"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Hamlet, Act 1, Scene V.
Unlike most Pagans, I spent many years in Christianity. I was a devoted Christian in leadership in the Church. But the very thing that kept me a devoted Christian is also what led me out of Christianity and into Paganism - a deeply inquiring mind.
From pre-school through my mid-teens, Christianity was a pleasant social milieu. Then, when I became interested in my faith, I began to question everything, but I questioned it all in the context of Christianity. My grandmother was my role model, a loving, knowledgeable church leader, and it was my ambition to follow in her footsteps.
After my "born-again" experience at 16, my eyes were opened to rank hypocrisy. Despite some pretty hairy experiences, I had one burning question: where is this thing called "holiness" that everyone talks about?
I began visiting many different denominations and endlessly searching the Scriptures. But rather than make me a fundamentalist, my life-dominating quest created my own brand of Christianity. I became a candidate for ministry and pursued my quest. Each experience led me deeper, and deeper, but into what?
I learned that I loved ritual. High Church was for me. I was entranced from the moment I first embraced it. The first time I set foot in an Episcopal church, I began to truly feel at home. Then when I entered seminary, I began to understand much more when I studied the Catholic mystics. The experience of the mystics paralleled my own experience of God, or of the Other.
I began to realize why I was so different from my peers. Most other ministers I was around fairly sat on the edge of their seats when they talked to me - always somehow sensing the heresy in what I was saying, but unable to put their finger on it. It was because I knew the Bible too thoroughly, and I could find room for my beliefs in it, passage by passage every time. They had no clue how to refute what I was saying.
I was teaching, ministering, and preaching by that time. My classes and congregations sat on the edge of their seats, too, but for a different reason. Instead of sensing heresy, they sensed something real - a quality in what I taught that was somehow subtly, yet boldly different than anything else they had ever been taught.
I finally realized that most Christian pastors and church-people twist the scriptures in whatever way they see fit in order to fit their own belief systems. I didn't have to - what I believed was inherent in the Scriptures themselves, but not talked about in the same way I talked about it.
There were thousands of catalysts when I look back on it to my leaving the Church. But perhaps the one that truly began to turn my tide of understanding was a chapter in University of Arizona professor Gary Schwartz's book The Living Energy Universe entitled "Water Remembers."
Perhaps it was my first introduction to quantum concepts and thought. I was taking a constitutional homeopathic remedy, and I recall that the concept(s) in that chapter helped me to understand homeopathy in a new and more satisfying way. Then my ever inquisitive mind began to make quantum leaps and bounds to understanding mysteries I'd long swept under a rug saying that I would understand them "all bye and bye."
And quite suddenly, unexpectedly, shockingly to me, Jesus, who had long been the companion of my heart, and his ever-loving Father, became quite irrelevant to me overnight. I had had what is known as a "paradigm shift."
And so it was that I found myself adrift in a pool with a strong whirling, sucking nexus, trying desperately to keep my head above water, with all my life-long beliefs floating around me like bits of wreckage. Not knowing where to turn, I found people who called themselves Pagan and formed my own little eclectic study group. They were there to study Paganism. I invited them there to study them.
I had strong, nagging theological questions that I asked and asked. And every bit more about Paganism that I discovered, I asked about as well. Most of my newfound friends gazed at me with a bit of that deer-in-the-headlights look. Not having engaged Christianity in the same way I had, they couldn't understand why these things were important to me. Not having engaged with their Paganism in the way I wanted to, they couldn't understand why these things were important to me.
Finally, one night one of them stammered, "I really think you should go out east of town and find that grove out there. Those pagans think like you think. They ask the same questions you ask, and some of them just might have answers."
And thus it was that I came to the grove where my heart resides. They were a group who wrestled with questions and created beautiful rituals. They were a group committed to creating a viable, living religion - something that would be pleasing to the ancients, but in consonance with the 21st century. They talked endlessly of philosophies and cosmologies, of history and lore, of chaos and order, of hospitality and reciprocity.
And I found what I had sought for many years. My quest for holiness came to an end when I began to understand the concept of Pagan piety (practice and acts - conscious life versus blind belief).
That's why I'm Pagan. Because there are more things in this living Universe than are dreamed of in most philosophies. And because Paganism seems to embrace them all and search far beyond while most religions are content with their beliefs and dogma. My own study took me to the highest heights and the deepest depths of Christianity. But when I was given a glimpse beyond and saw the vast worlds that awaited, my joy was truly unbounded.