Pagan voices is a new spotlight on recent quotations from figures within the Pagan community. These voices may appear in the burgeoning Pagan media, or from a mainstream outlet, but all showcase our wisdom, thought processes, and evolution \u00a0in the public eye. Is there a Pagan voice you\u2019d like to see highlighted?\u00a0Drop me a line<\/a>\u00a0with a link to the story, post, or audio.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I look at the trajectory of Jonathan Merritt\u2019s life, I often think\u00a0there but for the twist of fate go I. Had I stayed in that church, and in that culture, I don\u2019t know that I would have become Pagan. My Pagan spiritual life was borne of having a vacuum, a space, in which to explore the concept of religion from a new perspective. If I had remained in that culture and church, I would likely be a frustrated minister\u2019s wife today. I would have attended a Christian college and be putting in 20 hours a week at church. I read Jonathan\u2019s writing, and sometimes it feels like the ghost ofthe-Star-that-might-have-been\u00a0is speaking to me. In my adult life I have used Jonathan as a strange sort of window into the life I could have had.\u201d<\/em> \u2013 Star Foster<\/a>, on her shared childhood with\u00a0Southern Baptist leader Jonathan Merritt<\/a>, who was recently outed as being gay<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI guess you asked the question by begging the question by saying your viewers don\u2019t know about it, and it hasn\u2019t impacted in my public life as a Council member [\u2026] Again, race, religion, these are things that are non sequiturs to public office. I think, as Mitt Romney has gone through the machinations of his Mormonism<\/a> being an issue, the more people turn it into an issue and sensationalize it, the more problematic it becomes for all of us.\u201d<\/em> \u2013 New York Republican congressional candidate Dan Halloran, responding to a request to explain his membership in a Pagan\/Heathen organization<\/a>. Halloran also says he hasn\u2019t considered that, if elected, he\u2019d be the only Pagan member of House, \u201cbecause I look at myself as an American, so my concern is representing my constituents in the Halls of Congress.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIf you want to connect with currents and thought-forms that take you back to antiquity, why not worship the deities that shaped antiquity? I\u2019m sorry, but I\u2019m always going to feel closer to my ancient pagan ancestors while doing ritual outdoors with the gods they worshipped. You can keep your air conditioning, and your lack of understanding concerning my religion. I don\u2019t care whether or not people agree with my faith, but it\u2019s certainly just as real as anything else.\u201d<\/em> \u2013 Jason Mankey<\/a>, responding to the same tired attacks that certain\u00a0Christians\u00a0always make towards Pagans, which they think are\u00a0devastating, but really just miss the point.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to continue to practice, to try, to live, as though your freedom is important. It is so easy to slip into self-centeredness. It is so easy to forget that we are connected, when all we can see is our own hurt, our own pain, our own needs. Restorative justice is not about subsuming my needs for yours. It is about saying \u2018We are in this together. Can we remember that?'\u201d<\/em> \u2013 T. Thorn Coyle, from a tribute to Nelson Mandela on his birthday earlier this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cHere\u2019s where I felt the deepest sense of spiritual connection: walking the two-mile mini-pilgrimage from my apartment to the Mississippi River, experiencing the wondrous\u00a0aliveness\u00a0of my body and humility in the presence of this ancient and majestic river. Ghost-writing letters to the editor for a conservation and renewable energy campaign, placing mind and hand in service to the Earth I loved. Making a game out of how many days in a row I could go without starting my car, challenging myself to do better, to be better, for Gaia.\u201d<\/em> \u2013\u00a0Eli Effinger-Weintraub<\/a>, from her Witches & Pagans<\/em> blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of what I did was deadly serious, and in the late 70s and 80s, pretty discouraging.\u00a0 But I\u2019m a fan of\u00a0Saul Alinski<\/a>\u2019s and especially liked the part where he said something to the effect that you need to have fun while you are being political or you\u2019ll burn out. Ok. He didn\u2019t say exactly that, but that\u2019s part of what I took from\u00a0Rules for Radicals. A Zap action is one where you get in, make your point, and get out quickly. We decided that we would make a point about Bork\u2019s stand against abortion and have fun while doing it. We had been so serious for so long.\u00a0So, of course, three of us decided to attend as tap dancing sperm, performing a rousing chorus of Monte Python\u2019s\u00a0Every Sperm is Sacred<\/a>.\u201d \u2013\u00a0<\/em>Pagan scholar Wendy Griffin, on being an activist, and having fun while doing it<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot to recommend polytheism as a viable, sensible, and practical theological system to underlie one\u2019s religious notions and spiritual practices.\u00a0Star Foster has talked a bit about the fact that modern paganism is really the only modern religion that can lay claim to polytheism over and above all else<\/a>\u00a0(despite the disagreement with this assertion that some of the commenters on the entry had). The diversity it entails as a necessity; the mutual respect for other paths and multiple ways of doing things, even when it comes to approaching the same gods within the same overall cultural framework; the preference for multiple possible answers and a variety of truths as opposed to one singular, irrefutable, unquestionable, \u201cmy-way-or-the-highway\u201d approach to most theological questions\u2026and the list goes on. But, one thing that I also like about it, and that I think some people still tend to miss despite being polytheists in name, is that in a polytheistic framework, the gods are interdependent, not independent. No god arises in a vacuum, really, and thus no god is \u201cbigger than\u201d or \u201cmore important\u201d than any other, because all of them rely on at least a few others, even for their very existence.\u201d<\/em> \u2013 P. Sufenas Virius Lupus on the virtues of polytheism<\/a>.<\/p>\n That\u2019s all I have for now, have a great day!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pagan voices is a new spotlight on recent quotations from figures within the Pagan community. These voices may appear in the burgeoning Pagan media, or from a mainstream outlet, but all showcase our wisdom, thought processes, and evolution \u00a0in the public eye. Is there a Pagan voice you\u2019d like to see highlighted?\u00a0Drop me a line\u00a0with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[537,3531,3416,1713,3448,2225,2471,2628],"class_list":["post-10071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paganism","category-religion","tag-dan-halloran","tag-eli-effinger-weintraub","tag-jason-mankey","tag-p-sufenas-virius-lupus","tag-pagan-voices","tag-star-foster","tag-thorn-coyle","tag-wendy-griffin"],"yoast_head":"\n