Our Pagan Elders
Michael R. Gorman

I recently read a post on one of the many Pagan and Druid internet groups
to which I belong from the English Druidess who hosts the group. In her
post Ellen (Evert Hopman) wrote of her frustration in soliciting help
and funds for various Pagan issues, including the US Veterans
Administration's refusal to approve the pentacle on the graves
of Pagan fallen soldiers, and a recent fire that had left a Druid
in her circle destitute. As so often happens when Pagans are
confronted with real needs, folks answered her frustration with
criticism, blame, excuses, and lots of great ideas for what she could do to
address the needs she brought up. Sadly, I know for a fact that every
other Pagan leader in the world will recognize this situation. In response
to her apology after the flood of criticism, I wrote my own response to
those who did the criticizing, but I think most Pagans, if they are honest,
will not be able to lay this situation at the feet of those other Pagans,
but will recognize themselves, and uncomfortably so, in these words.
Admitting a problem is the first step in solving it.

To Ellen and all,

Ellen, as a founder and leader of a large Grove here in Sacramento,
I definitely sympathize with your frustration. My partner and I have
worked an amazing number of hours every week, unfailingly, for
10 years, and the very small and occasional financial remuneration we
have received pales in comparison to the thousands of dollars of our
own money we have invested in this work. The amount of money and
resources we have been able to collect for various community needs is
embarrassing when compared to even very small congregations of
Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and many other faiths. If I
dare to complain about this situation, Pagans who hear me can't decide
whether to encourage me to take even more work upon my own
shoulders, or bring back the Burning Times temporarily, just for me.
But I got over my martyr complex long ago, so I refuse to climb the pile of
wood. We Pagans do not treat our leaders well. Don't
even try to deny it, because you know it is true. We don't treat our
Elders well. We just don't. I once had a woman leave the Grove even
though she felt that it reflected her spirituality better than anything
she had ever known. When I asked her why she left us and returned
to the Jewish temple, she said, "I'm sorry, Michael, but I can't be a part
of a community that treats is leaders and elders so badly." And our
Grove is one of the better ones in this regard. We have a small group
of dedicated Druids who are taking on more responsibility, and
sadly beginning to experience the same overwork and frustration
their elders have faced. I have to give it to Pagans, we're
consistent. Each of the elder leaders in Sacramento's Pagan Community
has been out of commission at one time or another, sometimes
multiple times, for health issues, sometimes life threatening,
related to overwork and stress, and not one of them has ever received
any substantial money, food, tender visits, massages,
tea and cookies, shoulders to cry on, flowers, or even physical labor to
ease their burden. We just say we will send some energy
(always long distance), offer nice words of encouragement on the
yahoo group, and wait for them to recover so they can continue to serve us.
The same is true of every national and international leader I know.
I have time to write this response because last November my doctor
gave me two options: slow down and learn to take care of your health, or
prepare to die of a heart attack very soon. I opted for learning,
at age 51, so be as nurturing of myself as I have been to others.
Even now, I get more calls for help or requests for my labor or advice
than I do calls to inquire about my health and welfare. Only two people
so far have brought over a meal, and neither of them are Pagans.
And I realize now that I am very used to that. When will we Pagans take
a sober and honest look at ourselves? Perhaps we are afraid of what we
might see. Our magical shops come and go like mushrooms, while we
indignantly point to the lower prices at Wal-Mart. We have no newspapers anywhere. We have, what?, three or four magazines in the world,
none of which reports news and all of which struggle from year to year.
We have no local magazines. We have no lists of services by
Pagans or Pagan Yellow Pages. We have no social service
organizations. We have no leadership training seminars. We have one
large Pagan Convention called Pantheacon once a year. We have no
pastoral support organizations. I think we have one seminary
for spiritual leadership training, and that just started recently. We
have no universities, grade schools, high schools, preschools, or
adult education schools. We don't even have Sunday schools. We have no campgrounds we can rent or property for our festivals that is Pagan
owned and run. We have no political lobbies. We have no professional
services for our poor or the mentally disabled or physically disabled.
We have no professional or political caucuses. We have no places of
worship that are handicap accessible. We have nowhere to take our
totem animals when they are sick that understands their
role in our lives. We have no community centers for meetings. We have
precious few actual places dedicated to our Gods and Goddesses where
we can go to worship, meditate, and share our faith. We have no
resources for helping those in need in our own community let alone
people outside our community as virtually every single Christian,
Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Sikh, etc. church or temple in the world does.
Half the time we don't even meet each other face to face or share
something as simple as a meal. We live most of our community
life on line, which is a bit oxymoronic. I can already hear the thoughts
some of you are thinking. Go ahead, desperately search your mind for
examples of each of the things I have listed. But once you have your
list and your righteous indignation to thrust under my nose, do a little
exercise to put this into perspective. Ask yourself this: how many churches
and temples and synagogues are within 5 miles of your house that
have classrooms, designated worship space for a community of believers,
offices, meeting rooms, and social services? Now think; how many
such Pagan groups are there within 5 miles of your house? How
about within your city? Your county? How many within your state?
Your country? I am one of the most connected Pagans I know, and I can
name only a handful in the world, and none of them is well funded or
