State of Formation Blog

The "State of Formation" is a journalist-style blog of the Parliament of the World's Religions and Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue, with contributors. Recently, Rebecca Levi posted about her upcoming wedding ceremony (Jewish and lesbian)... making a statement or engaging in authentic religious ritual? Check this article out, and others.
-M. Mueller

Reflections on the Year - Michelle Mueller

It's been an adventurous year: another two semesters at the religiously diverse Graduate Theological Union, my first attendance at the biennial Women & Mythology conference, spending the summer with Mormons in Provo, Utah, communing with gay and lesbian Mormons in Seattle for a weekend in October, AAR (American Academy of Religion), speaking on issues in Paganism for a panel on LGBTQ youth and religion, and finally, a weekend with Unitarian Universalist emerging scholars.

I'm saddened about the change in the Parliament of the World's Religions. Have been anxiously looking forward to it. The Council is doing what it can to plan for the future of the Parliament. While Brussels has withdrawn its bid, there is a possibility of a Parliament at a different site in the next few years. We will likely not know the outcome for several months.

I am gearing up for another year of academic work and interfaith/theological/multireligious conferences. The specifics have yet to be revealed. One thing is for sure: I'll be teaching NeoPagan Liturgy: Earth Ritual as a "hybrid" course (for students in residency, and online for those at a distance) in Fall 2013 at Starr King School for the Ministry, with my faculty advisor's mentorship. I am so grateful for the Graduate Theological Union including contemporary Paganism in its curriculum. In the acceptance notification, Academic Dean Arthur Holder wrote:

"Congratulations for submitting a worthy project that represents the best elements and talents of our doctoral program."
For more information, see our website: http://pagansonthehill.blogspot.com.

Witches, Black Panthers & Sufis

Interfaith at Samhaintide

Marin Interfaith Council has been offering monthly interfaith contemplative services for peace.  The October gathering, at Sausalito Presbyterian Church, was to feature Pagan religions (specifically "Wiccan") in honor of the season of Samhain.  I had committed to conducting this hour-long service; however, I was also selected to be a Deputy Inspector at the polls and the mandatory training for that job was scheduled for the same evening.  So I asked my friend Gwion Raven, who had helped me at the Thanksgiving Eve service for the homeless (and their supporters) last year, if he would do it.  I had planned on two readings, which I suggested he use.  He did use them, plus taught some chants that the group did together.  In reflecting on his experience, Gwion said, "It really affected me...I had never experienced being recognized as a Pagan and been so warmly welcomed in a Christian church.  [Attendees showed] genuine curiosity." I thank Gwion for his work.

The following day, when I attended MIC's clergy luncheon, three people, including Paul Mowry, the new pastor at Sausalito Presbyterian, who had been to the contemplative service told me how much they enjoyed it.  I was glad to hear that and glad to relay that feedback to Gwion.

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Interfaith as Matrix for Social Justice

The topic of discussion at the luncheon, held in the new Hannah Project1 Gallery space at Marin City,2 where we sat amidst an exhibit of photographs and other ephemera called "Architects, Activists, and Avengers: The Black Panther Party 1968, and featuring photographs by Pirkle Jones and his wife and collaborator, Ruth-Marion Baruch, was "The Role of Religious Communities in Movement Making."

I shared a table with two friends from Green Gulch Zen Center and Chris Highland, while we listened to three speakers.  Sister Colleen McDermott, Ph.D., told us of her study of the Highlander Center in Tennessee.

Founded in 1932 during the Great Depression in Tennessee as the Highlander Folk School, it began with programs to help rural women and organized different groups working for social justice and workers' rights. Among its founders and prominent participants were Myles Horton and his wife, née Zilphia Mae Johnson, Jane Wilburn Sapp, and Septima Poinsette Clark.  In the '30s and '40s the institute helped organize miners and textile mill workers.

In the 1950s Highlander taught desegregation and citizenship workshops with such participants as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and Ralph Abernathy, and organized voter registration efforts. The ubiquitous movement song "We Shall Overcome" comes from Highlander, which has always included music and the arts in its programming.  SNCC (Student Nonviolent Organizing Committee) has roots at Highlander.

During the 1960s and '70s Highlander refocussed on Appalachia, organized protests against toxic dumping, and more recently it has featured LGBT programs, multilingual programs for organizing immigrants (Pueblos de Latinoamerica Justice School), and post-Katrina relief.

