I started writing this article on my new high-tech toy: a Treo 650.  It’s a “smartphone” - a combination cell phone and PDA with pretty good web browsing ability.  Its unlimited digital internet access and bluetooth connectivity had me all giggly the day I got it.  My goal was to completely write and publish the article while “in the wild,” free of the wires and cables that keep me tethered to a desk most of the day.  I wanted to show the world I could make better use of all the down time in a courtroom other than twiddling my thumbs.  (I was still twiddling them, just with a tiny keyboard underneath them.)  I started writing the article on its little thumb-pecking blackberry-like keyboard.  It’s not as bad as I would have thought, especially considering I have pretty big hands.  It’s much faster than the “grafitti” writing of all the Palm Pilots I’ve owned over the years, but it is not nearly as fast as a regular keyboard.  While it was fun to work on when I had nothing better to do sitting in a courtroom, my article wasn’t going to be ready in anything approaching a timely fashion that way.  So, I abandoned that goal to be able to get this out much sooner.  The point is, I could have written this article on the Treo, and published it if I wanted, while sitting in a courtroom or riding in a car, or sitting under a tree doing — I don’t know… druid-ish stuff.  I didn’t, but I could have, darnit!

Of course, it got me thinking a lot on the place of technology in our lives.  I do a lot of thinking about technology, and have for many years.  I have something of a love-hate relationship with it.  On the one hand, I am a consumate geek.  I learned programming when I was 12 on a Commodore VIC-20 in 1983 and had my head in computers ever since.  I was on-line back when 300 baud modems were the standard.  I was surfing the Internet before most people even heard of it — back when it was pretty much the private playground of large universities and the government.

On the other hand, I have a distrust of technology and was, at one point, a self-described neo-luddite.  I wrote my senior thesis in college about my utopian vision of a world reverted back to 19th century technology.  Obviously, I’ve come to some compromise, or you would be reading this from type carefully set on a hand-cranked printing press.

My earliest observation about technology was this: every leap in technology causes us to become dependant on that very technology.  When cars became mass produced and economical, people began living farther and farther away from work and from each other until they could not function without those cars.  With the development of electricity, houses became built in such a way that it is simply not feasible to have heat and light without it.  Similar things can be said about the telephone and more recently about email and the Internet.  Our way of life becomes restructured in a way that we can’t get along without whatever the latest wonder is.  We become dependant and weak.  We become shackled by the very technology that was supposed to set us free.

The biggest benefit of technology was supposed to be how “time-saving” it is.  Is it really?  Back in the 60’s and 70’s, the vision of the future was one where we had all this free time and didn’t really have to do much work at all.  Well, we have our time-saving productivity-enhancing doo-dads out the ear now.  We have instant coffee, drive-through everything stores, computers, laser printers, faxes, cell phones… where is all this free time we were promised?  Do we see people working fewer hours? Spending more time with their families?  Working on the Great American Novel?  Speaking of novels, why is it that all the wonderful technology we have to produce writing so much faster and easier that the old days hasn’t produced another Shakespeare?  Why is it the world’s greatest writing was all done before computers?  Maybe all before typewriters?

I think the answer is that there are hidden costs to technology, and that cost sometimes is our very humanity.  We are shackled, like slaves to our master High Tech.  Our technology separates us from the hands-on work of life, and separates us from one another.  It is a tragic paradox that the very technology that is supposed to connect us: television, the internet, the telephone — really just leaves us more disconnected, alienated, and alone.  We don’t understand where our food comes from, where our clothes come from, or how we get any of the countless daily products we take for granted.  Real life, and real death, are shielded from us and replaced with fake life and fake death and violence on television.

I’m trying to break free of my shackles.  I think that is what brought me to Druidism.  I don’t really think that the answer is to depend on even higher technology like my Treo.  I’m still going to use it, and revel in the illusion of power and freedom it gives me.  But, I’m still just as shackled as ever.

As mentioned in a previous article, I recently declared myself “Pagan Ambassador” to a Chirstian Blog site, Oh How I Love Jesus.  The people there are very warm and friendly and our conversations have been quite eye-opening for everyone, I think, including me.  The comment chain we were talking on got to over 50 comments, and its parent article was bumped to keep it on the front page.  The conversation got to the subject of what a pagan should do when visiting a Christian church, which will be the subject of a future article, but started with this Q & A about what I believe and how I practice:

“I take it you consider yourself a pagan? Can you tell me why if you don’t mind? For instance, what do you believe?”

