God is where I live and move and have my being.

I think Moses, Christ, the Buddah, and Mohammed had some very nice ideas, but then people got carried away with interpretting and rephrasing and getting all anal about the whole thing.

Trees aren't like that. They grow against all odds into huge, kind beings. They are strong and resilient. They give and give and give, and then they give. That's all.

Water isn't like religions, either. All water is holy and we do well to remember that. It gives and gives and gives and then it gives. That's all. It continues. It cycles.

The air, the ground - these are the things that save us, just as they saved Jesus and Buddah and Mohammed, if indeed they existed. We know the Earth exists. Here She is. We are part of Her. There is no need to organize or make rules. She's already done that, physics, biology.  We just haven't learned them all yet.

Even when the Earth quakes, the rivers flood, the tornadoes use the trees as missiles or fires burn them - even in destruction they give.

We people fancy ourselves so important as to be able to make the rules, make gods in our image. What funny little fleas (no disrespect meant to fleas). We are incidental bothers, destroyers or appreciaters.

And yet even in our appreciation we receive a gift. Our gift of appreciation of the beauty in which we are enveloped is increased.

I'm reminded of a line from a song from Godspell, All Good Gifts. "No gift have we to offer, for all Thy love imparts, but that which Thou desirest, our humble thankful hearts."  But I don't really think Earth is holding Her breath waiting for us to be greatful. She's much bigger than that.

To me being a Pantheist does not mean that I am not a Christian or a Buddhist or a Flying Spaghettian. I believe Pantheism is just so much bigger than all those. It must include them all, because all they are is people and people are of the Earth.

Cider, tea, and communion wine

I recently returned from a trip of a lifetime to England.  I didn't hang out in London at all.  Instead I spent nine days inspecting very rural southwestern England.  The real England I'd like to think.

I experienced places of worship from pre-Druid through new Druid.  I lit candles in some incredible cathedrals, wandered around 900 year old country churches, marveled at Stonehenge and Avebury Circle, meditated at the Temple of the Goddess, and read some Gospel at John Wesley's pulpit. And though technically not places of worship, I experienced more than a couple of tea rooms and a pub or two.  And while you probably think those places didn't have much in common, I reckon they really do.

People like to congregate.  The ancient Druids liked getting together at the huge, wondrous stone circles at certain times of the year.  They drummed and danced, probably.  The cemeteries at the old stone churches tell the story of generations of congregants who met there to sing and pray.  The magnificent cathedrals with their elaborate carvings, acoustics and grand scale continue to provide places for people to perform grand ceremonies. And in Glastonbury, the Temple of the Goddess provides a place for people to gather and perform brand new ancient rituals. 

You might think that the pubs are about cider and the tea rooms about tea and scones.  But let's face it, you can drink cider and tea at home.  Those places, too, are about congregating and rituals.  All these places are about community getting together to wonder at miracles. 

Surely the ancient people who somehow put Stonehenge together were in awe of the miracle of the celestial cycles.  And people who visit Stonehenge are in awe of the mystery of how it was built.  People lighting candles in the grandeur of the cathedrals wonder at the peace and grace they feel. Women in the Temple of the Goddess perform Blessing Ways for infants, marvelling at the miracle of new life.  And the boys down at The Royal Oak lift their pints and laugh and wonder about the glue that holds people from all walks of life together, seemingly making psychotherapy obsolete.

We could argue all day long about the correct place and method to worship.  But if we're going to do it, let's all agree on a place and time and bring a dish to pass and a jug of cider to share. Maybe while we're there we can take time to stand in awe and gratitude for the miracle of the oak trees growing from acorns and then all our debating won't have been in vain.

Letter to God

Dear God,

I'm contacting You because even now, at the ripe old nearly perfect age of 55, I still have more than a few questions for You.

First of all, let me say that I've figured out that You aren't some white-haired old man who has nothing better to do than keep scores for everyone.  I don't have you confused with Santa Claus and I do not live to collect a grand reward or avoid a horrible punishment.  I know You well enough to know that my mind, wondrous though it is, can't get around You.  I know I am part of You. I must be since You, the Universe, is all there is.

And I want to say while I've got Your attention, that You have done a great job on making the Earth and the sky.  There are so many things that I never would have thought of.  And I keep discovering new bits that make life so worth living.  Thanks for all that.  Seriously.  Thank You.

I don't know if You have a grand plan or what.  I reckon it doesn't much matter if I understand it all.  I'll leave it to You.  And far be it from me to suggest anything to One who brought us the hummingbird, sunsets that take my breath away, geodes and orgasms.  But I've got to say, I've got more than a few questions.

