I’ve been writing about Christians a lot lately. It seems largely unavoidable, as the influence of Christianity often haunts even the most Pagan of stories. We may be slowly moving into a post-Christian era, and some may question if the United States is really Christian at all nowadays, but the facts on the ground show that the vast majority of Americans (and Britons, Canadians, and Australians) identify as some flavor of Christian. Contrary to the fear-mongering of some about the evils of secularism, Christians still have massive influence on our culture, our economics, and our politics. The terms of debate on issues like same-sex marriage and abortion are framed by Christians. When people talk about a “Religious Right” or a “Religious Left” they are usually talking about the political positions of Christians, and it’s only prominent Christians who are defined as presidential “king-makers” in the United States. Yet, despite this wealth of influence and privilege, many Christians define themselves as part of a minority, a persecuted minority at that. One that is in constant danger of being eliminated by its numerous enemies. Conservative columnist George Will noted this persecution complex, finding it “unbecoming because it is unrealistic.”

Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” has become one of the 10 highest-grossing movies in history [...] Christian book sales are booming [...]  Religion is today banished from the public square? John Kennedy finished his first report to the nation on the Soviet missiles in Cuba with these words: “Thank you and good night.” It would be a rash president who today did not conclude a major address by saying, as President Ronald Reagan began the custom of doing, something very like “God bless America.”

To many Christians their immense privilege seems invisible. They don’t understand how much of our society panders to their unspoken power. The churches on every corner, the holidays and celebrations structured around Christian dates, the pandering of politicians, the ceremonial deism that acts as a placeholder for state-sponsored religion. Even our vernacular is colored by Christianity: “God bless you,” “we’ll pray for you,” “I’m in heaven,” or even “go to hell.”  Yet despite this, many Christians, particularly conservative Christians, have a major investment in seeing themselves as part of a persecuted minority. This was reinforced for me in the comments section of a recent post at the journalism commentary site Get Religion. There, I was informed that Michele Bachmann was part of a religious minority, and that due to mainstream media criticism “one has to speculate that perhaps Christians are a small minority in the United States.”

Where does this inaccurate perspective come from? How can a group see itself as a minority when it holds so much power? Through constant propaganda that tells them that this is so. Looking back to my Michele Bachmann piece a couple days ago, you can see the modern roots of this propaganda in Francis Schaeffer’s “How Should We Then Live” documentary series.

In that video you see the valorizing of the very early Christian period, heavy on references to persecution for their faith (and the glossing over of the era when the empire was Christianized). In countless Christian sermons and documentaries that period is returned to time and time again. Instead of being used as a reminder to not abuse power, and to not let any minority be persecuted, this narrative has instead mutated for some Christians into a paranoia about a returning “pagan” persecution that they must constantly battle and guard against. For Schaeffer it was the peril of secular humanism, but today it takes many forms. It is the “green dragon” of environmentalism, it is those who want to “take Christ out of Christmas” by saying “happy holidays,” or those who want to stop sectarianism at government meetings, and for a small but increasingly influential network of prayer warriors it is the “demonic” gods of non-Christians, returned again to bedevil and thwart Christ’s return. Whatever the foe, so long as the persecution narrative is sustained.

The persecution narrative, married with invisible (to them) privilege, creates monsters. It melds an “at any cost” mentality of survival and solidarity with vast economic and political power. It leads to bizarre juxtapositions, like a 30,000-plus prayer rally to help launch a politician’s ambitions featuring a fire-and-brimstone sermon talking about a “crisis of truth,” labeling all the world’s religions (except theirs) as false, and urging the crowd to “go public [...] regardless of what it costs us” as if though the Christian voice was silenced. As if they were still a small minority hiding in the catacombs of ancient Rome.

If I could ask for only one concession from Christianity as a whole, it would be the acknowledgement that they are not a persecuted minority in the West. That they are, in fact, economically, politically, and culturally powerful. That claims to “minority” status by Christians in North America are constructed on flimsy technicalities or outright distortions of the privilege they currently enjoy. Christianity still dominates religion here, and the Pagans, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, and indigenous religions enjoy the freedoms we do only because a separation between church and state has been erected. Because in the United States our constitution forbids us becoming an official “Christian” nation.

