Category: Cherry Hill Seminary

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Thinking of Pagan Ministry in France

I have taken a couple days off from just about everything by spending time in Paris and Provence seeing sites, visiting historic locations, imbibing Van Gogh historical locations, and just experiencing a glimpse of what it can mean to be French (insofar as that is even possible to consider for a New Yorker whose French is rusty and clunky at best).

While I have scoured Paris for a taste of Paganism (with varying amounts of luck, mind you), I find myself in an odd situation of being surrounded by religious institutions that have been secularized in such as way that I am no longer sure what is Catholic, what is Christian, what is historical, what is current, what is secular, and what is a mixture of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. Is is a very secular nation whose art and culture is decidedly religious.

In other words, France is more complicated than it seems on the surface, which is another way of saying that clear lines and levels of distinction exist in the minds of people, if not in the formal presentation of society. Case in point — while visiting Rêves d’Acier, a fantastic Medieval arms and clothing store where the staff were more than helpful and I walked away with two bags of items! — I asked about Pagans in Paris, and was told there really was not much. When pushing a bit more about Druids, I was told that there are some who call themselves Druids (in French, Druides), though they are only deceiving themselves, for surely none of those Celts who died out over a thousand years ago across northern France exist any longer. Period.

Huh?

Since when do Druids have to only be those historical people way back in time? That is like saying that Catholics are only those who held vast sums of money and participated in the Inquisition and Crusades.

Hmm, good point. It may be tempting to group all people A as those who do B, but that is an oversimplification. We don’t fairly say that about all people who are Jewish, black, women, immigrants, Republican, abortion-rights supporters, LGBT, or any other group, so why about Pagans?

I have heard it said that Christians are only interested in social justice when they are not in power, otherwise they are interested in converting all dissenters. Undoubtedly a knee-jerk reaction to some experiences in some peoples’ lives, but that does not lesson the power of those forces that influence our learning and our becoming who we are today. Personal beliefs do not just appear, they come about through work and efforts and experiences and reflection, among countless other factors.

If we learn that certain things are this or that, right or wrong, true or false, or any other way in a world filled with binaries, it is relatively easy to dismiss those who are different (from us).

Indeed, when visiting the asylum where Vincent Van Gogh institutionalized himself, Saint Paul de Mausole in Saint-Remy de Provence, I was struck by how readily we move about our lives even when not understood, or at times accepted by those around us. I had a couple silent moments to consider this from the room where Van Gogh stayed (see my photo of looking out his barred window, above), I could not help but think that Van Gogh suffered in part as nobody really understood how he saw color and light and texture, and while he may not have been able to express his genius, it only furthered the suffering he felt at not being understood.

After all, he was not understood at the time.

How often do we feel this way?

Can Pagans be very different today, in that it is hard at times to talk about these spiritual experiences as many do not understand the words or the intentions. How many times do I hear (or even have to say), “It is like Christianity, but instead of X it does [thinks, practices, celebrates] Y.”

How wonderful it is when I finally started to read something that captures what I have been experiencing, but have nonetheless been unable to put into words? I am thinking now about the book The Five Rings, by Shanddaramon, that I am reading for my Formations for Modern Pagan Ministry course at Cherry Hill Seminary. Next step on this journey is to process the section on Caring, which is the spiritual advising that Pagan ministers can offer those who spiritually need support. We will be talking about this in class tonight, so looking forward to my own better understanding it so as to share some of it here.

This posting is part of my ongoing, shared journaling related to the Formations for Modern Pagan Ministry course I am taking during the summer of 2017 at Cherry Hill Seminary.

You are welcome to join me on this journey!

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Suffering and Grace

It is easy to get mired in suffering, whether our own or that of others, and in so doing we become defensive and protective of what we have, often in ways that may be either assumed or puzzling . . . or both. However, suffering focuses on the internal challenges and at times misses the opportunities to experience grace.

Granted, this does not mean that suffering is a good in itself, but rather something that occurs in ways beyond our control or ability to stop. This does not mean we have to react in a certain form or not, as it is our reaction to suffering, the way we can reframe or reconceptualize it, that demonstrates how much grace we have or sense we make of difficulty.

