A Simple Gift Tis a gift to be simple, tis a gift to be free Tis a gift to come down where you ought

to be And when youve come down in the place just right Twill be in the valley of love and delight Most medieval Arthurian legends begin at Pentecost. Many of the poets state this timing clearly in the opening lines of the story or poem, as in Ywain, The Knight of the Lion: The good King Arthur of Britain, whose knighthood inspires us to be valiant and courteous, held a noble court as befits a king on that lavish feast which men are accustomed to call Pentecost. Other poets imply it by setting the poem in May, the month when Pentecost usually occurs. During all the years Ive read and studied medieval literature, Ive never known what Pentecost really means. I dont know whether the professors assumed we already knew, felt that it was irrelevant, didnt know themselves, or whether they did say something that I paid little attention to. A few weeks ago I discovered what Pentecost is all about and a little of its origins, and it gave me a deeper understanding of Arthurian romance

Howard/Simple and its underlying themes. Before this revelation I knew in what time of year the legends were set; I knew that they were usually quest stories, and often holy quests--the search for the Holy Grail, for

example--, though sometimes love and adventure were the main goals; I knew that these journeys were transformational, that they deepened and clarified the characters who underwent them--as Gawain is changed through his encounter with the Green Knight. All these facts about these stories I already knew, but not until this moment could I put them all together and see clearly the religious underpinning of all the adventures, both sacred and secular, and how the knights were aligning themselves with the apostles, taking part in the Great Commission, going forth, therefore, to convert the heathen, to gain a higher level of understanding and enlightenment. And even King Arthurs ideas surrounding the Round Table, that the knights are all equal, that they live in Christian harmony, that this table is where they assemble, alludes to the table in the upper room where Jesus broke bread and poured wine, and where Christ appeared to the apostles preparing them for the Great Commission. Another theme threading through medieval literature is the pilgrimage. Pilgrimages were very popular, many people made them, and they were commonly found in literature, both secular--Chaucers Canterbury Tales--and sacred--(anon.) Everyman. The pilgrimage theme was used in Arthurian legends to show the increased spiritual

Howard/Simple and mental development of the hero. But these literary uses depended upon the more basic metaphor of human life being itself a pilgrimage, from birth to death. And during our life journeys, we pass through many stages of development. These stages of development and maturity were conventionalized in the medieval romance in the form of a spiral. The hero--who can be male or female--begins at a particular place--both physically and mentally/spiritually. There is then a journey outward, away from that place, during which the hero undergoes severe trials, temptations, hardships, etc. After passing through this stage, which may last years of the heros life, he returns home, often to great accolades. If the hero dies, as in many of the saints lives, one is assured that he has gone to heaven. But the hero is different after these trials. He may now be in the same place where he started, but that highlights how different he is inside--which is why the pattern follows a spiral rather than a circle. The physical movement from place to place is a metaphor for the heros inner development. I almost said simply a metaphor, but its not simple at all. The

physical journey, like the pilgrimage, is not merely allegory or analogy. The realities and dangers of the journey itself are what help to change the hero. It is his facing up to the challenges of the adventure that makes him a better person, that allows him to achieve not only concrete, earthly success, but heavenly success as well.

Howard/Simple This medieval tendency to see life and development as a pilgrimage is one of the reasons I love this literature, and find it so fascinating. It has taught me to see my own life as a pilgrimage, although not always a religious one. The spiral movement makes intuitive sense to me as well, as I reflect on my own travels back and forth across the country, ending up again and again in the same region, if not the same city--this is the fourth time Ive returned to Kent. The pilgrimage also allows me to look at my life through a spiritual lens, investigating and exploring my own search for, not God exactly, but for ways to express a relationship to and with God, even as my conception of God has changed as I have changed. And the spiral reminds me again and again, at whatever stage I may have attained, that I am not finished, I have not achieved enlightenment, I have not found the Holy Grail. Not yet. When I was at college, I took courses in Old English, the language of the Anglo-Saxons. In one of these classes we read selections from King Alfreds Old English translation of the Venerable Bedes (Latin) History of the English Church and People. Bede was an amazing man. He was orphaned at age seven and was sent to the

monastery at Jarrow where he spent literally the rest of his life, leaving probably only twice, once to visit the monastery at Lindisfarne and once to see his friend Egbert, the Archbishop of York. Im afraid that while discussing life as a pilgrimage, I gave the impression that one

Howard/Simple must travel from place to place. Bede is a contrary example. He

traveled very little in his lifetime, and yet was among the most learned people in the Western world. He was highly respected in Rome, and when he requested letters and other documents for his History and other writing--particularly saints lives--, the Bishop of Rome sent the materials to England. Some call Bede the father of English history because of this original and important work. Others call him the father of modern history because he understood, from our perspective, the notion of evidence and how to organize and use it. He was keen on using eyewitness accounts of the events he describes--which lend his record a sense of on-the-spot excitement; and yet he was capable of sifting and sorting these accounts to prevent bias and slander. He was even-handed and gave fair hearing to those he disagreed with. He was well read, and his desire was to pull together into one the disparate peoples who lived in Angle-land. I say all this not merely to encourage people to read his History, but to show that pilgrimage is a constellation of elements: fact, idea, fiction, opinion, travel, reading, seeing, writing--experiences of all kinds--and that it is the post-pilgrimage, retrospective point of view that allows one to sift and sort the evidence of ones life (or someone elses) and come to an interpretation. Not for good and all, but for now; an interpretation, not the interpretation.

Howard/Simple In his History , Bede tells the story of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon King Edwin. In 597, Pope Gregory II sent missionaries to

England to convert the Germanic peoples who had invaded and settled there after Roman rule was overthrown. These missionaries were largely successful among the pagans, although the already-established Celtic Christian church resisted Roman intrusion and reform for many years. Thirty years later, in 627, the missionary Paulinus was evangelizing the court and making great progress; he had already converted King Edwins wife-to-be, Ethelberga, and Edwin promised not to intrude on her worship. Edwin had also given up his idol worship, as Bede calls it, but had not taken up Christianity. He kept putting Paulinus off, telling him he needed to think about it and confer with his eldermen about such an important step. So eager was Rome for a Christian England that Pope Boniface himself wrote to King Edwin, encouraging him to accept the faith, and wrote another letter to Queen Ethelberga, exhorting her to use her influence on her husband. Meanwhile, Edwin spent many years pondering which religious course he should take, recalling a Christian vision he had had as a young man, and yet not wanting to go against the religion of his forebears. He finally agreed to let Paulinus speak to him and his eldermen. Paulinus made his case for Christianity, and when he was finished, the king and his eldermen took council. One of the elders says the following (from my own translation):

Howard/Simple It seems to me, King, that we can compare our life on earth and the unknown time afterward to your sitting at dinner with your eldermen and thanes in the wintertime. The fire is laid, and your hall is warmed, and it rains and snows and storms outside. In comes a sparrow who quickly flies through the house, coming in through one door and going out the other. During the time he is inside, the sparrow is not touched by the storms of winter. But that time is but the twinkling of an eye, the smallest moment, and he immediately goes from winter into winter again. So appears our human lives. What went before, or what comes after, we do not know. Therefore, if this learning can bring more knowledge, it is worthy that we should follow it. So moving did Edwins court find these words that Edwin himself immediately asked to be baptized, and the Chief Priest of the old

religion volunteered to destroy the idols and places of worship in order to set a public example, to quote from Bede. I used to say that if anything could convert me back to Christianity, Old English religious literature would do it, especially this story and a poem called The Dream of the Rood. I admire Edwin and his elderman. I admire the elderman for his poetry and his willingness

Howard/Simple to set aside tradition and religion and consider a new way of thinking about what comes before and after life. I like that he didnt renounce his old religion so much as move away from it. We dont know, from the passage, what his religion was exactly, nor what that religion had to say about life outside in the storm. Im glad not to know. Its

enough to know that a thoughtful man took thought, as the Old English phrase has it, and had the courage to voice it. But I feel a deeper connection to King Edwin. He was a seeker, a person who thought it worthwhile to spend time in this life considering what comes before and after it. He was interested in the new, the exotic--however difficult it is for us now, almost 1400 years later, to view Christianity as exotic. He wanted more than what had been given him by birth. So when a new opportunity came his way, he seized it; when a new path opened before him, he followed it. And this action is connected to his not condemning or renouncing his old religion--though the missionaries may have demanded that later on. He was not interested in absolutes, this god versus that god, he was searching, not so much for truth as for knowledge. When the elderman says if this learning can bring more knowledge--not more or better truth--it is worthy that we should follow it, Edwin is finally persuaded. The pursuit of Christianity gives him more than he had before, without, in his mind, subtracting what he already knew.

Howard/Simple Of course, you may argue that all this is projection onto an unnamed thane and his king--people about whom we know really only this: that they converted to Christianity. And perhaps you would be right. Perhaps I am finding in them, Edwin especially, what I want to

find--a justification for my own religious wanderings, an exemplum of a kind of thinking and searching. But so what if I am? Isnt that one of the reasons we go to literature, however obscure it might be: to find ourselves mirrored in the pages in a way that allows us to understand ourselves better?

* When I was in second grade I remember drawing a picture on that grayish wide-lined paper we used in school. It was a picture of a tree. A standard second-grade tree, with a brown trunk and a green ball of scribbles for the leaves. I put a green line underneath for the grass and a blue line on top for the sky. What makes this picture memorable is not my budding drawing abilities, of which I have none, but what I wrote under the grass line. Unfortunately, I cant perfectly recall what I wrote, but it was something like, Only God can make the trees and sky. Science is nothing. But I used a yellow crayon to write the words, and you couldnt really read them. I knew from my Sunday School classes that I was supposed to believe what I had just written, but I couldnt. So I wrote them illegibly.