For those of you who have been following my coverage of the fight over expansion of a ski resort on the San Francisco Peaks in Arizona, a process that would pump treated wastewater snow on the mountain, I would like to direct you to Censored News and Indigenous Action Media, who covered a week of planned protests and actions that just took place at the peaks.

“The action we took today is one part of a series of events with the intent to stop Snowbowl, the US Forest Service, and other corporations from further desecrating the Holy San Francisco Peaks,” stated Haley Coles after being released from jail. “The pipeline will not be tolerated. Spewed waste water turned into artificial snow will not be tolerated. Clear cuts, slash piles, and burning of hundred-year old trees will not be tolerated. The Holy mountain will be defended, and the desecration will be stopped; at whatever cost. We have the mountain on our side,” said Coles.

The already in-progress construction is considered sacrilegious by a coalition of local indigenous groups and Tribal Nations who see this as a desecration that would be “like putting death on the mountain.” According to Brenda Norrell at Censored News 17 people have been arrested so far, some for civil disobedience, and some for no apparent reason at legal protests.

“Six people protecting San Francisco Peaks were targeted and arrested during a peaceful march for the protection of San Francisco Peaks. San Francisco Peaks defender Klee Benally, Navajo, was among those arrested. In front of Macy’s Coffeehouse on Sunday afternoon, undercover police infiltrated the hundred person march in an attempt to squash the growing anti-Snowbowl movement. The peaceful march by Native Americans and supporters was surrounded by police from the moment the march formed, marchers said.”

While the week of planned protests has ended, protest camps still remain. For those wanting to make their voice heard on this issue, Indigenous Action Media has sidebar on its site of all the relevant contact information. I will be periodically checking in on this issue as it progresses.

Republican presidential candidate Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann is performing strongly in Iowa polls, and while some are skeptical that she has the momentum necessary to win the Republican nomination, we are often told to not underestimate her. So until such time as it becomes clear that Bachmann won’t be able to grab the brass ring and face off against President Obama in 2012, or perhaps get the nod as a Vice Presidential candidate, we should take her potential rise to the executive branch of the United States government seriously. In the past I have pointed out that Bachmann funneled tainted campaign money into an anti-Pagan Christian charity (which they later returned), has had a long friendship with pseudo-historian David “paganism and witchcraft were never intended to receive the protections of the Religion Clauses” Barton (Bachmann wanted Barton to teach the 2010 freshmen House Republicans about the Constitution), and has been a longtime supporter of virulently anti-gay Christian musician/activist Bradlee Dean. Any one of those instances is enough to give any Pagan pause, but a recent in-depth profile of Bachmann by Ryan Lizza in the New Yorker provides one more. In the New Yorker piece, Lizza recounts how Bachmann tells an audience in Iowa how the 1970s evangelical Christian documentary “How Should We Then Live” had a “profound influence” on her life.

“["How Should We Then Live"] also was another profound influence on Marcus’s life and my life, because we understood that the God of the Bible isn’t just about Bible stories and about Bible knowledge, or about just church on Sunday. He is the Lord of all of life. Every bit of life, including sociology, theology, biology, politics. You name the area and walk of life. He is the Lord of life. And so, as we went back to our studies, we looked at studying in a completely different light. Not for the purpose of a career but for a purpose of wondering, How does this fit into creation? How does this fit into the code and all of life that is about to come in front of us? And so we had new eyes that were opened up as we understood life now from a Biblical world view.”

This documentary showcased the ideas of influential evangelical theologian Francis Schaeffer, a man whom Bachmann calls “very inspirational” and “a tremendous philosopher.” These opinions aren’t that controversial within evangelical circles, where Schaeffer is widely credited as inspiring the politically engaged “Religious Right,” but I think few outside evangelical and conservative Christian circles know or understand the message Schaeffer was sending. Let’s look at two excerpts from the first part of his ten-part documentary series.

Aside from peddling misinformation about pre-Christian religion (and the fall of Rome), he delves into conspiracy theory in later episodes, insinuating that perhaps the government is trying to control us by spiking our drinking water.

