Honouring the Badge
-An Instructional Sharing-
By Staff Writer: Paganus Greybeard
I was a good Officer. I did what I needed to do. I walked my job-sites,
drove my patrol beats, and wrote my reports. I never came close to a
physical encounter or confrontation. I had more heated encounters with my own
supervisors than I ever did with the public. As I explained in “Walking
the Line” much of the time there was no supervision of any significance. You were
- for all practical intents and purposes - your own supervisor. For some
Officers this could - and did lead - to some problems. The most frequent was
sleeping on the job. It’s 03:30 in the AM and nothing is happening. You sit in your
vehicle and rest your feet. Next thing you know it’s 45 minutes later and -
blessing’s be - it’s still quiet. I know. I’ve done it. So you get up - and do
another ‘walk-about’. It’s just what you do. Have you ‘dishonoured’ the Badge?
No. I have even ’salvaged’ some ‘materials’ from the trash at sites.
Theft? No. Salvage. It was in the trash or headed for the trash.
Is even this ‘dishonouring’ the Badge? No.
Neither of these is ‘dishonouring’ the Badge.
I ‘honoured’ my Badges. I worked, I walked, I wrote. Ok. So I had the occasional
darkhours nap and I kept a watch on the trash - I was still a good Officer.
I still am. As I have said - it is the attitude that matters not the employment status.
So since I am not employed as a ‘watchman’ - what badge am I still honouring?
Here. I’ll ’show’ you…..
This is my Pentacle. This is my Celtic Shield/Cross. I wear both.
I wear the Pentacle in honour of the Lord & Lady and the Goddess Earth
Mother. I wear the Celtic Shield/Cross because I honour the Creator.
As I have said before - many times in many places - it’s all the same Deity/Divinity.
The ALL has an infinity of names for an infinity of believers following
an infinity of ‘religions’ and ‘faiths’. The ALL is truly Infinite.
It is that Infinity that I honour. It is that Infinity that I
’serve’….
My ’service’ is limited - at this present time - to these humble and inadequate
words I write for the MysticWitch and Live Journal Readerships. Since
these articles - once I get them written and posted - go to both MysticWitch.com
and LiveJournal.com I have a very modest Readership. But it is for this
Readership - no matter how small - that I write and ‘perform’ my ’service’.
Other’s have a far more active service. Mz. RavenFyre ran a small
shop on the weekends. That’s very open and obvious service to the Lord & Lady.
Tirgana does Pagan Festivals. I do Renaissance Re-Enactment Festivals.
Aislinne Unne is a new mother. Agate is a student in College and a
writer of long reports in a favorite local coffee-house. We all do our service in our
own ways. How many wear the Pentacle? I cannot say. How many also wear a Celtic
Shield/Cross? I do not know. I wear both because I am the Paganus and I am slightly
strange and weird anyway…..
My ‘badge’ may no longer be for a “Security” Company. I may no
longer walk a post or patrol a beat. But I am still ‘in-service’. It’s just that I
have a new and more important ‘employer’. I have to be more aware of myself
now. I don’t just represent a private industry anymore - I represent the Lord
and Lady. I represent the ALL.
It is because I now ‘represent’ the ALL that wearing any of my
previous ‘badges’ no longer feels quite right. The ‘badge is meant to symbolize and
instantly represent Truth, Justice, Honour, Ethics and something that once was called ‘The
American Way….’. I am not certain any of these apply anymore. In a very real
way I am not certain of those even exist anymore….
Justice? What is that when a “Celebrity” is found “Not Guilty of
All Charges". Children are Sacred and are to be held Inviolate. Even so much as the
appearance of misuse and abuse - social and well as sexual - is abhorrent and
repellant. Whether or not the “Celebrity” ever did fondle the genitals of young
boys is moot after the verdict. The Children were Violated anyway. Children
are the Blessed Hope for the Future. Don’t ever even think of misusing or
abusing them. They are Sacred. You do not Violate any of your ‘religious’
’sacraments’ do you?
Do not violate the Children.
The two top officials of Tyco were indicted and they were found
“Guilty". The Lady ‘Justice’ is depicted as blind but is she off-balance and
confused? She missed the obvious in the matter of the “Celebrity” and yet ‘rings
the hammer down’ on the two Tyco Corporation executives.
Ethics is also in severe doubt with Bell-South’s Chief Executive rigging
the accounts. Ethics are seemingly utterly ascent for this corporate executive.
IF and when he is found “Guilty” Justice may gain back a miniscule bit
of the lustre she once had.
Truth? What is Truth? We - as a Nation - were told in early 2002
that our Government was not actively planning upon and considering military
action in Afghanistan and Iraq. Then - earlier this year - comes the “Downing Street memo".
Truth? From this Presidential Administration? Honour no longer lives here.
Does “Abu Ghirab” mean anything to the Readership? There is no Honour
in this ‘war’. There never has been. There is the newly ‘revealed’ matter of the
Interior Department’s ‘Guidelines for Cattle Grazing’. Sincere and accurate
scientific analysis and conclusions were blatantly re-written to fit the prevailing
political climate. The report was re-written and there are no apologies for the re-writing.
What kind of ‘Ethics’ is it when science has to conform to ‘political’
‘reality’? Where is there - in any of that - Honour? Where is there - in any of
that - Respect? Dignity?
What then of this mythical “….American Way…"?
It’s a Myth. It’s good in stories for children and fictional comic
book characters. In street-level reality it’s meaningless. It’s actually
even worse than that. It ‘wraps in the flag’ Injustice, Abscenece of Ethics,
DisHonour, DisRespect, and total lack of Truth.
Here then is why I cannot easily wear again any of my previous
badges. I know I am being boldly heretical here. This is “Politically
InCorrect” heresy of the worst kind. I will not wear the ‘badges’ of Honour when there is
no Honour. I will not wear a ‘badges’ of Justice when there is no Justice. I
simply cannot and will not do it. The ‘badges’ represent and symbolize something that no
longer - save perhaps only for this Solitary Paganus - exists. The “…American
Way…". It used to mean something. Perhaps to this Paganus it still does…
I wear the Pentacle. I wear the Celtic Shield/Cross. I no longer
wear the ‘badges’ of ‘my’ ‘homeland nation’. Wearing them would be -
for this Paganus - the ultimate act of dishonour and disrespect.
I will wear the Pentacle. I can and will wear the symbol of the
Earth, the Water, the Air, the Fire and the Spirit. That I can wear.
That I will wear. There is no “politics” in that. I can also wear the
Celtic Shield/Cross. There is no dishonour or disrepect there.
In fact - there is a great measure of respect and honour in wearing the
symbol of the ‘ancient’ Celts. Violent and Brutal - by our current day
standards they may well have been - but in their own ‘primitive’ way they had
Honour. They had Justice. They had Ethics. They had Dignity and Respect.
They had their own “…Celtic Way….". Perhaps it may be time to
return to some of these ‘ancient’ and ‘primitive’ ways.
I am not ‘Civilized’. I am becoming more ‘Pagan’ by the day. I
believe in Honour, Ethics, Dignity, Respect, Truth, Justice and something
mythological called “…the American Way…". Perhaps I am just out-of-date and should be
set aside on shelf somewhere with the other ‘ancient’ ‘historical’ artifacts.
I said it before and I will say it again here -
“Go hug a tree. The tree will understand. You will will too - later….".
I know I understand….
Do you?
Will you?