I’ve said before that I fully believe that spirituality in whichever of its myriad forms is one of the most personal things we have. Of course it’s thereby likely to be one of the most important things to an individual. What I have never claimed to understand is why so many people allow it to suck up the last dregs of their personality until they become mindless drones who can speak of nothing else. There’s an episode of ‘Sex And The City’ in which Miranda speaks of women sucked into parenting in this way, and says something to the effect of "I just had a conversation with a woman who has a Masters degree in Business. All she could talk about was her diaper genie."
Ignoring the fact that I’ve never seen a ‘diaper genie’ in my life, nor know exactly what one is (a djinn called up for the purposes of infantile personal hygiene?), I think that this is not only a pretty accurate description of the parent-monster, but also of the faith-monster, which, for the purposes of this essay, can be a Pagan faith-monster as it’s the one I encounter most in my sphere of existence (as well as keeping to this site’s theme, obviously.)
Indulge me in a few little exercises if you will. Take a look at your list of web bookmarks - how many of them are Pagan themed? A few? Quite a lot? A lot? All of them? Now look at your bookcase. Repeat. Your friends (including online contacts)? Your topics of conversation in everyday life? Are you becoming an obsessive fundamentalist, or is that just something you thought other religions did?
A while back, I met one of these people (and trust me, I lived to rue the day). A topic I posted on a Pagan forum asked members what the last things they read in each of the following categories were: Pagan material, fiction, non-fiction and miscellaneous. To be fair, on this occasion, for the most part this was what I got in replies...until Revered MacObsessive shows up and lists a couple of fistfuls of Pagan literature sources. That’s it. This is the same person who once posted the contents of his bookshelf, and little was different there. When I asked what he had read in recent memory that wasn’t Pagan-related, he proudly announced that, well, there wasn’t really anything (unless you count the set texts on his current college courses.)
Tell me this isn’t what Pagans are turning into. My ‘friend’ in the example given is not the only one - how many times have you seen people join Pagan boards and talk (with widely varying eloquence and ability) of nothing but Paganism / Witchcraft / Wicca / Whatever else? How many sites have been constructed by webmasters who seem to define themselves by their faith (you know, the - "My name is Shayna and I’m a Wiccan. This is my online Book of Shadows where I keep all my spells”" - type of thing?) Why would ANYONE in their right mind want to seek the counsel of a person who doesn’t have a real life? Isn’t this why the Pagan network spends so long criticising the Pastor who, in his isolated, celibate existence, has lost touch with his congregation to the point of not being able to relate to them sufficiently to support them when they need it? Take a look in the mirror.
When I built my site, I didn’t set out with the idea of making it a purely Pagan-themed site - not that I’m criticising such sites, or claiming we don’t need them; quite the reverse, in fact. But just because your site was designed to fulfil a sole purpose, it doesn’t mean you have to be. Nobody’s going to shoot you if you discuss your favourite bands or films on a Pagan board, start a silly word game or share links to trivial sites (if by any chance they do, you seriously need to find another community.) The saner Pagans spend more time discussing non-Pagan issues, not less (after all, how many times can a group of people discuss their favourite tarot deck, deity / legendary figure or ritual techniques without becoming repetitive?)
If you say you came to Paganism to be an individual, then for [insert concept of divinity’s name here]’s sake, prove it. You might have more fun than you would if you were discussing the length of your athame for the fiftieth time, too.
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