The Altar of Pennies...

If Pagans want to build a community spirit that will foster monetary contributions, the emphasis must always be on the benefit. The appeal to a ‘greater good’, the something beyond ourselves, should never be underestimated. Within the human spirit, there is a desire to be a member of a tribe that celebrates the good times (the bountiful harvest) and comes together to weather the bad times (the famine).

Our people are not homogenous. We come from different places. We celebrate different rites. We live in different family structures. We worship different gods. (If we indeed ‘worship’ any at all.) So none of these individual factors is what will unite us. None of these attributes will motivate us to give monetary support to anything that emphasizes particular things… unless these are also our particular things.

Pagans do support what has value. I support what I value and you support what you value.

What is the ‘value’ to me of my $200 donation to a Pagan community center if what I spiritually treasure is the new seedling of a nearly extinct tree sprouting up in a public park or a rehabilitated eagle being released back into the wild?

Although I have an altar both within my home and without, I meet with the Old Ones in the places and times of Their choosing. It is very, very personal. What is the benefit then to me if I place a ten-dollar bill into the hands of a religious usher and stand in a circle of strangers whose hearts and whose gods I do not know?

I am not you. I cannot be you. I do not want to be you. I am not special. I have no superior intellect or natural skills. I am not an elder. I am not a priestess. I am not a leader. Actually, for more than a decade now, I have been following you. And that is a key point…

I tend to be twitchy around people who want to establish something. I am especially edgy around people who want to establish something using my money and time and energy. I go almost postal if the planners are passive-aggressive in the approach:

“Don’t you want to have a place where we can all get together?” “If we don’t form a united front (or a voting block, a spiritual manifesto, a council of elders, etc) then we will never be taken seriously.”

My teeth hurt now… And so here is where the benefit thing and the differences thing and the individual thing and the money thing all get together to throw a party thing:

Take your mitts off of the thing. Stop trying to corral Pagans into something malleable and manageable.

Why do you think that people drift off after your Pagan 101 classes are done? Why do they stop supporting your shop? Why won’t they help put up the decorations or sweep your floor forever and ever?

We are Pagans, for the love of the Gods. We are pagans or want to be pagans or decided to become pagan because we fell in love. We are in love with the seasons. We are in love with the cycles. We are in love with the fire and the wind and the water and the earth. We love the Old Ones in whatever form They might approach us and within whatever form we might find Them. And most of the time, we even love each other.

We do.

And that right there is the benefit, the big payoff, the point that makes the sale. It has to be something built for the greater good. Nothing clears a room of donors, helpers, aides or potential facilitators faster than the aroma of simmering ‘me, mine and I’. It is a smell that cannot be perfumed over with a sweetly uttered we or a penciled in us. An agenda gives off a distinct stench. And most Pagans have very acute noses.

But Vision with a capital V is a good thing. So are Progress and Evolution and Cooperation and Honesty and Compassion. Throw some Valor and Strength and Endurance and Patience in there and maybe we have the start of something.

Oh yes, please do get excited. Dream big. Give people the tools and the encouragement and the skill set. Teach them what you know. Charge for it if you will. Give it away if that is in your heart.

Pagans like a good commodity as much as the next consumer. Pagans like things and ideas and training. They will pay for it if it has value and it benefits him or her. And they will then resell it, repurpose it, recycle it or just toss it away later if they want to. And if the thought of your precious commodity being chucked into a garbage heap is disturbing to you, please examine that inner pang more closely. Both you and the people to whom you peddle your wares and ideas will be the better for it.

A pagan is not a commodity. Don’t blame the Pagan if he or she doesn’t like what you are peddling. Don’t try to mold Pagans into what you or your shop or your class or your priestess or your groups think that they should be. Don’t do it.

Give them tools. Give them information. Motivate them. Become an example in your local community. Donate to causes that you believe in. Encourage a wide range of ideas. Speak of the we and the our as if you really mean it. And you better really mean it.

And there it is. Right there. The universal and ultimate benefit: love.

Build something for Pagans and do it for no other reason than because you love Pagans. Give to them your heart and your spirit and your time and yes, your money. Freely sacrifice what only your Gods will ever know that you sacrificed for them. Give to them something so powerful, so lovely, so simple and so free of your personal entanglement that they will surely know that you built it all in service to them and simply for the love of them. Build it. Expand it. Perfect it.

And then let it go. Let those wild crazy pagans do whatever they want to do with it. Let them reshape it, remodel it, recycle it or toss it in the trash heap later if they want to. And if you are feeling that achy inner pang thing again… It's a pretty good indication that perhaps you desire to have, to manage or to regulate the thing that you built more than you really want to love and serve the people for whom you built it.

Pagans will indeed support forms and organizations. But we won’t pay for admission. We already belong.