worship in the Temple of the Gods, which is this body: this house of Spirit.

Filed Under: Christianity, Paganism, Virtue Tagged With: , , , , , , , , 39 Comments

On Converting a Christian to Paganism

November 19, 2011 By Teo Bishop 67 Comments

I’m a convert to Paganism.

I was born into a Christian tradition, and spent most of the first 25 years of my life identifying as a Christian. I’ve written of this before, but the subject keeps coming up for me. There’s something about how we arrive at our tradition that seems worth reflecting on, especially for a convert.

We hear much about conversion to Christianity, and I understand what that looks like. As I explained it to my husband, becoming a Christian involves accepting a certain set of beliefs about Divinity, specifically related to the God of Israel, Jesus -his humanity and his divinity- and about the role of the Divine in the course of human history. It also involves a certain engagement with Christian scripture, and a whole series of adjustments to whatever worldview you had before. For true conversion to take place, every part of you needs to change, or evolve (depending on your perspective). Your entire being needs to be made open to the development of a “relationship with God.”

But what does it mean for a Christian to convert to Paganism?

At first, this question seems problematic simply because Paganism is not a unified religion. There is no one form of Paganism; no core belief system. And, as anyone who’s paying attention will tell you, most Pagans aren’t fond of having their religious identities, with all of the diverse expressions and cultural lineages associated with them, roped into one, overarching religious title.

And yet, a Christian can become a Pagan, and in the process of doing so experience the inevitable inner-interfaith dialogue between what they believed before and what they believe now, or at least what they are moving toward believing. Those beliefs, old and new, must be in conversation with each other inside of the convert in order for that person to truly become what they’re becoming.

I’ve heard about the ills of Christianity — I’ve spoken about them, myself. I’ve heard reasons why the patriarchy is broken, why the “Big 3″ are monopolizing most of the religious landscape in this country and around the world, and why Pagans would do good to let go of the damaging perspectives and social structures that they believe to be the direct product of a Christian worldview.

Those things are all arguable, but not really interesting to me right now. Conversion is more than just letting go of the beliefs you’ve had before. It has to be more than that. After all, being a Pagan is more than just not being a Christian.

What I want to know is – How does a Christian become a Pagan, and how do Pagans help Christian converts through that process?

With conversion to Christianity, the convert must engage in a process of developing a relationship with their God, with Jesus and with (in some sects) the Holy Spirit. The relationship is key. It’s where it all begins, and – as the belief goes – it’s where it all ends, too.

What, then, with Pagans? Are we not to develop relationships with our Gods and Goddesses, too? That seems like a natural parallel. But, how do we do that, exactly? What do we reference to teach us about how our Gods and Goddesses are working in the world — TODAY.

Christians have the Bible. It’s a useful tool in starting the conversation about how their God engaged with humanity in the past, and it can springboard Christians into an exposition of how their God is interacting with humanity in the present. There are inconsistencies in the text, yes, but it’s a starting point.

Why don’t Pagans have these kind of stories?

From what I’ve learned, there is literary fiction, poetry, historical record, and ample text on ritual practices. That’s what Pagans are working with. But, we don’t have a book, a volume, a testament which says — “This is what (insert god or goddess) said to me about the nature of reality, the place of humankind in the larger scheme of things, the will of the Divine. This is an account of my God/Goddess interacting with humanity. These words are holy, because they come from the Being whom I worship.”

There are the old myths, and these myths do much to inform our knowledge of ancient cultures; cultures which have been replaced many times over with new cultures, and new myths. They allow the Reconstructionists in our midst to have a go at forming something that resembles the “Old Ways.” But what do these old myths tell us about those Gods and Goddess as they exist in the world today?

This is what it boils down to for me. These very old Gods and Goddesses must be working in the world — this world — if they’re worth building a religion around. They have to be real in order to be deserving of altars, shrines, devotees. They have to be doing something in this place, otherwise they’re just characters in old stories, no different from Captain Ahab, Don Quixote, or Robin Hood.

Clearly, having been enculturated into Christianity, I have a need for finding some immediate relationship with the Divine, and perhaps Pagans reading this will tell me that this sort of relationship is unnecessary, or distinctly Christian. If that’s case, perhaps I’m not cut out to be a Pagan after all.

But, for the moment, I’d like to ask my fellow Pagans — especially those who, like me, didn’t start out as Pagans — the following question:

If the Gods and Goddesses are real and present in the world, where do we turn to hear their voices? Do they speak, as does the God of the Christians? If so, are we listening?

I’ve yet to find a Pagan perspective being voiced in books or blogs that speaks to these questions of conversion from Christianity to Paganism. If you have, please share them with me in the comment section, and share any insights you’d like to offer. It would be nice to know that I’m not alone in feeling this way.

Then, feel free to share this post with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, or your network of choice.

Filed Under: Belief, Christianity, Divinity, Paganism Tagged With: , , , , , , 67 Comments

Rules Of Reverence: The Sacred And The Silly

June 18, 2011 By Teo Bishop 4 Comments

My grandma says in Spanish, “¡Jesus!” whenever someone sneezes. Its the cutest thing. The “-soos” part of the word is always pitched just a little bit higher than the “heh-”.

