The New York state senate is expected to vote on the marriage equality bill shortly. I just contacted my New York state senator through the Human Rights Campaign. They’ve made it quick and easy to send a personal message to legislators. With all that has taken place in Albany, now more than ever state senators need to hear from you and other New Yorkers who support marriage equality.

This issue is very important to me, and taking action will only take a moment. Please join me in writing to your state senator today.
To take action on this issue, click on the link below:
https://secure3.convio.net/hrc/site/Advocacy?s_oo=Hw9JcUIg4Rhh8WmzzmBm9Q..&id=619
If the text above does not appear as a link or it wraps across multiple lines, then copy and paste it into the address area of your browser.

Happy Beltaine!

For a list of suggestions for how to celebrate, please visit The Chalice Centre's Website

The Spring edition of PATHWAYS follows…

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From TreeHugger.com

What's the Big Deal?

The future is green, and you just found it. These days you probably feel flooded by dire-sounding environmental news ("the Earth is set to deflate by 2011") and endless suggestions for greener living ("algae cold-fusion reactors for your shoes"). But fret not. We're here to help sort things out and get your eco show on the road. Here, we bring it back to basics and break it down into bite sized chunks of simple, everyday ways to live a greener, healthier, more ethical (and ultimately more fun) life. So read on. And remember, if you have a friend, relative, or colleague who needs a little help on the green front, send them this way.

1. Educate yourself

How can you solve the problem if you don’t know what the problem is? Luckily, fun, accessible information on green thinking, environmentalism and sustainable living is everywhere these days. Why not start with online sources like our very own Green Guides . Other websites like Grist , Ideal Bite or Worldchanging also offer great advice and different perspectives. If you prefer the print media, check out magazines like Plenty, Good, or UTNE http://www.utne.com/. And if you’re not much of a reader, documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth, Who Killed the Electric Car?, or the BBC’s Planet Earth are also a good place to start.

2. Transport

Having got a little reading under your belt, you’re probably itching to get started. One of the biggest impacts we have on the planet is a direct result of the way we move ourselves around. Fortunately, for many of us, this is also easy to do something about. You might consider walking, biking or using mass transit, at least a few days a week. Maybe you can convince your boss to let you work from home? Maybe you can carpool with a friend? If nothing else, you should certainly consider fuel consumption as a major factor in your choice of next vehicle. And when it comes to longer trips, flying is notoriously carbon intensive – so let the train take the strain wherever possible. Find a greener route from A to B with How to Green Your Car, and our Cars and Transportation section.

3. Energy

With all the talk of solar panels, fuel cells, building-integrated wind turbines, and flux capacitors, it can be easy to think you need a million bucks to go green at home. Not so. Many of the most effective ways to cut carbon emissions are also the cheapest. Turn lights off when you go out, install energy efficient bulbs and appliances, insulate your home, and keep an eye on consumption. Once you’ve done all that, why not investigate if you can buy green energy from your local utility? Check out our guides on How to Green Your Heating and How to Green Your Electricity for a more detailed plunge.

4. Water

This is where the folks in Seattle or the UK start switching off, but stay with us, please! Even if you live in areas of abundant rainfall, water is still a major ecological issue. Clean, drinkable water is precious and needs to be used most efficiently. Every drop of tap water we use also requires energy to filter, purify and transport, and that means fossil fuel emissions. And for those of you in dryer areas, you know only too well that water is becoming an ever-scarcer resource. Fortunately it’s pretty easy to do something about—install water-saving shower heads and aerators, turn the tap off when you’re brushing your teeth, switch to more efficient appliances, or collect rainwater for use in the garden. All this and more can be found in our guide, How to Green Your Water. For those wanting to go a little more hardcore, the Navy Shower, or the "selective flush" are worth a try—if the comments on these posts are anything to go by, you’ll be in good company!

5. Food

We’ve all got to eat, and most of us do it every day. It stands to reason that our collective food choices have a huge impact on the planet, and with the global food industry shipping products further and further around the world, and with farming becoming ever more intensive, this impact is only getting bigger. Fortunately, there is a resistance underway. More and more people are getting interested in sustainable food systems. To bring it back to basics, there are four principles that can help guide you to greener meals: eat local, eat seasonal, eat organic, and finally, eat less meat. For a comprehensive guide to a more sustainable diet, check out How to Green Your Meals and the Food and Health category.

