Pax, Ora et Labora: gateway to the organic farm at St. Mary's, Sewanee

Fran and I spent this past weekend in Sewanee, TN. “The Mountain,” as it is affectionately called, is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, a college town on the Cumberland Plateau nestled in forested land filled with caves, hiking trails, waterfalls, a natural bridge, and other wonders.

It’s the first time we’ve been back since my friend Bob’s funeral, back in February of 2009. I lived in Sewanee from 1988 to 1993, running the campus bookstore at the University of the South. I left when Fran and I got married, and have been in Atlanta ever since. But even though it’s only about a three hour drive away, I’ve only been back to my old home three or four times since leaving. Not that there’s no reason to go back — Sewanee is beautiful, and almost without exception everyone I knew up there was wonderful. My staying away is partially due to the demands of family life (especially with Rhiannon’s health issues), partially due to a tendency Fran and I have to visit family before friends when we travel, and — here’s the juice — partially due to my own longstanding inner tension that first fully erupted when I lived in Sewanee — the tension concerning my love for nature-based and indigenous spiritualities even while I anchor my identity as a Christian. Sewanee, home to a liberal arts college and seminary affiliated with the Episcopal Church, is kind of a Christian company town; but there are plenty of old hippies and deadheads and magical-thinkers who live out in the woods, enough to make this small community the kind of place where enthusiasm for alternative spirituality can find nurture as well.

So why do I go back now? Mainly because a dear member of my current circle of friends has moved up there: Michael Thompson, one of the leaders of the new Ecumenical Lay Associates at the monastery here in Georgia, has begun a farming project on the grounds of the St. Mary’s Conference Center, near the Episcopal Convent of St. Mary’s just beyond the edge of campus. When I lived in Sewanee, young and rather lacking in self-confidence, I basically lived a double life: the Christian Carl, who was on the vestry at the local church and even flirted with the idea of going to seminary, and the pagan Carl, who participated in sweatlodges and Wiccan circles under the full moon out on a remote bluff near the natural bridge. Perhaps it’s only a relatively new friend, who knows my whole story and who knows me well today, who can most fittingly re-introduce me to the crucible of my youth where I discovered and deepened my twin loves: for the profound silence of contemplation, and the erotic mysteries of the soil.

The story of my subsequent life in Atlanta has been the story of slowly learning to accept myself in my entirety, that somehow there is no contradiction between the man who wrote The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Paganism and the man who wrote The Big Book of Christian Mysticism. In the inclusive, all-embracing spirituality of my maturity, I can agree with Richard Rohr that “everything belongs” even while I now remain committed to practicing my spirituality in a monastic, and therefore Christian, context. But who I am today is the fruit of many years’ searching. In returning to Sewanee, I am coming back not merely as a prodigal son returning home, but as someone profoundly changed — changed simply by finally accepting who I really am, in my gloriously contradictory entirety.

So it seems that I require a new friend, someone intimate with me as I am in 2011, to reintroduce me to a place I knew and loved so well, but where, at least when I lived there, I never could just allow myself to “be.” Part of the experience of going back, however, has been the surprise of discovering just how much more at ease I feel with myself today — and that includes feeling at ease even with the mistakes I made two decades ago. Over the course of the weekend I was reminded both of how fully Sewanee has remained a part of me, and how much the people of this place knew who I truly was, even when I didn’t know how to fully accept myself. I surprised myself — and my companions — with how much of even the tiniest details I remembered about this my home from 20 years ago, recalling how to find a favorite waterfall tucked underneath a bluff at the edge of campus to spontaneously recognizing people I hadn’t seen in 20 years — and whom I barely knew, even back then. But when I did run into one of my closer friends from back then, the wife of a seminary professor, her first question to me was, “So, are you still listening to the Grateful Dead?” I wish I had been clever enough to say, “No these days I’m more inclined to play Dar Williams,” before humming a bar or two of “The Christians and the Pagans.” And in visiting with Sister Lucy, the matriarch of the small community of nuns, now almost blind and confined to a wheelchair but still with plenty of fire in her heart, I felt reminded of more than a few of the monks of Conyers, and felt filled with gratitude for all the holy people in my life, both past and present.

