Postmodern Vampirism

I met a fascinating woman the other night at my local coffeehouse. I got chatting to S. while she was waiting for people to come to her table to have their tarrot read. It wasn't long before we started talking about spiritual matters. S. asked me about the book I was reading (The Post Evangelical) so I explained a little bit about the journey of faith that I am on in discovering what it means to be a Christian in the 21st century. Soon she was telling me about her spiritual journey and how, since she was 14, she has followed the religion of Wicca.

Now wicca is pretty far removed from Christianity - even to my generous orthodoxy. But when someone is keen to talk about spirituality then I'm keen to listen and share a little of what I believe.

My first thought about wicca was that it has something to do with witches. If that is true then S. seemed awfully nice for being a witch. (Maybe they don't really fly around on broomsticks with an ugly look on their face accompanied by a scrawny cat as I thought). Anyway, S. was quick to tell me that she wasn't in a coven, but just practiced wicca on her own. I couldn't help thinking about all the people I've met who would say the same thing about Christianity. Well, not the coven bit. I'm talking about Christian spirituality without attending church.

S. teaches at the moment while she is studying for her doctorate in, yes you've guessed it, 'Postmodern Vampirism'. I was surprised that vampires suffered from the strains of the cultural shift that is postmodernism, but apparently they do. I was actually more surprised that there would be enough research material in the world to study this topic at PhD level. (I should maybe google it).

One of the main features of Wicca and a big difference I saw with regard to a Christian spirituality was the wiccan acknowledgement of god in nature. For the wiccan a stone or a tree or a river is worthy of worship itself as that component of nature is a god. For me, I see and experience the incredible beauty in nature which leads me to the Higher Beauty - the Creator God of all things beautiful: Stones, trees, rivers, S. and me.