Love without need

I visited intensive care today to see a woman who I’ll call Jane. Jane’s life has been a tragedy from the word go. Born into very unromantic misery, brought up by uncaring people in a harsh environment, working full time aged 9. In Britain in the 20th century. Seeing this person in the street – prison and facial tattoos, staggering about and often incomprehensible – you might cross the road, but like many roaring, frightening people she’s very sensitive and exposed and I feel tearful when I think of the life that was wasted by the adults whose only vaguely gracious act was not to forget to feed her.

This person isn’t Pagan and I don’t visit her in a chaplaincy role, she’s part of our community, she’s appallingly ill and so we visit. I spent about 10 minutes there today and was struck by the strangeness of it all, of every individuals’ need, including my own, being focused through this reclining, semi-conscious lens of a person. The excellent, professional nurses yelled at her in that loving, patronising manner than many nurses have: “Hello darling, I’ll just aspirate your tube.” Her lover, Dan, has miraculously and instantly cleaned up his own problems while he spends as much time as he can at her side. He’s terrified of being left alone. Dan has found status and purpose since Jane has been in hospital. People who would not normally give him the time of day are now treating him kindly and with respect.

What are my reasons for visiting? They’re complex and not fully conscious and I hope that my main impulse is compassion. Jane and I are not intimate friends, there’s a limit to how much time we want to spend in each others company and we don’t have a great deal to talk about beyond having a bit of a laugh. Jane hasn’t got a religious bone in her body but my own needs incline me to offer something that isn’t fear or determinedly, superficially, upbeat. My need to make sense of this situation is as present as anyone else’s, but I hope – I really do hope – that my need is not so desperate that I impose it on Jane.

Jane is dying. She’s not physically alone and there’s a great deal of intense feeling in her room. I wonder, through my own clouded lenses of understanding, about peace. Everyone knows she is dying and no one close to her can bear it, it’s just such an unmanageable, fearful prospect for them. They’ve informed the funeral director, a wake at the pub has been arranged, but these are practical matters, the right and proper actions of responsible friends making forthright plans. There’s a mismatch between what’s being planned and what is being felt. There is no peace in the room.

I stood where Jane and I could make eye contact and spoke quietly to her, saying that she was safe, that she was loved. It’s impossible to know absolutely what is ethical or right or wrong when speaking with someone who can’t speak back, who is in extremis and I would, I believe, feel very desperate if a priest came to me as I lay dying and began imposing his view of the world on me. I know I would want quiet, centred people around me who would not want to hold me back or push me on. But I have a developed personal understanding of how I might approach my own dying and the dying of the people I love, I have a foundation for how I approach the dying of people who know what I do and who deliberately want me present. I have little idea what is right and wrong when I’m with Jane.

What I want to do is to shift the focus of practical support onto Dan, to get him some professional, hospital-based emotional sustenance so that he can begin to reduce his desperate need for Jane not to die. I want to find some impossible compromise with the miraculous, brilliant machines that do more than keep Jane alive, they’re making her body comfortable and safe. And they’re so noisy: the technical mattress and covers hiss, the ventilator whispers, alarms blare.

I want, for my own comfort, to speak to the part of Jane that is not a devastated human being, which is nevertheless intimately joined with every part of her human experience, to remind that most vital part of her that everything is as it should be, that it is safe, that there is nothing to fear. And so on. I want to make it familiar so that I no longer feel helpless.

My husband is so much better at this. He visits more than I do and Jane knows him better. He feels no need to do anything other than hold her hand for 10 minutes a day, to talk about the mundane which is precisely what Jane would wish to talk about most of the time, at the same time as bringing transcendent love with him. In the room he’s not as grounded as I am but he has much more capacity to simply bring Jane love without need. What a journey this is, what learning.

For pity's sake, get involved.

