Indigo Incarnates

We had a real treat today at St John's this morning. Rev Nick did the sermon! As most of you know, I attend Christian church services about once a month since Thistle is Christian and we are in handbell choir. Most of the time we get bored to tears with the poorly written sermons of the rector that I nicknamed "The Wooden Priest". The Wooden Priest is also utterly unapproachable and comports herself with an attitude that suggests she believes she is an exalted, more advanced life form and that the congregation are lesser, more primitive beings.

But not Reverend Nick. When it comes to Priests, Nick is the real deal. He writes a real sermon that teaches important spiritual truths in a way that can be easily understood. And yet his sermons are never condescending, nor is the congregation ever talked down to when he preaches. He's a life-affirming, positive, truthful man of faith. I can really respect that.

It's also cool watching him do the communion ritual. It never seems like the Wooden Priest is ever channeling divine energy when she does the rite. But when Reverend Nick does the communion, it seems like real ceremonial magic. Very cool.

I'm a Wiccan and Nick is a Christian, so our ideas on the exact nature of divinity are different. But I am really glad that Saint John's Church has a minister like him who has a real desire to commune with deity in meaningful ways and who tries to help others in their spiritual paths as well.

Indigo Incarnates

We has a group poetry reading last night at Turning Circle. In the Wiccan calendar, we're sort on inbetween High Rites right now, so Patrick led a service that honored the first recorded poet in history (I misplaced the paper, but the spelling's a doozie).

Then we all got a chance to read some of our favorite poetry as well as do a "speed poetry" exercise where we had three minutes to compose a poem from scratch.

All in all, it was a pretty fun night. I can't say it was the most *spiritual* experience I've ever had, but I had a good time.

halo incarnates

hate being the one to remember. hate having to remember. hate how it was. hate nightmares. father monster hates us. hurt us. haunts us. sends his evil spirit to haunt us. is still alive but haunts us. hates us. won't ever stop trying to hurt us. hate what he did. hate how he hates us. hate how he hurt us. want to not remember, but must always remember. hate how that is. hate being hated. don't know why he had to hate us. don't know why angry desert god always helped him and always hurt us. don't know why that god helps bad people and hurts people who have been hurt. hate how this is. want to stop it being like this. hate needing to cut. hate having to pay. father monster did the bad thing, but we have to pay. not fair. hate it. hate feeling like we have to cut. blood pays for sin. blood pays for us not being dead. angry desert god hates us and loves father-monster. wanted us to die. didn't die. so we have to pay for not being dead. blood pays for sin. hate how this is. hate how father monster never pays but we have to. hate how angry desert ggod hates us and loves father monster. hate being hated. hate having to remember. hate remembering being hurt. hate that we were hurt. hate how father-monster was never sorry. hate how he still likes to hurt us. hate how he likes hurting people and never pays. hate how angry desert god loves him for hurting people.

Indigo Incarnates

Well, technically yesterday was Beltaine. But Cedar Light Grove has their services on Saturday evenings so I will attend it tonight. I always like going to CLG for High Rites. The druid leader, Will, has been practicing the craft so long that he has the entire liturgy memorized for all eight sabbats. How cool is that? I also saw on their website that CLG follows the "Doctrine of Druidic Fallibility", which they essentially saw that everyone -- including the leaders -- are going to make mistakes from time to time.

The thing I like about Cedar Light is that they are very welcoming to ALL pagans, not just Druids. There are a sizable number of Wiccans that attend their rites (me being one of them).

So... what's the difference between a Druid and a Wiccan?

Well, there wouldn't actually *be* any Wiccans if the Druids had first not existed. Wicca is in some ways a streamlined Druidism. The Druids are polytheists, while Wicca is primarily duotheistis (ie. following a male and famale deity).But it's pretty easy for Wiccans to view named gods/goddessess as representations of *the* god and goddess. So it's all good.

I always like how there's a huge bonfire at Cedar Light Grove. During part of the service, we offer things to the gods -- flowers, incense, etc. So it usually smells pretty nice too. One time someone offered some incense that was chemically treated to make the fire turn all different colors. That was really cool!

Whether it's a Druid or Wicca service, one thing always remains the same in worship: that we are created by the gods (or the Goddess and God) in love, to be loved, and always shall be loved. We are loved when things are going well. We are loved when life circumstances go straight to hell. We are never judged as being shameful, sinful, or corrupt so long as we live our lives in goodness, charity, love, and peace.

I started following the Wiccan path a bit over a year ago and I have never regretted that decision. I feel loved when I pray, and I never had that before. I know Wicca is not for everyone. But it seems like the right path for me, and I am glad. :)

Blessed be!

Indigo Incarnates

I was thinking about world leaders and how some of them get carried away with crimes of violence. Some eventually pay while others go scott-free. There's one leader that seems to always evade justice.

The person I'm thinking of has, in the past, used weapons of mass destruction to utterly destroy two cities. The fact that the cities in question had women, children, families, grandmothers, fathers, uncles -- that didn't matter. The cities were destroyed due to religious differences between this world leader and the citizens of the two cities.

This world leader also is responsible for killing tens of thousands of children by way of biological terrorism in Cairo. There was a political dispute in that city and the person in question unleashed an attack that cut down innocent children like so much mowed grass.

