Happy Lammas!

Lammas starts tomorrow, August 1.  For some ideas on how to celebrate the holiday, and for some of its history, have a look at my previous post, “Lammas: The First Harvest.”

Some other ideas I want to add to my previous list are to greet the sun at dawn, actively focus on harvesting the rewards from the goals you put into place earlier in the year, and light candles.  The energy of the world begins to slow down now, though it’s still very vibrant and fresh and mature. The days have begun to shorten just a bit, heralding the slow slide into autumn.  Now is usually when you can begin to harvest and enjoy the rewards from the goals you put in place earlier in the year–but don’t rest on your laurels just yet!  Just as the farmers keep working in the fields to harvest more food, so you should keep working at making your goals bear fruit.  The year is only half over; we still have 5 more months until a new calendar year!  Lammas is a fun holiday, so make sure to have some fun and enjoy the sunshine while it lasts!

In honor of Lammas/Lughnasadh, I’ve collected some artwork from around the web that celebrates the holiday.  None of it belongs to me; all credit goes to the artists, and links to the original are included where possible.  Enjoy!

Image from spiritblogger.wordpress.com

Image taken from autumnearthsong.com

Image taken from lunarapollo.wordpress.com

In the News: ‘New Bible translation has screenplay format’

I browsed Yahoo! today and found this article: “New Bible translation has screenplay format.”  Curious, I clicked and read.

Basically, the article reports on a new translation of the Bible that has recently been published.  The interesting thing about this version is that it does away with the prose format that is so well-known and instead opts for a screenplay format.  The translators added in emotional cues and action cues, such as who points a finger at whom and who is excited or distraught or angry.

Even people who have never read the Bible could probably guess that other translations don’t say Adam pointed his finger at Eve when he blamed her for his disobedience. Neither do other Bibles describe Eve as “excited” about her newborn son.

That’s pure Hollywood, but the team behind “The Voice” says it isn’t a gimmick. They hope this new version will help readers understand the meaning behind the sometimes archaic language of the Bible and enjoy the story enough to stick with it.

I admire the translators for attempting to make a difficult text more accessible, but I also think they do people a disservice.  Part of the spiritual experience, in my opinion, is reading through the text and gleaning the spiritual implications for yourself.  In my mind, a new translation like this that adds in emotions and decides the meaning of passages for the reader detracts from the text and does the reader a disservice in that the reader is handed a particular meaning.  The text loses some of the ambiguity–and, yes, difficulty–that allow for multiple meanings.  While that very ambiguity has been a source of grief and suffering for many cultures and people over the thousands of years since the Bible was first compiled, I can’t help but think that the multiple meanings are a positive.  I think the trouble comes in when people take a particular meaning to be the one and only meaning, the law, the end-all, be-all.  That seems to be where the trouble arises, not the ambiguity itself.  I may be taking that stance because of a Pagan perspective, which in and of itself is a perspective of many paths and many truths.

I would be interested in reading the new translation and comparing it to the old translations, just to see what the new translation has to offer.  I am glad that people seem to find meaning from the new translation, but I am concerned about the action of the translators to assign particular meanings to the text that were not necessarily there originally–and may thus be adding meanings that were not intended.  However, we don’t necessarily know what the original authors intended, and the habit of successive Bible translations seems to assign a particular meaning to passages depending on the version and translator.

[Why would I post a story about Bible translations on a Pagan blog?  I post things like this from time to time not only because I believe it's important to know what's taking place in religious "news," but also because I believe in interfaith dialogue.  I encourage myself and others to learn about and understand other religions and belief systems, and I feel that if I don't know what's relevant to other religions and cultures, then I am less able to understand and relate.  So although this is a Pagan-centered blog, from time to time there are stories about other religions as well.  Enjoy!]

Give Me a Pagan President

It’s 2012.  That means it’s an election year.  As many of you are probably aware, the politics and media frenzy have already swung into top gear.  Frankly, I’m a little tired of it–it’s been a media obsession since February–but I read the paper online daily and all the discussion and speculation on the election has brought me to a speculation of my own.

What if we had a Pagan president?

What would this person be like?  What would their policies be?  How would they handle conflict and foreign and domestic affairs?

Obviously, I can only speculate with generalizations from Pagan belief, since there are so many varieties of Pagan and a president could come from any one of those varieties.  But I think I can come up with a fairly decent idea of what a Pagan president would be like.

