Unitarian Universalist blogger Joel Monka submitted today’s piece to the (now unfortunately defunct) UU Blog Carnival for September, 2006, on the topic, “What gets you through the hard night?” Joel blogs at CUUMBAYA, “Conservative Unitarian Universalist Member Blogging As You Asked!”

What gets me through the night

by Joel Monka

Neopagan faiths are called “Earth based religions;” most people think that means we worship the Earth itself. Some in fact do — there is that old joke that Wiccans make the best lovers, because they really do worship the ground you walk on! But it also means that we are oriented on this world, not the next. The Abrahamic faiths teach that the next world is the real one, that this life is merely an entrance exam. Most Neopagans believe in a form of reincarnation — either as an entity, or that the energies we have gathered are recycled, like a rock band breaking up to form new groups with new sounds. Even those that do believe in an afterlife — primarily those that call themselves heathens — believe that any judgment they face is based on their performance in this world, not on the mental gyrations they went through to prepare for the next. The essence of all these possibilities is one reality at a time… if you make yourself truly worthy of this world, you have nothing to fear from any other.

But there is yet another depth to the term “Earth centered” — that we must live in the present tense. Here is what I have written in my personal Book of Shadows:

(Read on … )