Terrorism

Terrorism is something I particularly hate, and I'm not in the least apologetic about it. Anyone who feels entitled to cut short anyone's precious life to draw attention to a cause, even to protest some dire injustice, has to me divorced her- or himself from the human race. The only exception might be if one were able to confront someone directly responsible for the injustice. But killing uninvolved civilians, and worse yet killing them because of their nationality and/or religion... unforgivable.

Religion is so often the culprit behind these horrible acts. The kind of religion that spreads the pernicious message that only those who believe exactly like you are fully human, that everyone else is inherently expendable. And to some extent or another, I'm sorry to say, all three of the great mono-male-theisms -- the religions with a unitary or triune male God, i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam, in order of their emergence -- fit that description.

How can you psych yourself up to such a pitch, such a poisonous mix of bigotry, nihilism and self-righteousness, that you can go out and slaughter a young Jewish couple in front of their now orphaned two-year-old child, who was only saved by the bravery of his nanny? The toddler's pants were soaked in blood. How can you shoot a 13-year-old girl on a tour with her father -- and her father? An ageing couple dining at a restaurant to celebrate their son and daughter-in-law's wedding anniversary? And from what I gleaned from the New York Times this morning, the son in this last case may also have fallen victim to the terrorists, while his wife managed to escape.

Many years ago, by unfortunate coincidence, I ended up on board a hijacked airplane. Then a young teenager, traveling without my parents, I've actually experienced guns pointed at me, and threats to blow up the airplane with all of us passengers on board. I was held in a Middle Eastern nation torn by civil war for a week. At night, the building in which we were last held was bombarded by artillery. When some of us were finally released, we took off from the capital city's airport with a gunfight going on not far away.

I may not be a pacifist -- if anyone tries to turn me into a pawn again, or worse, attempts to take someone I love hostage, I will fight back by every means at my command -- but my Paganism is a life-conserving belief system. Using one's energy to spread terror, throwing away one's own irreplaceable life and those of others in some explosion of hatred, is anathema. It's worse yet if it's religion-fueled hatred. My gut instinct tells me that any religion that dares tell you it's O.K. to persecute or kill people who think differently from you has to be a dangerous load of hooey. No-one is inherently "second-class," and no one is in a position to judge that anyone else is expendable.

Of course, the problem is that the sort of people who carry out horrors like this carnage in Mumbai -- almost without exception young men -- have been taught from infancy to hate the "other" (the "unbeliever," the foreigner, plus women in general) and, at the same time, to hate themselves, to find themselves sinful, imperfect, worthy of death. They're not about to turn around and use their energy to work on creating a better world where they happen to be. They've been indoctrinated with the dread and infinitely destructive idea that the Earth is only a way-station, that they'll be rewarded for throwing themselves and others away with some fabulous paradise beyond death's door.

This mindset has to be replaced with more life-affirming ones before these terrorists and many others of their ilk manage to threaten or destroy everything that matters to us. We need to stand up for our own, life-positive belief systems, to show that one can change one's environment for the better, in small ways and, with enough positive dedication, in a big way. We also need to teach tolerance for the inevitable imperfections in each of us, love for ourselves and others, and personal and mutual responsibility throughout each community.

Responsibility -- that's worthy of a lot more exploration! More anon.

An Introduction to (Neo-)Paganism

Here's a brief piece I wrote for a panel discussion at a college reunion, almost ten years ago:

Starting in 1991, I came back to the belief system I think I was born with. It's called Goddess spirituality, eco-spirituality, eco-feminism -- the big, catch-all term is Neo-Paganism. None of these names fit completely, and some of the words are given a negative spin by popular culture.

It's partly rooted in ever-growing amounts of archaeological evidence of non-patriarchal pre-Christian cultures in Africa, Asia, and Europe. These societies, which existed for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years, were egalitarian, co-operative, highly creative and largely peaceful. They saw the spark of the divine in everything living, and when they personified this divine essence, they called it Goddess -- later, they also called it God.

For me, it's also a personal re-connection to remembered moments in my childhood, experiences of wonder, times when I felt good about myself and the whole world, energized, 100 per cent alive.

But it's not all “going back.” My belief system rejects dualism, the idea that something must be either "this" or "that" -- so it can reach back and look forward at the same time. Neo-Paganism makes no claim to being some "authentic" revival of specific beliefs from 3,500 or more years ago. After all, it's Neo-Paganism, and it's about living in this, present world. It's about remaining aware of both the wider world, and the specific places we each live in: their seasons, climate, and geography, and the needs of that particular community. Because we insist on honoring where we are, what we come from and what we've become a part of, Neo-Pagans come in at least as many flavors as Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream -- but we DO share some basic principles.

First, to Neo-Pagans, the divine is immanent, NOT transcendent. It's not somewhere "above" us humans and the rest of the world, or "out there" -- it IS, and it IS in EVERYTHING, including us. All creation is born of a Great Mother and is part of Her substance, so everything is connected.

Second, Neo-Pagans accept no cast-in-stone hierarchies, and no all-powerful gurus. It's a woman-positive belief system -- for example, since we believe in Goddess, we can't well question women's right to be priestesses -- but it's not a belief system for women only. For men and women, Neo-Paganism gives the opportunity to explore and integrate all aspects of one's personality, to "think outside the box." We're also called to live in the body -- live juicy and messy, without denying the body and the emotions, without seeing the mind and spirit as separate from the body, superior or somehow more "pure." I believe I get one life, one wonderful gift, one chance to experience this beautiful world, through the medium of my body -- and I am grateful to my body, and love it.

At the same time, Neo-Paganism is a very demanding belief system. It's not about unlimited license or moral relativism. The one binding rule, the Wiccan Rede, could be called "How to be Stricter than the Ten Commandments in Eight Words or Less." It says, "IF you harm NONE, do as you will." Think about it. I am to harm nothing -- not myself, or anyone or anything else. So I'm required to "live lightly on the earth", to be constantly aware of the obvious and not so obvious impact of my actions. I have to take responsibility for everything I do, and examine and recognize the amazing power of my intentions and my expectations.

You can see why this is unlikely to become a majority religion! It's a lifelong learning process, without any promise of a future repeat performance. But it suits me, and quite a few others: there are now [1999] at least 200,000 Neo-Pagans in the United States alone.