loyally supported over years by the same people. We turn our noses up at
New Agers, but at least their teachers can make a living at it. We are so
quick to claim superior enlightenment, but don't ask us to paint a fence or
deliver a meal to an elder who is ill! We all have jobs, after all. We claim
to honor the natural world, but that includes an invocation now and
then and a few words hastily keyboarded into our latest Pagan Google
Group, but certainly not regular tree planting, writing of letters
of environmental advocacy or circulation of petitions (except those
pointless unverifiable on line things), cleaning up the parks, teaching
a class on trees for Pagan children. How many of us even know the
names of the endangered species who inhabit our area? How many trees
can you point to and say, I planted that! And actually establishing a social
service for Pagans or feeding the homeless? That's not even on our radar.
Besides, we need all of our own resources for buying bigger and better
wands and staves and magical jewelry! Is there a festival? We're there!
But not during the planning, of course. We are so devoid of any definitive
sense of community that we wouldn't even know where to donate
money and supplies even if we wanted to, and our leaders are too
exhausted to take on another project let alone spend their time
scratching for funds. If one of our sons or daughters graduates with
a professional degree and wants to serve our community, where would
we send that young professional? To my back yard? To Ellen's?
To a yahoo group? Ask yourself right now. If you needed to mobilize
our community because someone was threatened with stoning or
burning by the KKK or the Aryan Nation, who would you call?
How would you get the word out? What phone number would you give
to the police for a resource to understand the situation? WitchVox?
One overworked web site for the entire world that half the Pagans in
the world don't even know exists? Your yahoo group? How many of you
have read pleas for support for the Pentacle issue on your yahoo groups?
How many of you did anything except maybe hit the reply button? If we
really want to do something to guarantee that the Burning Times will
never happen again, it certainly isn't limiting ourselves to groups of 13.
While we hide in silence, the Jerry Falwells of the world are more than
happy to fill the void by teaching the world who we are! We are willing
to whine about our image in the media and elsewhere, but how many of
us have ever written a letter or did a guest lecture at a college, or held
a seminar on Paganism, or offered our homes and resources so
someone else who can do that? The smallest Christian church in
Appalachia offers its pastor a salary, a place to work, and a place to live.
It offers its children a place to study and learn tradition. It has song
books and most often a choir. It has sacred art and music. It has
someone to clean the church and often the pastor's house as well. What
do we offer our leaders? Squat. Our children? Squat. Our elderly?
Squat. We think because money is used so badly in so many religious
communities that somehow taking care of our own or using our money
for something besides a new ritual robe is tainting our purity. Well,
puffed up pride in our righteous poverty is no better than puffed up
pride over a million dollar sanctuary. Money controls us in both
situations, and the fruit of our labor is just another brand of religious
hypocrisy. We can talk about respect for all people, the need for justice,
the sins of fundamentalist Christianity, and the corruption of the
current system, but what exactly have we done to counteract these things?
Who have we confronted? How many of us are even out of the broom
closet enough to speak of our beliefs and defend our beliefs to the
world? When we wish to influence politicians or seek grants,
we don't even have any addresses or phone numbers to offer except a
few brave leader's homes. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in our
cohesiveness and dependability as a community. When the media does
want to do a fair and educational article on us, who can they call?
Who can they put in their rolodexes who will still be around in a year to
address current issues? Who is the contact person or organization? Who
is the spokeswoman? No wonder all we ever get is one interview with one dysfunctional witch every Halloween! But, you say, being out of the
broom closet and honest is so scary!! Yeah? Talk to our children who
get bullied at school about what it is like to be protected by adults who
aren't out of the closet. Listen, I'm an overweight, intellectual
liberal, out of the closet, activist, cantankerous writer/poet/journalist
who is a gay Pagan Druid. I'm a poster boy for who the right wing
should hate. In the fundamentalist dictionary under them they have my
picture. I've had guns in my face. I've lost jobs because of who I am. I've
lost family and friends because I refused to deny my identity and
my beliefs. I've been threatened and harassed by street punks and police
alike. I have been condemned by preachers and investigated by
organizations and government agencies. I have an FBI file and a CIA file.
I've been spit at and had stones thrown at me. I've been heckled and
booed and jeered at, more times than I can remember. And my
experiences pale in comparison to people like Starhawk. And you tell
me it's scary to tell your family and a few co-workers that you worship
a Goddess as well as a God. Let me get you some cheese to go with
that whine. Let's talk about the Goddess's protection and if we really believe
in it. Let's talk about our spirit guides and whether or not we actually
trust them. Lets talk about the very real needs of our own people
weighed against our fear driven secrecy. Our own secrecy hurts us more
than any witch hunter ever could because it strikes at the core of
our spirits. Our enemies cannot imprison our souls, but we can, and
we do. Ask yourself where do we meet as a whole community to offer counseling, intervention, comfort, exchange of information? Nowhere. Where
do we go for news of Pagans around the world? Nowhere. Where
do we go to rally and support each other when discrimination or
persecution arises? Nowhere. We have no such places. Do you know why
the Veterans Administration can continue to get away with dishonoring
our dead soldiers by denying them the symbols of their faith? Because
there is no visible constituency demanding otherwise. I can almost hear
the thoughts of the bureaucrats when the few Pagans who even speak
up demand equal treatment:

"For who? Who are you people? I've never even met a Pagan, let alone
had one vote for me! I wouldn't know where to find one to treat him
any kind of way!"

Some of the strongest voices in the debate about the Pentacle on the
soldier's graves were not even Pagans! Why? We are two busy destroying
our own unity by "hiving off," and disguising our real names and
huddling in someone's living room based upon a fear of persecution
that dates back to the Middle Ages and is today very often just an excuse
for people to not commit for the long haul, or a chance for arrogant
and untrained individuals to create their own little fiefdoms. Even
then, we rarely hive amicably. More often we do so with insults and
threats and magical curses we barely understand. No wonder the powers
that be don't listen to us! They can't even find us! And no one has to
divide and conquer us to achieve our Marginalization. We do that
all by ourselves, so they don't have to lift a finger. What an insult to the
industrious and cooperative bees that we even use that word hive.
Show me a hive with thirteen bees and I'll show you a dying colony. And
what do we do when anyone in our community calls us on our selfishness
and inattention to our community's needs? We attack that person or
give"helpful suggestions" about what more that person should do to
make it better. I swear our favorite act of magic is trying to squeeze
blood out of a turnip! Goddess forbid we should ever begin a response to
a need within our community with the words "I will!" or "I can!" or "I
intend to do this!" In what universe does a handful of individuals have
the emotional, physical, and financial resources to carry an entire
community of people who feel no obligation to their brothers and sisters?
How dare anyone bad mouth Ellen for pointing out the truth and sharing
her heartfelt frustration! You should have your mouth washed out with
essential oil soap! Try doing half of what she does for a year or two and
maybe you will earn the right to respectfully offer a bit of criticism.
But be warned, by then, if you survive it, you will be wise enough
to honor her instead.

