Coping With Crises

Issue 22 Winter 2008/9

Coping with crisis As we face what might become the worst economic crisis since World War II, most people on the planet are experiencing anxiety about their prosperity, livelihoods, families, or even survival. It is in such troubled times that supernatural religions appeal more than ever. When people feel helpless, it’s tempting to believe that there are supernatural beings or powers that can help out when they appeal to them. If the help requested doesn’t materialize, then the idea that there is some unknown purpose to suffering may help believers to bear it. If all else fails, the vision of a better afterlife offers light at the end of the tunnel. These are all psychological strategies for coping with intense personal anxiety and distress, as well as with the kind of individual griefs and stresses that can occur at any time. Naturalistic folk tend to have trouble with these approaches – we know they are sugar pills, not real medicine. When they work, they work only by strengthening people’s own determination to act, or by giving them stoicism in the face of disaster. Those resources derive from human psychology, and they can be accessed without imaginary props. So how do Pantheists cope when life gets hard? How do we protect our peace of mind when our foundations are threatened? Are there distinctive Pantheist strategies for dealing with crises – strategies that offer spiritual support, but without abandoning our basic naturalism? In this issue WPM members and sympathetic writers offer their own experiences and approaches. There are some common threads. The heart of the pantheist approach is to find a source of inner strength and peace in our relationship to Nature

and the Universe. We know that these are our home. They always were, and always will be - our membership in the Cosmos is the one thing that can never be taken from us. Nature on our beautiful planet has a special role to play. It helps put our personal problems in perspective. It is a source of peace, of energy and of renewal. The rhythms and patterns of Nature go on above and beyond the stress of daily life. So when you feel hassled and haunted, go out into nature and listen to the rustling of leaves. Lie on your back and watch the flowing of clouds. Sit by the ocean and feel your soul rolling with the waves. All these are embodiments of the endless creative energy that flows through everything – and through each one of us. Get away from the stress and hassle of daily life once a day, or at least once a week. Go out into nature, or meditate with the help of natural objects, in a quiet environment free of unnatural noises. Pantheists tend to accept reality and face it squarely, without seeking to deny it or minimize it. We don’t attribute unpleasant events to the actions of angry deities or demons – we look for their real causes. We are realistic in our actions, too. We don’t resort to prayers to imaginary beings, or to magical spells. We don’t believe in the “Secret” that merely wishing something will make it happen. Instead, we rely on our own real resources of drive, determination and inventiveness. We take pragmatic steps to deal with the situation. We turn challenges to advantages. For example, we can use financial stress as the incentive to make our transition to a low cost, low material input life. We can

Dow Jones 1998-2008

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or violent crime, you will usually find that they are make the best of involuntary free time to take up a new probably many times smaller than you would imagine. interest or activity. In times like these it sometimes helps to watch the We tend to be compassionate, and we care about new less often. News programs seem to present reality, the suffering of other humans or animals – so these but it is a selective and vast society-wide crises unrepresentative picture. trouble us for the sake Grant me the serenity to accept They focus on bad news of others as well as for the things I cannot change; - a world that seems to ourselves, and we want be full of endless threats, to help. However courage to change the things I can; disasters, diseases, unless we are in unusual and wisdom to know the difference. conflicts, murders, positions of wealth and Reinhold Niebuhr abductions. Hopeful power - it’s wise to avoid news and heartwarming taking the burdens of the heroism are thrown in whole world upon our only as tokens. Even documentary programs obsess shoulders, because we won’t be able to carry them. We about natural disasters, dangerous predators, horrific need to find ways of doing what we can, without letting accidents. Sometimes television today seems like a the need to help others destroy our core of peace and conspiracy to scare everyone out of their wits, every connectedness. As Helen Keller wrote: “I am only one, day. A good maxim might be: access bad news on a but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can need-to-know basis. do something.” Once we have changed what we can change, and Of course, there are always some aspects of a situation that are out of our control. Realism helps here reached a sober idea of the real risks that remain, Pantheism helps us to accept what we cannot change. too. In the case of dramatic events such as terrorist We know that the Universe is an eternal dance of attacks or epidemics, humans have a tendency to flowing energies of which we are part. We know that exaggerate the risks to themselves – at the same time as endless transformation and creativity are part of the they ignore the real risks of normal everyday activities dance, and it’s a dance that we love. like driving or overeating. So try to discover the real risks of the events that make you fearful in the area or Below: Persistence through change. country where you live. In the case of war, terrorism Petrified forest, Arizona ©Paul Harrison 2008

