A few years back, before computers gave us super-efficient means of storing and retrieving data, there was a device called a Rolodex.   It was a wheel that held special little index cards   —   hundreds of them   —   with names and addresses on them.   If you wanted to call George Patterson, you'd twist the wheel until the P's came around, and you'd look up his phone number.   Every office had a Rolodex.

There was one problem, though: you were limited to ONE scheme for sorting.   If Fred Carter was the senior vice president for Dahlberg Enterprises in Atlanta, where would you put his Rolodex card?   Under "C" for Carter?   Under "D" for Dahlberg Enterprises?   Or maybe even under "A" for Atlanta (you want to be able to make sure that your salesman makes a courtesy call on all "contacts" in Atlanta the next time he goes there on business)?

Some businesses solved this problem by making more than one card for each person.   Fred Carter could be looked up in the C's or the D's or the A's.   And the problem with THIS was that, if Fred Carter moved from the Acme Company to the Ginsburg Company, you had to make sure that you updated all four of his Rolodex cards.   And if you had branch offices, each office having four Rolodexes ... you get the picture.

This brings us to the question: What are you?   Try to answer that question with one word; you can't.   At home, you're a father; in the bedroom, you're a husband/lover; at work, you're a middle management boss; politically, you're conservative, but not on all issues.

It is as if you were an actor who had to appear in several different plays in one evening.   You go onstage with a stern look on your face and intone gloomy pronouncements.   A car whisks you away to a different theater where you spout wry, flippant lines that make the audience roar with laughter.   You are taken to the next theater, where you quaver and stammer and quail and quake; the audience can feel your fear.

In other words, there is no one box that we can put you into.   There is no single pigeonhole that will hold all that you are.

You want to be more than one thing, without restrictions, and express yourself accordingly.   My solution?   Websites ... several of them.   Each one can have a different theme that represents an aspect of yourself.

You set up your "conservative" webpage   —   call it "Rush Limbaugh for President."   This is where you pour out your heart on all the issues about which you have conservative opinions.   You express your true feelings about Hillary Clinton.   You express yourself without inhibitions.

Your "liberal" webpage is called "Save the Rainforest."   You quote statistics about pollution and global warming.   You have links to other earth-friendly sites.   You express yourself without inhibitions.

Your "skeptic" site debunks faith healers, new age wackos, and "channelers" (ever wondered how a 35,000-year-old warrior can speak perfect 21st-Century English but not Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian, or Greek?).   It quotes from the works of Michael Shermer, James Randi, and Carl Sagan.   You express yourself without inhibitions.

But your "witchcraft" site offers up prayers to the Goddess in all her guises, rituals for healing, and information on the Tarot.   You express yourself (again) without inhibitions.

Which one   —   which webpage   —   is really you?   All of them.

This isn't hypocrisy, because all of these people ... are you.   You are an elephant, and one blind man has grabbed your tail; another blind man runs his hands over your leg; another one has stepped in a big pile of your shit ... you get the picture.

In other words, it requires more than one compartment to hold all of what you are.

And this raises one more question. What's wrong with "being different people at different times" (the way Paul did ... see I Cor. 9:22)?   If you're a sincere, card-carrying witch, is it okay for you to teach a Sunday School class?   What if you're a better Sunday School teacher than anybody you know, and you enjoy doing it ... even though you don't believe the Bible ... are you a bad person for teaching something that you don't believe?   Should Christians at your church object if you are doing something that actually strengthens the Christian faith of their children?   Would they be stupid for excluding you from their church just because of an attitude that you had but never openly expressed (i.e., "The Bible is fake")?   If you believe that the Bible is fake, but teach that it's The Real Thing (to people who already believe that anyway), (a) are you a phony and (b) if you are, does it matter?   Should you hate yourself, or just say, "What the hell ... I'm doing what I enjoy, and I'm not hurting anyone?"

If a true Christian came to your Circle meeting and wanted to participate (in a respectful fashion), would you throw him out just because he wasn't a "true witch?"

NOTE:   One might even create a "Trojan horse" website that appears to be Christian-oriented   —   just good enough to get under the radar when one submitted it to a Christian webring   —   but the actual CONTENT, if anybody bothers to read past the first few paragraphs, defends Paganism and the Goddess, and urges tolerance (tolerance being a decidedly non-Christian virtue).   Pendragon has, in fact, set up just such a website.   It is currently a member of 17 Christian webrings.