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 Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 11:50 am
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Since I've been pretty spiritually lazy lately, I thought actually writing down my beliefs and discussing them with others would help me out.
So this thread will be about Unitarian Universalism and my own flavorings--you could say it's UUUPG for the most part at this point. wink
I'm clearly not finished putting all the content in, but since I do have some up and I shouldn't need anymore reserved posts, feel free to reply with questions or comments.
---------------------------------------------
Post 1: Table of contents & disclaimer
Post 2: Web and text resources
Post 3: Not a "choose your own religion"
Post 4: My history with the religion
Post 5: Holidays
Post 6: Rituals, ceremonies, and services
Post 7: Deity, spirits, and others
Post 8: Sacred works, music, and symbols
Post 9: Myths and facts
Post 10: My pagan search
Post 11: My religion and my sexual orientation and gender identity
Post 12: Magic and "energy"
Post 13: Rites of passage
Post 14: TBA
---------------------------------------------
Recently added: 4/09/09
-Update to My History (post 4)
-Update to Holidays (post 5)
-Update to Deity, spirits, and others (post 7)
-Added Magic and "energy" topic, to be filled out eventually (post 12)
-Added Rites of passage topic, to be filled out eventually (post 13)
-Update to Rituals, ceremonies, and services (post 6)
-Updated Rites of passage (post 13)
Edited 4/09/09
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Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 4:35 pm
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Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 5:34 pm
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A Real Religion?
I've come across a lot of people who say that Unitarian Universalism isn't really a religion. I recently wrote an essay for English class about this. These are just some of my ideas, feel free to disagree or suggest improvement.
TheDisreputableDog Unitarian Universalism, though claiming some 800 thousand members (adherents.com), is a little understood religion. A common view is that it is a “choose your own religion,” a “catch-all” religion, or not a religion at all. What usually confuses holders of this view is the fact that Unitarians do not follow a creed, and therefore the religion lacks a dogmatic belief structure to which all members must adhere, making it difficult for those unfamiliar to understand it. However, Unitarians do share common beliefs, practices, and symbols, and it is these beliefs – the covenant – practices – coffee-hour, religious education, and welcoming congregations – and symbols – the flaming chalice – that make Unitarianism, Unitarianism, and qualify it as a valid religion. In order to join a UU congregation, instead of subscribing to a creed, you pledge to “affirm and promote” (uua.org) the Principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association—this is the covenant. I won’t list all the principles but they include such ideas as justice, democracy, compassion, the dignity of human life, encouragement of spiritual growth, world community, and the personal search for truth and meaning. Other religions’ creeds usually make reference to the nature of divinity; Unitarians place a lot of emphasis on “walking your talk,” and therefore being a Unitarian is more about dedicating your life to improving your own and others’ lives than believing or disbelieving a certain thing about God or the lack thereof. However, this does not mean that specific beliefs are irrelevant to the Unitarian Universalist experience—a feature of many congregations is “coffee hour,” in which the congregation gathers after the service to discuss the sermon. This is an opportunity to share with others how the minister’s remarks fit in with your own views and what part of the service particularly moved you, and to listen to others share in return. This is often a critical time for Unitarians, as new insights can be gained from discussion with others, and it is one exercise of the living tradition that members share. Even where coffee hour is not offered as a specific practice, still the spirit of discussion behind it is fostered. This is consistent with the “free and responsible search for truth and meaning” (uua.org) that the Principles describe, and it is an essential part of personal faith, in itself a key feature of religion. Another aspect of the living tradition is religious education, which is provided by churches and individuals within those churches to everyone from pre-school age through adulthood. RE classes for younger kids resembles traditional Sunday school and high school students usually participate in Youth Group while adults are attending the regular service, and classes for adults are offered in the afternoons and evenings during the rest of the week. Common, significant classes for young UUs are “Neighboring Faiths,” in which participants learn about other religions and visit their places of worship, and “Our Whole Lives,” a year-long comprehensive sexuality course; other classes may read the Christian Bible or other religions’ holy writing, contemporary novels such as The Giver, or world, national, and local news. Unitarian religious education is designed to be “lifespan faith development” (uua.org), and as such seeks to provide members of any age with the tools of reason, conscience, responsibility, knowledge, and respect. This is consistent with the “encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations” outlined in the Principles, and as one of the purposes of religion is to provide answers to questions of morality and pass them down to the youth, it therefore validates Unitarian Universalism as a real religion. Following from the tools of faith provided in RE is the practice of “welcoming congregations,” which is one that officially proclaims itself to be accepting of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender members. This is not to say that congregations not officially designated as welcoming are not accepting, but welcoming congregations offer specific services or groups to make sure that LGBT individuals feel at home in the church. For example, many ministers have performed marriage for same-sex couples and some churches offer their buildings and grounds to host local Pride events. Other religions make distinctions about who is or is not a worthy person—for salvation, certain positions, association, or existence—based on many qualifications, including sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Unitarian Universalism’s position is opposite to this, consistent with “the inherent worth and dignity of every person,” the “acceptance of one another,” and “justice, equity and compassion in human relations” (uua.org) upheld by the covenant, and that makes it no less of a valid religion. The symbol that brings all of these beliefs and practices together is the flaming chalice, a drinking vessel filled either with lit oil or a candle. As a symbol, it is versatile; for some it stands for the search for truth, for others the bonds of family or the light of hope, and many other things. In terms of its physical use, a chalice is lit at the beginning of a service as reflective words are read or the congregation speaks in unison, and extinguished at the end with a similar reflection or unison. It is depicted in many ways—sometimes looking like a torch, sometimes with other symbols of peace such as a dove, sometimes enclosed in two interlocking circles—but its common elements are clear. Therefore it is recognizable by anyone familiar with one version of it, making it a fitting symbol for a religion based not on conformity but common principles. Unitarian Universalism also draws upon a variety of other sacred images, found throughout other faiths of the world. Every religion has sacred images and many religions also have a predominant symbol by which they are recognized, and usually these images, however dogmatic the religion, are at least somewhat open to personal interpretation and significance. Unitarian Universalism does not define itself in terms of what sort of deity its followers believe in—it does not need to in order to be a real religion. It goes against the very grain of the religion to define itself by a creed, and therefore such definition is unnecessary. It is, instead, the principles of Unitarian Universalism that members covenant to uphold, the common practices that congregations share, and the common living tradition and language of faith its adherents draw on that qualify Unitarian Universalism as a valid religion.
Edited 11/28/06 |
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Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 5:37 pm
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My History
I think my dad grew up Episcopalian, possibly Lutheran, in North Carolina. My mom's family was part of the Kabalarian Philosophy cult in Vancouver before they moved to California and she went to a Catholic high school. That is pretty much everything about my family's religious history I know, because I don't know anything about my family. My extended family is either non-existant or estranged; my dad has a brother still in North Carolina, but I don't remember if he has kids; my mom's brother, also my godfather, is in Maine, but for most of my childhood and adolescence I thought Uncle Ray was just my godfather and that my mom's brother was a different person who also happened to be dead; all my grandparents are dead except maybe one, but we don't talk to my mom's father anymore regardless so I don't know about him; I think we have some cousins in Oregon but I don't remember why.
My parents were married in the Unitarian church. I don't know if I was baptised anywhere, and I don't know if whatever Unitarians do to babies was done to me, but I've basically been Unitarian since I was born.
My mom's father named me (and my brother) according to numerological principles--however, I don't really know what they are. The way the story goes, my parents called me Madeline before I was born (after the children's books), but they wrote to my grandfather to ask what names he suggested for me, and later my brother. My grandparents two choices to name my mother were Lorill and Robin; they decided on Lorill for my mom, so I ended up with Robin. My brothers options were Loyd (with one L), Doyl (with no E), and John; because my parents aren't crazy, he got John. Since realizing my whole gender thing, I've been calling myself Rob; I don't know how the change affects my destiny. xp
I think I started going to church when we moved from California to Wisconsin when I was about five years old. I attended religious education classes, holiday services, adult services on the one week a month kids were invited, sang in the children's choir and participated in church musical productions at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, WI. I loved this church to pieces. It was a significant part of my upbringing and I miss it.