6. Waste

Not so many years ago, waste was THE environmental issue. If you recycled, you were green. If you didn’t, you weren’t. With so many topics on the environmental agenda these days, things aren’t so simple. But waste is still a big deal. Every item thrown away has taken energy and resources to manufacture and transport, and it will take even more energy and resources to process and dispose of, whether through landfill or recycling. So the old adage still rings true: reduce, reuse, recycle. And don’t forget to compost! Of course we have a guide on How to Green Your Recycling, and you can find it here. Online resources like Freecycle or Ebay can also help you find a happy home your unwanted goods.

7. Threads

Most folks understand that food, energy, water, and transport are major environmental factors, but what about clothing? Even consumers who always eat organic may happily be wearing garments that were liberally sprayed with noxious chemicals. Cotton is, in fact, one of the most heavily sprayed crops on the planet, so it stands to reason that our choice of clothing can have a major ecological impact. Fortunately, solutions are out there. Organic cotton, and other alternative fabrics like hemp, flax or bamboo are becoming increasingly common, as are high-end fashion items from recycled materials. And then, of course, there are the trusty vintage and thrift stores so beloved by students everywhere—style never goes out of fashion. More digging through the racks can be found in our Fashion and Beauty and How to Green Your Wardrobe.

8. Personal care

Ever since The Body Shop first hit the high street in the Eighties, there’s been an increased awareness about the impacts of personal care products on both the environment and on our health. Fortunately, there has also been a huge increase in the number of companies providing more sustainable alternatives. Check out our guide to women’s personal care and the Fashion and Beauty section, and stay tuned for a guide for the fellas. But remember, less is almost always more when it comes to green living—that hemp-based, yak’s milk lip blusher may be the greenest product of its kind on the market, but going ‘au natural’ takes you one step further!

9. Furniture & décor

Many of us spend staggering amounts of money on furniture during our lifetime. Now most TreeHugger’s will be aware that buying tropical hardwoods from Amazonian clear-cuts is a poor way to look after our natural heritage, but what are the alternatives? Fortunately, the industry is responding to concerns about its sourcing practices, and stylish furniture from certified, sustainably harvested and/or recycled and salvaged materials is becoming increasingly common. More details can be found in our furniture guide and in the Design and Architecture category.

10. Keep it clean

Now you’ve spent all this time putting your house in order with organic clothing and chemical-free furniture, why douse it in chemicals to keep it clean? Many everyday cleaning products are made up of pretty nasty constituents, yet there are natural alternatives that work just as well. Take a look at our How to Green Your Cleaning.

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For the extensive colelction of TreeHugger's ways to green your life, please visit TreeHugger.com!

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“Magic.  It’s real. It’s not just make believe.”

“It’s been said that magic is the art of changing consciousness in conformity with will.  Which, when you think about it, is a fancy way of saying ‘let’s pretend’!  That doesn’t really say what magic is.  It shows one way that magic is done.”

“So, what is magic?”

“The magic that can be named is not true magic.”

”That’s not very helpful.”

“Sure it is.  It just isn’t what you expect.”

“So, magic is something that can’t be controlled or understood?”

“Magic isn’t a thing.  It’s active.  It’s the mystery in motion.”

-From “9 Lives, Many Masters,” by Zak Kramer.

(For the full strip, which, in my opinion, does a much, much better job of explaining what it means to be Pagan and what it doesn’t than most books that have been written on the subject, please start here… keep reading until you get to the end.  Then read it again if you’re still confused.)

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You are invited to a Church Weekend

at Letchworth State Park!

Saturday, March 22: 11:00 am 'till dark!

Letchworth State Park, renowned as the "Grand Canyon of the East," is one of the most scenically magnificent areas in the eastern U.S. The Genesee River roars through the gorge over three major waterfalls between cliffs–as high as 600 feet in some places–surrounded by lush forests. Hikers can choose among 66 miles of hiking trails.

