Grace and Spirituality

Recently we heard a Spiritualist minister discuss grace. In the subsequent discussion it became apparent that no one present really knew what grace was or is. In my own mind grace is very similar to consciousness: (a) It is something we all recognize as being real, though we don't know how to get it, and (b) We don't know whether conscious animals and living things have it--or even whether they wish for it. If I built an automaton from parts that replicate a human being and its functions, would the automaton have consciousness? Would the consciousness be built in? If it does not have consciousness, why not? If it had conciousness would it also have grace? Having consciousness has been compared to knowing the color red (or, for that matter, any other color) if I were to be completely color-blind and could see only in black and white and in shades of gray. Could you describe to me, your bereft friend, what red is--or what seeing red feels like? Does a mouse, who is not color-blind, understand red?, whereas I have no hope of being able to do that. Does a mouse have consciousness--at least more than my replica human being, the automaton? Are consciousness and grace emergent traits? We know that, for instance, flocking for birds is an emergent trait. As soon as you put a group of birds together they form a flock and act in unison. Yet a bird and even two birds do not seem to be naturally friendly with one another. Somewhere in their genome, over ages birds have learned that flocking has advantages. Therefore when a group forms, they flock. Does consciousness have a survival advantage? If you can dream up an advantage for consciousness, can you for grace? Obviously in time past, when the Inquisition was rampant, being able to say that you had grace was an advantage: You hopefully wouldn't be burned. But today? Blessed be G&Y

An it Harm None ?

The ostensible sacred writings of Craft people often quote the Wiccan Rede: An it harm none, do what you will. But what is an? We've seen it misunderstood by journalists, by office staff, by a range of individuals. So far as we can search out, its only current use is by Snuffy Smith of the Sunday comics, when he addresses Lowizee: "if'n". Apparently that 'n was once an, though it survives now only in the remotest reaches of the Smoky Mountains if at all. An may appear in the King James version of the you-know-what, though I haven't taken time to pursue that possibility. And in fact, I heard once somewhere that James himself insisted his scholars use a style of English already archaic, in a quest to make their translations (and incidentally his own Daemonologie) appear to be sanctified by age. So anyhow, in my personal thinking I have dropped an altogether and replaced it with if. What you retain or drop is a matter of your own choice. Yvonne

revisit gay marriage?

We hear that the United States Supreme Court is thinking about revisiting the constitutionality of gay (same-sex) marriage. As a taxpayer I ask, "Why, Your Honors?" I detect the iron hand in its iron glove of conventional Abrahamic religions throwing their weight around again--and the Wiccan in me mentally shouts, "Wait a minute!" Let's reflect on some facts here. Whether they be welcome or unwelcome, they are true. 1. Optional is not mandatory. If you choose not to participate in a gay marriage, you don't have to. 2. Even gay people pay taxes. Recall the placard from the days preceding the American Revolutionary War: Taxation without representation. Does all this feel fair? If not, make your thoughts known and put a little of your money where your thoughts are. Send the package to Americans United for Separation of Church and State 1301 K St NW / ste 850 E Washington DC 20005 What do you say we all join those good people at Americans United* in their valiant efforts to maintain said separation? If I wanted to live in a theocracy, I'd go to Saudi Arabia or to Iran. The time is come (indeed, is way overdue) for somebody to get a reality smack. Blessed be Y'all Yvonne *au.org

Uighura and China

Call me befuddled. From time to time we hear of how an ethnic group known as Uighurs are persecuted and bullied by the Chinese government. Apparently the Uighurs long to be something apart from the official Chinese communist government in Beijing, and Beijing won't let 'em go. As we understand it from reporters on BBC America's newscasts, * Chinese army troops are stationed long-term in one of the westernmost provinces of China, * geographically closer to Baghdad than they are to Beijing. * The troops constantly are shooting dead, beating, and imprisoning menbers of the Uighur population--elderly, children, women, what have you-- * at enormous expense in military wages, ammunition and equipment, and who knows what else --for the fact that said population resents the Chinese presence. * Uighurs are largely Muslim, not communist or whatever other "faith" they are officially supposed to espouse. * Uighurs and Chinese communists hate each other for the above reasons and probably for many others which the BBC reporters are not allowed air time to enumerate. I don't understand. Can someone suggest a rational grounds on which China clutches that population and those square meters of land, refusing to let it go, either (a) to independence or (b) to affiliation with some other contiguous nation ? I'd be grateful for some fact that would help me understand such behaviors. Blessed be. Yvonne

