A Pagan Family’s Values: Service

Tags

Pagan Values, PVE2011, service

What is serving God? Tis doing Good to Man.

There is none made so great, but he may both need the help and service, and stand in fear of the power and unkindness, even of the meanest of mortals.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed.
Woodrow Wilson

… or Ben can generally be depended upon to say it succinctly.

Seven years and eleven months ago I raised my right hand and swore to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” to “bear true faith and allegiance to the same,” and to ” obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.” In one month my eight years of military obligation, six served on active duty as a Hospital Corpsman in the United States Navy will have come to an end.

I have mixed feelings about this–though I have often had reservations about about the decisions of the government and the upper chain of command and I have often been disappointed in the all-too human failings of some of the actions of fellow service members, I have never had cause to regret my service or my reasons for having chosen to enter the military, and if I am totally honest with myself, there is as much a part of me that misses the military as there is relief for having gotten out at the end of my enlistment (from the many conversations we have had on the matter, I am fairly certain the hubby has a similar feelings on the subject).  I can say though, that whether one agrees with the role of the military or not, the commitment required to honor one’s military obligation is something we could all use to apply  to all aspects of our daily lives.

Service comes in many guises other than that of military or civil service.  Everyday actions directed towards strangers, towards family and friends, towards the gods, towards other life forms, towards places can all reflect our commitment to our values and our gods (and the values of our gods?) .  Service serves as the one of the ways in which we can express our integrity and our devotion in real time and in meaningful ways for others, and with some thought and commitment can be a meaningful devotion to the gods.

Someone that kicks it with Aphrodite might consider working informally through something like Operation Beautiful, while a devotee of Bast might consider working with an animal shelter or as a foster home for pets.  Because I predominantly work with aquatic deities, we clean up a section of our local beach when we enjoy an afternoon playing in the surf and I stay abreast of local conservation issues that impact the watershed. Other forms of service might include working to create a community garden for one’s neighborhood, volunteering with a search and rescue group, or even just getting to know the neighbors and lending a helping hand (visit an elderly neighbor without family, help the parent with a deployed spouse so they can have an afternoon to themselves, or take a meal to the new family that just moved it).

*a post for the Pagan Values Blogject

A Pagan Family’s Values: Integrity

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integrity, pagan, Pagan Values, PVE2011, religion

If you have integrity, nothing else matters.  If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.

Alan Simpson

In the book where I keep notes, quotes, ideas, recipes, prayers, etc (if I were more conventional, I might call it a BoS or maybe even a grimoire), there is an inscription on the inside of the cover which reads “Let every action of the body be a prayer from the soul.”  Integrity, I think, is exactly this– the continual process of striving to make one’s actions reflect their professed beliefs in all aspects of their life (and not just the ones that are convenient).

In terms of our spirituality, having integrity means applying our regard for the Divine (in whatever way we think it is manifested) to our everyday actions and behaviors.  If one believes that “My law is love is unto all beings“, then perhaps they should be attentive to how they engage with others (regardless of their appearance, status, importance, age, race, religion, sexuality, gender, politics, or even to their species).  If one believes in the idea of Earth as an embodiment of Divinity, then perhaps they should be attentive to where their water comes from and what goes it it or where their waste goes and how to minimize it.

Integrity is not about killing ourselves to achieve perfection though, so much as acknowledging and admitting our all-too human failings, overcoming them when possible and amending our expectations or making amends for our shortcomings when not.

Everyday Integrity (and how we express it):

• Treat others with consideration and respect, whether you think they deserve it or not.  You should never lower your standards of behavior for someone else’s misdeeds.
• Take a bag for trash when you go to the park or the beach to show gratitude to the places that enrich your life by leaving them cleaner than you found them.
• When you screw up, admit it.  There is no pride to be found in refusing to take responsibility for your choices when they have been in error.
• Make healthy choices.  Our bodies are gods-given gifts with which to meet life, don’t trash that gift.
• Family is a relationship of reciprocal duty, someone does not have to be blood to be family, but once you have accepted someone as such, you have made a commitment to them.
• Don’t hurt someone to make friends.  If someone is your friend just because you don’t like someone or something else, they they aren’t really your friend.
• Honor your commitments to the best of your ability.
• Work for what you want, because you aren’t entitled to anything (material or not) without earning it.
• Appreciate what you have, its more than many in this world.  Say thank you to those that help you get what you need.

