Silent
Silent provides the tools for seekers to recognize their path and enables self-reliance for spiritual and magickal growth.
Seekers gain insight from his work and find their inner calm from his ability to listen and help others reflect.
The Importance of Political Awareness for Priests and Clergy: A Broad Perspective
Silent • June 1, 2024
Last night I attended an event at a local event hosted by one of Washington State’s public policy think tanks. Having lived in Chicago for 30 years, I appreciate how much access we have to policymakers and public leaders in Washington State.
Religious leaders must stay informed and engaged in an ever-changing world where political decisions can have far-reaching consequences. We will explore the importance of political awareness for Pagan priests and clergy, delving into their role in society, their challenges, and how they can foster political understanding to serve their communities better.
Being informed and engaged is different than telling people how to vote or, worse, how to think. As a priest, I teach, guide, bear witness, and do not interfere with free will.
As Pagans, we are a religion of clergy.
We don't need intervention or someone to petition for us. However, priests accept responsibility for being present, facilitating, and building awareness. We provide spiritual guidance, perform religious rites, and often serve as community leaders. Influence on communities can be profound, and with this influence comes a responsibility to be informed about the political landscape that affects others in our community.
In the context of priests, political awareness refers to an understanding of the political environment and its implications for their communities. If one was to build a flowchart, this is where the 🛑 icon comes in.
Priests and clergy must be politically aware, as political decisions can impact religious communities in various ways, such as through legislation affecting spiritual practices, funding for faith-based organizations, or social issues that intersect with religious teachings. These are the practical and mundane aspects of what we do. However, they are equally important as your spiritual role.
For example, consider a new law's implications affecting religious freedom or allocating resources for faith-based social services. By staying informed about these political developments, we can better advocate for their communities and provide guidance that is relevant to the current context.
This involves getting out and meeting legislators, regulators, and policymakers. Be present. It doesn’t require formality or marches. Those have their valid purposes at a time and place.
While political awareness is essential, it can also challenge religious leaders. There is the risk of becoming too involved in politics, potentially compromising your spiritual guidance and alienating members of their congregation with differing political views. Be politically neutral on candidates. Consider and support issues. Never let your political views come before your devotion to the Gods. “Speak but little; listen much.”
To navigate these challenges, priests and clergy can strive to maintain a balanced and informed perspective. Be aware of the political landscape without becoming overly partisan or entangled in political controversies. This balance allows us to provide relevant and informed spiritual guidance while maintaining their primary focus on the spiritual well-being of their congregations.
To become more politically aware, priests can:
- Stay informed about current events and political developments through reliable news sources.
- Offer to meet with political leaders. If you invite them to events, offer equal access. You may not like everyone’s views; some may self-select out of your event, but you will have tried.
- Remember that Pagans vote for issues and not political parties. Being informed helps you have a conversation.
- Read. Most municipalities have online resources for you to keep up to date. Sign up and review what is happening in your area and your nation.
- Participate in interfaith dialogues and forums to gain insights from other religious traditions.
- Vote. In 2016 I created the #AllPagansVote as intention, awareness, and motivation.
By fostering political awareness, priests and clergy can better serve their communities and contribute to a more inclusive and informed society.
In conclusion, political awareness is a vital aspect of the role of priests. By staying informed about the political landscape, we can provide relevant guidance, advocate for their communities, and navigate the challenges of political engagement. Moreover, as priests continue to foster political awareness, we will be better equipped to serve community and contribute to society.

