Below are two selected bits from a message, which isn’t up on the site yet so I can’t link to, that BC Witchcamp actually did manage to select Magdalene, which I really didn’t think they’d manage to do, but also did exactly the thing I was afraid they would do to the story if they did select it:

“The Story:
Mary Magdalene
Activist, Lover, Priestess of Isis
Witness to Change”

and

“Story of Mary Magdalene: Request that teaching team assure a strong presence of Deity/Isis
Reclaiming Mary’s story, correcting the bad PR, like the witches, like so many strong and powerful women
Not focusing on Jesus story
Mary as high priestess of the Goddess
Tie into history, tie into current politics, age of Aquarius, group consciousness, feminism, social justice”

I’m trying really hard not to be a manic ex-pat, but I feel like snidely suggesting that next year’s theme be St. Patrick.

Only, without all that noise about christianity.

And, let’s explore the fact that St. Patrick was a Priest of Serapis and his relationship with snake worship. That whole bit about St. Partick converting people to christianity was just bad PR … we should set the record straight.

And, you know, not so much with the Irish either … so, let’s talk about his history as an enslaved Roman from Wales instead and just skip the part where he’s in Ireland. You know, because what the hell good is cultural context when it gets in the way of a good week of appropriation to a self-consciously politically aware tradition such as Reclaiming? And, you know, the source culture is historically oppressed so the less said about where we appropriate … er, respectfully honor and celebrate … it from the better.

Oh, and St. Patrick will now be St. Patricia [contra], because any male role that’s more dangerous than or different than sex toy or buffoon threatens an welcome level of self-examination. After all, it’s easier to stay in control of the bloody mess of revolution if instead of changing the system one simply exchanges dictators. The history of actual revolutions [see] not withstanding, of course; but, we’ve already established the inconvenience of research.

Oh, man, I’ve got to stop before I go on a rant. Ugh. Too late.

I get it; I do. But, what a horrid disservice to the richness of the source material to do Magdalene in name only. It’s like the worst example of a Hollywood translation from book to screen [also, et] … but, I offer the selected quotes from the announcement e-mail above as an example of the looseness with which such things are treated, which honestly surprises me at least as much as I understand it as an act of reclaiming and Reclaiming.

I mean, really, Magdalene as a priestess, sure, but of friggin’ Isis?! A woman in a self-consciously pro-Jewish, anti-Roman faction was the priestess of what by that time was a syncretic Hellenistic-Egyptian goddess?! Asherah will be pissed when she hears about this. Asherah gets stood up on Prom night … again!? And, I can really see in my mind’s and heart’s eye Magdalene going medieval on someone if they said to her face that Jesus had nothing to do with her story. She’s the real first disciple, to my own mind … and disciples tend to be focused on, oh, I don’t know … something other than themselves.

Don’t get me started on the irony of a retelling of a story about the loss of the Beloved that self-consciously scrubs out the Beloved. Don’t get me started on the irony of Reclaiming selecting a story and modifying an authentic Herstory in such a way that it silences the voice of the central female out of expediency and convenience because of a political and religious agenda.

I really do get the deep and dire need to take control of social, religious and political narrative because of the magical sympathy and contagion between consciousness and reality mediated and changed through narrative. I also get that the story doesn’t really matter in the end because the real work is about coming together in a religious and political collective to do community sustaining ritual and organizing. But, how sad that to achieve these goals means sanitizing a story to the point of denaturing it.

I think Magdalene, by which I mean that aspect of her fullness with which I have a relationship, and I will both sit this one out. While others are off at camp, we’ll commiserate over the loss of our Beloveds, dear Magda for what’s-his-name and I for Reclaiming. And, when camp is over, maybe we could get together over tea for a post-mortem on our various experiences. Let’s be sure to do that and remember to invite the gardener. Maybe some time around Ostara?

Based on the first volume in the award-winning trilogy “His Dark Materials” by religious skeptic Philip Pullman, the movie already has been condemned by conservative Roman Catholics and evangelicals. They say it will hook children into Pullman’s books and a dark, individualistic world where all religion is evil.