This was a difficult message to make sense of in Ram Dass’s Polishing the Mirror, where he speaks of his own stroke, his father’s increasing helplessness and care needs, and how he could only try to make sense of pain and suffering as an opportunity to learn and grow. Taken out of context, this can seem cruel and heartless, yet that is not the intention. If anything, it is the opposite. Taken as the case that one would not freely choose to inflict suffering, the only thing we can do is reframe it as an opportunity to learn something new through reframing it.

This is similar to seeing all challenges as opportunities — what we face may be the same thing, but it is all about how we make meaning of it. Something to consider when exploring what ministry is all about.

This posting is part of my ongoing, shared journaling related to the Formations for Modern Pagan Ministry course I am taking during the summer of 2017 at Cherry Hill Seminary.

You are welcome to join me on this journey!

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Conscious Living & Dying

I have been reading about conscious living and conscious dying in Ram Dass’s Polishing the Mirror, and found a combination of profound insights and disturbing thoughts about how to manage the dying of those around us.

To be fair, we do not exactly manage death, but rather do have the capacity at times to manage our response to it.

Dass claimed that our way of relating to death was itself an extension of how we relate with aging, something I recently started to explore. If we deny that we will all die, then we have a tendency to present those who are dying with a false hope that they will recover and things will be ok. Our efforts are much better oriented toward helping them to embrace the present.

Difficult words to be sure, though it springs from the same notion that embracing life as a cycle means that we embrace and celebrate birth, though somehow see the end of the cycle as a finality (though a great many religions teach that it is really a transition into something else, potentially even something better). While modern Paganism has many threads for what happens to people once they die, one of the roles of a minister is to meet their spiritual needs and act like a midwife, though into the beyond.

Dass talks about death midwifery, and while he embraced opportunities related to authentically living and celebrating the many ways that we, and undoubtedly the loved ones who accompany the dying to their final moments, he encouraged us to consider how “death is a reminder to live life fully” (p. 94). While some aspects of his writing in this area did not resonate with my spiritual approach to life (i.e., astral travel with shared  peace between one in a meditative state and the other who was dying), it was overall a perspective that in many ways is pre- or post-Christian (with death a punishment for sin and redemption through death on the Cross and the like). Death is a part of the process, and while we cannot understand it fully, neither can we do that same for birth, either, yet we celebrate one and try to flee or deny the other.

Death is a part of the Wheel of our own lives, and while many unknowns can be scary, it is also something that everybody who went before us has encountered and passed through. It reminds me of the story in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, “And then he greeted Death as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and, equals, they departed this life.”

I think Pagan ministry needs to grapple with the concept of death, especially as we may be looked to as we help with the crossing over.

This posting is part of my ongoing, shared journaling related to the Formations for Modern Pagan Ministry course I am taking during the summer of 2017 at Cherry Hill Seminary.

You are welcome to join me on this journey!

 

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Aging and Changing

Chapter 4 of Ram Dass’s Polishing the Mirror was about aging, and while this is a topic that has always seemed so far away — so old — that it was a distant and potentially distinct future. Often for someone else. While we all get older every day, something that is readily forgotten as lost in our daily routines, this is not quite what Dass is talking about. No, not at all.

Indeed, when he said, “Until I was about fifty, I thought of myself as a teenager” (p 61) I stopped cold. You see, I am nearing that threshold and have always thought that about myself. The teenager, that is, the one with nearly unlimited potential and future and energy.

What do I want to do next?

I can do that! Who needs sleep, anyway?

Sure, let’s go. We can fit it in!

Why take a cab, let’s carry the bags of groceries and walk!

Alas, my first tip-off was that my coveted pattern of traveling with a maximum legal size carry-on backpack for any trip of any duration was  increasingly a challenge. While I still travel with one bag and a small personal backpack, I just cannot do it on my back any longer.

