Mar 15·edited Mar 15Liked by The Druid Stares Back
I still have an interest in attempting to baptize Kashmiri Shaivism, according to which the great goddess Shakti is immanent as the life of the Creation, while also being in the syzygy of marital union with the transcendent god Shiva (who is blue as well, like Krishna). So, keep the fundamental structure but think of it in terms of Sophia and Jesus, would be the idea.
(If the ancient Church had no qualms with baptizing Greek philosophy, and the Celts were so wondrously syncretic, then I don't see why we should be so timid now.)
That's maybe for later, though. I've been doing another edit of my book this week, so as to make sure that the draft is in the best possible shape when Angelico Press is good to get the ball rolling.
Thanks, Michael, for this. I went through a similar process of discovery as you describe finally arriving at “home church.” (Hope you don’t mind if I go on at some length about this. You give me a rare opportunity.) It was in the late eighties. I took a journey (about 15 years) through numerous “Christian Churches,” some of whom didn’t clearly understand the difference between a “church building” and “the church as the body of Christ,”--a living temple of individuals. Even those who did clearly understand that point, succeeded, nevertheless, to create a “material temple” from the spiritually understood principle, by making (very high) teachings and teachers into gods. Many of us were serious students of the New Testament, which does, by the way, teach the Way of the Wild God—once it’s unpacked from theological cerements. Several families gathered in one or another’s home for meetings. It was the “Wild God” that we (most of us young people), were hungry for. We did have many, memorable “Wild God” experiences. We called our goal simply: “The New Testament Church.” We took the wild John the Baptist for our “patron saint,” who didn’t mind wearing “unclean” camel skins to offend the religious. Who lived in the wild and was unafraid to call out the hypocrisy of religion. We reveled in the Jesus who knocked over the money changers. And the Jesus who healed on the Sabbath day. We loved the “King David” who stole the holy shewbread to feed himself and his men, and danced nearly naked before the ark of the covenant. In fact, I was dubbed “King William,” because I did occasionally get up and dance in the excitement of revelation in meetings. That was a younger me but I’d do it again given the inspiring spirit of the Wild God. We broke whole loaves of bread and gave pieces to each other, meeting each other’s eye with appreciation for each persons contribution as “living stones” in the temple of God—as “bread broken” for each other. We shared a cup of “wine” acknowledging our willingness to spill our blood for each other as He did for us. We did our own music, much of it composed, especially lyrics, by us. So much for home church in the 1980s.
There was much in the Christendom of those days that troubled me, in spite of the fact that I was honored for dancing in church meetings—mostly the un-universal, often uncharitable, small-minded “Jesus Cult.” By that I mean that there wasn’t the breadth and depth of cosmic Christianity, the Christ of cosmic, universal, cosmopolitan proportions one finds in Anthroposophical Christology, for instance—not to minimize our beloved Lord Jesus. That’s not to say that Anthroposophists don’t tend to be uncharitable. It isn’t the Christology that is to blame—it’s the “universal” small-mindedness of humans. And almost totally missing was the beautiful nature-loving Celtic spirit—except for a beloved Methodist, pastor George Smith, who was a poet of a man and could weave the livingness of a full-orbed life that revered mountains and lakes and streams and everything green and ruddy—into his sermons.
I agree with you, Michael, that “Alt-Christianity is the New Celtic Christianity.” Today, I take comfort in the fact that the old Nordic god Vidar is back in commission as we enter Ragnarok—as prophesied in the Nordic Edda—coming to slay the Fenris Wolf. Reading from the Mission of Folk Souls in Relation to Teutonic Mythology, by Steiner, “He [Vidar]...had undertaken another mission—that of becoming the inspirer of esoteric Christianity, which was destined to live on further in the Mysteries of the Holy Grail, in Rosicrucianism...All the underlying teachings and impulses of esoteric Christianity, have their source in his inspirations.” Archangel Vidar in the new guardian of the “youth forces” after Archangel Michael who has risen to Time Spirit. Vidar, who is the revealer of the Living Christ, is among us to revive and renew what is old—to guide us into the wilds of connecting to the elemental world, over whom he is guardian (as leading angel of Christ the “Lord of the Elements”)—in fine Celtic fashion. Towards that end I have written five essays on Vidar, the ambassador of the Living Logos—restorer of the Lost Word if anyone is interested. I’m inspired by this “Wild God” idea—it will show up in my continuing Vidar work.
