Post Pantheacon #2 - A Sense of Community

I have been digesting the Pantheacon experience in an effort to summarize what the whole thing meant to me. Two words keep coming ot mind: community and service.

The overall flavor of the 'con was concerned with building and serving the pagan religious communities. A recurrent theme among presenters was the concept of pagan clergy: what it means, and how it should be trained to service the greater community, including the community beyond paganism. (I note that it never seemed to be in question that a professonal clergy is required - a question which has been hotly debated in the community in the past.) In this regard, the Cherry Hill Seminary, as well as Amber K's Ardantane Project (among others) both are developing formal training programs aimed at preparing pagan clergy for professional service.

This is an idea which has been debated among the community (or, should I say, communities) for a long time. However, as the pagan population is rising daily, the issue of professoinal service becomes more and more salient. It indicates our maturity as a community that we are now turning our efforts to developing a professionally trained class to service our needs in the areas of marriage, funeral rites, rits of passage, counselling and more. The pagan community needs these services badly.

Even more encouraging is that the whole conference had a tone of service, and the idea of service didn't stop at the borders of the pagan community; it extended to the mainstream society around us. An example is the Grey School of Wizardry spearheaded by Oberon Zell-Ravenheart. The Grey School of Wizardy is an on-line college designed for children age 11 and up, and covers a curriculum designed to stimulate their minds and give them the skills and passion to help them excel in their scholastic - and nonscholastic - lives. In short, to help make them real life "wizards" who affect their world for the better. It is not a school intended only for pagan children. This effort exemplifies the best that our path has to offer: creativity, fun, and reaching beyond our own small world to help the community around us.

And it seems to sum up the spirit of service that I felt emanated from the many presenters, panel members and participants at Pantheacon. As the pagan community continues to struggle with identity and religious expression, this willingness to reach out in a positive way to mainstream society is a sign of growing maturity and confidence. I left Pantheacon with a feeling of pride in my community and a sense of being honored by the presence of many truly great people.