Howard/Simple 10

I told this story to my husband John a few years ago to answer his question about just how fundamentalist was my childhood church training. I usually say more or less fundamentalist, which, I suppose, makes more sense to me than my hearers. Ive never witnessed snake handling, for example, although Ive heard of it, and the idea is consonant with what some of my pastors have believed and taught. On the other hand, while I myself have never spoken in tongues, I know many who have, and stood next to them while they did. The important point, I think, though, is that I was taught, in nearly every church Ive ever been a member of, to treat the Bible as fact, historical fact, and been told to believe that the earth was created some 6,000odd years ago on Tuesday, October 23. (I remember this exactly only because it happens to be my own birthday. I was gratified to discover that the earth and I were born on the same date.) But let me get back to that tree, or rather, those words. I was self-conscious, even in second grade, of the differences between what I was being taught at school and what I was being taught at church. Of course, I couldnt articulate any of it at the time; Im not sure I even understood it intellectually. But I think this picture reveals an understanding of the roles we play in different situations. I recall wondering, at about 11 or 12 whether the pastor really believed everything he preached about Hell being a pit of fire and brimstone. I

Howard/Simple 11 dont want to suggest that he was a hypocrite--I dont mean it in that sense. But rather I wondered if in his non-preacher life he thought about Hell at all, and if he did, was it a pit of fire and brimstone as it was in church on Sunday. I could see in myself different ways of thinking in and out of church. Im not sure now what I believed as a child. I know that I wanted to believe in something, but I didnt know what that something was. I felt an obligation to believe that science is nothing, but I could not, not even in second grade, really commit myself to that stance. And I saw, at some level, that public declarations of religious belief are stances, hats that we put on at different times for different reasons. And at some times those hats fit better than at others, and some hats look better on us than others, regardless of whether those hats represent our deepest beliefs or not. I was 12, I think, when I was baptized. No one made me, I took the step voluntarily, and the youth leader and pastor asked again and again if I was sure I wanted to do this. I said yes every time, trying not to be aggravated by the question. I did not understand why they kept harping on that point. But now I see that they probably sensed my ambivalence. I wasnt against baptism, but I declared myself because it was time for me to do so. There was no overt pressure on me, but I had reached the age at which children become adolescents, and some kind of rite of passage is necessary. At this church, it was often

Howard/Simple 12 baptism, although anyone old enough to speak for themselves could and did get baptized. (We were against infant baptism.) In between Sunday school and church was a devotion period when we would sing a few songs, pray, and, as the spirit moved, stand up and witness how God was working in our lives. I say we, but I never stood up. I never had anything to say. It seemed to me that from a predestinarian point of view, which I did not hold but this church did, everything that happened was God working in my life, and I was not about to recite the whole of my past week. And yet, I couldnt tell what, then, God was doing. I wanted to stand up and witness, and tried to think up things that would fit, but I never did. I didnt pray aloud very well either, and tried, when called upon, to recall what others had said, and repeat that. It occurred to me that perhaps I couldnt see what God was doing for me because I wasnt baptized, that after this public declaration of acceptance I would know things I didnt yet know. I hoped that I would be able to witness in church, pray--aloud and in my head--, and that clarity would descend upon me. I dont think I had a very good understanding of the function of baptism from any point of view. But I got up the courage, and walked up the aisle one Sunday after church while everybody was singing Just as I Am, and announced that I wanted to be baptized.

Howard/Simple 13 On the night of the baptism, I came out of the little room in back of the altar with the pastor, and, before wading into the water, looked out at the congregation. The whole first pew was full of aunts and uncles and cousins. I had no idea that my mother had invited them, or why she did. I didnt think getting baptized was that important. But they all were sitting there, having driven down from Cleveland, waiting for me to get baptized. I was suddenly scared and nervous, afraid that they all knew something I didnt, and that I was making a mistake because I did not really know what was going on. I had a brief and violent moment of self-doubt, the kind that makes a person jerk the car from lane to lane trying to get out of the exit ramp and back on the highway. But the coldness of the water lapping around my ankles as the pastor led me down the stairs brought me back to myself, and let me know that it was too late to change my mind. But I didnt want to go back. I wanted the secret knowledge that baptism was going to confer, and somehow all those people out there in that pew confirmed that I was going to obtain something significant. I dont think I really need to say that I was just as mystified after as I was before. No clouds parted, no angels sang, no doubts dispelled. I felt the same, just wetter. Or maybe the lesson I learned was that it is not that simple to gain knowledge. Maybe I was a little wiser in that I understood that these rituals reveal knowledge rather than confer it.

Howard/Simple 14 And so Ive grown up wanting to adhere to some system of belief, wanting ritual and form, and yet being suspicious of all systems. I think I can say that I have always believed in God, although the nature of that belief has changed as Ive grown older. But the ways I could or should manifest that belief publicly had me stymied for many years and for many reasons. I went to church regularly and voluntarily until I went to college. Part of why I stopped was that I was too far away to get to my home church without a car. But more, it didnt really occur to me to look for a new church. I had always gone where my mother went, and I didnt ask questions or give advice. She made that decision, and I went along. When she didnt bring up the issue of where I was to go to church at college, I didnt either, and never went unless I was home for the weekend. I think the real reason, though, was that I was tired of church. At about 15, I had a crisis of faith. It never occurred to me not to believe in God--not that kind of crisis--but I felt that I could no longer believe in Christianity. I had friends at school who were Jewish and Hindu and Muslim. According to my Baptist training, those folks were going straight to Hell. But they were good people, devout in their faith, regular in the practice of their religion. How could God condemn people like that just because they werent Christian? Especially the

Howard/Simple 15 Jews! Werent they the Chosen People? Isnt that where Christianity came from? Wasnt Jesus himself a Jew? Well, I felt that these were not questions I could ask--what would they tell a teenager anyhow?--and there was no venue for my asking. So I quietly kept my suspicions and doubts to myself, and stopped participating in the readings. I never recited the Nicene Creed, and refused to memorize it. I was in the choir, but I never considered dropping out, because singing was different. I really felt--and still do for that matter--closer to God in the midst of music than at any other time, so it was easy for me to ignore the words and focus on the joyful noise we were making unto the Lord. So I didnt bother to find a church after getting to college. And yet, I missed going. I felt a need for ritual and religion and fellowship in my life. By some sort of logic I figured that my problem was not with religion, per se, but with the claims of Christianity, with its exclusive hold on salvation and heaven. It seemed to me that I could take a giant step backwards, so to speak, and end up in Judaism, without much harm to my eternal soul. As I had had a Jewish boyfriend in high school, Judaism was not as foreign to me as it might have been, and I felt comfortable in a Jewish environment. There was no synagogue in Kent at the time, but nearly every college campus has a Hillel house, so off I went. Every Friday night I was there, known to one and all as a potential convert.

Howard/Simple 16 I was pretty serious about conversion. I tried to memorize prayers in both English and Hebrew, learned about holidays and customs. I conversed with the Rabbi about learning Hebrew, and even had a lesson from a young woman on reading the Hebrew alphabet. I was attending services and staying for the meal afterward, and was slowly being accepted into the community. And yet, I was still somehow inexplicably Christian. No matter what I did, I was always stuck with my original religious training and habits. For example, I went Christmas-caroling and took the Israelis from Hillel with me. Of course, we sang the generic winter season songs, but we went. Everything always, consciously or unconsciously, got measured and tried against what I already knew, or thought I knew. What that meant was that I was in my behavior a Christian in disguise as a Jew. Its hard, I think, for a person raised in the Christian church to convert to Judaism. Because whether you believe in the Christ or not, youve been taught that he is the Messiah. The Jews are waiting for the Messiah; he hasnt come yet. The Jews are maintaining the Old Testament laws and customs, the Talmud, the Mishnah, and the Haggadah, and youve been trained your whole life to see the New Testament and Christ as not, of course, superseding those laws but fulfilling them--however one might interpret that statement. It would be easier if the Jews simply denied the existence of Jesus, but they dont. He is considered to be a prophet, but not the Messiah. So in the

Howard/Simple 17 process of conversion, one has to demote the second person of the Holy Trinity to prophet status, move him down several notches on the great chain of being, remove his divine element, and stick him in the line-up with Elijah and the rest of the human Old Testament greats. But hes not even, as far as I can figure, really all the way up there with the patriarchs. Hes not as great as Moses or Elijah. A minor prophet, a late prophet, and not a little confused about his identity. It was just not possible to make that leap--I couldnt anyway. Additionally, I think that, when converting, one takes on the history of the people you are joining. I just could not shoulder the burden of those extra three thousand years. Of course, Christians consider that part of their own history, but it leads up to Jesus Christ; theres a moment of transformation. The Easter drama becomes the fulcrum of a historical see-saw: Before Christ Anno Domine. What comes before the death and resurrection is leading up to it. We see the family history of Jesus in the Old Testament. We see the old laws, the old way of doing things, the history of how the Jews--before Christ-were in relationship with Yahweh. But what comes after is different. Christians lose sight of what happens to the Jews. The concern is with the converts, the new Christians, and with the development of this new religion, its rites and sacraments, traditions, and heresies. (And let me add that Ive noticed I used you and we to refer to Christians and they to refer to Jews; I dont think I was ever capable of saying we

Howard/Simple 18 to mean we Jews, even at my most serious moment of conversion desire.) True, the Book of Hebrews is concerned with the Jews, but only in order to convert them to Christianity, to convince them that Jesus is, in fact, the Messiah, the Christ, the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and Gods promises, and should therefore be followed. In Hebrews, Paul connects Christ to Moses and other patriarchs, but shows how he is beyond the bounds of humanity. Paul takes the Jewish laws and traditions and shows how Christ fulfills them. After that, Christianity has little positive interest in the Jews. History will show that what interest has been shown has often been meddlesome, cruel, and destructive. I dont want to go off on a tangent about the wretched treatment of the Jews by Christians historically, but I think a mention of it at least demonstrates my point: from A.D. 33 on, Christians and Jews have had a different history. In the midst of my sophomore year I stopped going to Hillel. I was living with a man--Greg, whom I later married--who was uninterested in religion, and I found it difficult to continue on alone without any familial support. Of course, my mother was disturbed, but I think she believed that any religion was better than none, and did not discourage me. My childhood pastor found out about my Jewish tendencies at my grandmothers funeral, and came down to Kent from

Howard/Simple 19 Cleveland to talk some sense into me. He gave me a copy of C. S. Lewiss Mere Christianity, which I read, but found rather dull. I think what bothered me about Lewis was his logical approach to proving the existence of God. And while Im not against logical argumentation, I dont approach God or religion from that perspective. Faith is what Christ demanded, and still demands, from his disciples and followers, and faith, to me, is not a logical construct. To go back to Hebrews for a moment, Paul says, in 11:1: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. And further, in verse three: Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Whatever other problems I may have with Paul, his understanding and explanation of faith resonates with me better than Lewis logical exposition. But I know people who require Lewis logic. My backyard neighbor, for example, didnt mention Lewis by name, but nevertheless described how it was a logical presentation of the arguments for God and Christianity that convinced him. I felt unfulfilled at Hillel, and, for the reasons mentioned above-religious, historical, and personal--I decided conversion was not for me--not to something so closely related. I went to India for eight months with my first husband and became interested in Hinduism; but if I thought 3,000 years of

Howard/Simple 20 relatively familiar history were too much to shoulder, the 5,000 or so absolutely-new-to-me years of Hinduism were even more unlikely. I never really considered conversion there, but even if I had, you cant really convert to Hinduism; you have to be born to it. Or marry into it, perhaps. Even so, I read the Bhagavad Gita, and other bits of the Mahabharatha, as well as the Ramayana. I grew interested in Kali, and the other goddesses, feeling attracted to a living pantheon that included both male and female deities--the Greek pantheon, while fascinating, is not a living entity, and I can only see it as myth and story, however enlightening those myths might be. But it was still hard really to have any religious impulses while living with a person who has no interest in, and little patience with, the whole project. Gregs religious impulses were fulfilled by learning Transcendental Meditation, a system founded by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Greg was deep enough into TM when we started living together that he paid $125--out of a graduate student stipend--for TM training for me. I meditated twice daily for twenty minutes each time while we were together, but it seemed more like napping than anything else, though that could be my fault, and not TMs. Greg had friends who were teachers and who were more advanced than he was, and it seemed to me that the further along they were, the crazier they were. At one very high level, for example, you were supposed to be able to levitate. But only people who had achieved that same level or higher