Back to my friend Michael and his organic  farm. See the accompanying picture of the sign he built at the front of his blackberry garden and vineyard. Peace, Prayer and Work it proclaims, in Latin as befits a student of the Rule of St. Benedict. Michael understands that contemplation means everything belongs — that there is no contradiction between the urge for transcendence and the celebration of immanence, that a healthy spirituality entails both toes curling in the dirt and fingers reaching for the heavens. Mother Nature and the mystery we call God lovingly pour themselves into each other, and I think it takes a farmer who prays to fully get this. I’ve always been a bookish nerd, more inclined to skulk about in libraries than to get humus under my fingernails. If it’s not too late to teach this old dog a few new tricks, maybe Michael and his agricultural oblation will invite me to an even deeper place where I can integrate the wisdom of the body with my noetic yearning.

And it’s for that reason that I hope to return to Sewanee, soon and soon again. Where I can see both new friends and old, and embrace all of my own story — the shy introvert who found meaning in the message of the mystics, and the middle class rebel who discovered in alternative spiritualities a way to reconnect with my body and the earth. Maybe Sewanee will help me to truly and finally embrace that these things are not-two.

Anyway, if you’re interested in listening in, the interview will be live, airing from 10:15 to about 11:00 PM tonight, Eastern time. If you’re not in New Hampshire, you can listen online by clicking here.

Isaac Bonewits (1949-2010), in full Druid regalia

I am sad to learn of the death of Isaac Bonewits yesterday, of cancer, at the age of 60. Isaac was probably the single most influential American in the revival of pagan druidism over the last forty years. He was the founder of Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship, the druid organization of which I was a member for several years. ADF had a sweeping vision not only for the revival of Celtic paganism, but indeed all of Indo-European paganism, and stressed sound scholarship, accountability, public worship, and democratically chosen leadership — all qualities that are hardly ubiquitous in the neopagan world. Isaac also wrote a number of books, the most famous being Real Magic, and was prominently featured in Margot Adler’s ground-breaking 1979 study of neopaganism, Drawing Down the Moon. He also appeared, briefly, in Robert Anton Wilson’s counterculture classic, The Cosmic Trigger.

I only met Isaac once, at a pagan gathering outside of Nashville some seven or eight years ago, shortly before I abandoned neopaganism to return to Christianity. But he and I also traded a few emails over the years, on topics ranging from Pagan-Christian relations to promoting each other’s books. I always enjoyed his writing, even when I disagreed with him: he had a confident, honest voice, sometimes biting in his satire and unrelenting in his criticism, but always imbued with a deep love for the earth, for the old gods and goddesses, and for his vision of an ecofeminist future.

Isaac was a true polytheist, and rejected monotheism as philosophically absurd. Ironically, it was reading about his beliefs in his book Rites of Worship: A Neopagan Approach that helped me to realize that I was a monotheist who found polytheism to be absurd! So, while this may not have pleased him on one level (but on another level it probably would have, since I have the sense that he would have encouraged everyone to follow their own conscience), he, through his writings, played a role in my return to Christianity.

Isaac and I first corresponded in early 1997, when I asked him to endorse my first book, Spirituality. He didn’t do so — I imagine it was too Christian for him, as this was written before I left the Episcopal Church. But when he found pagan-friendly writings on my old “House of Breathings” website, hosted at www.anamchara.com from 1996-2003, he very kindly posted a link to my website on his own, much more highly visited, website, and that link remained up for a number of years. Here is what he wrote (remember, he is describing me — and my work — circa 1998):

Anamchara is Carl McColman’s beautiful and interesting website about his and other’s approaches to a Neochristian-Neopagan-Neobuddhist-Neoceltic synthesis of spiritual pathways, and includes photos and text on Medieval British mystics, sacred sites, and The Images Project, an online magazine dedicated to exploring the spiritual implications of the Internet itself.

He went on to quote from the definition of anamchara I had posted on my site at the time:

“The roots of the anamchara — in the religious life of the pre-Christian Druids — makes this figure meaningful in our search today for creative and positive dialogue between Christians and members of other faiths, including contemporary Neopagans. The soul friend (anamchara) is a Christian figure with pre-Christian roots. A talented spiritual director understands that we live in a pluralistic world, and that interfaith encounters are normal and need to be approached positively, honestly, and with a spirit of openness and non-defensiveness. The spirituality of the anamchara is a spirituality deeply rooted in a specific mystical tradition, but with an attitude of good-will and openness toward other traditions.”

Isaac’s final comment about me and my work:

This kind of heretic we should encourage!