I agree in part with your comments on conversion to eastern Orthodoxy. I feel some of those tensions myself as a westerner, with a physical lineage going back to the British Isles, in a church that is rooted in Russia. However, another side of this — which I think Kingsnorth and Shaw have picked up on, especially since more of this survives in Orthodoxy in the British Isles than in America — is that, as a westerner, one finds in eastern Europe and Russia (and Arab lands, and Christian India, and Orthodox Ethiopia, etc) a sense of homecoming to what was lost in the west. E.g. one may get a better sense of what ancient Ireland was like by visiting rural Romania today than by visiting rural Ireland. And Russia is a wild place, a swirling malestrom of ideas and influences! I was just reading this week about neo-paganism in Russia, which is booming. One can see this eclectic, pulsating life in the work of Bulgakov. Behind "official" Orthodoxy in Russia is a bizarre, perhaps aberrant but nonetheless fascinating folk religion that still survives, somehow. But American converts to Orthodoxy have brought their puritanism and fundamentalism with them and prefer to shove all that wild stuff into the closet. And I totally agree about the date of Easter.
More generally, my response to your thoughts here is to remember an intention I've had over the last few years that I haven't yet acted on — celebrating with my family, on my own land, the western festivals like Candlemas, St John's Day (summer solstice), Michelmas, etc. For those of us without a background in Waldorf and who may find the practicalities a bit daunting, how does one begin? E.g. how do we celebrate May Day, what kind of tree is good to use for the May Pole, what dances to use, etc? I would love to see you write a practical and theoretical guide to reclaiming and celebrating family festivals with your wife, kind of like that Waldorfy book from the 70's "Around the Year" but with a focus on taking the festivals seriously as adults, not just doing it "for the kids."
True festivity seems like maybe the most anti-Ahrimanic, revolutionary thing one could do on this continent right now.
I am impressed by this article, which I need to read several times. For the moment I should mention the extraordinary personality of Simone Weil who is described in "The Year of Our Lord 1943, Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis" by Alan Jacobs. https://global.oup.com/.../the-year-of-our-lord-1943...& The Allies and the Soviets defeated Hitler's evil regime, but would the victors continue their life with more moral virtue and nobility of spirit? Darkness was beaten by blood and tears, but in 1943 darkness still covered Europe and most of the world. This book makes previously unseen connections between the ideas of five major Christian intellectuals in WWII — T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, Simone Weil, and Jacques Maritain. Society had to be based on an authentic spiritual life without need for force or fear to keep order.
I am very struck by the life and thought of the French Jewish philosopher and mystic Simone Weil (1909 - 1943) who died very young. She is often called "a kindred spirit for church outsiders". https://uscatholic.org/.../simone-weil-a-kindred-spirit.../ The point I make is that too many people get complexed about what they do in church, as if it mattered to other people or the collectivity. I have known holy and silent souls who just evaporated away after having sown the seeds, allowing others to reap the harvest. Many such souls will not be seen or noticed in church, but it doesn't mean they are atheists or bad people. If we can comprehend such an idea, maybe the experience of institutional churches and liturgy will be that much more authentic and a source of grace. We might judge Weil for not accepting Baptism, but in her view of the Church, there was another way to Christ. I say this as a priest, horrified by the example of too many churchgoers.
So much for the "good old days"! 1943 was 16 years before I was born, and I have the impression of reading about our present world crisis.
We do need to present forms of Christianity that speak to western people like you and I, though our strengths and weaknesses. I suspect that trying to revive an institutional Celtic Church would be self-defeating, but it could live as a spiritual ideal for many who are "outside".
Here I go again, reprising something I have talked about elsewhere. A quote from the hymn Be Thou My Vision which is a translation from an ancient Celtic Christian poem.
“Thou my great Father and I thy true son”
In all this talk of a wild Christianity I see no talk of the wild spiritual life of Jesus had with God the Father. A wild life we can also have as being fellow sons of God filled with the Holy Spirit – John 1:12, Galatians 3:26, 4:6. A wild Christianity with the Father because it is empowered by the Holy Spirit doesn’t need nature immersion to happen, though having the privilege of nature immersion I suppose may be a useful adjunct for many. After all when Jesus gave prayer instructions in Matthew 6 he said simply to close the door to your room and pray to your Father who is there in secret.
