In Which I am a Guest Speaker

In a moment of uncharacteristic daring, I volunteered to be a panelist at a multifaith spirituality event hosted by the university mindfulness group with which I volunteer. In order to preserve confidentiality I can’t discuss the other panelists’ talks or the conversations we had with attendees, but I’m happy to share my own answers to the guiding questions, which I’ve edited a little to suit the blog format.

How has spirituality and/or religion helped or hindered your development as a person and your life path?

My family’s first church was Presbyterian and it had a positive, welcoming vibe; I have a lot of good memories from my childhood as a part of that church community. When I was a young teenager, my parents started looking for a new church. I hated that process and didn’t like the church they eventually picked, which was Methodist. Around the same time, I entered a relationship with an Evangelical Christian boy who was concerned that I’d go to hell if I didn’t practice his exact brand of Christianity. I stopped wanting to go to church and began to feel a fair amount of anger and resentment towards any hint of an assertion that Christianity was the only correct religious choice.

But even before that, I was drawn to Paganism, which I knew as “world mythology” and witchcraft. When I was ten years old, I had a crush on a girl in my class. I really wanted to be her friend, so when I learned that she was interested in witchcraft I casually asked her, “Don’t you wish you were a witch?” My pick-up line worked and we became friends. We kept “witch diaries” and although I was sure the witchy stuff we did together could only ever be a game, my interest in the occult continued even after my friend and I went to different schools and lost touch.

For as long as I can remember, I struggled with theological questions: how did people know that their religion was right and other religions were “mythology”? if witchcraft was pretend and the many Gods were fairy tales, why does the Bible say you shouldn’t practice witchcraft or worship Gods other than the One God? I wasn’t necessarily concerned with aligning my own beliefs with the Bible, but I was concerned that people I knew didn’t seem to hold consistent beliefs on this topic. So I struggled with the questions of what is truth, who gets to decide, what is the nature of textual authority, etc. But that’s not really the story of how I became a Pagan; it’s the story of how I became an English major! Eventually I learned that people’s claims to religious certainty emanate from particular cultural loci and that I had more options than just “good Christian” and “bad Christian.”

When I was in my second year of undergrad, it suddenly occurred to me that I was an adult alone in Toronto with my own money and I was free to walk into Indigo and buy a book on Paganism. So I did. I chose Scott Cunningham’s Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner, and I give myself credit for picking a good book out of a lot of mediocre options. I decided to become Wiccan, but weirdly, I completely forgot about that chapter of my life until recently.

Finally, at the tail end of 2018, I decided to formalize what I kind of knew all along and begin calling myself Pagan. I don’t know how my newfound religious identity will shape my development as a person—it feels too soon to tell—but I do feel like I’ve finally aligned my label and actions with my longstanding spiritual inclinations.

How has spirituality/religion shaped your identity and worldview?

Since I’m still relatively new to Paganism, it’s easier to think about how my worldview has shaped my religious practice. I believe I’ve always been Pagan. But the impetus to finally get serious about it is rooted in environmentalism: over the last several years, I’ve attended nature lectures, read nature books, and learned a lot about ecology, biodiversity, and the importance of native plants; learned to identify birds, trees, and plants of the land where I live; spent more time outside in nature, started volunteering with an organization that cleans trash out of the local watersheds, and replaced my landlord’s lackluster landscaping with a native plant garden. When I became really passionate about this stuff, it got me thinking about Paganism again because I knew that one aspect common to many forms of Paganism is reverence for nature. When I formally came to Paganism I was already doing reverence to nature and the rest fit nicely with my preexisting worldview.

How has spirituality/religion affected your public life (e. g. involvement in the world, making a difference, career choices and relationships, etc.)?

The environmental work I was already doing feels more significant to me now because I see it as a spiritual imperative as well as a social or moral imperative. I’ve become a lot more keenly aware of how Christian-centric the culture I live in is. I’m aware that public perception of Pagans can be pretty negative, even among people who are accepting of religious diversity, so I’ve become hyper-aware of trying to present a good image.

Relationship-wise, when I first made it public that I’m Pagan, which I did in a place where family members would see, one of them stopped speaking to me for two weeks. She says it’s because I didn’t tell her directly, but she doesn’t have a good track record of responding in a supportive way when loved ones tell her stuff like that so I’m not so sure. I put in a lot of emotional effort to get her to talk to me again but now she just never mentions it at all, like she’s pretending nothing happened. That’s probably the best I can hope for.

When I first realized I was Pagan, I was worried that my partner would laugh at me. He’s never unkind, but he (well, and pretty much everyone who knows me) thinks I’m unintentionally funny a lot of the time and I was worried that even his kind laughter would make me feel self-conscious and uncomfortable. He didn’t laugh, though; he’s been really supportive and he’s actually been enthusiastic about acknowledging Pagan holidays with me.

What do you think spirituality and/or religion can contribute in our world today?

I believe that spirituality and religion fill a human need; they’re not the only way to fill that need but they’re one of the oldest and most effective. When people identify as having no religion, they’re often cut off from caring, face-to-face communities that tend to the spiritual needs of their members and focus on something greater than the individual. Sometimes people go searching for spirituality and find commercialism. It’s definitely possible to create spiritual community that is open to people of any religion and no religion—the mindfulness group with which I volunteer does that—but I think too few people have access to that kind of community. When people don’t have regular, face-to-face connection with others, practices that support our mental, emotional, and spiritual health, or a focus on something greater than ourselves, I think we’re far more likely to suffer anxiety, depression, loneliness, lack of purpose, etc.