Pantheacon (2) – Pagans? Heathens?? Witches???

So, speaking of Pantheacon, some of you may be wondering just what this is all about?  A convention for Pagans, Heathens, Witches and such?  Surely this must be a joke.  Perhaps you cannot imagine what such an event would be like.  You can’t imagine people in the year 2013 calling themselves Pagan and the other names.

I’ve been a Pagan for over thirty years.  You may ask:  How can that be?  Surely these things have been left behind long ago, hundreds or even thousands of years ago, by civilized people.

No.  I was baptized a Lutheran and grew up hearing Bible stories, it is true.  Then, in grade school, I also heard the legends of Greek heroes.  In high school I heard about Greek tragic heroes.  So that I was familiar with the so-called “Pagan” authors before I ever got to college.  About the same time, I became interested in Wagnerian opera, eastern religion, and the psychology of Carl Jung.

I was inclined towards nature and mysticism.  When I discovered books about Wicca, and Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon, it didn’t seem particularly foreign to me.

I confess, I read Adler’s book because I’d been studying mythology.  I’d spent a lot of time with Joseph Campbell’s four-volume The Masks of God.  I was interested in modern approaches to myth.  When I noticed that most of Adler’s book dealt with modern-day witches, I was a bit put-off.   Witches?!  I wasn’t interested in witches!  I thought that anyone calling themselves a witch nowadays must be either extremely shallow or extremely weird.

But it appealed to me.  It was not what I had expected.  I’d believed stereotypes.  You may have ideas of who these people are; and you may be wrong.

I’ve been surprised, over the years, by how many other people have also felt attracted to these things.  

So—I’m going to tell you a bit about Pantheacon—what I saw and heard there.

Stay tuned.

Personal Preference and Common Ground

So much in this world simply comes down to personal preference—maybe religious preference?—and how much society can allow for personal preference, and how much we can all tolerate from one another.

Yesterday I got in a discussion with a friend of mine who told me that the Bible is very clear on homosexuality.  How dare Bishop Tutu compare homophobia with racism or sexism?  And she quoted Leviticus and Paul.  I pointed out that Jesus said nothing about homosexuals.  That didn’t change her viewpoint.

Meanwhile, I continue going over my writing project, trying to understand how it would come across to someone like this friend of mine.  How do you write a story that treats LGBT or poly people with dignity and respect, in a way that this friend could understand?  Is it possible?

Maybe it isn’t.  Then a story about someone who is a minority within a minority within a minority…could never be understood by my friend.  If I speak of Queers, or Polys, or Pagans—or someone who is all three!—is there really no way to bridge the cultural/religious/personal gap between “us” and “them?”

Today, online, I exchanged comments with an Obama-hater.  Same thing.  Vanishingly little common ground.

But our common ground should be our humanity.  How can we “make it so?”

Blessings and Mitzvah/Karma-Points to those who try!