Howard/Simple 21 could even be in the same room while the levitation took place. I was in the next room once, while these Sidhis, as they were called, meditated and levitated. It sounded to me like they were dropping things on the floor, and all I could hear were bumpings and thuds that I was supposed to interpret as landings. Coincidentally, I met the father of my TM instructor while I was in Washington, D. C. The father was a consultant for the non-profit organization where I worked. After six months or so, the name finally hit me, and I asked him about his son. Sure, enough, his son had taught me TM in Lakewood, Ohio, years before. He talked about TM, though, the way other parents talk about cults, and was sadly disappointed in his son. The son was living at home, and couldnt get a job because he wanted to meditate something like six hours a day. I wondered how his father would have felt if he had become a Benedictine monk and prayed six hours a day. I know that to many, meditating and praying appear similar, but the similarity is superficial. While the personal effects of prayer and TM seem the same, Im not convinced that the social effects are. TM is more solipsistic than prayer, dedicated as it is to the individual and not the larger community. Nor is the stated goal to connect with God. Im afraid that I cannot really sound neutral about TM as my experience with it was not neutral. On the one hand, our meditating at home was fine and untroubled. But the teachers all insisted that TM

Howard/Simple 22 was not a religion, that anyone of any faith, or none, could meditate without going against their religious beliefs. But there is a little Hindu ceremony performed just before you are given your mantra. And the mantras are all syllables sacred to the Hindus. They are the syllables of creation. When Shiva was creating the world, he drummed, danced, and sang everything into being. His song began as syllables, which then became language. Of course, no one told me this at the time--I dont know whether they knew--I learned all this a few years later while living in India. And while the Hindu ceremony could have been presented benignly as an interesting cultural/religious adjunct to meditation; as it was, I felt more than a little duped, and the whole thing lost its luster. I was also appalled at how expensive the training was, and has become. But Greg, I think, did get something out of it, and he liked that it was billed as not a religion. So, given Gregs impatience with Christianity, and interest in TM, it was easier to keep my ideas and questions and wonderings and desires to myself, and not make an issue of it. I didnt really know what I wanted, anyway. I only knew that organized religion was uncomfortable. I only knew one kind of Christianity--fundamentalist--and didnt even really know that other visions were possible, let alone extant. I was also feeling hostile toward Christianity. It seems a likely enough stage. One leaves home, discovers other religions, and finds out all the horrid things people

Howard/Simple 23 have done in the name of Christ--the Inquisition, witch burnings, holy wars in all ages--and you lose sight of the good and honest and honorable things other people have done in the name of Christ. You begin to think that all Christians are Christians, that they all are like the born again televangelists, that hypocrisy and Christianity are synonyms. I dont really like to admit to thinking all that, but I did. I would prefer to be able to remember thinking that Christianity wasnt for me but was fine for other people, that while I had no use for it, other people might be getting something good and useful out of it. But I didnt. I was hostile and, at times, rude. Of course, all this makes it sound like I was thinking about religion all the time. After I left Hillel, I thought about it very little. Greg and I got married in a church--my childhood church because it was handy--but the prenuptial counseling rather confirmed my hostility than abated it. There was a new pastor since Id left for college, whom I didnt like at all. Let me give two reasons. During the counseling session in which he wished to discuss marital sexual relations, he introduced the topic with the following elephant joke: Q. What do you do when an elephant is coming in your window? A. Get your umbrella. I had actually heard this joke before, knew the answer, and could see that he was trying to lighten things up, which embarrassed me. Even

Howard/Simple 24 worse, though, was that Greg hadnt heard it before, and didnt get the joke. He was sitting there puzzled and more that a little annoyed by the situation. The pastor then tried to explain the joke, which made a disaster out of a bad moment, and so the counseling was never again on an easy footing. The second reason is that he wore magenta and black houndstooth polyester pants at my wedding. But just as going to church had been normal and no big deal for me, not going became equally normal and unremarkable. I was in college and had plenty of work to do. Curiously, I was also studying medieval languages and literature, a speciality area filled with religious literature which requires a certain sympathy for religious points of view. So even as I was not thinking much about religion in my own life, I was reading medieval literature--sacred and profane: Chaucer, Gower, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, fabliaux, etc. I even wrote a paper on the Pelagian heresy, having to do with adult versus infant baptism, the denial of original sin, and the perfectibility of humans. And while I sided with the heretic Pelagius against St. Augustine, it was probably more my low-church training than any real doctrinal convictions. A few years passed along in this way. I went to church at Christmas because we stayed with Gregs mother in Connecticut who went regularly. I remember one Christmas on the ride home from the midnight service at which we sang the Hallelujah chorus, she was

Howard/Simple 25 expressing her doubts and uncertainties about Christianity. She had no trouble with Christ, she said, and if the church limited itself to the Gospels, things would be great. But it didnt. Christianity, she maintained, should really be called Paulism because so much doctrine comes from him, and not from Christ. Needless to say, she disagreed with many of Pauls opinions, and felt at odds with the church therefore, even considering not going any longer, or trying to find a more Gospels-oriented and less Paul-oriented church. I dont recall what religion she was raised in, but for some reason I think Episcopalian. Gregs paternal great-grandfather, I think it was, immigrated here a Polish Jew. He changed his name and converted to some form of Christianity, although as I understand it, no other members of his family did so. Greg has, then, Jewish cousins whom he knows nothing of, except that they exist.

India

Howard/Simple 26 Early in our marriage, Greg and I went to India for eight months. He was doing research for his Ph. D. dissertation on Indian classical music. Our friends and associates were, of course, nearly all Indians, mostly Hindu and Muslim, although I met a Parsee family in Bombay, and saw some Jain Temples there as well. And while I didnt discuss religion very much--that is to say, while I didnt debate doctrinal issues or try to convert anyone or try to be converted--I participated in religious ceremonies both Hindu and Islamic. I was invited to worship services at my singing teachers house, and I went. Partly out of curiosity, and partly because I was expected to go. My teacher, who was around 28 to my 21, tried to explain who the personage was they were worshipping (Sathya Sai Baba, a contemporary incarnation of Vishnu), and why her family were devotees of him. Im still not sure about the second point, but even now, I occasionally find myself singing one of the songs of praise I learned. Other friends took us to various shrines--for tourist as much as religious reasons, the way an Austrian will take you to Stephansplatz to see the Cathedral whether they go to church or not, because its beautiful and worth looking at for itself, regardless of religious considerations. In Calcutta I became interested in Kali; the city was named after her, and her biggest and most important temple is there. I discovered that Kali devotees are more evangelical than other Hindus, and

Howard/Simple 27 Calcutta boasts a number of European converts, some of whom wrote books and pamphlets especially for Europeans--for educational as well as evangelical purposes. Even so, Im not sure but that the Indians still considered these folks both Christians and Kali devotees, and yet not Hindus. The Hindu pantheon seems to me to be pretty elastic; a number of Hindus have told me that they consider Christ to be another incarnation of Vishnu--like Rama and Krishna, to name two of the best known in the West. So even though it also seemed to me that one cannot really convert to Hinduism one can become a devotee of a particular deity, and the Hindus, I think, see that as more or less consistent with both Christianity and Hinduism. That is to say, a Christian is a devotee of Christ in the same way my singing teacher is a devotee of Sathya Sai Baba, or someone else of Shiva or Sarasvathi. (The Hari Krishnas seem to be an exception; Indians find them eccentric.) And as Christ is another, though highly specialized and not connected to India, incarnation of Vishnu, being a devotee of Christ does not rule out being a devotee of a Hindu deity. I liked this view, and it encouraged me to become a Kali devotee, if only in my own mind. Kali, to Hindus, like her consort Shiva, is both creator and destroyer. In the West we are most familiar with her destroyer aspect: tongue lolling, a necklace of severed heads, ankledeep in blood, brandishing a dripping sword. Even in the Indiana Jones movie, all we see are the Thuggees, assassin devotees of Kali who

Howard/Simple 28 killed for the Great Goddess of Death. But her creator aspect manifests as a tender Mother nursing her children, full of unconditional love. I was fascinated by the juxtaposition of these two aspects. Somehow it seemed more daring and exciting in a Goddess than a God, because Shiva didnt interest me nearly so much. I rather wanted to become a devotee, but was checked by some feeling that it would not quite do. My Indian friends were glad when I wore the sari, encouraged me to learn Sanskrit and classical singing, but never proselytized their religion. They opened up their culture to me, and wanted me to be informed about their religion, but did not seem to want me to join it. I do not mean to say that they were actively against conversion, so far as that is possible in Hinduism, but rather, that it never occurred to them that a sensible person would convert from their born religion. A very different view from the Christian belief in the Great Commission, a religion practically founded on the principle of conversion, especially as taught and practiced in the churches I grew up in, where, because of the belief in adult baptism, the idea is that we are all, at some level, converts from sin and wrong beliefs. Although I visited the temple, and bought a few icon-type pictures of Kali, which still hang in my room, I did not at the time become a devotee. Greg and I were invited to a Hindu monastery once, to participate in a puja, a worship service. There was singing and

Howard/Simple 29 drumming, and the monks taught us a few songs, which we sang and played with them. Near the end of the service--and I use the word service only as an analogy, for a puja is much less formal than what we are used to in Christian churches--one monk asked us to sing some Christian songs for them. I could sing the first verse and chorus to a number of hymns, but I couldnt really play them on the harmonium they provided without the music in front of me. I did sing a few, while playing the melody: The Old Rugged Cross, Amazing Grace, and The Battle Hymn of the Republic--its funny what you remember at such moments. But it turned out what they really wanted was Christmas carols, particularly Silent Night. So thats what we sang in a Hindu monastery in Calcutta with about fifty monks in saffron-colored robes sitting cross-legged on the carpet-covered floor, Greg and I seated on a small dais in front of them playing Indian drums and a harmonium. It was January or February, and the temperature was in the 80s. And when we got to Silent Night, most of them joined in. I got tears in my eyes because it made me homesick in the oddest way.

In May of that year we were staying with a Muslim family in Lucknow, a largely Muslim city. At the time, my knowledge of Islam was pretty well limited to what little I had read in medieval literature and what information was just floating around. Everyone in the family considered Greg and me Christian, even though we did not really

Howard/Simple 30 consider ourselves so. From their point of view, because We born of Christian parents in a Christian country, we were Christian, regardless of whether or not we practiced or believed. That was my first real exposure to the notion of being culturally a particular religion. Id heard of being a cultural Jew, but I never quite understood what that meant. In India, where everyone considered me a Christian, I was beginning to get it. I met an Indian Christian taxi driver once, named Paul. I know his name and religion because he announced them proudly to me moments after we got moving. I was a little surprised because the inside of his cab was decorated almost exactly like the Hindu taxi drivers: little chenille balls dangling from the ceiling, a garland of white flowers hanging from the rearview mirror, incense burning on the dashboard, and a picture of a god propped up in the ashtray with sweet-smelling flowers in front of it. When Paul pointed to this picture, I looked closely and realized with a start that it was not a Hindu god but Christ--a very Indian-looking Christ carrying a lamb on his shoulders. Paul was disappointed that I was not more impressed with his Christianity. I was in my anti-Christian phase at the time, and found him interesting anthropologically, but not religiously. But I know he thought hed found a common ground between us based on the assumption that all white people are Christian. Thus, because I was Christian from the familys point of view, I was not expected to participate in any of their religious activities, although they werent