What's up with religions?  Sure they start out with good intentions, but sheesh!  You'd think that people would give up when they started noticing they are hurting, killing and destroying in the name of religion. 

And what's the deal with bigotry, greed and hatred?  Do I just happen to be here while we're in the midst of evolving out of those useless behaviors?  Does every generation have the same questions or are we really screwing the whole gig up now?

And God, I don't know what to think about time and space.  Cool concepts, I've got to say.  I suspect all those genius scientists who explain them are just guessing.. 
I do hope that when that thing happens we call death, I'll somehow get to hear the answers to these and the 8 gazillion other questions I have.  Maybe death will be just blank nothingness as some of my friends think.  Personally, I think there's about as much chance of that as there is a town with streets paved with gold where only "good" people go, as some of my other friends think.   I guess I'll try not to worry about it one way or the other.  Another thing I'll leave to You.

I'm not sure, God, who or what You are.  But I think that's sort of the nature of You.  If I could describe you in neat words, then I'd probably start a religion and we all know where that would lead.  So for now, let's just leave it this way.  The bit I know is way beyond me, that I am part of and is part of me, is You.  Let me know if that's not OK with You.

And as I said before, Thanks.

Yours Truly,
Fay

Righteous Wrong

If I get one more anti-Islam email I may explode.  And let's face it, even if you don't like me much, you don't want me to explode.  I would be soooo ding dang messy.

There are ignorant, evil, misguided, dangerous, very ill, asswipes in every single religion in the Universe.  That's just a fact.  It's the nature of religions that they allow people do just about anything and back it up with some scripture.  They behave as if doing something evil in the name of religion proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are right.  They are righteously wrong and I'm really getting tired of it.

I have actually read the New Testament boys and girls.  I've also read the Old Testament, Koran and The Teachings of Buddha.  I've read some other religious texts, too.  I didn't find anything in any of them that I thought encouraged me or allowed me to do bad things to other people in the name of God. 

Did you know that the Abrahamic religions, the Big Three - Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have the same God?  No, I mean they admit they have the same God.  The Koran talks about Mary, the mother of Jesus more than the New Testament does.  Yes, it does.  And it talks nicely about her.  It talks nicely about Jesus, too.

All this "Kill the infidel" stuff I'm hearing so much about recently is no more prominent in the Koran than in the Old Testament.

I can hear you twitching, Christians.  Before you make fun of getting a bunch of virgins in Heaven, think about collecting the foreskins of your enemies. There are just ridiculously silly things in all religious texts if you want to look at them that way. 

Or we could choose to take the basic ideas of religions - treating others as we would like to be treated, love one another, the kingdom of God is within you. . . you know stuff like that, and stop demonizing each other. 
Most Muslims are no more likely to want to kill Americans than most Christians are to sexually abuse children or con people out  their savings to fluff their own nests. Remember that freedom of religion thing we have going here.  It's good stuff. 

For crying in a bucket, people, use your noggins! If you haven't read the books, don't preach from them.  In fact, don't preach from them at all if you're preaching fear instead of love. 

Losing Divine Virginity

What if on the very last day of seminary, the head dude takes everyone aside and makes them swear never to divulge what they are about to hear, then tells them that the whole thing is a big bunch of water trough scum? What if the powers-that-be have figured out that religion really is the opiate of the masses and that nearly everyone on Earth is a hopeless addict.

Perhaps the true power behind every throne is a group of various religion professors. They would know better than to let the majority of the population go through withdrawal at the same time. If you've ever seen anyone in the throws of opiate withdrawal you'll know what I mean. It's enough to make a nun puke on Sunday morning!

So maybe just a few people are being detoxed at a time. Those recovering souls are then equipped to help others up those twelve steps to the clear part of the windows.

The newly graduated seminarians would of course keep the secret. They may do it because they'd invested so much of their lives studying the elaborate scam, or maybe because they could see the danger in letting the cat out of the bag. Maybe they'd keep the secret because they'd have a chance at real power if they did. Or maybe all the Kool-aid they drink over the course of their education makes them forget any new idea three seconds after they hear it.

Detox and recovery is seldom pleasant - often down right dangerous. But once someone has a fairly firm recovery going in this area, she's not likely to relapse. In fact, I've never known anyone who's made it to the top step, go back down. It's sort of like losing one's virginity - sort of difficult to go back and why on Earth would you want to?

One recovering friend of mine told me that there's nothing worse than a reformed whore. She was reacting to my telling her to quit smoking. Pretty soon after quitting though, a new non-smoker learns to be pretty selective about quit-smoking messages for fear of driving smokers to drink.