Coming from him, this was high praise indeed.

Of course, when I returned to Christian practice beginning in late 2004, the rationale for continued contact between me and Isaac faded away. I last heard from him in 2006, when he had his publisher send me a review copy of Bonewits’ Essential Guide to Druidism. But by then I was fully immersed in Catholicism and in discerning whether I had a vocation to the life of a Cistercian lay associate, and so I was pretty much out of the business of reviewing pagan books. I posted a brief blurb about the book when someone asked me to provide a list of the best books on druidism, but that was about all I did to promote it.

Still, as social networking rolled around, Isaac and I became Facebook friends (of course, he had thousands), and every now and then it was fun to check in on him, much like I check in on old high school buddies with whom I haven’t spoken in years but I nevertheless enjoy seeing on that site. And so it was sobering to learn that Isaac had cancer, although his posts were largely upbeat until recently. And then, a few days ago word was out that he only had hours to live. And yesterday morning he was gone. He would have been 61 in October.

So I prayed, to the Christian Trinity, for a peaceful death for a man whose life was dedicated to reviving a spiritual path that had been attacked and oppressed by Christians centuries ago. I hope, and trust, that he wouldn’t mind. After all, I still believe that “we live in a pluralistic world, and that interfaith encounters are normal and need to be approached positively, honestly, and with a spirit of openness and non-defensiveness.” And Isaac, apparently, agreed with me.

Rest in peace, druid scholar. May you find all you seek in Brigid’s embrace.

The idea of memory was very important in Celtic spirituality. There are lovely prayers for different occasions. There are prayers for the hearth, for kindling the fire, and for smooring the  hearth. At night, the ashes were smoored over the burning coals, sealing off the air. The next morning the coals would still be alive and burning. There is also a lovely prayer for the hearth keepers that evokes St. Bridget, who was both a pagan Celtic goddess and a Christian saint. In herself, Bridget focuses the two worlds easily and naturally. The pagan world and the Christian world have no row with each other in the Irish psyche, rather they come close to each other in a lovely way.

— John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

To fully grasp the beauty and complexity (and some would say, the challenge) of Christian mysticism, sooner or later you will contend with the elusive sixth-century figure known variously as Denys, Dionysius, or Pseudo-Dionysius, the Areopagite. We don’t know his real name. In his own writings, he passes himself off as a figure briefly mentioned in the New Testament — a Greek from Athens, who became a follower of Christ after Paul’s sermon in that city (recounted in Acts 17). For many centuries, these writings were generally accepted to be by Dionysius, and therefore of New Testament-era provenance. But scholars in the fifteenth century began to question this when it became obvious that so-called Dionysius relied on heavily the ideas of Neoplatonic philosophers such as Proclus, who lived in the fifth century. Today, Pseudo-Dionysius is now generally thought to have been a Syrian priest or monk who lived and wrote sometime around the year 500 CE. But if for a thousand years his works were highly influential because of his alleged ties to the Apostle Paul, once his identity was questioned, his reputation plummeted, and through the modern era he was dismissed as, at worst, a forger and a fraud; at best, a crafty Neoplatonist attempting to import pagan ideas into Christianity by the clever use of a pseudonym.

William Riordan’s accessible introduction to the theology of this figure, whom he prefers to identify using the traditional name “Denys,” seeks to find an orthodox middle ground, seeing the Areopagite neither as a fraud nor as an opportunist, but simply as a theologian seeking to affirm a grand and glorious synthesis between the philosophy of Neoplatonism and the teaching of the church. Riordan carefully delineates the distinctions between Denys’ thought and pagan philosophy, showing how Denys consistently submits his Neoplatonic ideas to Christian doctrine.

After an introductory look at Denys’ historical background, his theological method, and his influence both in the east and the west, Riordan explains both the similarities and differences between Denys and Neoplatonism, and then concentrates on Denys as a teacher of divinization, both in terms of cosmology and individual spirituality. “Divinization is an initiation, and often an arduous one, into Divine Being,” notes Riordan, and he teases out how Deny’s understanding of what we now call “the great chain of being” (Denys himself speaks of heirarchies, a concept he himself developed and which has become contested in our time because of its association with the abuse of power) all serves the larger question of how human beings are initiated into the unfathomable mystery of God, in order to become partakers of the Divine Nature.

