The Trickster

Erin and I have spent the last few years growing the family traditions of our faith.  We add a little to the permanency of things each year as we save the money.  This year past year, we added to our Ascension of the Celestial Cow celebration, and this year, we added to our Days Upon the Year week long celebration that ends with Wep Ronpet.

The Days Upon the Year are the last five days of the calendar before the start of the New Year (Wep Ronpet).  It’s the days that Wesir, Aset, Heru-ur, Set, and Nebt-het are born.  Last year, we celebrated with pictures.  This year, we purchased idols for each one.

One of the most well known stories in Egyptian mythology is the story of how Set tricked Wesir.  In the end, Wesir’s body was cut into bits and spread across all the land of Egypt.  Aset traveled all over the land searching for all the parts of Wesir.

So it’s well known that Set doesn’t care for Wesir… and that he’s known for his trickery.

When our first package arrived, we opened the box marked as Set…

But what we found was completely different…  Set wasn’t in the box, but a knight in shining armor was.  Needless to say, we will be returning that box.

The irony of this wasn’t lost on us, and we had to laugh about it.

But it doesn’t end there.

When we opened the box for Wesir, his crook and flail, the signs of his sovereignty and rule, were broken.

Nothing else in the entire package was damaged, and they call came from the same location.  We’ll be exchanging that idol as well.

We aren’t upset by the mix ups.  We aren’t really on a timeline to have everything in place by THIS DAY OR ELSE.  We’re just amused by the games the universe and the Gods are playing.  We’ll print the packing slips and do some exchanging…

And then we’ll see if the games continue…

To Be Silent? No, to be LOUD.

This blog is part of The Pagan Experience.  If you would like more information or are interested in reading other blogs following this path, please follow through on the link.

This is actually my first blog for the Pagan Experience this year.  I can’t garauntee I’ll do another one after this, but I’ve been seeing this topic float around for the month of April.  I debated on whether or not I wanted to speak on this idea of silence or if I should, ironically, remain silent.

But then some things happened today, and I cannot keep my mouth shut on this topic anymore.

I cannot remain silent.

priv·i·lege

ˈpriv(ə)lij/

noun

1. a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.

There are a lot of people out there in this world who will deny the idea of privilege.  They will deny, deny, deny white privilege because they grew up poor and struggled like the media portrays the black man, not realizing that class privilege is actually a thing as well.

If you are a upper-middle class, white, cis, heterosexual, able-bodied, English speaking, Christian male, you live in a world of privilege.

If you have one or more of the above descriptors, you live in a world of privilege.

I live in a world of privilege.  I also live on the other side of privilege.  I am white.  I come from an upper-middle class family.  I am, for the most part, able-bodied, and I speak English as my primary language.

I am not cis, but many people see my expression as cis, so I hide under that security blanket.  But I am typically-female bodied.  I am not a Christian.  And I am homosexual.

I understand discrimination well here in the United States of America.

And I cannot and will not be silent.

I work with children who are just beginning to stand out on their own.  They are teens on the edge of adulthood, who are learning to think and process for themselves.  They are learning how to form their own opinions and understand things about themselves that maybe they didn’t realize before.

And silence will kill them.

Something happened today, where someone close to my wife and I expressed her disgust at a recent episode of Once Upon a Time.  In this episode, a minor character falls under a sleeping curse.  The sleeping curse can only be cured by true love’s kiss, and the bad guys are all rejoicing because this character?  Well, she has no true love… She has no family… She has no one, and she will be under this curse for the rest of her days.

But she does get true love’s kiss, and that kiss comes from an unlikely source: another woman.

That’s right: there was a true love’s kiss between two women on a fairy tale shoe that jacks up so many fairy tales to begin with… but this… this is what upset said person in our lives: she had to watch a TLK between two women on national television.

She was SO UPSET that she said she was never going to watch the show EVER AGAIN and she was going to give us all of her DVDs of the show (which we gave to her as holiday gifts).  The ultimate regifting.

Yet, she loves us.  She thinks we’re special.  She supports us.

She’s okay with “our gay,” but no one else.  Not on television… Not in front of all those children!  THINK OF THE CHILDREN, DAMN IT!

Erin wrote about the experience on Facebook.  She was hurt.

And there was one response, from a straight woman, that said that she was “obviously trying” to be okay, but that “this was how she was raised” and that it must be hard for her to change her black and white beliefs into ones where “this wasn’t immoral.”

The good old argument: You, the one who is hurt by others’ words, need to be okay with the hate/injustice/ignorance/etc that you are getting because said person is really trying but these things take time.  It’s how they were raised and that takes time to move past that.

Excuse me?

Why should I be okay with someone’s ignorance?  Why should it NOT make me angry or feel hurt?

Why should I just let them get off the hook for it?  Why should their boundaries not be pushed or their feelings not be hurt?  Why do they get to live in blissful and willful ignorance?

They don’t.

And that is why I cannot be silent.

My faith calls me to action.  My faith sees the divine in all creatures, and it cannot be silent when aspects of the divine are being hurt by other’s human immaturity.

Love is love.

And love cannot be silent.

I live my faith.  I live my sexuality.  I live my life.

I live it because there are kids in my classrooms that found peace and love and acceptance because I keep wedding pictures on my desk.  I am open about my pagan faith, but live a life as judgment free as I can.

So no… I cannot be silent…

Not when my wife is hurting.  Not when my family is being attacked.

Not when there are kids on the edge of a cliff ready to jump.

Not ever.

Reconciling My Faith

Adoption of older children, and fostering of these children as well, while being of a minority religion (really, we’re the only Kemetics in the area that I know of) has presented us with a rather interesting situation.

First, we don’t know anything about the boy or his foster family.  We know where they are, as in what city, but past that: nothing.  I know about his background before he went into foster care, but nothing else.

The girl, on the other hand, we know a little bit more about because she goes to the same place of worship that we do.  Her foster mother has been teaching her Christian stories and she comes from a “Christian” household, even though she wasn’t taught much when she was with her birth mother.

Since Erin and I aren’t Christian, we don’t celebrate Christmas or Easter in our home.  We do, however, celebrate The Days Upon the Year and Wep Ronpet, The Ascension of the Celestial Cow (aka, Moomas), and the Solstices and Equinoxes, which aren’t of importance in Orthodox Kemetic Practice, but we’re reformed, so there.

We celebrate Christmas and Easter with our families because our families are Christian, and we celebrate the holidays as our place of worship celebrates them (which, at least for the youth, is up to me since I’m the DYRE (Director of Youth Religious Education)).

We’re going to be moving into a very religiously blended family, since we’re going to have two distinct religious groups in our home.  We will not not share our religion and faith with our children, and I hope that they’ll want to share in our traditions, but we can’t force them.