But at least one liberal scholar has called the trilogy a “theological masterpiece,” and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops rates the film “intelligent and well-crafted entertainment.”

Meanwhile, some secularists complain the movie from New Line Cinemas waters down Pullman’s religious critique. They feel sold out by the author, who has described himself as both an atheist and agnostic.

Ha. They got hoist by complexity! Not so easy to simply condemn this outright is it?

I wondered what was taking so long. After hearing that the movies were being made, I expected immediate uproar, like there was for several other movies. When the response was silence, I figured the knee-jerk condemnations would have to wait until the dumb people managed to find someone that could read the books.

Now, how proud can Pullman be about this? The response to his complex work is complex! Maybe the person the dumb people got to read the books for them couldn’t explain it simply enough? However, I thought it would be as simple as saying, “They killed Kenny!” But, the complexity of the story appears to be such that even the condemnation of the movie ends up being not so simple as that. Witch hunts hunts aren’t so easy anymore, I suppose. This is a kind of progress, isn’t it?

“Can you be a citizen of a virtual world? That’s the question that I keep asking myself, whenever anyone tells me about the wonder of multiplayer online games, especially Second Life, the virtual world that is more creative playground than game.”

There’s been an online multiplayer RPG called Dark Ages for a long time. It’s old school. It’s isometric view. It’s chibi. But, it also has a functioning political system with offices, voting, laws, and political campains … and it’s a game that deserves to be noticed.

It’s called Dark Ages. I may not get this completely right, but I recall that it was a Korean game that was localized for the US by a US team headed by Dave Kennerly. Kennerly contributed to the game the political system and the system of religions, but of which have really good innovations for the game play. Over the years, Kennerly left and the US team bought the rights to their work and re-named themselves Kru Interactive.

There’s a small article on the game at wikipedia.

But, you should definitely check out the player-created guide to the political system “Politica Dominica” and one of Kennerly’s own articles on the political system “Dark Ages Politics in Theory and Practice.”

“Are you headed to downtown?”
“No, I’m not, but I can get you as far as Harrison.”
“Okay.”

“Thanks for the ride. There’s no bus service today, so I really appreciate it.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot about no service today. That sure sucks. Tell you what, I’ll go ahead and take you downtown.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure, it’s not a problem.”

“It’s annnoying that I couldn’t get the bus, you know what I’m saying?”
“Yeah, having no service seems silly to me.”
“And, what’s with New Years anyway? I mean, it’s not like anyone important died on that day. It’s just a day … no wars were won or lost on New Years, not that I know of anyway, you know what I’m saying?”
“Holidays are kind of arbitrary anyway. Most of the time, it’s got more to do with making a day for people to shop, it seems to me.”
“Yeah, holidays like Easter … that’s a strange one. What’s easter all about? Where did that get started? I’m a Christian evangelist, and it’s not really Christian, you know what I’m saying?”
“Well, Easter is Ostara, which in some Pagan and Indo-European thought is the time that the Goddess arrives from the underworld, the beginning of spring. Like Persephone for the Ancient Greeks …”
“Um, yeah.”

“Okay, well, thanks so much for the ride!”
“No problem. It’s a blustery and wet day out there, so ..”
“Yeah, but I’m a Christian evangelist, so I believe in Jesus Christ and any day that you’re alive is a great day.”
“Well, okay, but rain is still wet.”

In this article, an elementary school is forced to open up a system by which kids are used to distribute flyers to families so that one religious group in the community can distribute flyers. Then, other religious group in that community use it too.

The myopic view of the advocates is that they think the community is only like themselves, or at least that they have some privilege that makes them the only ones that matter in a community. But, it seems this disingenuous advocacy for privilege matched with hatred and intollerance for others is the point.

(This isn’t just about religious issues either. Just take, for example, the advocacy of line-item veto that was hated once Clinton started to use it. Or, think about the way the 109th used their power against the minority party, and now is scared they will face the same, or, you know, might have to work more than 3 days a week for their 6 figure incomes. Or, partisans pleading for bipartisanship once they’re on the outs.)