Last week the House of Lords rejected an attempt to relax the law on assisted suicide so that people who accompany their loved ones to the Dignitas clinic don’t have to face 14 years in prison. Britain is pretty good at fudging and it may be that this is one of those situations where fudge is uncomfortable but useful. 120 British people have gone to Dignitas so far and not one of the people who went with them has been prosecuted, there’s a tacit understanding between the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts that people who go to the trouble of arranging a Dignitas ending are not likely to be murderers. Lord Faulkner who sponsored the most recent application to the Lords noted that there was a ‘legal no-mans land’ around the subject, which indeed can be dangerous. It means that the police are choosing what they will and won’t prosecute. As it is the situation is being allowed to evolve, the law following public debate rather than public debate being forced to change the law. I foresee a time in the next 5 or so years when an individual is put on trial as a way of testing public opinion. It would be a very blunt, shortsighted move to put the Downes children on trial today when public debate is raging.

A century ago, a policeman would turn up to arrest someone who had attempted suicide. Never mind the circumstances, the law was the law and a person who was actually dying from their attempt would be put in a cell and treated as a criminal. British society, which was fairly universally Christian, eventually found this intolerable and the law was changed so that the suicidal person was viewed as mad rather than bad. But still, suicide was perceived as something that must be prevented at all costs. This remains the case today. I remember babysitting a depressed elderly man who had cut his own throat so extensively that he severed his trachea. He was caught, pounced on, dragged to surgery and spent the rest of his time folded up in a chair. Nurses weren’t there to care for him, we were there to make sure he didn’t attempt to kill himself again.

Chaplains and counselors are very mindful of a clients right to confidentiality, but should the professional believe the client to be at serious risk of suicide we are bound to break that confidentiality. Other times when confidentiality must be broken are when a child is at risk and when a client is planning or admits to terrorism.

I find it absolutely extraordinary that finding ones own life intolerable is judged to be the same as raping a child or blowing up a train full of people. This is solely a religious hangover and it’s worth noting that the 3 most powerful religious leaders led the Lords rejection to a change in the law. Individual religious people may feel that their suffering demonstrates trust in their god but there’s a dangerous madness in the monotheist approach to end of life suffering. Modern hospices were set up by religious people who recognised that palliative care was not, is not, good enough; sadly, religious people don’t contribute anywhere near the sums required to maintain existing hospices, let alone building enough for everyone. When they do, I’ll be more inclined to take their anti-suicide debate seriously.

So the situation we’re left with is delicate. I heard a man tell the story of his dying mother today, in hospital, suffering, exhausted. Her family asked for a meeting with the doctor who said that surgery would extend their mothers life by two weeks. The family said they didn’t want their mother to suffer any more. “You know what you’re saying?” said the doctor, the family nodded and a morphine drip was set up to run rather more quickly than it should have done. Everyone’s heard a similar story. Nothing is said, everyone knows. It seems to me that this is no bad thing when it comes to illegally killing a person in unalterable extremis.

Doctors and nurses hold enormous power over the lives, deaths and suffering of the people in their care and the anti-assisted suicide theory is that they are there to save lives rather than kill people. But they do no harm, which is very different from not killing. It is very harmful to slice someone open or give them drugs that will kill parts of their body, and that’s what we expect surgeons and oncologists to do. When they do kill people as a criminal act they are generally caught, as Beverly Allitt and Harold Shipman were. Shipman is the only British doctor convicted of murdering patients and 23 nurses worldwide have been convicted, so it’s not something that health professionals tend to get up to. Anti-voluntary euthanasia campaigners make a lot of noise about the likelihood of abuse should VE become law, which is a disgraceful insult to the health care professionals and the people who create the safeguards around such a procedure.

It is, of course, probable that abuses of the system will very occasionally occur. Emergency services are allowed to run red lights and exceed the speed limit and very occasionally a pedestrian is killed. Does this mean that the emergency services should wait for a red light to change and tootle along at 30mph? No system is perfect, there will always be an individual who feels above the law but, as with organ transplantation, policy safeguards and transparency will prevent the vast majority of abuse and catch it when it occurs.