I stressed in an earlier post the importance of Pagan children to the pagan community, but this is a little different because they aren’t being raised since infancy with us.  We absolutely will not force our beliefs on them, but they will be exposed to them regularly.  We plan to share the myths and the celebrations and the history, but we can’t force them to participate because that’s not their faith and that’s not their way.

If this had been me three years ago, I would have had a very, very big problem with this situation because I didn’t not, on any level, like or agree with Christian principles, ideals, and beliefs.  I was actively opposed to Christianity, a religion I saw as hateful and mean and oppressive.

I spoke out against it actively and adamantly and wanted nothing to do with it at all.  I actively avoided going to churches or groups that were Christian in nature, in any way.

But that changed after going to a church that Erin wanted to go to.  She swore they were “open” to other faiths, but I was still really skeptical.  Even after the first time we went, they were so Christian-y, that I was unsure of going back.  They read from the Bible.  Their message was Bible-centered.  And all of it rubbed me the wrong way.

When Erin asked me what I thought, I shrugged and told her I would try it again because I never judge a place after my first experience.  I always try something twice, in case the first time was just a bad experience.

And the second time was the time that changed everything for me because the minister justified other religions as being good and okay through a story about Joshua and a story about Jesus, and it completely opened my eyes that maybe the Bible and Christianity wasn’t this demonic religion of hate and oppression like I thought…That maybe I could be okay with Christianity and still maintain my current faith.

I did a lot of research, listened to a lot of lectures/sermons/messages by people I trusted and people I didn’t, and the more and more I listened and learned, the more and more I was able to reconcile my current faith with my past faith as a Christian and come to peace with the stuff that had happened to me when I was a Christian.

Now, even though our future daughter and son will not be Kemetic when the come to us and may never be Kemetic in their life, I feel secure enough in my own faith and in my understanding of Christianity to the point where I can effectively guide them on their own spiritual and faith journeys, and I think that’s the most important thing.

Terrorism, Islam, and the Gospel: A Response

There is a mega-church in South Carolina called NewSpring.  They are a multi-campus church spread all across the state of South Carolina with some small fringe groups throughout other states.  Their minister’s name is Perry Noble.  Every Sunday, he preaches from the Anderson campus and his sermon is projected through holographic and video technology to all of the other churches.

Awhile ago, Perry Noble wrote a blog about Homosexuality and Obesity, and I wrote a response to it.  Once again, I feel the need to respond to another blog of his, which is what you will see below.

Before I begin, I need to explain my bias in this situation.  While my religious views have shifted since I last wrote on Perry Noble and NewSpring Church, I will say that I am still not a Christian by how he, or probably anyone else, would define it.

I don’t generally keep up with Perry Noble and NewSpring, but a lot of people on my friends list on Facebook go there and some of my other friends keep up with him, so when I got online and say a Facebook status lamenting what he had said, I went to check it out.

This time, the blog was called “Terrorism, Islam, and the Gospel.”  The blog is a reaction to the attacks that were carried out in Europe today by extremists.

Terrorists killed innocent people again today in Europe, and the world is sad, stunned and confused.

Some are screaming for war, others are trying to negotiate – however, I believe the only way to stop terrorism is by stopping Islam – and the only way to stop Islam is the Gospel.

Lots of people seem to be ignoring the fact that every act of terrorism we’ve witnessed has been done under the banner of Islam.

The world is sad.  The world may be confused, but I’m starting to think that we’re moving past being stunned by these acts of violence.  Unfortunately, acts of terrorism have grown so numerous in the world that the media isn’t reporting them all because there are just too many to report (and because the media is biased against Muslims).

The only way to stop terrorism is by stopping Islam – and the only way to stop Islam is the Gospel.

Lots of people seem to be ignoring the fact that every act of terrorism we’ve witnessed has been done under the banner of Islam.

Yes, I made you read that again because you really need to read it twice to fully comprehend that Perry Noble just went there in his blog.

The only way to stop terrorism is by stopping Islam?  Every act of terrorism we’ve witness has been done under the banner of Islam?

No.  No.  No.  No.  No.

The only way to stop terrorism is to stop hate.  The only way to stop hate is to teach love, acceptance, and tolerance of all peoples no matter their history or their religious affiliation.

According to the FBI, from 1980 to 2005, only 5% of all terrorist attacks on U.S. soil were caused by Muslims.  According to the same data, 6% of attacks were caused by Jewish extremists.  From 1980 to 2005, there were more Jewish terrorist attacks than there were Muslim attacks.

And that data includes September 11, 2001.

Now, I get it… That data is out of date, but according to this website, which lists all the terrorist attacks on U.S. soil up to now, Muslims and Islam are still NOT the only ones committing terrorist acts.

Even doing a simple Google Search on the topic will show you that “all terrorists are Muslim” is not true.

(At this point – for those who want to bring up the Crusades, I think we’ve pretty much had that under control over the past 1,000 years!)

When the Crusades happened, Christianity was around 1,100 years old.  Since that time, the religion has done a lot of growing up and growing out of the violence (for the most part, as there are still some fringe extremist Christian groups out there, KKK and Westboro Baptist, anyone?)

Islam was founded in the year 610 when the prophet Muhammad had his first revelation.  That would make Islam 1,406 years old.  That is not that much older than Christianity was at the time of the Crusades, and we can say “Well, they should learn from our history,” but really, does anyone actually do that?  That’s why we have the saying “History always repeats itself.”

If we want to put some things into perspective, Christianity is approximately 2,009 years old.  Buddhism is over 2,500 years old, and Hinduism is over 4,000 years old.  Islam is a young religion, and I’m not trying to validate the extremist actions when I say this, but Christianity wasn’t very pleasant when they were Islam’s age either.

Moving past the Crusades as an excuse of Christian extremism, Perry Noble is ignoring all of the acts of violence and terrorism caused by Christians today.

There was a mass shooting in Charleston, at a church, done by a racist Christian white male, but because he wasn’t Muslim, some people are quick to not label this as an act of terrorism.  In November of last year, a Christian went to a Planned Parenthood facility and shot and killed two people and a police officer in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  The KKK committed a multitude of terrorist acts against people of color and other minorities for an extremely long time.  Even today, they still insight violence.

The Crusades was not the end of Christian extremism.  Not by a long shot.

I am not calling for a Holy War – I’m simply raising my hand and saying I really do believe a person who has had their heart transformed by Jesus and follows Him will not commit acts of terrorism.

Except that they don’t.  They go into Planned Parenthood facilities and shoot people.  They kill doctors who perform abortions because they feel that it’s okay since God doesn’t like abortions.  They pour SCALDING HOT WATER on the backs of gay couples because those sinners need to pay.

