a few thoughts

I’m about a third of the way through my trip, part residency and part retreat and have been feeling immensely nourished spiritually the entire way….until I touch base with the polytheist and pagan communities. Suddenly it’s right back into the morass of shit that passes for a devotional community. I really have no words. Right now, I’m in a country that is intensely, organically pious. Since I’ve been here, I’ve witnessed such devotion across age, class, and gender barriers. I’ve seen people kneeling on hard stone cobbles outside of churches because teh church is locked and they want to pray before the icon therein. I”ve seen people lined half a dozen and more deep, on their knees on hard marble, outside small chapels to pray because they won’t approach the Virgin except on their knees in adoration. I’ve seen a man in a business suit doubled over praying in a small church again on his knees — not afraid to be on his knees in prayer, not afraid to be seen as devoted. There are shrines to Mary on so many cross roads and street corners–shrines with candles adn flowers and offerings always new. Cemeteries are tended, the dead remembered and adorned. I’ve seen people crossing themselves when simply walking past a church….

and in our communities? I see people whining about whether the Gods exist. I see people starting a meme that turns polytheism into a social movement instead of a devotional and RELIGOUS one. I see a constant fight to position piety and devotion as good things worth nourishing. I see atheists given a voice as Pagans when they should have no place in any of our communities (I’ve nothing against atheists when they speak as atheists in an atheist community, mind you). I see levels of disrespect, and casual disregard for the Gods, and constant attempts by people to bring the Gods down to our level, to top from the bottom, to remove the sacred and the terrifying from our faith.

Usually it annoys me. Right now, given that I’ve just spent a week, with two to go surrounded by constant and fervent expressions of devotion and piety, it makes me fucking sick. We should be better than this. Our Gods deserve better than this. Instead we don’t even try. It fills me with disgust and shame. Our community is a place so riddled with miasma that I do not know how we will ever raise our traditions up out of the shit that we have both created and continue to perpetuate. Our only hope is that the Gods in Their graciousness have not turned Their backs on us in our hubris. It is a grace we do not in any way deserve.