Amazon SMILE for scholarships

Amazon SMILE scholarships to inmates In the early days of the Church and School of Wicca, we were able to award scholarships to worth-while inmates and to support other inmates in their quest for freedom to worship while incarcerated. Partially as a result of that policy, in the case of Dettmer versus Landon Wicca became a federally recognized religion. All of us still owe a debt of gratitude to those courageous people who put their chances of parole in jeopardy by persisting in their drive for freedom of worship. Recently, though, the Church and School has been unable to financially support such efforts. We have looked for people who will sponsor inmates from among society at large, and have failed to get any--any! The Church and School is now part of Amazon SMILE Program. In the program Amazon donates 0.5 percent of the purchase price of any object to the charity designated by the purchaser. Some friends of the Church and School have designated the Church and School as their SMILE recipient. What we now plan is that we will use any SMILE proceeds--every last cent of it--to support worth-while inmates. Your help in this matter will be appreciated: by us ourselves, of course, and by the target inmates. All you have to do when you make a purchase from Amazon is to designate the SMILE money to go to the Church and School of Wicca. Keep in mind that all such outlay on your part is tax-deductible. Thank you from us and from recipients, and Blessed be! Gavin and Yvonne

Goldilocks and God

"God" in the title of this blog isn't meant in any conventional sense. Instead you might want to call it the First Cause (hereinafter TFC). There are a series of far-out coincidences that allow us to exist on earth. The first and obvious one is the temperature, that allows a carbon life form such as ourselves to exist. This is where Goldilocks comes in: The planet we call ours is not too hot and it's not too cold; it's just right. But there are a lot of other "coincidences" without which we could not live on this planet. It has been argued that life forms based on other elements could exist. The one most frequently posited is silicon, the element closest to carbon on the Periodic Table. We can imagine the life form that exists and uses silicon dioxide as a source of energy, though silicon dioxide is a solid, not a gas. A silicon-based life form could probably show some semblance of life as we know it, but it's probably difficult for most of us to imagine how. Other carbon-based life forms could also exist. We know that they exist near volcanic vents on the ocean floor in areas of extreme pressure and heat, though again, it's difficult to imagine a planet that could support them, simply because of the pressure and heat that it would have to continually generate. So what about other planets that have an environment similar to earth's? As you know, earth's orbit is an ellipse, and that helps. It is tilted relative to the plane of its revolution. The tilt is only about 2 percent. It can be calculated that if the tilt were 4 percent, then for half the year the oceans in the northern hemisphere would freeze and those in the southern hemisphere would boil. Our distance from our star, the sun, is also highly critical. Again, a small percentage difference would give us an atmosphere in which life as we know it could not exist. The so-called probabilistic argument considers all these probabilities and concludes that the chance of conditions favorable to any life happening is one in 1018. Since the latest SWAG (SWAG: scientific wild-ass guess) of planets is 1011, you can see that you simply can't be here. This always comes back, then, to the question of: How did life as we know it arise? Was it by a miracle performed by TFC? Or was it something that could not have failed to happen? Recent experiments with what are called hard vacuums and the CERN Giant show that matter blinks into existence and almost immediately disappears. Such a generation of matter from apparently nothing is, shall we say, somewhat puzzling to today's physicists. We do not find such spontaneous creation-of-matter in anything but the hardest vacuum, and so far the theory is that a vacuum could be filled with virtual particles that occasionally collide to form real matter. The renormalized mathematics which shows why matter blinks in and blinks out is as weird as anything even a Christian could envision--unless perhaps Einstein's famous equation E=mc2 is reversible. To wit: Put in a large amount of energy, and matter is formed So then the question arises: whether it is from these first infinitesimally small pieces of matter that everything was built. Apparently it is possible (at least theoretically) that such a thing can happen--but apparently it can happen only when the conditions are just right: firstly in the plasma of the first creation, then developing in the nuclear furnaces of stars, then to a Goldilocks planet where semi-intelligent life forms can presume to ask the question: Is there any need for an existential god or goddess--a juju? We guess we do need a TFC, to write the equations ... or do we? If this makes you feel like soaking your head, join the crowd. Blessed be. Gavin and Yvonne