Terrorism is an act of violence for political reasons, and all of the above qualify.  We can argue that these people aren’t really “saved” because saved people wouldn’t do such violent things, but I promise that if you ask them, they will say they are doing what God wants them to do.

I am not saying Christians should be mean to Muslims – I think we should love them, get to know them, ask them questions about their faith and share the Gospel with them!!!

Interfaith communication is a wonderful thing.  It fosters understanding of differences and allows for acceptance and tolerance of those different from us to grow.  Honestly, I’m glad that he added in that he doesn’t want people to mean to Muslims because that is exactly what is happening in the world.  Violence against Muslims has increased in the most recent years because of fear and lack of understanding and the feeling that “we’re right” and “they’re wrong.”

And I’m all about sharing my faith with others, but I’m also open to having others share their faith with me, which is something that the next few lines show are not what Perry Noble has in mind.

Our “product” is better!  Muslims just take a pilgrimage (at least once in their life) to Mecca and can visit Medina to honor the dead body of the founder of Islam – Muhammad.

Christians do not have a body to honor but rather an empty tomb to be celebrated!!

Islam is based on doing good works!

Christianity is based on grace!

Muslims have a “body to honor” because they believe that God is God.  They believe that there is no son of God (like Jesus) and that God doesn’t exist in multiple parts.  Muslims believe that there is only one power, God (or Allah, as they call that power), and nothing else.  They don’t need a savior because they can directly access God without the need of an in between guy, which is what the prophet Muhammad taught to his people.

“What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? ¹⁵ If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, ¹⁶ and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? ¹⁷ So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” (James 2:14-17, ESV)

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again:  The Gospel of Grace in Christianity is, in my opinion, a scapegoat and excuse for Christian extremist violence and terrorism.  “It’s okay if I do this bad thing and hurt others because I’m saved by the Grace of God and will be forgiven.”

Except that you’re hurting others and the Bible clearly says that faith without good works is dead faith.  You may have your words, but where are your actions to back them up?

And where in the Bible did Jesus ever say to go forth and kill or hurt these people because they are sinners?  Hint: he didn’t.

At this point as a follower of Christ I am personally committed to three things…

1 – Prayer for the Gospel to spread like wildfire in countries where Islam is the dominant religion.

2 – Learning more about the religion of Islam and the politics of the Middle East.

3 – Not allowing my mind to fall into the trap of believing that every Muslim is a terrorist. Although every act of terrorism has been performed by a Muslim…I will not allow myself to either hate or fear an entire group of people.

Praying for the Gospel to spread like wildfire.

Islamic extremists and terrorist commit acts of violence because they believe that they are right and everyone else is wrong.  Praying for the Gospel to spread through Islamic countries is the same thing, minus the violence.

Perry Noble, and so many others, believe that Christianity is the right religion and everyone else is wrong, except the Bible isn’t 100% on their side with that position.

“They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
    and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
    neither shall they learn war anymore;
⁴ but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree,
    and no one shall make them afraid,
    for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.
⁵ For all the peoples walk
    each in the name of its god,
but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God
    forever and ever.” (Micah 4:3b-5)

There will be peace on the Earth and “all the peoples [will] walk each in the name of its god.”  Not the God, its God.  And there will be peace.

But that’s not the only quote that supports peaceful religious pluralism.  One of my favorite quotes in the Bible is Joshua 24:15.  Most people know it as, “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

It may interest you to know the rest of that verse, if you don’t know it already:

¹⁵ And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. (Joshua 24:15, ESV)

If you don’t want to serve the Lord, then choose whom you will serve.  And it doesn’t matter who it is.  Joshua didn’t condemn those that turned away to worship other Gods.  He was okay with different religious paths, so why aren’t we?

Because Jesus?

⁴⁹ John answered, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.”⁵⁰ But Jesus said to him, “Do not stop him, for the one who is not against you is for you.” (Luke 9:49-50, ESV)

He does not follow with us.  He doesn’t believe like we do, and we saw him use you to do something good, but we didn’t like it because he doesn’t believe like we do, so we wanted to stop him.

Jesus: Don’t do that, because if he isn’t against you, then he is for you.  If he is a good person, and you are good person, we should all get along.

But that’s not all:

⁵¹ When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. ⁵² And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. ⁵³ But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. ⁵⁴ And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” ⁵⁵ But he turned and rebuked them. ⁵⁶ And they went on to another village. (Luke 9:51-56, ESV)

Here, we can see a group of people who weren’t for Jesus.  They didn’t like Jesus, they didn’t want him in their village.  The followers of Jesus called for Jesus to punish them for their actions through violence, but rather than doing that, Jesus rebuked his followers and they went some where else.

This is tolerance.  This is acceptance.  Jesus didn’t force his beliefs on a group of people who believed differently and didn’t follow him.  He simply moved on to a different village where he was accepted.

Perry Noble finishes up his blog with a call to pray for a revival in this part of the world where Islam is the main religion, but just before that he uses the example of the conversion of Paul to show that Muslims can also have their hearts changed.

“Jesus Christ changes lives!  He once took what would be the equivalent of a “terrorist” (Paul, who was killing Christians) and turned him into one of the Gospel’s all time greatest proclaimers…and if He did it back then He can do it again!”

Paul was a terrorist, and his heart was changed, but he said some interesting things in Romans that don’t mesh well with Perry Nobles overarching theme.

“⁶ He will render to each one according to his works: ⁷ to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; ⁸ but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.⁹ There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, ¹⁰ but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. ¹¹ For God shows no partiality.” (Romans 2:6-11, ESV)

“¹³ For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. ¹⁴ For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. ¹⁵ They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them ¹⁶ on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 2:13-16, ESV)

This passage is talking about God’s righteous judgment upon death.

Romans 2 clearly states that it’s not because you hear and accept the Law (Word of God) as the Truth that gets you into heaven.  It is your works and actually doing what the Law says.

In fact, according to Romans 2, if you aren’t saved.. if you don’t have the law, but you live a good and righteous life, you will still be judged and allowed into heaven as if you did because you were a good and righteous person.

There will be distress and tribulation for every human who does evil.  It doesn’t matter if that person is a Christian or a Muslim because God shows no partiality.  There will glory and honor to all who do good, whether they are Christian or not because God shows no partiality.

We don’t need to be praying for Muslims to be converted, Perry Noble.  We need to pray that people who do evil things have a change of heart and begin to do good things, no matter what their faith background is.

The Ascension of the Divine Cow

Otherwise known as Moomas.

It’s the modern Kemetic holiday celebrated during the month of December.  I saw “modern” because, much like Christmas, it was implemented as an alternative to current celebrations going on at the same time.

The myth behind Christmas is that it’s the day that the Christ child was born, thus ushering in a new era of love and connectedness to God.  It represents the birth of a way for humanity to be saved from destruction and death.