One of my favorite RE classes was Our Whole Lives in eighth grade. It spanned the whole year, whereas usually RE classes switch with school semesters, basically. There were maybe ten or fifteen kids in it, and three or four instructors (my memory is fuzzy on the details). It's basically a sex-ed class, but the best I've ever had (I've had four) or heard of. We discussed everything. Unitarians do not endorse abstinence-only or hetero-centrist education. It was great.
My mom took up with Buddhism and Feng Shui when I was about nine. We met the Dalai Lama when he came to town, and she took her bodhisattva vows from him. I have some influence from her in terms of examining my surroundings for sources of conflict (although I don't do anything canon about it, just rearrange things or clean until I feel better), and I have a soft spot for the Eightfold Path (although the Four Noble Truths don't really strike me and I don't know how legitimate incorporating the Path without the truths is).
When we moved to Connecticut for my first year of high school, we found the Unitarian Church in Westport. My brother went into the Coming Of Age / Our Whole Lives (their program was half the year on OWL and the second half on COA) program, and I went into the Youth Group. It was a lot of fun, and I made a lot of friends with the other youth and the advisors. I really enjoyed that it was youth-run.
When I went to boarding school for the rest of high school, I didn't come back to church much, and there wasn't a Unitarian church in the school's town. That and I entered a relationship with someone who thought Unitarianism was stupid and wouldn't let me go to church even when I was at home.
However, I did shack up with the school's "alternate spiritualities" group. At the first meeting I described myself as "sort of Unitarian and sort of Wiccan." rolleyes We went to a couple of Connecticut Wiccan and Pagan Nework rituals and events, and hosted our own. Your average neopagan stuff. At meetings members would bring something in to talk about, like chakras or herb therapy and such like. This was my first exposure to the pagan scene, and although I was really quite ignorant and not very serious about it for a long time, it piqued my interest. One of my favorite teachers and his wife were AsatruR. He actually started an Indo-European club at one point.
Now I'm in college, and I know of the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore but I'm kind of nervous about actually going to it. I've never gone to church without the minimal protection of my parents. Usually, not many Unitarians age 18-25 go to church; it's called "the Gap" and some time is devoted to "bridging" it. I might drop in one week and see what it's like.
As for pagan hookups, one of my ex's roommate is active in some kind of pagan community near here, but I haven't touched in with them yet. My school supposedly has a pagan group but I haven't been able to find them. I mostly poke around on the internet and pick up the odd book. Looked into Kemeticism last year. Read A Book of Pagan Prayer and Pagan Polyamory over the summer. I really like Raven Kaldera but I haven't managed to find any of his other books.
So, basically, I'm at a spiritual standstill at the moment.
Edited 12/03/06
Amusingly enough, the above was written about a month before I started actually exploring Kemetic paganism, as opposed to just looking at it. This is what comes next:
I was trying to draw a picture of a friend's furry character, who is a wolf, and I was having a horrible time of it. I drew one awful version, and then a second awful version on the same page. Then for some reason I began drawing a third time, only this one turned out really awesome. But it wasn't the wolf character. A lion? Some kind of cat, certainly. With a circlet, earrings, and an ankh tattoo.
I started thinking, given the ankh, that this might be an Egyptian deity. I knew Sekhmet was a Lioness, and Bast was a cat, so I started looking around on the internet. I had vaguely explored Kemeticism the previous year but hadn't clicked at the time, but this new search led me to the website of the Kemetic Orthodoxy, a particular Kemetic path. Their main temple, the House of Netjer, has a forum for members and guests to discuss spiritual and historical matters, so I joined up and started learning about these gods from the perspective of those who worship them in the modern day.
I still don't know whether the Lioness I drew is Sekhmet or Bast (or Sekhmet-Mut or Bast-Mut), but coincidentally enough Bast and Yinepu are the two biggest recruiters to the House. I settled into the community and started reaching out to the Names—and it was like they had been waiting for me. I met Yinepu, Wepwawet, Ra, Nebt-het, Djehuty, Set, Geb, Nut, Hethert, Shu, Sekhmet, Bes. I finally felt like I had a divine home—the UU church is an incredible spiritual home and community in general for me, but this was God tapping me on the shoulder and saying, "You're Mine."
I found a Green Circle, a local pagan group, with several old friends and many new ones in Fall 2007, and went to Four Quarters for two of their events last summer, and plan to go again this summer. Still haven't visited the local UU churches. I have not formally joined the Kemetic Orthodoxy yet, but I plan to.