Denys’ influence on the course of Christian mystical theology cannot be overstated. And while ours is an age in which many people of faith seek to regain an authentically Jewish celebration of the goodness of creation — which implies moving away from an understanding of metaphysics or spirit as “higher” than matter — the insights of Denys, acknowledging God as transcendent other who both loves the creation but also challenges it to be transformed in him — remain relevant to anyone who finds value in contemplative practice or who seeks to integrate the visionary thought of even non-Christian thinkers like Ken Wilber into the quest for holiness in our time.

I particularly loved the appendix of this book, where Riordan examines Denys’ teachings in the light of Mircea Eliade’s studies of shamans and shamanic initiation. Needless to say, there are some real points of correlation and convergence, and Riordan’s explanation of the three-fold process of purgation, illumination and  union in terms of shamanic initiation is, to my mind, alone worth the price of the book.

This is a book heavy on theory rather than practice; in other words, reading it won’t provide you with tips on how to improve your discipline of contemplative prayer. But it might give you some insight into a way of approaching Christian thought that embraces, rather than dismisses, other wisdom traditions, and that underscores the many points of commonality between Christian mysticism and other transformational spiritualities.

If you care to visit it (I hope I can, someday), click here to see the location of the church on Google Maps.

Here’s an image of the exterior of the church, from a Sardinia Tourism website.

Francesco Pirrone notes that this church is interesting “because the roof collapsed and the floor is dropped.” The Sardinia Tourism website notes that this church was built in the 13th century in Romanesque-Gothic style. The website also mentions a summer bonfire ritual which has interesting parallels to the Beltane/Mayday ceremonies from the British Isles:

On the evening of June 24th a characteristic event takes place which is worth mentioning; “su fogarone”, (a huge bonfire) is prepared, which has to be jumped over by pairs of both children and adults; in the past, before jumping, the pair tied a knot in a handkerchief to symbolise the relationship that was being formed at that very moment and thus becoming “compares e comares de fogarone”; a link, which purified by the flames, was stronger than that of a blood relation.

I can’t tell if this bonfire ritual takes place at the church itself, or just somewhere in Martis. But if does take place at the church, how interesting that what may be a vestigial pagan ceremony is associated with a beautiful church that would eventually appear on the cover of a book about Christian mysticism written by a former neopagan. And how interesting that I should discover all this on the first of May.

Synchronicity. It’s a beautiful thing.

Finally, here is another look at the interior of the church, from the lens of Francesco Pirrone.

Ten years ago that would have been nothing remarkable, as I was a regular participant in Wiccan and Neopagan groups like the House of Oak Spring or the Grove of the Unicorn or the now-defunct local grove of Ár nDraíocht Féin. But since I wandered “out of the woods and into the Catholic Church” in 2005, understandably my number of invitations to Wiccan Circles and Pagan Rituals have been in short supply. So I find it interesting that I would get not one, but two, offers to honor the turning of the wheel this time around.

And the real irony: both invitations come from Christian friends. Not “Christian” in the sense of “that was how I was raised but I don’t really believe it,” but Christian in the “going to church every Sunday and trying to follow Jesus the best I can” sense.

So… why are the Christians who love the turning of the seasons suddenly coming out of the woodwork? I’m not really sure. But it does seem auspicious, in that just this week I’ve begun reading Christine Valter Paintner’s newly-released book Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying With the Elements from Sorin Books, an imprint of Ave Maria Press (about as mainstream a Catholic publisher as you can get) I’ve just begun the book so I can’t say too much right now, but I will post a review once I’ve finished it. What I can say is that it looks quite good: a poetic and prayerful approach to spirituality grounded in the blessings of the natural world, suitable for Christians to incorporate in our overall spiritual practice. Valter Paintner is a Benedictine oblate whose website is called Abbey of the Arts: Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts.

Meanwhile, both of the Atlanta-area Christians who requested my presence at Equinox rituals this weekend are contemplatives as well. Am I noticing a groundswell of emerging interest in the convergence between contemplative Christianity and a healthy, positive honoring of the good Earth that has been given to us?

I sure hope so.

Alas, I had to decline both opportunities to participate in the Equinox rituals for the most prosaic of reasons: I work this weekend. But I’m pleased that I was honored with the invitations. To all of you who read this, whether you are Neopagans — or Christians with a deep and abiding interest in honoring the blessings of the Earth — I wish you a joyous day in celebration of the coming of Spring.

