(^104) A Wiccan Bible
Hear the words of our forgotten father, he who stands against injustice and
beckons men to come forth into his service.
I who am the force of the blue sky, the thunder therein found, and the rain
without which there would be no waters.
I call upon your soul to rise and come unto Me.
For I am the soul of nature that preserves and protects life in this universe.
From Me all things proceed and unto Me they must return.
Let My worship be in the heart of the just, for behold—all acts of justice are My
rituals.
Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility,
mirth and reverence within you.
And you who seek to know Me, know that your seeking and yearning will avail
you not, unless you know the Mystery: for if that which you seek, you find not
within yourself, you will never find it without.
For behold, I have been with you from the beginning, and I am that which is
attained at the end of desire.
Note on Charge of the God: This is an obvious attempt to echo the Charge of
the Goddess. Please remember that the words that appear in your own heart
are the ones that are important, not the words that appear here.
Using the Charges to Invite Our Lord and Lady
The key to understanding both a Charge of Our Mother and a Charge of Our
Father is to know that the first line of each is generally not spoken by the person who
speaks the rest of the charge. That is, if a host (priest) and hostess (priestess) are per-
forming an invocation, the host invites the hostess (line one of a Charge of our Mother)
to become the earthly representative of our Lady in this rite. The hostess then speaks
the remainder of a Charge of Our Mother. The hostess invites the host (line one of a
Charge of our Father) to become the earthly representative of our Lord in this rite.
The host then speaks the remainder of a Charge of Our Father.
The reason neither Charge is simply read out of a book that someone else wrote is
because it would be entirely too silly. Doing so would be like playing house rather than
maintaining a household, it is playing Wicca rather than being Wiccan. While the prac-
tice might be fine and dandy for a training coven or for practice, in the real world it just
does not cut it.
Consider the ritual structure of the first handfasting. When our Lord and Lady are
invited into the rite, when the invitation of the Lord and Lady is given, that invitation is
a public proposal and declaration, which might look like this: On one knee, host asks
hostess to be his fiancée in accordance with his varar (a special form of a promise we
will discuss later), then she speaks her acceptance. She then takes his hands and helps
him to his feet. She, then on bent knee, does the same. He accepts and helps her to her
l WB Chap 05.p65 104 7/11/2003, 5:50 PM
barré
(Barré)
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