I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I want to do with the PaganCentric web site. We had sort of put it into place in preparation for launching a Pagan themed Internet cafe and coffee shop here in Asheville, but when the finances fell through and I parted ways with my business partners, I thought maybe I use it as an extension of my Wicca classes. But since religion and spirituality are such intimately personal things, that never happened, either. So… what are we going to do with PaganCentric?
Then I ran across a wonderful article by Star Foster, who ponders whether Pagans should be involved and engaged with the communities around them and the world at large. I think all of us can feel that changes are coming. Maybe it’s time to open up our minds a bit and look beyond our own circles. It is with PaganCentric in mind that I read the following article.
I hope you’ll read the article in its entirety. It’s well worth the time. Excerpts follow.
~ Claire
When Good Pagans Do Nothing
My Southern Baptist upbringing taught me that I was in the world but not of it. I was not to be concerned with worldly things, or to seek to engage with the world on it’s terms. I was to let that pass by and concern myself with the kingdom of God. My parents and some of my teachers at church had that old-school pre-politicized Evangelical worldview. There was a feeling that this world is run by Satan and thus only so much good can ever come of worldly things. My focus should be on God and my church family, because that is lasting and that is where true goodness lay.
Obviously, as I write to you from the Pantheon blog on the Pagan portal at Patheos.com, I no longer espouse that view. After years of being told I must disconnect with the world and with worldly things it was so refreshing, freeing and deeply satisfying to embrace Paganism. For Pagans, this world is sacred. It is both our present home and our home to come. To engage with this world is a very Pagan thing. The civic is sacred. The culture is sacred. I remember reading something once to the effect that it is the duty of Pagans to re-enchant and re-sacralize our world. I remember thinking what a wonderful and astounding thing to consider worldly things holy and to interact with them with that sort of mindfulness, without imposing our beliefs on them.
