Evil or Good or both?

People desire to separate their worlds into polarities of dark and light, ugly and beautiful, good and evil, right and wrong, inside and outside. Polarities serve us in our learning and growth, but as souls we are all.

Joy Page - American Actress

When I was a little girl I made a promise to God to live, perfectly, so I could take friends and family members place in hell, if they weren’t saved by the time they died. My view of God was really one of hellfire. If you didn’t follow His commands and take Jesus as your savior, you were going to Hell. My little 12 year old heart’s intention was from love – and a ton of fear. I was going to be their back up plan if Jesus couldn’t save them. Sweet and innocently arrogant.

The major problem with that one “little” promise was how it shaped my world view and controlled my behavior until I reached an age, sadly not until a few years into college, where I was forced to face the reality of what it meant, in lieu of who I honestly found myself to be. I would not be able to save family and friends because I had to confess I was one of the most vile and evil sinners of all – a homosexual. Gasp. But, that is a whole different blog…

Basically I developed a really harsh, limited, and black and white view of the world. People were either good or evil. There was no such thing as grey. The grey aspect was part of the darkness trying to seduce us away from the light of God. Everything I witnessed, experienced, thought about, and talked about was colored by this world view. It was not a kind view of the world. It was depressing to see all the evil rampant (per my perception, not necessarily reality). I preferred to be dead and in heaven than alive on this dark earth. Yet, even with many attempts, I stayed because I promised to sacrifice myself for those I loved, if they hadn’t accepted Jesus.

There were many lessons in life that I believe God brought my way to clear and straighten out my twisted and dark vision of this world. Many people I met who made me question the legitimacy of my world view. 

And most recently an even deeper lesson has been percolating within me. In people I would consider the evilest of people, they too contain the light of God. They too can show love, as limited as it may be. They too strive to make things right, as counter-intuitive to me it may seem. And those I encountered in my personal life that I once called evil, well there are others who have seen their good side. Could it be that we really are a mixture of these polarities and depending on who we mix with, one side may become more prevalent than the other in their company?

Can there be people who, naturally inclined to be kind, generous, loving, bring out the worst in another naturally kind, generous, and loving person whereby unintentionally causing pain to those they love? Maybe it isn’t about one being evil and the other good. Maybe it really is we are all a mix of evil and good (with a dose of Karma thrown in). And instead of calling it evil and good, maybe call it our animal nature vs soul nature. Maybe there is a scale, like the Kinsey scale of sexuality, which measures the strength/visibility of the light of God within a person. Some are on one end of the scale with their light more hidden like on a dark cloudy day, but the light is still underneath the clouds. Some may be in the middle, where it is a semi-sunny or grey sky,  then we have the people on the other end with more sun shining than clouds covering their light.

For all those I judged and called evil, my sincerest apologies. I was wrong. We all carry the divine qualities and light of God and all deserve basic respect for that.