As I ponder on this day, I am reminded that it, like Columbus Day, can elicit a radically different response from people, based on their world-view and value system. Columbus Day for Euro-Americans was traditionally a day of celebration and commemoration of “discovery,” but for Native Americans and those who share concern for the plight of indigenous people who face the brunt of colonialist expansion, Columbus Day has become the symbol of loss. As one pundit put it, “Columbus didn’t discover America, he invaded it!”

St. Patrick’s Day, likewise, means different things based on whether a person’s interest in Celtic spirituality tends toward the Pagan or the Christian end of the continuum. For Christians, Patrick brought the new faith — hence, enlightenment — to this “island at the end of the world.” But Neopagans re-interpret Patrick not as a liberator, but as an oppressor. The arrival of Patrick’s mission marked the beginning of the end of the old ways. I remember back in the 1980s, in Nashville at a Wiccan bookstore, the first time I saw a leaflet for Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship: It said “Bring back the snakes! Ireland was better off Pagan.”

So when Patrick expelled the snakes from Ireland, was this a mythic way of saying he brought about the end of the native, druidic religion? It might be easy to interpret things that way, and I suppose many, both Christian and Pagan, would agree with this way of reading history. But I am not so sure. I think indigenous Irish spirituality did not so much vanish under Christianity as adapt and evolve. The old gods and goddesses may have retreated undergone and became the fairies of myth and lore, but many practices associated with them — from the veneration of holy wells to the Imbolc ceremonies Christianised under devotion to St. Brigid — have lived on, into the present day. Indeed, when I participated in a Brigid’s Eve Ritual in Co. Kildare in 2005, I quickly lost any sense of orientation as to whether what I was doing was primarily Catholic or Pagan in its focus.

Purists on both side of the Christian/Pagan divide will not like this very much, but I think this is the glory of Irish spirituality — and the true legacy of Patrick. Neither Pagans nor Christians are going to go away, so we can choose to hate each other — or we can decide to live together peacefully, and perhaps even joyfully. I opt for the latter. And I think the folk traditions of the Celtic lands are some of the best tools we have for learning how to be good neighbors with one another.

One other thought about St. Patrick. He first came to Ireland not as a missionary, but as a slave — and escaped several years later as a runaway. Much of the drama of his story came from his sense that he needed to return to the land of his own captivity as a spiritual emissary. Part of his legacy as the apostle to the Irish was his work against human trafficking. Now, there’s nothing within Celtic paganism that mandates the owning of slaves, and likewise we know that many Christians over the centuries have been slave owners, so it is a mistake to assume that because Pagan Ireland was a slave state, and the coming of Christianity brought also the fight against slavery, that this makes Christianity automatically morally superior to Paganism. That argument just doesn’t hold water. But what is worth considering is this: perhaps the “snakes” that Patrick expelled were not the Druids, but the slave traders and slave owners. By bringing an ethic of human dignity and respect to Ireland, Patrick brought a character that the best expressions of both Paganism and Christianity can celebrate.

Perhaps Pagans will always lament the coming of Patrick, and Christians will always celebrate it. In some ways, we will simply always be different. But if we can both agree that slavery is a bad thing and that freedom is good, perhaps we can see in this a call to freedom of religion, and the possibility of true interfaith spirituality and peaceful co-existence that will liberate us to work together for the common good. After all, human trafficking is still with us, and other problems (like the environmental crisis) exist where Neopagans and Christians can work together to achieve a common goal. In this way, everyone wins. Except for the snakes.

Ali of Meadowsweet & Myrrh, in her latest contribution to a conversation we’ve been having about the movie Avatar and the representation of pagan, indigenous and/or pantheistic spirituality in that movie, has this perceptive insight:

I am all for interfaith dialogue and the fruitful integration and living-together of different traditions. But before we begin our blending, I think it is utterly important that we strive to understand what those differences actually are, and accept no pale caricatures in their place. Otherwise, what we are doing is not integrating, but imposing. While a rose is a rose is a rose, to look at another spiritual tradition through rose-colored glasses, paint a rose-colored picture and then try to pass it off as the real thing is just not something I willing to settle for.

I agree with her. She said this in the context of challenging my assertion that Avatar was “a Neopagan’s dream,” which she contests by pointing out problems with the movie’s depiction of Pandoran spirituality. Hey, as dense and post-pagan as I am, even I had figured out that Eywa was essentially a monotheistic fictionalization of a “pagan goddess,” and I suppose my chief error was not giving that misgiving any airtime in my review.

