Cat – Open Halls Project

Clergy and Kindred Lists

Cat — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 21:14:12 +0000

MEMO: We are going to add two lists to this website. One for clergy and one for kindreds. While some of you registered your kindreds or as clergy when you first registered at the Open Halls Project, because of the ever-changing nature of Heathen communities, in order to keep our information up-to-date and easily accessible for service members, we would like you to re-register as kindreds or clergy.

TO REGISTER AS A KINDRED:
Simply mail us at heathenopenhalls@gmail.com with the name of your kindred, the location of the kindred (town/city +state + country) and contact details (please note, these details will be displayed publicly on this site).

TO REGISTER AS CLERGY:
You will need to fulfil the following two criteria:

a. You are part of a REAL community.
b. You are considered clergy by that community.

If you qualify and you wish to be included on the clergy list, mail us at heathenopenhalls@gmail.com with your name, location, details of the community you serve and contact details.

N.B
If you register for either, please ensure that our emails are not getting caught in your spam filter so that we might communicate without issues.
Please note that qualifications from a major Heathen org are not a sole qualifier. While clergy programs have their place, because of the nature of the issues that military Heathens may face, experience in a clergy role is preferable.
People registered as clergy, who are later the subject of scandal or in any way found to abuse their role within their community will be removed.

Yule Care Package Drive

Cat — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 21:14:11 +0000

The Open Halls Project would like to ask our Military members if they would be interested in a Yule care package drive? We will be sending out emails to those folks registered as military in our database as well to check with folks. Please let us know if you would like a care package and we will then ask our civilian supporters to assist in putting some together!

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

Cat — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 21:12:49 +0000

When we first set up this project, we created the registration page with the option of opting in our ‘pool’ of care package providers. When a service member requested/took up the offer of a care package, we would randomly select about three of the names on our opt-in list and put the two parties in contact with each other so they could exchange addresses and say what they’d like in their care packages (as different posts have different things available and there might have been something the service member needed but couldn’t get hold of so). However the last few times we’ve contacted people for care packages, we’ve hardly been getting any answers back. We understand that maybe our mails are going to spam boxes, so please check that we aren’t in your spam boxes. However we also understand that times have changed and that the economy is tough on everyone, so while hearts and minds might be in the right place, wallets might not be able to stretch. So we’re going to do a ‘reset’ on the care package option. Everyone who has registered and opted to be in the care package ‘pool’ will no longer be. If you would like to remain in the pool of care package providers, please email us at Heathenopenhalls@gmail.com and we’ll add you back!

Please feel free to spread this message as this change will take place over the next couple of days.

Accepting Help and Ethics – Our Official Statement

Cat — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 09:50:43 +0000

The Open Halls Project was born from a discussion between my husband and myself, in our kitchen on a cold, January day, in 2010. He a soldier and I his spouse, as open Heathens, had been subjected to yet another round of ostracism for our beliefs from Christians in our community and we’d reached the ‘What if?’ section of our conversation.

‘What if there were more Heathens here?’

‘What if there were some way for military Heathens to find local Heathens in their new communities when they PCS (change duty stations)?’

‘What if there was a way to maybe get some recognition and support for Heathens in the military?’

Then we looked at how we could try to make things happen. For the next few weeks, we worked our behinds off setting up the project. Our simple ethos became ‘Just get **** done and make sure to keep sight of the bigger picture.’

To date, we’ve either set up or facilitated:

An extensive database of contacts made up of both military Heathens and the civilians that support them.

Contacts between military Heathens and civilians.

A list of clergy members prepared to work with military Heathens and the unique needs and circumstances that military Heathens might find themselves in.

A penfriend scheme.

A care package scheme.

A Heathen business by the name of White Hart Forge has also been wonderful in their setting up of their Mjollnir Project and working with us to get hand-forged hammers out to Heathen military members down range for free.

In future, we’d like to see:

The inclusion of the terms ‘Heathen’ and/or ‘Asatru on the US Army list of religious preferences.

The birth of the first Heathen DFG (Distinctive Faith Group) within the army.

It is our hope that if we can create enough of a precedent for US military Heathens, that the family of the next military Heathen to fall, doesn’t have as much of a battle as Roberta Stewart did with the VA to get the proper symbol placed on her fallen servicemember’s gravemarker.

We have been absolutely blown away by the kindness and generosity that members of the Heathen community have shown in helping us to try and realize these goals and the lengths that some are prepared to go to to support those in our communities that, regardless of what we may or may not personally believe about the wars we’re involved in, sacrifice so much.

However, with this ethos of ‘just getting **** done and keeping sight of the bigger picture’, there come ethical quandaries. Just how much do we compromise in order to get these things done, without ruining our reputations in our community? How do we still stand for our values?

We now find ourselves in this situation with the involvement/publicity that KC Hulsman has given us through her blog at Patheos and the resulting publicity gained over at About.com and the Wild Hunt. As Heathens, we are our deeds and there’s no question that KC Hulsman’s deeds in this case have been good and helpful. We are thankful for the help she has given us. However, as Heathens, who we associate with and how compatible their values are with ours, is also important, especially in the eyes of our communities. As Heathens, this judgment from our own community is pretty much the only judgment that counts. Trust can be eroded, names can be sullied and at the end of the day, we at the Open Halls Project may be left in a situation where we wouldn’t be able to work effectively because of that eroded trust and bad wordfame. It is both a part of our personal ethics and the thew of the community with which we associate the closest, that K C Hulsman, through her link to Galina Krasskova (a person she seems to consider to be her sister), is not someone with whom we would wish to be associated. This is a position we made clear in the past during the presentation we did on Ravencast.

We do not wish to get into the usual arguments about Ms Krasskova’s activities here. Our discomfort with being linked with her (even in seemingly tenuous ways such as via Ms Hulsman), comes from reading materials produced by Ms Krasskova herself. To put it simply, we have, what are for us, serious ethical issues with some of the things that she advocates. Others may disagree with this and see nothing wrong. However at the end of the day, we can only speak and act in accordance with our own hearts and minds on this matter.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and we hope for your continued support in the future.

In Frith,

The Open Halls Project