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Learn resilience and endurance from Nature Pantheism, unlike many other belief systems, provides its practitioners with an earthly understanding of how species cope with crisis. As humans we sometimes separate ourselves from the natural world, believing that the rules of nature do not apply to us. Fact of the matter is that what we require to survive are the very same things that other species require – food, shelter, etc. So when you see a beaver’s dam destroyed after an entire season of work, or watch a child devastate an ant hill in the blink of an eye, you’ll quickly learn something about the natural world that often escapes the attention of the casual observer – that there is resilience, perseverance, endurance and relentlessness to rebuild that which was lost or destroyed. In the animal world, self-pity simply does not exist, nor does playing the victim, in the hopes of others rushing in to rescue us from perils. This may sound harsh and unsympathetic, and I am not suggesting that humans dismiss their compassionate characteristics, but it reminds us that the best medicine for times like the ones we are in now is not to wallow in self-pity, but to start rebuilding immediately, after all what else is there to do. A few years back I was pruning some trees in my front yard, and despite my best efforts to avoid cutting any trees down, I decided, with two young oaks being so close together, one would have to go, so reluctantly I cut the smaller of the two oaks down, leaving nothing left but a stump that barely breached the surface. Two weeks later there were about five new limbs about two feet long sprouting out from the stump. So I cut them all off, dug around the trunk and took off another two inches of trunk, but yet again, the tree “Rule number One decided that despite the fact that it had of the Universe: years worth of growth Survive, Endure, removed with the Persevere, and do what sweep of a chain saw, ever it takes to grow” and that it would be at least another ten years before it would ever come close to its former glory, its DNA code simply stated that it would survive and therefore grow! This cycle, by the way, went on three more times. A few months later 9/11 occurred. As a junior air line pilot in an industry that was bleeding to death, I found myself unemployed in a field where there were no jobs, and I mean none! I remember sitting in the pilot lounge with about ten other pilots, all of them about to lose their jobs, and witnessing each of them express feelings of anger, sadness and fear of what laid ahead. I too was nervous about this new uncertain environment, and headed home wondering what was plan “B”. As I walked from Regrowth after wildfire, Mesa Verde ©Paul Harrison 2008 my driveway I glanced over at the stump I had battled over and over again, and noticed that despite the fact that the growing season was long over, it had shot out another sprout. A sprout that was absolutely pathetic, only about a half an inch long, all curled up and twisted, but still, it was growing. I thought, doesn’t this tree get it? It was done, finished, just die already. Then, as if the tree were speaking to me, I realized: I was the one who didn’t get it. The lessons for coping are provided by the Universe - we just need to know how to read them. Rule number One of the Universe: SURVIVE, Endure, Persevere, and do what ever it takes to grow no matter how pathetic the results may be. I turned around and look at what I had, and I had a lot, and then I thought about how much of my trunk had been cut, not much! So I went inside, and to my wife’s surprise I greeted her with hope and enthusiasm, and with a genuine smile I explained to her, that everything was going to James Cavanaugh be just fine, and it was. 3

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Do what you can – and let go

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hree years ago my husband walked out, moved 600 miles away back to his hometown of Cleveland, and never came back. Instead, we divorced and he almost immediately remarried. Of course I was sad, of course I was hurt, and maybe a little mad, but not deeply. I handled this crisis in my life differently than I would have in the past before I became a pantheist. Also since becoming a pantheist, my dad has had a couple of severe health crises which were potentially lifethreatening, requiring surgery. Again, pantheism helped me get through these crises differently (and I think much more easily and less stressfully) than I would have handled them in the past. I don’t have a personal God up there to pray to – no one to beg or bargain with to make my husband come back or make my dad well. I’m a pantheist. I know how precious life is. I know how easily it can change. Not because I’m bad or because I didn’t pray enough or because someone prayed harder or was better than me and got their way or maybe it’s just God’s will or God is punishing me - but because that’s the way of nature, and I’m a part of it. Wonderful things happen. Destructive things happen. Every day. Life is one thing after another and I’ve learned not to wallow so much in the if only’s and the what if’s, but to do what I can in the situation and then let go – to accept reality. Let people live their “Pantheism has taught me own lives with or without me. Some relationships end: we don’t own each to live in the moment with other. I have learned to respect and allow other people to find their own gratitude and wonder, to way to happiness – without it diminishing my own life. I deeply and truly be at peace with reality, wish them well, wish them happiness, wish them their own peace of mind (in the ways they need to find it for themselves). and to see the natural Illnesses happen; surgeries happen. I do what I can and face the fact process unfold.” that loved ones will die, and so I will I. We did what needed to be done in terms of surgery, medicines, diet, exercise etc. A couple of times when I thought my father would die, I felt sad yet I felt at peace at the same time, not desperate like in the past. Beyond that, personally I hoped for the best, thought positively – but at the same time I lived realistically, cried a lot, remembered a lot, appreciated every moment, and then at some point just trusted the process. I don’t say this in a callous manner at all – all the time I was loving and supporting and loving some more. Right now my dad is doing great. My ex-husband is living his life. And I’m doing great. The added bonus in all this to me was that it made me stronger and helped me to get know myself better than I ever have – and to start loving myself again. As a pantheist I know that I’m part of it all now, and I’ll be part of it all when I die. No one can take that away. Not believing in an afterlife, I know how important it is to live the life I want this time around and to be the kind of person I want to be. I want to know that I loved people all I could, and left something of value to them through the way I interacted with them, so that they are left with memories that will sustain them. For me, pantheism is a path that is practical, that I can wrap my mind around, but it’s also a path of great heart. Pantheism has taught me to live in the moment with gratitude and wonder, to be at peace with reality, and to see the natural process unfold as it has for so long and will continue to do for so long after I’m gone. I will continue to be a part of it, just in a different form.