The myth behind Moomas mirrors that: the world was loveless.  Ra ruled over humanity (basically as the first Pharaoh), and the people decided to rise against him.  Ra sent out the warrior Goddess Sekhmet to get vengeance on those that would seek to overthrow Ra.

Once the bad had been rooted out, those left prayed to Ra for forgiveness.  He called Sekhmet back; however, she was so consumed by her bloodlust and vengeance that she couldn’t stop.  Ra tricked her by dying beer red to mimic blood.  When she woke, she saw the beer, thought it was blood, and drank it until she couldn’t hunt anymore.

When she hadn’t killed anyone for 24 hours, she came back to Ra, who transformed her into the Goddess of love, Hathor.  Basically giving love the power over vengeance and anger and hate.

Then, to make sure that nothing like this would ever happen again,  Ra took Hathor up into the heavens so that even after death, we will all know love.

Moomas is a time to celebrate love.  It’s a time to celebrate forgiveness.

KO implemented this holiday a few years ago to give the Kemetic Orthodox faith a holiday that they could celebrate during this holiday season, since there isn’t any major event that really happens during this time.

I would almost say it’s akin to the organization of Christianity where the early Church put Christmas during December to rival the pagan celebrations going on at the time to make it easier to transition.

This year, we’ve created an idol of Hathor that we’re about to decorate.  We have a special Moomas shrine/altar, and we’re going to have a special meal with cider that I’m going to dye red like it is in the myth.  I’m looking forward to it.

Ever year, we add a little bit to our traditions, so we’re working building it up into our full celebration.

Now, KO set the holiday to be four days after the Solstice, but that falls on Christmas a lot of the time, so we’re celebrating early on the Solstice instead.  I think, when it comes down to it, we’ll probably end up celebrating on the Solstice every year.

I love this holiday, actually.  I love the story.  I love what it represents.  I love the forgiveness and the triumph over vengeance and evil.  I love the hope I get from it that things will turn out for the best because love will win out.

I also had the privilege of sharing my faith and the faith of Neo-American Paganism with the elementary youth in my church this past weekend.  It was awesome to tell the story of Moomas and then compare it to that of the story of Jesus’ birth.  The kids really got into it and then we made suns using our hands to make the sun rays and once that was finished, there was a coloring page for Hathor.

Next week, we’re looking at Islam and Christmas story.

With as busy as we have been here, we’ve been working each year by adding in more and more traditions to our big celebrations.  Right now, we celebrate The Days Upon The Year and Wep Ronpet (August 1 – 6) and Moomas (December 21/22, for us).

Eventually, I want to add in the Wag Festival (late August), Opet (Late September), and Osirian Mysteries, which are in November.

Making of Handfasting Cords

So this time, when Erin and I took the supplies out of the bag, we actually opened them and got everything we could done without the ankhs that I ordered through Amazon.

We started the day out by going to the Greek festival.  We stuffed our faces and toured the church.  I was reading the pamphlet they gave out and one part really struck me, “The Theotokos (the Mother of God) with the Christ Child teaches us a fundamental truth of Orthodoxy-that is, that Christ is to dwell in each of us.  Saint Ambrose expressed it well: “Every believing soul conceives and gives birth to the Word of God; Christ, by means of our faith, is the fruit of us all, thus we are all mothers of Christ.”  Thus, the same Christ that condescended to dwell in the Virgin Mary comes to be born in us, that we too may say, as did Saint Paul, “it is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God (Gal 2:20).”

I showed it to Erin and said, “It’s a Unity Principle.”

It made me really want a statue of the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus.  I still don’t call myself a Christian, and I never will I don’t think, but I’m still connected to that past and still connected to that faith, and drawn to it from what I’m learning at Unity, which teaches us that the Christ presence, the spirit of God, is within all life and that we are to connect with it how we can and share that light and presence with the world.

The understanding that the spirit of creation, of the Gods, is within all life was just a real eye opener to me in how I treat other people and how I react to situations in my life, and I’m starting to see that idea translated everywhere I go and in everything I read.

After that adventure and with full bellies, we drove up to the pagan store in Hendersonville.  I got a meditation CD and Erin got some candles and stones for her work with chakras that she’s going to start soon.  We came back and decided to start working on our cords after I booked Discovery Cove for July.  Honeymoons =/= Cheap!!!

 We started out by cutting one of each of our ribbon colors into six foot long stretches.  We tied a knot in one end about three to four inches in and then attached them to carabiners to hook them to the table for some pull.  We braided them all the way down and then tied a knot in the other end.

This part took a little longer than we expected it to because the cords kept flipping upside down on us, which meant we had to stop braiding, back up, and try again.  Finally, we got that part finished.  Erin and I kept thinking about how pretty they were going to look and the cats kept playing with them, so they have lots and lots of positive and loving energy in them.  We tied a second knot on the other end to leave ribbon lose like on the other end.  Then we went back and double knotted both sides because the ribbons are silk and we didn’t want them to fall apart.

Mine are the blue a purple, and Erin’s are the green and orange.

Next, we started working on the tassels.  We wanted to take back any supplies we didn’t need, so we cut open only half the of the beads just in case we were able to return any unused supplies.  We lined up the patterns that we wanted, picked out the charms that we wanted to add in the middle and on the end, then cut the wire and started to bead.  We used bowls to keep up with everything so it wouldn’t roll all over the place.

The next part was a little tricky.  We used wire because it was sturdy, but sturdy things can sometimes be more difficult to work with.  We started by taking the charm we wanted on the end, running the wire through it so that about an inch was through the hole, then we twisted the end up the rest of the wire tightly to secure the charm in place.

On the other end, we started to put the beads through and then push them over the twisted spot to really put a good hold in on the bottom charm.  If you decided to do this, make sure that your wire is small enough that twisting it will still be able to get through the hole in your beads.  The end result was really nice and the wire didn’t show very much.  We used a nice gold colored wire though so that even if it did show, it would still look nice and pretty.

The next part was just as difficult: figuring out how to attach the tassels to the cords.

We ended up pushing the end of the wires through the knots at the end of the cords and then wrapping the loose wire around the end of the cords to help secure it.  To tie it in, we pushed it back through the knot in the cords and then down through the first two or three beads.  Finally, we wrapped it around the wire between the bead a couple of times before cutting off any extra.

I can’t promise that no fingers were hurt in the making of these cords.  In fact, it sorta hurts to type this right now.  Silly index finger!

  After that, it was wash, rinse, repeat for the next four tassels.  We watched chopped and laughed and talked while we worked.  I’ve read about people praying as they do them, but we put positive energy into them in our own way.  It’s whatever works for you.  It was a lot of fun.  I really can’t wait for our last charm to get here.

We created (or really, will create) six completed tassels.  We got the first five done today, and hopefully we’ll finish the last one next week when it gets here.