To be fair, I can still lift it and carry it all, but it is no longer a comfortable way to travel. I love the freedom of a one-bag backpack, but the downside is not really worth the benefits. Since I do travel for work from time to time, my physical needs are now altering how I travel, and this is related to . . . aging.

“Much of the suffering of aging comes from holding onto those memories of who we used to be” (p. 62). We hold onto a past that no longer exists, right? Comfortable. Familiar. Youthful. Energetic. Or perhaps the glossy-eyed past really did not exist as neatly as we may recall it, and in so thinking about it, I think we have selective memories of the good ol’days. Alas, I know I do, though Dass has a manner of waking us from a reality that exists only within our own eyes, and in many ways invites us to see what some of those implications mean.

With the only real rite of passage (aging) being Medicare (still a while away, but still…), I am thinking about how the Indian traditions that guided much of his life has those of us in the 40-60 age range as time or inclination to study philosophy or engage in spiritual practices, it is no wonder why I, at my age and with already a couple of university degrees under my belt, has chosen to expand this via my studies at Cherry Hill Seminary. Where else would I have had this provocation to read Dass and consider how aging is like the natural cycles in nature, similar to the Wheel of the Year, where we are the wheel?

Yes, aging may be somewhat disorienting or disconcerting, and I choose to see it as an opportunity rather than a challenge. I prefer to reframe things in positive ways rather than dwelling on the negatives or lack of future orientation. To this point, “conscious aging has to do with letting go, which allows you to come into the present moment — into spirit” (p. 72). Perhaps, though the present moment can be grokked by anybody, yet doing it in a way that recognizes limitations and through them opportunities may be a step toward wisdom.

The trick just may be on how to consider my own personal aging while also consider its implications for ministry and spiritual support of others….

This posting is part of my ongoing, shared journaling related to the Formations for Modern Pagan Ministry course I am taking during the summer of 2017 at Cherry Hill Seminary.

You are welcome to join me on this journey!

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Starting to Read: The Five Rings

I am starting another book for my Formations for Modern Pagan Ministry course at Cherry Hill Seminary, this one entitled The Five Rings by Shanddaramon.

This text addresses some of the issues I have been wondering about, namely what is Pagan ministry and to what extent does it meet some of the needs of my former notions of ministry in the Catholic tradition, of which I am more familiar.

The author first defines Paganism, and like many scholars in Pagan Studies, seeks to keep the definition open-ended and simple, though most people involved in Modern Paganism know few things about it are really simple. He then gets to the heart of the book, by addressing his conception of a Pagan Minister (p. 15):

A Pagan Minister, then, works to help fellow Pagans and others who are in need of spiritual, physical, mental, or emotional assistance in their lives. There are many specific ways in which a minister can provide this kind of help. He or she can be a counselor, a listener, an advisor, a spiritual guide, a leader of specialized rituals such as funerals and Handfastings. The Pagan Minister offers blessings and consolations; is a teacher, a mentor, a retreat leader, or a role model. Specifically, a Pagan minister seeks to aid people using an earth-centered theology.

It appears he will develop the five elements of Pagan Ministry–Caring, Sharing, Declaring, Preparing, and Repairing–through the remainder of the text. While the requirements of being a minister involve a calling, personal strength, training, and ordination (all of which are addressed in many ways at Cherry Hill Seminary), it is the notion of calling I find most intriguing.

As a former Catholic, the notion of calling always meant a felt sense of an external deity inviting or nudging one to serve in a ministry (or priesthood, something which is somewhat different from how it can be understood in ministering to others, that and being limited to men, too!!). Pagans and their relations to nature and the sacred and any gods or goddesses are so different from one another, though this is not an issue in Shanddaramon’s perspective, as he means “an inner calling–a deep yearning of the soul that asks you to do more with your life than focus on your own needs” (p. 19), especially in the service of others and community. I like this notion, as it allows for a certain individuality which embraces the experiences of the individual in relation to the wider world.

I think I like the simplicity of this text already, and while I wish it had more references to other sources for some of these ideas (the academic in me), I do find it useful in how it has been articulating its approach.

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