[Dialogue] Paganism and RSI

[Bill Bailey]

Charles, several years ago we began to think seriously about the
reductionism of our dualistic way of thinking and perceiving reality. While
dualism had it gifts (mainly by giving us categories to interpret, examine
and understand both the theoretical and practical sides of human life and
the natural world) today, as we move toward a more holistic way of
understanding and experience we have to jettison our reductionism and
reinterpret our place in the world. For example:

	The dualism of the Sacred and Profane, now become 100% Sacred and
100% profane. (Remember how Joe always insisted that the Jesus happening was
a secular even. He was right; the Jesus happening is 100% secular and 100%
sacred.
	The same can be said about the dualism between life experiences that
are either tragedy or comedy. Life experiences are 100% both (believe me,
you can laugh and cry at the same moment.) also (seems like we used to say
something about the bondage of having to divide life into the good and the
bad, when after all is said and done, your life is receive, approved, good
and open.)

Today, (still living between the no longer and not yet) and with the mammoth
explosion is historical and scientific research, we are beginning to
understand that dividing the religious community between some form of
orthodoxy and some form of heresy is not helpful. Perhaps we are beginning
to see with our intuitive eye that all spiritualities (and religious
persuasions are, at the same time, both orthodox and heresy, or as one
author commented about the establishment of Christianity by saying that
during the first 400 years it was a battle between various forms of heresy
to see which heresy could win. 

I would suggest that as our dualism fades away and our researchers continue
to follow the data instead of the established institution and party lines
that we are headed for a tremendous leap both in our consciousness and in
all our relationships.
	

Bill Bailey


-----Original Message-----
From: Dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net
[mailto:Dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Charles or Doris Hahn
Sent: Saturday, July 09, 2005 9:28 AM
To: Colleague Dialogue; Bill & Marianna Bailey
Subject: RE: [Dialogue] Paganism and RSI

Hi Bill,

I think I came in at the end of all this hassle about
paganism and idolodry and RS-I, so I don't really know
all that I am responding to.  However, I just want to
say that what you have written makes a lot of sense to
me.  I do not know either of the authors you mention,
but the point about archaelogy vs bibliolotry is
especially well taken.

Your writing is always so clear.  Keep your input
coming.  Thanks again.

Charles Hahn

--- Bill Bailey <bailey03132 at charter.net> wrote:

