"If Only You'd Give Up That Witchcraft"
An interesting event occurred when I was in Grand Cayman last week that got me to do some serious thinking. One of the fellow students in the photo course I took seemed to take a liking to me, and asked me all kinds of questions about my life and things I did, etc. Then she asked me about my pentacle, and what it signified. When I told her I was a Witch, she kind of nodded and went on.
During our last day on the Island, she told me how much she admired all of the things I'd done in life, thought I was an interesting person, "but I wish you'd give up that witchcraft." I was taken aback, but asked her why she felt that way. Her only response was "because I'm a christian."
It was clear that she felt that her response answered the question I'd asked, and she was completely confused when I told her that the answer was meaningless and confusing at the same time. I began to wonder whether or not she would have said something similar to a Jew, a Buddhist, a Hindu, or follower of some other religion. "I like you, but you should give up Islam" is likely something that would rarely be heard, yet this person felt it perfectly ok to attack my choice of religion because she is a christian.
How many statements such as these are made out of total ignorance of another person's choices? I attempted to explain to her that Wicca is a polytheistic religion where we worship multiple Gods. I told her that we have no problem with anyone else's choice of religion, we do not attempt to convert people, and we respect others beliefs. She seemed completely confused and obviously did not understand the first thing I was saying.
This short encounter got me to thinking about both the lack of information in the mainstream about our religion, and the subsequent lack of legitimacy we receive in the eyes of the ignorant. There definitely is a lot to think about. For example, would an educational "foundation" of sorts be helpful or harmful to our cause? Educational groups to indeed exist, and groups like Pagan Pride try to "get the word out" but they depend on interested members of the community coming to THEM. But those who have interest and are willing to do research are not the target audience I'm talking about. The target audience are those who would never think to travel somewhere to attend a talk on Wicca. They are the ones who could be most helpful to us, merely by knowing that we aren't anti-christian crazies who want to burn down their churches.
So where do we find the people who we most need to get the word to? We need to go to their churches, to their schools, and to wherever else they exist. We need to impress them with who we are, with the type of people we are, the deeds we do, and the inner morality and strength we represent. Then we need to let them know what we believe, and that we are not a threat, and that we can work together to make the world a better place.
Am I dreaming? Perhaps so. But I would still like to keep giving it a try. If I can't educate by the thousands, maybe just one at a time will do for now. And I hope that I have perhaps taught at least one thusfar.