We plan on keeping them tied and then placing them into a shaddow box to hang up somewhere in our house to remind us of the bond we share.  41 days from now, I’ll be able to call Erin my wife.  And I’m so unbelievably happy and excited about it.  You can definitely plan a wedding in six months, just plan to work really hard for six months to get everything done!

Speaking of getting things done, I don’t think I mentioned this in my last post, but Erin and I went and applied for our marriage license on Friday.  I get to go pick it up on Monday and then we will put it in a safe place until June 26th!

Anyway, the almost end product that we have is beautiful.  Here’s a small gallery of what we completed today:

Our tassels combined

Erin’s cords

Combined tassels

Our cords mixed together

Our cords mixed together

Our cords seperated

My cords

The tassels again

The Making of a Handfasting, Part Two

We have 53 “official” replies with approximately 80-100 “yes” responses total, so far.  Every day we are getting more and more response cards in the mail.

We still need to finish up the DJ survey, the photographer survey, and tell the caterer what our final thoughts are on the food.  We have to guests who aren’t going to be eating because they medically can’t eat anything (Eosinophillic Esophagitus.  It’s a bad one.).

I went around to about four different places after I wrote my last blog and none of them hand an ankhs.  The only other place I could check would be the Unity Festival that is on May 30th, but the bridal shower is that day, and I’m worried that we won’t have time to do both.  I ordered them online.  They’ve shipped and are supposed to be here on the 26th, but I imagine they’ll  be here mid-to-late next week.  That’s the final piece to the puzzle.

I took all the rest of the supplies that we got, laid them out, took a bunch of pictures and then put them all back in the bag.  We will hopefully be working on them more this weekend.

My side is has the purple and blue ribbon with the cream that ties the two of ours  together.  I have two types of beads for each color and some charms that we’ll hang in the tassels and on the end.

As far as matching charms go, we have the three, the infinity trinity knot, the ankhs once we get them, and our initials.  My mom gave us a K and an E for a gift at one point, and we weren’t sure what to do with them up until now. They’ll go on our cords, and it’ll be fantastic.  We also have pentacles, but they’re actually hair bows from Hot Topic, so we’re going to have to basically cut the pentacle off the bow and attach a loop for our cords, but when you’re pagan, you have to do what you have to do.

My cords have a couple of crosses that are significant of my past and my recent “coming to Jesus” moment. I also have a small ankh and an eye of Ra that will go on there as well.  And a paw print, for my insane love of animals.

Erin’s cords will be green and orange, tied together with the cream.  She has some native american charms, a puzzle piece for autism, a Star of David for her attachment to Judaism through  her past, and some other nature charms (a feather, owl, etc).

It cost a little over $100 for all the supplies, so we’re going to only open up the beads as we need them so we can take back anything extra that  we have.

My mom bought wedding favors: a votive holder with “Love” and our names and the wedding date on them.  We ordered the candles for them yesterday, so  they should be here next week. She also got a ton of bubbles. We spent the evening yesterday putting stickers on them while drinking wine from our new glasses and Erin fixed the jam she made without the addition of pectin (that didn’t set because the recipe we used sucked) in our new sauce pan.

Last weekend, we went strawberry picking with one of Erin’s friends from work.  It was a lot of fun.  The field had a ton of berries and they were all huge.  Some were even weirdly shaped.  We have one that we called the Apollo berry because he has extra toes and it sorta looked like his paw print.  I’d never been strawberry picking before, and I wasn’t sure about going this time because I didn’t know if I wanted to intrude on Erin’s time with her friends, which we value, but she really wanted me to come, so I did.  And I’m glad we did because….

We ended up picking a whole heck of a lot of strawberries.  We didn’t want them to go bad because the experience wasn’t exactly the cheapest thing we’d ever done, so we ate half of the bucket, froze the other half, and I looked up a crock pot jam recipe that didn’t use artificial pectin because we figured that it would be easier and less chemical-y.

Unfortunately, it didn’t set.

So then Erin did a bunch of research to see how she could make it set, and fixed the jam (pun intended) that we found ourselves in.  So while it was on the stove boiling, we drank a glass of wine, put the new wine stopper in the bottle (which was why we decided to have the wine to begin with), and put stickers on things.

We’re still not done with the stickers.  It’s a lot like invitations… Do some as you go so you aren’t up late the night before trying to finish in a panic.  It’s getting there.  Erin go three boxes of the votives done and I got two boxes of bubbles done before we were both done with the whole thing for the time being.

Eventually, Erin deemed the jam complete and set it aside to cool.  It was at that point that the only logical thing to have for dinner was breakfast, so I cooked eggs and pulled some biscuits that I’d made and frozen and heated  them up.  We had vegetarian breakfast for dinner over white wine.  It was lovely.

 

As for the rest of the stuff, we’re in the process of finalizing the rest of the honeymoon.  It started out with a day trip to Miami the day before we boarded for our 8-day cruise, and it has turned into a full blown two week event.  We’re leaving two days before to go explore Fort Launderdale and Miami, we got a room through AirBNB, which I highly recommend doing for all vacations.  That website is amazing and so much cheaper than hotels.

We’re getting on the boat and then going on our cruise for 8 days, then driving to Orlando and spending a day at Disocovery Cove, swimming with dolphins, before coming home and having a day to “recover” before Erin and I get back to the grind.  We’ll probably do a lot of name changing stuff on that Monday as long as our license has come in.  I’m so freaking excited, it’s unreal.  Somewhere along the way, our honeymoon went from an 8 day adventure to a two week adventure, and I’m not complaining.

I had my first dress fitting on Thursday.  They have to shorten up the hem and adjust the top so that I don’t fall out of it and it needs five freaking bustles in the back to hold up the train, but it’s absolutely amazing.  I was worried I wasn’t going to like it anymore, but after I put it back on, I didn’t want to take it off.  It’s a lot of dress.

Erin, do NOT click on these links… I mean it… don’t do it!  It’s pictures of my dress for the masses, and if you click on it, you’ll ruin the surprise and then you’ll be sad and I’ll be sad… so don’t do it!  P.S. – I LOVE YOU!!! (here and here)

We still have two remaining invitations to give out, plus the ones we’re sending to random celebrities, like President Obama, Ellen, and Mickey Mouse.  Today, as soon as I get off here, we’re going to start working on our cords while watching a movie.  I’ll take lots of pictures and talk about the process and what we did in case anyone is interested in it for their own use.  Blog soon!

The Making of a Handfasting

Wedding planning is in full swing.  We have a consultation with the DJ coming up sometime in the next few weeks and we’re working on getting the last bit of our songs and such figured out.  The bridal shower is on the 30th, the rehearsal dinner invites go out this week, and response cards are slowly coming in.  We usually get one or two a day, and so far, they’ve been almost all yes.  Those that aren’t have been people we knew weren’t coming because they’re my dad’s coworkers and they have some conference to go to or something that causes them to be out of town.