Practice already embraces voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide, precedent is being set, assisted suicide is presented to the Lords every couple of years. Those people who are firm in the knowledge that any positive change in the law will open the door to euthanasia on the grounds of economics seem blind to the fact that it already occurs in catastrophic numbers. If you’re poor you’re much more likely to die miserable, alone or in a crap human storage facility. Private elder and disabled care is already a goldmine and abuse is commonplace.

I haven’t spoken with one Pagan who has a theology around keeping themselves or their loved ones alive in pain. But we haven’t begun to realistically discuss the alternatives. Some of us know about advance directives and that’s about as far as we go. A small number of us will have an idea about hoarding up a store of drugs or leaping from Beachy Head, but these thoughts are hesitant, fearful or more bravura than realistic. We really do need an open debate about the Pagan approach to what will certainly become law within the next 20 years. Judy Harrow began the debate in 1997 ‘Coup de Grace: Neo-Pagan Ethics and Assisted Suicide’ an extended version of which can be found in the Pagan Book of Living and Dying

Take a look here for some different views and opinions.

What is the British Pagan approach to suicide, voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide? If Boudicca killed herself to avoid dishonour, is suicide OK? In which case, is butchering children and destroying Colchester OK? We need a coherent, intelligent debate based on 2 things: our theology, and what we as individuals are prepared to live with in order to balance our lives as Pagans living in a non-Pagan world. The vast majority of us are recreational Pagans, we take up the cosmetic bits of it and use it when we want some recognition but really we’re like the rest of the country in which we live: culturally Christian and just trying to get on. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not a conscious decision, it’s a default position. That’s just about OK if it helps us make choices about whether to eat meat or not and nowhere near good enough when we know people who are in psychological or physical agony and we have no tools to help; not safe when practice is moving, along with the law, towards voluntary euthanasia and we find ourselves just mooching along with it.

Discuss.

Taking ownership of our last great adventure.

Lady Joan Downes and her husband Sir Edward Downes are in the news today for their joint assisted suicide at Dignitas. He was 85, going deaf and blind and she, at 74, had cancer. They’d been married for 54 years. The clerics are rolling out their doleful moaning about how very, very sad and sinister it all is

(please cut and paste this addy, I don't have a hash key!)
http://bcreepy-coverage-of-sir-edward-and-lady-downess-joint-suicide/#commentslogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100003190/the-bbcs-


I know nothing at all about the Downes’ but my fantasy is that they took their time getting their affairs in order and being with their families, then got on a plane for their next-to-last great adventure. I hope they were with people they loved before going to Dignitas to peacefully, quickly and painlessly die together.

Also today Labour are announcing a vauge ideaish kind of thing about care for the elderly. They’re calling the present system of care ‘a cruel lottery’ which it most certainly is. Unless you are a unspeakably rich with a devotedly loving family you’re very likely to end up sitting in a circle of high backed chairs lining the walls of a room where the telly is permanently on, having been forced to sell your home for the privilege. Which is perhaps better than being maintained, alone in your own home by people who have so little time that they will feed you while you’re on the toilet.

Suicide rates are high in the elderly population. Although people older than 65 years comprise only 13% of the US population in 2000 18% of all suicides are in this age group . . . The elderly generally have a stronger intent to die, plan their suicide more carefully and are more likely to use lethal means of killing themselves than are younger persons.

Mary Ann Boyd, Psychiatric Nursing p260

Many apparently very sophisticated philosophical and clinical treaties have been written about the terrible isolation and psychological pain that leads many people to kill themselves. It is always considered irrational, an aberration of mind, a madness that one can take some kind of pill or psychological treatment for. This is because they are all written by Christians or people acculturated to a Christian society. Most Pagans perceive suicide through a Christian lens too.

But life will end. Usually, the weeks, months or years leading up to death will be filled with misery and pain. Most of us don’t know that because our infirm disappear. It’s all very well for domineering Christians and people who are culturally Christian to insist that voluntary euthanasia can be avoided if only we put more money into palliative and elder care, but beyond wishful thinking is the fact that the very best palliative care often cannot deal with terminal pain; that palliative cocktails are often little more than heavy sedatives, so we can’t tell anyone we’re in pain. Ultimately, it’s the economy, stupid. There are too many elderly people and not enough money to even warehouse them let alone care for them. We voters have no social will to change this state of affairs and it is going to get worse.