I'm not exactly in a spiritual standstill in the same way I was when I wrote the first part of this post, but I'm having trouble integrating "daily life" with "spiritual life," and my shrine ends up dusty and neglected because everything else in my life is stressing me out. I do have an integrated path, theoretically, I'm just not doing it right. Green Circle is having drama because apparently that's what happens when the group gets to be about the size we are, so it's feeling a little fragmented and not-safe-space, so I don't even have decent eclectic pagan events to go to regularly (plus school gets in the way). My university's pagan group is almost complete crap and it's more of a drain to attend than not because of the utter BS some of the members spout.
So, less of a standstill, more of a trough.
Edited 4/09/09 |
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Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 5:39 pm
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Holidays
Unitarian Universalist:
I remember going to Christmas services when I was a kid. There might have been Easter services as well, but I don't remember for sure. Christmas was obviously all about the Baby Jesus, but it had pretty music. The organist and the choirs at the Madison church were really good. There was also the "All Music Sunday" service in December preceding Christmas, which featured string ensembles as well as the organ and choirs.
Easter would have been similar only all about the dead and raised Jesus.
I really can't remember any other church holidays. We didn't do Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or Pagan holidays, or invented-by-UUs holidays. I think UUs should have more holidays that are just ours—a quick google search for "UU holidays" turned up lists of other religions' holidays, birthdays of UU heroes, and dates of social justice victories. Which is...cool, I guess, but I don't know whether these are just "dates to know" or whether any congregations actually celebrate Joseph Priestly's birthday or the Roe v. Wade decision at the same level as Christmas and Easter. Christmas and Easter were big deals in my churches, but aside from the nostalgia from family traditions, Christmas and Easter are kinda meh for me on the spiritual side of things.
Kemetic Orthodox:
I celebrate a few Kemetic holidays when I can remember them. The big ones that the House of Netjer celebrates are Wep Ronpet (the new year), the Mysteries of Wesir, the Return of the Wandering Goddess, the Establishment of the Celestial Cow (these two are collectively referred to as Moomas since they bookend Christmas and have to do with Hethert and Nut-as-sky-cow), Day of Chewing Onions for Bast, the Festival of the Beautiful Reunion, Aset Luminous, and the five Intercalary Days...but there are at least three gods that you could honor every day since our calendar is a combination of three used in different areas of ancient Kemet. Please ask if you're curious about any of these holidays. smile
Family:
My family celebrates Advent, although I don't know how in keeping our traditions are with actually Christian traditions.
We start on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, and we light one white candle, (two the second week, etc), and my dad reads "the Christmas story" from Luke, and we eat lebkuchen and panettone, and my parents drink champagne and the kids drink sparkling cider. On Christmas, we light all four white candles and a red candle. Sometimes we read other timely stories, like A Child's Christmas in Wales or "The Gift of the Magi."
We haven't gone to church for Christmas in a long time. Advent is the most religion that goes with Christmas. Our secular traditions are my dad making pancakes on Christmas morning, watching the movies A Christmas Story and The Snowman, and opening one present on Christmas Eve.
When we lived in Switzerland we were "visited" by the Kristkind as well as Sammi Klaus, and Knecht Ruprecht and Schmutzli had their place too.
Easter is purely candy and rabbits. Besides birthdays and American calendar secular holidays, that's about it.
Personal:
In high school I would celebrate the Neopagan Sabbats with the Alternate Spiritualities Club. We did Samhain and Beltane ourselves, and Imbolc when the school holiday schedule permitted, and did Mabon and Yule with CWPN (CWPN's Samhain had something to do with a gay bar so the underage weren't allowed to go to that one).
These days, Green Circle celebrates the Neopagan holidays and sometimes does full or new moon rituals as well, and I attend some of these. It's a bit of a ******** for them to be going on about the earth goddess and the sky god, since in my paradigm the earth is a god and the sky is a goddess. But they are fairly decent eclectic rituals, and don't tend to call in gods that don't make sense. We do have a couple of ADF "druids" in the group, and a "Peruvian shaman," so it's not entirely a picnic, but it is nice for the community and group ritual aspect which is otherwise lacking in my life.