This turns out to be exactly reason why the debate over putting monuments, like the 10 commandments, in public places is so myopic and manipulated. The question about the 10 commandments was on the questionnaire sent out by the Christian Coalition of Washington to candidates for city council last year, and was worded in a way that showed absolutely no subtlety and allowed no nuance in response … in other words it was merely a doctrinal litmus test. But, getting religious monuments in public places is a sword of Damocles hanging over their ultimately intollerant heads while they complain of persecution.

Political surveys seem to fall in that category of thing that most resembles a catalog of indexical or symbolic links to an ideology. For example, the Christian Coalition of Washington includes, in a survey sent to candidates, the following “cultural diversity” question:

“Voluntary display of the Ten Commandments on public property? Support, Oppose, or Undecided?”

The sinister beauty of this question is beyond compare. There’s no context. There’s no subject to the verb in this sentence. In fact, it’s not a sentence at all. The nouns are general. The choices of response offer no room for thoughtful consideration. And, whether intended or not, none of the answers can be chosen. I am not undecided, except that I have an open mind to future contexts. I am opposed to some aspects of the issues, but I support others.

At a fundamental level, the question is a horrid distraction from seriously pressing issues of social inequity and injustice. At a more complex level, the question begs for an answer from the supporter of the Christian Coalition that is fantastically dangerous and self-defeating.

Historically, it has been possible for non-public entities to offer displays intended for public spaces. The distinction between whether the volunteering entity is itself a public or private entity is intentionally lost in this question.

If a society chooses to allow expressions of culture on public property, that society must be prepared for expression with which it disagrees. If a display of the Ten Commandments is given to the public by a public entity, like the Lyons Club, and allowed to be placed, then the Pastafarians are likely to follow with a display of their faith in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Logically, it follows that this is so and this is an unintended consequence of the answer that, I suspect, is expected. At least one double bind in this question is that it asks for a logical answer to a question based on non-logical reasoning. There are more than this one.

On reflection, it becomes clear the entire survey, which could appear to be completely straightforward, is of a similar nature.

In a section on “growth management” the survey asks another zinger.

“Eminent domain – U.S. Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. New London, 6/23/2005? Support, Oppose, or Undecided?”

Again, a simple question that is wildly suited to trip up, and trip out, the thoughtful person.

I do believe that the government should reserve the rights of eminent domain and the ability to escheat the land for the common, greater good. This ability has been steadily chipped away, so there is a value in the Kelo decision. However, the SCOTUS decision seems to implicitly link the common, greater good to economic interests, essentially extrinsic use of property. This tends to deny the intrinsic value of property, such as the value to future generations and other needs which are balanced in a triple bottom line. I have a concurring opinion on this issue. While I tend to agree with the overall decision, I do not follow the logic or reasoning that was used to get there. However, concurrence is not an option provided. Kelo does seem to lead down a road that parallels the misuse of the 14th amendment by the courts. It is a good outcome that will come to no good.

The fact that I have spent so long unpacking these questions is, in and of itself, a victory for the framers. I have been well and truly monkey-wrenched.

These are post-modern koans. Just try to not fall into the spiral. Witness the bumper sticker on a local car:

“Pray that President Bush keeps God’s promise to Israel.”

Lewis Black’s voice echoes in my head, “If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.”

I’m at the end, and I don’t even know where to begin. One can hardly imagine another, more concise welcoming message for those on a trip down the rabbit hole than this except, perhaps, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.”

Update 25feb09 @ 2:01pm:

Looks like there’s some more on the issue of monuments like the donated ten commandments in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum which moves the issue more firmly into the realm of establishment clause conflicts than first amendment by making monuments in public areas actually government’s speech. I’m not sure that’s better. I’m not sure it’s worse, but it seems worse to me. The whole issue is still wonderfully complex; which is too much for some people to be bothered with thinking about, but probably still useful for shallow and knee-jerk litmus tests.

