Spiritual babbling
Jan. 12th, 2011 09:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firefly124I've been seriously resisting any and all suggestions that I ought to be pursuing clergy work as a thing. I mean, technically, I'm a minister of the Universal Life Church, which has so far led to presiding over one very nonstandard baptism in the past 12 years or whatever it's been, but that's about it. The only reason I ever did that ordination in the first place was that some states were, at the time, going the "you must be either a licensed massage therapist or else an ordained minister to practice Reiki" route. I gather some still want you to be an LMT to practice Reiki despite the fact there is no muscle manipulation involved, not sure if they still offer the ordination out for energy work. Fortunately, Connecticut hasn't lost its mind in that regard tried to regulate it that way. (There's a side rant to be had there about nurses being able to give massages. Sorry, but I don't have the training to do other than light effleurage or maybe work out a simple knot, and I find it appalling that massage is supposedly within my scope of practice. It is its own discipline.) Anyway, that was the legal technicality that prompted me to seek some kind of formal ordination at the time, and the ULC has the longest standing plus having done the whole court thing back in the 70s which is why that's the one I chose.
But other than that, I've kind of pooh-poohed repeated suggestions, including readings and other divinations, that I ought to be looking at that more closely. I need a clue-by-four sometimes, and this was no exception. One of the things people will say (ironically, often to very new Pagans who are uber-eager to claim the title of priest/ess) is that when people just automatically turn to you to fill a clergy role, that's when you'll know. So, then, twice in the past few months, I've had a whole roomful of eyes turn to me and expect me to step in and lead them in prayer. Both times, I've choked, because I knew the prayers they were expecting to come out of my mouth and they weren't words I was comfortable with saying.
At my FiL's bedside as he was dying was the harder of the two. There were prayers I was already saying in my head that would make little or no sense to anyone else. Also, as times to come out of the broomcloset go, that would have to be one of the worst ever. So, among other things, yeah, I'm going to have to just get over it and deal with that, or it'll keep biting me in the ass at really horrible times. Living in another state has made it easy to avoid, but ... yeah. Not sustainable. I'm almost 43 years old. You'd think that'd make it easier.
Problem was, at the same time, every prayer that popped into my head that would work for everyone else contained at least some elements that I strongly object to and couldn't bring myself to say. Later, it occurred to me that the 23rd Psalm would've worked. Nobody else would've needed to know that the Lord who fits the Shepherd role in my book is Pan, and it would've fit. So, I choked.
The second time was also with my in-laws. They wanted me to say grace at Thanksgiving. I really should have a "meal blessing" in my toolkit that would work. I just wasn't expecting it, though really, I should've. Again, choked.
Both times, BiL stepped up, but both times bugged me. And in talking about them with the hieros at HTAZP, it became a bit clearer that a) this is a message that's been trying to get through for awhile and b) I need to get over the very Christianized idea of what it means to be clergy. I can recognize the hieros' job as priest, because he does conventional priest stuff: maintains the temple space, has taken specific vows, does spiritual counseling with those of us who attend regularly, leads rituals and does religious education. But taking care of people's spiritual needs in other contexts can also be clergy work, even if they are from a completely different religious background. Intellectually, I get this. In my gut, I still have a hard time seeing anything I do as really being priestessly.
However, I'm still smarting from the clue-by-fours, so I'm working on it. Two things came up this past weekend that I sort of volunteered to do at the temple. One is to do a small ritual for Kwan Yin's birthday at our Spring Fest, since it falls on March 22 this year. It'll be outside the temple space and separate from the rest of the ritual, because while She and Apollon and Pan don't mind sharing space in my home, that's because They're all my Patrons, whereas the temple is specifically for Apollon, Zeus, and Pan. Trying to figure out how I'm going to incorporate enough explanation without turning it into a class instead of a ritual will be a challenge. Expect to see more babble about that here. The second is that I may be leading the Delphinia ritual. There will surely be babble about that too. A tentative third is one of the less intense Pan festivals (i.e. not the Feast of Fear). Because part of all this is figuring out Who among my Patrons wants what from me, and what I'm willing and able to commit to. So, um, yeah. That's clearly going to be a major theme this year. Whee!
But other than that, I've kind of pooh-poohed repeated suggestions, including readings and other divinations, that I ought to be looking at that more closely. I need a clue-by-four sometimes, and this was no exception. One of the things people will say (ironically, often to very new Pagans who are uber-eager to claim the title of priest/ess) is that when people just automatically turn to you to fill a clergy role, that's when you'll know. So, then, twice in the past few months, I've had a whole roomful of eyes turn to me and expect me to step in and lead them in prayer. Both times, I've choked, because I knew the prayers they were expecting to come out of my mouth and they weren't words I was comfortable with saying.
At my FiL's bedside as he was dying was the harder of the two. There were prayers I was already saying in my head that would make little or no sense to anyone else. Also, as times to come out of the broomcloset go, that would have to be one of the worst ever. So, among other things, yeah, I'm going to have to just get over it and deal with that, or it'll keep biting me in the ass at really horrible times. Living in another state has made it easy to avoid, but ... yeah. Not sustainable. I'm almost 43 years old. You'd think that'd make it easier.
Problem was, at the same time, every prayer that popped into my head that would work for everyone else contained at least some elements that I strongly object to and couldn't bring myself to say. Later, it occurred to me that the 23rd Psalm would've worked. Nobody else would've needed to know that the Lord who fits the Shepherd role in my book is Pan, and it would've fit. So, I choked.
The second time was also with my in-laws. They wanted me to say grace at Thanksgiving. I really should have a "meal blessing" in my toolkit that would work. I just wasn't expecting it, though really, I should've. Again, choked.
Both times, BiL stepped up, but both times bugged me. And in talking about them with the hieros at HTAZP, it became a bit clearer that a) this is a message that's been trying to get through for awhile and b) I need to get over the very Christianized idea of what it means to be clergy. I can recognize the hieros' job as priest, because he does conventional priest stuff: maintains the temple space, has taken specific vows, does spiritual counseling with those of us who attend regularly, leads rituals and does religious education. But taking care of people's spiritual needs in other contexts can also be clergy work, even if they are from a completely different religious background. Intellectually, I get this. In my gut, I still have a hard time seeing anything I do as really being priestessly.
However, I'm still smarting from the clue-by-fours, so I'm working on it. Two things came up this past weekend that I sort of volunteered to do at the temple. One is to do a small ritual for Kwan Yin's birthday at our Spring Fest, since it falls on March 22 this year. It'll be outside the temple space and separate from the rest of the ritual, because while She and Apollon and Pan don't mind sharing space in my home, that's because They're all my Patrons, whereas the temple is specifically for Apollon, Zeus, and Pan. Trying to figure out how I'm going to incorporate enough explanation without turning it into a class instead of a ritual will be a challenge. Expect to see more babble about that here. The second is that I may be leading the Delphinia ritual. There will surely be babble about that too. A tentative third is one of the less intense Pan festivals (i.e. not the Feast of Fear). Because part of all this is figuring out Who among my Patrons wants what from me, and what I'm willing and able to commit to. So, um, yeah. That's clearly going to be a major theme this year. Whee!