When you look at the actual spirituality espoused by Jesus and practiced by him in the Gospels it is utterly unfashionable by those who look to non-dual awareness, and “Christ Consciousness” "ground of being” as the ticket or Vidaric angelic intermediaries. No, nothing as ethereal and esoteric as that! A Father in heaven, “pray to your Father who is there unseen”. Jesus was by no means ashamed of the old man and talked about and to him a whole lot. God speaking in an audible voice, expectation of specific even miraculous answers to prayer, lifting eyes in prayer, a robust intensely personal God the Father that isn’t you, but you can know, and directly know his love for you as an individual through Jesus as the connection and the inner witness of the Holy Spirit as gift.
I’ve read the article and comments several times and this resonates with me. I have a question for Michael and others here: should someone who has never been baptized but is feeling a strong calling in their middle age to a sacramental faith, establish themselves in a church before or as he is going “alt-Christian?l (asking for myself and Russell Brand :))
That Massingham quote about the loss undergone by neutering this tradition is a word...serious consequences for us that look like us Westerners imagining ourselves somewhere in a cold "universe" rather than placed and having an active role in a charged, shepherded "cosmos", and the attitude affects believers and nonbelievers alike.
Michael, I wonder if "the Druid" remembers his connection to Vidar? It looks to me like Vidar is active in your whole approach with the "Wild of God" idea for renewal of Christianity. What you are proposing appears to me to be in perfect alignment with Vidar's guidance in our time. Here's a note off the back of Adrian Anderson's book of research on "Vidar and the Flame Column, According to Rudolf Steiner": "In 1910, Rudolf Steiner told an audience in Oslo, Norway, that a deity known in the Edda as 'Vidar', was an Archangel known from ancient times, and who now provided the spiritual essence of anthroposophical wisdom. He also mentioned that the Druids had made a carving of this deity..."
Vidar was the guiding spirit who was the inspiration behind the esoteric Christianity of the Grail and Rosicrucianism. Steiner describes him here: "Now what became of the Archangel of the Celtic peoples, when he had renounced becoming a Spirit of Personality? He became the inspiring Spirit of esoteric Christianity; and in particular of those teachings and impulses which underlie esoteric Christianity; the real true esoteric Christianity comes from his inspirations. The secret, hidden place for those who were initiated into these Mysteries was to be found in Western Europe, and there the inspiration was given by this guiding Spirit, who had originally gone through an important training as Archangel of the Celtic people, renounced his further ascent, and had undertaken another mission, that of becoming the inspirer of esoteric Christianity, which was to work on further through the Mysteries of the Holy Grail, through Rosicrucianism." (Mission of Folk Souls)
Vidar is working to reconnect humanity to the elemental world and to lead people to the experience of the Etheric Christ--the "Living Christ," through the experience of nature and the seasons. He is the new guiding Archangel of the youth forces connected with the Nathan Soul, since Archangel Michael's elevation to Time Spirit, with the task of inspiring the esoteric church to replace dead with living thinking--by restoring the Logos: the Lost Word. He is working to lay the groundwork for collaborative endeavors among highly individual spirits as forerunners of the diverse Philadelphia culture of the sixth epoch. Marks of his activity will be renewal that manifests unity-in-diversity with active elemental, life-forces. The old authorities of "teaching and teachers" (Petrine Popes and Pastors) will be replaced among Vidar's followers by their own spiritual guides under his unifying leadership. Vidar plus Christianity is the formula for a new "Christian Paganism," similar but different from (a variation of) Christian Hermeticism.
I have five essays published on Vidar, which it appears will be the beginning of my first book in a series called: "Vidar, Archangel Michael's Successor: How Can We Know Him?" A final chapter/essay (almost done) may complete this series, but I'm not quite sure yet. Completed chapter/Essays can be seen here: https://languages-uconn.academia.edu/BillTrusiewicz/Vidar-Papers
It saddens me that the simple mediatorship of Jesus of Nazareth that brings us the knowing of the Father and the Holy Spirit seems inadequate or unreal or inaccessible for so many. That becoming like a little child in this area is such a challenge. An unbelief that he has come in the flesh and said “I am with you always even unto the end of the age” and “I will never drive away any who come to me”
Some fun, me dressed up as Saint Patrick in 2015 in our town’s Saint Patrick’s Day parade. Scroll down to see the picture. Over the years I have repeatedly dressed up as him and told his story first person taken from his own writings. My current outfit is toned down, more “natural” not full on Roman Catholic style bishop. People would tell me I looked like a green pope in that particular outfit. Not a message I want to present! https://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/picture-gallery/news/2015/03/14/green-wearing-revelers-take-over-downtown-visalia-in-st-pats-parade/24764497/
I still have an interest in attempting to baptize Kashmiri Shaivism, according to which the great goddess Shakti is immanent as the life of the Creation, while also being in the syzygy of marital union with the transcendent god Shiva (who is blue as well, like Krishna). So, keep the fundamental structure but think of it in terms of Sophia and Jesus, would be the idea.
