Grace

Pagans and witches talk a lot about power: power over self and how to bend things to our will. We use visualization and mind over matter, meditation and focusing. Some of us also talk a lot about using the power of the Elements or Nature to satisfy our desires and create change. But do we ever actually focus on seeking and accepting grace? Occultists don't talk about grace too often, but I feel it's an important part of our magickal development.

A few dictionary definitions of grace is to dignify, honor, favor, enhance, ennoble, glorify, elevate, improve. Do you have any more to add? I do.

Sitting in silence is grace. Listening to rain. Hearing crickets singing in the grass. The changing colors of Autumn, animals at home and in the wild. Laughing and mirth. Being of one accord within the Circle. Finding your tribe. Good conversation. Just being alive and being appreciative you are.

Recognizing grace is a form of gratitude, and one of the things that empowers us to speak gratitude.
From what I am seeing in the community, it seems to me that we are loosing our ability to humble ourselves. There is way too much bragging about our magickal abilities, especially when it concerns "being messed with". It sounds to me very much like a child taking a tantrum. Is it really necessary to seek retribution for every perceived slight? I don't think so. Real strength is letting most of it to slid off and not being knocked off course. There are other mundane ways of settling a score-ways that don't include magick. Running for our BOS for every little thing is being lazy. (I'm not talking about when your are actually harmed or threatened, then a working for protection is not unreasonable.) Being humble is not belittling ourselves, rather, it is knowing who we are and being open to learning more-because we don't know it all, and we never will. Knowledge of the Craft is infinite.

Being open and yearning to know the lessons of the Universe, elevating your personal vibration, connecting with the gods is a state of grace. We don't often think of it that way...but it is. Grace is not specific to one religious tradition and it is not church- speak; it is recognizing a gift and expressing thanks for that gift.

True power does not involve influencing the behavior of others or the course of events (once again, not when actually threatened with harm). It is not about control or authority. It is not an ego boost. It is not mastery over others. It is about using your abilities to benefit and heal. It's about acting with discernment. It about  self-mastery, asking for and accepting needed change in yourself....and being open to grace when it appears in our lives.

Goodness and Grace

"You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain
Too much love drives a man insane
You broke my will, oh what a thrill
Goodness gracious great balls of fire..."

~Jerry Lee Lewis, 1957. Lyrics by Otis Blackwell & Jack Hammer

The conservative 'hard line' of both the Protestant Episcopal and Roman Catholic Churches are recovering from monumental blows delivered by their prelates. Both His Holiness Pope Francis and The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church,  have managed to outrage the more traditional element of their respective faith traditions by delivering statements which not only go against their respective dogma, but negates a few of the Christianity's most flaunted tenants.


First, the Presiding Bishop, speaking to a crowd in Venezuela on May 20th, told the gathered faithful, "Salvation comes not from being cleansed of our sins by the atoning sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, but through the divinization of humanity through the work of the human will."[http://anglicanink.com/article/diversity-not-jesus-saves-says-presiding-bishop ]

Wait... are these the words of the leader of the Episcopal Church, or is Bishop Katherine actually sounding a lot like Aleister Crowley? ( "Love is the Law, Love under will.", Liber Al vel Legis [Book of the Law,1904, L 1:57] However you feel about Crowley as a human being, he was an intelligent, well-read and gifted man. I will admit that I personally find some of his habits ( and resulting attitude) repugnant, but, um...so were some of Gandhi's [http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/27/mohandas-gandhi-women-india].

Whatever has lead Bishop Katherine to this new definition of salvation, it is spiritually deep and personal; you don't just toss centuries of dogma aside when you are the supreme leader of a large religious movement...even if it is badly constructed dogma. Especially if you do so knowing full well and good that it will cause more anal puckering among local diocesan Bishops and clergy than a lemon enema.

What The PB actually did was make the distinction between atonement and salvation. In basic Christian theology, atonement refers to the pardoning of human sin (forgiveness) through the crucifixion of Jesus, therefor reconciling Man and God. Salvation, on the other hand, is the protection or deliverance of the individual from consequences either by the grace or whim of a deity. When the sacredness of humankind is recognized as equally important as that of a god, then the role of co-creator with Divinity is put into its rightful place. The Divine is seen in people, and is know by their actions toward each other and Nature.
That is what I believe was meant by the Presiding Bishop's statement. It is a simple truth when the embroidery is stripped away.


Three days later, on May 23rd, Pope Francis stated that being an atheist is fine- as long as you do good.
There is an innate goodness in all of us. No human being begins their existence as an evildoer; it is the choices and path that individual follows later in life that defines them.
http://news.discovery.com/history/religion/pope-francis-on-atheists-unprecedented-130523.htm



Holy Schism, Batman, two of Christendom's major players just mouthed the same words many Pagans have been saying since the first of us crawled out of the primordial bog. We are not only not afflicted with 'original sin', but we are good people from the start, and because we are ourselves divine. God/dess is within us. We are not reaching outside ourselves, but looking in. If that which you seek you cannot find within, you will never find it without- isn't that what Doreen Valiente was trying to convey in the Charge of the Goddess? Look inside, examine the heart, and you will see not only what is inside the heart, but the soul.

Goodness is the birthright of humankind. What an astounding revelation, given what we've been lead to believe through our formative years. There is goodness within us. Great balls of fire, the flame just leaped up and caught hold, and the chaff was burned away....

AmethJera,copyright 2013