“How can you be both Christian and a witch? That doesn’t make sense!”
It does, and you can. First, remember how varied religious experiences are. I know what mine have been and you know what yours have been.
In my case, I find that physical actions and physical prayers do more to let me draw closer to God than sitting still and praying silently. I do pray silently, I meditate and remember to “be still.” But when I can touch things, move things, smell the earth, see sunlight and leaves, look at the stars, light candles, focus on tying knots or rolling beads through my fingers, I feel so much more connected to God and to the presence of God in creation. Paul said that we’re all “by Him and with Him and in Him” after all (though I like to use feminine pronouns for God too and I really like just using Thou for God).
As I’m moving through the world, I find myself wanting to do something when I walk through a circle of trees or over a stream. I want to drop a coin or a stone in the water or tie a ribbon on one of the trees. It’s how I’m made and I can’t resist how I’m made any longer. Nor do I think God would want me to fight against myself and how I’ve been made. The world is here and I’ve been put within it. And I want to do these things. I want to offer things back to God: All things come of Thee and of Thine own do I give Thee.
To put it another way, “God is in the roses.”
And there’s a precedent to physical prayers: Christians have been lighting candles and going on pilgrimages and making offerings for 2,000 years. In my church, we stand up, sit down, kneel, stand up again, sit again, stand again, kneel again–we move, we realize that we’re physical beings as well as spiritual. And we eat.
Humans have been working within symbolic and metaphorical systems, especially within religious systems or spiritual practices, since the dawn humanity. In my church (Episcopalian), Communion is a symbolic, metaphoric sacrament. It’s a symbolic reenactment of the Last Supper, which was a symbolic representation itself of Christ’s crucifixion to come. So when we have Communion, we’re reenacting both of these things in a symbolic way: we eat and drink like at the Last Supper but we are also participants in Christ’s crucifixion as the priest breaks the bread–unleavened, for the Israelites escaping Egypt, a story recounted during the Easter Vigil and every Sunday is meant to be a “little Easter,” which is why you don’t have funerals on Sunday. We’re in three places: as like the apostles and like the crowd that shouted “Crucify him,” and as ourselves who are the spiritual descendants of the Jesus Movement.
We’re moving both in reality and in metaphor (a higher reality, if you will). We’re both physical (we need to eat) and spiritual (consuming holiness).
The world is here, and I’m in it. I want to pay attention to the world, the seasons, the cycles of the moon, the length of the days, the weather, the return of the birds… And I want to interact with Creation in ways that are more meaningful for me.
Do I think I’m the one making things happen when I burn incense or leave birdseed in the woods or drop a rose petal in a stream? No, though I’m the one doing these things and that’s what I mean by “physical prayers.” I’ll do these things, which are similar to lighting a candle, as an offering, as a prayer, and I’ll leave the rest to God.
I’m open to synchronicity and God “winking” at me (as it were). I’m open to the great human collective unconscious–those ideas and images and experiences that make humans Human. I’m open to finding meaning in the unexpected. And I will always look to find the face of Christ in the faces of the people I see every day.
For so, so many years I’ve thought I was a bad, terrible, evil, sinful person for wanting to put herbs in a jar because the herbs meant something to me and to others. Herbs! In a jar! I thought I was doing something wrong because I didn’t feel what others felt. I thought what I wanted to do was horrible and wicked.
But I think I’m ready to embrace it and move forward on this path–one that I’ve known for a long time but have only just begun walking–and I’m already feeling lighter, brighter, and happier.
