Monthly Archives: April 2017

Tuesdays Wild Hunt was a feature on Wade Mueller, who leads a Pagan intentional community in Wisconsin. Its spawned an unusual amount of comments: some sympathetic, some critical, and some that make you wonder if the commenter actually read the article.

I respect what Wade Mueller is doing. Intentional communities almost always fail this one has been going since 1999. Building a community around a place allows for a deep connection that cannot be duplicated by occasional or virtual meetings. Muellers intentional community flows from a similar vision as my dreams of a Druid college. I hope his community succeeds even beyond his dreams.

But there are problems. Its not that he appears to be speaking for all Pagans when thats not his intent (something Ive been accused of doing a time or twenty). Who made you the Pagan pope? is a defensive reaction that rarely addresses a substantive issue. The problem is that some of Muellers comments are flat-out wrong.

Were not really Pagans. We have a Pagan veneer over the top of a Christian and secular life. Until we have permanent lands that we live on, are born on, and die on, we wont be Pagans.

Ive written plenty about the impact of Christian and secular society on our Paganisms. Its a problem we need to be mindful of. But to say that means we cant really be Pagans is simply wrong.

Ultimately, Paganism is about what we do. If we honor Nature, honor our Gods, refine ourselves, and support our communities (or some combination thereof), we are Pagans. Where we live is a secondary consideration, the same as what we believe.

We are now a religion of nomads yet all of our traditions are based on place. If we want Paganism to to move past where we are now, a social gathering, we need to do something different. stated Mueller. That something different is to buy land to create Pagan communities, businesses, and worship centers.

Humans have always been nomads, or at least, migrants something all Americans (North and South, native and immigrant) should understand very well. We may settle down for a few generations, but then we move on. While rooting ourselves to a particular place can be beneficial, any robust religion must accommodate human movement.

Fortunately, Paganism can do this.

There is value in living close to where your ancestors bones are buried. But no matter where you go, you carry them within you. You share their blood. More importantly, you share their lives: the odd saying you picked up from your mother, your grandfathers love of Nature, a song your family brought with them from Ireland so long ago no one remembers when.

If you want to connect to them, honor them. Make offerings to them, tell their stories, call their names. Do genealogical research and study the history of their times. Every point of commonality is another connection.

Living on the same land is a good thing, but experiencing our ancestral roots does not require a connection of place.

The spirit of the River Boyne cannot be found outside of Ireland. But Brighid? Shes here. I know Ive experienced Her first hand. The Morrigan? Shes made a strong connection to many people on this continent. Where ever people have gone, their Gods have gone with them.

Theres a temple to Athena in Nashville. Yes, it was built as a secular celebration of the centennial of Tennessee statehood, but things that look religious have a habit of becoming religious, regardless of intent.

the Parthenon Nashville

This isnt just a modern thing. The Romans carried the worship of Mithras from Persia and Isis from Egypt as far away as Britain. The stories of the Tuatha De Danann begin with Their arrival in Ireland. The literature is unclear exactly where They came from but it is clear that They moved. Whether on Their own or with Their peoples, Gods move.

Our experiences of the Gods may be different from place to place, just as our experiences of our fellow humans are different from place to place. But we can be Pagans where ever we are, because our Gods move with us.

Which is better, the excitement of a new lover or the familiarity of a long committed relationship? Theyre not the same thing, but theyre both pretty good.

Im envious of Kristoffer Hughes his family has lived on Anglesey for 3000 years. He has a connection to that land I can never have to any land. My family has barely been in America for 200 years, and Ive only been in Texas for 15 years.

But that doesnt stop me from walking out into my back yard and pouring offerings to the spirits of the place. It doesnt stop me from listening to the trees. It doesnt stop me from running my fingers through the good black Earth and feeling a connection that goes deep into the ground.

Youre renting? Do the same thing. Live in an apartment? Find a nearby park, or be like Jack Sparrow and bring land with you into your house.

Ownership has practical advantages mainly that someone else cant sell the land out from under you (most of the time, anyway). But I can promise you the land and the spirits of the land dont care whose name is on the piece of paper in the courthouse. They care that you honor them with your rituals and that you respect them as you go about your ordinary life.

We dont have to own the land to honor the land.

Wade Mueller is right that Paganism is about place, but its also about time. Its about looking backward to our ancestors and their beliefs and practices. Its about reconstructing, recreating, and reimagining those beliefs and practices to fit our lives as they are, here and now. And its about looking forward to our descendants and leaving a better world for them than what we inherited (a very difficult task, but thats another topic for another time).

I lived in the same house from the time I was born until I went away for college. Shortly after Cathy and I got married, we built our own house on the back edge of that land. My connection to that land was strong, and I planned to live there forever. Forever turned out to be six and a half years thats when my job went away and we moved to Indiana, then to Georgia, then to Texas.