Sister Colleen pointed out that religious organizations such as churches have the institutional structure that's an important underpinning of efforts at social change.  Institutions grant the authority to speak up and engage.  Myles Horton's early seminary studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York informed his dedication to organizing for social justice.

This is one of my arguments for having Pagans establish institutions such as Cherry Hill Seminary.

Pastor Johnathan Logan, Sr., from Cornerstone Church of God in Christ in Marin City, spoke of his church's mission, quoted in part below:

Glorifies God by its standards of holiness, righteousness, and obedience to His Word. Demonstrates Christ's command to love one another. ... Worship God in spirit and truth recognizing that Jesus is Head of the Church  Recognize its interdependence with other members within the body of Christ which [sic] may not be of the same denominational affiliation. ...  Fulfills Christ's command to evangelize the world.

Third to speak was Pastor Veronica Goines of St. Andrew Presbyterian Church, a "historical multicultural congregation" also in Marin City.

I found the speakers demonstrated an inordinate underlying assumption of an Abrahamic religious viewpoint.  For instance, the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. was invoked frequently, yet no mention was made of such figures as Malcolm X and others in the Black Muslim movement that also arose from those fertile and changing times.  Neither was there acknowledgement of the African diaspora religions that also gained adherents since those transformative years of the '60s and early '70s.

Now I understand that Marin's population is predominantly white.  And I know that this program was not intended to reflect every change to have arisen from religious communities in the those times.  Further, local branches of the Black Muslim church have either dissipated or fallen into corruption.3

I wanted to mention this as I, a polytheist, sat there with my non-deist friends amidst the assumption of monotheism, but I couldn't come up with a constructive way to comment.  Having said all this, I will say I enjoyed the program; I learned a lot that I hadn't known before and may never have been exposed to otherwise.  The speakers provided insights and provoked further reflections.  It was worth every minute.

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Visionary Marin

In a busy two weeks for MIC, we concluded with the annual Visionary Marin Awards Ceremony, this year honoring Dr. Nahid Angha.  Musicians played while people sampled delicious food prepared by the sisters of Brahma Kumaris and from Green Gulch Farm and elsewhere, and bid on an array of silent auction items as well as buying raffle tickets for several beautiful gift baskets.  A slide show of photos of religious activities by the member congregations of MIC demonstrated the rich variety of our membership.  I was pleased to see some photos of Pagans dancing round a Maypole that I had taken.

Among the many accomplishments that led MIC to give Nahid this year's Visionary Marin award is her  founding of the International Association of Sufism and Sufi Women Organization  , "an international humanitarian organization promoting universal human rights."

We learned more about Nahid from a Q&A session done with the Rev. Charles Gibbs, Executive Director of the United Religions Initiative.

Everyone left feeling that their culinary, intellectual, and community appetites had been satisfied.  Plus we met our fundraising goal for the year.  Kudos to the Rev. Carol Hovis and her assistant, Allison Kirk, and the many volunteers who worked with them to make this event a success.

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1.  The Hannah Project assists African-American and other low-income students ages 8-22 and their families in efforts to boost academic performance and college graduation rates.

2. Marin City, begun with housing designed by the late Frank Lloyd Wright for the many workers who migrated here during World War II to work on the Liberty ships in the Sausalito shipyards. It is now home to the largest African-American community in the county.  Coincidentally, the famed architect's final commission was our Marin County Civic Center.

3.  See Your Black Muslim Bakery and murder of journalist Chauncey Bailey.

“My Prayer is Your Prayer too”

“My Prayer is Your Prayer, too” was the theme for 2012’s World Day of Prayer, held at the One World Spiritual Center, in Marietta, Georgia.  Although this was the first interfaith prayer event at the Marietta center, it was Dogwood Local Council’s second year to participate. 

Last year, organizer and host, Rev. Sydney Lindquist, invited us to Gainesville Unity’s World Day of Prayer for which we created a beautiful elemental altar.  We also contributed to the prayer book and various members offered Wiccan prayers for the hourly blessings.   The event was widely successful and enjoyed by many members of our community.

More importantly, our presence was so well-received that Sydney asked us back to this year’s event, now held in Marietta.  For 2012, we created a harvest altar complete with pumpkins, fall mums and a real apple cake.  Our Wiccan prayers were printed in the program and I, personally, was able to offer a special prayer for the 11am hourly blessing.  