(If the ancient Church had no qualms with baptizing Greek philosophy, and the Celts were so wondrously syncretic, then I don't see why we should be so timid now.)
That's maybe for later, though. I've been doing another edit of my book this week, so as to make sure that the draft is in the best possible shape when Angelico Press is good to get the ball rolling.
Thanks, Michael, for this. I went through a similar process of discovery as you describe finally arriving at “home church.” (Hope you don’t mind if I go on at some length about this. You give me a rare opportunity.) It was in the late eighties. I took a journey (about 15 years) through numerous “Christian Churches,” some of whom didn’t clearly understand the difference between a “church building” and “the church as the body of Christ,”--a living temple of individuals. Even those who did clearly understand that point, succeeded, nevertheless, to create a “material temple” from the spiritually understood principle, by making (very high) teachings and teachers into gods. Many of us were serious students of the New Testament, which does, by the way, teach the Way of the Wild God—once it’s unpacked from theological cerements. Several families gathered in one or another’s home for meetings. It was the “Wild God” that we (most of us young people), were hungry for. We did have many, memorable “Wild God” experiences. We called our goal simply: “The New Testament Church.” We took the wild John the Baptist for our “patron saint,” who didn’t mind wearing “unclean” camel skins to offend the religious. Who lived in the wild and was unafraid to call out the hypocrisy of religion. We reveled in the Jesus who knocked over the money changers. And the Jesus who healed on the Sabbath day. We loved the “King David” who stole the holy shewbread to feed himself and his men, and danced nearly naked before the ark of the covenant. In fact, I was dubbed “King William,” because I did occasionally get up and dance in the excitement of revelation in meetings. That was a younger me but I’d do it again given the inspiring spirit of the Wild God. We broke whole loaves of bread and gave pieces to each other, meeting each other’s eye with appreciation for each persons contribution as “living stones” in the temple of God—as “bread broken” for each other. We shared a cup of “wine” acknowledging our willingness to spill our blood for each other as He did for us. We did our own music, much of it composed, especially lyrics, by us. So much for home church in the 1980s.
There was much in the Christendom of those days that troubled me, in spite of the fact that I was honored for dancing in church meetings—mostly the un-universal, often uncharitable, small-minded “Jesus Cult.” By that I mean that there wasn’t the breadth and depth of cosmic Christianity, the Christ of cosmic, universal, cosmopolitan proportions one finds in Anthroposophical Christology, for instance—not to minimize our beloved Lord Jesus. That’s not to say that Anthroposophists don’t tend to be uncharitable. It isn’t the Christology that is to blame—it’s the “universal” small-mindedness of humans. And almost totally missing was the beautiful nature-loving Celtic spirit—except for a beloved Methodist, pastor George Smith, who was a poet of a man and could weave the livingness of a full-orbed life that revered mountains and lakes and streams and everything green and ruddy—into his sermons.
I agree with you, Michael, that “Alt-Christianity is the New Celtic Christianity.” Today, I take comfort in the fact that the old Nordic god Vidar is back in commission as we enter Ragnarok—as prophesied in the Nordic Edda—coming to slay the Fenris Wolf. Reading from the Mission of Folk Souls in Relation to Teutonic Mythology, by Steiner, “He [Vidar]...had undertaken another mission—that of becoming the inspirer of esoteric Christianity, which was destined to live on further in the Mysteries of the Holy Grail, in Rosicrucianism...All the underlying teachings and impulses of esoteric Christianity, have their source in his inspirations.” Archangel Vidar in the new guardian of the “youth forces” after Archangel Michael who has risen to Time Spirit. Vidar, who is the revealer of the Living Christ, is among us to revive and renew what is old—to guide us into the wilds of connecting to the elemental world, over whom he is guardian (as leading angel of Christ the “Lord of the Elements”)—in fine Celtic fashion. Towards that end I have written five essays on Vidar, the ambassador of the Living Logos—restorer of the Lost Word if anyone is interested. I’m inspired by this “Wild God” idea—it will show up in my continuing Vidar work.