My story is not unique. Perhaps we should settle down and always live in the place where we were born (and accept the limitations that brings) but that is not the reality of our time. In this time, our religions must be as mobile as we are.

Paganism can do this. We carry our ancestors within us, our Gods move with us, and we can honor the land where ever we are.

Whether we own it or not.

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We Don't Have to Own the Land to Honor the Land - Patheos (blog)

Cohousing Part I: Creating community and reducing social isolation Michigan State University Extension According to the UK Cohousing Network, Cohousing communities are intentional communities, created and run by their residents. Each household has a self-contained, personal and private home but residents come together to manage their community, ... and more »

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Cohousing Part I: Creating community and reducing social isolation - Michigan State University Extension

(Note: this piece was originally composed in response to Rebecca Bratten Weisss recent postwhere she wrote about how the evils of the world can often accompany the members into the life of lay intentional communities. Father Stephanos writes about the same phenomenon as a feature of the Benedictine monastictradition.Michael)

Here in the monastery we must work hard to screen out applicants who may have motivations or qualities that are unhealthy, mistaken, or unvirtuous. We dont always succeed at that.

During a mans formative years in the monastery before we permit him to profess perpetual vows, the man can hide his flaws until weve allowed him to make perpetual vows, and THEN the real person comes out. However, once hes in perpetual vows it can be very hard to deal with him, to get him to change and grow, or even to encourage him to leave if we determine that is necessary.

Sometimes during the formative years of a potential monk, we may see signs that he would not make a healthy, reasonable, basically good monk, but we, as a community, may fail to agree to confront the issues, and the majority of us might vote to let the man into perpetual vows. Then afterwards we end up struggling with the results.

Community life is hard work. It would be even more problematic and unrealistic if the monasterys goal were to be an Us-against-the-Outside-Option. That is not what St. Benedict had in mind. Rather than a mentality that would say, We are Christians inside the monastery, and people outside are not, St. Benedict wrote of the pride, stubbornness, and other vices that every monk has inside himself.

We monks with our personal flaws and gifts are a challenge and a support to each other in striving to be men of justice and charity in living together. It would be unhealthy, unwise, and unvirtuous if the monastic option were that of seeing the people inside the option as the good guys, but seeing those outside the option as the bad guys. No! For the real St. Benedict each man inside the monastic option is both a good guy and a bad guy. He wrote of his urgent expectation that the laity and clergy outside the monastery should hold those inside the monastery accountable for living virtuously. If all the monks were to connive at corrupting the monastery, St. Benedict wrote of having the laity and clergy outside the monastery step inside to stop it; he even said it would be a grave sin not to intervene. That is a real option a mandate from St. Benedict himself.

Fr. Stephanos Pedrano, O.S.B.

Prince of Peace Abbey

Oceanside, California

(image via Wikimedia Commons)

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Saint Benedict's Mandate - Patheos (blog)

Rosanna Xia, Los Angeles Times (TNS) 12:59 p.m. CT April 7, 2017

Varun Soni, dean of religious life at USC, speaks during a ceremony of prayer and remembrance for USC psychology professor Bosco Tjan, 53, of Cerritos.(Photo: Allen J. Schaben, TNS)

LOS ANGELES Varun Soni straightened his shoulders and grasped the lectern, his dark suit flanked by the stately white robes of priests and ministers.

A beloved professor had been stabbed to death. As USCs head chaplain, it fell to Soni to help the hundreds gathered outside that day to process their loss.

And so he spoke to them of the stories hed collected, the pain hed shared, the grief he had witnessed. And he offered words to help them, though not from the Bible or any other religious text.

People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel, he said, quoting Maya Angelou, before he bowed his head in a universal Amen.

Soni is an unusual college chaplain. He is a Hindu. He has a law degree. In 2008, when USC hired him as its dean of religious life, he was the sole head chaplain at a major American university who was not only not a Christian but not an ordained Christian at that. Today, at a time when differences religious and otherwise grow ever more fraught and complex, he remains all but alone in breaking the Protestant chaplain mold, except for a rabbi at Dartmouth, another at Wesleyan, a Buddhist at Emerson.

Its very, very hard to divorce the pomp and circumstances of academia from particularly Protestant traditions, said Dena Bodian, president of the National Assn. of College and University Chaplains. Chaplains like Varun enable us all to rethink what chaplaincy in higher ed could look like.

The job, after all, is about much more than Christianity. As USCs spiritual leader and moral voice, Soni oversees about 90 campus religious groups including atheists and agnostics, Bahais and Zoroastrians.

Inside and outside the lecture halls and dormitories, he bridges what he sees as the gap between the slow-moving wheels of academic change and a new generations impatience with tradition. He counters the tendency to split apart and subdivide with a message of tolerance, coexistence and respect.

