THE SACREDNESS AND AUTHORITY OF PERSONS

Khrysso Heart LeFey

 25 April 2001

When I was in the eighth grade,
I wrote a long and rambling research paper on the impossibly broad topic
of witchcraft, demonology, and the occult in history and modern practice-
and accomplished that feat in 34 handwritten pages, too, I'll have you know.

I remember a surprising amount of the content of that paper, long 
since lost to the ages,
and one of the facts that sticks in my mind most clearly
was that for witches,
one's birthday is the highest holy day of the year,
because of the sacredness of the individual person.

Now that I am a practicing Neo-Pagan,
for some reason
nobody has ever taught me about December 11 as my own personal high holy day.
But still I remember that early, prophetic teaching,
and it is echoed for me
every time I hear or sing Sweet Honey in the Rock's song "We Are,"
which says,

For each child that's born,
a morning star rises
and sings to the universe who we are.
(Ysaye Maria Barnwell)

By the time I'd turned 33, I had been an adherent to not only a 
text-centered religion,
but a tradition that told me,

The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse-
who can understand it? (Jer 17:9, NRSV)

and

All people are grass, their constancy is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers, [and] the flower fades. (Isa. 40:6-7 NRSV)

I found these total-depravity-of-humanity messages profoundly devaluing
of all that is embodied,
all that is personal,
and it was utterly foreign for me ever to consider
that it might be okay for me to trust myself,
my instincts,
my inner wisdom,
my leanings,
my gut:
the authority of my own journey.

And so imagine my surprise
when I started meeting Pagans
and heard a song that said,

Tho law and scripture, priest and prayer have all instructed me;
My skin, my bones, my heretic heart are my authority.
(Cathrine Madson)

Hmmm.

Then,
about the same time I discovered Paganism as a viable path for my 
spiritual journey,
I also discovered Unitarian Universalism,
one of the most self-consciously
individualistic religious traditions in the Protestant spectrum today.
UUism has an open canon
and no creed,
and among the sources of the living tradition we share,
we identify "Words and deeds of prophetic men and women
which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil
with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love."
This source-principle,
like the recklessly autocratic song "Heretic Heart,"
also deeply affirms the importance of the individual person,
and doesn't sound at all confrontive about it.

Hmmm.

One of those prophetic men and women,
a veR.ble UU saint,
was theologian James Luther Adams-
a Harvard colleague of Paul Tillich-
who has often been called "one of the three greatest American 
Unitarian leaders."

Adams suggested that it is needful to extend Luther's teaching
on the priesthood of all believers
to embrace the prophethood of all believers as well.

In a 1947 essay, Adams said,
"The prophetic liberal church
is the church in which all members share the common responsibility
to attempt to foresee the consequences of human behavior . . .
with the intention of MAKING history
in place of being merely pushed around by it.
Only through the prophetism of all believers
can we together foresee doom
and mend our common ways."

This was not an original concept with Adams.
In Numbers 11:29, Moses exclaims,
"Would that all the Lord's people were prophets
and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!" (NRSV)

In 1974 or thereabouts, the Council of American Witches declared,
"We do not recognize any authoR.rian hierarchy,
but do honor those who teach,
respect those who share their greater knowledge and wisdom,
and acknowledge those
who have courageously given of themselves in leadership."

Pagan author and editor Chas Clifton,
in his introduction to a recent translation of the Gospel of the Witches,
says, "Pagans see [their] lack of scripture as something positive . . .
it reinforces the necessity of personal experience,
either spontaneous
or evoked through ritual." (Aradia, p, 59)

For me, it was my Earth-centered spiritual path
and my UUism
that taught me to affirm and validate all that is earthly about myself.

Still, law and scripture,
priest and prayer
have all instructed me.

That is in fact how the Christian scriptures would have it.
As the the King James Bible puts it, Paul himself said to the Galatians
that the Law was merely a schoolmaster until a mature faith should 
come along. (3:24)

To the Corinthians, likewise, he said,
"Spiritual people . . . can discern all things,
though they themselves can be discerned by no one-
for, 'Who understands the mind of the Most High?' . . . .
We, however, have the mind of Christ." (2 Cor 2:15-16, Inclusive NT)

It is my job to internalize my lessons,
be they from law, scripture, priest, prayer,
or those best of schoolmasters, my mistakes,
and know how to live responsibly,
just as Samuel Taylor Coleridge said,
"In religious matters it is holiness
which gives authority." (Aids to Reflection, 1825)

There comes a time when we must make our own decisions
to act on our own,
not because of scriptural revelation whose source can be refuted
in a theology or a World Religions class,
but just because we know it to be right thing to do,
just because we trust our convictions enough to lead us
to just lives,
congruent lives:
lives of integrity.

The author of 1 John said,
"As for you, the anointing you received from Christ remains in you,
and you do not need anyone to teach you.
The anointing that Christ gave you teaches you everything;
you are anointed with the truth, not a lie." (2:27, Inclusive NT)

Sociologist Robert Bellah,
speaking to the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association
in June of 1998, said,

"Beneath the surface glitter of American culture
there is a deep inner core, which . . . is ultimately religious:
the sacredness of the conscience of every single individual . . . .
It is responsible for the best in our culture . . . .
[But] the sacredness of the individual depends ultimately
on our solidarity with all being, not on the vicissitudes of our 
private selves."

In other words,
yes, the individual is sacred and authoR.tive,
but that sacredness and that authority
are only truly useful to the extent that the individual uses them
to enhance a larger world,
for the good of as many as may benefit from it.

For me that may mean being a vegetarian
because I believe that being so has an impact on the environment,
on the meat-packing industry's exploitation
of the land and its creatures.
It means I have the chutzpah to stand up here and tell you,
for a few minutes at least,
what's what.

For you, it may mean something so profound that you may never be able 
to speak it.
Or something that you will go out and do this very day.

For Jesus, it meant getting into a whole lot of trouble
with a whole lot of "authorities"
for trusting his own authority enough
to encourage his hearers to trust their own authority
instead of that of the Pharisees and the high priests.

When your skin and bones embody your source of authority,
that carries with it a lot of responsibility, too.
It carries the responsibility of knowing what you're about,
and it carries the risk of being branded a heretic;
even of being a heretic.

Christians and Pagans throughout history
have switched off killing each other for our convictions
even though, if I've analyzed the situation correctly,
some of our convictions can be surprisingly similar.

Hmmm.

But what else is really worth living for?