Howard/Simple 31 going to serve us pork. Even so, I covered my head at the calls for prayer and observed the same silence the other women in the family did during prayer time. I love clothes, and I love wearing clothes and finding new and unusual clothes to wear. Many adult Muslim women in India cover themselves completely when they go out by wearing a bourka, a fulllength black raincoat-like garment and a headdress with two veils to cover the face. There are two veils because there are times when you need to be able to see but do not want to expose the lower part of your face. So one veil covers your eyes, while two cover the rest. It is as complicated as it sounds, and I wanted to wear one. I had heard about them, and heard them reviled in womens studies classes as sexist and another example of male domination, etc., etc. But I wanted to know from the inside what wearing one was like, so I asked the mother if I could wear one. She was delighted, and thought it showed a proper sense of inquiry into propriety. I had been worried that she would be offended, thinking me too forward, or trying to make fun of her traditions. I was a little taller than any of the women in the house, so none of the bourkas quite fit me, but we found one that would do, and I put it on. The main part went on just like a coat, but the headdress required a little dexterity to get right. While the two veils hang in front, there is a largish triangular piece of cloth hanging down the

Howard/Simple 32 back. The veils and the triangle are sewn together, and this seam goes at the top of the forehead. Sewn along this seam are strings, which are tied under the chin just like a bonnet. To get the right placement, the veils are thrown back over the head and the strings tied. Then you pull the veils down over your face., and you are ready to go. And, off we went. I was stunned. For the first time since the previous October, when we got to India, I was treated like everyone else. No one could see me, so they couldnt see that I was white. They saw the bourka and reacted to the woman inside it as they would have to any woman wearing a bourka. I dont really know how to describe it, but I felt that I was suddenly experiencing India as an Indian woman. I know thats not literally true, but it was as close to being true as any foreigner can get, I think. It was exhilarating. Another odd thing was that I felt invisible. I no longer stuck out in the crowd because of my color. I also felt safer. As a white foreigner in India, I had learned very quickly that everyone assumes you are rich, whether you are by American standards or not. That makes you an obvious target not only for merchants in the bazaar, but also for goondahs and other muggers. I had already been followed once and robbed once, so I was always on the alert. But dressed in the bourka, I felt a little bit protected from unwanted attentions--an odd feeling given how many Muslim women are fighting to get out from under that same veil.

Howard/Simple 33 After our time in India, we returned to the US, and resumed our life as it had been, with the exception that I was growing increasingly unhappy in the marriage. We separated, divorced, and went our own ways. My way at this time was rather vague and involved dropping out of graduate school and moving to Washington, DC, for eighteen months. I came back to Ohio when my mothers cancer treatments required a lengthy stay in the hospital.

Neo-paganism Upon returning to Kent, I found among my new friends and acquaintances a number of neo-pagans: witches, druids, etc. After Judaism, TM, and India, I was far enough away from the Christian fundamentalism of my childhood not to find neo-paganism frightening or evil. I was able to accept the neo-pagans and their beliefs on their own terms. It was just another religion. In fact, it seemed like the the perfect religion: religion without the organized part. I know that for many people neo-paganism is not only not perfect, but downright evil and anti-Christian. Hollywood presents witches as manipulative and base, and pagan groups as cults, conflating the idea of satanism and neo-paganism. Then heavy metal music is added to the stew, and folks think all neo-pagans bite off bird

Howard/Simple 34 heads and spit blood. And some people have gotten mixed up with bad groups, with people who cared only about wielding power and controlling people, and used witchcraft to do it. But I do not see neopaganism this way, and my experience, while not always the happiest, was never one of abuse or evil. I learned about witchcraft from witches, from real people who were doing their best to understand the world, each other, and God. After leaving Hillel, I had decided that my problem was with religion as an organized attempt to know God. The disorganization of neo-paganism seemed perfect to and for me, and an opportunity to pursue my interest in Kali. So I became more connected. I should clarify that although the term neo-pagan refers to many different beliefs, I am most closely connecting it with witchcraft or Wicca, the place I most often found myself. Wicca and other neo-pagan practices are distinct from satanism and devil-worship, which both derive from Christianity and are impossible without it, as they invert and pervert Christian practices and beliefs. Neo-paganism, as the name implies, harks back to pre-Christian belief systems associated with, among other cultures and religions, the celtic Druids, Babylonian and Egyptian goddess-worship, and the Norse and Greek pantheons. Wicca is an earth-centered religion whose practices involve gathering the energy of the elements in order to further your own magical intentions. The use of this energy often takes the form of

Howard/Simple 35 spells, that is, rituals calling forth and directing the energies required. Because so much of the practice is about gaining power and controlling the elements through this power, there are two laws governing witchcraft and witches: 1) the law of tens, which states that whatever you send out into the world--good or ill--will return to you tenfold; and 2) the Witchs Rede, which states, And it harm none, do what thou wilt. Covens also pursue the ideal of perfect love and perfect trust, which will allow them to perform rituals together and function as a group. Not all of the rituals use spells and manipulation of the elements. Some rituals are for worshipping the goddess and god--who is the son and lover of the goddess; others are for maintaining and encouraging group solidarity and integrity. An important part of the Craft, or Old Religion as some call it, is that the erotic is sacred. Because this is a goddess-centered religion, human generative and creative powers are personified in her procreative abilities, and witches use this harnessed erotic energy to achieve other ends. Anyone who has read Freud will understand the power of sublimated libidinal energies. Describing what I found so attractive and interesting about witchcraft is very difficult. I read a short childrens novel called The Kelpies Pearls that explains the heart of witchcraft better than I can. The characters are Morag, an old woman living in the Scottish highlands, and a kelpie, one of the wee folk of Highland lore, a water

Howard/Simple 36 sprite. They are discussing Morags grandmother, who was called a witch, but considered herself a Christian. The kelpie was very curious about Morags witchgrandmother, [. . .] and she was quite willing to tell him all she could remember about the old woman; how she used to tie red thread round the horns of her cow and hang a branch of the rowan tree [the tree the supposedly made of] over the byre door to protect it from the fairies, she used to light the great bonfires that were burned every year on the hill at Beltane in May and Halloween in October, naming all the different kinds of wood that were used for the fireas she built it up. There were nine kinds of wood, said Morag, willow, hazel, alder, birch, ash, yew, elm, holly, and oak, and every wood had secret meaning and purpose. But only my grandmother knew what they were. cross was

Howard/Simple 37 And four times a year she baked a cake that was called a quarter-cake for it was made each quarter-day at Candlemas, Beltane, Lammas, and Halloween. Then she would go out on to the hillside and break the cake into pieces. She threw the pieces away as far as she could throw them, one by one, and as she threw them she cried, Here to thee, wolf, spare my sheep. Here to thee, fox, spare my lambs. Here to thee, eagle, spare my chickens. And she would keep all safe about her till the next quarter-day for there was a magic in that cake only herself knew the secret of making. She sounds to me like a very wise woman, said the kelpie. She was what they called a white witch, Morag told him. She never used her power to harm anyone that I ever heard of.

Howard/Simple 38 Whatever she was, said the kelpie, she had sense enough to see that there is more in the world around her than meets the eye, and that is more than you can say for most people.

The grandmothers actions fit into the Witches calendar, called the Wheel of the Year. There are, according to this reckoning of time, eight solar and thirty-nine lunar holy days. The solar holy days, Sabbats, which celebrate the life cycle of the son/lover god, are as follows: Yule Brigid new year Eoster Beltane Litha Spring Equinox May 1 Child/god represents balance God represents the growth of crops Winter Solstice February 2 Start of the year, birth of the child/god Child/god becomes the promise of the

Summer Solstice Zenith of the god, transition from

maturation to Death

Lughnasad August 1 or Lammas August 2

The wake of the dying sun/god

Howard/Simple 39 Mabon death Samhain October 31 Conception of the god, completion and Fall Equinox God becomes guide into

beginning of the birth/death/rebirth cycle

The lunar holy days, Esbats, celebrate the life cycle of the goddess, creator of all things. The waxing moon is the maiden, the virgin, represented by seeds. The full moon is the mother great with child, represented by the fruits of the land. And the waning moon is the crone, the old wise woman, represented by nothing. As a neo-pagan, one could be actively involved with a group--a coven if they were witches--or one could be a solitaire, a person who did the rites alone. I never joined a group formally, and most of what I did I did alone or with a small group of friends. I have to admit, that as much as I wanted to like this new/old religion, I felt selfconscious about performing any of the rituals in front of anyone. The whole business smacked of playacting to me, even as I was trying to get deeper into it and find a way to make this my new church home, as it were. I read a lot of books about witchcraft and magic (or Magick, as many prefer to spell it), neo-paganism, rituals, history, you name it, trying to learn whatever this religion had to offer. In many ways, it

Howard/Simple 40 coincided with my interest in feminism, although, to tell the truth, I was having some similar deep-seated, unnamed doubts about that, too. I remember reading Mary Dalys Gyn/Ecology and asking a male housemate and my boyfriend whether one could be a radical feminist and still like men. They both looked at me, and my housemate said, Is is possible to be a radical feminist and be a man? According to Daly, the answer to both questions was No! and I was divided. Ive always liked men and being around men. I never could adhere strictly to any system of belief that claimed that men are inherently bad and wrong, any more than I could believe one that claimed the same about women. The problem was that at some level I really wanted to belong. I wanted to believe. I needed to be a part of some group with a clearcut system of beliefs and rituals. Radical feminism and neopaganism were giving me these beliefs and rituals, and they were more socially acceptable--in the circles I went around in--than Christianity. So I was stuck: I was suspicious, and yet I wanted terribly to believe and be a part of a religious community of believers. Transcendental Meditation was different. TM was never presented as a religion, as I mentioned, and I never expected from it any of the comforts, traditions, or community of a religion. I meditated because Greg meditated and because it was so important to him. TM did not change my life, and I havent meditated for years. But in spite of my

Howard/Simple 41 suspicions of TM, I was able to go along with Greg, meet his TM friends, meditate, and participate as much as he wanted out of politeness and respect for him. I did not want to belong to this group, and, although I thought most of the practitioners were nuts, I had no problem doing what was required. I dont want this to sound like I was being forced to convert; we saw these TM friends only once a year when we travelled during the academic winter break. My feelings about the neo-pagans were different. By this time I was already vegetarian and interested in herbal medicine. I had grown up Christian, tried Judaism, and then ignored religion altogether. I was recently divorced. In short, I was ready for something different, and neo-paganism seemed to fit the bill. On the surface, many things predicted a good match: alternative medicine, alternative diet, alternative lifestyles, alternative religion. I was interested in them all. But my suspicions got in the way. And yet I wanted to be a part of this community in ways that I never wanted to with TM. I wanted to join a coven, but I could not make myself go that far, so I performed rituals alone. When TM did not act or function like a religion, I was not disturbed; it was not a religion, whatever other pretensions it might have had. Neo-paganism presented itself as a religion, and I wanted to believe in its tenets and hold the faith it propounded, and so I was greatly disappointed when it did not act like a religion. That is to say, there was no tradition, no Apostolic Succession, no ritualized

Howard/Simple 42 admittance or advancement. It lacked the kind of system of belief that I had grown to associate with religion. When I was younger, what troubled me about Christianity and Judaism was the strict adherence to a pre-ordered structure. The lack of such organization in neopaganism appealed to me at first, but later became a different version of the same trouble. Let me give an example. All religions have ritual cloths and clothes: robes, stoles, chasubles, tallitot, paraments, tzitzits, altar cloths, decorative/contemplative hangings, hats or head scarves, holy book and relic coverings, and more. Because I am so interested in textiles, I use that interest, consciously and unconsciously, to find a way into a new situation. I did that in India, not only with the bourka, but wearing the sari or the shalwar and kameez rather than Western clothing. My motto is: when in Rome, dress like the Romans. Im interested in the sacred space cloth can provide, from a nuns habit to the mantle covering the Torah, and how cloth can be a visual, textural, or physical barrier, keeping some people or elements in and other people or elements out. My feeling is that if I dress like those around me, I can be more like them, I can understand better what they are like, by being more like them. Its rather like the notion of walking a mile in someones moccasins. Once youve walked that mile, you know how those moccasins pinch, or how the leather is soft against your foot. You can

