Lizzie's Black Book For Beginners

Why Am I Pagan?

Many people are born amongst the trees and branches of Christianity. Even I was... Despite everything, though, my heart flew as a baby bird would, to some other branch. I took the leap from the home tree and left as others did for winter, but after that, I didn't go back.

I found a new branch on a new tree. This was, and is my home now, my religion, and something I'm not afraid to share with the world. I rest myself among the branches of Paganism, but more specifically, the caressing and understanding twigs of Wicca.

Yes, I must say my tree is different, but not as different as many of you other birds may think. It has branches, as do all trees. Some have lively, ivy vines entwining their base with love and acceptance, but others held with wrought iron barbs are slowly falling away. Some are hardly even used, but most live in harmony like many believe all trees should. My tree is unique.

Even looking at all of the wonders around me now, I can't help but ask myself why I didn't go back to my old home tree... Why do I choose to stay? I am going to rest my wings some more, resting with the dedication I have to my own branch of the Pagan home tree. But why?

Even as a younger child I had problems understanding things about Christianity, but who knows everything? My life as I knew it, I came to believe was a lie. At age 9 I used to go to church every Sunday and Wednesday. I attended Bible schools and summer field-trips on and off. It was during one of these Bible school studies that I asked a question about the Bible.

"Who wrote the Bible?" It was something I had been curious about.

The teacher answered me, saying it was the word of God. But, then, I asked how he could do that. She finally told the class that God spoke through prophets, and these were the words of the prophets written in the Bible.

Later on, I had pondered over and over about it. It took a lot of thinking, studying, and mental excavation. After a while I forgot about it, and went on with my usual life, slowly cutting out the church and the Bible to find extra time for school.

The next time the subject came up was two years later, age eleven. I hadn't expected it, myself, because it came up in school. It was an essay assignment that we, individually, each had to do about one of our achievements in life. I wrote about a fishing trip and catching my first Walleye on the Native American Reservation. I turned in my paper and listened to the other essays being read.

It was Luke J.'s presentation that got me. His report was on an achievement at a Bible Camp. He started off with the verse of John 3:16:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

It wasn't the first time I'd heard this verse. I used to recite it every day before church, but now it gave me a twisted, tingling sensation, an awareness that wasn't inside me before. I can't quite say what it was (or what it is for that matter), but I can say I don't like it, too, much.

That started my whole question rampage. I asked my mother something new almost every day, the doubt filling my head and my soul. It was in the springtime the next year that she suggested something to me.

It was Wicca. She explained it all to me in detail, saying, "It's always been mistaken for Satanism, and that's why I hide it." I found that she even had hidden it from her own mother(she was one herself). "People have a hard time accepting something different..."

She let me go through her things. I read through her spell books, historical books, and even went through a Pagan magazine with different herbs, oils, crystals, smudge sticks, and candles. After I thought about it, it all made sense to me. And, as a matter of fact, that's when I decided to convert. (Thank my mother I was never baptised!)

I'm going on my thirteenth year in my new tree. It's wonderful, personally. Now, though, I'm not afraid to share my branch with others. I talk to other birds, and explain it to them. I show them the blossoms that fruit year round, but, I will admit that some don't like the fruit... Altogether, I do love my branch. I will chirp to the Wiccan Rede and sing, "... An ye harm none, do what ye will."

This tree is now my home, my life, and my dedication to the world to show that everything can still be different, and some birds may not like it, save the few I've met that understand. But if you cease caring, and start sharing, this place can be harmonious and unison, allowing opinions to prosper without care and with acknowledgement.