Sharon Wells 4

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Be in the here and now

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he world is going through a very rough economic crisis, which may affect many of us quite badly. So it is rational to consider ways to protect whatever wealth one has – however small such ‘wealth’ may be. In one of the recent runs on the market, I panicsold some of my equity-linked funds which I had hoped would allow me to live my declining years in modest comfort, and put the sadly diminished money partly into money market funds and partly into a gold-backed fund. I don’t know whether what I did is wise, but that’s how I decided I might sleep better. I realized that I could also benefit from paying more attention to some Pantheist ideas, ideals and practices. So let me share some which might be of use in dealing with hard times: Be here now! Learn from the past, plan for the future, but live mindful of the present – it’s the only life you’ve got. Live simply. It not only helps the planet and simplifies your life, it also saves a lot of money. Don’t buy things unless you really need them. A Pantheist shouldn’t waste his/her only life on this beautiful planet struggling to keep up with the Joneses. Celebrate your real wealth: not money but lovers, friends, family, pets, the flowers in your garden, and whatever else you love. Count as real wealth walks in the woods, good health, life experiences, self esteem, music, art, books, science, moral and ethical values, and your web of connections to all else on this beautiful planet. Spend more time in your kitchen – cooking is a joy. You can eat out less and save money by cooking your own meals. And by cooking your own food (organically and humanely grown local food if possible) you can reconnect emotionally to the biological reality that other living beings are what you must eat. Treat your food with the respect it deserves by making a beautiful meal of it. Invite friends over to share your cooking. The best conversations often “Remember, all is change. happen around a dinner table when a few good friends share a good meal This hard time too and a few drinks. shall pass.” If you find yourself unemployed, look for work but spend some of those unemployed hours jogging, or walking, or making something of beauty with your hands. You will find yourself happier if you do. Take up a hobby. Some great hobbies cost very little. Some can even save you money e.g. a vegetable garden. Lend a helping hand (time even if not money) to those in need who wish to help themselves (but not to freeloaders). Consider volunteering. Every community has need of volunteers. Share others’ joy, and listen compassionately to their concerns. Remember ‘all is change’; this hard time too shall pass. Finally, don’t forget to smell the roses! Walt Mandell 5

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Own each moment of experience - good, bad or ugly Each person took up the challenge we extended to them to live life as if each moment was important, as if each moment counted and could be worked with, even if it was a moment of pain, sadness, despair or fear. This “work” involves above all the regular, disciplined practice of moment-to-moment mindfulness, the complete owning of each moment of your experience, good, bad, or ugly. Cultivating mindfulness means learning to tap and focus our own wasted energies. In doing so we learn to calm down enough to enter and dwell. Cultivating mindfulness can lead to the discovery of deep realms of relaxation, calmness, and insight within yourself. It is easy to get to this territory. The path to it at any moment lies no further than your own body and mind and your own breathing. And this territory is always accessible. It is always here, independent of your problems. Our psychological well-being may depend on being able to find someplace in nature where we can go and just hear the sounds of the world itself, without the sounds of human activity, of airplanes, cars and machines.

From John Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living, Delta, 1990.

