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Sep. 9th, 2004 09:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sigersonThis lot is from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
2h20. Usual drill: if you want to be asked five questions, post a comment asking so; then post the questions and answers in your journal.
1. What do you hope to accomplish in grad school?
I’ll take that to mean the master’s degree, not the so-very-far-away doctorate. Several things. Here’s some of the most important…To establish for myself where my strengths are—in research, in service, in writing, in interviewing; in the theory of religion, the public face of it, or the meaning of its manifestations. To better myself. Archaic-sounding but true. To hone my writing and thinking to a fine edge.
Ultimately, to heal. To find a way to live together, sanely. To bring respect and scholarship of the neopagan tradition without glossing over its faults. To establish possible ways for people to talk between religions, and between theists and atheists and agnostics, without condescension or assimilation or diminution.
To clear away the fuzzy thinking that surrounds my faith, strip it away without tearing away the mystery, and show that what lies underneath is strong and worthwhile—though I can never show that it is true.
Religions are not so incredibly different that the only recourses are silence or violence But the statement that “at heart, all religions are one” is like looking at a thirty-course banquet and saying “Well, it’s all food”—facile and dismissive. There has to be a way to live together.
2. How do you define your religion?
Quick label: Neo-Paganism. Neo because as far as we (pagans) can tell, the way we practice today has not so very much to do with ancient pagan rituals. About one step further removed from early Christian love-feasts and today’s Vatican mass.
What that means for me, belief:
There are things for which I have no rational explanation, and so I turn to faith. There is a divine force present within the world, and it is One insofar as it is Everything. Including bad things. The face of this Everything that I reach to is female, and kind, and beautiful; she is, by turns, a mother, a harsh tutor, a crone, a lover, a child. She is present in all things, and all things are present in her. That means she’s me, too. And you.
What that means for me, practice:
Keep this divinity in mind at all times; honor all others as being part of her, but remember that so am I. Pray and meditate at the solstice and equinox, focusing on thanks to the universe for my life and hopes for the coming times. Offer up the shiny at times. (I have a small shrine, primarily for mindfulness.) I’m not so very good at this. I have a hard time remembering to meditate on the full moon, and a habit of putting it off.
What that means for me, ethics:
Still working it out. Do no harm is a good start. Don’t ask another to make a sacrifice you would not make yourself. A cause that demands the pain of a few for the happiness of many is suspect—but not automatically wrong. I guess this is another thing I’m hoping to hash out during grad school.
3. What's your favorite children's book?
Phoo! Something easier! Small children: Goodnight Moon. Because it just plain invites bedtime.
Slightly larger ones: Animalia. Beautiful illustrations and lots of I-spy. Biggish ones: The Westing Game. Or maybe The Book of Three. Or The Dark is Rising. Um. I seem to have many favorites.
4. If you had to spend next week in a foreign capital, which would you choose and why?
Tokyo. Nope, can’t speak a word of Japanese (otaku? hentai? bishounen?), but after seeing Lost in Translation, I realized how much I wanted the brief immersion in a totally alien culture that this would provide. More alien, and I’d probably be somewhere far less friendly to Americans.
And sadly, I don’t want to go to London anymore. Not until the Red Cross changes its blood donation policy.
5. What character concept have you always wanted to play but never had the chance?
You know, I usually come up with these shortly before game, so I don’t know. Plus I get to play all kinds of them when I GM. Let me see, here’s a brief assortment:
--Crippled armsmaster. Could fight like anything once, but now I’ve lost an eye and some fingers and nothing works quite right.
--Crotchety old bastard.
--Heavily closeted gay fighter.
--Priest of the God of Pain, whose healing spells will heal you but nearly cause a seizure in the process, it hurts so much. Probably evil.
Awright! Any takers?
2h20. Usual drill: if you want to be asked five questions, post a comment asking so; then post the questions and answers in your journal. 1. What do you hope to accomplish in grad school?
