Welcome To the Cedar Grove

 There really is SUCH a difference between different establishments within a single religion - and yes, I use that rather than faith. Went to a different church than the one I work at for someone's funeral and ended up feeling like 'Eeep, bring me home!' Not that I even /share/ that faith - just work at the church but still...

Anyway, it was a day of 'farewelling.' A funeral followed by a 'memorial'/celebration of life, and as you're maybe thinking right now, one was just... downright depressing, the other was so crazy and fun that the person we were celebrating would have loved it, if he had been there, but he wasn't and that was why /we/ were there, but I'm damn sure he was watching over us and approved!

After all that, a quiet evening at home, and an early night - yes, on a Saturday.

It is pleasant, it is finally pleasant,
this world, this great world.

It is pleasant, it is finally pleasant,
this great world when the caribou come.

It is pleasant, it is finally pleasant,
this great world when it is summer at last.

--Eskimo summer song

No matter how difficult matters may seem, we can always find solace in awareness of the cyclical truth of all life.

As pagans this is something that is... almost overly emphasised in various aspects of our faith: the belief in reincarnation; the 'Wheel of the year' that governs the festivals and the march of the seasons; the law of return - the whole notion of kharma... what goes around comes around; the cycle of the moon as she waxes and wanes.

All of these things, an more, manifest themselves in our hearts, even when we do not truly or fully understand them or their full implications. Does it make us better people or better pagans to remember these things so to adjust the way we touch the world as acccording to these cycles? I don't necessarily think that it does.

Thinking about all of these things in the light of some discussions that have been floating around on Facebook recently, about extremists of any religion... I come to the conclusion that, depending on motivation, it is just as easy to become a radical pagan - or an evangelical pagan - just as it is for any other religion.

Okay, I will accept that living by the understandings and the tennets of one faith doesn't necessarily make you into a fundamentalist Christian, or an Islamic extremist, or an evangeical pagan... or whatever faith you call your own, there has to be that extra step, the idea of pushing what you believe onto others, and to me that means not necessarily standing there and trying to 'convert' people, but it also mean being open and vocal about what you believe without invitation.

Many of us jest sometimes, with phrases like "I might have been really bad in a former life..." when something goes wrong or whatever. Me, I try not to make comments like that, partly because I don't think they're funny, partly because it is like abrogating responsibility for something difficult that is happening in your life, but mosty because, to me, it draws attention to (evangalises) that particular pagan tennet. I realise also that it's a fine line.

So... yesterday I found myself getting... defensive and annoyed on behalf of Muslims, who yet again are being tarred and feathered with the same brush because of the loud voices of their extremists - with the voices of their prejudice and bigotted patriarchs - who have probably, and very sadly, irrevocably damaged Islam worldwide.

Who among us outside of Islam have actually read, and interpretted for ourselves, and without prejudice, the words written in the Koran. (Q'ran, however you wish to spell that particular holy book). Similarly though who among us outside of Christianity have read the bible and done the same? I must confess to having read neither from beginning to end... but then again, nor have I read other holy books and writings.

Perhaps we all should before we judge a religion - or a faith - by the loudest, and not always best, voices.

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned.
--Paul Tillich

So, faith is no more than the willingness and bravery to enter and ride the stream. The mystery is that taking the risk to be so immersed in our moment of living in itself joins us with everything larger than us. And what is compassion but entering the stream of another without losing yourself?


If asked, you'll probably hear me say that I follow an alternative faith… but in the wake of some deep though I find myself asking if that is actually true. I mean yes, I don't follow one of the major 'recognised' faiths, so in that regard it is, but was thinking, in response to this and other things of late, what is the one 'thread' that seems to permeate all faiths – the one thing, I might add – that we are all notoriously 'bad' at… because that one thing is actually at the foundation of my faith as well. I'm talking about love.

If you look at the teaching of any of the major recognised faiths you'll find some mention of 'love' in the scriptures, documents, sayings of religious leaders… and in Wicca, or course, we all follow the path of life in 'perfect love' according to the rede that charges us to 'harm none.'

I think it goes without saying that I'm not advocating going around throwing ourselves at everyone and everything – wouldn't insult your intelligence by explaining that really, but looking at love, as I said it's something we're all notoriously bad at… showing the kind of loving concern for all life that we would for those of our friends and family even to strangers… not getting holier than thou here, because I'm just as faulty at it as the next guy – especially when my patience is thin… which is seems to be a lot of the time. Perhaps that is why it is so hard for us to remember that love underpins most of the faiths in the world – or rather not to remember, but to live within the current of that love… because we all have so little patience? I don't know, I'm just speculating.