Howard/Simple 43 feel the gravel or the grass youre walking on, and, for a brief moment, you can enter into someone elses world, if only on the fringes. So I find that when I wish to join a new group, I try to dress similarly, and I must confess, the more exotic, the more interesting for me. Because the neo-pagans are a relatively new religion--however ancient the deities might be--there is no real textile tradition. Many people have this vague connection with the European medieval era, and so wear modern approximations of medieval dress, usually long flowing robes with long dangly sleeves or longish full skirts with lots of gathers. Additionally, some people go skyclad during rituals--no clothes at all. Because there are different traditions called upon in neo-paganism--e. g., ancient goddess-worship, various ancient cultures pantheons, Native American spirituality, Hinduism, Druid treeworship--sometimes the followers of a particular path will dress in a way suitable to that path. For example, the people connected with Native American traditions or some other primitive way will wear lots of deer skin, feathers, etc. The clothes are not terribly interesting. They appeared to me to be derivative, imitative, make-shift. Somehow the textiles seemed to be used for increasing the attractiveness of the wearer rather than to delimit sacred or ritual space. And while Im all for sexy and attractive clothes, the continual emphasis on beauty and sexual attraction

Howard/Simple 44 distracts from the religious impulses we are trying to follow. There were moments when I felt that we were all just playing dress-up out of our parents attic, putting on whatever seemed interesting and alluring at the time, without a thought for how this cloth was going to help us get closer to the divine. The clothes, finally, for me, represent the looseness of the neopagan communitys moral standards. More people smoke, drink, and take drugs in this group than in any other group Ive associated with, regardless of religion. Casual sex is rampant, and many people, myself included, tried to make non-monogamy a workable life choice. The clothes are often trashy, glitzy, fancy--in a rhinestone sort of way. And while some people claimed to be worshipping a love or sex goddess, or practicing Tantric sex, it seems to me now that sex was a habit the same way cigarettes were, and not a sacred ritual connecting the worshippers to the goddess. And while I believe that sex can be sacred--the same way that bread and wine can be sacred--I have come to believe that we must draw the ritual circle around it, and bless it, and consecrate it, just as we consecrate bread and wine to make the Eucharist. Another example. I had a friend who was High Priestess of a coven. She once remarked to me that she was frustrated because she wanted and expected her group of followers to support her financially the same way a congregation supports its pastor. I was aghast. I was

Howard/Simple 45 not entirely clear then about what pastors do, but I did know a few things. They visit the sick at home and in the hospital, they are available for general counseling, they give prenuptial counseling, they help the needy, run Bible studies, teach catechism classes, baptize and initiate people. All this in addition to their Sunday job of performing the rituals and giving the sermon. This priestess did some of this, but not nearly all. She provided her home for rituals and meetings, she knew a great deal about herbal medicine, and if you called or visited, she would advise and perhaps dose you, she did tarot card and horoscope readings (sometimes for free, more often for a fee). I do not know, because I was not a member of her coven, what kind of religious instruction she provided, but my feeling is not much. She had an extensive library of herbal, Wiccan, historical, and other kinds of reference books that she freely lent to anyone, not just coveners. And now that I make this list, I think perhaps her duties were similar to a part-time pastors. But the greatest difference is one difficult to articulate. You dont have to talk to my current pastor very long to know that she is a woman of God, that her dedication and commitment go beyond what words can convey. I feel comfortable going to her for spiritual advice or comfort. I never had these feelings about this priestess. I never felt that she was a woman of the goddess, a deeply spiritual woman. I did go to her for spiritual advice. But only

Howard/Simple 46 once. So finally, she couldnt ask her community to support her because she was not supporting them, not in the way I imagine she should have been. But I do not blame this particular woman; she was doing her best within a system that claimed to be a religion but that did not seem to accept the communal responsibilities of a religion. At the time I did not understand these feelings so clearly or so precisely. I just felt uncomfortable. I did try to analyze my reactions and feelings, but I did not have a working spiritual and religious vocabulary. I could only feel uncomfortable, and try to wiggle my way into the community.

I dont want to make the believers out to be freaks and weirdos-and yet, like any group, they have their share. There was the fellow, for example, who believed in the ancient Celtic pantheon. Or claimed he did. I could never be sure what exactly was meant by believe in this context. I was disturbed greatly by this man, not the least because he tried to immerse himself and live in a dead culture and religious system. I personally find that odd. Most folks, however, were less precise. Goddess-worshippers, for example, used many names taken from many cultures (mostly ancient) to identify her. In fact, one of the ancient Babylonian (I think) names of the goddess is something like She of the thousand names. So, even though they are taking

Howard/Simple 47 bits and pieces from all over, there is historical and ritual precedent for that. But the part that disturbed me most--and I know that I was guilty of it, too; seeing it in others made me aware of how a) nasty, b) unnecessary, c) revealing of unconscious difficulties this behavior is-was how many people were so actively anti-Christian. That is to say, nearly everyone I met was a convert to whatever they were practicing. I met only one young man who claimed that he was reared a witch, that both his parents were witches. Everyone else I talked to about it was a convert--many from Christianity. But rather than identifying themselves simply by their new religion, many still insisted on identifying themselves as not Christians. Thats a negative sort of identification and it seems, as I mentioned, nasty, suspicious, and to demonstrate some unresolved something going on somewhere. It seemed odd to me, especially at a large neo-pagan gathering I attended, that a group of people, all believing different things and in different deities and pantheons, and who claim to be tolerant and demand from others tolerance, would have a common link in hating Christianity. As I said, I know I was guilty of this, too, though I would prefer to forget about that. But it was seeing it so clearly in such a number of people that made me aware of it in myself. I didn't give up neopaganism at that moment, but I did stop bad-mouthing Christians,

Howard/Simple 48 realizing that in the whole scheme of things, we were all good and bad and each religion has its problems--some worse than others. But I could not countenance hating Christians because of witch hunts and witch burnings hundreds of years ago. It was too much for me. More than anything else, I just faded out of the community. As I never joined any coven, there was nothing to withdraw from. After I moved away to go to graduate school, I was still seeking neo-pagan friends, and it was then I went to the large gathering. But I also met my second husband, who, while tolerant of neo-paganism, didnt really want to be involved. And by that time, I was pretty disenchanted with the whole project anyhow. What was I disenchanted with? As I said earlier, elements of it seemed like playacting. I never felt that the rituals created or the poems and hymns written were being created and written out of a spiritual need. They didnt move me. They didnt seem written for the next generation of believers. I didnt feel connected to the other worshippers or to the goddess. They seemed trite and sophomoric to me. And because Ive always felt that ritual and corporate worship is important, it was hard to be with people I wasnt comfortable with and perform rites that seemed goofy to me. There was no sense of the long-term future. The people were more concerned with showing that this religion had a legitimate past than making sure it would have a legitimate future. I think that the current moment--whenever that

Howard/Simple 49 might be--in a religion has to be a fulcrum looking both back and forward. We must look to the past to remember and celebrate, to carry on rites and rituals, but we must also look to the future, build toward the way of life we want for ourselves and our children and our grandchildren. I know that sounds grand, but if a religion cant do that for people, I dont know what can, and if your religion isnt letting you remember the past--whatever that past might be in the terms of your religion--or cant posit a future where all believers live in harmony or whatever the goal is in this life or the next, then I, for one, say why bother? I mentioned above that I considered myself a solitaire, that what rituals I did, I did mostly alone or with a few people. I was, at the time, living with a man who was more involved in neo-pagan groups than I was; he was part of a weekly drumming circle, and was becoming deeply interested in shamanism and spiritual healing. Chriss parents, regular churchgoers, did not like us living together and were pressuring us to get married. I was resisting at every step, until finally we hit upon the idea of a neo-pagan marriage ceremony. It happened that we knew a neo-pagan who was licensed to marry people, but we didnt--I didnt especially--want to make it legal and public. So we married ourselves. We wrote out a ritual--called a handfasting--and performed it. We got rings, and even told people we

Howard/Simple 50 were married, sometimes with the proviso that it wasnt legal and sometimes not. My mother was only a month away from death, so my family had other things to worry about, and was used to my quirks. It was not a real marriage ceremony, so why be concerned was my fathers attitude. Chriss parents refused to accept it, and the drama, particularly against the backdrop of my mothers death, was petty and not a little nasty. I am embarrassed by the foregoing. It happens that Chris and I stayed together for another year and half before I broke it off. He went to Arizona; I stayed at home. When I think about this period of my life, I realize that I am still friends with some of these folks. I dont want to offend them--even though the likelihood of their reading this is small. I feel a kind of loyalty to these friends, however casual or infrequent our getting together might be, a loyalty that holds me back, keeps me from fully voicing my feelings about neo-paganism to them. I also know that I sometimes talk a lot braver and tougher than I am, that I can sound more willing to buck the system--whatever the system may be at any given moment--than I really am. For example, I have both an undergraduate and a masters certificate in womens studies. I spent many years reading and writing about feminist issues, trying to make the personal the political, to live out these ideals of equality. And I attacked my purpose with great zeal and enthusiasm, even to the

Howard/Simple 51 point of questioning my parents marriage--which was happy and solid, and lasted nearly thirty years, ending only with the death of my mother. But when it comes right down to it, Im not really a feminist--at least not the sort represented by the major figures of the last twenty-five years: Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Robin Morgan. Certainly, I owe a great deal to both the so-called first wave of feminists as well as to the second, but the extremes bother me, particularly when I find myself so wanting to be a part of the group that I accept them, on the surface, and allow others to believe that I agree with notions like the total lack of difference between males and females, or, on the other side, the total lack of similarity between males and females. But Im circling my real point. I think finally what makes me the most suspicious in any situation, of both myself and others, is the zeal of the convert. And because, as I mentioned above, nearly all neopagans are converts, many of them approach their religion with that particular quality of zeal, so different from the born-and-bred zealots enthusiasm. And the problem with a religion full of converts is that there is little, if any, institutional memory. And while at one time that was an attraction to me, I soon discovered that without that kind of collective memory, everything you do is spur of the moment, youre always flying by the seat of your pants. You have nothing to fall back on, no tradition, no history, no tried-and-true rituals to carry you

Howard/Simple 52 through the low points, to perk up your excitement. I think the reason why the, relatively speaking, new religions--Buddhism, Christianity, Islam--made it is that they borrowed copiously from what already existed--Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity--and made it new. But they didnt try to cut their new religions out of wholecloth, thats just too difficult. Of course, the Jews and the Hindus had to come from somewhere. I dont really know much about the origins of Hinduism, but you can read about the difficulties the Jews had in the Old Testament and history books. The ancient Hebrews were constantly plagued with backsliding, with slipping into the old familiar pre-Yahweh methods of worship. It took hundreds of years to solidify into a secure faith--because they were starting from scratch. The modern-day neopagans are in a similar bind, though the situation is complicated by historical and archaeological information about ancient goddessworshipping cultures, as well as the hanging on, in England especially, of pre-Christian beliefs well into the Christian period. In her essay The Riddle of the Ordinary, Cynthia Ozick discusses the supreme importance of the Second Commandment for Jews, how the lure of multiple gods hides in the shadows of monotheism and waits to transform praising God for bread and love into praising grain and sex as deities. Its a transformation of the transcendent into the immanent, and the fundamental difference between Judaism and the earth-based religions that preceded it. Im