Why did I not bother to point out the flaws in the movie’s “paganism” that even I picked up on? I think the answer is simple: because, as a Christian, it really wasn’t my problem. But in saying that, I’m pointing to how much I embody the problem Ali addresses in the above quote. Even as secularized as America has become, Christians here still enjoy privilege as participants in the culture’s dominant religious worldview. Contemporary America is post-Christian, not “post-pagan” or “post-pantheist.” In other words, the kinds of unspoken assumptions that shape religious thinking among many or perhaps most Americans, even those who never darken the door of a church except for weddings and funerals, is steeped in Christian ways of thinking, Christianity’s cluster of values, and — most germane of all to my current line of thinking — Christian blind spots. Last year at the Emerging Church Conference in Albuquerque, Brian McLaren spoke on “what we focus on determines what we miss.” He was speaking specifically about the ways in which Christians themselves have failed to see the full picture of Jesus as depicted in the New Testament. Ay yi yi. If Christians have difficulty truly knowing our own God, how are we ever going to be able to truly understand the logic, the values, the consciousness, the hopes and fears of other faiths, other wisdom traditions, other cultures?

It’s humbling to acknowledge that I will always see Buddhism through American Christian eyes; I will always see Islam through American Christian eyes; and even Paganism (neo- or otherwise), I’ll always see through American Christian eyes. Neopagan Druids reflect on how the first generation of Druid revivalists (from the 18th century in places like London and Wales) were so steeped in monotheistic beliefs and Christian values that their “Druidism” was little more than a costume ball. I wonder if Pagans 250 years from now will look at the Neopagan movement of the late 20th century and pass a similar judgment? I would suspect that this is likely. Meanwhile, Christians who recognize that the message of Jesus is all about radical love and the transformation of consciousness just shake our collective heads when we look at all the ways in which Christianity has been tainted by imperialist ways of thinking — I don’t know about you, but when I look at the medieval church I see more “vestigial Roman Empire” than “beloved community.” And if Christians themselves can’t even get Jesus’ message straight, no wonder our critics and detractors have such a distorted image of who we are.

This line of thinking, hopefully, leads us back to humility, the crown of virtues. Recognizing how little we know and how much we miss is not meant to be an exercise in self-flagellation. Rather, it is an opportunity: an opportunity to listen more and speak less, to engage in real, open-ended dialogue rather than just talking to one another as a way to score points or to get “our” message across. Related to humility, of course, is that key virtue for both Celtic Pagans and Benedictine Christians: hospitality. In our humility, we have the space to be welcoming and open to those whose ways are not like our own. It is only in this place of hospitality and welcoming that a true encounter may occur. The project as Ali describes it — that interfaith dialogue includes an honest assessment of our real differences and distinctions — can be painful, particularly when we bump into the ways we criticize or dismiss one another. Learning to listen, without getting defensive, without attacking in response, is truly an exercise in compassion, self-discipline, and open-hearted vulnerability. And yet this is the only sure path to authentic understanding.

Since Christianity currently holds the place of privilege and cultural influence, at least in my neck of the woods, I think it is incumbent upon Christians to lead the way in this epistemological humility. Pagans, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and members of other “minority” religions are probably much more aware of our own blind spots than we are. Learning to listen to our critics with grace and humility does not mean we have to abandon our fidelity to Christ or our deepest and highest values. But it does mean that we have to swallow a bit of our pride (and the last time I checked, pride was on the naughty list, so this is a good thing).

One final thought, in response to Ali: reading her keen and perceptive writing makes me just a wee bit wistful for the door I closed when I abandoned Neopaganism for Catholicism. Make no mistake: I’m happy with the choice I made, and I see lots of exciting work ahead for me (including in the area of interreligious dialogue). But I realize now that the work I did as a Pagan is already dated, and will simply become more dated as time passes. I wrote The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Paganism in 2001, so it’s already almost a decade old — and it stands on the shoulders of books from the 1970s, like The Spiral Dance or Drawing Down the Moon, meaning that it is, in effect, last generation’s Paganism. The other day in Borders I saw a copy of Drawing Down the Moon on the sale table, for $3.99. Hmmm. It’s old news. I’ve always thought that, even as a Christian, I could maintain a relationship with Neopaganism as a dialogue partner. But it looks like if that’s what I want, then I have my work cut out for me.