https://www.academia.edu/98293450/How_to_Recognize_and_Connect_with_Vidar_The_Archangel_of_the_New_Community
I agree in part with your comments on conversion to eastern Orthodoxy. I feel some of those tensions myself as a westerner, with a physical lineage going back to the British Isles, in a church that is rooted in Russia. However, another side of this — which I think Kingsnorth and Shaw have picked up on, especially since more of this survives in Orthodoxy in the British Isles than in America — is that, as a westerner, one finds in eastern Europe and Russia (and Arab lands, and Christian India, and Orthodox Ethiopia, etc) a sense of homecoming to what was lost in the west. E.g. one may get a better sense of what ancient Ireland was like by visiting rural Romania today than by visiting rural Ireland. And Russia is a wild place, a swirling malestrom of ideas and influences! I was just reading this week about neo-paganism in Russia, which is booming. One can see this eclectic, pulsating life in the work of Bulgakov. Behind "official" Orthodoxy in Russia is a bizarre, perhaps aberrant but nonetheless fascinating folk religion that still survives, somehow. But American converts to Orthodoxy have brought their puritanism and fundamentalism with them and prefer to shove all that wild stuff into the closet. And I totally agree about the date of Easter.
More generally, my response to your thoughts here is to remember an intention I've had over the last few years that I haven't yet acted on — celebrating with my family, on my own land, the western festivals like Candlemas, St John's Day (summer solstice), Michelmas, etc. For those of us without a background in Waldorf and who may find the practicalities a bit daunting, how does one begin? E.g. how do we celebrate May Day, what kind of tree is good to use for the May Pole, what dances to use, etc? I would love to see you write a practical and theoretical guide to reclaiming and celebrating family festivals with your wife, kind of like that Waldorfy book from the 70's "Around the Year" but with a focus on taking the festivals seriously as adults, not just doing it "for the kids."
True festivity seems like maybe the most anti-Ahrimanic, revolutionary thing one could do on this continent right now.
I am impressed by this article, which I need to read several times. For the moment I should mention the extraordinary personality of Simone Weil who is described in "The Year of Our Lord 1943, Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis" by Alan Jacobs. https://global.oup.com/.../the-year-of-our-lord-1943...& The Allies and the Soviets defeated Hitler's evil regime, but would the victors continue their life with more moral virtue and nobility of spirit? Darkness was beaten by blood and tears, but in 1943 darkness still covered Europe and most of the world. This book makes previously unseen connections between the ideas of five major Christian intellectuals in WWII — T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, Simone Weil, and Jacques Maritain. Society had to be based on an authentic spiritual life without need for force or fear to keep order.
I am very struck by the life and thought of the French Jewish philosopher and mystic Simone Weil (1909 - 1943) who died very young. She is often called "a kindred spirit for church outsiders". https://uscatholic.org/.../simone-weil-a-kindred-spirit.../ The point I make is that too many people get complexed about what they do in church, as if it mattered to other people or the collectivity. I have known holy and silent souls who just evaporated away after having sown the seeds, allowing others to reap the harvest. Many such souls will not be seen or noticed in church, but it doesn't mean they are atheists or bad people. If we can comprehend such an idea, maybe the experience of institutional churches and liturgy will be that much more authentic and a source of grace. We might judge Weil for not accepting Baptism, but in her view of the Church, there was another way to Christ. I say this as a priest, horrified by the example of too many churchgoers.
So much for the "good old days"! 1943 was 16 years before I was born, and I have the impression of reading about our present world crisis.
We do need to present forms of Christianity that speak to western people like you and I, though our strengths and weaknesses. I suspect that trying to revive an institutional Celtic Church would be self-defeating, but it could live as a spiritual ideal for many who are "outside".
Here I go again, reprising something I have talked about elsewhere. A quote from the hymn Be Thou My Vision which is a translation from an ancient Celtic Christian poem.
“Thou my great Father and I thy true son”
In all this talk of a wild Christianity I see no talk of the wild spiritual life of Jesus had with God the Father. A wild life we can also have as being fellow sons of God filled with the Holy Spirit – John 1:12, Galatians 3:26, 4:6. A wild Christianity with the Father because it is empowered by the Holy Spirit doesn’t need nature immersion to happen, though having the privilege of nature immersion I suppose may be a useful adjunct for many. After all when Jesus gave prayer instructions in Matthew 6 he said simply to close the door to your room and pray to your Father who is there in secret.