We’ve gotten some gifts from people who aren’t coming, and we’ve got to start writing our thank you letters.  We’re going to have to reorganize our house by the end of it, and we’re already looking at storage containers to put classes and dishes we will no longer need but want to keep for our kids for when they go off to college or get their first place (that way, they have sets of stuff already and new things don’t have to be bought.  It was seriously the most awesome thing my parents did for me, and I can’t wait to do that for my kids.)

On Saturday, we ended up at Michael’s and we bought all the stuff for our handfasting cords, including beads and ribbons and charms.  The only things we’re missing are two Ankhs.  We checked the mall, and they didn’t have what we were looking for.  I asked around, and I found a place that might have them, so I’m going to go check them out today when I leave work (currently, I’m sitting in my room after school about to pack up and head out).  If that’s a fail, we’re going to wait until the Spiritual Unity event on May 30th, and if we don’t have time to get there (since that’s the day of our shower), then I’ll order them online and expedite the shipping costs.

Handfasting cords are used in Pagan wedding ceremonies to symbolize the tying together of two people into one.  It’s a representation of the Gods joining their souls together and once the cords are tied, they’re not supposed to be untied unless there’s some sort of a hand parting or divorce.  Erin and I have elected to create two separate sets of cords and then they will both be tied around us at the wedding in June.

After the ceremony, we’ll slip our hands out of the cords, place them on the table at our reception, and then we’ll have them placed in a shadow box to be hung up in our house somewhere as a reminder that we’re a team and joined together in front of the Gods, family, and friends.

We both picked out three different colors of ribbon: mine are blue, purple, and cream, and Erin’s are green, orange, and cream.  We have beads and charms to match.  The cords will be braided and the charms and beads will make the tassels on the ends.  I’m going to start posting pictures with details on the process as soon as I get home, which is after I check out this place I was advised on.

No More Excuses – Conversations with Jesus

I’ve been struggling with a blog the last few days about some stuff that I’ve been going through spiritually.

I have always believed that there is one universal creative power.  I call this power Netjer; others call this power God; others call it spirit.  Whatever this power is called, it is infinite and good and loving.  All the names that we give to this power don’t matter.  They all go back up to this one power.

How we interact with this power is extremely personal, and it changes over time.  This power will reach out to us and connect to us in different ways.

When I was younger, Bastet reached out to me in a time of need.  I had an experience where I felt her physically there in the form of a giant black cat.  I was laying on my bed, petting her as she purred.  I felt her silky fur on my hand, the muscles under her skin.  It was an extremely vivid and real experience to me.  That’s how I knew I was chosen by her.  It wasn’t the thoughts I had, it was the physical experience I had with her.  She provided me with protection and love and guidance from a divine source in a way that I had never experienced.  As I grew, so did my Kemetic faith.  I became strong in my belief as a Kemetic.

I still am.

One of the things I’ve really struggled with over the last few years is to reconcile my Christian background with my present self.  I was deeply, deeply hurt by a faith that condemned me to eternal torture.  I couldn’t understand why these people would profess a God of love but spew such hatred… or why a God would create a child so inherently wrong that He would basically allow a child to be born so that it could die.

I met a lot of Christians who had different beliefs than the gays are going to hell bit, but they all believed in this “Savior or Die” dogma that I couldn’t get on board with.  The pain I felt at the betrayal I’d experienced wasn’t something that was easily going to go away with some nice words and a band-aid.

I think all of this really, honestly, started three years ago when I had a very specific conversation with a coworker.  I’ve kept going back to this conversation in my mind the last month…

We were standing in the hall.  I think we were both had planning at that point.  She mentioned how she didn’t plan on teaching for her entire life, but wanted to stay until her kids were out of high school.  I told her I wasn’t sure if I wanted to teach forever either and how I had thought about attending seminary.

“There’s a Pagan seminary in Columbia.”

“There’s a… a what?  What??”

“A Pagan seminary?  I thought you knew… When M*** always jokes about my broom or calls me witchy-poo… I thought…”

“I thought he was just kidding!  I didn’t realize that was true!  I mean… what in the world?  Is that how you were raised?”

“No, I was raised Presbyterian, but they turned out to be really mean when I turned out to be gay.”

“Kel, you know that’s not what Christianity is about.  People get it wrong all the time.”

“Yeah, I realize…”

“I’m going to pray for you.”

I’m pretty sure she added in some other stuff about praying that I find my way back, but I don’t remember that for sure.  I started to stop listening because at the time, this conversation really hurt.  I felt unsupported, which is how I originally felt when my church became no longer my home, so the conversation originally just perpetuated how I felt about Christianity and Christians.  It was really upsetting.  I don’t think we talked for the rest of the day.

Then, jump ahead to last year, the adoption happened, and Erin and I wanted to find a spiritual home that we could raise our future son in.  We’d been attending the Unitarian Universalist church in the area, but it wasn’t spiritual enough for us.  We wanted to pray to our Gods… we wanted to feel connected to that divine energy… and we definitely weren’t getting it there.

So I set out to find us a new home, which is how we came across Unity.  They called themselves a progressive, practical Christian church, but their beliefs mirrored our own, so I e-mailed the minister and asked him if we would be welcomed openly as Pagans.  He wrote us back and said we weren’t the first pagans in the church.

We started attending, and we haven’t stopped going since.  They were there for us when the adoption fell through and rocked us to our core.  They were there for us when we got engaged and celebrating.  They were there for us when we wanted to get involved and welcomed me to teach a class on the Kemetic faith.  And now they embrace me as the Youth Education Coordinator.

The Youth Education Coordinator.  It’s my job to write all the lesson plans for the different classes.  We’re working on the preschool program and starting up a middle school classroom.  It’s a lot of work, but I’m enjoying it.  As the YEC, I’ve had to really start doing something I hadn’t ever done before: study the Bible.

I’ve been given permission to teach the kids whatever I want to teach them.  I can teach them about different religions, not just Christianity, which is my plan, but I’m starting with the Bible since it’s what the church mainly teaches from, even if it isn’t really used a whole, whole lot.

My first month taking over just happened to be Easter.  And it was all about Jesus and his crucifixion and how he became spiritually whole through his death, so I’ve been studying this now for an entire month, and on Easter… I had a huge revelation, and I posted the following status on Facebook:

“As much as I grew up in the church, I never knew much about the death of Jesus and his resurrection other than his death happened so that we would be saved from eternal damnation. He was the savior of mankind, sent here by the God of the Bible to make sure all of humanity had a chance or opportunity to live forever in the kingdom of heaven. I grew up learning that to be a Christian, I had to believe that Jesus died for my sins and accept him as my savior.