Warning: plot spoilers abound in the rest of this review. Read at your own risk.

On the surface, Avatar looks like a Neopagan’s dream. The bad guys are the consumerist, anti-ecological, greedy acquisitive earthlings, who have come to the gorgeously beautiful (but unremittingly hostile to humankind) world called Pandora. If your knowledge of Greek mythology is rusty, let me remind you that Pandora was the “Eve” of the pagan Greeks; the first woman, created by the gods and bestowed with many gifts, including a jar which contained both evil and hope. Of course, Pandora’s curiosity got the better of her, she opened the jar (or box), and that’s why the world is as screwed up as it is… but it’s also why we have hope even in the midst of our suffering.

Living on this idyllic-if-dangerous world are the Na’vi (the “naive visionaries”?), a sexy blue-skinned race of hippie types, who basically play the same role as the Lakota did in Dances with Wolves or the Ba’ku people in Star Trek: Insurrection. In other words, the Na’vi are a peaceful, spiritual, tribal, pre-industrial band of warriors and shamans who live in close psychic harmony with their environment (epitomized by their really cool pony-tails with exposed nerve tendrils that can link up and synch up with animals that they can then bond with and ride). While humans cannot breathe the Pandoran atmosphere, the science team from earth has figured out a way to create hybrid bodies using both Na’vi and human genetics; these bodies are the titular avatars, for they have to be “operated” psychically by an unconscious human being. Our hero, Jake, is one of these avatar-drivers, although for him it is an accidental career: his avatar had been created for use by his identical twin brother, who had been killed; he, meanwhile, is a Marine who suffered a disabling wound and is now confined to a wheelchair. The avatar represents for Jake not only a new career path, but also a new chance to walk and run again, even if only via a form of remote viewing.

Much of the humor (and political correctness) in the first hour of the film revolves around how Jake is a “stupid jarhead,” especially as viewed by the scientists in charge of the avatar project. Sure enough, he refuses to follow orders and gets himself in deep trouble on his first mission out in the Pandoran wild, soon separated from his companions. Alone and endangered, he is discovered by Neytiri, a Na’vi woman who doesn’t kill him because she receives a sign from Eywa — the great mother goddess of Pandora. Jake is one lucky dude, for when his avatar is dragged before a tribal council, the Na’vi, who understand that he is one of “sky people” in a mutant body, nevertheless offer to teach him their ways. Neytiri is assigned to be his mentor, and much action, visual splendor and a budding romance ensues. And Jake, just like Lt. Dunbar in Dances with Wolves, begins to identify more with the indigenous tribe that has adopted him than with his own rapacious race. And this sets us up for the last hour of the film, which basically involves an apocalyptic battle as the humans attempt to force the Na’vi to relocate — and in which spears and bows and arrows (with a little help from our hero and Eywa) manage to seriously kick human butt.

Okay, so there’s the story. If you have any shred of love for nature, or for the plight of indigenous peoples here on earth whose way of life has been destroyed or is being destroyed by the “American Way,” then this film will push all your emotional buttons. It did mine. And maybe that’s not a bad thing. But I think it’s interesting to breathe through the obvious contours of this story and consider it as a parable of the intersection between sky-god and earth-goddess spiritualities.

Here’s the key: one of the main characters is named Grace Augustine. Can you get any more heavy-handed than that? Grace is a scientist, and heads the avatar research team. She is one of three key figures among the human colony on Pandora, the others being Col. Miles Quaritch (a caricature of a Marine if there ever were one), and the snivelling “company man” Parker Selfridge, who is in charge of the business end of the operations: mining for a rare mineral that happens to be largely concentrated directly beneath the Na’vi’s ancestral home. With these three characters, you have the three functions of primal Indo-European society: the wisdomkeepers, the warriors, and the wealth-builders. In Irish mythology, for example, society was divided among the farmers and merchants (symbolized by the great god Dagda, who is the creator of abundance), the warriors (symbolized by the solar deity Lugh, who excelled at every skill), and the druids, keepers of the wisdom (symbolized by the goddess Brigid). I remember reading a comment by the Neopagan druid Isaac Bonewits (I can’t remember where I saw this) that, in the ancient world, one of the key challenges for the druid caste was managing to keep the warrior caste in line. If the warriors got too much power, excessive conflict and destruction would ensue. As much as ancient societies struggled to find a way to submit strength to wisdom, it’s a problem that, alas, remains with us today.

