My angels - proof

I've been trying to explain to the kids that our cats are not 'gone' but have instead, gone ahead. They were sweet and loving kitties and are 'angels in kitty heaven' now. A dear friend found the following artwork and sent it to us. Look and you will find our angels in this beautiful picture. (Thank you Leila! I love this!)

(Thanks to the artist - I am borrowing this without permission. I hope in this personal use, I can be forgiven.)

I do not have an answer to what comes after life - but I do not worry about defining it. I understand that some people take comfort in trying to define the unknowable, and that's a good thing, but to me, it doesn't matter. Why bother trying to put a label on it if there is no one to tell me if I am right or wrong? I'll find out when I get there. And, I cannot change it once I'm there. What will be, will be. Now, in this current life, I cannot see the afterlife, or touch it, or affect it... therefore I must believe that the only thing in my control, is this life, and I do believe that what I make of it, will translate into what happens in the next... because I do believe we have souls that carry on. I believe we have a responsibility to our souls.. and part of that responsibility is respecting the souls of others, even those who are not human.

I am not Christian, but I find a lot of lovely wisdom in the Bible. I believe my spirit should be inclusive, not exclusive, so I am pleased when I find solace in any religious and/or spiritual work:

From Genesis:

20 And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living souls, and let fowl fly above the earth in the expanse of the heavens. 21 And God created the great sea monsters, and every living soul that moves with which the waters swarm, after their kind, and every winged fowl after its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply on the earth. 23 And there was evening, and there was morning a fifth day.

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth living souls after their kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth, after their kind. And it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth after its kind, and the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing of the ground after its kind. And God saw that it was good.

I have found variations of this verse using 'creature' rather than 'soul', but I also found this Hebrew definition:

Scofield Reference Notes

The sixth day: (1) the fecundity of the earth after the creative work of the fifth day.

[2] living creature

"Creature," Heb. nephesh, trans. soul in Gen 2.7 and usually. In itself nephesh, or soul, implies self-conscious life, as distinguished from plants, which have unconscious life. In the sense of self-conscious life animals also have "soul." See verses Gen 1:26,27 2:7,21-23. See Scofield Note: "Gen 1:26".

Anyone who has ever loved and been loved by an animal, knows that animals are self-aware and have souls, which should give us all a deeper understanding of our responsibility to our fellow creatures. I'm not suggesting we must all turn vegetarian or else go to hell! I believe that nature was created/evolved to be as it is and there truly is a food web that works... why fight our omnivorous place in it? But we should be responsible about our place in this web. There is plenty of room for conservation, and even more room for kindness.

The Holy Quran also speaks of the souls of animals and their afterlife:

There is no creature crawling on the earth or flying creature, flying on its wings, who are not communities just like yourselves - We have not omitted anything from the Book - then they will be gathered to their Lord. (Surat al-An'am, 38)

Do you not see that everyone in the heavens and earth glorifies Allah, as do the birds with their outspread wings? Each one knows its prayer and glorification. Allah knows what they do. (Surat an-Nur, 41)

Rather pretty to think of birds with outspread wings, in prayer.

I also liked this bit about animals in Islam:

The Holy Prophet(s) used to say: "Whoever is kind to the creatures of God, is kind to himself." (Wisdom of Prophet Mohammad(s); Muhammad Amin; The Lion Press, Lahore, Pakistan; 1945).

According to the learned commentators of the Qur'an Majeed….animals all live a life, individual and social, like members of a human commune. In other words, they are like communities in their own right and not in relation to human species or its values. These details have been mentioned to emphasize the point that even those species which are generally considered as insignificant or even dangerous deserve to be treated as communities; that their intrinsic and not perceptible values should be recognized, irrespective of their usefulness or their apparent harmfulness."

The significant point to note is that, physically, man has been put in the same bracket as all other species. The following Hadith leaves no ambiguity in the scene in which the Qur'an Majeed uses the word 'community': Abu Huraira reported the Prophet(s) as telling of an incident that happened to another prophet in the past. This prophet was stung by an ant and, in anger, he ordered the whole of the ants' nest to be burned. At this, God reprimanded this prophet in these words: 'because one ant stung you, you have burned a whole community which glorified Me'. (Bukhari and Muslim).

