Folklore: Witch girl re buried.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 25 Mar 09 - 06:04 PM

Was this the one, Susan? In any case, I agree - they can all be right; I've seen a multitude of beautiful truths shining bright in the eyes of the faithful & faithless alike. This keeps me smiling.

Subject: Abrazos-- Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: wysiwyg
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 10:10 AM

I've still been thinking and reflecting about this one: Spirituality is a human scheme, flawed from the outset as people ponder the nature of an all too elusive truth - and whilst they can't all be right they can all be wrong...

I think continued reflection is a GOOD thing, and I want to clarify what I posted above in response to it.

What I meant and tried to summarize in my above post is that I agree wholeheartedly with this part: Spirituality is a human scheme, flawed from the outset as people ponder the nature of an all too elusive truth...

I agree with it because it is my experience that for every person I have ever met, that is an accurate description of what I observe and with which I interact.


But I have a different view of this part: ...they can't all be right... because it is ALSO my experience that for every person I have ever met, that is NOT an accurate description of what I observe and with which I interact.

My experience tends more to the idea that each person may have one or more pieces that are right, one or more pieces that are wrong, and one or more pieces that are a bit out of focus to one degree or another. And in that view, I find the interaction intriquing, and redolent with Truth much of the time.


So-- I choose to go there. And I am grateful to be in a denomination that is comfortable with the journey, the ambivalence, the complexities-- and the need for rational thought running through all of creation. Frankly there are days when the amount of wrongness in that denomination makes it hard to keep seeing the possibilities of staying in it-- much like how Mudcat can seem totally CRAP one moment and totally transcendant, the next.

Just today alone, the threads are at both ends of that extreme, and why shouldn't they be-- it's all human beans in it and that's how we act most of the time.


But there is so much good stuff about human beans I'm grateful to be one among others.


Abrazos,

~Susan

Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: Kent Davis
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 10:29 PM

Stringsinger,

1. John Wesley was not a Calvinist. He was an Arminian, an anti-Calvinist: http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/arminian.htm and http://www.theopedia.com/John_Wesley .

2. The last execution of a witch in England occurred more than 20 years before Wesley was born. Wesley was an influential man. Do you have any evidence that he ever used that influence to try to revive the practice?

3. Your quote does not confirm your point. John Wesley opposed giving up "all accounts of witches and apparitions as mere wives' fables". I agree with him on this, since I believe the account of the witch of Endor (I Samuel 28:7-25) is historically correct. I do not advocate the burning of witches. Many Wiccans (most?)similarly oppose giving up "all accounts of witches and apparitions as mere wives' fables". Do you think this means that Wiccans advocate the burning of witches?

Kent

Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: Rowan
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 06:26 PM

The reburial of ancient bones is so much horseshit; the only bones that matter are the ones with the flesh still on them, however so frail that flesh might be.

I suspect SS hasn't spent much time involved with Indigenous people in places colonised by Europeans. Should SS come to Oz s/he will be immersed into a context where the 'flesh' clinging to the bones is more spiritual and cultural than strictly corporeal. As a result, the broad consensus of the community, supported in legislation, is that human remains excavated as a result of proper archaeological activities are treated with respect and interred or cremated according to the rites required by the relevant Aboriginal community.

Those remains that were disinterred as a result of grave-robbing have, in many cases, also been returned to the control of the relevant Aboriginal community; some of the grave-robbing was "scientific" and most was for the private profit of the robber.

All Aboriginal communities have insisted on the return of such remains and some have permitted the returned remains to be lodged. still under their 'jurisdiction' or 'aegis', in properly curated museum conditions while others have insisted the remains must be interred or cremated according to cultural requirements.

Some inheritors of the European colonial acquisitions insist on resisting Aboriginal communities' requests (supported by their governments) for the return of Aboriginal remains. I suppose one's own attitude towards such issues is determined largely by where one sees Aborigines and where one sees oneself on the spectrum connecting colonisers with the colonised.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: Stringsinger
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 02:32 PM

Greg,

"In his Journal, Wesley bemoaned the decline of superstition, the advance of human thought and the more peaceable reign of Christ on the earth, in the following words: "It is true likewise, that the English in general, and, indeed, most of the men of learning in Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions as mere wives' fables. I am sorry for it. . . . The giving up of witchcraft is in effect giving up the Bible!"

There is another quote that I'll try to find for you advocating the burning of witches.
He was a Calvinist.

