Strong/Weak - Both/And - Yelena Pakhomova

There are times in life when either/or decisions are super important. Life-saving, even. Is this food good for me or bad? Is this relationship what I want or isn’t it? Do I believe this thing about God or don’t I?

The answers to these questions may serve us well for a time. Maybe even a long time. But there are some questions that aren’t settled with either/or answers. Contemplative thinkers even insist that an either/or posture to the world is antithetical to human life. After all, we know ourselves to be not only nice but sometimes cruel, to be not only tame but sometimes wild, to be not only strong but sometimes weak.

So what comes after an either/or spirituality? How about both/and.

Both/and draws us towards the wisdom at the heart of all creation and towards the wholeness of God’s relationship to the world.

Let’s look at a spirituality that is both loud and quiet, both strong and weak, both alone and together, both sacred and secular, both faithful and full of doubt.