Interesting article by Adam Gabbatt in The Guardian exploring how the pandemic has accelerated a trend of church closures in the US:
Losing their religion: why US churches are on the decline
“As the US adjusts to an increasingly non-religious population, thousands of churches are closing each year – probably accelerated by Covid”
There’s been a discussion on the internet recently about de-baptism.
Here’s an excellent article about it from John Beckett over at Patheos: Debaptism: You Probably Don’t Need It, But It Can Be Done
…you can’t unpour water. The baptism happened and we can’t pretend it didn’t.
John Beckett
But we can reverse its effects.
Further thoughts and resources on de-baptism after the jump.
Continue readingA poem about maps and paths and stars that was shared in a thread on Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s Substack, Life is a sacred text.
Continue readingI came to terms with being gay in 1996. At the time I was an evangelical Christian and tried to keep my faith for two and a half years. It didn’t work. I realized that even if I accepted I was gay, my upbringing had taught me to hate myself and see myself as worthless so I needed a change.
Part 2: My First Witchcraft Book
I made many new friends to support me. The friend group I got involved with consisted of a lot of witches and Pagans. I asked one of them for a book recommendation. They recommended Cunningham’s book. I fell in love. Magic resonated with me. And the God and Goddess were full of love and acceptance.
From a series of Mastodon toots by Jarred the Wyrd-Worker detailing his spiritual journey. (Read the rest on Mastodon)
There was a guy in one of my classes — let’s call him Jonathan — who was openly gay. I had never knowingly interacted with, or even seen, anyone gay before. … He just stood and sang, a capella. It was honestly beautiful in its own right — Jonathan has a great voice. But, as he sang, all my feelings coalesced into an understanding. He was singing about what Black folks experienced and still experience in America — something I had never been taught. He was also, I think, singing about his own experience as a gay man — something I had also never been taught.
— Read more at Rochelle, “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child”. NonNumberChar, Medium
A really nice post about discovering that you can enjoy the cycles of the seasons without needing to believe in the gods: you can be an AtheoPagan.
I realized I could do anything that I wanted to do. For someone raised in an oppressive religion, this thought is life changing. And what did I want to do? Two things topped my agenda. First, I wanted to read anything and everything I’d missed in all those years. That project is still ongoing. And second, I wanted to mark the passage of time through the seasons.
GUEST POST: A Memorable Mabon on the AtheoPaganism blog
Changing Paths 