Frank

Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: wysiwyg
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 09:35 AM

Further, Spirituality is a human scheme, flawed from the outset as people ponder the nature of an all too elusive truth - and whilst they can't all be right they can all be wrong. It's this latter proposition I tend to go by...

And I go by the former. I think that kind of counterbalancing is part of what keeps conversations "alive." Two views can differ without there being a need to use the difference as argument. Or conflict. "I" see "this," "you" see "that." They are probably both there. Both incomplete. Both inviting a closer look to see what else is also there.

~S~

Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: wysiwyg
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 09:31 AM

NO! Italics are emphasis!

~S~

Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 09:29 AM

I'm guessing by the italics you mean that ironically, right?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: wysiwyg
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 08:46 AM

SS, I really liked your post. It made so much sense.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 07:49 AM

Sounds like fighting fire with fire to me! But then my only concern with religion is in its cultural immediacy; finding the manifest diversity ever more fascinating as I do any form of fundamentalism utterly deplorable. Spirituality is a human scheme, flawed from the outset as people ponder the nature of an all too elusive truth - and whilst they can't all be right they can all be wrong. It's this latter proposition I tend to go by, and my fascinations remain universally Gnostic in the sense of a struggle towards a manifest truth against quite impossible odds. The reburial of ancient bones is so much horseshit; the only bones that matter are the ones with the flesh still on them, however so frail that flesh might be. The day the church (any denomination) throws away the funny hats and the hoo-hah and actually addresses this, I might sit up and take notice.

http://www.biblicalhebrew.com/nt/camelneedle.htm

Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: wysiwyg
Date: 17 Mar 09 - 02:13 PM

What has religion got to do with life, and organizational change:

http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/religion_and_conflict/?nid=6725

~S~

Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: greg stephens
Date: 17 Mar 09 - 02:01 PM

Was John Wesley really a proponent of witch-executing? I'd never thought of him as that kind of chap.I would be interested to see your references.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 17 Mar 09 - 01:33 PM

What has religion got to do with life? Two completely different things as perfectly exemplified by this piece of anachronistic nonsense. The history defines what the church is today; witness the Roman Catholic church forbidding school kids from Red Nose Day because of some of the charities supposedly supporting abortion.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: wysiwyg
Date: 17 Mar 09 - 01:27 PM

"The history" in any historic injustice usually looks a little less "good" than the present or the future. It's a function of how hindsight operates. I would hope that all people have the capacity to look forward in order to move forward. I think that's kinda how life works.....

~S~

Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: Stringsinger
Date: 17 Mar 09 - 01:15 PM

I think it is needed to remind those that some of the luminary figures of religion such as Martin Luther, John Wesley and others were proponents of executing witches, some by burning at the stake. Catholic absolution seems incongruous since the establishment of the auto-de-fe. The history doesn't look good.

Frank

Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: wysiwyg
Date: 17 Mar 09 - 11:18 AM

I said, "an act born of compassion." Full respect has to start there, tho it is not the be-all or end-all of the spectrum of acquiring skills recognizable as respect or compassion.

This is true BTW in any conflict I can think of. It's also the only thing I have found that cuts through reactivity.


Abrazos,

~S~

Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 17 Mar 09 - 10:53 AM

How is giving her a Christian burial in anyway compassionate? Sounds like so much spin to me. Progress? This takes us back to the middle ages! Personally, I'd have been happier beneath the holly tree.

We have a witch near us, buried, as legend has it, upside down beneath a huge boulder to stop her crawling out her grave. See Here. Maybe this will create a precedence for exhuming all known witches and giving them decent burials.

Subject: Abrazos: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: wysiwyg
Date: 17 Mar 09 - 10:33 AM

I think it's sad that an act born of compassion becomes fodder for a continuation of old resentments and mutual finger-pointing, as the comments posted at the story reflect. And as we so often find happening at Mudcat. I prefer to celebrate the progress compassion creates.

Abrazos,

~Susan

Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: GUEST,keith
Date: 17 Mar 09 - 10:25 AM

There is not too much room in the title box!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: GUEST,Giok
Date: 17 Mar 09 - 09:54 AM

A bit hyperbolic there Keith. There is no proof she was a witch, and the article lists 2 other possibilites.
You could get a job writing Daily Mail headlines mate ;)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Mar 09 - 08:33 AM

thanks for posting it, Keith

sandra

Subject: Folklore: Witch girl re buried.
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Mar 09 - 06:22 AM

http://www.medwaymessenger.co.uk/kol08/article/default.asp?article_id=58846

Strange and sad little story.