Ostarra at Letchworth has become a very special, annual event for the Rochester parish, and we'd love to bring along more friends! No "high ritual" is planned, so it's a perfect event for newcomers and children as well. Instead of hunting for dyed eggs, we have a different kind of annual treasure hunt: the "treasure" left behind by the melting snows! The debris left behind by the winter is revealed for anybody with a keen eye and a creative mind. Who knows what we'll find!!

If interested, please meet us there at 11:00. We will wait at the front gate until then. Latecomers can drive along the beautiful scenic main road and look for our cars (the toothpaste-green Ford Escort is pretty hard to miss!) A Picnic lunch will happen at Tea Table Rock at 1:00: bring food to pass!

For park info and directions, please visit http://www.letchworthpark.com/

Questions?
Please Contact Rev. Tracie Voss at tracie@churchofancientpaths.org

We look forward to seeing you there!!

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The survey, conducted by the Gallup polling agency over six years and three continents, seeks to dispel the belief held by some in the West that Islam itself is the driving force of radicalism.

It shows that the overwhelming majority of Muslims condemned the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001 and other subsequent terrorist attacks, the authors of the study said in Washington.

"Samuel Harris said in the Washington Times (in 2004): 'It is time we admitted that we are not at war with terrorism. We are at war with Islam'," Dalia Mogadeh, co-author of the book "Who Speaks for Islam" which grew out of the study, told a news conference here.

"The argument Mr Harris makes is that religion in the primary driver" of radicalism and violence, she said.

"Religion is an important part of life for the overwhelming majority of Muslims, and if it were indeed the driver for radicalisation, this would be a serious issue."

But the study, which Gallup says surveyed a sample equivalent to 90 percent of the world's Muslims, showed that widespread religiosity "does not translate into widespread support for terrorism," said Mogadeh, director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.

About 93 percent of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims are moderates and only seven percent are politically radical, according to the poll, based on more than 50,000 interviews.

In majority Muslim countries, overwhelming majorities said religion was a very important part of their lives — 99 percent in Indonesia, 98 percent in Egypt, 95 percent in Pakistan.

But only seven percent of the billion Muslims surveyed — the radicals — condoned the attacks on the United States in 2001, the poll showed.

Moderate Muslims interviewed for the poll condemned the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington because innocent lives were lost and civilians killed.

"Some actually cited religious justifications for why they were against 9/11, going as far as to quote from the Koran — for example, the verse that says taking one innocent life is like killing all humanity," she said.

Meanwhile, radical Muslims gave political, not religious, reasons for condoning the attacks, the poll showed.

The survey shows radicals to be neither more religious than their moderate counterparts, nor products of abject poverty or refugee camps.

"The radicals are better educated, have better jobs, and are more hopeful with regard to the future than mainstream Muslims," John Esposito, who co-authored "Who Speaks for Islam", said.

"Ironically, they believe in democracy even more than many of the mainstream moderates do, but they're more cynical about whether they'll ever get it," said Esposito, a professor of Islamic studies at Georgetown University in Washington.

Gallup launched the study following 9/11, after which US President George W. Bush asked in a speech, which is quoted in the book: "Why do they hate us?"

"They hate… a democratically elected government," Bush offered as a reason.

"They hate our freedoms — our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other."

But the poll, which gives ordinary Muslims a voice in the global debate that they have been drawn into by 9/11, showed that most Muslims — including radicals — admire the West for its democracy, freedoms and technological prowess.

What they do not want is to have Western ways forced on them, it said.

"Muslims want self-determination, but not an American-imposed and -defined democracy. They don't want secularism or theocracy. What the majority wants is democracy with religious values," said Esposito.

The poll has given voice to Islam's silent majority, said Mogahed.

"A billion Muslims should be the ones that we look to, to understand what they believe, rather than a vocal minority," she told AFP.

Muslims in 40 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East were interviewed for the survey, which is part of Gallup's World Poll that aims to interview 95 percent of the world's population.

Photo:

A Muslim walks past giant windows before prayer at the grand Mosque, Istiqlal, in Jakarta, in 2007. (AFP/File)

Original Article

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By Adelle M. Banks

If you're Buddhist in the United States, you're most likely a white convert who lives in the American West.