A Blessing of Unity by Miraselena

Unity – You are the rainbow of difference that creates beauty

Unity – You are a vacuum that desperately seeks to be filled with the wisdom that can only come from another’s experience. 

Unity – You are the spirit that begins deep in the Earth, rises through trees, upwards radiating out, touching everything, all that there is, and, then, ascending into the heavens.

Unity – You are that same spirit that, then, rains from above bringing us light and nourishment.

Unity – You are the nurturing hug of a mother, gifted to our world.

Unity – You are the single force that builds community and, only through you, can we find peace.

Unity – You are the many voices that can become one voice only through the harmony of diversity.

Unity – You are our hope. 

Unity – You are hand that holds another in friendship and trust.

May we always find the courage to reach out to you and invite you into our lives with respect and dignity for all.

Blessed Be.

The prayer vigil began at 7pm on Wednesday September 12^th and lasted a full twenty-four hours.  The large, otherwise unadorned, church room was dimly lit with a faint smell of incense filling the space.   In the background, music played ever so quietly to ease the transition from the outside world into this sacred experience.   The tables and altars, from fifteen different faiths, were setup around the perimeter of the room with a small stage and podium at one end.   In the center, they had placed a cloth adorned with a giant painted labyrinth.   Talking was kept to a minimum and shoes were not allowed in at all. 

During the 24 hour vigil, people could come and go as they pleased in order to experience the difference and sameness in the way humanity prays.  For me, attending was a spirit-opening experience that bonded me to others in a unique way.  It helped to find the common ground or path, if you will, through a forest of spiritual differences.

The World Day of Prayer ended with a drum circle and Peace Concert on Thursday night starting at 6pm.  This year, we were able to add our time and energy to the Concert.   Accompanied by Eibhlean’s skilled drumming, I chanted a variety of different Wiccan songs to introduce the audience to the vibrancy of Pagan sacred music.   The experience was well-received and, once again, we were asked to come back again next year.

And, I really hope that we do…for our sake and the future of the humanity! 

Homeless in Marin

 Photo  © Ron Greene*

In late July the Marin Interfaith Street Chaplaincy memorializes the homeless of our county with a gathering, march, and brief program.  If I am not away from home, I participate.  This year was a bit different, in that there was much less diversity among the interfaith participants.  After we are called together with drumming, often a Buddhist will light incense and offer a prayer to bless the endeavor.  There was no Buddhist there this year, although there are several Buddhist congregations and at least two prominent Buddhist retreats in the county.  Nor were there any representatives from any of the local Jewish synagogues, as there have been in the past.  Nor was there a contingent of Dominican Sisters like I'm used to seeing.  I'm guessing this is because the date conflicted with other important matters these folks needed to attend rather than being due to disinterest.  In any case, I was surprised that the only speakers from the religious community were about four Protestant ministers, including my colleague on the Justice Advocacy Team at Marin Interfaith Council, the Rev. Liza Klein of San Rafael First United Methodist Church; one priest from St. Raphael's; and one Pagan, yours truly.

We gathered in the plaza in front of St. Raphael's, near where a tree was planted by this same group about ten years ago.  I took the two photos below a few years ago; the tree has grown larger now.

My contribution was a prayer to the Mother of Justice, followed by singing of a beautiful round called "When We Are Gone," written by Anne Hill and Starhawk and published in The Pagan Book of Living and Dying (as is the prayer).  We have done this enough times now for some of the people to know the song, so the singing was fuller, richer, and sweeter than it's been in past years.

Sometimes people ask why I do this.  The answers are many, but the main one is that there are Pagans among our nation's homeless, and they have told me how much they appreciate seeing a Pagan face among the speakers.  They have also said they're glad to see acknowledgement of goddess worship.

In service to Coventina,

M. Macha NightMare (Aline O'Brien)

 * * * * *

* Ron Greene has several entries on the homeless in Marin, accompanied by moving photos, on his blog site.  In this photo, I am in the left foreground wearing purple and a big pentacle.

Dear All,

As most of you know, I attended the North American Interfaith Network Connect this year in Atlanta Georgia. It is late because I did not wish to interrupt Don’s postings. What a wonderful experience!! As one of only two, anything like Witches, at this event, I usually feel a bit left out and spend most of my time explaining why one issue or another does not apply.