To start: a Pagan president is more likely to be female rather than male.  Not because there are few to no men in the Pagan traditions, but because there just happen to be a lot more women attracted to the paths.  There are actually a good number of men involved in Paganism to some degree, but women still outnumber men.  A PP is also more likely to be middle-aged or older, as there are higher numbers of those age groups currently, though the younger demographic in Paganism is rather large and certainly growing fairly rapidly.  Still, I think many Pagans still fall in the categories of middle aged or older.

This would be a refreshing change for the White House.  Imagine, a woman running things instead of a man.  What a novel and attractive idea!

I also think a Pagan president is far less likely to pander or bow to demands from the uber-Christian segment.  One of the main ideas (as far as I can tell) of many Pagan traditions is respect for others and for other religious beliefs.  This means that a Pagan president (for brevity, now abbreviated to PP) is more likely to want to balance opposing ideas and not skew too far in favor of any one religion, including their own.

A president represents an entire nation.  A president, therefore, will at times have to act against his or her conscience or personal beliefs in order to do what is right for the country.  A president should put the peoples’ needs before his or her own beliefs.  While I think it is good that a president has some kind of belief system, I don’t necessarily think a good president should govern based solely on personal beliefs, especially in this country.  There are just too many divergent beliefs and religious systems for any one system to be best to advise them all.

OK, back to qualities.  I think a PP would definitely do their best to enact environmental reform.  Nature is too large a part of so many Pagan traditions for a PP candidate to not attempt to protect the environment.  This quality comes not only from Paganism but from many other belief systems, so I don’t see this one as Pagan-exclusive.  It’s just more likely that a PP would enact such reforms.  These would probably include efforts to rebuild forests, cut down pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, research and development initiatives for alternate means of transportation to decrease the oil consumption, protection of endangered and threatened species, etc.

Many Pagan traditions also have a respect for life.  This makes it more likely that war would be the second or even third option, not the first, when dealing with “threats” to the country.  However, I also know many Pagans who say they won’t hesitate to defend themselves or their families if they are attacked.  A president basically has the entire country as their temporary family upon taking office–so this issue could potentially go either way.  My personal thought is that a PP would err more on the side of diplomacy first, attack second, but if someone attacks first…it’s difficult to say, really.

Hmm, what else… I think a PP would support freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to good medical care.  I’m not even going to speculate on the abortion debate–I’ve seen Pagans go both ways on the issue, and I don’t think anyone can generalize that one or say which way Pagans are most likely to lean.  So no comment on that one.  I believe many Pagans would support gay marriage, so a PP would be more likely to support gay marriage–but not necessarily a Constitutional change to support it.  As I understand it, marriage is a state issue, not a federal issue, and marriage is not federally mandated.  It’s taxed through the state, not the federal, government.  But I believe that if we define something as a right for one segment of society, then it is a right that must, by definition, be applied to all segments of society.  I think a number–half or more–of Pagans support gay marriage, so either way you look at it, a PP is more likely to support it than not.

So basically, a PP is more likely to be a middle-aged or older female, supportive of environmental reform, gay marriage, healthcare rights, and religious freedom, and more likely to be diplomatic rather than jump to warfare unless there is a need for conflict.

This is probably a stupid post, but ah, well, what can I say.  I was just thinking about what a Pagan president would be like and decided to write my thoughts down, despite the high number of generalizations.  It probably doesn’t help that I’m exhausted at the moment from work.  Well, hope you enjoyed!

Question of the Week: Lughnasadh Celebrations

Hi all!  So Lughnasadh is coming up next Wednesday.  It sort of snuck up on me this year–I haven’t even begun to think of what I’ll do to celebrate this year!  This week’s question is:

Will you be celebrating Lughnasadh?  How do you plan to enjoy the holiday?  [Or are you like me and completely lost tracks of the days until reminded by the high priestess...]

Responses go in the comments below!

Snapshot Saturday: St. Dunstan’s in the East

I am a big fan of Sara Douglass‘ books.  In one of her series, a particular church in London is featured.  So when I realized I would be stopping in London, I made it my mission to find this church and visit for a while.  I thought it would be so awesome to visit a place used in books I read.

I found it, and it was more incredible than I expected.  The sense of peace emanates from its stones, and even though this church and its walls have seen so much in the city, its  churchyard is still a place of welcome and repose.  To find out more about St. Dunstan’s in the East, see my pictures below or read here or here.