{"id":40,"date":"2012-11-12T19:45:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-12T19:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2012\/11\/redemption\/"},"modified":"2012-11-12T19:45:00","modified_gmt":"2012-11-12T19:45:00","slug":"redemption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2012\/11\/redemption.html","title":{"rendered":"Redemption"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Star Foster has a post on her new blog titled \u201cRedemption: Even Pagans Need Deliverance<\/a>.\u201d Star has been very public with the difficulties in her life and here tells a very personal and very emotional story of loss. She asks:<\/p>\n

Sometimes even the most virtuous among us does grievous wrong, and how then do we atone for it? Do we find ourselves condemned to years of hardship, like Psyche or Herakles?<\/p>\n

And when we sell our souls, our integrity, our dignity, our self-worth, how then shall they be redeemed? Can you buy back your humanity?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I come from a similar evangelical Protestant background as Star and I understand what she means by \u201credemption.\u201d Pagans and UUs rightly complain that conservative Christians use the concept of sin as a big hammer to guilt people into conformity. But their abuse doesn\u2019t change the fact that all of us \u2013 Christians, Pagans, atheists and everyone else \u2013 screw up from time to time. Not just in the sense of \u201cmistakes were made\u201d but in the gut-wrenching, soul-splitting realization that you\u2019ve done something really realy bad, something that\u2019s going to hurt you or a loved one a lot, for a long time. <\/p>\n

In the film version of The Mists of Avalon<\/i><\/a>, there is this exchange between Igraine and Morgaine:<\/p>\n

Igraine: \u201cWhen Arthur is crowned, I\u2019m going to go to Glastonbury.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morgaine: \u201cWhy don\u2019t you come to Avalon with me?\u201d<\/p>\n

Igraine: \u201cI need forgiveness for what l did to your father, and I\u2019ll only find that in Glastonbury.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In my time in Christian churches I saw scores of people who went to Glastonbury (metaphorically speaking) seeking redemption. Many of them found it: their guilt was gone, their slate wiped clean, they were born again. They walked out of church feeling refreshed and renewed.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, that didn\u2019t seem to help much with the conditions and habits that got them into trouble in the first place, and most of them (not all, but most) found themselves right back in the same situations within a few months. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Cu Chulainn and the Hound of Culann<\/i><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

For our pagan ancestors, redemption meant restitution \u2013 you screwed it up, you fix it. When the boy Setanta killed the hound of Culann<\/a>, he offered to take the hound\u2019s place and guard Culann\u2019s house until a new hound could be trained. With that act, he earned his legendary name Cu Chulainn \u2013 \u201cCulann\u2019s Hound.\u201d<\/p>\n

Star referenced the Labors of Hercules, twelve monumental tasks which the hero undertook to atone for killing his children in a bout of madness sent by Hera. <\/p>\n

The point of these stories and many like them is to encourage us to live honorably and heroically, do to the right thing even when it is impossibly hard. <\/p>\n

That, of course, assumes you know what the \u201cright thing\u201d is. Real life is never as straightforward as myth and many times we don\u2019t realize we\u2019re on the wrong track until we get clobbered by a series of \u201cbad choices\u201d we didn\u2019t even recognize were choices when we made them. Life is not fair: some people have the money and connections to dodge the consequences of criminal acts, while others end up in jail or dead as a result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some people have the talent and motivation and luck to rise above the most adverse circumstances, while others struggle to deal with ordinary life. <\/p>\n

I struggle with what to say in situations like this. I struggle with my own sins and the harm I\u2019ve caused. How do we encourage responsibility without blaming victims? How do we encourage others to live heroically without absolving ourselves from the sacred obligation to establish justice? How do we walk the fine line Thorn Coyle often reminds us<\/a> Feri teacher Victor Anderson drew: \u201cto neither coddle nor punish weakness\u201d? How do we find the message in the pain\u2026 and then act on it?<\/p>\n

How then shall we be redeemed? I don\u2019t have an answer for Star. I don\u2019t have an answer for myself. But I do know this \u2013 no savior is coming to make everything OK.<\/p>\n

We can keep doing what we\u2019ve been doing. Or we can check into the cloister at Glastonbury. <\/p>\n

Or we can take the first steps down the path on the journey of the hero.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Star Foster has a post on her new blog titled \u201cRedemption: Even Pagans Need Deliverance.\u201d Star has been very public with the difficulties in her life and here tells a very personal and very emotional story of loss. 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