And mark this. There is only so far we can progress as a community
by being mutually pissed off at Christianity! There is a reason we are
languishing in the backwaters of the land of spiritual communities. We
don't care enough about our own people to do otherwise. We do not pass
our tradition on to our children with schools, kids rituals, or even
permission to participate, and we wonder why every time a Pagan
group starts it has to start from scratch! We wonder why teenagers
resort to the Goth world. Where the hell else are they going
to go? Most of our groups ban underage people. Again the fear. And our
groups fade as quickly as they pop up, usually because yet another leader
burns out, or some arrogant wanna-be leader initiates a petty witch war.
We don't pass anything on to our children because we have built nothing
substantial to pass along. Oh, but you say, we have created our work in
the spiritual realm! We don't need to bother ourselves with the mundane
world. Really? The unseen realms are filled with our good works? Well
I have internal senses that are fairly well developed, so show me. Point
them out. Describe them for me. Tell me where they are. Tell me how
they affect our lives. Let me see them. Give me a tour. Where are they?
Show me. Give me something besides your righteous indignation
that I had the audacity to hold up a mirror for us to look into. My mother
had an expression for this: "He's so heavenly minded that he's no earthly
good." So if we have done these great works, where are they? Show
them to me. Show me the ones you have personally done. Better yet, show
the Pagan child who can't wear her pentacle at school. Show the Pagan
family that has no food on the shelves. Show the single Pagan
mother who fears for her life with no one to turn to in her conservative
town if the locals should learn about her faith. Show the Pagan who
is arrested because of the assumption of guilt on the part of those
Satan worshipers. Show the teenager desperately seeking a better
spiritual path. Show the dead soldier who has to rest beneath an
unadorned headstone.

I dream of the day when a child in our community can say, "My
grandparents had their handfasting right here in this stone circle, and
I'm going to get married here too." But instead, we fracture, fight,
accuse, deny, ignore, and pompously claim some sort of transcendental
spiritual superiority. That and a buck fifty will get you a bad coffee
at Starbucks.

When My Lady, when?

I am reminded of a scene in the movie Brother Sun, Sister Moon in
which Saint Francis of Assisi is out in the snowy countryside with few
clothes and no shoes, lovingly rebuilding a ruined church for the poor,
stone by stone. One of his rich buddies from his past rides out from
the town of Assisi and sees Francis working. While Francis continues
his labor, the friend follows him and philosophizes about his own
spiritual emptiness and how much he admires Francis's simplicity and
dedication to a dream and a hope. Following Francis back and forth
between the rock pile and the stone wall as Francis compassionately
includes a young paraplegic in the work by looking to him to nod his head
to show where the stone should be placed, the friend finally says
passionately, "I want to help you, Francis! Tell me what I can do to
help you! Something needs to be done! How can I help?" Francis smiles,
amused at his friend's thick-headedness and inability to see the work
going on right below his nose. He replies, "Words, Bernardo! There was a
time when I believed in words!" A modern paraphrase of that tender
line might be: "You want to help? Then shut up and pick up a stone!
Hellooo!" If our leaders have earned nothing else, we at least have
earned the right to bitch about our situation. You want to object to that?
You feel put upon? Reprimanded unfairly? Fine! Pick up that stone
and finish that wall. When you are done, we'll talk.

You want to help? Then shut up and pick up a stone. Put a cornerstone
where your mouth is.

If you think I'm being too harsh, well deal! I'm a Druid, not a
Hallmark card.

Most sincerely,
Michael R. Gorman
Druid