And while it is good to gain wisdom from those who came before... the wise and the learned and the time proven... wisdom can also be found, surprisingly, in some of the fluff-filled silliness that washes up in our email in-boxes. Take this example:

A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead.

He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them.

After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight.

When he was standing before it he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side.

When he was close enough, he called out, 'Excuse me, where are we?'

'This is Heaven, sir,' the man answered.

'Wow! Would you happen to have some water?' the man asked.

'Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought right up.' The man gestured, and the gate began to open.

'Can my friend,' gesturing toward his dog, 'come in, too?' the traveller asked.

'I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept pets.'

The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going with his dog.

After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence. As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.

'Excuse me!' he called to the man. 'Do you have any water?'

'Yeah, sure, there's a pump over there, come on in.'

'How about my friend here?' the traveller gestured to the dog.

'There should be a bowl by the pump.'

They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it. The traveller filled the water bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog. When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree. 'What do you call this place?' the traveller asked.

'This is Heaven,' he answered.

'Well, that's confusing,' the traveller said. 'The man down the road said that was Heaven, too.'

'Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That's hell.'

'Doesn't it make you mad for them to use your name like that?'

'No, we're just happy that they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind.'

2 by 2

And they came, two by two, to view the baby Jesus, and hang out with Shrek...

Sure, it would have been nice to have posted Christmas-y pics closer to Christmas, but the internet has not been cooperating. This picture of our unconventional and ever-changing nativity was too much fun not to share. I about spilled my coffee when I first saw the Ogre had joined the group in adoration. Well, why not ogres.. they have layers, right?

And why do we have a nativity set anyway? We're not Christian. We are trying to raise the kids with a good sense of God though, and an open-minded acceptance of all religious paths. We want them to have a good foundation of morals and values, an appreciation and acceptance of all forms of spiritual expression, and true belief in the divine. With this background we think they'll be able to find the religion that fits them best, and truly works for them, when they are old enough to know who they are. The details do not really matter - all religions are faulty by nature. Made by humans, and humans are not the perfect ones. Religion is just a tool we use to communicate with the Spirit, and so it is good to learn that all of man's religions have good and bad parts, true and false, etc. It's also important to learn that we do NOT have all of the answers, and we do NOT know what the true path is - only God knows that, and in my opinion, I think God is great enough to have made more than one true path. He made us all different, so, why not? We try to teach the kids a bit about everything as we come across it. They'll figure out the path that fits them best later, and, hopefully, will follow it truthfully while retaining a love and respect for other paths too. Anyway, a nativity set is a good, hand's-on (you better believe I got a set the kids can play with - clay breaks, but glues well too!) learning aid for Christianity. Ok, Shrek is a stretch... but we have to believe that god loves us all. Even ogres.

Freedom of Religion in the US - it's about time

Tomorrow is Veteran's Day, but I'm thinking about this today, so I'll start early to get you all thinking about this important day too.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

Sometimes, in the US, we take our freedoms and rights for granted. Often, we do so to such an extent that we do not notice when others in the US continue to face institutionalized bias and prejudice. It's easy to understand. We believe that our laws cover us, right? I mean, how often do we read that it is it wrong to "discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, skin color, religion, gender, or national origin"? It's everywhere! Wander over to the wiki page on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and peruse a bit of history. Looks pretty good, and there are, clearly written, exceptions, but in this day and age, are people really hurt by that stuff. Does institutional discrimination against religion still occur? You bet it does.

In the year 2002, a World War II veteran, PFC Abraham Kooiman, who had been awarded a Bronze Star and Purple Heart, passed away. He was interred in Arlington National Cemetery, and his wife, like many other military spouses, applied to the VA for a headstone. Eligibility for a VA marker is stated as follows: "The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) furnishes upon request, at no charge to the applicant, a Government headstone or marker for the unmarked grave of any deceased eligible veteran in any cemetery around the world, regardless of their date of death. The VA may also provide a headstone or marker for graves that are marked with a private headstone or marker, for veterans that died on or after November 1, 1990.". However, although he met the eligibility requirements, the request for PFC Kooiman's headstone, with his emblem of belief, was denied. Why? Because of religious discrimination. PFC Kooiman was pagan.