Accept the gifts that problems bring

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y mother lived all alone on a farm into her 90’s. I used to visit at least once a week – do her shopping – spend time talking and listening to the same old stories again and again. Then one day some mini strokes took a portion of her mind. Dealing with hospitals and doctors was a nightmare but at least I learned just how incompetent the system is in treating dementia. When I finally got her settled in a good place, I visited at least once a week – often more. Other so-called friends and even close family never visited more than once for the year she suffered this terrible affliction – she could be quite violent and extremely abusive verbally at times. During these visits I was a plethora of characters to her, but only on rare occasions her son. I was a shoe salesman, preacher, FBI agent, airline pilot, physician, room orderly, casino owner, my father, my brother, her father, her mother, her brother – I had been killed in a couple of wars – the list is legion – but it became fun to play along and be all these people. She told me things about her life I never knew, her long but sometimes “Pantheism faces life rocky relationship with my father, long dead, including intimate details I probably did not want to know. She talked incessantly about her oldest son – as it is, takes its gifts as me – and how she loved him from the day he was born and all the things he they arise, and accepts did to make her proud as a mother. Things and hardships about her life I never its sufferings as they knew. Many times she would end the session abruptly saying she had to get arise as well.” ready because her son – me – was on his way to visit her. At her funeral, all those who could not take time for her in her last year of affliction talked all that nonsense of going to a better place and their memories of her before her dementia. I just had to smile inside because they rejected all those gifts she had to give in her last year. They were there to celebrate her death when they could have shared that wonderful gift of her last year of life. As Richard Bach wrote: “There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.” Pantheism faces life as it is, and takes its gifts as they arise, and accepts its sufferings as they arise as well. Larger organized religions have failed miserably on this issue, The best they can do is condemn the natural world, including most humans in it as evil, then posit a magical afterlife and promise it will be better there (or worse in the reincarnation versions). All they do is turn fear inside out into HOPE – not fear faced, but replaced by a delusion. I think what a Pantheist perspective does is focus one’s mind and spirit on the present rather than some ideal past or more idealistic future. There is a Zen story about a man being chased by a tiger. He runs to a cliff and hangs over on a root. He looks down and below him is another tiger. The root begins to loosen. He looks over and sees a large ripe strawberry. He picks it and eats it. It tastes wonderful. The first tiger is being chased by fears of the past. The second tiger is fear of the future. The root is the uncertainty of life. The strawberry is grasping the present and ignoring the fears. Modern religions tend to teach us to fear so they can sell us hope – but the Pantheistic strawberry is all there is! 6

JB Maddox (Verci)

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The Invitation Mountain Dreamer New chart of ourOriah galactic home by

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dream for the adventure of being alive. It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon... I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful to be realistic to remember the limitations of being human. I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Excerpted with permission from THE INVITATION. Copyright (c) 2001 by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 10 E. 53 St., New York NY 10022 7

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Expect nothing, fear nothing, enjoy what you have Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (121-180 BCE) wrote his Meditations during the last decade of his life. These were not simply theoretical thoughts about coping with life’s gravest problems. They were written while campaigning in wars against Germanic tribes, in the midst of privation, surrounded by the deaths of enemies and friends. Marcus was acutely conscious of his own mortality, and already deeply troubled by the deep character flaws of his son Commodus who would go on to be one of the most monstrous of Roman emperors.

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom yourself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are and to make new things like them. For everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be. Uncontaminated by pleasure, unharmed by any pain, untouched by any insult, feeling no wrong, a fighter in the noblest fight, one who cannot be overpowered by any passion, dyed deep with justice, accepts with all his soul everything which happens. To be vexed at anything which happens is a separation of ourselves from nature, in some part of which the natures of all other things are contained. If you work at that which is before you, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract you, but keeping your divine part pure, as if you might be bound to give it back immediately – if you hold to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with your present activity according to nature, and with heroic truth in every word and sound which you utter, you will be happy – and there is no-one who can prevent this. Think not so much of what you have not as of what you have. Stop the pulling of the strings. Confine yourself to the present. Take away the complaint “I have been harmed” and the harm is taken away.

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Str uggling for official govern m ent recog nition In July 2008 Grant Gilbert in South Africa became (as far as we know) the first governmentrecognized Pantheist minister in the world – and it wasn’t easy. Here’s his story.

Grant Gilbert and family, South Africa.

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rom my earliest teens to my late 20’s I was an outspoken militant atheist and a very liberal campaigner for both human and animal rights. Instinctively I have always considered that all the world’s existing religions were either blatant lies or well-meaning fairy tales. Many years of personal study of all the major religions in some of the world’s best museums and libraries re-enforced my atheism but there was one small but HUGE problem!! Deep, deep, deep down, I had to secretly acknowledge to myself that there was definitely some form of

vibe or buzz within the universe. I could feel it. A very faint force of sorts, a force that seemed to flow through all things – through rocks, through trees, through the water, through air, through stars, through EVERYTHING – ever changing, ever flowing. For many years I pondered over this problem. Eventually for my own sanity I invented my very own religion, which in retrospect was actually 99 percent pure natural Pantheism. Imagine my shock when I one day stumbled onto the WPM website and found my own personal religion as being an actual existing religion. I was not alone!! Although I had managed to naturally conceive the idea of Natural Pantheism - Paul Harrison had not only done the same many years before me but he had explained it so simply that we now all understand how truly simple and beautiful it all really is. It was such a revelation. With the recent birth of my children I decided I had to do more than just be a follower. I feel I owe it to my kids to be a better person and to leave some of this beautiful natural world behind, for them and for their kids too. So I decided to become a Pantheist minister and really help spread the word and awaken the general public. I told all my friends and family that come what may I had decided to dedicate a large part of my life to Pantheism and especially to the spreading and building of a Pantheist network in Southern Africa. However to be taken seriously by the general public and to compete with other existing religions and their followers on an equal footing I decided I would have to get my marriage officer’s licence. For anyone in SA to take you seriously as a religious minister you must be able to marry people – somehow the mere fact that you can legally marry people gives the general public a feeling that you are a genuine and bona fide religious minister. I figured this would not be very difficult to accomplish, because I knew that SA has got one of the worlds most advanced constitutions in terms of protection against discrimination, freedom of expression, freedom of association, and freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion. But I did not realize at the time what a long drawn-out fight this would become. I originally enquired at my local home affairs office as to how to become a marriage officer but was quickly informed that I must deal directly with their head office in