Most of us go to the pagan farm Four Quarters for their Beltaine camping weekend, which I attended for the first time last year. It's probably your typical pagan festival-ish gathering, lots of drumming and dancing at fire circles, lots of partly to mostly to completely naked people wandering around, some kids, a sweat lodge, a contingent of Radical Faeries, and a maypole dance. The land is absolutely beautiful, and their stone circle is incredible.
Edited 4/09/09 |
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Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 5:40 pm
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Rituals, Ceremonies, Services
Unitarian Universalist:
I haven't been to services in awhile, so this is what I can remember. UU is orthopraxic in weird ways—it's not officially orthopraxic, but you're almost guaranteed to find certain elements in any congregation you walk into.
One of these is the lighting of the chalice. I'll go more into what the chalice is all about in the symbols post, but every UU service I've ever been to has had a chalice up at the front of the church that is lit while the congregation speaks in unison, or a call-and-response.
We also sing hymns. Singing the Living Tradition is the hymnal I usually see. I think it's a blend between (chiefly) Christian and Jewish songs that have been slightly rewritten to fit more into the UU framework, original UU songs, and secular songs that praise humanity or aspects of the natural world and so forth.
There is usually a musical component to the service besides the congregation singing, such as organ music, or the youth or adult choirs singing another song. My Wisconsin church had two services per year that were all music, all day. Sometimes there is a dance performance.
The local minister generally reads a sermon. These can honestly be about almost anything, and the minister, depending on where they were educated and what their interests are, may bring in everything from recent news to Christian scripture to personal gnosis. Many sermons reflect on current events, or call the congregation to social justice, or muse about the nature of god.
There's also a section where congregants can come up to light candles and share good or bad things that are going on in their lives, either silently or out loud.
And, post-service, coffee hour! This is where everyone can get a little nosh and talk about the service, and the issues that were brought up in the sermon. This time is where a lot of the community building and personal theological examination goes on. And it's also why there are so many UU jokes about coffee pots.
Kemetic Orthodox:
Senut is a daily ritual that all KO members are supposed to perform. From what I hear, few people actually do it daily. It's not oath-bound so I'll talk a bit about it here. This is not an ancient ritual. It was written by the leader of the religion (with some help from I believe Sekhmet or Heru-wer), loosely inspired by ancient temple rituals, to be a common formal practice that everyone in the faith could use to commune with Netjer, since there is only one temple (instead of all over the place like in ancient times). It is performed at your personal shrine, and involves: a purifying bath with natron; a libation of cool water to Wepwawet, your Akhu (ancestors), your Sebau (teachers), and Ma'at; an offering of food and drink to Netjer; and personal time talking to Netjer in shrine.
The priests, of which I am not one, have other rituals to perform in addition to Senut, and the Nisut (the head of the religion) has a bunch she does daily at specific times. There are other rituals that are performed annually for holidays. I also tend to offer my meals to Netjer.
Saq is a ritual possession of a specially-trained priest by a god for the purposes of communicating to the members of the faith. Saqu never happen in isolation, because the vessel has to be prepared for the visit and doesn't remember anything that happens while the god is there. Sometimes these rituals happen in person at festivals, or privately with the priests on-site, or are broadcast to members over the internet (another priest asks questions for the members and transcribes the god's replies).
Personal
Family:
I'm trying to think of rituals my family does that haven't already been mentioned in the holidays post. I'm sure we have some that I'm just not interpreting as rituals because I'm in the wrong frame of mind.
Personal:
I used to do a special tarot spread for the Neopagan holidays, but I've fallen out of that lately. I do still participate in many of the Neopagan holidays with Green Circle. We have a pretty eclectic bunch in sum, so the things that come out of that are often interesting. Since I'm a little distant from other KO members, I've attempted to run two Kemetic rituals with the group, Aset Luminous and Wep Ronpet last summer.
Again, trying to think of more rituals that I'm just not seeing.
