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Posts Tagged ‘CTP1’

When did you hear the call to the path of ADF priesthood? What did it sound like?

If I may offer an answer that is slightly tongue in cheek, it sounded like a phone call to Rev. William Ashton where he asked me why the h*ll I wasn’t doing the CTP. (It was not a subtle call, that one.)

To more seriously answer the question, I need to go back to days long before my even knowing that paganism existed, to the time as a child when I first considered a calling to ministry. My paternal grandfather is a minister, and he is a wonderful example of the beauty and sacrifice that such a vocation can take. When he retired, I spoke at the party – I was eight – and read a poem about being shown the way to do things, instead of being told. I think back on that now and all the things that he showed me how to do that I am now doing in my grove, and I am thankful for him.

I think back on considering Methodist seminary, on considering whether I had a Catholic vocation to holy orders, on my days with a Trad Wicca outer court, and it is very clear to me that I’ve always been intended to be a priest, have always been called to ministry. I just had to find the right religion first.

When I began to study with ADF, it was entirely as a solitary. It wasn’t until I began working with a group – flexing my muscles as a leader – that I started to consider ADF’s priesthood. Over time, as my study group grew, as I was encouraged by other priests who provided shining examples of servant leadership, as my own spirituality grew and changed, I realized that while the path of the Initiate will one day be one that I walk (and probably soon), my little community here needed a priest, and I was willing to step up to fill that need.

ADF is my spiritual home. I’ve studied a lot of theology, and tried on a lot of religious hats, but until I found ADF – and specifically a devotional polytheist current within ADF – I never truly felt like I’d found the tradition I was supposed to plant my roots in. In ADF I’ve found a tradition that values both study and piety, ritual and action, history and inspiration. Reimagining the Indo-European religious practices has given me a depth and breadth of spiritual practice unlike anything I’ve known before – and unlike my days studying Christian theology, the more I study, the more sure I am that I’m in the right place, and that I’ve found the place where my vocation is meant to be nurtured, cultivated, and grown into a full-blown ministry.

The call itself wasn’t something that began or ended at any one time, but rather something that grew and was nurtured in me by my practice and study, by other priests, by my community, and by the Kindreds, until it was something I could no longer ignore. In August of 2014, I officially set foot on the path to become ADF clergy.

What form do you expect your vocation to take?

I expect my vocation to take a few different forms, based on my work so far in the clergy training program. My oath will be to serve the gods, the folk, and the land, and I see my vocation as falling into those categories as well.

I know that my devotional relationships with my deities will remain the central focus of my private practice. I have taken oaths to that service, and though I fully expect to “Serve the Gods” in many and different ways, I will likely always remain both a public servant priest and a devotional priest. I look forward to my vocation encompassing multiple spirits and to my service in the community continuing to be one where I am known as a polytheist priest – someone who will make offerings on behalf of the folk, and who will help people listen to the gods and spirits that are important to them, even if they are largely unknown to me.

I also expect that my vocation will continue to grow one on one, with the people to whom I act as a mentor. I have a strong history of helping people who feel “lost” find their footing again, getting them restarted in a devotional practice and helping them find a new home in paganism. That home may or may not be with ADF, but usually within a few months of working with someone they feel more confident and empowered to step out on their own and be the type of pagan they are called to be. Since I seem to attract these types of people both in-person and online, I will continue to make myself available for both in-person and virtual mentoring, and I look forward to seeing many more folks find their way.

My vocation in my community will, I hope, continue to express itself through the growth and development of Nine Waves Grove. I have tried since my first study group meetings in 2013 to empower the people in my group to lead, to study, to teach, and to perform rituals in such a way that my grove has never become “the Lauren show” – and I fully expect that to continue. With a slowly, but consistently, growing membership, I serve there as a coordinator, as a liturgist, as a spiritual counselor, and as a mentor, and I hope that my vocation to leadership in this group continues to grow along with it.

Serving the land is probably the place where my vocation feels the weakest, at least in the sense of things that are demonstrable outside of my own small spaces. I expect that I will continue to serve my local landbase, to clean roadsides and waterways, support legislation in Houston that preserves our wild spaces, and to grow what things I can in the little bits of earth I have access to. I have always sought to be the “Druid of this Place”, and I want to continue to be that druid.

Do you feel prepared to become an ADF priest now? Do you see further work that you will need to do to prepare yourself for the work ahead?

I don’t feel like the work I will need to do to be the best priest I can be will ever be done, but I do think that right now I have done the work that it takes to be a first-circle priest. In many ways, the work that I do for my gods and my grove already is the work of priesthood, and it is now up to me to “formalize” that relationship through ADF and ordination. I knew what priesthood often looked like when I started, having grown up in a family with a minister, and I knew what I needed to do to prepare for that and practice that, even though much of it has been external to the clergy training program courses themselves. ADF’s study programs have given me the academic foundation for my priesthood, but I expect to be challenged and continue to grow in study even as I mark this one moment of completion in my journey.

But the work of being a better priest is ongoing, and I am fully prepared to continue to study, both within ADF and with other groups, in my goal of serving the gods, the folk, and the land. I hope never to feel stagnant, never to feel like I’ve “learned it all”, because this journey is one that will change and grow as the responsibilities I have change and grow. May I never become complacent, and may I always strive for growth and the betterment of my ministry and service.

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Trance 1 is a course designed to introduce you to trance, various methods of entering a trance state, and working within one. Please note that Trance 2 will require a continuation of the journal begun in Trance 1, and ideally the break between the two parts will not be long. Please check the requirements for Trance 2 if you plan to continue with that course.