I guess it's the same with all recovery. It's one day at a time. First things first, easy does it, yadda yadda yadda. It's very good to have a support group. (see Universal Pantheist Society) I'll shut up when I see a bumper sticker that says, "I'm a friend of Fay C."

As You Like It

At a staff breakfast last week at a state agency, someone asked someone else to give a blessing, which he almost reluctantly did. It was a Christian prayer.

Two days ago I was in the ER and someone came in to ask me a zillion questions, mostly concerning my ability and intention to pay them in case my insurance company goes belly up before paying. But the lady also asked me what my religion is. I just sort of looked at her. Twelve inch flames were crackling off my back at the time, so I wasn't totally focused.

She clarified, "I mean are you Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist . . . Catholic?" It seemed a rather irrelevant question to me as the room filled with the smoke of my burning flesh. But I answered, "None of those," and she hurried out of the room. I reckon she didn't want to be caught hanging with a heathen if the whole room went up.

What is strange about this is that neither of the incidents made me angry. I think I'm becoming tolerant. Could that be? Mellowing in my golden years? Seeing the good or the potential for evolution in all people?

A friend once said something about not liking Pantheism because she wanted to be able to pray. I didn't get a chance to answer her and that's always sort of bothered me. I wanted to be able to explain that I pray. One doesn't need a steeple to pray.

In fact, all my thoughts are prayers. And yes, I love the Jesus of the Gospel According to Matthew. I love the Buddha who taught that nothing in this world can be enjoyed forever. I love Muhammad who tells us, "Be the compassionate, be the merciful." I love the God of the Old Testament who said "I am that I am." I love the stars, the water, the trees and their magic. I love you. I love me. I reckon we are all the Universe which is divine.

So am I a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Wiccan, a Jew, a Flying Spaghettian? The world is full of people divided by labels, even though we must have all come from the same place. The problem with religious labels is that rules come with them and the rules are made by people, not by God the Universe.

So don't come at me with a religious label and I won't come at you with one. If you must call me something, call me whatever it is that makes you most comfortable. Just don't expect to see me under your steeple.

Religious Rules and Other Crap

Lots of religions have their version of the Golden Rule and I like it
-Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
-Do not do what you hate.
-Ascribe not to any soul that which you would not have ascribed to thee and say not that which thou doest not.
-A state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict it on another?
-Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain and your neighbor's loss as your own loss.
-Love your neighbor as yourself.
-Love your enemies.
It's all the same rule.

You don't even have to be religious to figure out that if everyone lived according to that idea, life would be grand indeed. It's common sense.
That rule is Golden, because you really don't need any others. The Rule doesn't need any tweeking. It's the only religious rule I've found that is helpful in the least.

But we get it all twisted around and think the golden rule means "Stick it to them before they stick it to you."

We often live according to rules such as:
-Get all you can because everyone is out for themselves.
-If you're too nice to people, they'll treat you like dirt.
-Give them an inch and they'll take a mile.
These are certainly not golden rules. They are more like cracked formica than gold.

We have come up will all sorts of additional rules. Some of them are just amazing. Don't eat meat on Fridays. Cover your head. Face this direction when you pray. Kneal in front of this piece of wood. Get this piece of paper signed on this line before you live together. Cut off your infant son's foreskin. Don't say this word. Cut open this animal and burn it on a fire to please God. Go to church on Sundays. You may not marry if you're going to be a priest. Women can't be priests. Don't cut your hair, do cut your hair, grow a beard, don't grow a beard. It can get ding dang confusing and usually these are rules that are relatively easy to recognize as what they are - silliness.

There are other rules that are more ingrained, sort of poetical rules that are harder to recognize, but equally trash because they leave so much wiggle room for favorable interpretation.

"God helps those who helps themselves," can be interpreted as "I'm going to help myself to this law suit. After all, ____________ has deep pockets. Besides it's ____'s insurance company that will have to pay. Everybody does it. If you don't work the system, the system will work you. A lot of these rules are just excuses to behave badly, as if most of us need an excuse.


One of my most hated rules is "There but for the grace of God go I." What does that mean? That street person over there, with an obvious mental illness, freezing in the cold has less of my god's grace than I do. That is just so icky it makes me want to spit. It means that my god likes me more than he likes people whom I perceive as less fortunate than I am. What crap.

That rule is related to the rule that says god punishes people who tick him off. That tsumami wiped out those pagans. HIV is god's way of punishing people who break rules. Those people lost their crops/baby/lives/Waterford Crystal because they sinned.

