Spending Thanksgiving in Lawrence,
Kansas, was not a good way to get much writing done for this blog.  Between seeing my family, from brothers
and sisters-in-law to their kids and their kids’ kids, plus other wives,
cousins and their succeeding generations was delightful and exhausting at the
same time.  Add to that finding the
time to see old friends from my undergraduate days in the 60s and an unexpected
opportunity to run in Lawrence’s 5K race, and writing on this computer seemed
somewhere off in another galaxy. 
Finding the time to write was a goal still more distant.

But I did notice that here, surrounded by a state suffering to a more than everage degree with the affliction of the ‘Christian’ Taliban, a few brave entrepreneurial souls were making themselves public.

I had noticed a sign for The
Village Witch as I came into town, and today I took the time to visit
them.  The Village Witch is a small
Pagan store with a wonderful public altar that included space for our citizens
serving their country in the military, be they Pagan or otherwise.  A special place had been set aside for
the men and women at Fort Hood.  I
felt a surge of pride in my community for its inclusive care for other
citizens, something increasingly challenged in America today.

Most Pagans I know, maybe all of
them, are quite critical of America’s military imperialism.  But most of us also make a huge
distinction before the brave men and women who devote all or a part of their
lives in military service to their country, and the scoundrels and fanatics,
Republican and Democratic alike, who somehow think they are acting bravely by
sending other men to kill and die in needless slaughter/

That altar for our soldiers at Fort
Hood made me feel closer to my fellow Pagans as well as to our men and women
under arms.