Maine Pagan Clergy Association

It’s been said that organizing Pagans is like herding cats. I’m a lifelong cat lover, and I wonder if it’s not better to let the cats wander where they may. That being said, as Pagans who consider ourselves clergy, don’t we need some cats, um, some Pagans to wander around with? How do you serve your Pagan community?

There is, of course, the traditional path of serving as High Priestess or High Priest of a coven, circle, or grove. But there are many other ways to serve. You might be devoted caretaker for a patch of wild land, offer writings or healing sessions, be the go-to person for your local Pagans when they need a sympathetic ear, deliver interfaith services at a UU church, volunteer at prisons, hospitals, or hospices, or many other options.

The MPCA is now in the midst of its second decade. The EarthTides Pagan Network is even older, having been around since 1989. The needs of the Pagan community in Maine have changed over the years. I’ve noticed over the past few cycles that our Pagan organizations have fewer participants and volunteers, and wondered what, if anything, should be done about it.

Where do those cats go when they wander, anyway? Well, to the internet, if the popularity of Facebook (and in particular, the Maine Pagans group page) tells us anything. To Popham Beach Beltane, which is still a heavily-attended gathering that has become a spring tradition for many of us. Back to the land – the number of Pagans getting involved in permaculture and other green avocations is increasing, which is a wonderful thing. To help our aging population live their final years with grace. To teach and encourage the next generation of Pagan kids.

As members of Pagan organizations, it’s rather challenging to know what we should offer in order to support the Pagans who are out there doing the work in their communities. We can offer, as MPCA does, space for clergy to gather and share their concerns, as well as a means to official licensure for those who seek it. We can provide, as EarthTides has for years at the Common Ground Fair, outreach to Pagans who might not be aware there is support available. We can offer educational workshops on topics of communal interest.

What other ideas do you have? What would you like to see MPCA offer in the coming months? What would you like to learn about that would help you as a member of the Pagan clergy? Where have you seen your cats wandering off to lately?

I ran across this recent article, and thought it might be of interest to MPCA people.

The Pagan as Professional Chaplain

At the most recent MPCA meeting, we were discussing outreach, as well as our place as clergy in the Pagan community. One of the attendees mentioned that she posted to Facebook that she was coming to the meeting, and that it sparked a comment thread. Most of the people in that thread were at the very least suspicious, if not downright incredulous, at the very notion of a Pagan clergy, associating it with the prevailing power-over paradigms of clergy from monotheistic religions that dominate our culture.

These concerns are quite legitimate, it seems to me. Indeed, one of the main attractions to paganism is an escape from a religious paradigm in which one’s experience of the divine seems mediated by a clergy person or another hierarchy of sorts. Some of the commenters in the Facebook thread openly wondered if we were trying to impose such a hierarchy.

Of course, this is not our intention. The existence of the MPCA is purely pragmatic. The essence of clergy is service, in the sense that the clergy member is in service to his or her community, providing counseling, officiating at ceremonies such as weddings,  etc. Many of these functions are legal in nature, with laws that govern them. A wedding is an obvious example of this.

However, some examples are more pressing, and potentially even tragic. For instance, imagine a scenario where a Pagan is sick or injured in a hospital, and requests his or her circle, grovemates, or covenmates to come and spend time with them, possibly for healing or even for an end-of-life ceremony. If there is no legal recognition of clergy status, it is within the hospital’s power to deny entrance to the grove or would-be clergy person to come, despite the patient’s wishes, if the person is not immediate family.

Situations like this are why MPCA exists in the first place, to provide a legal infrastructure for Pagans doing this sort of work in their communities (no matter how big or small their communities are) to be credentialized. And in addition to credentialization, our other main function is to be a support network for those of us acting in this role as clergy.

MPCA provides support — both legal support and fellowship — for those in service to their Pagan communities. Nothing more, nothing less.