The primary goal of this course is for students to establish or enhance a regular and effective trance practice by utilizing knowledge of the physical process of trance, as well as modern and ancient techniques for producing trance states.

Course Objective

  1. Students will be able to define and differentiate between the practices of trance, meditation and hypnosis.
  2. Students will be able to identify trance practices within Indo-European cultures.
  3. Students will demonstrate an increased knowledge of the physical process of and basic techniques to produce trance states through regular practice, documentation and reflection on these experiences within a journal.

(more…)

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This course is designed to provide specific instruction to our Priests about how to conduct ritual, and to encourage observation and creative improvement of our current methods of working ritual.

Several questions in this course ask how our Priests do certain aspects of ritual. You may either observe the Priest whose method you describe, or (if you are solitary or your Grove does not have an ADF Priest) ask one of our Priests what they do in this situation. It is highly recommended that you both observe the Priest doing this part and ask them about it, if possible (seek festival rituals or online videos), but it is not necessary. You may wish to provide video or pictures to help illustrate your answers to some of these questions, and this is permissible as well, but you must still meet the word requirement.

A Note on Word Counts and Descriptions: This course seeks a great deal of information in questions 4-8 about how others do certain parts in ritual, and there are no minimum word counts available. This is by design. The aim of these questions is to show that you are familiar with the methods you describe, and to show that you are able to develop your own method. Keep in mind that there is a general maximum of 1,000 words on questions with no minimum word count, but this maximum should not include any scripts or quotes from your sources.

The primary goal of this course is for students to enhance their skills to create and maintain effective ritual work that is consistent with the goals of ADF’s priesthood.

Course Objectives

  1. Students will demonstrate meditative and prayer discipline, along with other key practices required of ADF Priests.
  2. Students will demonstrate a working knowledge of key portions of the ADF Order of Ritual that are often expected of our Priests.

(more…)

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There are a number of theories relative to ethics and ethical behavior, however, a universal truth for resolving moral dilemmas, is non-existent. Ethics by definition is the systematizing, defending and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior. Ethics 1 will explore professional ethics as it applies to the ADF clergy-lay relationship.

Primary Goal

The primary goal of this course is for students to enhance their knowledge of professional ethics, as it relates to their work as ADF Clergy, through research, analysis, self-introspection and the development of a personal Code of Ethics.

Course Objectives

  1. Students will increase their knowledge of basic ethical concepts and explore the impact of these concepts on the clergy-lay relationship.
  2. Students will identify their own personal morals and values and examine the potential impact of their morals and values on their work as ADF Clergy.
  3. Students will utilize their existing knowledge of the ADF Nine Virtues and as well as newly acquired knowledge of other widely accepted ethical principles and codes to develop a personal Code of Ethics.

1.    Find and provide an appropriate definition, discuss your understanding, and provide illustrative examples for each of the following seven terms: morals, values, personal bias, professional boundaries, confidentiality, right and wrong (100 words each minimum, not including definitions)

Morals

1 a :  of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior :  ethical moral judgments
b
 :  expressing or teaching a conception of right behavior a moral poem
c
 :  conforming to a standard of right behavior took a moral position on the issue though it cost him the nomination
d
 :  sanctioned by or operative on one’s conscience or ethical judgment a moral obligation
e
 :  capable of right and wrong action a moral agent

(Merriam Webster)

Morals are the principles by which one makes decisions about what is right and wrong in behavior. Societies have morals (or moral-like structures) that guide them, as well as individuals having their own ‘moral compasses’, so to speak. Often a society’s hot button issues (our current ones seem to be gay marriage and abortion) come about when individual morality conflicts with societal morality. My ninth-grade civics teacher always said that legislating morality didn’t work, but I’ve come to believe, as an adult, that it’s restrictions on morality that are hard to legislate. Permissive moralities are still moralities, they’re just a lot easier to maintain laws about. Ethical dilemmas come about when a person’s morality conflicts in some way – either with itself, or with society.

Values

3 :  relative worth, utility, or importance – a good value at the price – the value of base stealing in baseball – had nothing of value to say

(Merriam Webster)

Values are the big picture ideas from which definitions of right and wrong are derived. They are bigger than “right and wrong” in the sense that morals dictate behaviors specifically, where values are principles on which morals are built. Much like morals, values can exist at a societal or personal level, or on a group level such as within a grove. Nine Waves Grove values study and learning, so we make decisions about our group meetings that emphasize and prioritize those things that we value. It would not be morally wrong to prioritize something else as a grove, but that is what we have chosen to value, as our group began as a study group, and we would like to continue that tradition. If, over time, our values change, we can change the way we structure our behavior to mirror those changing values.

Personal Bias

3 a :  benttendency
b :  an inclination of temperament or outlook; especially :  a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment :  prejudice
c :  an instance of such prejudice
d (1) :  deviation of the expected value of a statistical estimate from the quantity it estimates (2) :  systematic error introduced into sampling or testing by selecting or encouraging one outcome or answer over others

(Merriam Webster)

Biases are a tendency for a person to think or respond a certain way in certain situations, especially in a way that is unfair to or slanted towards a certain outcome, regardless of the actual details of the situation. Systemic biases in a culture can be inherited, and often are inherited, by the members of that culture as personal biases – often in subtle and insidious ways. A good example of a systemic bias is found in resumes and job hunting, where names that are non-white-sounding are judged more harshly than stereotypically Western names, even by people who have been trained not to have racial bias affect their decisions. Personal biases like this often get in the way of treating a situation fairly, and should be identified and sought to root out as much as possible.