Later, a then the Egyptian government sent their military to punish a group of terrorist sympathizers (ie. a group that supported this leader's ongoing reign of violence), that same leader unleashed another weapon of mass destruction that destroyed a large portion of the Egyptian military.

This leader has been known to summarily execute his own followers for the most trivial of religious offenses. Several clergy were murdered over the slight mishandling of a religious artifact. Moreover, the leader has essentially vowed to kill anyone who disagrees with his own particular brand of right-wing theology.

Despite his saber-rattling and his penchant for murdering priests and infants, this leader did nothing when a hostile power rounded up his followers in a war of genocide. Indeed, over six million of this leader's people were killed and the leader did nothing, despite the fact that it was well-known that he possessed very potent weapons of mass destruction.

What kind of leader is this? Would you call him "kind"? Would you call him "just"? Would you call him "humanitarian"? Would you even call him "good"?

Unfortunately for the parts of the world that value peace, ecology, freedom, and love, there are billions of Christians, Jews, and Muslims that call this leader "God".

Indigo Incarnates

I played hookey from choir last night for two reasons: I didn't have enough gas to get there and back (and it was the day before payday so I was flat broke) and the weather was just too nice to stay indoors. I did, however, have enough gas to get to the NCR trail (it's only 5 miles away from my house.)

I was really happy to see what difference just a few days make at this time of year. Most of the trees are sprouting leaves, the grasses are green again, and I saw lots of flowering weeds. It was very pretty. I saw plenty of squirrels and birds. I even saw a cardinal.

Since it was evening and the middle of the week, there weren't too many people. I was happy for that. The world has *way* too many people.

It was also good to get sunlight. Chanhelings need sunlight.

So, the eight mile walk was fun and it was great exercise. Yay!

Indigo Incarnates

So... Doug ordered a Futon a few weeks ago. The sales dude told Doug that when it arrived that it would be in three pieces and only require four bolts. Lemme tell ya: when it arrived it had about 100 pieces and three dozen bolts and two dozen other fasteners. Whoo-hoo! There ought to be a Time/Life series called "When Salesmen Lie", har har har.

But I'm happy to say that I actually got this beast put together and I'm lounging on it right now. Yay! I'm not mechanically inclined at all. This is actually the most complicated thing I've ever gotten successfully put together. It was a real confidence booster for me.

I The father-monster always called me a loser because I wasn't good with tools. Of course, if I had been good with tools as a child, the father-monster would have found some other reason to hate me.

But I feel like I had a real accomplishment :)

Indigo Incarnates

It's been over a year since I began studying Wicca. I'm an initiate now and I've officiated at four worship services, two of which I wrote the liturgy for. I have to say how glad I am that I found this spiritual path (or maybe I was found?) It's wonderful to feel loved when I pray.

One of the things I find so appealing about Wicca is how the religion recognizes the balance of forces. In Christianity, I've run into people who have said illness is a judgement by God, or poor finances is a judgemennt by God. But in Wicca, it is ssimply nature that there are times of disease and times of health; times of poverty and times of plenty; times of sadness and timees of joy. Without the one, appreaciation for the other would be lessened. In my life, I am in a time of health (good) but in a time of financial distress (not so good). But I would probably grow overconfident and less thankful if everything was going right at the same time. But in Wicca, I have been learning to appreciate the balance.

When I pray to the Goddess and God, I feel loved. I never had that when I followed YHVH. Maybe YHVH could not love me because I am not human, or maybe because I'm homosexual, or maybe because I'm not perfect. But the Goddess and God seem to love all life -- human or not -- and I can feel their spiritual presence when I pray, whether things in my life are going well or if my life is in chaos. They do not abandon. I am really grateful.

Is Wicca the "one true path"? Nope. It's the path for me, however. Wicca is not a religion that claims to be the ultimate moral authority or the one true faith. It is simply *one* source of morality and *one* true path among many true paths. For those who find spiritual fulfillment and connection with deity through Christiannity or Islam or any other faith, I'm happy for those people since it's good to be walking the right path that fulfuills one's spiritual destiny.

Blessed be :)

Indigo Incarnates

As another "perk" of living in Baltimore, Doug and I learned this weekend that the police department no longer makes non-emergency responses on weekends. Our white-trash neighbors across the street decided to through an unreasonably loud party on Saturday night. It was really, really loud! So 11:30pm rolls around and Doug calls 311 (the non-emergency police number) to see if an officer could be dispatched to gett the crowd to stop disturbing the peace. Well, the 311 dispatcher said they no longer do non-emergency calls on weekends.

What a riot.

Of course,that means that if your car is stolen on Friday night, you can't report it to the police until Monday morning in Baltimore. Lovely.

Anyway, the party was still going on at 6:00AM. It was a long, long night.

Indigo Incarnates

Usually I post more often than this, but it's been a particularly uneventful week.

I did see that there is a defendant on Pretrial Supervision with a firearm charge -- and his name is "Raygun". What a riot!

Doug got his state tax refund back so he got us tickets to a broadway show for next month.

I've been having a blast playing Sacred-II, a cool game that Doug gave me. It features an Angel that goes around kicking the crap out of highwaymen, orcs, zombies, and werewolves. She has a holy handgun too. Whoooo-hoo!

I do community supervision today. Hopefully I won't get shanked by a junkie-bum!