Jan 09 2009
Creating Balance Between Supporting One Another and Community Involvement
My grove, the Green Faerie Grove , held its Yule meeting on December 27, 2008. Our meetings are always interesting as we are a very involved and active group so the diversity of ideas and issues presented at our business meetings really reflects the many interests of our membership. Our group is incorporated in Ohio as a not-for-profit corporation and we do a lot of work to support our GLBT community. One of the biggest parts of our mission includes outreach into the greater Pagan community to demonstrate the place of GLBT practitioners in alternative spirituality. I’m very proud of our members in this respect. Many of us hold positions of leadership in other pagan and spiritual organizations and even in a number of mundane GLBT organizations. From these positions, we regularly have the opportunity to be spiritual counselors and advisors to gay and bi men. Our group began and continues to run the Between the Worlds gathering, an alternative spiritual gathering for gay and bi men. This project has been a huge undertaking but a richly rewarding one. We’ve created a large virtual community of gay and bi spiritual practitioners from across the nation that stay in close contact and support and encourage one another on their paths.
The issue that came up during our meeting however was one that is a bit tricky. One of our other missions is to support our brothers in the grove in the pursuit of their own spirituality. Some of our members felt that we’d been doing poorly in this regard. Social functions amongst the grove members had dropped over sharply over the last year as people were busy with their lives and when the grove did meet, we were so focused on the work we do in the larger community. It became apparent as we discussed this issue that the grove needed to strike a better balance between outreach in the the larger pagan and/or GLBT community and feeding and nourishing our own spirits within the grove. While I certainly believe this is a possible balance to strike, I do also believe it will be a challenging one. How do you make sure the internal needs are being met while not appearing cliquish or too isolated? How do you minister to the greater community without burning yourselves out? It’s definitely a tightrope to walk. I’d love to hear from other groups that have struggled with this issue and how you resolved them.