Professional Boundaries

1 :  something that indicates or fixes a limit or extent – Those two trees mark the boundary of our property. The mountain range that forms the country’s northern boundary

(Merriam Webster)

Professional boundaries set limits on interactions between professionals and the groups they serve. They prevent misbehavior (and the implication of misbehavior) of a sexual, personal, financial, or religious nature. Especially, they prevent someone in a position of power (like a clergyperson, but also like a doctor, teacher, or employer) from interacting with people in their organizations in a way that is inappropriate. My primary experience with professional boundaries is in the workplace, where sexual, religious, and political conversations are not relevant to our work, so I do not engage in those conversations with coworkers, and my bosses do not expect me to be forthcoming with my thoughts on those kinds of subjects. Boundary setting is especially important in the Neopagan community, where often political, religious, and sexual values are different than within the wider society.

COnfidentiality

1 :  marked by intimacy or willingness to confide – a confidential tone

2 :  privatesecret – confidential information

(Merriam Webster)

Confidentiality is the status of something as private or secret between two (or more) parties. This can be explicit, such as someone pulling someone aside for a conversation and asking specifically that the contents of the conversation be kept private, or implicit, such as within relationships where the details of the relationship are understood not to be public. In some religions, the relationship between laity and clergy is understood to be confidential in certain situations (such as within the sacrament of reconciliation in the Catholic Church), and sometimes those bounds of confidentiality are so strong as to be respected within a court of law. In a Neopagan clerical sense, confidentiality is something I would seek to uphold, simply because I value being trusted by my grove, but as always, the mandatory reporting requirements in Texas (and my own personal morals) would require that I break confidentiality if I thought someone was harming a child, for example.

Right and Wrong

Right:

2 :  being in accordance with what is just, good, or proper – right conduct

Wrong:

2 :  something wrong, immoral, or unethical; especially :  principles, practices, or conduct contrary to justice, goodness, equity, or law

(Merriam Webster)

Right and wrong are exceptionally subjective measures that vary wildly from culture to culture. In the broadest sense, ‘right’ action upholds the laws of the society, and ‘wrong’ action breaks those laws. Personal morals, however, might dictate doing a ‘wrong’ action (from a societal standpoint) because it is ethically the ‘right’ thing to do. Civil disobedience is perhaps the most well-known action of this type. As well, individuals must weigh their actions versus their own sense of right and wrong in a challenging situation. Morals, values, ethics, and fairness all weigh into an individual sense of right and wrong, leading to a lot of ‘gray’ area between black and white polarities. These grey areas are seen even in the legal system, where one person killing another person can be judged more or less harshly depending on the circumstances of the killing. Someone accidentally hitting a pedestrian with their car will usually get a much lighter sentence than someone who premeditates and brutally murders another person intentionally, despite the law regarding “one person killing another person” as wrong.

2.    Self-awareness is key to the implementation of professional ethics. Discuss how your personal morals, values, bias and ability to maintain adequate boundaries, confidentiality and determine right from wrong might both positively and negatively impact your professional relationships. (200 words minimum)

All of the topics in question 1 have instances where they could create potential conflicts – either internal or external – along the path of being a public, pagan clergyperson. For myself, I tend to hold myself to very strict standards, especially where confidentiality is concerned, but also in terms of doing the right thing for myself and for my group. The one place where I struggle now, and expect to continue to struggle in the future, is in maintaining adequate boundaries. Not necessarily in a sexual or professional sense (that’s something I don’t think I will need to worry about), but in the sense of maintaining an appropriate amount of distance and “proper behavior.”

When I started Nine Waves as a study group, I was the de-facto leader, but I was not a clergyperson. Over the years, I have begun to act as clergy for the group that is now my grove, but in general, the members who have been around since the beginning treat me more as a friend than they do as a priest. This is fine, as they certainly are my friends, but I worry that there will be the perception of bias or improper conduct there. I’ve also felt a sometimes heavy burden as a Grove Organizer and then Senior Druid to constantly act as an ambassador of ADF, and I expect that will only grow, serving to enforce my need for boundaries and ‘right’ behavior – where that expectation of myself will be higher than I would put on others. As well, I can find it easy to get excited and not set good boundaries for myself and my time, which is not so much a question of right and wrong as it is a question of maintaining my own personal health and well-being.

My personal values and morals are not likely to conflict in professional relationships with most pagans, but in Texas, it is possible that I will run into pagans who have very different morals and values than I do, especially where it comes to race, sexuality, and gender-orientation. I expect my own professionalism will be the best way for me to navigate those interactions, as well as my virtue practice with ADF. I can be hospitable without compromising on my values and morals, and I can ensure that my group does the same.

3.    Discuss how an individual learns to determine right from wrong and explain the factors that influence this determination? (100 words minimum)

Learning right from wrong is a process that starts from very early childhood, with the first expressions of consciousness. As I watch my niece and nephew grow up (they are currently two and a half years old), they are like little sponges, absorbing the culture, morals, and ethics of the people around them. They learn from what they do, from what they are told, and from the media that surrounds them. Some of my own formative memories come from interactions with my parents, but also from the television shows Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers Neighborhood – both shows that teach fairness, tolerance, understanding, and compassion to children, as well as helping them grow into (what I would call) ‘good people.’

As children grow up and enter school, societal factors grow much larger in their determinations of right and wrong, and peer pressure especially becomes a much larger factor that extends well into the teenaged years.

Even as adults, though, our determinations of right and wrong can and do develop, whether from interaction with others, life experiences, or our own changing perceptions of the world. Religions, social groups, political movements, and (increasingly) social media all affect how adults make decisions about right and wrong behavior. Like teens though, if surrounded by enough voices to do something more or less ethical, our morals and values can change. My own morals and values have changed dramatically since I left college, largely due to my surrounding myself with people whose beliefs I respected, and through the complete abandonment of my childhood religion.