If we want to know what religion is going to look like in the United States in 20 years, just look at whats happening on college campuses now, he said. Particularly at a time when our country is so polarized, and people arent speaking to each other.

"If we want to know what religion is going to look like in the United States in 20 years, just look at what's happening on college campuses now," said Varun Soni, dean of religious life at USC.(Photo: Allen J. Schaben, TNS)

Soni himself exemplifies the many in the one. He holds five degrees from Harvard Divinity School, UC Santa Barbara, UCLAs law school and the University of Cape Town, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation in religious studies on Bob Marley as a spiritual figure who used his work to spread a divine message. As an undergraduate at Tufts University, Soni studied in India at Bodh Gaya, where Buddha attained enlightenment.

Hes consulted for the Obama administration, produced a graphic novel and advises celebrity religious scholar Reza Aslan. The son of immigrant doctors, he was raised in Newport Beach, where he went to a Catholic elementary school and learned from his best friends, who were Jewish, and his grandfather, a Buddhist who grew up around Mahatma Gandhi.

Gandhi, thats why I went to law school and studied religion, Soni said, nodding to a framed portrait hung alongside the Dalai Lama and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in his office. Those are my guys people who brought together the spiritual and the scholarly world for the purposes of social change.

What better place to bridge these two worlds than a college campus?

Its not easy, Soni acknowledged, to guide a generation that grew up seeing religion as a source of terrorism and patriarchy, whose institutions covered up child abuse and preached discrimination. More and more millennials are rejecting formal religion but seeking a spiritual sense of purpose.

It helps that Sonis approach centers more on commonality than God.

Were oriented around meaning and purpose and authenticity and identity and significance, he said. My concern is that as students leave traditional religious congregations, they havent been taught how to build an intentional community of like-minded people in a way that creates empathy and compassion and a sense of belonging. Thats compounded by the fact that this is a generation that was born into technology . You may have 500 friends on Facebook, but what does that mean in real life?

Around campus, hes facilitated interfaith retreats, promoted LGBTQ Bible studies and taught courses on misunderstood religions such as Islam and Sikhism. My programming is my pulpit, he likes to say. After the Trump administration announced a travel ban that alienated Muslims, his phone rang nonstop. Empowered by Sonis inclusive approach, dozens of students, professors and religious leaders rallied alongside their Muslim peers and attended a local mosque, where they joined in the midday Jumah prayer.

Varun does a good job of keeping us moving in the same direction, said Dov Wagner, a rabbi at USC.

Soni, who is 42, could be mistaken for a graduate student. His hair is cut in a fade. He often teaches in jeans. He knows how to speak to a generation used to abbreviations and hashtags.

One afternoon, he walked his students through the religious history of northern Indias Punjab, where his family is from. He rolled up his sleeve to show them his Sikh kara, a delicate steel bracelet he has worn since his mother gave it to him when he was small.

Traditionally, these are much thicker and protected ones wrist when you went to war, he said, attempting to mimic a sword fight with his hands. Luckily, my days of swordplay are over.

After class, one student came up and said he was Punjabi as well, then shyly reached out for a handshake.

Right on, Pun-ja-bis! Soni cheered.

Soni tries hard to reach everyone. As a way to include students who dont believe in God, for instance, he hired a humanist chaplain to collaborate with other religious leaders on campus.

Because of Varun, these other chaplains arent threatened by me, said Bart Campolo, who uses his skills as a former pastor to guide students in a secular way. Im not here to attack anybodys belief system. They realize Im just another guy trying to help students answer lifes ultimate questions.

Eugenia Huang, whose father died a week before she went off to college, said she was grateful to encounter Soni at a freshman dinner, at which he urged students to feel free to come talk to him.

I really liked the idea that he was about spirituality, instead of forcing any religion down my throat, Huang said. You often see people turn to religion when theyre sick or experiencing pain, and so I had always viewed it as something for the weak.

Now a sophomore, she is taking Sonis global religions course, which has changed her thinking: Im learning that a lot of the times, people turn to religion for the community and they just want to know: Whats our purpose?

Soni also has inspired a number of non-Christian students to pursue careers in religious leadership.

Interfaith Youth Core in Chicago has led the way in bringing college students of different faiths together. Founder Eboo Patel speaks of students whove learned from Soni as if theyre top players in a fantasy draft. The Buddhist who went to multiple divinity schools in order to one day be a campus chaplain like Soni. The Muslim doctor who is studying religious diversity as it applies to healthcare.

You dont get interested in that unless youre influenced by somebody like Varun, Patel said. Now multiply that by 25 or 50 young people a year, and multiply that by 10 or 15 years, and think about the number of people who are going into everything from diplomacy to chaplaincy to medicine to business who have a really refined sense of religious diversity.

