{A View Through A Druid's Eyes}

So, You'd like to know what its like to be a Druid in modern times? Well to start, I would have to let you in on a long standing joke with Many pagans who were raised as children in the pagan faith. When we were in school as youngsters many years ago, we didn't wear pentacles or strange garb in school because we didn't want to get harassed by the protestant and catholic children. After all, they didn't know any better. They were (we'd like to think) raised on good moral and ethical values. But they were kids none-the-less, and anything they did not understand they either hated or picked at. Kind of like the first time a child gets broccoli put In front of them at dinner, they hated it. Knowing nothing about it except for the fact that it looked like it was from another planet. Well saying to kids on the playground that you were a pagan was like walking up to the biggest bully and peeing on his shoe; either way you knew you were going to get your butt kicked. So we were raised knowing that we could not be open and expressive about our beliefs, and it really was disappointing to hear other people around you discuss their religion, but knowing inside that if you did the same you would be ridiculed.

The Famous story that comes to a pagan child's memory is always the same question brought to us, standing there on the playground, someone asks you: "do you believe in God? " And our answer was always the same "well sure, which one?" Which of course caused lots of grief from our peers, leaving us to go home and walk in the door and say "Okay, would somebody like to explain something to me, are we different than other families?"

This left our parents with a dilemma; how do you explain 600 years of religious persecution, and the 1st Amendment To The Constitution to a 9 year old with a squashed nose and bruised elbows who really just wants to know why Billy busted his nose and called him a Satan worshipper. After all, the little boy did not worship Satan, he knew that, and he knew he prayed as hard to his gods as the Christians did to their god. So why didn't they believe him?

I don't remember one good answer to this question, I really don't. After all, you can't expect a family who has endured persecution for generations to simply make light of their child being hurt. So more often than not, what the child hears is something between, the "mean little unhappy boy story" and "goofy screwed up parents story" over a huge bowl of ice cream and cookies. The issue is dropped after the nose is patched and the appetite for ice cream and ego is satiated by the all knowing Super Mom.

This country was Supposedly founded on "Good Christian Moral Values". How nice, A group of English citizens who were defying the Church and State escape persecution by leaving the country in a few boats to wander across the ocean in hopes of a better life for themselves. Hey wait, people escaping persecution? Damn if that doesn't sound familiar…hmm so, the ancestors of the same people that called ME a Satan worshipper when I was a child did THEMSELVES seek retreat from persecution. Well if that's not the pot calling the kettle black.

Now I could go on for hours about the idiosyncrasies of American history, how hypocritical people were sometimes, saying one thing doing another. But, that behavior is More the Christian Way of thinking where you speak out about those who are not like you, regardless of how right or wrong it is, and stand behind your Bibles and moral values to justify it. NO, I'm sorry I was raised better than that, and I won't stoop that low no matter how tempting it really is.

More to follow............................