4.    Describe several reasons why an individual would strive to “do the right thing”? (100 words minimum)

I can think of two primary arguments for why someone would strive to ‘do the right thing’, one internal, and one external.

As an external argument, a person would do the right thing because it comes with some sort of feedback that they see as positive. Whether an actual monetary reward, social appreciation, a feeling of belonging, or otherwise feeling rewarded for making the correct decision, the attitudes and opinions of those around us often influence the way we behave and can pressure us (in a good or bad way) into ‘doing the right thing’. This audience can also be ‘cosmic’, in the sense of karma or other forces that may judge a person’s actions on a grander timeline and scale. Though John Wooden says that “The true test of a man’s character is what he does when nobody is watching,” having an audience definitely influences why people do the right thing.

As an internal argument, many of us also have values and ethics that we strive to live up to. ADF’s nine virtues are perhaps a strong reminder of the internal compass that we place on ourselves. We do the right thing because it fulfils our values and promises to ourselves. This is the argument that places how we feel about ourselves next to how others feel about us, and weighs our personal opinion as more important. This is also the ‘right decisionmaking’ that happens when there isn’t anyone around to see that we make the right choice, but prefer to do so to live up to our own moral compass.

5.    Discuss how an individual’s values relate to the decision making process. (100 words minimum)

Values, as defined in question 1, are the big picture ideals around which we base our morals and ethics as people. These big picture ideals might be things like ‘tolerance’, or ‘compassion’, and they serve as the foundation of our decision-making process most of the time. We weigh our decisions against what our values say is important, and (ideally) make decisions that are in line with those values the majority of the time. Emma Restall Orr defines decision making axes as: intuition and conscience, emotion and feeling, rational sense, balancing pleasure and pain, religious law, social and political law, rights, and personal freedom (Orr 68-95).

These can be looked at through a lens of win/loss – when there is a decision to be made, and a person sees that they will ‘win’ from that decision, in the sense of gaining something or being closer to their own ideals, they will usually decide to act according to their values. Similarly, if something is viewed as a loss – even if it’s a loss of integrity or other personal judgment – they will usually decide not to act in a way that is contrary to their values. In the ‘gray area’ between moral absolutes, multiple values may come into play, and decision-making gets more complicated.

6.    Discuss the importance of ethics to the clergy-lay relationship. Do you believe a clergy person has ethical responsibilities? If so, what are these responsibilities? (300 words minimum)

Ethics are extremely important in the clergy-lay relationship because of the expectations placed on that relationship and the expectations placed on the clergyperson. The folk of ADF do not expect a simple fire-priest or liturgist, they expect pastoral care and counseling because of our culture’s relationship to priests in other, specifically Abrahamic, religions. Whether or not the ADF priest wants those responsibilities, the folk will frequently expect that kind of care and consideration based on the society in which we find ourselves, and so there is an ethical component to priesthood that is important to consider.

Perhaps the most immediately obvious in this is confidentiality – when people approach a priest, they do so expecting to find a person who will listen to and help them with issues (often moral dilemmas!) without the threat of those conversations becoming part of the public discourse, especially within a grove. Whether or not the priest can actually help solve the problems, people expect that the nature of those interactions will stay private. As well, they expect that priests will be people of virtue and ethics, and will be able to help them navigate their own ethics and values.

Above all, clergy must interact with the folk with a sense of trust and fairness, especially because of the power (whether perceived or actual) that priests have within the structure of a religious group. This type of power dynamic can distort relationships in the same way that bosses/reportees, teachers/students, and even older/younger relationship dynamics can work within families. Priests hold positions of leadership, and as such there are expectations of trust and fairness, especially in a group like ADF where the folk give the mantle of priesthood to the priests. Those expectations may not be entirely fair, and they may not be entirely realistic (see: The Dogma of Archdruidic Fallibility), but they are important to consider when defining what behavior is ethical as a clergyperson.

7.    Discuss the meaning of confidential privilege, the laws in your state that provide for this privilege and the extent to which it applies to clergy-lay communications in your community. (200 words minimum)

Confidential privilege is the assumption in a court of law that communication between a clergy and a lay person when made privately and not intended for further disclosure. Within the state of Texas, ADF clergy fall under the designations of clergy members, and thus fall under the statutes of Rule 505 about confidential privilege. The exception to this is when there is abuse that has happened or is believed to have happened, per Sec. 261 of a minor, or per Sec. 48 of the elderly or persons with disabilities.

Within ADF, however, we do not have a religious doctrine that privileges the clergy-lay communication with confidentiality in certain situations. That does not mean that ADF clergy should not strive to act ethically when things are told to them in confidence, however, it does mean that on an organizational level we are not required to do so. This is probably for the best, as it allows our clergy to act within the laws of their particular states.

Rule 505: Privilege for Communications to a Clergy Member

(a) Definitions

(1) A “clergy member” is a minister, priest, rabbi, accredited Christian Science Practitioner, or other similar functionary of a religious organization or someone whom a communicant reasonably believes is a clergy member.

(2) A “communicant” is a person who consults a clergy member in the clergy member’s professional capacity as a spiritual adviser.

(3) A communication is “confidential” if made privately and not intended for further disclosure except to other persons present to further the purpose of the communication.

(b) General Rule. A communicant has a privilege to refuse to disclose and to prevent any other person from disclosing a confidential communication by the communicant to a clergy member in the clergy member’s professional capacity as spiritual adviser.

(c) Who May Claim. The privilege may be claimed by:

(1) the communicant;

(2) the communicant’s guardian or conservator; or

(3) a deceased communicant’s personal representative.