As an ever more diverse group of religious leaders seeks positions on ever more diverse campuses, universities will need to let go of outdated assumptions about what a head chaplain should look like, said Adeel Zeb, the imam at the Claremont Colleges.

Were at a crossroads, said Zeb, who was elected recently as the first Muslim to lead the national group of college chaplains. If you start defining a chaplain as a spiritual healer, an ethical leader and emotional healer on campus, regardless of anyones faith traditions, if you start focusing on the human emotions and the human spirit, it enables more diverse possibilities.

One day in February, dozens of USC religious leaders of many faiths gathered in a conference room next door to Sonis office. It was their first all-chaplain meeting since President Trumps inauguration, and each came troubled by the anxieties their students were feeling.

Soni sat back and listened to his colleagues Episcopalian, Catholic, Mormon, Buddhist, Jewish weigh in on the hatred unleashed by the recent political rhetoric.

So what should our role be, running our different groups on campus? Soni asked. Is an attack on one religion an attack on all religions?

Campolo, the humanist chaplain, brought up the words of German Pastor Martin Niemoller, familiar to everyone in the room:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.

A fellow pastor led the group in a prayer. They stood in a circle, raised their right hands toward Soni and vowed as one to lead their communities on the path they all shared.

Read or Share this story: http://www.gosanangelo.com/story/life/faith/2017/04/07/most-college-head-chaplains-christian-usc-hindu-leads-way/100175026/

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Most college head chaplains are Christian. At USC, a Hindu leads the way - San Angelo Standard Times

PLUMSTEADVILLE, Pa. (AP) When it comes to the joys and challenges of raising foster and adopted children, "it really does take a village," said Mary Pappas, a Perkasie mother of five.

"You can feel very isolated."

Inspired by the role a supportive "village" plays in building healthy families, projects known as intentional neighborhoods are taking root across the country.

Within these communities, foster and adoptive families live and build relationships in a neighborhood of seniors, single-parent families, couples and others.

When Mary and her husband, Mark, who have two biological children, two adopted children and a 2-year-old foster child, learned of the pioneering concept and a plan to build one in Central Bucks, they were intrigued.

"The goal is not to be separate, but to bond with other neighbors," said Mary Pappas. "The common goal is to keep kids safe and build community."

It's a model that is proving successful, including Treehouse, in Easthampton, Massachusetts, which opened in 2006.

Pappas visited the village with other Bucks County residents as part of a program "Revisioning Foster Care in America."

"Treehouse was pretty amazing," Pappas said. There, elderly residents have bought homes to be part of the community by walking children to school, baby-sitting and mentoring.

Similar communities are operating in Tampa, Florida, Washington, D.C., and Portland, Oregon.

Recently, a Bucks County nonprofit, BeTheFamily, began searching for a property to create a neighborhood, said Marco Munari, a founder of the organization.

While not part of a church, the new organization is an outgrowth of a Doylestown church's ministry that started 10 years ago to support adoptive and foster parents, said Munari's wife.

"We have a passion and a desire to wrap around those marginalized in our community and are just taking the steps necessary to find the right location for our family and those we will be serving," said Michelle Munari in an email.

In an informal presentation to Plumstead supervisors recently, Marco said such neighborhoods are designed to provide "a sense of belonging, self-worth and community through direct involvement and relationships."

Still somewhat rural, Plumstead is of interest to BeTheFamily because the organization's vision includes a therapeutic farm where residents could help with farming responsibilities, Michelle Munari said. She and her husband stressed that the effort is still in its infancy.

Experts on child welfare and foster care agree the need for quality foster homes is great, as is the need for caring communities to support them.

"There's a drastic shortage of quality foster homes," said Debra Schilling Wolfe, executive director of the Field Center at the University of Pennsylvania. "It's a national crisis."

The intentional neighboring model is a "really wonderful way of giving back. It's a community taking responsibility for the care of kids," she said.

Wolfe cautioned there are also concerns about communities where foster and adoptive children live together.

"It's very easy to be idealistic, but foster kids bring with them baggage from earlier homes. ... Their trauma has to be addressed," Wolfe said. Foster children, and their foster parents, also have unique safety and confidentiality issues, she noted. More evaluation of the model is needed, Wolfe said.

It's because of the special needs that Mary Pappas finds neighborhoods designed specifically to support those with foster and adopted children appealing.

"People say oh, my kid does this or that, but they can't appreciate the difference in a foster child," Pappas said. "They are rooted in different trauma. They have loss experiences from their first family."

To be in a community where others understand that would be helpful to parents and children alike, Pappas said. "I would love to see it happen."

As a real estate agent, Pappas said she is keeping an eye out for potential properties in Bucks County.

Lynne Rainey, executive director of Bucks County Children and Youth Services, called the concept innovative.

"The safety and welfare of children is a community concern," she said. "We all share in the well-being of kids."

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Intentional neighborhoods take root across country - LancasterOnline