So on Pandora’s earth colony, Grace is the “chief druid” while Quaritch is the “chief warrior” and Selfridge the top money-man. We quickly learn that both Quaritch and Selfridge have no respect for Grace. Quaritch secretly instructs Jake to keep him informed, since it will be his job to move the Na’vi by force if they refuse to relocate willingly. And while Selfridge, as the chief executive of the business operation is theoretically in charge, when matters get chaotic Quaritch simply takes control. So on one level, Avatar is a grand metaphor about the danger of unrestrained force and the problems that ensue when wisdom is marginalized.

But back to our wisdom-keeper and her obviously Christian name. Grace is a tough boss in her own domain, even if she is ignored by her peers; she is also a flawed character, as symbolized by her chain-smoking. At first contemptuous of Jake, she grows to admire his boyish enthusiasm and natural charm, which opens doors for him with the Na’vi. Eventually she is felled by a gunshot wound when she and several members of her team decide to help the Na’vi to fight against the earthlings. The Na’vi try to save her by appealing to Eywa to permanently transfer her soul to her avatar. This does not happen, but her last words are filled with wonder as she describes her soul being taken up into the very consciousness of the goddess herself.

Wow.

So is this a metaphor for the best elements of Christianity (“grace”) being subsumed into the best elements of Neopaganism (the all-encompassing goddess)? Perhaps it can be seen that way. But it’s not just a one-way trip, where grace submits to the goddess. For we learn that grace changes the goddess. Before the final battle, Jake prays to Eywa for help in defeating the humans, appealing to Eywa to search Grace’s mind to understand what they were up against. Overhearing him, Neytiri scornfully remarks that Eywa takes no sides, for she is only committed to maintaining the balance of life. She may be the all-encompassing goddess, but the Na’vi do not have any sense of her as the dispenser of justice — only as the maintainer of ultimate harmony and equilibrium.

But then, when the battle seems to be at the most desperate point for the Na’vi, the animals of the jungle stampede and the creatures of the air swarm over the humans. Neytiri, watching it all in wonder, realizes that Eywa has in fact come to the aid of her children. The goddess has become a bestower of grace, at the hour of their greatest need.

So in the end, wisdom proves greater than either might or avarice — and the “Christian” wisdom of grace and justice joins together with the “Pagan” wisdom of the goddess-as-the-web-of-life. And this integrated wisdom proves to be too much for the “sky people.” Quaritch dies at the hand of Neytiri, felled by the very arrows he laughed at throughout the story. Selfridge, meanwhile, is marched ingloriously onto a ship that is sent packing. Only Grace’s team is allowed to remain on Pandora, and the movie ends with Jake finally solving the problem of his paraplegic body.

Indeed, I think the fact that Jake is disabled is as central to understanding Avatar as is the symbolism of Grace Augustine (“grace pre-destined”?). Jake comes from a disabled planet. As he mournfully tells Eywa, “our home has no green on it; we’ve killed it all.” Both he and Grace experience a death-and-resurrection; but where hers is more classically Christian in tone: she, the sinner (smoker) is felled by sin (a gunshot wound) and dies, only to find new life in the post-corporeal, beatific vision of Eywa — whose name seems to be a möbius-strip inversion of “Yahweh” suggesting that she encompasses both earth goddess and sky god. Jake, on the other hand, undergoes a more explicitly Pagan death-and-rebirth, reincarnating in the healthy body of his avatar.

So in the end, Avatar is probably the most satisfying integration of Christian and Pagan spirituality since The Lord of the Rings, even if its story is a bit well-worn. Bringing Christian and Pagan values together in a way that respects both is no easy feat: think of the mess that a writer as gifted as Neil Gaiman made of Beowulf a few years back. George MacDonald and J.R.R. Tolkien, of course, are the masters here, with C.S. Lewis their charming if somewhat overzealous acolyte. But those three were all Christians who extended hospitality to Pagan imagery in their primarily-Christian writings. Avatar works the other way around. It is special because its home field is the indigenous spirituality of harmony with nature, but it manages to embrace the most hopeful dimension of Christianity within its primarily goddess-centric story. And that makes even an old and familiar story seem fresh and new.