A Modest Proposal

 

Face it, folks: there's strength in numbers. We need a term that includes us all.

Once “pagan” was our prime term of art, but since (like fractious adolescents) we tend to define ourselves by rebelling against what we're not, that simply doesn't work anymore.

So here's my suggestion.

I think that we need to take a page from the GLBTQI+ playbook.

(Interestingly, both “gay” and “queer,” originally intended as terms of inclusion, have since come to be used exclusively instead. Hai mai, it's nice to know that you're not alone in the world.)

We need to come up with a long, unwieldy, mysterious string of capital letters that's constantly bloating into a longer, more unwieldy, and ever more mysterious string of capital letters that never quite manages to resolve into a pronounceable acronym.

Of course, since—for all our egocentricity—we tend to have fragile egos, we need to be as inclusive as possible when we do this.

Let's see: Witch-Warlock-Wiccan-Pagan-Heathen-Druid-Reconstructionist-Polytheist....

This we can then rescramble periodically—say at the Solstices and Equinoxes—so that everyone gets a chance to be first for a while and no one, Gods forbid, should feel left out.

So—take a deep breath, now—to the entire W3PHDRP+ community, let me extend my very best wishes for a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2019.

Or something.