I am a Celtic Reconstructionist of an Irish Celtic hearth — a “neo-druid,” if you will. We try as best we can, with the limited historical and archaeological evidence available, to appreciate life the way our ancient ancestors did, and worship as close as we can the way they worshiped. I have a “hard-polytheistic” world-view, which sees the deieties each as individual real personalities, rather than aspects or archetypes.

“What are the offerings offered and the gifts, as a for instance?”

I usually use rice, cornmeal, fruit, bread, oil, incense, and alcohol (preferably wine or good Irish whiskey). Different entities like different things. Sometimes I offer money, especially to give thanks for a good business month. That money gets anonymously donated to a local women’s shelter. Other common offerings are works of art and handicrafts that are burned or otherwise removed from use. I don’t have much artistic talent, so I haven’t tried that, although I did recently offer a silver bracelet I bought just for that purpose. I was offering to the fertility goddess Ixchel, since I was visiting her sacred island of Cozumel.

“You say you worship dieties and welcome them to your services. Does that mean you believe there are many dieties living today, and what happens to them when they get old and sick? Do they die? Do they rise again from the dead?”

They don’t die or get old. Well, they do die sometimes, but they “get better.” I hesitate to say that they are resurrected or reincarnate, since those are a bit different, and ‘resurrection’ is pretty emotionally charged. One god in the Welch tales dies and becomes a bird, but is later restored to “human” form. Another god is killed in battle, but his head lives. His head is removed and carried around to give people advice and protection. There is also a tale of a caldron that is used after battle to bring fallen warriors back to life. It is hypothesized that this myth became the legend of the Holy Grail. The stories of King Arthur are quite interwoven with the Welch mythologies.

And yes, it does mean that I believe many deities live today. All of them, in fact.

“It’s, I must admit, very attractive- but, the offerings are- weird?”

Yeah, the offerings are. Heck, most of it is pretty weird. I’m used to hanging around people who call themselves druids and witches and wizards and such. But I can step back every now and then and see how strange it must look from the outside.

Making offerings like this has a very primitive feel to it - very primal. It has the feeling of connecting with something truly ancient.

“If I understand what you are saying, to put it into a nutshell, paganism as practiced by you and others like you, is basically like what the people in the Far East practice. The more gods the better.”

There are certainly similarities. In fact, I wonder at why Buddhism and Hinduism are not regularly lumped in as part of Paganism. I think its because they have been around for quite a while and are Asian, so somehow different. Buddhism is peculiar — it is both polytheistic and also atheistic at the same time. Hinduism is just an umbrella term for the collected and varied religions of India. In that way, it is a LOT like paganism in that there is no central definition, other than a geographical one.

“I remember a missionary from Hong Kong telling us of people over there. When she gave someone a tract telling of Christianity the woman put it with her collection of other gods because she figured one more wouldn’t hurt us.”

Yeah, Asians have a very different way of looking at things, and it causes missionaries no end of frustration. They don’t seem to grasp the exclusivity of Christianity and the first and second commandments. I think the core of this difference is that they see religion as a practice while we Westerners see it as a belief. That is, they tend to focus on what you do. If you perform the correct actions, that’s all it should take. If you pray to Jesus, go to church, etc., that should be enough for God.

I once read that in Japan, about 75% of the people consider themselves Christian. That sounds good, but then 75% of the people consider themselves Buddhist and 75% of the people consider themselves Shinto. They don’t see any conflict, because religion to them tends to be situational. You have Buddhist funerals, Shinto marriages, and give gifts at Christmas.

I see the world very similarly to the way they see it with one core difference: I understand the exclusivity of belief required of Christians, which is why I don’t consider myself Christian. To me, what I personally think and feel is none of the gods’ business. They properly should only concern themselves with whether I actually show them respect and affirm my kinship to them.

“I had a running commentary one time on this blog with someone from Milaysia who believed as you do. No true God and any gods might be the right one so worship them all. At least that’s what I think you believe.”

Well, a big difference is that I don’t worship them all. I don’t believe in trying to “cover my bases.” I do respect and acknowledge them all, but I leave the vast majority of them alone, including Jesus and Jehovah. I only worship those I feel a close kinship to: the gods of the ancient Irish. But, when I am in the territory of other gods, I show them what I consider proper respect. When I go to Christian churches, I stand, kneel, bow my head, and keep silent as is appropriate. I dress in my “Sunday Best,” and I never speak of other gods there as it is clear to me Jehovah considers that offensive.

I am a guest in His house and the rules of Hospitality require that I show respect to my host or hosts and bring gifts, thus I pay up when the offering plate comes around. Likewise, when I was on the lands of the Mayan gods recently, I made offerings to them. Not out of worship, but out of respect as a visitor to their home.