At the end of his life, Schaeffer penned “A Christian Manifesto” in which he railed against pluralism, secular humanism, and advocates for Christian civil disobedience in the face of secular “tyranny.” In a sermon given after the book was published, Schaeffer said that “we must absolutely set out to smash the lie of the new and novel concept of the separation of religion from the state” and that  “Christ must be the final Lord and not society and not Ceasar.” Bachmann’s admiration of Schaeffer isn’t some inch-deep put-on for conservative Christians in Iowa, Lizza points out that Bachmann is also of fan of Nancy Pearcey (her book “Total Truth” is “wonderful”), a student of Schaeffer’s who has worked to continue his message. Pearcey is something of a creationist superstar among conservative Christians (she co-authored the infamous “Of Pandas and People”), and believes that only monotheist Christianity could have created the scientific advances we enjoy today.

“Why didn’t polytheistic religions produce modern science? The answer is that finite gods do not create the universe. Indeed, the universe creates them. They are generally said to arise out of some pre-existing, primordial “stuff.” For example, in the genealogy of the gods of Greece, the fundamental forces such as Chaos gave rise to Gaia, the great mother, who created and then mated with the heavens (Ouranos) and the sea (Pontos) to give birth to the gods. Hence, in a polytheistic worldview, the universe itself is not the creation of a rational Mind, and is therefore not thought to have a rational order. The universe has some kind of order, of course, but one that is inscrutable to the human mind. And if you do not expect to find rational laws, you will not even look for them, and science will not get off the ground.”

Frank Schaeffer, the son of Francis Schaeffer, who helped his father make those films back in the 1970s, has since recanted much of his evangelical past, and now categorizes politicians like Michele Bachmann as “religious fanatics,” noting that “she got into politics because of reading my father’s work. And she is one of his extremist followers.” When Michele Bachmann says that she “will have doors locked and lights turned off” at the Environmental Protection Agency, that isn’t simply conservative populist economic rhetoric, it’s a stance that is synergistically merged with and informed by the strains of conservative Christianity that formed her worldview, many of which see environmentalism as a false religion.

Bachmann is the embodiment of what the Christian Broadcasting Network calls the “Teavangelical Movement,” further blurring the lines between economic and religious conservatism. Whether or not you agree with Bachmann on some issues, what is clear is that her commitment to Francis Schaeffer’s idea of a “Christian consensus” American government runs deep throughout her history, she’s no late-arriving cynical opportunist. The question we need to ask Michele Bachmann is what place religious minorities have in her vision for the United States, and how she would govern a secular nation with millions of non-Christians living in it.

A common fear among adherents to minority faiths in the United States is that our beliefs will be used against us in child custody hearings. This is not an imaginary fear, as several modern Pagans have struggled with having their faith being made an issue of in court. I’ve covered this issue periodically almost since this blog started.  From a Wiccan couple barred from teaching their child about Paganism, to the harrowing and bizarre story of Subgenius member Rachel Bevilacqua (aka Rev. Magdalen). Even the mere accusation of adherence to Wicca or modern Paganism is sometimes enough to affect a custody case. In my interview earlier this year with Jen Lepp, founder of the Pagan-owned Internet hosting company DrakNet (now owned by A Small Orange), she made it clear that the company’s move to “de-Pagan” itself came because of pressures resulting from a custody case.

“The fourth year I owned DrakNet, my husband and I got a divorce, and the following year (for a variety of reasons I won’t go into), we entered into a highly acrimonious custody battle. The suit stated outright in it’s initial filing that the basis was the fact that I was Pagan. I hired an attorney who dismissed it as a concern, stating my religion could not be used against me. While I have no doubt the attorney believed that when he told me, he was wrong and his objection was overruled. The county this lawsuit was in was extremely right-leaning, and the Judge in the case relieved me of custody temporarily while my beliefs and their affect on my ability to parent was investigated. Those I knew in the community did offer to rush to my defense, have protests on the courthouse lawn, call the press, and make the case into a circus, but I strongly felt then, as I do now, that a child cannot choose to be at the center of a public controversy. Though I was very, very careful in my answers not to establish any precedent or disclaim or lie about anything I was in the final trial, once I fought back and defended myself and won, I chose not to tempt fate a second time and I left Paganism so that it could not be used against me again.”