It's really a variation of the "I am perfect, you are doomed," rule. It goes like sort of like this: My god is bigger and better than your god and he wants me to kill you because you might kill people that god likes. In fact, if I don't kill you, he's likely to smite me. He's only doing this for your own good. You'll see when you're burning in everlasting fire.

Anyone can apply this to nearly any religion and justify killing (or smiting) nearly anyone. It's very successful. Been used for millenia. But it flies right in the face of the Golden Rule. If we are supposed to love everyone and treat them the way we want to be treated (which means live cooperatively rather than competitively) we can't go around smiting people.

I think we need to be on our toes for these rules. Following rules that don't make sense doesn't make us good, obedient people. It makes us easily manipulated dolts who've abdicated our responsibility to think.

That Goldlen Rule? That very simple one that just about every religion agrees on, is the one that makes sense. If you want to do the silly things, wear a green hat on Tuesdays or flap your arms while you sing a certain song, hey go for it. But don't make it a rule that everyone is supposed to follow. Because we only need one. It's Golden.

Coming out as a Pantheist.

I am a Pantheist by philosophy. I'd say by religion, but I'm not big on that word, as I believe that a large percentage of the world's ills are caused by people who use religion as an excuse to be wicked.
By Pantheist I mean that I believe the Universe is all there is and that it's more than enough. We are all parts of the Universe. Everything is divine - that includes you, me, this rock, the trees, and the stars. In fact, our bits are not separated by anything other than our narrow perceptions from the rest of the Universe.
That being perfectly clear, I'd like to say some things about god. I think it's silly to say "God loves you from his throne in a place where streets are paved with gold and he's keeping a big book recording everything you say and do so that when you die he can decide whether to move you in to heaven or burn you for ever." It's more than silly, it's irresponsible, contradictory, and insane to believe in a god like that.
It's irresponsible because people who believe in that god don't really have to take responsibility for the way they treat others or the Earth. They can blame the devil, god's arch enemy, for bad things and they can wait for god to make things right. Well, wake up brothers and sisters, we're it. It's up to us to stop killing in the name of an all-loving god. It's up to us to stop destroying the world. It is irresponsible to think you can do any ol' thing you want because god will come along and take you to a better place soon anyway. Besides, if god created this beautiful planet, wouldn't he like you to take better care of it?
It is immature to let someone else do your thinking for you. When you accept something on faith or because your religion told you to, you are abdicating your responsibility. You're saying you are just too lazy to decide for yourself and that you are so without a moral compass that you must rely on someone else to tell you what is right and wrong. And let's face it, the big three religions don't have all that good a track record when it comes to right and wrong.
Speaking of contradictions, pick an Abrahamic religion that isn't full of them. God loves you. God will burn you in the everlasting pit of fire if you get out of line. Turn the other cheek and kill the enemy. Not by good works will ye be saved. Love without works is dead. .I don't have to go on, do I? Come on. Sure it takes some getting over to grow out of the religion of our youth that managed to shape our thinking (or lack of it). And sure, we were scared and blackmailed into "believing" all sorts of things. But you can't really buy the stories, can you? And if you can, how do you decide which bits are true and which are just "mysteries?"
When someone hears or sees a big guy in the sky who tells him what to do, we call that insane. Sanity may be consensus, but most of us would agree that cutting ourselves, hitting ourselves, starving ourselves isn't emotionally healthy. Unless of course, it's for religious purposes and that religion matches our own. Then it's spiritual, right? Same for killing other people. If I kill a bunch of people because Bosco, a big purple head that follows me around told me to, I'd be put away and medicated in this world and burned in the next. But if I bomb a building because god wants me to, I get a bunch of virgins or a gold paved driveway or something. And if I eat human flesh I'm a monster, but if I eat the body and drink the blood of god, it's just ducky.
I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The Jesus who is peaceful and wise and loving is a good person to emulate. Churches that feed the hungry, house the homeless, provide healthcare, etc. are admirable. They are doing something worthwhile.
But good things are done by Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddists, Pagans, and even people who talk to big purple heads. Bad things are done by them, too. And some of the best music, painting, sculpture, literature I know is spiritual or religious in nature. The greatest percentage of my friends claim religion, though I don't think many of them are true believers of the whole schmere.
But I'm not an atheist. It is my understanding that atheists don't believe in the divine. I think everything is divine. And that is why it is so important to take care of each other and our world. It is,and we are holy.
It's not without some hesitation I have written this and put it out there. Basically I'm afraid. But I'm not as afraid as I used to be. And I'm sad that people (I know you're out there) have to be afraid in a country with freedom of religion to be thought to be without it.