The clergy member to whom the communication was made may claim the privilege on the communicant’s behalf—and is presumed to have authority to do so.

(Varghese)

SUBCHAPTER B. REPORT OF CHILD ABUSE OR NEGLECT; IMMUNITIES

Sec. 261.101. PERSONS REQUIRED TO REPORT; TIME TO REPORT. (a) A person having cause to believe that a child’s physical or mental health or welfare has been adversely affected by abuse or neglect by any person shall immediately make a report as provided by this subchapter.

(b) If a professional has cause to believe that a child has been abused or neglected or may be abused or neglected, or that a child is a victim of an offense under Section 21.11, Penal Code, and the professional has cause to believe that the child has been abused as defined by Section 261.001 or 261.401, the professional shall make a report not later than the 48th hour after the hour the professional first suspects that the child has been or may be abused or neglected or is a victim of an offense under Section 21.11, Penal Code. A professional may not delegate to or rely on another person to make the report. In this subsection, “professional” means an individual who is licensed or certified by the state or who is an employee of a facility licensed, certified, or operated by the state and who, in the normal course of official duties or duties for which a license or certification is required, has direct contact with children. The term includes teachers, nurses, doctors, day-care employees, employees of a clinic or health care facility that provides reproductive services, juvenile probation officers, and juvenile detention or correctional officers.

(b-1) In addition to the duty to make a report under Subsection (a) or (b), a person or professional shall make a report in the manner required by Subsection (a) or (b), as applicable, if the person or professional has cause to believe that an adult was a victim of abuse or neglect as a child and the person or professional determines in good faith that disclosure of the information is necessary to protect the health and safety of:

(1) another child; or

(2) an elderly person or person with a disability as defined by Section 48.002, Human Resources Code.

(c) The requirement to report under this section applies without exception to an individual whose personal communications may otherwise be privileged, including an attorney, a member of the clergy, a medical practitioner, a social worker, a mental health professional, an employee or member of a board that licenses or certifies a professional, and an employee of a clinic or health care facility that provides reproductive services.

(d) Unless waived in writing by the person making the report, the identity of an individual making a report under this chapter is confidential and may be disclosed only:

(1) as provided by Section 261.201; or

(2) to a law enforcement officer for the purposes of conducting a criminal investigation of the report.

8.    One of the main principles of ethics is to “do no harm”. Discuss the meaningof this principle as it applies to the clergy-lay relationship. (100 words minimum)

Harm is an incredibly difficult concept to gauge, and striving always to “do no harm” is a largely impossible task. However, as an ethical guideline, if we expand it from “do no harm” to “do the least amount of harm, to the smallest number of people,” it becomes a much more applicable structure to clergy ethics. As clergypersons, ADF priests are often found in leadership roles, whether in local groves, in larger communities, or on the national scale of the organization. As leaders, they are tasked with making decisions, and it’s a useful exercise to examine what the downstream costs are in terms of who might be harmed by a decision – from the grove, to the larger community, to the priest themselves. Ethical decisions will always have consequences, and it is nearly impossible to make a difficult decision that will not have both positive and negative consequences in the long run, but evaluating potential harm is at least a good starting place for a priest making a difficult decision.

9.    Compare and contrast the Nine Virtues described in the ADF Dedicant Path and prominent values in the dominant culture of the country in which you live. (200 words minimum)

ADF’s nine virtues are Wisdom, Piety, Vision, Courage, Perseverance, Integrity, Fertility, Hospitality, and Moderation. These virtues allow me to live as both an American and an active ADF member, though the variations of their practice are different within the two social groups for sure.

Wisdom – the virtue of knowing the truth and essence of a situation – is especially valued in American society as the ‘wisdom of elders’, but we find wisdom in many places. Those of us who are around the Unitarian Universalists often find that they value the wisdom that comes from quieter voices, and seek it even in unlikely places.

Piety, in ADF, is defined by right action in a religious sense. American piety is twofold, encompassing both religious belief and patriotic duty. While this is generally (at least in mainstream society) expressly confined to Christian religious practice and the strongly conservative, often Christianity-laced expressions of patriotism, more Americans are valuing the piety that comes from other religions, and those who have stood up to the face of American culture often do so from a sense of patriotic piety.

Vision is strongly emphasized in American culture. We like visionaries, people who see the world for what it could be, instead of simply the way it is right now, and we also really like it when people have the Courage and Perseverance to stick to those visions and make them into a new reality.

Integrity, which I often conflate as much with wholeness as with right action, is something that individuals must strive for, and while some Americans do value it, others place value in other, flashier virtues. I would say that, however, integrity is baked into our national mythology with stories such as George Washington not being able to tell a lie, and Abraham Lincoln’s ‘Honest Abe’ moniker.

Fertility, to Americans, is more often regarded as fecundity and related to sex, I think largely because of the associations our culture has with Puritanism. However, when explained, most people think creativity and being prolific with ones gifts are virtues worth cultivating.

ADF’s strong focus on hospitality is not always a virtue that Americans understand. While we instinctively cultivate relationships with our communities, the American ideal is much more individualistic than any of the Indo-European cultures would have recognized, and that triumph of the individual over their society often works counter to how reciprocal hospitality works. As well, American society places a lot of emphasis on the responsibilities of the host, and less on the responsibilities of the guest.

Moderation, however, is a virtue that Americans often say they find as an ideal, but as our society was founded by religious zealots seeking freedom, most often American moderation is found in our willingness to let each other do as they will, and to define one’s own boundaries for themselves. As such we value moderation as a society, but many individuals struggle with being moderate in their beliefs, especially in today’s political climate, which is exceptionally polarizing.