Onward.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Walk into any forest in the Cascades and you are standing on the dead. The fir that fell forty years ago is now the nurse log feeding a row of saplings. The salmon carried uphill by an eagle became the nitrogen in the cedar's needles. Nothing in that forest is wasted, and nothing in it is afraid. We have built an entire industry on pretending we are exempt from this. We drain the body of its blood, fill it with preservatives, seal it in lacquered hardwood, and lower it into a concrete vault—as if the earth were a contamination to be defended against rather than the place we came from. Cremation, for all its simplicity, burns fossil fuel and sends the body skyward as carbon. There is another way, and it began here in Washington. Human composting—the law calls it natural organic reduction—was legalized in this state in 2019, the first in the nation. The process is unhurried and honest. The body, unembalmed, is laid into a steel vessel and surrounded by wood chips, alfalfa, and straw. No chemicals are added. The microbes that already live on the plant material, and on us, do the work they have always done. Over eight to twelve weeks, the body becomes soil—about a cubic yard of it, dark and alive. Families may take some home for a garden or a tree, or donate it to forest conservation land. What was a person becomes, quite literally, ground for new growth. I have sat with the dying, and I can tell you that the question underneath most deathbed fear is not what happens to me? It is did I matter, and will anything of me remain? The Hávamál answers plainly: cattle die, kin die, the self dies too—but what one leaves behind endures. We usually read that as reputation. I have come to read it more literally. A body that becomes soil leaves something behind that you can hold in your hands. Something that feeds. For those of us who keep the old ways, this is not innovation. It is restoration. Our ancestors were returned to barrows and bogs and burial mounds, given back to the land that fed them. The vessel and the alfalfa are new; the covenant is ancient. The earth gives, and the earth receives. Every harvest festival we keep is built on that exchange. It would be strange to honor the cycle all our lives and then opt out of it at the end. This choice is now legal in a dozen states and counting. If it speaks to you, say so—out loud, in writing, to the people who will one day carry out your wishes. Death plans left unspoken become burdens; death plans spoken become gifts. A leaf falls. A seed sprouts. The tree does not grieve the leaf, and the soil does not refuse the seed. When my own time comes, I intend to be useful one last time. That, too, is a kind of prayer.  —Silent
For the Pagan and Contemplative Community
There is a grief that arrives before the death. It does not announce itself. It does not have a name that anyone uses at the dinner table, or in the waiting room, or in the parking lot of the care facility where you sit in your car for a few minutes before going in, gathering yourself. It lives in small moments. The first time they didn't recognize you. The day you realized you were making decisions for them that they would have hated. The night you caught yourself hoping — just for a second, just once — that it would be over soon, and then spent the next three days punishing yourself for the thought. This is called anticipatory grief. And it is real, and it is heavy, and almost no one will name it for you while you are living inside it, because you are the strong one, and the person you are losing is still here, and grief, we have been told, comes after. It doesn't always come after. Sometimes it comes alongside. Caregiving is one of the most demanding things a human being can do. It asks you to be present to someone else's diminishment, day after day, while managing your own fear and your own exhaustion and your own sadness — and while the world around you continues as though nothing unusual is happening. You go to the grocery store. You answer emails. You show up. You are praised for your strength, which is a kindness people offer because they don't know what else to give you. What you actually need is someone who will let you put the strength down for an hour. Not fix you. Not give you a plan. Not tell you that you're doing a great job, or that they couldn't do what you're doing, or that everything happens for a reason. Just someone who will sit with you in the weight of it. Who will not be frightened by what you are carrying. Who will let you say the unsayable things — the anger, the ambivalence, the love that is so tangled up with loss that you can no longer tell them apart. That is what I offer. I am a death doula and spiritual director. I work with caregivers who are in the middle of it — not at the end, not after, but now, in the long middle stretch where the grief has no official start date and the world has not yet given you permission to feel it. We meet, usually by video, for an hour at a time. I listen in a particular way — not for problems to solve, but for what is actually present beneath the exhaustion and the competence and the careful management of everyone else's emotions. You do not have to have it together when you come into this space. That is the point of it. A few things I will not do: I will not tell you how to grieve correctly. There is no correctly. I will not rush you toward acceptance or silver linings. Some things do not have silver linings, and pretending otherwise is a small violence. I will not give you more to manage. You are already managing too much. What I will do is be present — fully, unhurriedly, without an agenda — for whatever you bring into the room. If you are a caregiver and you are reading this and something in you recognized itself in these words, that recognition is an invitation.  I have a small number of spaces available for caregivers who are navigating the approach of death alongside someone they love. The intake questions at tokeepsilent.me are where we begin. Or you can reach me directly. There is no script for this conversation. We simply start. — Silent