presence

as an antidote to pain

Photo by James Wheeler on Unsplash

Two nights ago I was putting my older daughter to bed when she got quiet in that way children do when they have something on their mind that is bigger than they are.

“Mom,” she said, “I wish there was a spell you could cast over the house and property to keep all the bad things away.”

There are moments when things we say come back to haunt us. I wanted to give her the reassurance she was asking for. I wanted to give her a formula, a charm to say, a prayer to keep her safe. I didn’t. I had just written “God of Rescue/God of Presence” and I believed what I had said then.

“I won’t lie to you,” I told her. “I don’t think magic, or God, works that way. I don’t think there’s really any way we can keep the bad stuff away.”

Heavy words to hand a nine-year-old.

“You’re making me more scared,” she replied, not lying either. I pulled her against me, close and tight.

“I know,” I said, “me, too.”

~~

“Financial giving unlocks God’s protection in your life” was the most obnoxious tithing message I ever heard in a church, and the most extreme example of the vending machine god I grew up believing in. When I abandoned what I mistakenly called “faith’—which was, ironically, really just a way to be as certain and safe as I could be—I carried with me a fear of being uncovered, unprotected, vulnerable to the devil, or the world, or whatever. Every time of great need brought me right back to my old patterns of “ask and ye shall receive,” tainted more and more with frustration and the suspicion that nobody was actually listening. Then I found witchcraft, and everything changed; and nothing changed. I badly wanted to carry those same religious principles into this new form of practice. If I did the right spells, the right way, at the right time, with the right ingredients, and petitioned the right gods, I would get what I asked for. Right?

Red flag. I decided Wicca was not for me. I could not be a religious Anything and maintain a healthy, balanced spirituality. I was an addict looking for a substitute drug. I couldn’t go back there.

And yet…

Last spring I felt the need to claim protection over my house, my land, my family, so I walked the boundaries of our property dropping glass stones that I had blessed and anointed. As I did so, I was reminded of my mother’s special vial of anointing oil from Israel that she would smear on our foreheads whenever we were really sick, or she was worried about us for some other reason. I had thought it rather ridiculous then, although I appreciated the concern behind the gesture. But, walking the boundary in the spring sunshine I felt a gathering power riding in my wake, as though the spirits of every woman who has ever prayed for the protection of her family, no matter how she did it, were trailing behind me; a mantle of presence and strength. It was one of the most empowering moments of my life.