Infidels of Every Denomination

Professor Olds Regrets

Wow...just read this. It's an open letter in The Nation to First Lady Laura Bush from poet and professor Sharon Olds, explaining her reasons for declining Mrs. Bush's invitation to read from her work at the National Book Festival this Saturday:

But I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you. I knew that if I sat down to eat with you, it would feel to me as if I were condoning what I see to be the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush Administration.

...

So many Americans who had felt pride in our country now feel anguish and shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and fire. I thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of the candles, and I could not stomach it.

Kind of reminds you that some of history's most passionate dissidents and opponents of tyranny have been poets...

NYT On Coelho

Great little New York Times profile today on the author Paulo Coelho, whose new book The Zahir is selling increasingly rapidly.

I've only come to the marvel of Coelho's writing recently, having just read The Alchemist for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Frankly, I don't know how it took me this long to discover his work for myself. His philosophies-- of life as a continual spiritual quest towards one's unique purpose in being, of synchronicity, of the power of love, of the essential interdependence of the material and the spiritual-- are very much in line with some of my deepest beliefs.

He's a wonderful author to read especially if you are feeling purposeless or lost or trapped or have begun to wonder whose life you're living. Listening to yourself is not something that most of us are ever taught, so a book like his can be a real eye-opener.

In this profile, I think he also has the final word on bad reviews:

"But the one thing I cannot stand," Mr. Coelho went on, "is criticism of the reader, that the reader is dumb. You can speak badly of me, of my books, but you cannot speak badly of the reader. It's like saying, 'Everyone is dumb; the only one who isn't is the critic.' That's not fair."

You tell 'em.

Knowledge: Always A Good Cause

Some worthy causes to consider if you have some charitable dollars to spare:

If you have ever found a Wikimedia product useful, consider donating to their fundraising drive. Their goal of making an enormous amount of information available in a convenient form free of charge and advertising is one I heartily support.

Now that school is starting, consider making a donation of school supplies to classrooms in need. You can usually stop by your local chain office supply store, where they often have donation bins for supplies you've purchased. You can also check out iLoveSchools, which is a non-profit that tries to match up teachers' requests with donors' offers. I was chatting earlier this week with a friend of mine who's a public school teacher, and hearing from her how very much teachers end up spending out of their own pockets to provide supplies for their kids (and consider what a pittance teachers make to begin with). We talked about these kinds of donation programs and how much they can help both the teachers and the students.

If you use Campbell's products, contact your local schools to see if they take part in Labels For Education, where Campbell's donates educational supplies to schools in exchange for the labels those schools have collected and turned in. I remember my mom saving labels constantly throughout my childhood, so I was pleased to see they're still doing this.

On a more esoteric level, the Assembly of the Sacred Wheel is continuing to collect funds for the New Alexandrian Library project in Delaware, as they build an interfaith spiritual and esoteric research library that will make a tremendous amount of material (including rare and preserved documents) available to all seekers. The goal is to make as much of it as possible available in an online archive as well to increase accessibility.

And on a more whimsical note, if you have beloved books you'd like to share with the world, consider registering with BookCrossing, where you leave books in public places (after marking them with a BC ID number obtained from the site) for others to find and read and hopefully pass on in the same way. The site tracks the journeys of these books, and calls itself "a fascinating exercise in fate, karma, or whatever you want to call the chain of events that can occur between two or more lives and one piece of literature".

Finally, you might check out Books For Soldiers, a charitable project that encourages us civilians to send some good reads to the troops overseas along with our best wishes for their safety.

Not that I'm getting into a totally nerdy back-to-school spirit or anything, nooo...

Darla Wynne Update

The Herald out of SC has a followup article about Darla Wynne, the Wiccan high priestess who won a suit against the town of Great Falls, SC when the town council refused to stop leading an explicitly Christian prayer at the beginning of public meetings. She is now writing a book about her life, the town, and her experiences. It actually sounds like an interesting story even outside of the context of the lawsuit-- she's had a colorful life, raised in Louisiana-style "old ways" spirituality.

This article does, however, go into more detail about some of the struggles that Ms. Wynne has faced as clergy in a minority religion in a very small Southern town:

Many of Great Falls' 2,200 residents regard Wynne as a "witch" and disapprove of her pagan faith, she said. Acts of vandalism at her home have ranged from destruction of her cars to the poisoning of several of her animals.

In August 2004, Wynne returned home from dinner with a friend and discovered her parrot, Little One, had been beheaded and his heart cut out, she said. A note attached to the back of the 8-year-old African gray parrot, read, "You're next!" Wynne said.

Great Falls Police Chief Mike Revels confirmed this incident as one of a string of break-ins at Wynne's home. Officers responded to at least 10 calls of reported vandalism at Wynne's residence within two years, Revels said.

I wish I could say that came as a shock to me, but very early on in my Pagan life I got involved with Pagan legal protection causes and I saw a number of cases where people had endured this level of hatred.

Ms. Wynne apparently plans to stay in that town, which is pretty courageous of her. I hope she stays safe, and more importantly I hope that somehow she and any other openminded types in Great Falls are able to start building a more progressive atmosphere. Here's hoping the bigots in town get some education, and that the vandals get jail time.