Lepp’s experience is in no way unique, and Pagan parents heading back into the closet for the benefit of their children has become a widely acknowledged phenomenon in our interlocking communities.  In 2008 the New York Times reported that issues concerning religion were becoming more common in custody cases, and that judges are increasingly uneasy with the ramifications of having to make value judgments regarding religions. However, a custody case in Kansas involving a Jehovah’s Witness may just offer new hope for Pagan parents worried about losing their children. The Kansas Supreme Court recently upheld a district court’s ruling that it was not qualified to make decisions regarding the mother’s faith in a custody dispute.

“Disapproval of mere belief or nonbelief cannot be a consideration in a custody determination—judges are not trained to mediate theological disputes. Yet consideration of religiously motivated behavior with an impact on a child’s welfare cannot be ignored. It is one of the many relevant factors that must be part of the holistic custody calculus required under Kansas law [...] Just as mere religious beliefs cannot be solely determinative of custody, a court may not speculate about behavior that religious beliefs may motivate in the future…. A court also may not weigh the merit of one parent’s religious belief or lack of belief against the other’s. Nothing in law school or practice in any setting qualifies a judge for this task, and any judicial effort to tackle it is far too likely to lead to the substantial impairment of the free exercise of religion… Courts must be vigilant to avoid invidious discrimination against religious beliefs or practices merely because they seem unconventional. The consideration of religiously motivated actions as a part of holistic evaluation of the best interests of the child, while excluding consideration of religious beliefs, strikes an appropriate balance among the free exercise rights of each parent; the right of each parent to the care, custody, and control of his or her child; and the welfare of the child….”

In short, unless there is obvious religiously-motivated abuse and harm that can be proven, the courts should not be in the business of deciding what religion is better for a child in custody cases. This is a welcome ruling for any parent who fears losing custody simply because the judge has a grudge, or preconceived notions as to what a “Pagan” is. What needs to happen now is for a wider precedent to be set. While I do not wish this on the parent or child in this case, who no doubt want nothing more than for this nightmare to be over, if this ruling is challenged to a higher court and upheld, it could have farther-reaching impact outside of Kansas.

In addition to hoping that rulings like this one help establish a stronger precedent for judges to stay out of making value judgments about personal belief systems, other responses to the problem of parents using the religion against each other in custody battles is increased mandatory mediation sessions, and giving greater agency to the children in these cases. A cocktail of all three could provide a good inoculation against religious discrimination in the courtroom. In the meantime, many Pagans, and other adherents to minority religions, still worry about revealing too much about their faith, lest it be used against them should a marriage fall apart. If you are a Pagan parent worried about custody, I suggest contacting the Lady Liberty League for help and advice. For those who can speak out, becoming more visible and understood is key in demolishing stereotypes about our faiths.

I was recently pointed to a just-published piece at the Bryn Mawr Classical Review that reviews the 2010 edited volume “One God: Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Empire.” That book grew out of a 2006 conference at the University of Exeter, and once you scratch the surface, points to a far larger conversation within academic circles over monotheism, polytheism, and how the shift from many gods to one God changed the world. In the introduction to “One God” editors Stephen Mitchell and Peter Van Nuffelen note how the “prevalance of monotheism” has colored all inquiry into pre-Christian polytheistic religion.

“…for this reason the differences between Graeco-Roman polytheism and the Jewish, Christian, or Islamic monotheisms, which have dominated our own religious and cultural experiences since the end of antiquity, pose a serious challenge to our understanding of the past. We view ancient religion through a filter of assumptions, experiences and prejudice. Monotheism contains its own internalized value judgments about polytheistic paganism, and these have always influence, and sometimes distorted, the academic study of ancient religion.”

When the scholars in this book, and in other books like 1999′s “Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity,” talk about “Pagan monotheism” they are often describing what we would call henotheism, that is, the worship of one god (or goddess) to the exception of others, while still acknowledging and accepting the existence of other deities.

“[Stephen] Mitchell’s essay ends with a statement worthy of concluding the volume: “We cannot call the cult [of Theos Hypsistos] monotheistic in the strictly exclusive sense that is applied to ancient Judaism and Christianity, but it involved a series of coherent and explicit rituals and practices which were based on belief in a unique, transcendent god, who could not be represented in human form” (p. 197). The acknowledgment that Theos Hypsistos is not exactly like other monotheistic religions does not mean, as Mitchell rightly argues, that elements of monotheism cannot be found in it and in other pagan cults. But this lack of exclusivity does open up the possibility of claiming that pagan monotheism also has elements of polytheism. The fluidity in defining pagan monotheism reflects the fluidity of the religious realities in which these cults were worshipped.”