Update 25feb09 @ 2:59pm:

Somewhat randomly, or maybe guided by forces beyond my knowing, I ran across an interesting article at h2g2: “The Ritual Decalogue versus the Ethical Decalogue“.

Christmas was outlawed within the history of the early republic, within the colonies, as part of the religious legislation by the puritans. The puritans, apparently, were upset about the pagan season being co-opted by the Catholic church.

The article doesn’t specifically talk about the notion of broad consumer appeal as a motivation behind the decoupling of the specific religious observance and the purchasing of goods. But, it does cite the use of the term “holiday” as belnding the religious and consumer aspects of the season.

It does talk about Target’s policy change, which I didn’t know about. However, I did notice that Safeway and Target in Olympia were both saying “Merry Christmas” at the checkout counters.

It is interesting that the article draws a parallel between the puritans then and the conservative groups now both working to “impose their beliefs.” And this reflects a distinctly non-post-modern view of the world. The notion that the world can be any way it wants as long as it is like oneself seems to me to be significantly immature and complex in it’s speciousness.

The article also re-iterates an argument that I have heard before that the proper place for a birthday mass for a biblical Jesus would have to be in March, not December. Therefore, from this one could continue with the corollary, any rabidly textual bible reader that defends a December holiday as Christmas is in violation of their own professed beliefs.

Politics and economics get conflated and confused. It just happens that the agenda of business appears to be the same as progressive or pluralist agendas, but the purpose and desired end are completely divergent.

So, the “Christmas Warriors” should really think about taking steps to rescue Saturnalia from the capitalists who have secularized it in order to appeal to the widest possible audience of consumers for the greatest period of the calendar possible.

But, if you want to get down to it, the romans stole from the etruscans or somebody the holiday that became Saturnalia fair and square centuries before it became associated with what has become modern Christianity.

On a serious note, this is one of those places where it seems to me that the conservative political agenda appears to be contradictory in it’s support of both crass commercialism / corporatism and conservative / fundimentalist religion, two things I do not think mix and I’m inclined to disagree with independently anyway. This would be something that I would have to sit down and discuss with someone that held those views.

Reminds me of the last chapters of “Job” by Heinlein

This one made me laugh out loud:

““But wait,” said Shiva. “Allah isn’t just any old god. It’s also said that He’s the God of Abraham. Surely that counts for something. And what do you think Christians call their own god when they translate the Bible into Arabic?”
No one needed to answer.”

“That is because South Carolina has been chosen as the place for hundreds, even thousands of Christians to move to, in hopes of impacting the government. But people who live here have mixed opinions about the Christian Exodus…”

So this move is to South Carolina. What ever happened to the call for libertarians to move to some state? I recall that they identified a state in which they would locate.

Here’s an example of the kind of mobility I was thinking about before, perhaps. People move to be near a community in which they wish to participate. In Michael Albert’s Parecon he proposes local councils and communities which determine their own rules for work and life. My primary objection to Parecon was in this fact: communities could decide to be racist. The claim that self-organized communities would be enlightened in some way, seems to be false. Self-organizing isn’t sufficient, apparently.

The potential for developing xenophobic community is a reason to be skeptical about social organization along bio-regions, or any other form of regionalism. One might think that means I suppose Globalization, but I’d rather there be social instead of economic globalization. The term “Globalization” has too much baggage from a specific political-economic agenda.

For example, the Free Trade movement is one in which global connections are made, but it is not “Globalization” as it would be. It seems to me that what proponents mean by “Globalization” is that corporations are to be larger than the entities which might regulate them. The railroad lawyers managed to allow corporations to organize across state boundaries, which they had not before. Then, when national government was able to enforce behaviour, the corporations moved multi-national … that’s the progression. Now the WTO and various treaties subjugate national governments to an economic cartel.

I’ve gone off topic.

This move toward regionalism is something that is also reflected in Garreau’s Nine Nations of North America from ’81. However the regionalism occurs, the more insular, the more xenophobic, I suspect. At some point, it may be a chicken-or-egg on whether the regionalism or the xenophobia came first.