Saturday with the Pagans
Rocky Mountain News religion writer Jean Torkelson goes to Denver's Pagan Pride celebration and writes a middle-of-the-road "Pagans are mostly just regular folks" column.
Behind each pagan, a story: Dressed in brooding black, Michael Torres looked like a shadow falling across the sunlit park. Raised in the intense Santeria sect, his family put coconuts under their beds to frighten away spirits. Some branches, not his, sacrifice animals. But he pulled away from that to practice his own "solitary" paganism. He works as a trucker and met his wife in a library.
That's a dangling modifier, Jean. "Raised in the intense Santería sect" looks as though it should modify "Michael Torres," not "family."
Now if we could just get past the "worship nature" phrasing, which is not accurate and reflects, I think, a back-formation from the idea of worshiping a single deity. When it comes to Pagans, I don't think that "worship" is the all-purpose verb that it can be for monotheists. Try honor, enjoy, manifest, hang out with, seek to live in harmony with, or whatever.
Tags: nature religion Pagan Pride
Rocky Mountain News religion writer Jean Torkelson goes to Denver's Pagan Pride celebration and writes a middle-of-the-road "Pagans are mostly just regular folks" column.
Behind each pagan, a story: Dressed in brooding black, Michael Torres looked like a shadow falling across the sunlit park. Raised in the intense Santeria sect, his family put coconuts under their beds to frighten away spirits. Some branches, not his, sacrifice animals. But he pulled away from that to practice his own "solitary" paganism. He works as a trucker and met his wife in a library.
That's a dangling modifier, Jean. "Raised in the intense Santería sect" looks as though it should modify "Michael Torres," not "family."
Now if we could just get past the "worship nature" phrasing, which is not accurate and reflects, I think, a back-formation from the idea of worshiping a single deity. When it comes to Pagans, I don't think that "worship" is the all-purpose verb that it can be for monotheists. Try honor, enjoy, manifest, hang out with, seek to live in harmony with, or whatever.
Tags: nature religion Pagan Pride
posted by Chas S. Clifton at 2:22 PM Permalink
1 Comments:
I have to disagree. I think "worship" - which indicates worthiness - is a perfectly good word to use. I think too many pagans are terrified of traditionally religious language such as "worship" or even "religion" itself - and it's time to face those words and use them and indicate to the world that it's not just Christians who "worship" their God.
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