What You Worship Is What You Value

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the connection between religion and values. In some respects, this connection is so obvious that it doesn’t bear articulating. Patriarchal societies have patriarchal religions; in agrarian societies we see religions structured around the symbols of sowing and harvest. The gods of the steppes are cavaliers and the gods of the coasts are fishers. People worship what they value, and in societies with shared values, those values shape the structure of religion on the whole. This is why Catholicism in Mexico can look so different from Catholicism in Ireland; even though it’s nominally the same religion, it looks different in different places with their own respective cultures.

The things people value can be widespread. Some are features of the natural world; in polytheistic religions, we invariably see sun gods, rain gods, and the like. Some are human activities, and we find gods of poetry, smithing, medicine, and war. Some are universal experiences that shape us, as with gods of death or desire. Not all of these things are pleasant; when I say that we value something in worshipping it, I don’t mean we uphold it as good or to be celebrated. Most people wouldn’t think war is good, and more of us fear death than we’d like to admit—but even so, religion shapes itself around these things because we find them important. There is something about them that feels significant, bigger than us, and worthy of our respect (if not always of our admiration).

That’s all well and good in terms of societies and the values that reflect them. Looking at the terms in which American evangelical Christians describe their God, you’ll learn a lot about the values that they collectively hold. But I think there’s also something to be said—particularly within Pagan and polytheist spaces—about the individual choices we make in our worship.

I’ve talked a bit before about how I have finite time and energy, and so I have to choose which devotional relationships I cultivate. I am primarily dedicated to worshipping the Gods of the Wica: A lunar Mother Goddess and her consort, the Horned God. I have made a decision to prioritize the worship of these deities over any others, including the other gods with whom I have devotional relationships. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how that reflects my values.

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, I chose to walk into one belonging to these particular deities. Why? Because these gods are important to me. They matter to me, so much so that when confronted with a choice about how I’m going to spend my time, I decide to spend it on them. And I think that on some deep, fundamental level, that reflects what most closely held values are.

There are lots of things I value. I care about justice, about wisdom, about cleverness, honor, humor, friendship, the environment, art, material comfort, and countless other things. And in the wide landscape of Paganism, there are gods who reflect all of those values. But I don’t prioritize the worship of any of those gods. If I cared first and foremost about justice, that might be reflected in my religious practice with the veneration of deities like Nemesis or Aradia. If I cared most about wisdom, I might be devoted primarily to Athena or Thoth. But I’m not. In fact, none of those gods are even on the periphery of my worship.

So if worship reflects values, and my worship is given over almost entirely to these two deities, what are the values reflected by that choice? What have I decided is most important to me?

The answer is complicated. The Gods (all gods, and not just the two I’m discussing here) are big, with complex personalities. They reflect more than just one thing, and as such, worship is rarely if ever a cut-and-dried matter of “If you worship god X, you value thing Y.” Moreover, the answer is highly individual; each person has their own relationship to their gods, and finds their own values reflected in those gods. What I see in the Gods of the Wicca is indicative of my own experience, but every other Wiccan will have an experience distinct from mine. As such, even if I say “To me, the Gods of the Wica reflect value Y,” that isn’t necessarily true of everyone else (or even anyone else) who worships those same Gods.

Of the many answers that could be given here, some include: Environmentalism and concern for the natural world, interconnectedness and community, feminism, and ecstasy. Robert Graves identifies the Goddess as ruling over three principal mysteries of birth, death, and beauty. In my book Queen of all Witcheries, I mention a personal perspective on the Goddess as ruling over beauty, goodness, and truth. All of these are things that could be considered core values reflected by my worship of the Wiccan Gods. In truth, these are all things that I value, and value deeply; they are undoubtedly an important part of why I was drawn to these Gods and why their worship matters so much to me.

But when I try to drill down to the core of it, to the Thing That Matters at the heart of my religion, I come back again and again to an idea of cyclicality: This idea that the universe is in a constant ebb and flow, that everything grows and decays, begins and ends. The Wiccan Gods are complex, but if I had to but a rubber stamp on each of them and say “X is the god of Y” (the way people say “Aphrodite is the goddess of love” or “Thor is the god of thunder”), I would say that she is the Goddess of birth and he is the God of death. And the heart of my experience of Wicca is in the eternal give and take between the two of them. Of all the things I could value in the world, the thing that feels the most significant and important to me is that constant push and pull between birth and death, increase and decrease, (dare I use Qabalistic language?) form and force. And so that’s where I choose to spend my energy in religious devotion.

What about you? What does your religious practice say about your values? Who do you worship, and how does that reflect what’s most important to you?