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5 September 2018 16:38![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
haptalaonWhat does "being clergy" mean to me?
I think it's about visibly dedicating your life to work. It's being part of the big conversations, having the chance to read deeper and think more critically, and consciously devote more focus, energy and time to your learning. The chance to develop a liturgy. The chance to use my teaching skills and research for some good.
It's about others bolstering your sense of reality. One can be a witch alone, up to a point. Its seeing the theology courses at my university, and my religious friend's brother studying Hebrew and Aramaic as part of their church's priesthood pathway, and wanting something similar. It's my friend being able to choose universities based on churches in her network nearby. It's people saying "Ah! A priest", as if that was something important or special - and it's wanting those things automatically, without having to bullshit your own rep to get them, the way every Craft notable past and present has done. It's about those rare jobs as witch which come up.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8138665.stm
It's about Christianity's universality - so many monestaries started from a hermit setting himself up somewhere, and the pre-existing belief was there to find him worthy of feeding. It's other people taking you seriously.
It's about a shared vision and value-set. I like the idea of inviting people to tea to talk about the craft, the way my religious in-laws have friends from church and meetings in their home. And of course, I like the idea of an island or a village or a community, as American Christian oddballs build communities, on a scrap of land somewhere in the desert.
It is about permanence, community, the idea of building something which is generational and firm, a fixture in life just as a baptismal font might see several members of a family, just like going to carol concert and hearing the same lessons and carols year on year, just like going to the Vatican or Westminster Cathedral and knowing the stones are ancient stones. It's certainty.
It's about having those things, but also being in charge of them - so nobody else is. If I am in control of them, then I can have all the benefits of them and also be safe. Would I join someone else's Wicker Man fantasy village? No. I would not. I want to start my own, and run my own, and have everyone defer to ME instead. (One suspects that Pagans are, on the whole, a band of individualists, and this is why no such project would ever get off the ground)
On the whole, I'm not certain any of these reasons are good ones.
But perhaps they are no worse than the reasons anyone else goes in for it.
I think it's about visibly dedicating your life to work. It's being part of the big conversations, having the chance to read deeper and think more critically, and consciously devote more focus, energy and time to your learning. The chance to develop a liturgy. The chance to use my teaching skills and research for some good.
It's about others bolstering your sense of reality. One can be a witch alone, up to a point. Its seeing the theology courses at my university, and my religious friend's brother studying Hebrew and Aramaic as part of their church's priesthood pathway, and wanting something similar. It's my friend being able to choose universities based on churches in her network nearby. It's people saying "Ah! A priest", as if that was something important or special - and it's wanting those things automatically, without having to bullshit your own rep to get them, the way every Craft notable past and present has done. It's about those rare jobs as witch which come up.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8138665.stm
It's about Christianity's universality - so many monestaries started from a hermit setting himself up somewhere, and the pre-existing belief was there to find him worthy of feeding. It's other people taking you seriously.
It's about a shared vision and value-set. I like the idea of inviting people to tea to talk about the craft, the way my religious in-laws have friends from church and meetings in their home. And of course, I like the idea of an island or a village or a community, as American Christian oddballs build communities, on a scrap of land somewhere in the desert.
It is about permanence, community, the idea of building something which is generational and firm, a fixture in life just as a baptismal font might see several members of a family, just like going to carol concert and hearing the same lessons and carols year on year, just like going to the Vatican or Westminster Cathedral and knowing the stones are ancient stones. It's certainty.
It's about having those things, but also being in charge of them - so nobody else is. If I am in control of them, then I can have all the benefits of them and also be safe. Would I join someone else's Wicker Man fantasy village? No. I would not. I want to start my own, and run my own, and have everyone defer to ME instead. (One suspects that Pagans are, on the whole, a band of individualists, and this is why no such project would ever get off the ground)
On the whole, I'm not certain any of these reasons are good ones.
But perhaps they are no worse than the reasons anyone else goes in for it.
