This won't be an angry rant. This won't be a bitter rant. This will be a sad rant, because I am sad. Ana and I stopped to Wal*Mart after I got off work to get some contact solution. We were standing in line in aisle 7 behind this fat white-trash woman (yes, NASCAR™ shirt, greasy hair and everything) and her three-year-old daughter getting groceries. She was cutting a check to pay for her groceries (I believe the total was in the $35 range) and she was taking forever to write out the check. The line was growing (it was up to 5 now) and everyone was growing impatient. Well, Barb (the genius cashier) ran the check not realizing until too late that it was a starter check. Since Wal*Mart doesn't take starter checks, she had to find another method of payment. She rooted around in her purse but didn't have enough money. People were getting pissed and walking away, muttering curses and shit under their breath. Instead of leaving this poor woman and her daughter starving, I offered to pay for it with my check card, and I'd deal with the money issue when the time came. She declined and went home without food, and it about broke my fucking heart.
But it got me thinking: how many people do you know (Wiccan™ or otherwise) who would have done such a thing, when everyone else (Christian, secular or otherwise) was walking away grumbling? Huh? I know some pretty good people out there, but I could count on one hand the people who really would have done that. And it sickens me that so many Wiccans pride themselves on their love for their fellow man and their environment, and that so many of those involve themselves in recycling programs or vegetarianism or ecological organizations or other forms of social or environmental protest, but they really don't go any further than what looks good.
See, the problem with most people is that they only help people so long as it serves their own interests or doesn't upset their comfort zone. The guy behind me was buying pop-tarts and cereal and Juicy Juice. Chances are he has kids. He had on some really expensive pants and an expensive watch. He probably could afford to cover the poor woman's $35 in groceries easier than I could (I would have risked bouncing my light bill cheque had I done it), and since he has kids, he probably felt for her more than I did underneath it all (if he even paid attention, that is). Why couldn't he have done it? Because that might upset his pocketbook, I must assume. And the same goes for EcoWiccans: they hug trees but won't hug children. They protest the development of ANWR into an oil field but don't protest the development of farmlands into subdivisions for suburbanite white-trash-gone-yuppies, which in fifty years will be as rundown and lawless as the ghettos of the inner cities today. These self-important pieces of shit only crusade against easy shit. It's easy to stand in front of a construction worker with a picket sign. It takes a bit more character to give your backpacking tent to a homeless guy.
So I have an idea. Instead of playing the I-5 ecopolitical game, why don't Wiccans go "evangelise" the inner city kids? Why don't Wiccans go into the projects and teach these gang kids meditation and positive magic? Why don't Wiccans put recycling bins in trailer parks and pay the stupid fees for them? Why aren't Wiccans getting off their self-important asses and humbling themselves to aid some destitute Christian who needs a helping hand?
Now that I'm done talking about you fucksticks in the third person, I'm going to address you directly. Every Wiccan, hearken ye: If you want to help your environment, then worry about your own trash instead of everyone else's. If you want Christians to love you, LOVE THEM FIRST and act upon that love. If you want Christians to believe that Wiccans have a sense of biblical good, then even for ego's sake, help someone less fortunate than yourself. If you want to prove your religion as legitimate, then the answer isn't the clearing your coven for 503(c) status, but by signing your coven up for an Adopt-A-Highway stretch, or knitting clothes (with enchanted threads, of course!) for homeless people or to donate to Goodwill.
Now, I know damn well you can't be altruistic all the time, and I wouldn't dare ask you to be. I'm not either. There are days I only think of myself and Ana, and even my brother doesn't enter my mind. In fact, I ranted about this very topic earlier. But damnit, if only a few Wiccans tried — really, really TRIED — to make the world around them a better place, then maybe Wicca wouldn't be a joke amongst the other religions, pagan or otherwise. And maybe you'd feel good about yourself. And then you could go to your überChristian relatives and go "Ha! See? Wiccans are good people too! Aha! I fucking told you so!"
But if you are that good a person, then trying to prove it is pointless, since it shows in your every word and deed.
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