Overall, I find that ADF’s virtues are not in conflict with my living in American society directly, but the emphasis in the two groups is often different enough to be notable. I find it especially interesting that the so-called ‘warrior virtues’, of courage, perseverance, and integrity, are the ones that translate the most easily, while the producer virtues are the ones that are the most different. This is especially interesting when you think of the agricultural basis of so much of our society, and I do wonder if my understanding of American culture would be different if I lived in a rural community instead of in the large city where I currently reside.

10. The Nine Virtues described in the ADF Dedicant Path are proposed as a starting point for individuals embracing a value system inspired by traditions of the past. Utilizing the ADF nine virtues, develop a Code of Ethics for your use as ADF Clergy. Describe how you derived this code from the Nine Virtues and how you would apply this Code. (No minimum word count for the Code; however the Code must contain a minimum of five principles; 300 words minimum for the description)

I will nurture the fire of piety in myself and others. As a Priest, I will maintain my own spiritual practices and nurture spiritual practices in others. I will tend the fire of piety.

I will be kind and encourage kindness. As a Priest, I will seek always to be kind to others, and when I am faced with a challenging person or situation, I will first ask how I can be kind in that situation or to that person.

I will walk the path of justice. As a Priest, I will seek to correct the many injustices in the world, as much as it is within my power to do so, even if I can only act in the microcosm that is my smaller community.

I will act with integrity and fairness. As a Priest, I will be a person worthy of trust, and as unbiased and impartial as I can be in each situation that requires it.

I will uphold the laws of nature and ecology. As a Priest, I will remember that nature lives according to laws and that I must act within those laws. I will seek to minimize my negative impacts on the environment and to maximize my positive impacts.

I will uphold the dignity of all persons, human and non. As a Priest, I will remember that I serve the Gods, the Folk, and the Land, and thus all beings are worthy of dignity and respect.

And if I may steal from the Methodists the quote most often attributed to John Wesley, I will seek to:

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as you ever can.

(“John Wesley”)

I found this question both difficult and easy. Difficult to begin, but once I began, I found that my last four years as a Dedicant and my last two years as a Senior Druid prepared me well for writing out what kind of Priest I would strive to be. As with any code of ethics, my values are on display here, and many of those come directly out of ADF’s nine virtues.

  • Wisdom, in that all of these virtues will require wisdom and in that they come out of my collected wisdom from my time living as a human on planet Earth.
  • Piety, in that the first thing I focus on is the fire of piety that I seek to nurture in myself and in others, and in the way that all of my values are influenced by my dedication to the Kindreds.
  • Vision, in that this is a vision statement for my future as a Priest, and in that I must have the ability to see something through to the future in order to create that reality for myself.
  • Courage, in that some of these statements will be difficult, and I must be courageous in facing hard decisions.
  • Perseverance, in that none of these principles will be easy to uphold all of the time, and that I must work at it, in the long haul, to become the Priest I wish to be.
  • Integrity, in that justice, trust, fairness, loyalty, and dignity all stem from being a person of integrity.
  • Fertility, in that these principles will encourage my own spiritual growth, and ideally the spiritual growth of others – whether in ADF or outside of our organization.
  • Moderation, in that I must always know where my boundaries are, and I must always know what is possible – even if I will always strive to do just a little bit more, it is good to be balanced. As well, moderation and balance are some of the laws of ecology, which I find as a Druid it is important to maintain.
  • Hospitality, in that all things come down to relationships, and I, as a Druid Priest, must be willing to embody *ghosti as often and as strongly as possible, for it is on those relationships that the rest of this code of ethics will fall.

Any code of ethics is only as good as the Priest who follows it, and I intend to post this publicly, as well as to share it with my grove. I must be accountable first to myself, but second to them, as I walk the path of Priesthood in ADF.

Works Consulted

–. The ADF Leadership Handbook. Tucson, AZ: ADF Publishing, 2014. PDF file. 28 August 2017.
<https://www.adf.org/system/files/members/publications/leadership-handbook/leadership-handbook.pdf&gt;.

“Bias.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 3 Sept. 2017.

“Boundary.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 3 Sept. 2017.

Hereford, Z. “Healthy Personal Boundaries and How to Establish Them.” Essential Life Skills.net. Web. 3 Sept 2017. <http://www.essentiallifeskills.net/personalboundaries.html&gt;.

–. “John Wesley.” Wikiquote. Web. 25 Sept 2017. < https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Wesley >.

“Moral.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 3 Sept. 2017.

Orr, Emma Restall. Living With Honour: A Pagan Ethics. Hants, UK: O Books, 2007. Print.

“Right.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 3 Sept. 2017.

“Value.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 3 Sept. 2017.

Varghese, Benson. “Rule 505: Privilege for Communications to a Clergy Member.” TexasEvidence.com. Web. 25 Sept 2017. < http://texasevidence.com/article-v-privileges/rule-505-communications-to-members-of-the-clergy/&gt;.

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Nothing new on the report this week, just continuing to try to slow down and practice. I’m seriously considering adding a full core order into my weekly practice, having enjoyed the one I did last week so much.

Right now I feel like the world is pulling me deeply into my divination practice – I’ve been doing readings of all kinds (tarot, playing cards, runes) for all kinds of people. Several a week at this point. Which is good, I always enjoy the practice, and it’s good for me to stay in regular work with all the various systems I use, but it takes up a lot of time and can be a big drain on my already strained energy levels.

I have started tracking my omens that I draw anytime I do a personal ritual that includes a rune draw. I think it will be interesting to see what runes “inspired” my clergy training when I’m done. I talk a lot about Gear, Feoh, and Eolh inspiring my dedicant work, but those were drawn in a ritual at the very end. This, I’m hoping, will give me the ability to see what the distribution of runes is over the entirety of my CTP1 work.

