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(The following is from a conversation within the online course, Reformed Druidism 101):
You should all know that this is one of the Order of the Mithril Star's (www.mithrilstar.org) three tenets. In other words, to join the Order, you must at least pay lip service to the idea with the understanding that full grokking will come later. I say this rather than "you must believe this" because, as we have seen already in the discussion, there is a wide variety of ideas surrounding this idea. And guess what? With the lone exception (no thou aren't), they are all correct!
It's not a new idea you know. Jesus himself said that "I and the Father are One," and if he, a Rabbi from a (then) obscure religion in a backward country is, then we all are or can be. George Fox (one of the founders of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)) said, " Go out into the world and answer to that of God in everyman." Hindu's greet one another with the word, "Namaste," which means something like "the God within me greets the God within you.."
Someone here suggested that divinity is an energy field -- like the Force. It surrounds us; it's inside of us; we breathe and drink and eat it.
Someone else said that "God is perfect." Sorry, no God's or Goddesses are perfect. The Judeo-Christian God is supposed to be (and believers in Him are required to believe that), but no, even a casual reading of the Torah and Tenach (what Christians refer to as the Old Testament) reveals a God of many, many faults, many listed as forbidden behavior in His own laws (He's a "do as I say, not as I do" sort of God). I won't go into that in detail. As you read further into SiaSL, you'll encounter Jubal's commentary on this.
The Greco-Roman Gods are great examples. They're always breaking the rules. The Celtic pantheons are no better. Hindu Gods do things a mink breeder wouldn't tolerate. :) In every mythos it's the same: the God's are the mirror images of ourselves. Or we can say that God is made in our own image (and then the opposite is true to - if we are made in the image of God, then that's why we act like him).
We're all fledgling Gods here. We're learning how to be Gods, and unlearning how not to be. It's, as Lady Heart said, a lifetime learning
experience. We will make mistakes. That's part of the learning process. Hopefully, we'll learn from each other, and grow in perfect love and
perfect trust If we just grok that small part, we are half way there.
Ok, so let's say that one or more of you are thinking: "No, I could never believe that. I'm not a God and can never be one and none of these folks are either." Well, don't let THAT stop you from becoming a Druid. "Thou art God" is a special tenet, added to the other two that Druids must believe in, and applicable only to this Order. If you want to be a Druid, but not an OMS Druid, you need only believe these two tenets:
1) "The object of the search for religious truth, which is a universal and a never ending search, may be found through the Earth Mother, which is Nature; but this is one way, yea, one way among many."
We sometimes simplify this by saying, "Nature is Good."
2) "And great is the importance, which is of a spiritual importance, of Nature, which is the Earth Mother; for it is one of the objects of
Creation, and with it we do live, yea, even as we do struggle through life are we come face to face with it."
And we sometimes simplify this one also, by saying "Nature is Good."
Believing those two ideas makes you a Druid according to the Reformed Druids (which is the mother organization of OMS).
But, in a broad sense, in saying, "Nature is Good," Reformed Druidism is saying "Nature is the Goddess (and the God)." If we then, are a part of nature, (and we most definitely are) then we're back to "Thou are God/dess." It's a snake that bites it's own tail (well, now, look at the OMS emblem). You can run, but you can't hide. :)
May you never thirst!
el /|\
"Solipsism and pantheism. Together they explain anything."
-- Jubal Harshaw, in "Stranger In A Strange Land"
You should all know that this is one of the Order of the Mithril Star's (www.mithrilstar.org) three tenets. In other words, to join the Order, you must at least pay lip service to the idea with the understanding that full grokking will come later. I say this rather than "you must believe this" because, as we have seen already in the discussion, there is a wide variety of ideas surrounding this idea. And guess what? With the lone exception (no thou aren't), they are all correct!
It's not a new idea you know. Jesus himself said that "I and the Father are One," and if he, a Rabbi from a (then) obscure religion in a backward country is, then we all are or can be. George Fox (one of the founders of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)) said, " Go out into the world and answer to that of God in everyman." Hindu's greet one another with the word, "Namaste," which means something like "the God within me greets the God within you.."
Someone here suggested that divinity is an energy field -- like the Force. It surrounds us; it's inside of us; we breathe and drink and eat it.
Someone else said that "God is perfect." Sorry, no God's or Goddesses are perfect. The Judeo-Christian God is supposed to be (and believers in Him are required to believe that), but no, even a casual reading of the Torah and Tenach (what Christians refer to as the Old Testament) reveals a God of many, many faults, many listed as forbidden behavior in His own laws (He's a "do as I say, not as I do" sort of God). I won't go into that in detail. As you read further into SiaSL, you'll encounter Jubal's commentary on this.
The Greco-Roman Gods are great examples. They're always breaking the rules. The Celtic pantheons are no better. Hindu Gods do things a mink breeder wouldn't tolerate. :) In every mythos it's the same: the God's are the mirror images of ourselves. Or we can say that God is made in our own image (and then the opposite is true to - if we are made in the image of God, then that's why we act like him).
We're all fledgling Gods here. We're learning how to be Gods, and unlearning how not to be. It's, as Lady Heart said, a lifetime learning
experience. We will make mistakes. That's part of the learning process. Hopefully, we'll learn from each other, and grow in perfect love and
perfect trust If we just grok that small part, we are half way there.
Ok, so let's say that one or more of you are thinking: "No, I could never believe that. I'm not a God and can never be one and none of these folks are either." Well, don't let THAT stop you from becoming a Druid. "Thou art God" is a special tenet, added to the other two that Druids must believe in, and applicable only to this Order. If you want to be a Druid, but not an OMS Druid, you need only believe these two tenets:
1) "The object of the search for religious truth, which is a universal and a never ending search, may be found through the Earth Mother, which is Nature; but this is one way, yea, one way among many."
We sometimes simplify this by saying, "Nature is Good."
2) "And great is the importance, which is of a spiritual importance, of Nature, which is the Earth Mother; for it is one of the objects of
Creation, and with it we do live, yea, even as we do struggle through life are we come face to face with it."
And we sometimes simplify this one also, by saying "Nature is Good."
Believing those two ideas makes you a Druid according to the Reformed Druids (which is the mother organization of OMS).
But, in a broad sense, in saying, "Nature is Good," Reformed Druidism is saying "Nature is the Goddess (and the God)." If we then, are a part of nature, (and we most definitely are) then we're back to "Thou are God/dess." It's a snake that bites it's own tail (well, now, look at the OMS emblem). You can run, but you can't hide. :)
May you never thirst!
el /|\
"Solipsism and pantheism. Together they explain anything."
-- Jubal Harshaw, in "Stranger In A Strange Land"
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