I’ll take that to mean the master’s degree, not the so-very-far-away doctorate. Several things. Here’s some of the most important…To establish for myself where my strengths are—in research, in service, in writing, in interviewing; in the theory of religion, the public face of it, or the meaning of its manifestations. To better myself. Archaic-sounding but true. To hone my writing and thinking to a fine edge.
Ultimately, to heal. To find a way to live together, sanely. To bring respect and scholarship of the neopagan tradition without glossing over its faults. To establish possible ways for people to talk between religions, and between theists and atheists and agnostics, without condescension or assimilation or diminution.
To clear away the fuzzy thinking that surrounds my faith, strip it away without tearing away the mystery, and show that what lies underneath is strong and worthwhile—though I can never show that it is true.
Religions are not so incredibly different that the only recourses are silence or violence But the statement that “at heart, all religions are one” is like looking at a thirty-course banquet and saying “Well, it’s all food”—facile and dismissive. There has to be a way to live together.
2. How do you define your religion?
Quick label: Neo-Paganism. Neo because as far as we (pagans) can tell, the way we practice today has not so very much to do with ancient pagan rituals. About one step further removed from early Christian love-feasts and today’s Vatican mass.
What that means for me, belief:
There are things for which I have no rational explanation, and so I turn to faith. There is a divine force present within the world, and it is One insofar as it is Everything. Including bad things. The face of this Everything that I reach to is female, and kind, and beautiful; she is, by turns, a mother, a harsh tutor, a crone, a lover, a child. She is present in all things, and all things are present in her. That means she’s me, too. And you.
What that means for me, practice:
Keep this divinity in mind at all times; honor all others as being part of her, but remember that so am I. Pray and meditate at the solstice and equinox, focusing on thanks to the universe for my life and hopes for the coming times. Offer up the shiny at times. (I have a small shrine, primarily for mindfulness.) I’m not so very good at this. I have a hard time remembering to meditate on the full moon, and a habit of putting it off.
What that means for me, ethics:
Still working it out. Do no harm is a good start. Don’t ask another to make a sacrifice you would not make yourself. A cause that demands the pain of a few for the happiness of many is suspect—but not automatically wrong. I guess this is another thing I’m hoping to hash out during grad school.
3. What's your favorite children's book?
Phoo! Something easier! Small children: Goodnight Moon. Because it just plain invites bedtime.
Slightly larger ones: Animalia. Beautiful illustrations and lots of I-spy. Biggish ones: The Westing Game. Or maybe The Book of Three. Or The Dark is Rising. Um. I seem to have many favorites.
4. If you had to spend next week in a foreign capital, which would you choose and why?
Tokyo. Nope, can’t speak a word of Japanese (otaku? hentai? bishounen?), but after seeing Lost in Translation, I realized how much I wanted the brief immersion in a totally alien culture that this would provide. More alien, and I’d probably be somewhere far less friendly to Americans.
And sadly, I don’t want to go to London anymore. Not until the Red Cross changes its blood donation policy.
5. What character concept have you always wanted to play but never had the chance?
You know, I usually come up with these shortly before game, so I don’t know. Plus I get to play all kinds of them when I GM. Let me see, here’s a brief assortment:
--Crippled armsmaster. Could fight like anything once, but now I’ve lost an eye and some fingers and nothing works quite right.
--Crotchety old bastard.
--Heavily closeted gay fighter.
--Priest of the God of Pain, whose healing spells will heal you but nearly cause a seizure in the process, it hurts so much. Probably evil.
Awright! Any takers?
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-10 03:48 pm (UTC)Oh my. Things I don't already know...that is MANY.
1. Tell me the basis of your ideal society. Beneficent dictatorship? (allowing that those things never happen in RL) Consensus-based, and small? Peaceful hegemony?
2. What do you do to get over stage fright?
3. For one year, you must earn your living by heavy manual labor--ditch digging, road work, bricklaying, or the like. What do you choose?
4. I know more about your musical side, but---What drew you to physics? Does it still draw you? Even a little?
5. The icecaps have melted, and the world is in catastrophe, but you are safe in your hideaway. Where is it? What's there?