Also, this week saw me adding a massive new pile of responsibilities at work, so it’s been harder than usual to slow down and find time to sit and practice and breathe. I know that’s part of the discipline, but I’m very glad I have such a simple ritual right now, or there’s no way it would be getting done.

Next week is Midsummer, which I will be celebrating with my grove. The requirements for this course include the celebration of a high day privately, according to your hearth culture. The Anglo-Saxons likely celebrated Midsummer, calling it Litha, but there is much more known about the high day that will show up at the end of my journaling for this course (Lammas). I think I will be writing about both, since one will be more of a mundanely/modern inspired practice, and the other will include at least Anglo-Saxon and English folklore. We don’t actually know a whole lot about how the heathen Anglo-Saxons did much of anything, because what little DID get written down was only done after conversion, and much of that was destroyed in the intervening centuries. That said, the English folk traditions for these high day festivals are wonderful, and I am totally not above co-opting them. I think it might be very interesting to look at how the (Christian) English celebrated Midsummer, and then maybe pull a few practices into my own celebration next week.

The solstice this year falls on the 20th astronomically, but the celebration is typically held on the 21st.

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My apartment got struck by lightning on Tuesday night.

Not in some metaphorical, I had a flash of inspiration, great grand things are happening sense. In the literal, bolt of lightning blew a hole in the roof and blasted through my ceiling, exploded a phone jack, and fried all my electronics sense. This was followed by a massive water leak in my kitchen (see: giant hole blown in roof during thunderstorm).

My apartment is, yet again, covered in drywall and insulation debris as a result. But far fewer things are truly broken or dead than you’d expect from a direct lightning strike, and tomorrow they’re coming to try to get the internet working again. Until then, I’m on my phone.

This journal is supposed to be one of recording my steps toward a domestic cult practice, and I promise I’ll get around to that part, but before I get there, I want to talk a little bit about intuition.

Tuesday night at around 7:45pm I got a warning that a tornado had been spotted in an oncoming storm, and to seek shelter. Normally, tornado warnings aren’t something I take too seriously – Houston rarely gets tornadoes. My town doesn’t even have tornado sirens. But I pulled up the radar, saw the storm (which had three little hook-like shapes extending out from the front of the storm) and thought… NOPE.

I don’t know why I thought nope, but I noped right out of there. I grabbed the cats, my phone, and a portable charger, and the three of us went to go sit in the closet with the door closed and the lights off. I was texting with a friend, and she was updating me on the storm, and at about 8:15, the warning expired. And still I thought… NOPE.

So I stayed in the closet, and at 8:20, lightning struck my kitchen. There was a blinding flash and a simultaneous massive explosion, followed by the fire alarms all going nuts and my apartment filling with the smell of electrical smoke.

I fled, calling 911.

(The electrical smoke was most likely from the phone jack that took the brunt of the strike. The cover is melted.)

I can’t tell you why I had the ooky feelings about that storm on the radar. I work through thunderstorms all the time. Hell, I’ve been through hurricanes. Storms don’t bother me. But this one? It did. And I don’t know what little part of my brain got the signal that my rational brain did not, but I’m glad for it. If I’d been standing in my kitchen making dinner, I could be hospitalized or dead instead of dealing with a construction mess.

All that, however, leads me to the second bit. The actual practice bit.

I have rarely, in my entire life, felt less like I wanted to do anything related to prayer or ritual practice than I have this week. I am exhausted. Exhausted on that deep, mental level that you really only get after months and months of burning the candle at both ends. I have nothing to give my grove. Nothing to give my practice. I am depressed – and not because of my mental illness (which I’m happy to talk about) but simply because some things are just utterly overwhelming and stressful, and dealing with that is hard.

I will journal this though. At least four months. No less than weekly.

Rev. Michael J Dangler is known to say “when you least feel like praying is when you need it the most,” and maybe that’s true. But this week, I have no words to give, and so for week 2, I am lighting the lamp, taking a breath, and trying (mostly unsuccessfully) not to cry.

Let that be my prayer for this week. I’ll try again next week with words.

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So I have completely dropped the ball on my ADF study work since getting accepted into CTP-1. (Other than getting Div 1 approved, which I’d already completed). It’s been almost a year, and I’m trying to get back into the swing of things after my life completely upended and started over. I have a new job in a new field/career, have packed up everything I owned and moved, am finalizing a divorce after the end of a 10 year marriage, and have, in that time, also shepherded Nine Waves through the final steps of our Grove Charter. We had 22 people at our May Day ritual.

It’s been… a lot.

My routines adapted at first, and then fell by the wayside as I managed in crisis mode for so long, only to have my life finally starting to settle into place now, in mid-May, and my not really have any idea what I’m doing. Other than “too much” and “not enough” simultaneously.

I’ve talked to a couple of ADF’s priests about it, and that’s been very helpful. I’m holding too tightly to some things, and need to rediscover others. So, if you’ll permit me the diversion to not be perhaps the world’s most motivated clergy student, I’m going to start that process – and this blog – up again with something simple.

One of the courses in CTP-1 is called Liturgy Practicum 1: Domestic Cult Practice.

Students will develop new (or document existing) personal and/or family worship customs, such as morning devotions, meal offerings, or seasonal observances. Students will research worship customs of ADF and/or from a chosen Indo-European culture-whether historical or reconstructed and begin to implement these customs within the home setting (or other personal, rather than large group, context). These personal and/or household rituals or other observances may be either reconstructions of culturally specific practices, or based more upon modern ADF liturgical format, or a combination of the two. Household practices and rituals should include all interested members of the household, with options for the inclusion of children encouraged when applicable. Worship should be practiced weekly at a minimum, although daily practice is encouraged.