And I did. For awhile. Until I realized a part of myself that didn’t sit well with the majority. I came out, preaching love and acceptance of all people to a world that saw my words and actions as deviant and would have me condemned for it. So I turned away from that faith and that belief that I grew up in and suddenly realized was filled with so many people who got it all wrong, and found my new spiritual home where I was welcomed and celebrated and loved like I thought and believed I deserved to be.

Once I healed, I finally found it in myself to actually go back and read and research and understand. And I found it in myself to forgive those that spoke against me because they didn’t know what they were doing. They were just doing and saying what they thought was right because that’s the way it had always been.

And in doing so, I feel new. I feel joy. It’s a deep joy, like an ocean of clouds and comfort that I could wrap myself in forever and never feel alone or sad or depressed or hurt ever again.

At one point, Jesus was talking to those who believed as the majority believed at the time. He said, “You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one” (John 8:15, ESV). He healed those no one would touch. Forgave those no one wanted anything to do with. He fed those that were hungry. He preached in the sermon on the mount that those that were persecuted for righteousness’ sake were blessed (Matthew 5:10).

And the people hated him so much that they called for his arrest and death. For no other reason than he believed differently than they did and they didn’t like it… Because that was the way it had always been.

He preached love, and acceptance, and understanding, and healing. He took care of those no one else wanted to take care of…

…And they killed him for it…

But just before his death, he asked for the forgiveness of all those that spoke against him because “they know not what they do.” And he was reborn into a fully healed spiritual being.

I find myself as a gay pagan woman living in the South relating more to Jesus now than I ever did when I was a Christian.”

And it was the next day that I noticed it…

There was a physical presence standing behind my right shoulder.  Occasionally, this presence would reach out and touch my shoulder.  It felt taller than me.. maybe 5-foot-9.  It was male.  And it wasn’t scary.  I didn’t pay it much attention because I had a lot of things going on.  It didn’t really seem upset or anything that I was ignoring it, but it definitely didn’t go away either.

Finally, I reached out to this energy with my own, “Hello?  Can I help you?”

“Yes.  Thank you.  I don’t really have anything that I need help with, but I just wanted you to know that I’m here.  I don’t want you to think that my presence here is in any way threatening.  I don’t expect or want you to forsake the Gods that have loved and protected you for many years, but I want you to know that they’re not the only ones out here anymore.”

“Who are you?”

“I think you know who I am.  I think you’ve known since I first showed up.  There’s a lot of people out there who don’t understand me, and they say a lot of things about me that aren’t true.  But I know that you understand me.  I know you understand the purpose of my life, and why I died.”

At that point, I felt my breath get caught in my throat.  Ever seen a movie or a TV show where someone is so super cocky about their life and then that one person shows up that they didn’t see or expect to see and that reaction that they always seem to have?  That’s how I felt right then.

I think he felt my panic.  “It’s okay.  I’m not coming to you to take over.  You don’t have to convert as people would say.  I’m not the savior everyone makes me out to be.  You don’t have to believe in me to get to heaven, you know that.  I never wanted to be worshiped like the savior so many have made me out to be.  Even when I was arrested, they questioned me about being King and I kept telling them that was what they said about me, not the other way around.

I want people to be connected to God, as you and I understand that power, and that’s what I taught.  Or tried to, but everything’s gotten really mixed up.  That’s why I’m here right now.  Because you get it.  The people you surround yourself with get it.  That church you’re a part of gets it.  And I want to protect that, protect you.  I’m not going to ask you to start worshiping me, that’s not what I’m about… but I am here… and I am watching over you… Just as the others are as well.”

“Okay…  you know this is really weird, right?  Like… I’m the exact opposite of the person I’d expect to hear from you.”

“Not really.  You and I are a lot a like if you think about it.  We’re both teachers, we’re both pretty hated by the mainstream people out there… I have been for a lot more years than you have though.”

“I guess that’s true.”

“It is true.”

I told Erin about this conversation that I had.  It felt really weird and funny for me to say, “I think Jesus talked to me.”  I don’t understand why I would think that weird when I don’t have an qualms about saying that I’ve experienced the physical presence of Bastet, but it did.  I guess it’s the nature of the deity.

I fully expected Erin to be like, “So you’re… what? A Christian now?  Is that what you’re saying?”  I guess because that’s what’s been running through my mind.  I definitely don’t feel like a Christian, and I don’t claim that identity in any way, so I feel like having that question thrown at me was going to make me go into defensive mode.

Instead she said, “You haven’t had an experience like this since Bastet, have you?”

Gods, I love her.  “No,” I replied after thinking a moment, “I really haven’t.”

That’s how I know it’s real.  That’s how I know that I’ve been unexpectedly chosen by another deity.  I still feel Bastet and Ma’at around me.  Their energy guiding me and supporting me, but now I feel this new energy as well.  Bastet is still the strongest with Ma’at a close runner up, but this new presence… this new energy… is also there and strong.  I think Bastet is unsure of this current situation, but she’s not fighting him.  She’s just not really talking to him all that much yet either.

There’s a weird feeling in my chest any time I stop to think about what’s happened… It’s like an anxiety almost… A slight distrust that is to be expected due to my past.. but no matter the anxiousness, that energy isn’t going away.  It’s been there, and it understands why I’m nervous and not completely okay with this idea… This new reality… this understanding that I’ve been chosen… by Jesus.

And not the Jesus that so many people have gotten wrong out there.. not the “savior” archetype that will keep me out of hell.. no, this is the one that loves those that no one else loves… and helps those that no one else would help… and taught that through his example, were we then “saved.”

I guess that conversation with my coworker, in a way, came true… But I didn’t really “find my way back to Jesus” like she was hoping.  He sorta found his way back to me.

The Search for a Place of Worship

…Or how Erin ended up at Unity…
…Or the differences between Unitarian Universalists and the Unity Movement from my personal experiences…
With extra details about my new gig.

The Pathway To Unity

My faith and spirituality has always been important to me.  When I was growing up, I was in church multiple times a week.  I went to services with my friends at their churches, and I went to events at my family’s as well.  When I came out, that all changed.  I fell away from the faith that I had been raised in and discovered paganism, which eventually led me to my faith as a Kemetic.

I finished my years up in high school leading small groups filled with other kids my age who were interested in paganism for various reasons.  Some wanted to stick it to their parents, and some were like me: legitimately interested.  After high school, I joined the Wiccan Pagan Student Association as the Education chair.  I held seminars on paganism to break down stereotypes on campus, and I was in charge of planning the rituals for the group.

