Here I Am, Wasn’t I

July 6, 2014 By Cat Chapin-Bishop

There's an experience known to many meditators, sometimes known as the Here I Am Wasn't I? experience. The idea is this: you are meditating away, and just for a moment, you experience a flash of that simple, actual conscious presence that is the goal of your meditation. Then BAM! almost immediately, your awareness shifts to noticing how present and aware you are and just like that, you're no longer meditating, you're meta-tating, and you've lost exactly that present awareness you are now celebrating. Read more

The Work in the Middle

July 2, 2014 By Cat Chapin-Bishop

I feel a tiny bit shy, sharing this with you today. Will you think I am boasting about my talents? Will you think I am puffing up an experience because it was mine? I do hope not. What I need you to know is that this kind of grace is not a product or a performance, and it is not the property of the one who brought it to the door, any more than the UPS man deserves credit for a package he delivers. Read more

The Comfort in Community

June 26, 2014 By Cat Chapin-Bishop

I remember offering a workshop on sexual abuse and sexual assault in the Pagan community... and only two people came. For years, I felt so alone with the stories I held. For years, I felt besieged on all sides--just for doing my work. Just for listening to people talk about what they had gone through. And for years, it felt like it would never change. Read more

What Kind of a God?

June 20, 2014 By Peter Bishop

The moon is not forever. Worlds are born and die. All of creation is like drawing with paint dribbled onto the surface of moving water. Constant creation, constantly swept away. What kind of a God would have conceived of a universe like this one? What God would give us reproduction and evolution instead of immortality? Read more

On Activism and Ordinary Acts

June 5, 2014 By Cat Chapin-Bishop

One of the dangers of being Quaker–or Pagan–is a privilege at the same time. Quakers and Pagans share a somewhat counter-cultural view of our society. In slightly different ways, most Quakers and most Pagans believe that human society is flawed in bitterly destructive ways that must be confronted and changed. We look out at a world burdened by the selfish exploitation of whole nations of human beings, and of the ecosystem itself, and we know that things as they are... Read more

Praise Song

May 17, 2014 By Cat Chapin-Bishop

Praise the beauty of the world. Up-tossed ancient lichened granite Shaggy hemlocks’ pools of shade Spring explosions of forsythia Matted needles under pines Dark green rot from the first grass clippings the neon green of seedling chard Blush of green that tints the woodlot Apple trees blooming among their thorns Rabbit, black bears and turkey vultures Shaggy horses beside the barn Mice in the orchard, bees in the beehive Raise your voices, raise your eyes Praise the mud and rain... Read more

Dandelions

May 11, 2014 By Cat Chapin-Bishop

Source: Wikimedia Commons Sitting in meeting for worship today, I had a notion come to me. I was thinking about all the ways, over time, that people have brought offerings to the temples of their gods. That was the way it was long ago. And that’s the way it is today. Pagans bring cans for a food pantry to a public ritual, Heathens pour blots, Wiccans set aside a portion from cakes and ale to offer to the gods, Christians... Read more

Resources: On Social Media as Spiritual Practice

May 3, 2014 By Cat Chapin-Bishop

NOTES from a workshop on using social media as a spiritual practice: PowerPoint notes from workshop. pdf notes from workshop. SOME QUERIES on social media and spiritual practice: What are the spiritual uses I regularly find for social media? Can blogging serve as ministry? Rise from worship? Does the Internet enter into my prayer life, and if so, how? Does my use of social media benefit my spiritual community/communites? If so, how? What are the dangers social media pose... Read more

Ten Years Ago

May 1, 2014 By Cat Chapin-Bishop

So on the day that The Wild Hunt has covered the North Carolina freedom of religion lawsuit to overturn that state’s ban on same-sex marriage, my copy of Boston Spirit arrived with its lead story, of course, on the tenth anniversary of the Goodridge case. I look over the very ordinary, very middle aged photos of the plaintiffs, and I’m surprised at how deep my emotions run. Why do I care so much? Is it because I see myself in... Read more

On Writing from a Spiritual Center

April 24, 2014 By Cat Chapin-Bishop

P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } How does a person write from a spiritual center? I can’t know for sure how other writers do it. I know which writers have sometimes moved my spirit in response to their words: Ally Lilly. Will Taber. Bright Crow. Peggy Senger Morrison. More Quaker writers than Pagans, I think, so perhaps there is something in how Quakers center themselves in Spirit in their work that feeds their words. Cassiodorus at the Vivarium Certainly, Quakers are... Read more