A specific aim of this course is to experiment and expand practice where possible: to that end, new practices and prayers should be a large part of the journal turned in for the final question.

NOTE: This course assumes the student is working with at least one hearth culture. In completing the Dedicant Path documentation, the student will have begun to explore this culture, including the reading of at least one book as the subject for a review. For students who may wish for further study—or who may wish to explore another cultural focus—the following books are possible resources to consult as needed.

The primary goal of this course is for students to develop and implement regular personal and/or family worship customs in the home setting.

Requirement #1: Key concepts from required reading:

  1. What three factors (“subcategories”) does Bonewits identify as determining the impact of “familiarity” on the success of a ritual? Briefly discuss the ways in which personal or family-only ritual is aided or hindered by these factors when compared to public group ritual. (Minimum 100 words)
  2. What six methods of prayer does Ceisiwr Serith describe? Briefly suggest an example of how you might employ each in your personal worship practices. You may include worship with a group if applicable. (Minimum 200 words)
  3. What arguments does Ceisiwr Serith make in support of set prayers (as opposed to spontaneous prayers)? Discuss how these arguments apply (or do not apply) to solitary Pagan prayer. (Minimum 200 words)

Requirement #2: Documenting personal ritual practice:

  1. Keep and submit for review a journal documenting the development and observance of the personal/household worship customs described above covering a period of not less than four months, including one observance of a seasonal festival, such as one of the eight ADF High Days. Entries are to be not less than weekly. The text of individual prayers and longer devotional rituals should be provided as frequently as possible. Regular practices occurring less than weekly will be considered if they are documented as revivals or reconstructions of historically-attested observances occurring less than weekly.

***

There are a few courses in the Clergy Training Program that require weekly work, and I have, in the past, attempted to combine them all into one big mega journaling experiment, with multiple entries for the various courses each week. I can not sustain that level of effort right now. I am literally rebuilding from ground zero. My practice is nonexistent. Week 1’s entry is literally “setting up and getting started”. But for the next four months, I will focus on this. I will focus on MY practice – what is it that I do, as an ADF dedicant, as a clergy student, as a senior druid of a grove. What does my domestic practice look like?

The freedom to rebuild that from the ground up is a little staggering, but in a good way I think. I can’t do this “wrong” – I have experience from over a decade of pagan practice to guide me as I rebuild. And at the end of four months, I will have a documented journal to turn in to my reviewer, and one that I hopefully will be able to turn in proudly, as evidence that even after literally everything has changed, the work still needs to be done, and I am still capable of doing it.

  • Gear – the harvest, reward for hard work
  • Feoh – wealth that must be shared and is movable
  • Eolh – good boundaries and strong protections

Those were the omens I drew when I made my oath as a dedicant. May they guide me here now, as I work the next step of my training.

Liturgy Practicum 1: Week 1 (May 15, 2017)

We begin… at the beginning. (I’m told it’s a very good place to start.) My altar is set up, and in my new living space – a one bedroom apartment – there is no ignoring it unless I’m being obtuse. I have to walk past it to get to the bathroom from my desk! My task, this week, has been simply to pause and breathe there a few times a day. No prayers required. Incense optional. Rebuild the habit of pausing there to ground and center. It will take a little while for this to truly be ingrained, but as a hearth practice goes, it’s at least getting me to pay attention.

My altar space is pretty much exactly what it was in the old house, just in a new location. I also have a new oil lamp for my fire that I picked up at the TX Imbolc Retreat in February. Otherwise, it is simply the space that I have, on top of a bookshelf, to pray, to make offerings, and to find my center.

It feels really really good.

I’m fighting the urge to throw myself into things – to do too much too fast. But a thing worth doing is worth doing well, and trying to do too much is only going to result in me flaming out in three weeks. Next week, I will re-examine prayers. This week, just light the flame and breathe.

I can tell already I’m going to need another jar of lamp oil.

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As of this morning, I have officially completed ADF’s preliminary program that leads up to the First Circle of the Clergy Training Program. All of that coursework is now posted here (apologies for the post spam, but I figured the only way I’d get around to posting it was all at once).

My next step, once my coursework is reviewed and I am marked complete for CTP-Prelim, will be to submit my intention letter and to allow the Clergy Council 2+ weeks to review my work and determine my eligibility for the Clergy Training Program. I will post that letter here once it has been approved (I imagine there will be some discussion about it).

Huge thanks to all of you who have helped me out with this, and been patient while I took a year sabbatical from my own studies to start Nine Waves Protogrove. I wanted to finish this in six months, and – minus the year off to start a protogrove – it took about eight months of active work to complete the Prelim courses. While it’s not the way I imagined this going, I’m very happy with how things worked out.

The First Circle of ADF’s Clergy Training program contains eleven courses, one of which I have already completed (from when I was pursuing Initiation) – Divination I is already posted here. For the rest, I have:

  • Discipline 1
  • Liturgy Practicum 1: Domestic Cult Practice
  • Ethics 1
  • Crisis Response
  • Ritual Mechanics
  • Liturgical Writing 1
  • Indo-European Myth 2
  • Bardic Studies for Liturgists
  • Magic 1 for Priests
  • Trance 1

Trance 1 and the Liturgy Practicum course both require journaling, which I may post here just as an accountability for keeping my journaling practice regular. I actually already completed Liturgy Practicum, in 2014, but since I switched study programs, I never finished the course, so I will be re-doing it.

I’m really excited to have completed this step, and looking forward to moving on into the first circle of training.

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