Howard/Simple 53 with Ozick on this point. I, too feel the the pleasure of worshipping the grain because it produces bread, the earth because it brings forth life, sex because it is a physical manifestation of love. And I, too, feel the need to resist this pleasure, to insist on a transcendent God who, while present in all things, does not elevate all things to the divine because of His presence. What I mean is that while bread, life, and love, grain, the earth, and sex all may be sacred, while they all may be witness to the presence of God, they themselves are not gods, are not divine. Its like the metaphor the container-for-the-thing-contained but backwards: the thing contained for the container. At first, we may think that the bread contains God, but, even though bread is sacred (and Im not referring to Eucharistic bread, just plain old bread), it does not contain God. God contains the bread. But either way, I do not want to make the mistake of confusing the bread with God. Bread, grain, is not God. Love is not God (though God is Love). We are not God, though our souls be a divine spark within us. So when it comes right down to it, the appeal, for me, in modern neo-paganism was the appeal of the immanent divine, Divine Trees, Birds, Fires, etc., the worship of the ordinary to transform it into the extraordinary. And perhaps if I had been an ancient Hebrew, I would have succumbed to the lure of the familiar and gone back to the ways of old. But Im not an ancient Hebrew, and Im not surrounded by authentic goddess religions. Im a person who finds the idea of

Howard/Simple 54 multiple gods both appealing and frightening, who is classical and organized by nature, yet who is tempted by the baroque and overly ornate, who, finally, must find a way to reconcile the Trinity and monotheism. And yet, I feel wistful when I think about Witchcraft. To write this, Ive gone back to my old books, and I get sad, even teary-eyed. There is a part of me, my actual experience notwithstanding, that wants what the Craft has to offer, that wants, still, to find a coven, to pray to the Goddess, to rejoice in the immanence of the Divine. I can see from these books--by Starhawk, Margot Adler, Z. Budapest--that for some people this tradition is a religion and seems to function like one, providing the comfort, structure, and history a religion needs to survive. I told my husband the other day that if we moved to a new city and the pagans found me first, I dont know that I wouldnt try it again. When asked once what I like about Witchcraft, what attracted me, I answered that it was the elevation of the feminine, the sanctification of the erotic, the recognition of the Divine in everyone and everything. But what I miss is the Witchcraft of The Kelpies Pearls, not what I actually experienced. I miss what I never really got out of it, and Im willing to admit that that may be just as much my own fault as the Crafts. I see in these books a vision of what could have been for me, and I desire that now and I desired it then, ten years ago. But I didnt

Howard/Simple 55 find it, and it didn't find me. The formal rituals I performed left me empty for the most part; yet what was meaningful has stuck with me. When you walk into my kitchen, you see two large metal shelves crowded with herbs, spices, beans, grains, oils, vinegars--the foundation of my cooking. The way I think about food and cooking and feeding people was profoundly affected by Witchcraft. I may not throw salt to the four directions before cooking, or chant a spell, but the process itself is a ritual, a sacred ritual, especially when I cook for others. Im not sure I see broccoli or kale as repositories of the Divine, but I do know that when I make a meal from them and feed my family and friends, the broccoli is transformed from green vegetable to sustenance, to nurturing, to gift, to love. I know that when I cook with intention--and I use that term in the way a spell-preparing Witch would--the results are fulfilling, physically and spiritually, to both me and those who share the meal with me. It may not be the Eucharist, but I know God is present at those meals. Going back to this point in my life has also forced me to see that my wistfulness is partly the universal longing after our lost youth. I was younger then, and had only myself to take care of, regardless of the romantic ties I tried to forge at the time. I dont really want to be 28 again or 25, but its a bittersweet pleasure to look back--even if its only five or seven years later--and nod sagely over your youthful follies. You dont like to denounce them, and yet you dont really want

Howard/Simple 56 to relive them, and so you feel wistful and yearning, wondering What if? even as you know deep down that youll never go back, even if you could. I know that makes me sound old--old enough to have a lost youth, and Im not. Im only 35, and I was still considering joining a coven just four years ago. But when I didnt join, I was--though I didn't know this at the time--turning in a different direction, and closing the door on those possibilities.

Ninth Street I was 32 when I decided to go back to church. Since learning about the Crucifixion, I had referred to a persons 33rd year as their Jesus Year, for what I hope are obvious reasons. I was coming up on my own Jesus year, and felt the need to do something about it. My mother died of cancer in 1992, when I was 28; my father died in 1995, when I was 31. A woman in the office next to mine talked to me about her own church experiences. She said that she went as a child, then stopped for awhile, then went back again when her children were little. Then, after they grew up, she stopped again, but then, when her older relatives, including her parents, were starting to die, she went back yet again, and has been going regularly ever since. She feels that for her

Howard/Simple 57 it has to do with the life cycle as well as emotional and intellectual development. This conversation was right after my father died. I knew what she meant, but was still a little afraid of looking for a church. I had never done it, and did not know how. And yet, I knew where I wanted to go. I had been eyeballing this church since moving to Kansas. I knew nothing about it but what I could see from the outside: That it was a beautiful old limestone historical building, that it was Baptist, and that the Pastors name was Ren Brown. My friend Rachel, in the meantime, was in the process of converting to Catholicism. Partly to marry Troy, but mostly because she wanted that for herself. Many people outside the university have no idea just how hostile academia is to Christianity--particularly an English department struggling to keep up with current trends in theoretical thinking. Its PC nowadays to be tolerant of all other religions and spiritual paths, but Christians are often fair game, I think, because of the association of all Christians with the politically outspoken religious right. Yet Rachel was neither secretive nor overbearing about her conversion. She talked about her Catholic classes quite openly and normally, as she would talk about anything else in her life that was suitable for public conversation. I admired her for that. Given the atmosphere, even in Kansas where more faculty go to church than in other areas, I thought Rachel brave. Her actions

Howard/Simple 58 made me think. At first, even though I admired her, in my private thoughts I considered the down side. I was raised Protestant, she was becoming Catholic. Confession, transubstantiation, babies, the liturgy--it all seemed so foreign to me, and I knew I couldnt do it, and didnt really want to. One of the reasons I thought so much about this was that my husband John was raised Catholic, and I felt oddly connected to the question of conversion, even though John had no intentions of rejoining the Catholic Church. But even as I was thinking about these issues, I was noticing who my friends were at school--and I didnt really have many friends outside of school. They were mostly church-goers. Not all, of course, but many, even mostly. And once Rachel made her public move, I found these friends more willing to talk about their own churches. Of course, that makes it sound like they were the shy ones, waiting for someone else to go public, as it were. Its probable that it was their seeing my positive and interested reaction to Rachel that allowed them to talk to me, whereas before I probably seemed uninterested. So, I was surrounded by church folk, and was thinking about my beliefs and desires. My Jesus year was coming up, and I decided to go back to church. The first Sunday after my birthday, I went to a Catholic Church with my friend Jen. The next Sunday I went to an African Methodist Episcopal church that was just a block from my house. I even considered going to a Mennonite church. But the whole

Howard/Simple 59 while I knew where I wanted to go. Ninth Street Missionary Baptist Church. I was pretty sure that it was an African-Amercian church, and I was a little nervous about going. I was nervous for a number of reasons. One was that I hadnt been to church for a long time. I know, I just said that Id been to two different churches in the past two weeks, and that Id been thinking about it for a long time, but the reality of it was pretty scary. I think part of it was that I knew that going back to church would result in changes in my life, and I didnt entirely know what theyd be, even though I had been a regular church-goer as a child. It wasnt clear to me what I believed, but I knew I didn't believe exactly what the Baptists I was going to join believed--unless theyd made some major changes since I was 18, and I hadnt heard of any. Although I was raised fundamentalist, more or less, I didnt believe in taking any text literally. I was a literature major after all, and had had all that trained right out of me--what little there ever had been. I was worried about what I should and could believe. I hadnt stopped believing in God, per se, during these past several years, but had grown to feel, rather, a mutual indifference. I did my thing, God did his thing, and we were both ok. But suddenly that wasnt enough, and I had no idea what the alternatives were. One of the problems with leaving church at 18 is that you go about with a childs and childish view of God, religion, and the church.

Howard/Simple 60 That is to say, although you may have been confirmed, catechized, bar/bat mitzvahd, your understanding is that of a child. That understanding may be totally trusting; it may be trust turned to cynicism, boredom--anything that a child might feel, but with a childs understanding. Ive been feeling the same things about Beethoven lately. I took piano lessons from ages 10-22 or so. Naturally, Fr Elise was my first memorized recital piece. I liked it well enough. It was a cute little piece that was relatively easy to play and memorize. I grew tired of it, though, and stopped playing it after the recital. It seemed trite--of course, this triteness was heightened by the first phrase of the piece being used as the alarm on the early digital watches in the 70s. There was not much worse in my mind than that annoying electronic deedle deedle deedle. But I also played a few other Beethoven pieces, sonatas, etc., and liked them, was even moved by them, but didnt ever think deeply about them. For various reasons I got away from the piano until the past few months, when we moved my mothers piano into our new house. I got out all my old piano music, including Fr Elise, and have been playing a bit, even practicing sometimes, nearly every day. Im noticing things about Beethoven that I did not, and perhaps could not, notice before. The way he repeats a series of notes to build up tension, how he releases that tension by going back into the primary theme, how even minor pieces written for children like Fr Elise have

Howard/Simple 61 thematic elements in common with his major symphonies. Im not trying to suggest that I am now a Beethoven expert or that I have the definitive understanding of him and his music, only that now I can see and feel more deeply than I could before. Ive heard and played more music than when I was 20--let alone when I performed it at 12--, I have more experience to bring to the music and to resonate with the music. Beethoven is thrilling and moving to me now in ways impossible when I was younger. The same with novels. Ive been reading Jane Austen novels since high school. A few months ago I reread Northanger Abbey--which was never my favorite--, and I finally got it. I heard, for perhaps the first time, the underlying parody and humor of the novel, even though Ive known it was there for a long time. I like the novel so much better now than before. Ive read more books, I know a few more things, Ive seen a bit more of life. I think, for me anyway, the same thing is happening with religion. Id read the Bible, memorized the verses, sang the songs, listened to the sermons, acted in the Easter and Christmas pageants, but When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. So what happens, I think--I know this is what happened to me, and paying attention to other people who left the church as a youth, it seems to be generalizable--is that when you leave, you have, say, an

Howard/Simple 62 18-year-olds vision of God, religion, and the church. But if you are no longer participating in the church, there is no opportunity for your understanding to grow. You keep with you your childish notions, for good or for ill. (Naturally, this does not apply to people who were not raised in church at all.) So even as you grow and learn and become more sophisticated in your thinking and abilities, your ideas about religion, church, and God tend to be fossilized, frozen at that earlier stage of development. The result of this is that when you try to examine those beliefs, they seem, naturally, childish. We are ashamed of them, embarrassed by them, impatient with them. We find them dull or infantile. Oh, I used to think such-and-so, but not anymore, we find ourselves saying uneasily in conversations. We ridicule our past selves, not really knowing why or how those thoughts and feelings bother us. We get this idea that church is about feelings, because our memory is more emotion memory than thought memory. We say things to our church-going friends such as, Well, as long as it makes you feel better/good, thats all that matters. And we believe it. And the longer we are away, the harder it is to take religion seriously, because as we grow ever older and more experienced, our arrested view of religion seems ever more childish and silly.