Edited 4/09/09 |
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Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 8:52 pm
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Things Seen and Unseen
When I was only a UU, I didn't have a very good concept of God or spirits. The god we talked about in church, when we weren't talking about a specific god such as YHVH or Amaterasu or Pele, when we talked about God at all, wasn't very personal. It felt more like a universal principle than an entity you could have a relationship with. And until I started getting into pagan ideas, I didn't have much conception of spirits that was of immediate concern to me; I loved the Greek and Roman stories about nymphs and such, and all the other fantastic creatures of "mythology," but it was just stories. So, mostly my Kemetic and other pagan studies inform my view of these things.
Gods
In Kemetic Orthodoxy, Netjer is the word for the unity & plurality of God. Honestly, if "every god is a unique and special snowflake" is hard polytheism, and "god is the snow, and the parts therein are interchangeable" is soft polytheism...KO is kind of plasma polytheism. We call it monolatry but according to Tea's list I'm not sure we're using the same meaning. Each Name of Netjer is an individual god with an individual personality that can't simply be replaced with any other that theoretically performs the same function; but each Name is also Netjer, the whole and undivided God; as well as occasionally being syncretized or aspected with other Names. This is partly a way to rationalize and recognize the HUGE number of gods that Kemet spawned across its history and geography. Sometimes gods just ended up smooshed together, or they had different names in different cities but were really the same god, or stories describe gods changing into other gods. It can really make your brain hurt. (Now, Netjer being the One as well as the Many does not mean that every other god is also Netjer. At least, it doesn't for me. )
This actually extends fairly well my conception of God gleaned from UU teachings and experience. I haven't attended UU service since I got into Kemetic paganism, but I think I would feel comfortable honoring Netjer as a whole in that context, and I don't think I would get in trouble for it from my gods (unlike, for example, calling on one of my gods in a generic Neopagan ceremony, which is a no-no for us).
The specific gods that I have taken an interest in and Who have taken an interest in me seem to be Wepwawet/Yinepu, Sekhmet/Hethert, Geb, Nut, and Shu. Other Names I am fascinated with but haven't had a whole lot of contact with include Set, Djehuty, Ra, Nebt-het, and Bes.
In Kemetic Orthodoxy, one of the rites of passage is to determine the gods that have taken on spiritual responsibility of a sort for you through divination. I haven't yet gone through this ceremony so right now I don't know who my "official sponsors" are, so to speak.
Ancestors
The Akhu, or blessed dead, are deceased humans who have been judged in the Hall of Two Truths and gone on to the Duat. Your Akhu are your family by blood, and your family & friends by choice, as well as any mentors, role models, or leaders you have, even if you didn't personally know them. Akhu frequently come back in our lives if we remember them in our prayers and offerings, and sometimes they are able to help us better than the gods because they were human.
Spirits
Netjeri are spirits that are not gods and not Akhu. When animals die, such as beloved pets, they do not become Akhu, but they may become netjeri and hang around still. Elementals, genii loci, family guardians, imaginary friends, etc. would also fall into this category from the Kemetic viewpoint.
Muuet are deceased humans who somehow have not managed to go through the judgment process—basically unhappy trapped ghosts. They can be pretty unpleasant, and generally an offering of cool water and a prayer to Yinepu to help them on their way is in order.
Soul
There are multiple parts to the Kemetic soul. The ba is the eternal, unchanging, "true self." The ka is your animating spirit, the "you" in this life. The ib is your heart, the seat of your emotions and memories. The ren is your true name. The khat is your physical body. The sheut is your shadow.
The Rite of Parent Divination indicates which god or gods crafted your ba (your Parent), and which god or gods crafted your ka (your Beloved). They put a little of Themselves into us when They do that—and although it isn't necessarily a good indication of Who might be your Parents and Beloveds, it's a lot of fun to guess who's Whose through personality traits prior to RPD.
KO doesn't have an official position on reincarnation, but some people in the House believe that when your ka goes on to the Duat as a Akh if you pass the Weshem-Ib (Weighing of the Heart; if you fail, Ammit eats you), your ba can choose to reincarnate with a new ka.
Otherworlds
What I live in is the Seen world. Gods, Akhu, netjeri, and anything else incorporeal are part of the Unseen world. The Unseen world includes the Duat, which is where the gods and Akhu "live." I guess the "astral plane" commonly used in Neopagan discourse is somewhat analogous to the Unseen world, but I'm not sure of any institutional basis in KO for something like "astral travel," although we are closer to the Unseen world when we dream. Astral travel-type stuff is usually the place where members' former or concurrent pagan practices step in.