*a post for the Pagan Values Blogject

A Pagan Family’s Values: Hospitality

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hospitality, Pagan Values, PVE2011

(this is a post for the Pagan Values Blogject)

He is no friend who does not give to a friend,
to a comrade who comes imploring for food;
let him leave such a man–his is not a home–
and rather seek a stranger who brings him comfort.

Rig Veda 10.117.4

Hospitality, the act receiving and treating guests and strangers with with geniality and generosity…or according to an unknown author, the ability of “making your guests feel at home, even if you wish they were. ”  Hospitality has historically played an important role in many traditions and cultures, pagan and non-pagan–the Greeks and the Norse both considered hospitality a divinely ordered virtue and all three Abrahamic faiths include teachings on the subject.  While the expectations of hospitality vary, the virtue of hospitality itself is fairly universal…and like all values isn’t exclusive to any particular Paganism, though we consider it (in our family) an extension of our religious and spiritual views.

With such thoughts, sitting amongst the suitors, he saw Athene
and went straight to the forecourt, the heart within him scandalized
that a guest should still be standing at the doors. He stood beside her
and took her by the right hand, and relieved her of the bronze spear,
and spoke to her and addressed her in winged words: ‘Welcome, stranger.
You shall be entertained as a guest among us. Afterward,
when you have tasted diner, you shall tell us what your need is.

(Odyssey, p.30, ll. 118-124)

While I am no reconstructionist in general, much less a Hellenist specifically, I do have an avid interest in both ancient Greece and Rome.  In Greece, hospitality was known as xenia, which formalized the relationship between guest and host as one of mutual responsibility.  Not only did the host have a responsibility to be courteous and responsive to the needs of their guest, but the guest had a responsibility (to paraphrase Ben Franklin) not stink like three day old fish.  In fact, Xenios was an epithet of Zeus and Xenia an epithet of Athena.  In a land where the gods in mortal form walked with men, treating guests with honor wasn’t merely a cultural ideal, it was also a way to ensure divine favor and stave off divine wrath.  In Homer’s Odyssey, hospitality is a common theme and  Athena visits the son of Odysseus, Telemachus, in the form of of a mortal to offer him advice after being well received.

Fire is needed by the newcomer
Whose knees are frozen numb;
Meat and clean linen a man needs
Who has fared across the fells,

Water, too, that he may wash before eating,
Handcloth’s and a hearty welcome,
Courteous words, then courteous silence
That he may tell his tale,

Havamal

Other cultures have also their own customs and teachings about hospitality.  The Havamal also offers words on hospitality, laying out expectations of the host and more specifically, a good guest.  One of my favorite parts lays out more of the host’s role (and seems to describe the actions of Telemachus quite well) , but other sections advise such wisdom as guests being responsible to not overstay their welcome and that they make sure they have eaten before going to a friend’s so that they do not uncouthly stuff themselves.  In several indigenous cultures across the globe, water or other drink is the first offering to a guest, and is often tasted by the host first to show that it is untainted.  In other cultures it is rude–even to the point of reportedly earning life-long enmity among Bedouin tribes–to decline a host’s offer of food or drink.

In our family, hospitality is practiced as a way of showing respect to the sacredness inherent in all people.  (And we like to party.)  We generallyopen our home as needed to family and friends and family of family and family of friends and friends of family and friends of friends and dogs and cats, etc–at one time, I joking referred to our apartment as the “Halfway Home for Single Sailors”, because there was always *someone* that I was cooking for.  As with the notion of xenia, hospitality in our home is a reciprocal relationship.  Guests are expected to bring their own drinks and seating to group gatherings (and are told this in advance) and expected to put the seat down after using the bathroom.  In return, children are confined to their own running amok space, food is plentiful and tasty, and the company is entertaining.

But hospitality, at least by our reckoning (in this family), goes beyond baking a tasty pie for company, or bringing a dish to a potluck.  We are all guests in this dance of life, amongst our friends and families, in our wider communities and on our planet.  It is our responsibility to do so in a way that honors ourselves (via integrity*), our fellow guests (via service*) and our earthly host (via conservation*)…and that honors the Divine in us all.

*future topics for the 3rd Pagan Values Blogject