Of course, this isnt true for everyone who left the church as a youth. Many people have very specific reasons: I dont believe the

Howard/Simple 63 wafer and wine really become body and blood; there are too many hypocrites; I went to religious school, and they treated me badly; they forced me to believe that the Bible is literal fact--that God planted fossils for us to find after Noahs flood; I dont agree with the churchs stand on ____ (fill in the blank). On second thought, however, perhaps these arent as different as they seem. One of the advantages of being a Protestant, Ive always maintained, is that I dont have to believe what they (whoever they might be) tell me. I can read and interpret the Bible on my own--Martin Luther wasnt excommunicated for nothing. And these reasons seem more connected to doctrinal issues than to God. I may go to Hell for saying this, but I dont think God much cares one way or the other whether we believe the Eucharist transubstantiates or not. I personally believe that its both true and not true at the same time. That is, its true for those who believe its true, and not for those who believe otherwise. It seems to me that the main reason for going to church is not doctrinal, but joyful celebration. Its easier when the officiating body believes the same way you do, but that happens so rarely, that to look for perfect harmony of beliefs seems foolish--and childish. I think we should be looking for a group of people who are actively seeking a relationship with the Divine in positive and hopeful ways, whatever the particular brand has to say about infant versus adult baptism or grape juice versus wine for communion.

Howard/Simple 64 I was nervous about going to Ninth Street for other reasons, too. I was pretty sure that it was largely African-American, which didnt bother me, but I had no idea what my reception would be. Im a little embarrassed to admit this now, but I was nervous enough to invite along a Black student, Shyra, as a kind of calling card. Shed never been to this church, but at least Id have someone to sit next to during the service, someone who already knew the routine, and would be comfortable. As it happened, of course, I didnt really need to have her with me, although she did provide some security. I think she knew why I invited her, and was gracious enough to go along with me anyway. The first Sunday there with Shyra was thrilling. I do not recall what Pastor Brown preached that day, although I learned later always to bring my Bible and take notes on the sermon, but the music confirmed right away that I belonged there. Miss Renita, the Minister of Music, played a classic Gospel organ and was backed up by drums, lead guitar, bass guitar, and sometimes saxophone or trumpet. Many of the songs we sang that day I either already knew, or learned quickly enough to join in. And knowing the music, even if I was familiar with nothing else, helped me feel less a stranger. The service at Ninth Street begins with at least fifteen minutes of singing and praying, the devotion period, led by the deacons or matrons. After this, the service proper begins with announcements, greetings, and the lay meditation. Then the congregational hymn is

Howard/Simple 65 sung out of the hymnal, and the contrast to the devotion period is almost comical. Nobody can clap until the last chorus because we are all holding the hymnals in our hands, rendering this song the least lively of the whole morning. Next come the offerings, followed by the choir, followed by the sermon--which always ends with an altar call. The Baptists are not a liturgical group, so each church orders things in its own way, except that the sermon is always last, and always ends with a call to people who wish to come forward to the altar and commit, or recommit, their lives to Jesus. The next Sunday I went alone and many of the congregation remembered me from the previous Sunday and spoke to me. Miss Reta had taken for herself the job of Greeter, and made a point of seeking out all the new people, welcoming them, and then introducing them to one member whom they could sit with. Through her services I immediately got to know a number of women who later became good friends. During the previous week I had gone to see a new doctor for a check-up, and found her personable and interested in her patients holistically. After the service was over, and we were herding ourselves to the back of the Sanctuary, I saw Dr. Bremby, who saw and recognized me from her office. We exchanged a few words of surprise and pleasure, and then the crowd separated us. Several days later I received a card from her welcoming me into Ninth Street, and inviting me to stay and join the Church.

Howard/Simple 66 The third Sunday, I joined the choir--even before I was in new members class or officially a member of the Church. From my adolescence, going to Church has meant singing in the choir, so when Miss Renita announced that more people were needed in the adult choir, I was ready to answer the call. The only problem with this, as far as I could see, was that I would no longer be able to wear hats to Church. Many of the ladies at Ninth Street wore hats and really dressed up for Church. As a serious hat collector and wearer, I was delighted. It was a tough choice: hats or choir. But as I could wear a hat on days when the choir did not sing, I opted for the choir. And, from the choir loft, I could look out at the congregation and admire all the lovely hats. My favorite was one the wife of a visiting pastor wore. The white straw hat had a wide brim that bent downwards and was covered with little white feathers. Another lady always wore a hat, a different one for every outfit. When I admired one of them--a striking red felt hat with a black feather arcing up to the ceiling--she revealed in a whisper that most of her hats were twenty or more years old. She had kept all the original boxes to store them in, and dusted each one before packing it away, stuffing the hat with crushed paper to maintain its shape. And yet, even after several months of love and support and acceptance, I was still a little uncomfortable, a little nervous. I had walked right into the middle of a different culture, one that I knew

Howard/Simple 67 about and had some experience with, but whose nuances and subtleties were quite beyond me. For example, the Sunday after the Tyson/Holyfield match Pastor Brown used them as an example. Tyson is a Muslim, while Holyfield had Phillipians 4:13 embroidered on the back of his robe. Without getting into his sermon, it is enough to say that Pastor Browns commentary on the metaphorical meaning of the fight between the Black Muslim and the Black Christian showed me that I was in the midst of another cultures culture war, and I had very little experience to help me negotiate the terrain. Another example of my cultural difference is more subtle. Everyone was delighted when I joined the adult mass choir. Im not a bad singer; I had a little training back when I was a music major in college. But Ive sung either camp songs or classical music all my life. Not a lot of gospel. But Ive listened to it, and knew some of the songs, and I blended in well enough. Then there was the so-called girl group. It was a small ensemble formed to sing more contemporary gospel music. I asked if I could join, and the director said yes. So I did. Now this was tough. On the Western classical standard, I was just as high up as these women were on the gospel standard. But we werent singing what I was used to. I didn't even get to sing my regular part. I had to learn to sing alto. Which is no big deal for me in a white church choir. But I could just barely hang on to the melody line in this ensemble, let alone sing a harmony part. I was the least

Howard/Simple 68 experienced, and it took me the longest to learn my part, etc., etc. The afternoon before the all-choir concert, the small group was rehearsing. I couldnt get my part in a difficult song that we all really liked. The director said if we couldnt get it right, we werent going to sing it. I knew it was my fault, though no one said anything to me. After I got home, I cried and cried and cried, convinced that they were all thinking how uppity the white girl was, and who ever told her she could sing, and why couldnt I just be happy in the mass choir, and so on. I knew, down deep, that they were not thinking any of these thoughts, but I couldnt help being afraid that they were. It was an obvious point of difference, an obvious reason why I couldnt sing gospel music the right way. I was angry with myself for thinking these thoughts about them, for accusing them, in my mind, of racist thoughts--are they racist thoughts? I cant even tell, not even at this distance from the event. Im not sure I even know what that word, racist, means anymore. I do know that they werent thinking what I was supposing. The trouble is that Im pretty certain that they were frustrated with my lesser abilities, but in the church situation were willing to work with me, and encourage me, because of the belief that God does not call those who are prepared, He prepares those whom He calls. I felt called to sing in these choirs, and was hoping for some divine preparation and intervention. The tricky part is that in my own

Howard/Simple 69 mind, I know that, at some level, my lack of gospel-singing experience is connected to my whiteness. Because Im white, Ive always gone to white churches. If the church was integrated, it was mostly white with some other races, usually Black, mixed in it. We sang white music; i.e., Western classical or at least imitating that model. If we sang a gospel piece, trust me, it was in a white kind of way. And none of that is bad. I certainly do not mean to disparage the white religious tradition and its music. Far from it. Its just different from the Black traditions music, even when the songs are the same. So when I try to sing gospel, I cant help but sing in the way Ive been taught. I tried, really I did, but I was not as good as the others in the ensemble.

Exile. The words modern connotations are most often political, and in the US we see usually the person in exile from the vantage point of the protector. Exiles come here, escaping oppression in their home country, so it is hard for many of us to understand exile from within, or from a non-political point of view. The ancient Hebrews experienced this kind of political exile in both Egypt and Babylon. The Babylonian exile has the further meaning of a separation from God. Psalm 137 voices their feelings of loss, confusion, and despair: 1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. 2 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

Howard/Simple 70 3 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. 4 How shall we sing the Lords song in a strange land? Psalm 137: 1-4 I recently learned that early Judaism, pre-Babylonian captivity Judaism, was not true monotheism, but henotheism, the belief in one god without denying the existence of other gods. So, though the early Jews were themselves, in a sense, worshipping only one God, Yahweh, they were not yet to the point of denying all other gods of other religions. The wording of the First Commandment reveals this belief: I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me (Exodus 20: 2-3). The implication here is that there are other gods but that they are lesser gods. Do not hold them up higher than Yahweh, though they have their proper place much lower in the hierarchy. The early Hebrews also believed that Yahweh was a God of place. His place was in the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem. (The Lord is in His Holy Temple, let all the the earth keep silence before Him.) So when the Babylonians carried them away into captivity, they felt they were leaving their God, because they were

Howard/Simple 71 leaving His place. They asked the question How shall we sing the Lords song in a strange land? not because they were sad, unhappy, finding it hard to praise the Lord in the midst of their trials, though Im sure thats all true as well, but because they were not in the Lords place. They were in a strange land, surrounded by strange gods. Their songs of Zion would not avail in Babylon. But somehow, they figured it out, that Yahweh was not only in the Temple in Jerusalem, but that He was with them always wherever they went. First they had the memory of the Exodus, the forty years of wandering in the wilderness. The presence of God was with them by day as a pillar of smoke and by night as a pillar of fire. He provided manna for them to eat every morning. If God could lead them then, why could he not be with them now? Another help was Ezekiels vision, in which the glory of the Lord departs the Temple, going to Babylon with them. Thus, slowly they came to understand that God is where Gods people are. They also came to understand that there is only one God, and that there are no other gods over or under Him. But it was only in the experience of exile that the Hebrews could learn these lessons. As long as they were in what they understood as the the right place, Yahweh was with them, they were with Yahweh. They had to move into a strange land to see and know that God is not limited by place, but is always with His people. They learned how to sing the songs of Zion in a strange land.