To put it very simply, the VA has the authority to decide who has a valid religion, and who does not. Oh, they might argue against my wording here, but the reality is, if your symbol of belief is not on their approved list, too bad for you. They can discriminate against you. Oh, and you do not actually have to have a "religion" to be on the list... the symbol for Atheist is on their list, #16, and has been there for a long time... but if the VA does not approve of your religion, you are in for a legal battle. The battle for the pentacle took ten years. Much too long, in my humble opinion. Not only because of the shame of living with the hypocrisy... our soldiers can claim the religion they want whilst alive, they may proudly display it on their ID tags and practice their beliefs on active duty - but the VA does not have to honor them in death. This was shame enough. What is saddest to me though, is that although this particular legal battle ended in success in April of 2007, Mrs. Rosemary Kooiman passed away in March of 2005... the only pentacle she ever saw on her husband's headstone was an emblem, a sticker of protest, taped on the front his empty headstone.

I will not fill my blog retelling the history of the Pagan Headstone Campaign, the Veteran Pentacle Quest, or whatever name people wish to remember this particular fight under. This particular chapter is finally closed and the Wiccan Pentacle was finally included in the list of approved emblems by the VA. A very significant individual in this closing act, was Mrs. Roberta Stewart, wife of Sgt. Patrick D. Stewart who was killed in action in Afghanistan, and officials of the State of Nevada, who determined they had authority over State Veteran cemeteries and approved Sgt. Stewart's marker. Please visit the Circle Sanctuary page on the pentacle quest for more articles, history, images, and news articles.

I must share this quote:

John W. Whitehead, President of the Rutherford Institute, wrote in his June 5, 2006, editorial on Christianity Today's website, "Although our country was founded on a Judeo-Christian base, the Framers of the Constitution understood that religious freedom was for everyone, not just Christians. In other words, the only way that freedom can prevail for Christians is for Christians to stand up and fight for the minority beliefs and religions of others."

If only we all could display such tolerance! The world would be a much kinder place.

Also, drop by the VA website to view a list of 'approved emblems of belief'. True, the title of this page does say 'available', not 'approved', but scroll on down the list. Yes, that is the Wiccan symbol, finally, at the end there. But look further. Notice the fine print: "No graphics (logos, symbols, etc.) are permitted on Government-furnished headstones or markers other than the approved emblems of belief, the Civil War Union Shield, the Civil War Confederate Southern Cross of Honor, and the Medal of Honor insignias."
Did you see your emblem of belief as you scrolled down? If you are a member of a mainstream religion, you probably did. Lucky you. I'm a veteran, a Druid, and my symbol is not on the list.
The Awen

So, tomorrow, if you are off work for Veteran's day, first of all... enjoy the free day! Go shop, BBQ, do nothing, be free... that's what I'm doing! But remember our veterans. Think of our soldiers - past, present, and future. Reflect on our recent election and the historic relevance of our selecting President Obama. Think of the light that he has shone - full of hope and promise - his mere presence in the campaign a reflection of how much we have grown and changed as a nation, and we have, grown and changed, but let's not forget that we still have far to go. There are still pockets of bias, prejudice, and discrimination that should not exist. Keep this in mind, and have a blessed Veteran's day.

Support our heros... all of them.

International Day of Peace

September 21st is the International Day of Peace. Did you celebrate? It's ok if you forgot... it can (and should) be made up every day :-)

The kids at the school, elementary through high school, have been working on, and discussing, peace projects and topics for a while now. The school held an assembly with a moment of silence and statements about what the children thought of peace. The school also sang their peace song - it was very beautiful. Unfortunately, my battery didn't make it that far into the assembly, but the school website has photos and a recording of children singing the "CAC Peace Song".

Here are some photos I managed to catch:

Beautiful art by the students...
Honor and her class lining up for assembly
Brian and his class arrive
The whole school gathered together

Oneness

A friend shared this and I like it so much, I'll pass it along here:

Elder's Meditation of the Day - September 3

"Once you have achieved this oneness, when you talk, God talks; when you act, God acts."

(apparently this whole quote is to be credited to)--Chuck Ross, LAKOTA

In my innermost self, I know this to be true. I know of this oneness. The more I am free of doubt, jealousy, judgment, selfishness, anger, the closer I am to this oneness. When I am right with the Creator, nothing can touch me. When I am right with the Creator I always say the right things. When I am right with the Creator, my thoughts are always good. When I am right with the Creator, my actions are always good.

Great Spirit, remove from me those things that block me from You. Allow me this day to experience the oneness.