Suicide can be an honourable act, as sepuku is, as it was for some periods of Classical Greece and Rome and as it was for the Jews trapped at Masada. It can be a perfectly accepted cultural practice, such as when an elderly person acknowledges that they can’t manage the usual winter river crossing and so stops on the bank, watching their tribe cross to the winter grounds, waiting to die of hypothermia. This has been called quasi-voluntary suicide, the implication being that the youngsters no longer want to care for their elders and so the elder has no choice. I wonder how those tribal people would view our more civilized stockroom approach.

Is there a Pagan theology of suicide? What we have so far seems to’ve come about as a result of our own reactions rather than in considered response to any understanding of Paganism. At the heart of all Pagan practice are two concepts: an immanent Deity, and the implications of our choices.

Deity is part of us rather than some external judge and that immanent part of our Selves cannot be harmed if our corporeal form drops away. If we have a theory of reincarnation – and many of us do not – then how does this affect a proposed journey of the soul? Too many Pagans just echo their dominant culture, somehow suggesting that suicide will mean that the person will just have to go back to the beginning like a naughty child or a sinful follower of a vengeful (but curiously undefined) god. If life is a process of gathering experience then the experience of taking ones own life is simply that.

Ending ones own life certainly can have a devastating impact on those who’re left behind but how much of this is to do with our cultures’ attitude to suicide in the first place? Shock rises from the secrecy and shame surrounding the act, secrecy and shame grows from its illegality. People who kill themselves often leave angry people behind, usually because there are so many pieces left to pick up, and that’s because most suicidal people who start putting their affairs in order are prevented from killing themselves. There’s also a lot of self-righteous gossiping, often in the guise of deep concern, which fuels the anger. A parent who adores their children can find the weight of sorrow greater than their love. They may indeed be psychiatrically ill, and for many depressed people psychiatric services do not help them, it just preserves them in pain. More often, they are alone in their suffering. Life is not perfect.

Many of the people I see in a chaplaincy role are in mental states so enduring and so dreadful that they will never be allowed out of an institution. They will have 50 years or more of living with other enduringly unhappy people, no control over what they eat, when they go to bed, when they wake. Most of them function in barely controlled panic and I’ve been asked a number of times to do a spell that will put them into another world or a picture in a book or back in time so that they can avoid certain behaviours that got them institutionalised. They’re diagnosed as having diminished responsibility – they’re not necessarily bad in the sense that an ordinary criminal is – and they have a life sentence in the absolute meaning of the term. They are in as much pain as the person enduring physical anguish.

Imagine a world where people who were in a permanent state of torment were treated with a compassion that suited them rather than those who have control over them. Imagine if they were given the option – by intelligent people without a budget in mind – to forgo the performance of being a good patient. This alone, paradoxically, might give them the freedom to live as a fully integrated human being for a period of time, something they will never experience on a locked ward, in a locked-down life or a locked-up body.

How much more wonderful would Joan and Edwards final days been if they could have their loved ones around them in their own home and garden, holding hands as they took the drugs that would peacefully and swiftly take away their age, infirmities, fears and pains. What an honour, what a privilege to be with these people in a moment of what could be ecstasy, peace and satisfied completion.

International Pagan Values Blogging Month!

Over at Crysalis Pax put out the following challenge:

Let us write of the virtues and ethics and morals and values we have found in our Pagan paths, let us share how we carry these precious things forward in our own lives and out into the world.

Join me, in the month of June 2009 in writing about Pagan values.

http://chrysalis1witchesjourney.wordpress.com/

Go over there to see how it's getting on.

More On Boundaries

The subject of boundaries between divination and chaplaincy is complex and so I sought the opinions of some wise and experienced people.

Holli Emore is the Executive Director of Cherry Hill Seminary.

