….I cannot separate my spiritual life from the rest of my life? Is that a true statement?
I had a thoughtful spell today as I lay stretched out on my back waiting for the pain there to abate. This was triggered by running across a blog name that evoked memories of a newsletter I edited for a while last year. Edited and wrote for very occasionally, right up until I had a huge argument with the publisher (the now blogger I ran across) and quit. The website, which says it has a newsletter monthly, had none after my last month in the spring of last year and it got me to thinking (ego driven as I know I can be) of why there were no more. Did the publisher decide a blog would suit her purposes better? Could she find no more volunteers to work for free?
Maybe the gist of the argument without mentioning names would make clearer sense of my above title? I was basically to take a shitload of links to news stories and put them in a newsletter to inform neo-pagans of what was going on in their world. I fell afoul the publisher on my April’s Fool edition because she decided I was being (1) too political and (2) a meany poo poo head full of ranting negativity. Now, I am relatively good with being a meany poo poo head full of negativity since I firmly believe nothing can be changed until you are standing in it knee-deep and deciding that it stinks. So yes, I will often present things without a lot of mental sweetener.
But what did sting and piss me off enough to finally refuse the string of hectoring emails AFTER I quit was the accusation that there was something inherently bad about being a pagan and suggesting other pagans take a political stand on issues that DO affect their lives. After all, none of us live in a happy-land blissville zone, do we? Regardless of our spiritual affiliations, we ARE affected when right wing religious maniacs are making laws that affect the free practice of our religious rights, and WORSE the rights of women to birth control, abortion, and even privacy over their own medical histories. I was firmly told that I was out of line to suggest political consequences of the very news stories I was alerting people to read; I was out of line to suggest opposition or betray any personal sense of outrage. It wasn’t “constructive”…and so I refused to participate anymore when the publisher took MY written piece on a number of inflammatory women’s issues and rewrote it to “fluff it up” considerably.
Why this divorce of spiritual life and political life? Because of the politicization of Islam? Because America’s most reactive right wing religious sorts jump right into the political fray and tell their mesmerized constituents how to vote? So, let me see if I have this correct, ok? Neo-pagans should stand back and stay on the high moral road of twiddling our fingers while Rome-America burns? We shouldn’t counter this sort of behavior by taking part in the political debate ourselves? Yes, the insult I perceived and reacted to by stomping off in one of my characteristic huffs was just as my title puts it: the idea that I am guided in my political life BY my spiritual life puts me on par with people who fly airplanes into buildings and blow things up.
Now, mind you, I was not telling anyone to blow anything up. I was telling people to WAKE THE FUCK UP and in much, much nicer language than that. I was telling people, hey, yeah…getting together for full moon circles is nice, but VOTING would be even more cool and might change a lot of stuff for the better! Invoking Goddess is just dandy, but calling your Senator and chewing his/her ass might be a bit faster.
So, there is no moderate path? No center of the road—-if one is a “decent” religious sort of any flavor whatsoever, it is unforgivably wrong to suggest that political action is PART of living the good moral ethical life one’s religion supposedly helps guide? I do not get this. And I resented the hell out of being tarred with the “Fundy” brush and having my to the point and not-dressed-in-flowing-robes writing dressed up in rhetorically pastel shades. No other choice? You sure…either Fundy Bitch or Nice Smiling Prayer Group Lady is all there is? So, yes, if this is the only shoe being offered to me by that group and even though it is a very bad fit, I will wear it. The other pair is far more ugly: the sit-on-your-hands making-pretty- noises pair. But they are a really pretty shade of pussy pink. I’m just your basic black kind of gal.
8 Comments
I’m not a pagan. I’m not anything ‘cept, maybe, an excellent bad example. That out of the way, I’m thinking getting together for full moon circles is probably more productive than voting. When you vote the only sure thing is becoming less free - regardless of which candidate wins.
Voting, in my sometimes less than humble opinion, is a joke. The two political machines, (and maybe it is actually one machine pretending to be two to give us an illusion), present their respective puppets and we get the honor of selecting which one will represent everyone’s interest save ours.
Bitter? You bet your sweet ass I’m bitter and growing more so by the day.
Sounds like you ran full-force into a playgan or some other classical strain of fluff-bunny.
Personally, I’ve never seen any Pagan I take seriously suggest that their beliefs should be completely divorced from their political lives. Quite the opposite.
Incidentally, my first response to the person you’re describing would have been to ask, “So, I suppose you have similar problems with Starhawk?”
Your bitterness is understandable and common. I am still of the school, though bitter enough that strangers throw sugar packets at me, that since the system once worked it needs to be kicked in the ass until it works again. Moon circles are dandy, but not if all you do is recite sweet poetry-like couplets praising deities.
Yes, I do tend to rant and rave and tell folks to change what they don’t like….ah well, we all do what we do. I’ll know I’ve gone over my own line when I have to start sweetening my own coffee, won’t I?
Armagh,
I don’t know; she has been at it a while and can write decent stuff and has been all over the web with such writings. Apparently, it is more of a California PC attitude than anything else; she thought it was important to be “for” things instead of “against” things, for instance. And to actually suggest action to knock down some sort of political/Constitutional boogyman, OMGs….one would think you had just made a move to zombify someone or had spread an initiate on the altar for the delectation of the wicked coven from B-movies. Obviously, a serious difference in style, you know?
There seems to be a large strain in pagans and new agers (sorry to lump us with them) that believes only doing/thinking positive things is the only way to go. The reasons vary, but I think they are just being cop-outs and living in denial. This is the attitude that says to achieve prosperity you have to live it - not cut back on your spending and work more. This attitude makes me want to reach out and smack someone most of the time. I don’t live in blissville, but I can damn well try to fix where I do live.
Eadie,
Yeah, I do think some of that sunshine enema stuff came in by way of the New Age line of thought. I do think they are living in denial of a sort: it does no damned good to put a new carpet, however pretty, down atop a layer of dogshit, you know? The whole “it is all about attitude” take on life gives me a major pain, and I am VERY Kantian so I DO believe that the WHY is as important as the HOW. But I do not think you can just have the “why or why not” and SKIP the entire how to do it. Intention is great, but if you don’t at least try to pair it with ACTION, you aren’t really going anyplace. Blissville or anywhere else!
I have found that a lot of the people who subscribe to that attitude are also very fast to blame everything that goes wrong on either someone else, or something out of their control. I have always felt this is so they don’t have to do anything about it since it is out of their control.
Could well be—this of course leads to the victim phenomenon!