Books like “One God” seem to be asking whether monotheism as a system of religion must be inherently intolerant, or if  it was merely “concomitant aspects of religious change which are subsumed within monotheism” that caused such a shift towards religious intolerance. To German Egyptologist Jan Assmann, who released “The Price of Monotheism” in 2009, it comes down to what he calls the “Mosaic Distinction,” which created a distinction between “true” religions and “false” religions.

“This shift does not just have theological repercussions, in the sense that it transforms the way people think about the divine; it also has a properly political dimension, in the sense that it transforms culturally specific religions into world religions.  [...] What seems crucial to me is not the distinction between the One God and many gods but the distinction between truth and falsehood in religion, between the true god and false gods, true doctrine and false doctrine, knowledge and ignorance, belief  and unbelief.”

To Assmann history is full of “monotheistic moments” where this distinction between true and false religion rises up to cause mayhem and destruction.

The back-and-forth of scholarship may seem a bit too “inside baseball” to matter, but the debate over the nature of religion in antiquity and late antiquity casts a shadow on more popular works today, including in journalism, and helps shape the way we think about a topic. Whether acknowledged or not, there are competing narratives in works like Alan Cameron’s  “The Last Pagans of Rome”, which argues that paganism was a spent force that went out with a whimper, or the work of Owen Davies in books like “Paganism: A Very Short Introduction” or “Grimoires: A History of Magic Books” that looks at how pagan ideas and beliefs managed to persevere, adapt, and survive. That “in contemporary society, Paganism can be a liberating spiritual and social force [...] it is no less relevant than it was when it was redefined by Christians nearly two millennia ago. It has retained its ability to stimulate intellectual curiosity and spiritual exploration.”

The shift to reevaluate polytheism has almost certainly influenced figures like religion professor Stephen Prothero, whose 2010 book “God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World-and Why Their Differences Matter”, while no love letter to polytheism, did insert Yoruba into the pantheon of religions that “run the world”. Prothero is the go-to guy for religion at CNN’s Belief Blog, and was a main source for the PBS series “God in America,” how he thinks about polytheism today has far-reaching effects. It is also why the field of Pagan Studies is so important. Pundits, bloggers, and journalists regularly turn to “experts” for new information and confirmation of their ideas and theories, the more good information there is about the validity of polytheism and of contemporary Pagan religions, the more people like me have to reference when we make our own arguments in the public sphere. That there is a wide-ranging discussion about polytheism and monotheism within academia should excite modern Pagans, as it means there could be a seismic shift in how our culture approaches these topics as well.

Today’s the day! Texas Governor Rick Perry’s massive prayer rally “The Response” is now underway, and you can watch the multi-hour conservative Christian extravaganza via streaming video (if you’re into that sort of thing). They are even live-tweeting the event.

"His agenda is not a political agenda, His agenda is a salvation agenda." Governor Rick Perry speaking at #TheResponse

August 6, 2011 8:32 am via Tweetbot for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@theresponseusa

The Response

I have weighed in on this event before, and on the troubling inclusion of leaders from the anti-Pagan New Apostolic Reformation (among others). Despite criticisms that this a (conservative) Christians-only affair that some feel transgresses church-state boundaries, Eric Bearse, former speechwriter and Director of Communications for Rick Perry, now official spokesman for “The Response,” says that the event is inclusive and that non-Christians are “excluding themselves” if they don’t attend (of course he also said that a main goal of the event is to bring people to Christianity, so you can forgive us non-Christians for excluding ourselves).

As the event approached, several news outlets, pundits, and advocacy organizations rushed to have their say before things got underway. Paul Burka shared eight things you ought to know about Rick Perry (“Perry is a hard man. He is the kind of politician who would rather be feared than loved—or respected.”), Bill Leonard at the Associated Baptist Press wondered if Christianity is “so needy, so limited in vision that it requires political privilege to undergird its message,” Paul Harvey at the Religion in American History blog called the event “egregiously sectarian and transparently partisan, “ and Paul Horwitz at the New York Times noted that by “emphasizing creeds, not deeds, Mr. Perry encourages the very divisions that [Abraham] Lincoln believed lay at the root of America’s ills.” You can also find news reports from the New York Times and the Associated Press regarding Rick Perry and “The Response.”

If watching hours of streaming Christian-oriented video isn’t your thing, you can check in on Houston Chronicle religion reporter Kate Shellnutt’s live-blog of the event for key details, or swing by Right Wing Watch now and then, as they are already excerpting politically-charged bits from the live stream. I’ll be checking in with the aftermath, to see what this event may (or may not) signal for religious minorities in the United States.

There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up.

• The home of traditional 19th century Irish healer Biddy Early is up for auction. Current property owner Billy Loughnane is hoping that someone with a strong interest in Early will purchase the land, restore her cottage, and preserve it as a tourist spot. Biddy Early is perhaps one of the most famous of the female cunning folk, and her legend has only grown over the years.
• In June a new group blog, Feminism & Religion, launched. The main contributors are all feminist theologians and scholars, and was founded “in the hope that feminist scholars of religion — and all who are interested in these issues — will use this forum to share their ideas, insights, and experiences, so that this community of thinkers will be nurtured as we explore diverse and new directions.” Plenty of posts of interest to Pagans, Goddess worshipers, and feminist theologians to be found.
• Slate’s legal correspondent Dahlia Lithwick, referencing a recent 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decision, explains why you can’t simply vote for sectarian prayers at government meetings: “It doesn’t matter if only 4 percent of the community is expressly excluded by references to a certain deity. It also doesn’t matter if only 1 percent of the community feels that way, or even if only two “hypersensitive” non-Christians object. The Bill of Rights is not subject to popular referendum. That’s why it’s called the Bill of Rights and not, say, American Idol.”
• Scholar danah boyd explains why “Real Names” policies on social networking sites are an abuse of power. She notes that: “people who most heavily rely on pseudonyms in online spaces are those who are most marginalized by systems of power.” Considering the large number of Pagans who operate under pseudonyms on the Internet (and in their day-to-day lives) I can see this becoming an issue for our communities. For more on this check out the “My Name is Me” advocacy site, explaining the number of reasons why individuals should be free to choose their own names on the Internet. More from boyd on “radical transparency.” I’ll be following up on this issue soon.
• Here’s your Pagan facepalm for the weekend: two inebriated Odinists in the UK climbed up the scaffolding surrounding a Christian church, claiming they were holding a protest. “A witness said he heard police telling the pair it would have been a more effective protest had they not been drunk.” The younger of the two protesters refused an offered ladder and jumped down from ten feet, hurting his leg in the process.  No one was arrested, and no damage seemed to have been done (except to the one Odinist’s leg).
• Shock Till You Drop interviews writer/director Robin Hardy about “The Wicker Tree,” the themes running through it and its spiritual predecessor “The Wicker Man,” and the upcoming third film “The Wrath of the Gods.” The last film sounds very Wagnerian, and “the gods themselves get sucked into the melee.”
• The perfect storm for sensationalist coverage: A porn star gets busted for animal cruelty by leaving animals he was planning to sacrifice in a Santeria ceremony inside a hot van. Here’s the TMZ version of the same story.
• More on the Hindu America Seva Charities (HASC)  first-ever White House conference.
• Starting yesterday, a week of actions are planned to protest the expansion of the Snowbowl ski resort on the San Francisco Peaks in Arizona, which includes the pumping of treated wastewater up the mountain to make fake snow. A coalition of local indigenous groups and Tribal Nations see this as a desecration that would be “like putting death on the mountain.” You can read my recent coverage of this issue, here.
• Here at Patheos, P. Sufenas Virius Lupus explains the dangers of one-stop shopping, especially when it comes to religion: “For polytheists, and I would suggest for Pagans more generally, there are no shortcuts. One never gets, in a metaphorical sense, to kill two birds with one stone with one’s daily activities and one’s spiritual life. And, I would argue, this is a very good thing.”
• Also at Patheos, columnist Gus diZerega responds to Christina Oakley Harrington’s talk on Pagan in Britain today, with some thoughts of his own.

That’s it for now! I may not be near a computer for much of today as I’ll be visiting one of Oregon’s sacred sites, so please forgive me if I don’t respond to comments or emails in a timely fashion. Feel free to discuss any of these links in the comments, some of these I may expand into longer posts as needed.