When you look at the actual spirituality espoused by Jesus and practiced by him in the Gospels it is utterly unfashionable by those who look to non-dual awareness, and “Christ Consciousness” "ground of being” as the ticket or Vidaric angelic intermediaries. No, nothing as ethereal and esoteric as that! A Father in heaven, “pray to your Father who is there unseen”. Jesus was by no means ashamed of the old man and talked about and to him a whole lot. God speaking in an audible voice, expectation of specific even miraculous answers to prayer, lifting eyes in prayer, a robust intensely personal God the Father that isn’t you, but you can know, and directly know his love for you as an individual through Jesus as the connection and the inner witness of the Holy Spirit as gift.
I’ve read the article and comments several times and this resonates with me. I have a question for Michael and others here: should someone who has never been baptized but is feeling a strong calling in their middle age to a sacramental faith, establish themselves in a church before or as he is going “alt-Christian?l (asking for myself and Russell Brand :))
That Massingham quote about the loss undergone by neutering this tradition is a word...serious consequences for us that look like us Westerners imagining ourselves somewhere in a cold "universe" rather than placed and having an active role in a charged, shepherded "cosmos", and the attitude affects believers and nonbelievers alike.
Michael, I wonder if "the Druid" remembers his connection to Vidar? It looks to me like Vidar is active in your whole approach with the "Wild of God" idea for renewal of Christianity. What you are proposing appears to me to be in perfect alignment with Vidar's guidance in our time. Here's a note off the back of Adrian Anderson's book of research on "Vidar and the Flame Column, According to Rudolf Steiner": "In 1910, Rudolf Steiner told an audience in Oslo, Norway, that a deity known in the Edda as 'Vidar', was an Archangel known from ancient times, and who now provided the spiritual essence of anthroposophical wisdom. He also mentioned that the Druids had made a carving of this deity..."
Vidar was the guiding spirit who was the inspiration behind the esoteric Christianity of the Grail and Rosicrucianism. Steiner describes him here: "Now what became of the Archangel of the Celtic peoples, when he had renounced becoming a Spirit of Personality? He became the inspiring Spirit of esoteric Christianity; and in particular of those teachings and impulses which underlie esoteric Christianity; the real true esoteric Christianity comes from his inspirations. The secret, hidden place for those who were initiated into these Mysteries was to be found in Western Europe, and there the inspiration was given by this guiding Spirit, who had originally gone through an important training as Archangel of the Celtic people, renounced his further ascent, and had undertaken another mission, that of becoming the inspirer of esoteric Christianity, which was to work on further through the Mysteries of the Holy Grail, through Rosicrucianism." (Mission of Folk Souls)
Vidar is working to reconnect humanity to the elemental world and to lead people to the experience of the Etheric Christ--the "Living Christ," through the experience of nature and the seasons. He is the new guiding Archangel of the youth forces connected with the Nathan Soul, since Archangel Michael's elevation to Time Spirit, with the task of inspiring the esoteric church to replace dead with living thinking--by restoring the Logos: the Lost Word. He is working to lay the groundwork for collaborative endeavors among highly individual spirits as forerunners of the diverse Philadelphia culture of the sixth epoch. Marks of his activity will be renewal that manifests unity-in-diversity with active elemental, life-forces. The old authorities of "teaching and teachers" (Petrine Popes and Pastors) will be replaced among Vidar's followers by their own spiritual guides under his unifying leadership. Vidar plus Christianity is the formula for a new "Christian Paganism," similar but different from (a variation of) Christian Hermeticism.
I have five essays published on Vidar, which it appears will be the beginning of my first book in a series called: "Vidar, Archangel Michael's Successor: How Can We Know Him?" A final chapter/essay (almost done) may complete this series, but I'm not quite sure yet. Completed chapter/Essays can be seen here: https://languages-uconn.academia.edu/BillTrusiewicz/Vidar-Papers
It saddens me that the simple mediatorship of Jesus of Nazareth that brings us the knowing of the Father and the Holy Spirit seems inadequate or unreal or inaccessible for so many. That becoming like a little child in this area is such a challenge. An unbelief that he has come in the flesh and said “I am with you always even unto the end of the age” and “I will never drive away any who come to me”
Some fun, me dressed up as Saint Patrick in 2015 in our town’s Saint Patrick’s Day parade. Scroll down to see the picture. Over the years I have repeatedly dressed up as him and told his story first person taken from his own writings. My current outfit is toned down, more “natural” not full on Roman Catholic style bishop. People would tell me I looked like a green pope in that particular outfit. Not a message I want to present! https://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/picture-gallery/news/2015/03/14/green-wearing-revelers-take-over-downtown-visalia-in-st-pats-parade/24764497/