> Here in Asheville we have two major groupings of
> "Earth Based
> Spiritualities", the Heathens and Pagans. Their main
> Spiritual celebrations
> revolve around the 4 seasons, and their one big
> gathering is All Hallows
> Eve. Their religious understanding revolve around a
> pan-an-theism which can
> be expressed as: "Everything is alive with Spirit."
> The basic form of
> worship is through myth and ritual, venerating the
> divine in everything that
> lives. Byron Ballard is a Wicken Priestesses that is
> very well known
> Asheville, and she likes to say the "Paganism" is
> the oldest form of
> spiritual life and religious organization known to
> human kind. She
> participates with us at Jubilee; she works with the
> NC State Council of
> churches, and presently is part of a group working
> on a course in
> Spirituality at the North Carolina Center for
> Creative Retirement at UNCA.
> 
> In so far as RS1 is concerned, the word "good,
> received, Approved, open" for
> the pagan applies to all of life (i.e. rocks, trees,
> dogs, insets and on and
> on). In the days of RS1 I would not say we were
> exactly "Earth Based" or
> grounded in the Mother (Goddess). 
> 
> I would recommend reading a book by William Dever
> called "Did God Have a
> Wife". Dever is an Archaeologist who studied under
> both Albright and G.E.
> Wright. His thesis is that Archeological data should
> be the primary source
> (instead of the Biblical Text) for understanding the
> development of Judaism
> and Christianity. In our Biblical text we have "Book
> Religion" which ignores
> "Folk Religion" and refuses to recognize
> Judao-Christian "Mysticism."  
> 
> In his book, he lays out with a strong Archeological
> argument for the
> inclusion of Folk Religion in Western Spirituality.
> Since Folk Religious
> Piety recognized both God and Goddess, they were
> considered "Pagan" and/or
> heretics by those who consider themselves "the
> people of the book." Where as
> Book Religion" is based on the "Alter and the
> Temple," Folk Religion is
> grounded in the "Kitchen and the hearth."
> 
> Today, as we move away from the theistic understand
> of God in search of a
> new and relevant ontology we are becoming more and
> more mindful of the need
> to move "toward the comprehensive" and include the
> wholeness of all creation
> (both Male and Female; Earth and Universe; animals
> and plants; and anything
> else you might imagine.
> 
>  
> 
> Bill Bailey
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net
> [mailto:Dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
> Of aiseayew
> Sent: Friday, July 08, 2005 4:23 PM
> To: Colleague Dialogue
> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] Paganism and RSI
> 
> Dear Karen,
> 
> You asked, "please say some words about paganism,
> and how it differs from 
> the message of RS1, if it does."
> 
> Obviously the answer is no and yes and yes and no.
> 
> I feel unqualified to even respond to your question
> from the perspective of 
> not having participated in any of the formal
> structures of any of the four 
> groupings of paganism Harry provided in his note.  I
> do know that we hosted 
> a Pagan conference at the ICA building for several
> years when I was working 
> with the Conference Center (one of those groups we
> always, only, identified 
> by their initials in the client listings).  Since it
> was not my tendency to 
> be too wierded out by them, I usually got the task
> of facilitating the 
> weekend and felt rather honored by being referred to
> by many of the 
> participants as a "green witch" after several years.
> 
> On another level deeply within my experience, when I
> showed up at RSI and 
> was asked what grounded me in history, I said, "I am
> an Iowa farm girl." 
> Naturally some one of the pedagogues felt compelled
> to argue with me that 
> that was not an adequate articulation of grounding
> in history and I was 
> compelled to argue that he obviously didn't
> understand grounding.  Death and
> 
> resurrection are the very stuff of life when you
> grow up on a farm. 
> Choosing to give your life for something is almost a
> no-brainer.  That seed 
> in the ground sits and waits for the moisture
> sufficient that when it 
> absorbs enough it bursts itself open (dies dead) to
> send forth a shoot into 
> the unknown.  Only with grace does the plant develop
> and get pollinated and 
> produce (a flower, an ear of corn, whatever). 
> Thinking of that succulent 
> ear of sweet corn, when the hand reaches into the
> plant and tears it away 
> from the stem a radical teminus has been put upon
> the energy flow. 
> Redirection is the only option and the stalk dries
> up and falls over and 
> disintegrates back into the soil as bedding for
> another seed. (Sorry, but 
> this stuff is just inherently sexy.)  Meanwhile, the
> one who eats that 
> sweet, sweet corn takes a chunk of the energy in yet
> another direction. 
> >From the farm girl perspective, that energy goes
> directly into the
> community 
> of faith that sustains those with sufficient
> gumption that they are willing 
> to trust another season, in spite of what they know
> of the perils and 
> possibilities.  Choosing death, over and over again,
> is the only path to 
> life.
> 
> The structures of the institutional church seem to
> have always sanitized 
> this process.  You don't get dirt under your nails. 
> You only participate 
> vicariously in the crucifixtion.  You don't feel
> guilty about causing death.
> 
> The resurrection is magic that happens, not a
> painful yet natural outcome of
> 
> the required death.  In RSI, when people talked
> about looking at the stuff 
> of life and taking a relationship to that to define
> theological terms such 
> as God, Christ, Holy Spirit and Church, I was more
> excited that I can even 
> articulate.  Since arguments with my minister during
> confirmation classes, I
> 
> have always wanted these things to come together.  I
> can't say that 
> structurally we did a whole lot better than the
> institutional church.  I 
> can't say whether or not the structures of
> paganism's modern manifestations 
> do any better.  Many participants seem to have gone
> off some "other" deep 
> end.  They do at least know the cycles of the moon
> and seasons and 
> understand something about their relationship to
> life and final reality.  I 
> feel like that deserves my respect.  At least enough
> that I don't equate 
> those who self-identify with idolatry.  My sense is
> that in basing their 
> belief system on nature (whether it be in the form
> of aboriginal mythologies
> 
> or focussing on the divine feminine) they are
> playing with a full deck.  At 
> least as full as the one chosen by the institutional
> church.
> 
> There have been many occassions on which my way of
> knowing has been put down
> 
> by my colleagues.  There are times when I feel like
> someone telling me I 
> 
=== message truncated ===


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