Once I left, I didn’t have a spiritual home for awhile.  I looked around, but didn’t find anything.  I had a small group of renegades a couple of times, but nothing ever solidified.  I taught classes at one point, once a week, on various different topics to my group of seven or so, but then, like all things usually do, situations changed, and the group fell apart.

I started looking into the Unitarian Universalist church.  There were two in the area: One close to me and one not so close to me.  The one further from me had a CUUPs group, and I toyed with the idea of going to their meetings, but I never did.  Eventually, my boifriend at the time took me to the UU closer to where I lived.  The day we went happened to be a pagan ritual ceremony, and I absolutely loved it.  We started going on a fairly regular basis.

We broke up, and I left the church.  Not because I wanted to, but because my ex was there before me and I didn’t want things to be awkward.

Jump ahead a number of years, and Erin and I are looking for a place of worship.  At this point, we’re doing the long distance thing on weekends.  When we were at her place, we went to Jubilee! Community Church in Asheville.  I was skeptical about them at first because their website leaned heavy on the Christian side, but Erin assured me that they weren’t that Christian.

They called corners, but not the traditional pagan corners I was use to.  I had trouble connecting because everything seemed off from what I was use to.  There was meditation.  There were readings from the Bible.  And there was a message.  The message that really got me was when Howard Hanger quoted Joshua from the Bible with the verse, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”  He talked about the beginning of that quote that most people leave off about how Joshua says that it doesn’t matter who you serve, as long as you serve someone.  And I thought, this is awesome.  This message is the best thing I’ve ever heard up to that point in my life.

When we were here, we would go to the local Unitarian Universalist church, but the one that had the CUUPs group, as it was closer than the other at this point in my life.  Every time we went, the message was good, but there wasn’t a connection for me.  I felt more like I was in a lecture hall in college instead of a spiritual place of worship.  We would always be learning about some type of faith or some way of life, but nothing that ever made me feel closer to the divine.

We thought about going to the CUUPs group, but at the time, there was a lot of drama running through those circles (it has, as far as I know, blown over at this point), and we didn’t want to get involved.

Once Erin moved in, we were desperate to find a place that felt like home for us.  We went to the UU here and the UU that I use to go to.  We looked for another Jubilee close by, but the closest in SC was in Columbia, and that was too far of a drive.  We’d also heard their minister preach before, and while she was good and we liked her, we liked Howard better, and we weren’t sure if we could really enjoy the services and get involved without constantly comparing the two.

And going to Jubilee in Asheville was out of the question.  It was just too far to drive every weekend.  We decided to stick with the UU, but it got to the point where I felt the total lack of spirituality (because the church here is very  humanist in nature) wasn’t worth the early wake up anymore and we both ended up just sleeping in on Sundays.

With no where else to go, I turned to Facebook:  “Erin and I are looking for a place of worship.  We’ve been going to the UU for a while now, but we’re just not feeling the connection that we’d like to feel.  They’re great, but there isn’t a lot of worship going on there.  We’re more theist and they’re more humanist, and it’s just not a very good match.  We don’t care if the place is rooted in Christianity or some other faith practice, but they need to be welcoming and affirming of the fact that we’re gay and that we are Pagan.”

I got a couple of “good luck” and “I don’t think a place like that exists” responses.  A couple people offered their home churches until I reminded them about the Pagan part, and then they weren’t as okay afterwards.  “We don’t have a problem with different faiths, but I don’t think that you’ll be welcomed and encouraged to openly worship and practice your faith their.”

I understand.

And then my friend, Misha, responded, “Ivy’s mother goes to Unity.  You should try them.  They’re kinda like the UU.”

So I looked them up.  They believed in a “practical Christianity” and believed in five principles:

• God is the source and creator of all. There is no other enduring power. God is good and present everywhere.
• We are spiritual beings, created in God’s image. The spirit of God lives within each person; therefore, all people are inherently good.
• We create our life experiences through our way of thinking.
• There is power in affirmative prayer, which we believe increases our awareness of God.
• Knowledge of these spiritual principles is not enough. We must live them.

I saw those and thought, “I agree with those.”  I watched a couple services on the computer, enjoyed them, and decided to e-mail the minister, who responded that they not only were welcoming and affirming to GLBT people, but that we wouldn’t be the first Pagans to ever attend a service either.

So we went, and we haven’t gone anywhere else since then.

The Differences

Erin and I have often talked about why we prefer Unity over other religious movements or spiritual traditions.  Unity accepts and welcomes us as who we are.  They believe that all paths, all religions, lead to God, which we also believe as Kemetics, so that is really nice.

I like to refer to Unity as the Unitarian Universalists with theism.  Now, I know that not all UU churches are super-humanist like the ones around us, but I know that a lot of them are.  They have their tenets about loving the earth and looking to earth-based spiritual paths for guidance, which creates an open door for different CUUPs groups around the country, but I’m not a “cast your circle” kind of girl, so I usually don’t fit in with their ritual styles anymore.  That’s just a personal preference.

I know the group here will have classes and meetings and different events, and we’ll sometimes go to those if they interest us, but that’s really the extent of our involvement there.

With Unity, we get that all inclusiveness that we get from the UU, but we also get a lot of prayer, meditation, song, and an understanding that God-energy does exist, which is something that I’ve found is sometimes lacking in UU circles.

On the flip side, Unity is less dogmatic than the Jubilee! movement.  I love Howard Hanger and the Jubilee community, but they are decidedly Christian.  They are multiple readings from the Bible.  They tell a story from the old testament AND the new testament every single Sunday, and while they’re open to other faith backgrounds, we never really saw them represented in services while we would attend.

I think Unity is the happy medium between the UU church and the Jubilee! Community.  It’s a place where Erin and I, along with quite a few of our friends, have been able to call our spiritual home, even though all of our backgrounds and beliefs are drastically different.

The Meeting

Which brings me to the meeting that I had with our minister this week.

We went over some ideas.  I showed him what I had planned for the month of April so far (which I’m completely changing now), and what my ideas and plans were for the future of education in the preschool and elementary and future-middle school classes.

He told me what they were looking for, and I said that was in line with what I was looking for, and then he offered to make me the Youth Education Coordinator.  I’ll be paid, and once I’m announced to the congregation, my picture will be taken, and I’ll be on the staff page.

The thing I thought was the single best part of the entire experience though?  When he asked me what my plans were for upcoming lessons, I told him that I wanted to really get into what God was and really get the kids understanding the Unity theology of God-energy.  Then he suggested that after that, I could start adding in lessons from other faiths.  He said he would love for the kids to learn about earth-centered faith practices along with Christianity, Judaism, and Islam!

This is monumental for me, and I am so flipping excited about it all that I can barely stand it.  I get to plan the curriculum for the youth at my church.  And I get to teach them about all different faiths, including my own and other earth-centered forms of paganism.  How absolutely cool is that?!?