[From Diary of a Heretic] I feel so inspired by my Druidic encounters. I no longer subscribe to or feel moved by an Almighty God up there, only knowable through the blood of his son. I am no longer convinced by the story, the all-powerful and all-male monotheistic God who sits alone, separated from His creation, with the flawed followers below all struggling and striving to gain his approval. This is an image of a God who sends his son to bridge the gap in blood! I just don’t buy it anymore. I’ve not rejected the whole Christian story for there’s much beauty within it, but the classic fall / redemption model is defunct in my opinion. However, to me Jesus is still a powerful symbol of the good-ness and god-ness of all people. He was a bringer of light and his gift was to give people back to themselves, rather than set up a human / divine exchange system. He loved people into the kingdom by demonstrating the deep love of the divine, which is unconditional and ever flowing. The angry God who demands a price (a blood bargain) for our sins just does not make sense. To me, Spirit (he, she, it) exists in and through and with and around all people and all creation. Over the millennia various cultures have tapped into this divine current and sought to express it a multitude of ways, usually reflecting the landscape and culture of its origin. Faith grows out of the land that births it and nurtures it. If not a pantheist I am most certainly now a panentheist for I see deity in all things. So, can I still also hold onto my Christian identity? I believe I can, for the beauty of the Druidic approach is to see all systems as valid. Reading the mythologist Joseph Campbell has helped me greatly in this respect. He helps us to see that religious faith is not only quite natural but is also basically mythological. Myth does not mean falsehood; in fact it means the reverse, truth. Myth is truth told in story form. Myth expresses truth by metaphor, ritual and symbol. The Christian myth is what keeps me from abandoning the world of Christianity altogether.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Oct 2013 08:51:03 +0000
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