Isaac Bonewits is a Druid, priest, writer, teacher and the Headmaster of the Real Magic School, psychic, ne'er-do-well and trouble-maker.

http://www.neopagan.net/

Seldiy Bate is a Pagan Priestess and a dangerous old lady.

CS: Hello All, I'm writing a piece about the boundaries between psychotherapy, chaplaincy and divinatory work. Personally I avoid divination on wards like the plague, it feels as wrong as it can get. But you may feel differently. Thoughts?


IB: I don't do health readings much and probably wouldn't in a hospital setting.

I've never been asked to do a reading during a prison visit (have only done a few). It would seem somewhat pointless except for strictly spiritual questions, since the futures of people in prison are pretty frozen until they get out.

HE: I don't always see divination as telling the future or advising a decision. Most of the people I read with gain clarity on their lives, see themselves reflected in the cards, and thus receive value.


SB: I would agree with that.

When I do a "real" Tarot reading, it is exactly that. When I do a commercial Tarot reading (in which we would never discuss health issues anyway, on a regulated service), people just want to know "What's going to happen?" I try my best to explain about Free Will and that the Tarot can point out options, give guidance and show possible outcomes - and that decisions and actions people take affects A future (as opposed to THE future), but most times they will still revert to "What's going to happen?"


CS: Seldiy, you describe perfectly what I've experienced, that despite the theoretical understanding of divination a great many people expect to be told what to do. In these interactions I've found it impossible to get the subtleties of divination across.


SB: It can be a wonderful tool but I think it is best used when the person has some kind of insight themselves. The sort of punters I have on the regulated service are mostly people who don't care what tools you use as long as they can be told "What's going to happen" and because they are paying, they think they own you. They would rather ask ME what someone else feels, thinks or intends to do rather than interact with the person and find out.

But the people who come to it from a different angle - and who possibly have some understanding of divinatory systems, because it is their path, or because they are interested etc - tend to work with me. They don't want to read for themselves, quite rightly, but they need the reader as the catalyst to unlock what's already there. Then it's a good process for both people.

I disagree with Isaac about prisoners being "frozen" though (or their future being frozen). I know what you mean, but their spirit isn't frozen, nor is what they are capable of doing frozen, although of course it is very restricted. I've had a bit of experience with the Jail Guitar Doors project and if anything can bring out motivation, spirit, creativity and ambition, that can. Wow! If the brief had been to do a reading for any of those gals, it would have sparkled.


CS: Seldiy, what's a regulated service? Is this the Fraudulent Medium thing?(!!!)


SB: It's just a phone line thing. All premium rate phone lines (chat, psychic readings etc) in UK are regulated by ICSTIS (now known as PhonePayPlus) and they have a whole stack of rules as to what can or cannot be discussed, as well as regulating the financial implications of such a service. (Which is why these hoaxes about your being unknowingly connected to a twenty six million pounds a minute premium line are a load of rubbish!) All the rules are for everybody's protection and on such a line, I am not allowed to make predictions regarding health, pregnancy and of course, death.


IB: I'm reading a novel called "Houston, We Have a Problema." It's what Phae calls "chick-lit" romance, but I'm reading it because the main character has a psychic she goes to regularly. 2/3 through the story, the psychic, Madam Hortensia, explains to the protagonist that the major thing readers do is give people permission to go with their true feelings.

Naturally, it's when the protagonist stops looking for signs (and stops ignoring the ones she doesn't like) that she makes progress.

Very amusing book and perfect to read between customers. :)

So there it is, some more clarity and understanding. Thanks Holli, Isaac and Seldiy for your help and for permission to share your insights.

Boundaries

What boundaries might we draw between spirituality, counselling and chaplaincy? I ask because I’ve just come across a series of leaflets offering ‘Tarot and Counselling’ ‘Spiritual Counselling’ ‘Voicework and Counselling’ and ‘Reiki and Counselling’. I was reminded of one of my teachers on a (post grad) counselling course who was tediously all too eager to talk about out of body experiences or the colour of our auras. She used new age nonsense to make herself feel uniquely qualified in the intangible and would become insufferably smug if anyone questioned the validity of what she was talking about, as if we were all too primitive to appreciate her special knowledge. As a bona fide, old fashioned, not new age Witch I found her abuse of power repellent and wasn’t inauthentic enough to schmooze or massage her ego. Our relationship was not good.

