Why are you Pagan?
This is a page from the third version of Technopagan Yearnings. There are some formatting differences. Originally published at www.neowayland.com/C550866538/E843991281
My personal view
The same Pentecostal teen asked me the hard question.
I don't think there is a Pagan out there who hasn't run into this one. Maybe it is because Neopaganism isn't supposed to be adult, I don't know. Very few monotheists get asked the question, unless they are studying for the priesthood or something.
I didn't have a word for what I was for years. I was the small kid who announced to his family that if there was a God the Father, it was only natural that there had to be a God the Mother too. And Mother Nature was the only one who fit the bill.
You can imagine the uproar that one caused.
See, knowing that there was some other intelligence out there besides humans, I didn't doubt that. I knew as a child knows, and later I learned to know that again.
My problem was that I had been tagged "spiritual" but the only form of spirituality that my family was willing to accept openly was Christianity, preferably Baptist. My parents were better, other denominations were okay as long as it was Christian. They themselves started going to the Methodist church.
Behind the scenes, yeah, there were other things in family traditions, but those didn't get talked about to outsiders.
So here I was, trying to make my way in a monotheistic world when my heart and spirit kept telling me that there was more than one god. I did all the things that a good Christian was supposed to do, and a great many of the things that a good Christian isn't supposed to do. I kept looking for the voice of the Divine. I thought I was called to the ministry and that is why I hadn't found fulfillment in my life.
When I finally did here the voice of the Divine, it was female. And She was more than a bit put out that it had taken so long to get my attention. I did hear a male Divine voice too, but that was later.
My answers didn't come from a monotheistic faith because I wasn't monotheistic. That doesn't mean I didn't get shaped by that worldview though, and that is something I am still coming to terms with.
I am Pagan because I was born that way, and because I made that choice long before I was born.
Posted: Mon - November 21, 2005 at 06:25 AM
