I WAS BORN A PAGAN

My friend John Troy explained to me that the word "pagan" means "country dweller." I was born a pagan and grew up one too. Having a young son and spending lots of time around the kids in my community, I see that we all start off pagan, before we are taught to bow before the idols that humans carve with concepts and matter. Children have a powerful desire to be outside, in nature. It's a yearning for them and if they're denied it long enough, they're likely to act out in destructive ways. What more interesting place could one spend their time? Most of our buildings are piles of ninety degree angles, everything is square, cubical, predictable. Nature on the other hand relishes in circles and organic forms. Human ideas of geometry and symmetry mean nothing there.

Churches were always so boring to me. Listening to the preacher speak on in monotone would almost immediately put my mind to sleep. Nature, on the other hand, invigorates the senses. The feeling of sun on one's face. The wind blowing through your hair. It lends itself to feelings of freedom, happiness and connection. It's nice to take a break from human chatter and be in a place where communion happens without the need for communication. The noise our species generates is just one tiny segment of the cosmic bandwidth. There are many voices speaking around us. Some much older than we can comprehend in our relative youth. Our best chance to understand is in silence, face to face with the mystery that we experience and that we are.