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Johannesburg 1200km (745 miles) away from my home in Capetown. And no they did not know the contact numbers - or any other relevant or helpful information. After many, many hours of studying government

“They were adamant that the word ‘God’ or ‘Gods’ had to be in the constitution. They said ‘Just add the word God anywhere and we’ll accept it.’ I refused!” websites I found a phone number for the home affairs marriage department head office. They told me I must first get a letter from a recognized religion, requesting the Government to allow me to sit the marriage officer exam. I explained that we Pantheists were a new world religious order. In the beginning, I found that using existing religious terminology definitely helped in opening up the official government paperwork trail. New terms or words tend to scare and shock most civil servants. I explained that I was actually the head of our local South African Pantheist “church” and titled myself as a Pantheist “Reverend” (“celebrants” is a word not used here at all). I was told that’s all fine - but I would first have to have Pantheism classified as a religion and that would be by government examination of our religious organization’s constitution. I therefore put together a constitution based on the WPM information with a few choice additions from some Pagan and humanist sites. Our stated aims were: •• To make the earth-honoring life-affirming nat-

uralistic form of Pantheism widely available as a religious option and a rational alternative to traditional religions. •• To build up membership and promote Pantheism. •• To facilitate Pantheist child naming ceremonies, weddings, and funerals. •• To serve with love to meet human needs, caring for the sick and aged, advocating dignity and justice for all people, working for peace and reconciliation among the nations, standing with the poor and powerless, and committing to their needs. •• To nurture Pantheist members so as to grow in faith, hope, and love, knowledge and power; to see daily life as the primary setting for the exercise of enlightenment, and to use the gifts of the universe for their life together and for their calling in the world. •• To promote an expanding Pantheist presence on the Internet and in other media of all types. I made sure that NOWHERE in our constitution was the word GOD used. Later I received a call from the Department saying that they could not allow the constitution to go through as a religious order as we did not have the word “God” or “Gods” anywhere. They were adamant that these words had to be in the constitution. Overall they said the constitution was fine, just add the word “God” anywhere and they would accept it. I refused!! A long verbal sparring match with the civil service started. One civil servant who was specifically dealing with our case laughed and sneered at us all the way through our many heated telephonic arguments - he con-

Lessons for future celebrants The whole process taught us many lessons which might be useful to others thinking of becoming officially certified marriage celebrants. Irrespective of how many times you get shot down - and you will – don’t worry. Just continue to climb up the chain of command. It appears the more educated intelligent people will be higher up and these should normally be more understanding of our cause. A lot of our initial success was based on using terminology that conservative government officials could understand - like calling ourselves a church and using the title of Reverend. This definitely opened up the paper trail a bit in the beginning if really needed and can be changed or amended later anyway. We made a huge mistake in proclaiming too much of a “divine” belief in plants and rocks etc. We should have stuck with the excellent WPM belief statement. Religious discrimination is a very real and nasty affair once you are on the wrong side of it. Be prepared – do not lose your cool no matter how much they bait or rile you up. My saving grace was to think of Gandhi when stressed.

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tinually referred to the fact that in an opening paragraph in our constitution we had stated that we believe the divine is in everything including plants and rocks. How I regretted ever putting that paragraph in! Continually he would ignore our declaration of faith which is the WPM core statement and sniggeringly say: “But you believe in plants and rocks!” like we were really dumb people. I could not now deny that statement; there was nothing for it but to take the punch on my chin and just stick to my course. I realized I was getting nowhere with the lower grade civil servants so I continued up the chain of command. I knew that SA’s constitution guaranteed me religious freedom on paper – but securing religious freedom with predominately conservative and Christian civil servants is a different matter. In the home affairs department I was continually told: “I am not allowed to transfer your call to my supervisor,” or “My supervisor does not deal directly with the public – you must deal with me,” or “I may not directly refer you to my supervisor but I will discuss your case with them when next they are back from holiday/ hospital” etc etc. Months and months went by as we were transferred from one civil servant to another. By hook and by crook and just by phoning enough times using different callers and asking unrelated questions, we eventually figured out