Chips on Shoulder Etc

As many of you know, for over forty years we Frosts have gone through attack periods which (to us) seemed endless. During that time we felt as if the whole world was, if not trying to kill us, at least trying to damage us severely. First it was the Christians. Now more recently it's been self-described Wiccans/pagans. We endured it all with what we like to think of as quiet perseverance. Thus at this point it looks worth while to review our thoughts on other people's dilemmas brought on by their being (gasp) D-different: being outside the "normal" pervasive Christian mainstream or particular "Wiccan" sects. When all the flap started, our first inclination was to strike back; but fortunately reflection showed that such a mindset was not going to be the best way. We lived in a small community, and it would have been only too easy for people to attack us, maybe burning a cross or two in the front yard--and in fact, through our forty-some years of living the Craft, some have attacked! In one incident we were shot at and people left a bomb at the hotel where we were scheduled to speak. (Apparently they didn't trust Jesus' ability to take care of it.) On another occasion, people tried to steal the wheels off the car while we were doing a radio show. Our answer was not to hit back, but to use a more subtle approach. It was not difficult in those early days to get both radio and TV time, so we went on a tour of the States, clocking more than 2,000 hours and several thousand miles of time and travel. Finally, when people attacked us, we could fall back on our local community because now we had become not just Witches, but St. Charles' own Witches. In St. Charles, when the high school history teacher invited us to speak, the self-anointed "opposition" got a subpoena to stop us. (In that time people were not so forcefully aware that when one tax-exempt religion badmouthed another tax-exempt religion, the attacker risked their own tax-exempt status.) The students were furious. We rented a disused movie theater in town to speak to them on their own time rather than during school hours. It was standing room only, because students and parents from all over the area came to see the show. Months earlier, the county's ministerial alliance had refused our request to join with them; now its representatives decided that they too would like to investigate this phenomenon. We agreed to meet with them in the presence of the press. The press, in the form of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, had a romp at that meeting. They were 100 percent on the Witches' side. The effect of all this furor and work (work on our part, we hasten to add) was an abrupt cessation of local attacks. And when people did attack us, they became the bad guys and we were the poor innocent persecuted victims. There are a lot of good friendly honest Christians out there--especially (Pay attention here, boys and girls.) when you have demonstrated over time that you don't shave your palms on full moon and go out looking for something to sink your fangs into. If you get those people on your side in any debate, then be assured: You will win. Confrontation simply doesn't work. And if you become rigid in your total opposition to Christianity in all its forms, then the opposition in turn will become hardened in its response to you. Yes, of course to maintain your religious freedom, when that freedom is violated, you must respond with form and protocol that are both legal and relevant. Again, this approach assumes that you have done your homework, that you know what is legal and what is effective--and what is illegal, what is irrelevant, what is useless, and what may well have a negative effect, thus making your quicksand deeper. Recall the old adage: A picture is worth a thousand words. Photograph the attackers or their actions or their vehicles. Over many years we have learned that a lawyer who is a member of a minority group sometimes has a tendency to be more supportive and will occasionally even do pro bono work for you, or at least may reduce his fees. Do not be afraid of trusting the law courts when it is a straightforward civil matter. A neighbor blocks your driveway because you (gasp) celebrate different festivals than they do? Sue. A local church is causing you trouble? Offer to meet with the leaders of the church in a neutral setting ... with reporters present. Point out to those leaders that neither side will win if they continue to be negative. It may seem to many that simply striking back is the answer. It is not. It drags you down to the same level as the attacker is on. Get that chip off your shoulder and replace it with friendship. Many of your opponents can't stand such behavior. It pulls the rug right out from under all the stereotypical assumptions they've embraced so enthusiastically. Your lifestyle and the lifestyle that your kids and your associates display are the example which you must set to show that you are the good guys. We've had well over forty years of experience in this arena; and so far most of the people who have attacked us for standing on our rights are other self-styled pagan/Wiccans. With allies like these, who needs enemies? Blessed be each one who seeks. Gavin and Yvonne PS One more time a not for profit 501C3 is not a church a church is a religious association.