This year was a completely different experience. I came determined to discuss the questions that everyone seems reluctant to discuss and discovered that everyone wanted to discuss them. The younger people especially were really looking for some depth to conversation. As an example they were by far and away in agreement that their favorite panel, on LGBT(et al) where there was actually some drama when, after two young people shared their feelings of isolation because of church policies, a person stood up and read a verse from the Koran condemning alternative sexual orientations. Unfortunately he approached this in a very insensitive manner and…well you can imagine the conversation from there, as I must who did not get to the panel despite my best efforts. I was pleased to discover later that they agreed that they liked my presentation second best. I had the opportunity at one point to accuse them of ageism when I found them all sitting at one table, and they asked if I wanted to volunteer as their token “elder”.

My favorite part of the weekend was when the moderator of our panel introduced us as women of a certain age who were no longer afraid to say what they felt needed to be said. (Not a snicker here).

I had started out as a panel presentation on “The hard questions” and the planners asked if I would combine my talk with another. I know all these ladies and was pleased to do so. They said that we could have 20minutes each originally but when we got to the presentation we discovered that they had allowed us 10 minutes. I curtailed my talk and the moderator, my friend Bettina Grey, did her best to keep the others down in time, but most had written out their talks and it was difficult. This presentation will be available in the evening after council this year.

There was a huge part of this Connect that was based around social justice and Martin Luther King figured large in the tours that we took along with Jimmy Carter. I was able to meet some personal heros of my own, who had marched with and helped plan with King. Dr Rev. Vivian who is now in his late 80’s is one of those men. It was a seminal moment for me.

There is so much more to report but our sight (http://nain.org/nainconnect12report.htm) NAIN.org has done a much better job so I direct you there for pictorial proof of my attendance along with a complete report on the event.


Blessings,
Rachael Watcher

CoG Interfaith Rep meeting w/ Mayan leader, pt. 6 – Saturday (Nuestra Aventura en Guatemala, Dias Seis – Sabado)

Greg and I woke in our hotel in Panajachel for our last full day in Guatemala.  After breakfast, we walked around part of Lake Atitlan, marveling at the variety of flowering plants.  Sooner than we would have liked, we packed our bags and boarded a hotel shuttle for the three and a half hour ride back to Guatemala City.  Three and a half hours seemed short, given the lengths of the trips that got us here; five and a half hours seemed more reasonable.  The reason for the difference was that our driver, Alfonso, averaged 100 mph for the whole drive!  Even when we once again encountered blinding rain on the pass over the mountains, he only slowed to what we would consider a reckless speed.

The drive, between bouts of car-sickness, gave us time to reflect on the trip.  It obviously did not go as expected.  Our brief time with Tata confirmed the bonds of friendship and fellowship he feels between him and me and between the Maya and the Wicca.  There is definitely a relationship to be nurtured here.  (We have been talking about hosting another meeting of Elders later in the year, but that is still in the planning stages.)  As it turned out, we spent almost all of our time with Wilma.  She, too, is a practitioner of the old Maya ways – one of considerable knowledge & skill.  We always talk about the balance of male & female energies (and, or course, everything in between) in the spiritual paths of the people of the Earth, so it was fitting that we experience Wilma’s way of working, having experienced Tata’s.  We formed a strong bond of love and respect with her.  She shared secrets of the old ways with us.  We look forward to working with both her and Tata in the future.  I came to meet with a Maya leader and was blessed to end up meeting with two!

 

We arrived in Guatemala City around 4pm and found our hotel near the airport.  Here we have had a chance to relax, get our bags packed, and prepare for the 13 hour flight home (with a layover in Atlanta).  We may have time to go to the Archeological Museum or the Popol Vuh Museum before we leave, but probably not.  We have one final task we must perform before we leave Guatemala.  Yoland Trevino, emeritus Chair of the Global Council of the United Religions Initiative, is an indigenous Mayan and was born in Guatemala.  Her sister lives near our hotel and will be dropping off family papers for us to deliver to her.

Unless something really interesting happens tomorrow, this’ll be the final report from this trip, but there will be more encounters with the Maya to come.  As Tata says, “The Maya and the Wicca are brothers [and sisters].”

I would like to thank my very good friend Greg Stafford, who dropped everything to come with me at the last minute, help with translation, provide spiritual support in & out of ceremony, and generally watched my back as I traveled in a country where I didn’t really know the language or culture.

Blessed Be,

Don Frew (with Greg Stafford)

CoG National Information Officer