On Leaders

One of the things I have learned from a recent Internet discussion on the dearth of non-writers in polytheistic recon communities and the ensuing issues creating viable communities is that, as a blogger, I have to have an opinion.

So, without further ado: an opinion.

We need leadership within the Hellenic community, but we don’t need leaders. I have a strong reaction against “cults of personality” in which people put their faith in a figurehead and not in the sustainability of an organization. I think that to a great degree, we have structured our communities to center around one or two individuals. When these individuals leave (or when externalities conspire to make them unavailable for a time), the community begins to fall apart.

I thought leadership sounded like a really nice idea when I was eighteen. I attended the pre-orientation at my undergraduate on leadership, and it was designed to create strong women leaders in our college community. In graduate school, our faculty thought it was important for us to take courses on management because librarians from the master’s program often end up in supervisory positions within a few years.

Sadly, my beginning-undergraduate dreams of becoming a leader were never realized. I am not a leader of things. I am a facilitator. It’s why I am a librarian: I want to facilitate communication between people, so my currency is Ideas.

Although, my ambitions for leadership were sort of realized. Ish. I did hold the primary co-chair position for my undergraduate’s pagan group for one and a half years (barring the semester I was abroad). Perhaps I would have learned more about leadership had the group not been ailing from explosive interpersonal drama from the several years before. It’s an inactive group now, although the last time I checked in with my undergrad, I think there are pagans on campus worshiping together. If they kept the group alive, they would have access to college funds for ritual equipment, but maybe they don’t know that. Perhaps I would have been a better leader had I not been in the middle of a conversion experience to Hellenism in an environment that told me engaging with Neopagans was wrong.

Now, my situation is slightly different. I work in academia, and I have not disclosed my religion to my coworkers. A good number of them probably think I am an atheist. Disclosing my religion could create uncomfortable situations, and I would rather engage meaningfully with people while lying by omission than make people feel uncomfortable by showing blind faith and trust in the human ability to be unbiased. Hermes is the God of Liars, too. My twenty-year-old self would probably really hate me for this.

I work full time and live alone, which means that the number of hours I have to devote to polytheistic community engagement is mediated by my need to manage my one-person, one-cat oikos. Laundry must be done. Food must be acquired and prepared. The household rituals must run smoothly.

My availability is also mediated by my interest in other topics. I love role-playing systems, most notably World of Darkness, and am about to become a serial MOOC student because the topics on Coursera look pretty damn engaging and one of my biggest flaws as a human being is having wildly eclectic interests.

This is probably the point in my narrative at which people tell me that these are all just excuses. The point of this post is not to have an “I’m too busy for community!” contest, but to point to a fundamental flaw in this entire situation.

I should not have to say any of the above.

In groups that focus around central personalities (or, Gods forbid, a single one!), a disproportionate amount of the leadership responsibility falls on the center. In a group built around common workflows with a more decentralized leadership, things can get done without overburdening people in key leadership positions. Delegation is the key to sanity.

This leads to another problem: How do you delegate so that others actually pick up the burden that they have been dealt? How, in an Internet-based social group, can you cultivate personal accountability?

It’s not as easy as doing it in in the real world. People say and do things on the Internet that they wouldn’t in reality. You can say, Build something in the real world. That is valid. But we need national and international conversations, too. Things said in the blogosphere don’t always trickle into analog space, but they are often important conversations that should be happening everywhere.

To address Hellenism specifically, we have to think about the barriers to entry. 

• Numbers are a problem. Many of us work full-time, so is it realistic to think that one is “close” to someone separated by two hours of transit time?
• Personalities are a problem. If we keep having arguments about whether or not magic belongs in Hellenism, expect to lose people — and not because they do magic. You will lose them because, for most people, this is probably TMI unless they actually ask.
• Christian privilege is a problem. For people uncomfortable with outing themselves in public, how reasonable are our expectations that they can and should be open? Or: How in the name of Herakles did Julian Augustus manage to stay closeted and yet still make connections with the polytheistic underground?!
• Being too academic is not a problem. The problem is that we do not articulate our religious values well enough, so people think we’re just being mean about the citing sources bit.

I’m sure you could add a host of other things to the above list. It is not meant to be comprehensive.

Maybe, we will figure out how to address these issues. I hope we will. But for now, I’m going to continue praying in my apartment. I will keep thinking about how to figure out whether polytheistic academics have a secret hand signal. In social situations where I can be comfortable and out, I will try to be a positive voice and answer any questions that arise.