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how the department works and managed to find out who’s who. By this time one and a half years had gone by - I was beyond angry and was threatening legal and constitutional action. I had had enough and was prepared to take this case to the highest court in the land if need be – irrespective of what it would cost me. Eventually I managed to get the big boss lady in charge of the entire marriage officers’ department, who reported directly to the Minister of Home Affairs. She was actually very nice and helpful, and quite shocked at how badly we had been treated. She repeatedly apologized for her antagonizing staff. She even gave me her direct phone number and told me she would inform/consult the minister and their in-house legal department about our case. A few days later she called back and told me the good news that our constitution would be accepted without the word God in it. However I would also have to sit Civil Union exams in addition to the usual basic religious Marriage Officer exams. This was actually a blessing in disguise because it meant I would be able to marry gay people and lesbians as well – as is every human’s right. Even after final government approval, the religious discrimination did not end. On the very day of writing my final marriage officer exams, the head of my local home affairs district office actively harassed me. She sarcastically enquired whether I believed in God? Did I believe in

The Capetown Pantheist Group

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the Bible? I was outraged, but tried to stay as cool as possible and just focus and concentrate on my final exam. The exam covered all the laws and regulations regarding marriages, in technical and legal language that you CAN ONLY learn like a parrot. Get one word wrong and it changes the whole law. It was like banging my head against a brick wall for almost two and a half years to achieve the above, but it was worth it if I help just one other person to see the planet and universe as it is – magical in itself - without the need for supernatural fairy tales and special dietary rules, without the need for a God who is going to send me to be tortured for all eternity because I mowed my lawn on a Sunday.

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In the end I passed, and the SA Government issued me with certificates that confirm that I am a SA government recognized and registered Pantheist Minister and an officially approved Marriage Officer for a legally registered Pantheist church of South Africa! Pantheism is now an officially recognized religion in South Africa! Now I plan to grow our small pantheist group, approaching Unitarian churches (I already gave my first sermon), targeting environmentalist meetings and organizations, University students like freethinker clubs other Atheist groups. Mostly I would like to focus on 18 to 35 year olds - this is the most difficult group to reach but I believe it will pay off the most in the long term.

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Winter 2008/9

So you want to be a celebrant? The WPM has a two-tier scheme:

• On request, supporting members can get free certification to officiate at the weddings of friends and relatives. All they need to do is sign a statement that they will faithfully respect the wishes of participants, and represent the WPM faithfully - or not use the WPM name at all. • Members who can document suitable prior qualifications can get certification to marry anyone, and have the right to use our name in advertising, on signing a similar statement. It is the celebrant’s responsibility to find out the laws and requirements, which vary from country to country and in some federal countries such as the USA, from one state to another. WPM certification does not confer any individual tax privileges or free parking rights! If you are interested write to [email protected] with your detailed needs.

Other options: Spiritual Humanism (http://www.spiritualhumanism.org/) The Universal Life Church (http://www.themonastery.org/) Both these organizations say they will ordain anyone – regardless of beliefs. Both make money by selling clergy materials, some useful, many - in the ULC - spurious, frivolous or humorous. Spiritual Humanism has a CD on the marriage laws of all 50 US states, in its “advanced clergy service pack.” The Humanist Society (http://www.humanist-society.org/ celebrants/inquiry.html) has a network of celebrants in 33 US states who will perform Humanist, nonreligious, and interreligious weddings, commitment/same-sex unions, memorials, baby namings, and other life cycle ceremonies. You can apply to become a celebrant, which requires answering a questionnaire, providing four references. There is an annual fee of $100.

From the membership secretary Mine is one of the first names that new members will see as I send out welcome letters and a copy of Pan magazine, and then, of course, you will hear from me again when it’s time to renew. I wanted to let all the members know that being membership secretary is a role that I take seriously, and I consider myself fortunate to volunteer with the WPM in this way and get to talk to some of you and hopefully answer your questions or direct you to someone who can. All the WPM board members feel strongly that our members should know we are an active and supportive group and when you have questions or concerns they aren’t falling on deaf ears. In fact, sometimes you will get answers to your questions from several people, including the WPM president, treasurer, or our resident computer expert, and we all work together to get things resolved. We try to get to all questions in a timely manner; unfortunately sometimes it make take a little longer than you hope but please be patient, and if you think it’s taking too long, just email us again. I have had several people tell me they are so glad to know that there are “real people” working for the WPM, so know that when you email [email protected] you’re reaching a group of people who are committed to making your membership in the WPM a good experience. I also serve as a moderator on some of our lists and you will occasionally see me post messages to the lists about my own personal journey as a pantheist. Mostly, though, I answer your emails and snail mails, send out welcome/ renewal letters, and post our monthly membership lists. I live in western North Carolina and have a small local WPM group and share my home with two cats and a dog. My two grown daughters are my pride and joy, and I enjoy spending time with them when I can, along with being outdoors in these beautiful mountains (my pantheist nickname is daughter_of_the_mountains), writing, wandering through antique stores, volunteering for the local cat shelter, and learning about my Celtic heritage, while working full-time as a medical transcriptionist. The WPM is made up of a wonderful group of people,

WPM membership: Join or Renew The World Pantheist Movement depends on the generous support of its members to sustain, improve and expand its activities and services. If you would like to join or renew by check in US $, please fill in the form below and mail check and form to us. Otherwise please renew at http://members.pantheism.net/imdms/ or join at http://www.pantheism.net/join.htm Please tick as applicable if this is an address change and if you wish us to correct the database entry for you. Name Address 1 Address 2 City State etc Zip code Country New?