Kemetic magic works in part because of the relationship between the Seen and Unseen—the two parts go with each other, and what happens in one can affect the other. Sometimes there are both "real" and "extra-real" solutions to a problem.
Edited 4/09/09 |
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Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 8:53 pm
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Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 8:54 pm
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Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 8:55 pm
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Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 8:55 pm
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Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 8:59 pm
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Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 9:01 pm
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Gateways and Thresholds
Unitarian Universalist:
UU doesn't do baptism for children per se, but we do have child dedication ceremonies. These are for babies and young children, and involve the family getting up at a service and presenting the child to the congregation, which welcomes the child and pledges to support their spiritual growth.
During elementary school and middle school, young UUs take Religious Education classes, or RE. The topics vary over time and location, but one class that is found many places is Our Whole Lives & Coming of Age, which happens near or at the end of middle school (some congregations alternate each program by years, some do each one in half a year). Our Whole Lives is basically a comprehensive sexuality course; it's the best youth sex-ed course I've ever taken, and I've taken several. Coming of Age is designed to help young UUs locate themselves in the religion and take more personal control of their theology, with the help of adult mentors in the congregation. After completing the class, you go through the aptly named Coming of Age ceremony and "graduate" to your congregation's Youth Group. Generally this ceremony happens at a special service, where the congregation recognizes the participants' new phase of spiritual searching and pledges to support them, and the participants' share some of the things they have discovered about their beliefs.
UU teenagers are generally in their congregation's Youth Group (or their local chapter of Young Religious UUs) for four years, during high school. Youth group is youth-led and adult-mentored, and builds community among one's peer group and provides a foundation for more spiritual searching. Sometimes the youth group runs services for the rest of the congregation. When you graduate high school, you also "graduate" from the Youth Group to the regular congregation with a Bridging ceremony. Participants reflect on their journey with UU, their plans for the future, and their personal beliefs, and the congregation welcomes them as young adults and pledges to support them in this transition period. (There's a problem where young adult UUs Bridge and then drop out of sight as they go to college and disconnect from their home congregations; it can be a bit of a shock to go from the more casual and eclectic youth group meetings to the more ritualized and formal congregant services, especially in a strange community.)
I never actually did Coming of Age or Bridging given circumstances in my life during those times, but my brother did them both. At his Bridging, everyone in his year received a beautiful chalice necklace; I've been completely envious of it for the past four years, but my parents gave me a similar one for Christmas this year.
UU churches also perform weddings and funerals, but I haven't been to any so I have less to say about those as yet.
Kemetic Orthodox:
In order to join KO, you have to take the Beginner's Class, which has lessons and conversations introducing new members to information about the religion, so that everyone starts on the same page. After completing the Beginner's Class, participants may choose to stay on as Remetj, the first level of membership.
As a Remetj, one may choose to undergo the Rite of Parent Divination, to discover (or confirm) which gods have taken a special interest in you as your Parents and Beloveds (theologically, these gods created your ba and ka, parts of the soul). After this ceremony, you are known as a Divined Remetj.
If you accept the results of your divination, you may take vows as a Shemsu, the next level of membership. As a Shemsu, you vow to honor your Parents and Beloveds above all other gods. At this ceremony you also receive a name from your Parents.
After a year as a Shemsu, you can undergo the Weshem-Ib (weighing of the heart) to become a Shemsu-Ankh. This ritual is oath-bound so I don't know it and wouldn't be able to talk about it if I did. smile But at least part of the purpose is vowing to serve the KO community above all other spiritual communities.
After that, there are several priestly positions (W'ab, Imakhu, and Kai-Imakhu) which one is eligible for after three years as a Shemsu-Ankh (and Imakiu and Kai-Imakhiu are also W'abu) but I don't know the other requirements or the ceremonies.
If you are a child of a KO member, you can have a Rootnaming ceremony. The community pledges to support the child in their spiritual journey, and the child receives a name related to a god Who was in festival on the child's birthday. It's a bit of protection heka as well.
Family:
Personal:
The rest = Coming Soon.
Edited 4/09/09 |
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Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 9:04 pm
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Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 9:05 pm
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