There Is No Either/Or

Everything Has A Place

I grew up in a world where there was either good OR bad, black OR white - a world where there was no gray and no middle ground …

Christian - good.

Everything else - bad.

Jesus - good.

Satan - bad.

Sex on your wedding night - good.

Sex the night before your wedding night - bad.

Straight - good.

Gay - bad.

… this OR that, one OR the other.

The list went on and on and on, but you get it - some things were good, most things were bad and you dare never attempt to mix the 2 or you'd be seen as a compromiser … as someone who was watering down the faith, making evil palatable, tickling people's ears, and headed down the wide road of destruction.

These days, though, I'm beginning to lean into the idea that everything is welcome, everything has a place.

There are Christian ideas AND ideas that aren't Christian.

There is Jesus AND there is the Satan.

There is sex on your wedding night AND sex before your wedding night.

There is straight AND there is gay.

… All of these things coexist in our magically complicated universe and although some things might threaten and some things might cause harm and some things might be truly "evil".

I don't know.

Perhaps we can learn from all of these things and perhaps they all of something to teach us.

This is the idea in "The Star" card, I think.  One of the ideas, anyways.  The woman in the picture is holding a cup or a jug of sorts in each hand …

One in her left hand.

One in her right hand.

… And rather than keeping the contents of those jugs separate, she's pouring them into the same body of water.

Bodies of water typically represent the Divine and so (to me) this woman is taking 2 jugs that are seemingly opposite and she's mixing the contents of the jugs into the Divine who consumes and contains and holds within himself/herself/themselves all things.

Yes.

To me this card is saying that the Divine is big enough and grand enough to contain all things, that in the Divine there is no EITHER/OR, only BOTH/AND.

The reality is that our lives contain things that are healthy, holy, and Divine AND things that are infectious, hideous, and downright Evil - there is sickness AND there is health, there are easy times AND there are hard times, there is love AND there is hate, there is peace AND there is war, there are moments of intense highs AND moments of intense lows.

None of these things are good OR bad, really … they just … they just are.

Right?

I mean, it's all there - it all makes up this complicated thing we call life, and it's all drawing us ever so slowly (AND sometimes ever so quickly) towards the future … whatever that future may be, whatever that future may hold.

And so as both good AND bad flow from the jugs of our lives, we can know and trust that they don't fall to the wayside where they will dry up and whither away; instead, they fall into the Divine where they will be consumed by him/her/them and then used to mold us and make us and grow us into more complete and Divine human beings.

Look.

I don't know what horrors you're up against today, but I do know that whatever horror is pouring forth from your life - it pours into the Divine, it pours into God, it pours into your Creator … and as it pours into God and becomes mixed into all the other horrors (AND good things, as well) that have been poured out before it, it becomes a magical tool in her hands that he will use to make you more like them - more like the God in whose image you have been made.

That's a lot to take in, I know … go back and read it again.

Until next time.

• Glenn || MY BOOK || PATREON || BUY ME A COFFEE