Quaker Pagan Reflections
The only things of permanence we human beings have ever created have been dead. Cathedrals and pyramids, coliseums and roads, things of stone can last a long, long time. But even a redwood tree is dying. That's what makes it alive. Read more
The only things of permanence we human beings have ever created have been dead. Cathedrals and pyramids, coliseums and roads, things of stone can last a long, long time. But even a redwood tree is dying. That's what makes it alive. Read more
My religion is connection. My bare feet curl against the wet and gritty stone of my front porch. I remember my bare feet walking over grass, pine needles, and the grass mulch of my father's garden, so long ago when I was young. My theology is what my bare feet know. Read more
I find I don't like the words prayer as a noun or pray as a verb. I like prayerfully. I like the adverb. Quakers listen prayerfully. As a Quaker, I live my whole life prayerfully, which means really everything I do is a prayer. So do I pray, as something distinct from just living my life? Read more
I don't need a teaching award. I don't even want one: what would it be but a demand to dress up in uncomfortable clothes, to hear some politician or administrator I might barely respect mouth platitudes and pretend to be impressed with what I do? The awards that matter are the ones I give to myself. Read more
It has been my experience that above all else, Herne is a god of truth, of facing and living up to truth. There he stood, my lovely, wild god, wearing a form I'd seen in photographs: that of a young black man, box braids halfway down his back, facing down a phalanx of riot police, his hands and head held high. Defiant surrender. Courageous witness to truth. That's him. That's my god, my Herne. Read more
I'm writing these words less than a week after yet another unarmed black man, 50 year old Walter Scott, was killed by a white police officer. The bottom line for me is just this basic: I have friends who are suffering. And I can't help. I have nothing to offer; there is nothing I can do. Except: I can pray. Read more
I am a white American. I didn't ask to have anyone cheated out of anything. I never signed up for it; I never wanted it. But I am also a Pagan and I honor my ancestors. It doesn't matter if it's "not our fault." We need to be like them: speak the truth, work like hell, and pay that goddamn debt. Read more
The truth is, racism has touched everybody. Everybody has internalized, implicit racism--certainly every white person. White people need to be honest about the fact that racism, like water, has seeped into all of our basements. We need to own our own messes, apologize when we screw up, and then get back to work figuring out how to clean out our basements and be better partners at deconstructing white supremacism. Read more
Shouldn't the bodies of the spiritually enlightened be healthy forever? Pretty to think spiritual work would assure physical health. But the truth is otherwise: none of us will get out of here alive. Read more
You bring us beauty, like soft, white snowfalls and glittery ice, hanging like jewels from the treetops; we swear and snarl because your lovely ice and snow keep us from rushing about like crazy people in our automobiles. Thank you for days off teaching, just when I needed them most. And as we Witches are wont to say, "Stay if you will; leave if you must. Hail, and farewell, season of starkness, limits, and rest." Read more
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