Religion

Religion is something that I take very seriously. I spent my entire life in search of a path to divinity, and finally found it in the mid-eighties. I will touch on many aspects of religion here, and I warn you to read no further if you do not have an open mind. I find that most people do not have an open mind where religion is concerned. To most people there is only one way to one God and anyone who thinks otherwise can go to Hell, proverbially or literally. You'll find no such dogma here.

Religion is not something one is born to. Many people go through life thinking that whatever their parents told them about God or Heaven, or the lack thereof, must be true. They go through the motions, showing up in some building with beautiful architecture on most major holidays and perhaps a handful of Saturdays or Sundays, depending upon the religion that has been handed down to them. Most people don't think about what they are doing or why they do it. They do not question it, and they follow the way they have been lead their whole lives. This is not necessarily a bad thing. If one achieves spiritual gratification in this way, then that is perfectly good and valid. But that was not the way it worked for me.

I was born to a Roman Catholic Irishman and a mother raised with a Southern Baptist orientation. I have no idea what my natural father thought about religion, and my mom's big religious event was listening to Country Gospel albums on Sundays. Somehow, they saw fit to Baptize me as a Roman Catholic. I don't recall attending Roman Catholic masses ever, until I joined the Cub Scouts, an institution sponsored by Our Lady of Angels in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. I had cause to attend such masses many times after that, for weddings, baptisms, funerals and when I went camping with the Boy Scouts. But Catholicism was not to be my path.

When I was five years old, my mother remarried a Greek man, who shall henceforth be known as my father. That first man never earned that word, despite the act of lust that made him my genetic sire. My father's parents had come from Cypress, a country which was predominantly Greek. When they moved to Bay Ridge, there were no Greek Orthodox Churches, so they settled for a Syrian Orthodox church, Saint Mary's. For years I thought I attended a Greek Orthodox Church. The hymns were sung in some Mid-Eastern language that never sounded quite Greek to me, but this is what I was told by my family: You are Greek Orthodox. You will see why I began seriously studying religion later in my life. If my parents couldn't even get the name of my religion right, I obviously had to train myself!

I spent many years going to this church. I attended Sunday School, and learned the ways of Christianity. I learned some interesting things, as well as things I either disagreed with or disapproved of. I even had a philosophical debate with one teacher. He seemed to have it out for me after that, but eventually came to respect that I, a mere pre-teen, could have an opinion about anything spiritual. I don't remember his name, but he didn't forget me, even years later. It seems that when someone tries to think beyond the imposed dogma, it makes a lasting impression.

I did not continue to go to Sunday School. I found it boring and tedious. So I became an altar boy, so I could get involved, hands on. Now the Eastern Orthodox religion is different from Catholicism in a few ways. I later found out that there are only three true sects of Christianity. Roman Catholicism, which is extremely beuracratic, and headed by the Pope, Eastern Orthodoxy, the apostolic division that has supposedly had all of its teachings descend from Christ to his apostles and then down to later priests, and finally, Protestantism, the sects that disapproved of the stringent rules and biblical interpretations of the other two. I have seen masses from most of them, but there is nothing like the pageantry involved in the Eastern Orthodox Church. As an altar boy, I got to wear cool robes and sashes, carry poles that held candles, fans and crosses and utilize a fancy, smoking, jingling censor which wafted Frankincense smoke into the air. My love for things theatrical attracted me to this, and those feelings were still there when I later discovered the theater of Wicca. I eventually became the head altar boy, sometime during my High School years. I was even tonsured by the bishop, allowing me to wear special robes and a particular sash. This made me technically a sub-deacon.

A series of events began to occur that slowly but surely pulled me away from the church. Unanswered questions and answers that I could not accept were only part of it. I was mistreated at some point by my priest. at Saint Mary's and another priest that i worked for at Scout Camp. At church, I began to feel like an employee rather than a servant of God. If a young man makes an error during a service that the congregation will not see, there is no call for severe chastisement. If a young man has a matter that weighs on his conscience, he should not be laughed at. I realize that one should not condemn an entire group for the actions of just a few, and I certainlyy am not faulting the whole clergy of the Christian world for the insensitivity of an old Orthodox Priest or his obnoxious Roman Catholic colleague. But these were contributing factors.

But the main thing that drove me away from organized religion was my quest to learn more about how the rest of the world saw god. During my period of Agnosticism, I studied every religion I could get information on. I looked into Protestantism, Judaism and Paganism. I was unable to find out much about Mohammadism, at that time, but the quest for what God is went on. I never lost belief in a Supreme Being. I always believed that there was something greater than Man. But I was certain that the male-dominated, beuraucratic mechanism of the Church was not the only path to divinity.

When I discovered what I was, it was like coming home. Half the pagans I have met have said the same thing to me, and I believe it is a similar feeling to the Christians who claim they were "Reborn". It was not so much a sense of finding God or discovering a religion, as it was putting a title to things I already believed. To know that there were others who felt the same as I did about the forces that created, moved and helped control the universe was an awesome thing, and finding that there were names for this religion validated it in my mind.

I had always been interested in witchcraft as a child, and I was a bit surprised to hear that many people who believed as I did called themselves Witches. I read everything I could get my hands on on this subject and it just boggled my mind how the authors of these books were pulling my own thoughts and emotions and putting them in print, with historical and sometimes even biblical backing.

My studies have since lead me to a path of paganism that many call Wicca. I have been a Witch for about 13 years as of this writing. I have belonged to two covens, and served as High Priest for both, been interviewed on the subject of Witchcraft for newspapers and television, have become an Ordained Minister through the Universal Life Church, have performed two hand-fastings (including one legal wedding), have given the benediction at two wedding receptions (including one at a Christian wedding) and have been Editor in Chief of Surrender Dorothy, a newsletter for Fairfield County Wicca, a pagan group that I served as an officer of. The links below will lead to more specific aspects of the Craft and related subjects.