If you're a Jehovah's Witness, you're likely to be a white Southerner, but almost half of your fellow believers are either African-American or Hispanic.

And if you're a Midwesterner, you're living in the region that best reflects the religious diversity of America.

A new study of more than 35,000 adult Americans by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life captures the depth and breadth of religious America — 78.4 percent Christian, 4.7 percent members of other faiths and 16.1 percent unaffiliated.

The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, released Monday (Feb. 25), estimates the religious makeup of the country's 225 million adults in groups as large as evangelical Protestants (26.3 percent) and as small as Unitarians (0.3 percent).

The study also paints a picture of people who often move from one faith to another, as well as the religious landscape of various parts of the country. Pew researcher John Green called the Midwest a "microcosm of American religion" and closely matches the overall religious profile of the U.S. population's largest religious groups:

– Evangelical Protestant: 26 percent

– Mainline Protestant: 22 percent

– Catholic: 24 percent

"In religious terms, the Midwest really … does reflect, of all the regions, the great diversity, at least in terms of affiliation," said Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum and an expert on religion and politics at the University of Akron.

Stephen Prothero, who chairs the religion department at Boston University, said that description fits, given the predominantly Catholic Northeast, mostly Baptist South and a Western region known for Buddhists, Hindus and people with no religious affiliation. The Midwest may be known for Lutherans, he said, "but the Lutherans don't dominate in the Midwest the way that the Catholics do in New England or the Southern Baptists do in the Southeast."

Other key findings of the study include:

– Of the 16.1 percent of Americans who are not affiliated with any faith, just 4 percent describe themselves as atheist or agnostic. The remaining 12 percent are almost equally divided between the "secular unaffiliated," who say religion is not important in their lives and the "religious unaffiliated," who say religion is at least somewhat important.

"Some of those people are between religions," said Green. "Some of them are just hostile to organized religion. They're fine with God."

– Catholics are the religious group with the greatest loss of adherents, with former Catholics making up about 10 percent of the U.S. population. Hindus, on the other hand, are best at retaining their faith; eight in 10 Hindus who were born into the faith remain connected to it.

– More than a quarter of Americans — 28 percent — have left the faith of their childhoods for another — or no faith at all. Including changes from one form of Protestantism to another, 44 percent of Americans have changed their affiliation or dropped their connection to a faith. Jehovah's Witnesses and Buddhists are among the faiths with the lowest retention rates of childhood members.

– The nation's Protestants make up just 51 percent of the U.S. population, meaning that segment of Christianity is close to becoming a religious minority. Young people are helping fuel that trend: While 62 percent of Americans 70 and older are Protestant, only 43 percent of Americans ages 18-29 are.

Barry Kosmin, a sociologist of religion at Trinity College in Connecticut, said he first detected a drop in Protestant identification in the 1990s. "Christian' has kind of replaced `Protestant' as a term for most Americans," he said. "If you ask most students `What is a Protestant?', they don't even know the term."

– Muslims are the most racially diverse faith group, including 37 percent who are white, 24 percent who are black, and 20 percent Asian.

– More than a third of married Americans — 37 percent — are married to someone with a different religious affiliation, including a different Protestant faith. Hindus and Mormons are most likely to be married to someone of the same religion, while majorities of Buddhists and the "unaffiliated" have married someone of a different religion.

– Researchers found that Jews outnumber Muslims, with Jews comprising 1.7 percent of the adult population and Muslims comprising 0.6 percent.

The massive size of the survey enables a closer look at some of the smaller faiths in America, but some other studies, such as the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, have had larger samples.

The Pew survey results are based on more than 35,000 telephone interviews, some of which were done in Spanish, between May and August

The margin of error for distinct religious groups varies widely depending on sample size. For the 9,472 evangelical Protestants surveyed, it was plus or minus 1.5 percentage points, but for the 411 Buddhist respondents, it was plus or minus 6.5 percentage points.

Copyright 2008 Religion News Service. All rights reserved.

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Bill Urell was a recovering addict and a trained addiction counselor, but he rejected the idea that faith was part of the healing journey… until he realized "Spirituality did not get me sober. It keeps me sober. What it does for me is add texture, color, and depth to my sober living experience. "

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