Yes

No

Change it?

Yes

I’ll do it

Membership level: Basic ($30)

Family ($60)

Low Income ($12)

Other amount Please mail this form with your check (US $ only) to:

World Pantheist Movement P.O. Box 103, Webster, NY 14580, USA intelligent, curious, knowledgeable, and willing to share, and I’m glad to be a part of it, for almost 6 years now. If you have questions or concerns or any kind of feedback about your WPM membership, I hope to hear from you.

Sharon Wells 13

Pan Magazine

Winter 2008/9

President’s Report

WPM Summary Accounts 2007 INCOME

In 2007 our income and expenses continDividend From PayPal Money Market $232.25 ued to be roughly in balance, leaving us Interest on Bank account $52.01 with bank balances that would allow for occasional experimental spending. They Membership Dues $11,299.02 are modest - the grand total would not be Other (transfer from former UK bank acct.) $227.07 enough to buy us a one-time one-third page TOTAL INCOME $11,810.35 ad in Scientific American. We have no staff costs because all our officers and directors are unpaid volunteers. EXPENSES Our major cost continues to be search advertizing – when people search for certain Keyword advertizing $4,708.05 words, they are shown short ads with links Web hosting & domain names $483.00 to the World Pantheism website. Postage and shipping $608.81 This serves two purposes for us. The first is informative - the snappy three-line Printing Costs $2,248.99 entries get the name pantheism better Incorporation fees $77.50 known, and transmit the World Pantheist message in condensed form to people Finance Charges: who are seeking information about closely Credit Card processing fees $144.00 related areas. They spread our message M and T Bank fees $25.26 even if nobody clicks on the ads – and in that case the message costs us nothing. PayPal fees $102.09 The second purpose is to get more people Credit Card service renewal charge $449.18 interested in joining our free and member Auto Fuel Reimbursed $8.60 lists and adding their details to our geographic database. At present we are rather Equipment $184.01 widely scattered, which makes it more difServices $149.00 ficult to create local groups. Increasing our numbers would make forming local groups Supplies $77.19 and special interest sections easier, and we Misc (transfer from UK bank acct.) -$227.21 would also have more person-power for new TOTAL EXPENSES $9,038.47 and existing WPM services. We have search ad accounts with Google, Net increment for 2007 $2,771.88 Yahoo and Microsoft. Google gets 8 to 10 times more impressions (showings) than the Account Balances - As of 12/31/2006 $24,651.18 other two. Altogether, since we started with Google, our messages have been shown over Account Balances - As of 12/31/2007 $27,423.06 394 million times and our pages have gained over 323,000 visitors. It’s the cheapest and best-targeted form of advertizing: the cost per 1000 messages (CPM) has averaged $0.05, or just one cent for every 200 impressions. The cost per direct visitor to our site has averaged $0.07. Currently we are enjoying 6.6 million impressions per month. In August 2006 Google tightened its rules and started to disable keywords if the ads did not achieve a minimum clickthrough rate. However, the threshold was set quite high, especially for our type of activity which is not a specific product or service. Gradually almost all of our keywords were disabled, and to re-enable them we had to pay more. Our Internet costs will be lower in future years as all our pages are now hosted in one excellent low-priced place – Site5. My own scientific pantheism site on pantheist theory and history also moved here after AOL suddenly closed down their Hometown service where this site had previously been located. Printing costs per issue of Pan have been lower since we shifted to using Fedex-Kinkos, and the print quality has been much better. We would like to put out more issues of the magazine each year, but since it’s all done with volunteer labor, this depends on securing enough help to do it. If you would like to help please email [email protected]

Paul Harrison

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Pan Magazine

Why I am a Pantheist New members write When they join, new members have the opportunity to make their statement for publication.

I

celebrate life, I cherish the earth, I am a child of the cosmos.

Valerie White

I

have always felt that there is a fiber that runs through all of us and ties us to the earth, nature, the universe as we know it and beyond. I have never been able to find a way to express this feeling or belief, but then I found the WPM. The beliefs of the WPM fits like a glove with how I perceive the world and my place in it.

T. D.

I

believe all of mankind needs to fully understand where they "fit" in the universe. The more we understand and recognize the "magic" going on around us everyday, the more we will respect and honor it.