If I were motivated, maybe I could do more, but that seems like enough for now — and I allow for change in the future. Maybe I do have leadership potential. Maybe not. People are variable, and only time will tell.

Prayer > Internet

Sometimes when I'm out walking, I decide that I want to pray.

It is often on the way home from doing things in the evening. One consistency is the sense of euphoria. I connect with people, or in the case of yoga, my muscles suddenly unwind, soften, and feel like they did when I was a small child — before I spent all day sitting in front of a computer, before doing six years of post-secondary education, and before joining the Internet Hellenic community.

Often, I walk up to my third-floor apartment, unlock the door, and am immediately besieged by a meowing and ever-grateful cat. I turn the wireless on, spend an hour on Pinterest and Tumblr looking at beautiful pictures of broccoli or Brussels sprouts, and go to bed.

Last night was different. I did yin yoga, which is a very beautiful name for something very uncomfortable. It's the kind of yoga in which someone holds poses for 2-4 minutes at a time to release the connective tissue.

There are poses that in vinyasa yoga seem easy (because you're moving) that are suddenly three minutes of torture. It is done cold. The muscles and connective tissue complain like children. At 2 minutes in, my brain goes, “Dear Gods, why am I still here? Are my arms going to give out?” After it is over, everything is loose and supple. The combination of being at a 7 to 8 on the discomfort scale and loosening the damage done by too much sitting and stress create an addictive, euphoric high.

I walked back to my apartment intending to pray to Apollon. Unlike all of those other times, my first stop after pouring water to rehydrate was the shrine.

I approached the shrine. The god-stick had already been lain out, as I drew him for prayer yesterday morning. Carefully, I selected the appropriate incense and began to pray. I lit it. The first prayer I said was ad hoc. I began to count the prayer beads.

And then my cat started meowing. Loudly.

A modification: Count three beads, reach down to pet cat.

She was loud. This level of attention was not up to her incredibly high standards. She raised her paw, a bit upset, and I hoped that she wouldn't claw or bite me. Finally, several lines into reading from the Iliad, I decided to screw prayer ideals and get down on my knees.

I finished the reading from the Iliad on one knee. My cat was perched halfway on it, her head below my upper forearm (which held the book), while my other hand scratched her chin and throat. She was purring, but otherwise completely silent. The incense had breathed its last breath.

And you know what? It was still much better than going on the Internet, and it gave me a huge sense of accomplishment that I had followed through this time. Each time, it will be easier — until the point at which prayer becomes seamless and expected, like a groove worn in stone with time and human attention.

This is prayer in the real world.

Reclaiming Apostasy

In recent posts, I have mentioned attending one of the Unitarian Universalist Societies in my greater metropolitan area. Because the weather is not fit for biking, I have walked. The walk is long. It has generated many ideas for blog posts, and only recently have I learned to bring a notebook along to document these.

One such idea has occupied my mind for the past few weeks, and that is the idea of apostasy.

I identify as an apostate. While Hellenism is my primary religious identity, I think that identifying as an apostate is an important piece of accepting polytheism after converting from another religion.

Many people I speak with are uncomfortable with the term apostate. When I say, “Oh, I apostatized in fourth grade,” that word generally brings a lot of confusion to light. Firstly, even today, choosing to abandon one religion in favor of another carries numerous social consequences. The term apostate is generally applied to us to justify exclusion, prejudice, and persecution. Secondly, some people assume that the term only applies to people who have left Catholicism. They probably only have this association because so many people have left Catholicism.

I made a series of posts last year called “Expectations.” These presented my ideas about the bare bones of what Hellenism is and is not (upon which one could graft specific conditions for various flavors of Hellenism). During the second post, I talked about the idea of setting boundaries between oneself and other religions — and I mostly focused on Christianity, as it offers a unique lens of privilege that makes most Christians unaware that a lot of their religious customs are not universal.

The word apostate is one such boundary. It is a word that requires confidence and defiance. People demand things when they hear it. It opens conversations and breaks down walls. It can also cause a great deal of pain and suffering in places that do not allow freedom of belief or thought.

The reasons for claiming this term are threefold: Firstly, Emperor Julian has had the word applied to him. From what I have read of him, I find him a generally agreeable historical figure, and if I can’t force people to stop calling him a pejorative, maybe I can make the pejorative into a badge of honor. Remember Julian. Secondly, it is accurate and meaningful. Thirdly, owning the term sends a message that one does not feel shame at this. It creates a rupture between the old spiritual identity and the new. Why not use the term?