Howard/Simple 72 In some ways, my experience at Ninth Street was similar. I was in exile; I was in the midst of a strange culture. Of course, it wasnt as strange as the Babylonians were to the Hebrews, and I was not forced labor, but no one can deny that I was a stranger in a strange land. I was welcomed, as Ive said before, and I was brought into the church and into the culture with friendly gestures and genuine affection. But the culture at Ninth Street will never be my culture, will never be my childhood memories, will never be my default mode for how we used to do things, however much I might want it to be. For example, my husbands family is Catholic, all the children were baptized, catechized, and communioned in the Catholic church. Johns sister no longer attends church much--and I dont even know what religion, if any, her husband was reared--but her daughters, when they go to church, go to Catholic church, and Im pretty certain they were baptized Catholic. So, even though they are really unchurched, the church that they have the closest connection to is the Catholic. They are not Baptist or any other Protestant denomination, but they are less not Catholic than they are not Baptist. My brothers kids, on the other hand, are more Protestant than Catholic. They dont go often, but when they do, its to a Church of Christ--our own hometown, childhood church, in fact. So, however much I wanted to be a Black Baptist, I realized that I was never going to be one. And not only because Im white. My friend Joan, a white woman, just married a Black man at Ninth Street. And

Howard/Simple 73 although neither Joan nor her husband Donny were raised Baptist--Joan was Catholic, and Donny was a Jehovahs Witness--they are both all the way in, and their children will be born to the tradition, regardless of what race you consider them. I was, in a sense, in exile from my own culture. And yet, much of the religious tradition was very familiar. At the same time it was very different. The Hebrews were forced to ask themselves hard questions while in exile: Who are we? What is our relationship with God? Where is God? What now? It took seventy years, but they were able, finally, to answer, or reanswer, these questions. Many of these questions were also asked during the Exodus, and one can see many parallels in the two experiences. God was going to lead His people to the Promised Land, but they sinned, they turned away from God. They were not yet one people. Leaving them in the desert for forty years consolidated them, forced them to cooperate with each other, forced them to throw themselves on the mercy of God, and to rely on Him for all their needs. Doing so resulted in a unified people with an identity and a clear connection to God. By the time of the Babylonian exile, they were less unified, and many--especially the leaders--had turned away from God; they had lost their connection to God. And yet, they were still Gods people, whether they understood themselves as such or no, because God had chosen them to be. The Babylonian exile forced them--or

Howard/Simple 74 allowed them, depending on your point of view--to reconsider their connection with God, rethink who they were, and push their theology to a higher plane. At Ninth Street, I had to ask myself similar hard questions. What was I doing there? Was I looking for God or trying to make some political point? What kind of connection did I want with God? What I found at Ninth Street was both familiarity and strangeness. I was familiar with Baptist doctrine, I was familiar with speaking in tongues, I was familiar with the hymns in the hymnal, I was familiar with some of the older gospel songs. I was even familiar, to some extent, with Ebonics. On the other hand, some of the rituals were new to me, many songs were new to me, the electric band was new to me, and unselfconscious Black culture was relatively new to me. But what was I doing there? I mentioned before that I felt led there. Well, thats great, but just what does that mean? It means that before I ever went to church there, I wanted to go there, I knew that once I did begin attending church there, thats where I was going to stay. That, somehow, that is where I belonged, even though I didnt know how or why it was going to happen. But though saying I was led to Ninth Street certainly addresses the question--and even answers it to some degree--, it also avoids the human answer, it ignores what I learned there, what I did there. So let me try to answer: By plunking myself down--or by being plunked down, however you want to look at it--in the

Howard/Simple 75 midst of a congregation of Black people, I discovered new ways of connecting with God. I have mentioned that I had been raised more or less fundamentalist, and most peoples assumption is, the more fundamental, the lower the church, the louder it is--with shouting and dancing and snakes and tongues. Well, thats true to some extent. But there are plenty of low white churches that are quiet as cathedrals, in which everybody sits in nice neat rows, never wiggling about or moving, until its time to stand for the congregational hymn. No one sings with the choir, no one shouts Amen, and no one gets happy. I had always gone to that sort of church. I knew about all those other things, but had never seen or experienced them. Because I had spent so many years away from the church, I fit right into the pattern I described earlier. My understanding of religion was much less sophisticated and adult than the rest of me. So I needed a place that could take me where I was and move me ahead at whatever pace I could go. But I also needed a place that wasnt totally intellectual. The rest of my life was intellectual--at least the professional part of it was--and I needed something else, something in addition to. I didnt want to turn off my brain, and even if I did, Im not sure I can; I wanted to feel. I wanted the emotions of church. Now this makes it sound like I really knew what I wanted and what I was looking for. Far from it. I had no idea. I can only say this now, after the fact. These are thoughts Ive had since then, the recognition and

Howard/Simple 76 understanding of what I needed. It was the kind of aha! experience when you discover that you were looking for something only after you find it, and you find out what you were looking for after it has become clear to you. Thats how Ninth Street was for me. I didnt know I needed to be able to cry in church without attracting attention. Id never cried in church before in my life, except for funerals. But it was this different set of expectations that allowed me to discover what my friend Rachel calls the churchs best kept secret, and what I had been missing out on: the Holy Spirit. I have been given the courage to write, at last, about all these subjects. I went to India in 1983-1984, and have wanted to write about it since returning. I have tried, with only one small success, a number of times to recount my experiences. I have tried to write about my first marriage and the divorce, but could never find the key into it. Being able to write this is only one of many gifts of the Holy Spirit. I can now cry in Church, I can talk naturally and easily about church and church activities, the way Rachel did about her conversion. I am no longer ashamed of my early religious training and experience. And neither am I ashamed of my other pasts. I can see my life through this spiritual lens, and it makes a kind of sense it never had before. During the process of writing this piece, Ive been thinking about all the people in my life who might conceivable read this: my pagan friends, Chris and his parents, people who knew me before I went to

Howard/Simple 77 India, my family, my friends who are still unsure what it means that Ive returned to Church, my new Church friends--and I can see that writing this is my connection to the medieval Gentle Knight pricking on the plaine at Pentecost. I am now taking part in the Great Commission, assuming my duties in spreading the Gospel. My earliest training in evangelism involved getting out on the street corner and talking to people as they went about their day. And although this is not my way, I do have great sympathy for the Gideon men who distribute those little green New Testaments every fall after the first major frost and the tomatoes have died. But there are many ways of spreading the Good News. The old gospel tune says, If you cant pray like Peter/If you cant preach like Paul/Just go and tell your neighbor/That He died to save us all. But thats not quite what I want to say either. I want to tell you that this church experience is allowing me to look at my life from a new point of view. Not the adolescent Ugh, I used to think that! of denial and embarrassment, but being able to love and forgive my past selves even as I learn to love and forgive other people--which Ive discovered is far easier to do. There are many gifts one gains in a relationship with God. This particular one--a new ability to reflect honestly and yet kindly on my past--is the one most important to me right now. I know this emphasis will change, but this is where I am now, with Lancelot, Gawain, and

Howard/Simple 78 Arthur, trying to find the Holy Grail, but trying also not to be disappointed when its not found. As a Christian, I believe in an eternal life, but Im not terribly interested in that right now, nor does it motivate my actions. Im more interested in the medieval notion of imitatio Christi, imitation of Christ, in order to learn how to live in this world with this life, right here and now. Im grateful for what Ive learned about living so far--a marriage that works well, a choir to sing in, a church to belong to, friends who love me and whom I love, and the faith that I am being guided to and strengthened for what lies ahead.

One of my good friends does not appear to believe in any God at all. She is Jewish because her mother is Jewish, but her father is the son of a Southern Baptist pastor. She did not grow up in a religious environment. My friend has some sense of something beyond this life, but its vague, she doesnt talk about it very much, and religion and God do not seem terribly important to her. My friend is also a worrier, and she spends a great deal of her time worrying about her clients at work--she is the Mental Retardation/Developmental Disability housing coordinator for the county. Sometimes her job requires her to go to court and fight for the

Howard/Simple 79 clients right to leave a siblings home in order to live in a supervised group home, or to remove a person from an abusive situation, or to find a place for someone whose parent has just died or fallen ill. She moves from one crisis to another daily. And it takes its toll. When her husband was alive, he was able to calm her down and give her something else to worry about, and allowed her to leave work more or less at work. But now, she has very little to distract her from her job worries, and they all seem to pile up on top of her grief at losing her husband. So, naturally, I worry about her. In a conversation with my husband about all this, he said that what could help her is a religious perspective. A religious perspective allows one to believe that there is someone or something in charge, not only of your own life, but of the rest of the world as well. This kind of perspective also allows you to believe that this someone wants good for you and is capable of turning your tragedies and suffering into good. If my friend had a religious perspective, she perhaps could then stop feeling responsible for everything and everybody. Im not, and I dont think my husband was, arguing for a specifically Christian view of God. Rather, I advocate nearly any view that reminds us, as another friend put it, that we are not in charge, that we are not ultimately responsible for everything, that we cannot change the world all alone.

Howard/Simple 80 My pastor at Trinity Lutheran--my new church home--would agree, I think, that this is the truth of the Genesis creation story: that God created the world and us within it, and will take care of His creation. We have not created God--regardless of how many religions we have created in order to reach God, to talk about God, to understand God. I dont want to suggest that believing in God will solve all of my friends--or anyone elses--problems, because it wont, nor do I want to imply we should simply abdicate all responsibility for ourselves. But what a religious perspective will do is provide some larger sense of connection, a fitting into a larger pattern that we do not fully understand, something to lean on when we are not strong enough to do what we feel we ought. Im afraid this makes it sound like believing in God is a crutch, but I dont mean it that way. What I mean is that a good religious perspective can humble us, can make us realize that we are, like King Lear, no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal, can give us a reason to stop worrying all the time. A religious perspective can comfort us by providing something stronger than we can ever be to help us and to help others. Its too much for one person to bear the burden of, say, where all the mentally retarded people in the county are going to live, but if you can believe that there is a larger purpose, if you can believe that even tragedy has a place in life, and can be,

Howard/Simple 81 ultimately, a good rather than an ill occurrence, then you can relax into doing your best, without running yourself ragged. I have another friend who does have a religious perspective, but shes had to want it and work for it for a long time. She was raised in the Lutheran and Methodist churches as a child, but left when her parents stopped making her go. In college she flirted with Eastern mysticism, but it was not working for her. When I met her, she was doing weekly Bible study with a Jehovahs Witness friend of hers, which went on for several years. And then, like me, she wandered for a while, not really doing anything about her spiritual life. Recently, though, she joined a Buddhist meditation center, and goes to Buddhist church on Sundays for meditation and fellowship. She even took her parents when they visited her. Her life is calmer now, more on an even keel. She is more joyful and content than Ive seen her in years. And I think this comes from her not only having a religious perspective, but also being able to live it through with a group of like-minded people. When asking the questions How shall I live? What shall I do in and with this life? I dont think it matters much what religion you are, if any, as long as you can allow God into your life, as long as you are willing to be moved by God . I think it helps to have some kind of church to belong to. It keeps you from despair and hopelessness; you know that you are not alone with your problems. When you dont

Howard/Simple 82 believe in God, when you have no religious perspective, there is no reason to believe that good can come from bad, or that what appears bad to us may lead to good. There is very little larger than ourselves and our desires or our failings to guide, comfort, or support us. We are forced to rely solely on ourselves, and sometimes we can begin to feel responsible for everything--from the baby falling over his feet and hurting himself to the bad weather that caused your friends car to slide into a telephone pole. Some of us develop an overinflated estimation of our abilities to change the world, and ignore or forget or never really know the very real possibilities within which we can effect change. And this, finally, is what I want for my friend: a religious perspective that will relieve her of misappropriated responsibilities, a religious perspective that will help her define and live her life, a religious perspective that will comfort her in times of loss and failure and challenge her in times of joy and plenty.