“Heh-soos!”

I love it.

My husband and I were over for dinner recently, and after a sneeze and a ‘soos, I said jokingly, and in English:

“Jesus!”

She laughed a little, and then got a scolding expression on her face.

“Mateo…”

It was funny, though. Saying “Jesus” after a sneeze is funny. Who does that? I don’t think my grandma ever realized that she was saying the first name of the deity she’d been praying to all her life after each sneeze. Not until, that is, I said the word in English.

“JESUS!”

The irreverence was titillating, even for my 80 year old, Catholic grandmother.

What Are The Rules Of Reverence?

In exploring the idea of using Gods for our own purposes, I wrote that we need to respect the Gods we worship. We need be weary of commodifying them; turning them into an essential oil, or a hair product. They aren’t designed to meet our needs. That isn’t how it works. They, like us, may have areas of expertise. But who wants to be treated like they’re just a resource, and little more? I know I don’t, and I wouldn’t imagine a Divine Being would either.

I received a number of insightful comments to this post which reminded me of the importance of humor and mirth in ritual. Stodgy religion? Bo-ring. Its important for a community of people (i.e. Pagans) who actively engage with the world as thought it is a magical place, populated by unseen, mythical, fanciful creatures, to keep it light. Don’t take yourself so seriously, prancing around in your serape or cloak. Its a little laugh-worthy, what we do, remember.

[An admission: I'm a kilt-wearing, cloak owning, Renaissance festival attending Pagan, myself. I'm all about the dress-up, and I know the difference between a role-play game and religion. I'm just sayin' - we've got to keep things in context.]

But how, then, are we to find an acceptable standard of reverence? What does it mean to be a reverent, devout, polytheist Pagan?

Sometimes I Miss My Dogma

Beware the oncoming Pagan blasphemy: There’s something to be said for dogmatic structures. They’re kind of useful in holding a group of people to a standard. Dogma ain’t always a bad thing.

Unless it is, or course. The universe is expansive in ways we can’t even fathom, and our little attempts at packaging it up and labeling it always fall short. Our dogma, right as we may think it, is always, from another perspective, wrong. Its also used to subjugate, alienate, judge, and suppress countless forms of natural, healthy, human expression.

But even when its wrong, it has a purpose.

Rules Are Made To Be Broken

What I loved about being surrounded by dogma was that I had the option – the inner freedom – to resist it. If I decided, on my own accord, that the dogma was bunk, I could make that known. Sure, that might alienate me from those who accepted it blindly. But at least it was something for me to engage with. I could argue with it, one way or the other.

Now, as I float down this amorphous Pagan river, I have nothing concrete to argue with. No dogma? No dogma to resist. This is, for many Pagans, a point of pride. We’re proud that we aren’t subject to an oppressive, dogmatic monolith. We’re free, right?

But rules will eventually form. They do so organically. Even in an open Wiccan circle there are a whole set of unspoken rules of how to act, how not to act, and those rules are enforced explicitly or implicitly. Either way, they’re there. And its natural for them to be there. That’s what happens when people form community. They form rules of engagement; standards of practice, and systems of shared belief.

Rules matter for something. I don’t accept that in order to be Pagan, to walk a Druid path (for myself), or to take part in any other tradition that we must throw all sense of structure to the wind.

The question is, how do we find a balance between our desire for personal freedom and the legitimate need to have a standard measurement in our community?

Say It In Spanish

“Jesus”, for my adorable grandma, means something different in Spanish, post-sneeze, than it does when she’s saying the word in her rosary. The context and the usage determine what is appropriate and what isn’t. While she has a sneaky sense of humor, and she did appreciate my irreverent act, she was also made a little uncomfortable by it. It came a bit too close to what is, for her, a very sacred idea. I respect that, and after the joke had been made a few times, I dropped it.

Her example, though, is useful for the modern Pagan, seeking to find balance between reverence and irreverence. What does it mean to be a devout Pagan? Know yourself. Know what those lines are for you. Understand the topography of your own inner spiritual world, and hold true to that. Then, when an irreverent joke is lobbed your way, you can see where it lands and you’ll have perspective as to how much damage it could actually do.

Mirth, humor, playfulness – these things all work to counter-balance our sense of reverence and serious religious expression. They give light to another side of that expression; a crucial side. They’re the bird call and the puppy bark. They are the millions of ways that the Sacred intersects with the Ordinary, imbuing it with magic. Reverence is remembering that both sides serve a purpose; they serve one another. The Ordinary and the Sacred are kin.

Call A God, Then Grab A Tissue

So next time you sneeze, say “¡Heh-soos!,” or, “Ganesha!” Then, laugh a little and remind yourself that even the most devout, sincere religious person looks a little silly in their garb and getup. The silliness is a sacred part of the process. Be silly. Be reverent. Then…

“HEH-SOOS!”

Bless you…

If you found this silly post to be entertaining or insightful, please tweet it or Facebook share it with your friends. As always, your comments are welcome here. I’d love to know how you balance the sacred and the silly!

Filed Under: Paganism, Values Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments