{"id":217,"date":"2011-09-12T20:20:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-12T20:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/09\/together-in-faith\/"},"modified":"2011-09-12T20:20:00","modified_gmt":"2011-09-12T20:20:00","slug":"together-in-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/09\/together-in-faith.html","title":{"rendered":"Together in Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
David Sparks of Temple Spiritualis Compassare and John Beckett of Denton CUUPS<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Last night I had the honor of participating in Together in Faith<\/i>, a 9\/11 Service of Remembrance and Hope held at the First United Methodist Church of Denton.\u00a0 I was one of the \u201cfaith group representatives\u201d who spoke on the theme \u201cI believe\u201d \u2013 what our religions teach that can help us all to live together in peace.<\/p>\n

When Rev. Pam Wat of DUUF asked me to represent Pagans in this service, I was a little nervous.\u00a0 It\u2019s one thing if your UU minister invites Pagans \u2013 it\u2019s another for the other clergy to accept them.\u00a0 I shouldn\u2019t have worried.\u00a0 Rev. Matt Gaston of First Methodist met me at the door, welcomed me, and thanked me for participating.\u00a0 He and his colleagues sincerely wanted as many religious groups represented as possible.<\/p>\n

And I wasn\u2019t the only Pagan.\u00a0 David Sparks of Temple Spiritualis Compassare was invited to participate in the litanies of Remembrance, Penitence, and Hope.\u00a0 David already knew some of the local clergy from his work as a hospital chaplain.<\/p>\n

Everyone I encountered last night was welcoming and friendly.\u00a0 At the reception after the service I had a couple people ask about my Awen and Cernunnos pendants \u2013 it gave me a chance to talk a little more about Paganism to people who may not have known a thing about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speakers were limited to 100 words \u2013 if they had let religious leaders from a dozen or so groups say all they want, the service would have run about five hours and the congregation would have walked out!\u00a0 That was a challenge \u2013 in 100 words I couldn\u2019t explain what Paganism is or why I felt like the interfaith service was so important.\u00a0 All I could do was express a couple key concepts and hope people would get them at one level or another.\u00a0 After numerous revisions, here\u2019s what I ended up saying:<\/p>\n

I believe the Earth is the Great Mother of us all.\u00a0 And because we are all children of the Great Mother, we are all brothers and sisters.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

In the millennia since we became human we have formed many tribes with many colorful traditions.\u00a0 I believe we can celebrate our own traditions, find great meaning and inspiration in them, and still honor the different beliefs and practices of our sisters and brothers. <\/p>\n

From the Earth we came, and to the Earth we shall return.\u00a0 From One we became many, and from many we shall be One again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Throughout the country there was considerable disagreement over how to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9\/11.\u00a0 This group thought the best way was to come together in peace.\u00a0 I was happy to be a part of it.<\/p>\n

For more on this event, see Cindy Breeding of the Denton Record-Chronicle<\/i>\u2018s coverage of the service<\/a>, and her story of how the event came together<\/a>.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got a draft article ready for the new Lonestar Pagan<\/a> news site \u2013 it will be up as soon as it\u2019s edited.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Sparks of Temple Spiritualis Compassare and John Beckett of Denton CUUPS Last night I had the honor of participating in Together in Faith, a 9\/11 Service of Remembrance and Hope held at the First United Methodist Church of Denton.\u00a0 I was one of the \u201cfaith group representatives\u201d who spoke on the theme \u201cI believe\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTogether in Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"David Sparks of Temple Spiritualis Compassare and John Beckett of Denton CUUPSLast night I had the honor of participating in Together in Faith, a 9\/11\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/09\/together-in-faith.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Together in Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"David Sparks of Temple Spiritualis Compassare and John Beckett of Denton CUUPSLast night I had the honor of participating in Together in Faith, a 9\/11\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/09\/together-in-faith.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-09-12T20:20:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-620wsqvlR-g\/Tm6uGsJwMjI\/AAAAAAAAAqQ\/SnN-AGWrFcQ\/s400\/David+and+John+911+Interfaith.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/09\/together-in-faith.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/09\/together-in-faith.html\",\"name\":\"Together in Faith\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-09-12T20:20:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-09-12T20:20:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad\"},\"description\":\"David Sparks of Temple Spiritualis Compassare and John Beckett of Denton CUUPSLast night I had the honor of participating in Together in Faith, a 9\/11\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/09\/together-in-faith.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/09\/together-in-faith.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/09\/together-in-faith.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Together in Faith\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/\",\"name\":\"John Beckett\",\"description\":\"Musings of a Druid, Pagan, and Unitarian Universalist.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad\",\"name\":\"John Beckett\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"John Beckett\"},\"description\":\"I grew up in Tennessee with the woods right outside my back door. 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