From that experience I learned to keep disciplines separate. When I’m a psychotherapist I’m a psychotherapist and overtly Pagan thoughts don’t really come into it. When I’m doing ritual then I’m not being a psychotherapist. When I’m being a Pagan chaplain I find myself flowing between states; patients need to find their own answers and they also need guidance and debate around Pagan beliefs and behaviours. When we’re in spiritual crisis we don’t need debate we need answers but those answers need to reflect our own way of being in the world. Knowing when to be more one way or the other is a subtle art in which I am by no means expert.

People desire direction, there’s a part of us all that longs to be told what to do and this is where things like tarot come in, they can offer guidance and structure. There’s nothing wrong with doing tarot or reiki or voicework but to attempt to combine it with counselling is unethical. The only thing that goes with counselling is counselling, and the only people who are competent to call themselves counsellors are qualified counsellors. UK trained and qualified counsellors find themselves in an invidious position and it’s why I favour the term psychotherapist for my own work, to distance myself from the very many people with no qualifications or even training who are free to call themselves (and believe themselves to be) counsellors.

The mystery of spirituality confers power on those who say they understand it. Shamanism needs a bit of showmanism but we have to be very clear about why we might choose to use it in our work. It’s one thing to put on a robe for ritual work, quite another to pretend (or actually believe) that we are having a clairvoyant moment which we must share with a vulnerable person who has come to us in need. Whose needs are actually met? Who has the power? As any Pagan knows, names confer power and the names ‘counsellor’ or ‘chaplain’ or ‘clairvoyant’ have enormous power. People respond to these names with trust and a lowering of their daily defenses. When we visit chaplains, counsellors and clairvoyants we do so because we are vulnerable.

I have moments of clairaudience and it’s never been useful to pass on a message from The Beyond ™. Something similar to clairaudience or clairvoyance might be called autheticity. I would propose that being consciously authentic is more important than learning esoteric skills. We don’t have to act on our authentic feelings – it’s seldom productive to scream and run away from a gathering of inauthentic people – but we can acknowledge those feelings and learn from them. The same is true for our work with patients, we can be aware of what we’re feeling, take honest ownership of our feelings rather than attribute them to anything supernatural, and weigh up the pros and cons of sharing the feelings with the patient. If in doubt, don't. Once the relationship is strong and trusting it’s more possible to risk being openly authentic but in a short-term relationship that involves no major crisis there’s little call for it. The relationship is about the needs of the patient over anything else.

It may be tempting, not least because a patient requests it, to do some kind of divination especially when someone is in crisis. Personally, I avoid it like the plague. People can become easily and unnecessarily upset and can hear things that aren’t said. It feels wrong on every level, not least tampering with an individuals power to decide for themselves. In PR terms, in my opinion, it belittles the professional nature of the role of Chaplain, something that is very hard won for Pagans. We are the instrument through which a relationship is made; cards, crystals and pendulums get in the way and act as a distraction. We need to be able to withstand the full force of anxiety, unanswerable questions and fear without diversion.

When a patient wants to do divination for themselves, however, I feel less strongly about it. Personally, I dislike the overt use of paraphernalia, it feels inauthentic to me, but if a person can't make an important decision that must be made urgently, and if they wish to use divination, that's their choice and one that I will witness and, if necessary, help bring a positive interpretation to. We all need something like that distraction when things get intense, but we still must take personal responsibility for the actions that may result from our understanding of it. To say "The cards told me to donate/not donate a kidney," is not taking responsibility.

Pagan Generosity

Holy Moly! There’s a Pagan group that’s tithing! And they call it tithing! Not 'Gyfu' or the ‘Rainbow Exchange of Love’ but tithing! Is this just another Christo-Pagan group wanting the best of both worlds? A naive bunch of amateurs getting woefully confused?