D. D.

I

am at home tending nature, in awe of everything that grows, at home alone in nature, the sky in unbelievable, I do not attend a church or traditional religion as it makes the power of the Universe and Nature too small. I am uplifted by being outdoors. I wish my

knowledge was much larger but I'm learning and enjoying it.

Julie Homan

M

y spiritual requirements are met, not by abrogating my intelligence to revealed religion and rituals, but rather in the awe of natural science.

Shaiya Baer

T

he grains of sand on the beach that I walk upon are made of the same atoms and energy as the waves that lap at my feet, the wind, the earth, the moon, the stars and all of the most amazing things I could ever imagine are all part of and within us all. All connected but with a different destiny. Born from the same universe that is trying to figure itself out - to better itself. Knowing this gives me a great respect for nature and humankind. The belief in self, in the world and the universe will set our true potential free.

Euan Wakenshaw

I

see a numinosity in the wonder of the natural universe that dwarfs all supernaturalist conceptions of deity.

A. G.

I

am a lover of nature and I believe we should be giving and not taking from the earth. We should be living in harmony with mother earth, not abusing her for our own selfish needs for material things we could live without. I believe god is nature and we are all interconnected. Therefore more compassion should be spread. There is nothing more beautiful than the truth. Nature is the truth.

Julie Chapelhow

Winter 2008/9

M

y deepest experiences of peace and wonder have always come from considering the details of the amazing macrocosm and microcosm from which we arise, are sustained and, at the end, returned.

Michael Yonkers

I

've always felt a connection to nature that could not be explained by reverence to any supernatural being. My beliefs center around how all living thing coexists with each other and with nature in a timeless cycle. I feel that, as individuals created by and returning to nature, we are each part of a universal consciousness that is manifested in the peacefulness and power of nature.

B. E.

IK. S.

just am. Always have been.

I

have studied the Tao Te Ching for many years, and after discovering the WPM site, realized I was a Pantheist all these years as well, and didn't even know it. I'm always in awe of the stars, the summer storms, the trees, the ocean, the air - I feel such a part of it all, down to my innermost soul; it's a great and calming feeling. I'm glad I found so many others who feel it too. Thanks.

Christopher Nolin

T

he world reveals itself to my senses as a source of wonder and even at times, ecstasy. Because of the scientific picture of an ancient cosmos unfolding wonder after wonder through time, including stars, microbes, living planet, blue

15

Pan Magazine

Winter2008/9

skies, animals, rainforests, oceans, and humans. Because of the great power and beauty of nature. Because of its rational breadth and depth, comprehending the place of traditional religions while giving a wider scope to religious feeling that does not divide into the humanistic and scientific. Because it gives a place to our imagining as well as our knowing and doing – and sees our imagining and acting as part of the creativity of the living universe itself.

Amy Hannon

I

believe in the unity and the individualistic nature of all things, organic and nonorganic on the earth in the atmosphere and in the whole universe, and that we and all things move within and are of

Special events

William Fell-Holden

I

find this difficult if not impossible to answer, much as if you asked me why I am right handed. As Popeye so often stated "I Yam what I Yam!"

Randy Holmes

I

struggle with the concept of God as an individual, with human characteristics. I believe the energy that is within us and all of creation is God. The universe and all within it is breathtaking and awesome and fills me with love and wonder - this energy makes me strive for compassion and respect towards all beings.

believe that everything on earth, and in the universe, is connected. Everything is made of the same elements, constantly recycled in different combinations. If we value ourselves, we must value everything else as having the same components as ourselves.

M. P. K.

I

have a reverence for all of Nature. I have always thought the same spirit of life runs through all things of nature. You, me, the mountain, the tree, the very earth herself.

Yvette Tillema

February 2: Imbolc 12: Darwin’s birthday: Evolution 14: Valentine’s Day: Day of partners 15: Birthday of Galileo: Solar system 17: Giordano Bruno’s martyrdom: Religious freedom March 1: Yellowstone Park established: focus on parks 8: International Women’s Day 14: Einstein’s birthday: the Univers

Equinoxes & Solstices

Winter solstice December 21 12:04 Spring Equinox March 20 11:44

Full Moons December 12 January 11 February 9 March 11

16:37 03:27 14:49 02:38

All times Universal time = Greenwich Mean Time

Temple of Phliae, Egypt

January 11 International Laughter Day 16 Martin Luther King Jr. Day Focus on non-discrimination 22 Surrender of Native lands by Chief Seattle

I

E. F.

Calendar & Almanac

December 1 World AIDS Day 2 International Day for the Abolition of Slavery 3 International Day of Disabled Persons 10 Human Rights Day 25 Birth of Isaac Newton [1642] 29 International Day for Biological Diversity

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the same rhythm - and that rhythm is affirmative.