Religion - n. 1a(1): the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2): commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance; 2: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs and practices 3(archaic): scrupulous conformity, conscientiousness 4: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor or faith

Religious - v. 1: relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity 2: Of, relating to, or devoted to religious beliefs or observances 3a: scrupulously and conscientiously faithful 3b: fervent, zealous, devout

Both definitions from Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary.

The website before you is dedicated to Kemetic Orthodoxy, which is defined as a religion, by persons who consider themselves religious. We hear this word fairly often in the world, from organizations, from persons, and in the media. What does it really mean, religion? And what does it mean to be religious?

The original Latin root of religion comes from the verb meaning "to bind again" or "to relink" - religio. There are two ideas implicit in religio, that most persons of faith would ascribe to: 1) there is a need to be bound to something and 2) without religion it is an incomplete action.

What is the purpose of religion? To what are religious persons consenting, or even volunteering, to be bound - and why? The answer is twofold. Think of a knot. Knots are usually made to hold (bind) two things together - a pair of shoelaces, ropes on a ship's mast, cords attaching luggage to a vehicle. It is possible to put a knot in one object, but usually (as a knot in your hair or a knot in a garden hose), knots within one thing are a nuisance rather than helpful. From this analogy, we can probably agree that the idea that the purpose of religion is linking two things together, rather than bundling up one.

The two things, in most religions, are man and the divine - either between man and the divine in direct communion, or even, sometimes, between three things - a reciprocal relationship between man, the divine, and other men. Most religions would posit the third - that we have a bond (a religion) between ourselves, the Divine, and each other - and no one can exist without the other two and still be religion. Religion is not about serving yourself - or ONLY about serving God. It's about God and yourself and others, whether they are "in the same knot" as it were, or in another. As the ties that bind, these "religions" indicate relationships between all of us, back and forth, no one better than another, but each very, very important.

There is a place for serving the self, but it is not religion in and of itself. Religion was designed to bring people and God together, not to bring God out of people or people out of God. As in the knot, each "tie" is not the same - ever accidentally tied two of the same ends of your shoelace together? Without both ends involved in the knot, the shoe won't stay on. Religion, then, is designed to bring the "ends" together, as it were, in harmony.

Not all people follow the same religion. Nor, do I believe, should they. The only issue about religion that is important is to know if it is indeed a "relinking," a bringing together of the things which have become separate - or if it is a further isolation of singularities, which would be the opposite of the purpose of religion. Ironically, in a comparative religion course I took as an undergraduate, the most profound thing our teacher, a clergy person, said, was that "in order to know a true religion from a false one, you have to see if it frees you. If it doesn't, it isn't religion." What does religion free us to do? It, paradoxically, frees us to be bound - to that which we believe in, to our chosen divinity, and to the service of that divinity and to our fellow man as token of our binding. We are freed in order to be bound - to link again - to the One.

Religion can also be compared to building bridges or otherwise spanning the gap between man and the divine, which, interestingly enough, seems mostly to be of mankind's making. The divine, it appears, never left us - but it stayed where it was while we wandered out into the brave new worlds of technology and secular humanism and "I am God" spirituality. Then, when we realize how far from "home" we have come, often the response is to either flee further away, or to seek that bridge - that religion - back to the source. People can serve as bridges, or they can help themselves, or others, to build them. Some religions have leaders to take them over the bridge; others expect their followers to find their own way. Some have forsaken the bridge entirely, for one reason or another; either to stake their own brave claim in the wilds, or to make their own attempt, not wanting to depend on the trails blazed by previous pilgrims. There is no one true way (religion) to that source - what is important, is the effort. "It's about God, stupid," is one of the favorite phrases of a clergy friend of mine. Often, we forget where it is we were headed, and so the religion is incomplete. As long as God is our destination and we don't forget that there are others along the way with us, we cannot be lost, even, as the Psalm might say, if "we walk through the valley of the shadow of death."

For the Kemetic Orthodox we have a particular Name (divine aspect) associated with the religion process - He is called Wepwawet, the "Opener of the Way." For us He opens roads, sets us on the right path which we must walk in order to find our bridge home. May He open all roads to those who might be looking - and may we have the wisdom to see them and not continue to struggle along in the underbrush.

Seek your bridge. Link your link, and join hands with those of like mind, whomever they may be. For without religion, we're like an untied shoelace - just ready to trip.