Actually, it’s Z Budapest in her beautiful magazine ‘Goddess’.

http://issuu.com/zbudapest/docs/goddess

Z has been eclipsed in recent years by the blossoming of Paganism but she is one of the founding Mothers of Paganism and has remained honourably true to the Goddess rather than watering Her down to suit a post modern, psychobabbling world. And yet she uses the term ‘Tithing’.

The yearly tithing of the membership fees from the Susan B. Anthony Coven Number One go directly into the WSF. Those funds are then used for everything from goddess festivals to websites.

I remember an afternoon dreaming with a friend about where we saw Paganism being in 10 years time. She nearly leaped out of her skin when I suggested tithing such was her indignation, and I’ve learned to never mention it unless I wanted to deal with a barrage of hooting. It’s the word that triggers people. Tithing is associated with Christianity and far too many of us have come into Paganism because we perceive it to be the antithesis of Christianity. In fact, it’s just a form of supporting the things we say we hold dear, whether that’s a magasine or the National Health Service.

As Z acknowledges, we already pay a sort of tithe in membership fees. But membership fees are a flawed concept in spirituality and simply feeds the paradigm of inequality, unfairness, un-earned privilege and the abuse of power. The more money you have the more access to ideas, community, support, shared experience, information and in some groups, Deity, you have. Access to newsletters, magazines, camps, training, experience, participation is increasingly dependent on income and frankly it’s easier to be dedicated as a person on a decent income when much of the dedication depends on shopping. It’s a self-perpetuating system, where those who can afford the ideas and experiences then contribute further words and create further experiences. A very small group indeed will hear about the experience of a Pagan who can’t afford a computer.

Tithing is a way of addressing this head on. 10% of £3,300 (what a single person on Job Seekers Allowance receives per year) is proportionately the same as 10% of someone who’s on £25,000 or £250,000. Each demonstrates their commitment proportionately. As it is, someone on £30,000 a year contributes proportionately a minute fraction of what the person on a low income pays out in membership fees.

The average British annual income is around £20,000 which would result in a 10% tithe of £2,000. If you were to give £2,000 a year to a Pagan group you might be responsible for the sudden maturity of Paganism. Such sums would allow Pagan groups to achieve meaningful goals; you would be empowering people to be employed as professional Pagans, able finally to end unsatisfactory voluntary work in their spare time to devote themselves professionally to a cause; you would make sure that such causes were worthy, meaningful and grounded in reality because £2,000 is not a little money to waste; already successful organisations would be able to build on their work; whereas now Pagans who are unable to pay can work their way and Pagans on a low income who can’t work because of age or infirmity are sidelined, a proper sliding scale of fees for camps and so on would become possible(and camp workers would not all be expected to be poor, and the poor all expected to work in a way that the well off are not); and you would be right in expecting transparent financial and annual reports.

What has this got to do with Pagan chaplaincy? If Pagans believe that we want a specialist group of Pagans (to do anything that the majority won't or can't do, but feel is valuable) then we have to find money to manifest it. Properly funded Pagan organisations can in turn contribute a tithe to support such specialists. A Pagan organisation with 100 members will have an annual income of around £200,000 and could contribute £20,000pa to any group it felt worthy.

Imagine that!

Some of us, imagining such things, will feel fearful about where the demon of money will lead us. Having spent most of my working life in the voluntary sector I’ve learned that money is clean and the ultimate enabler, it’s people that mess it up. Bad work practices occur routinely in the voluntary sector that would not be tolerated in the private sector where money rules. The more money-focused an organisation is the better it tends to function. Where shareholders demand a return private companies keep control of their practices – in everything from bullying and equal ops to capital investment and expansion - or it loses its shareholders. Those groups that contribute to a dedicated Pagan chaplaincy organization would be shareholders.

Are we ready for such heady accomplishments? The fact that someone as radical and old school as Z Budapest will use the word ‘Tithe’ suggests that we might be.


Image by Elena Ray, with generous permission http://www.elenaray.com/