I find it interesting how frequently some folks, a lot of folks, insist on pushing reality into neat little boxes. For instance, we have the “everything has a scientific explanation” group. We also have the “there is no god but GOD” crowd. Over here there is the “everything is part of a unified EVERYTHING” bunch. In that corner is the “it’s all in my head” gang. Then we have all the permutations of these and other ideas. It’s all pretty confusing, especially when you consider that each of these models are exclusive of all other models.

It seems to me that this is a lot like trying to categorize all foods into two categories- steak and potatoes. If you are someone who only comes into contact with steak and potatoes, this is a pretty workable model. For instance, if you encounter a piece of food, you first decide whether it’s a steak or a potato. Then, if you care, you can go on to determine a more specific subcategory- ribeye vs. sirloin, baked vs. mashed, and so on.

This is a pretty good reflection of the standard monotheistic worldview- things are either good (of God) or evil (of the Devil). You can change the names in the parentheses and reflect pretty much any modern monotheistic theology. There is still plenty of variation within these categories. For instance, aside from a Supreme Being, most monotheistic religions acknowledge other Holy Powers in the “good” camp- angels, saints, pious ancestors, martyrs, etc. This is similar to a Steak-and-Potatoes person accounting for hashbrowns, mashers, baked potatoes, home fries, french fries, and the like as children of The One True Potato. Monotheisms generally acknowledge a similar “diversity” on the “evil” side of the coin.

Of course, our world is not so simple. Imagine that into the world of Steak-and-Potatoes comes a person whose worldview consists of bread (superstition) or vegetables (science). They have a similar range of “diversity”. On the one hand they have things like rye bread, wheat bread, pumpernickel, focaccia, chiabatta, cloverleaf rolls, hamburger buns, croissants, and plain ol’ white bread. On the other side, they recognize such veggies as green beans, carrots, broccoli, peppers, corn, peas, lettuce, cabbage, beets, and the all-powerful KALE.

If you put people from both camps into a room and try to get them to agree on what something is, they will have a very hard time deciding. If the object is clearly steak, potato, bread, or vegetable, then one side or the other will at least be able to name it. What if the object in question is rice? Steak-and-Potatoes would probably call it partly-mashed potatoes, while Bread-and-Vegetables will likely call it crumbled bread. What neither could do is call it “rice”. Neither could accurately name the object in front of them. They might even have trouble describing it.

Aye, there’s the rub. All of the worldviews that demand categorization before engagement fall flat in the face of a reality that is unimaginably diverse and complex. Those who demand to know if something is a steak or a potato before learning anything further about it are in a sense blind to the reality. Their other senses work just fine, but they are blind to the richness that lies between and around their categorizations.

Take steak for instance. There are a lot of different cuts of steak and a lot of different ways to cook them. However, if you remove all non-steak ingredients from your cooking options, things get pretty boring pretty quickly. Imagine being unable to sense the difference between a steak with salt-and-pepper seasoning and a steak with fajita spices. That’s a huge difference in taste and a huge range of experience that you could not perceive. Those who insist on broad categories are trying to be deliberately ignorant of such differences.

In some ways, it’s not their fault, as they were likely raised in a world of steak-and-potatoes without any words for concepts outside of that experience. Under the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, such limitations would profoundly affect a person’s actual experience of the world. George Orwell illustrated this concept in the novel 1984 with the language Newspeak, the lexicon of which was intentionally designed to limit human experience and thought to government-approved ideas.

I suppose it asks a lot of someone to really engage with something that is outside of his or her experience. After all, new things things poorly understood can be dangerous. I remember rescuing a fellow teacher (and her students) from a batch of Habanero peppers. She’d seen a recipe that called for Jalapeños and, not knowing the difference, was about to happily have her students chop up the Habaneros she’d bought. If I hadn’t interjected with gloves and a sense of the Scoville Scale, we might have had to bring a few kids to the emergency room with capsaicin “burns”.

Then again, had she not attempted the recipe, she’d have had neither the experience of the dish, nor the opportunity to learn about safe handling of hot peppers. In quality of life terms, even getting “burned” by the peppers is probably preferable to remaining in ignorance. Steak and potatoes with NOTHING else gets boring pretty quickly. I know. It’s amazing how much smaller your dietary choices get when you have to avoid gluten and casein. No butter on that potato for you, mister!

So what is the solution?

Let’s call a pepper… a pepper. It’s not a potato, it’s not steak, it’s not bread, and it’s not rice. It is a vegetable, and it’s good to know that, but first and foremost- it’s a pepper. In fact, it’s probably a good idea to know that said pepper is a Habanero, not a Bell Pepper or a Pepperoncini. We need to engage with our food as individuals, not broad categories.

The same is true in our spiritual lives. Our universe is filled with individuals- not just people and peppers, but dead people, spirits, deities, and a whole diversity of entities too numerous to name and too different to categorize into simple either-or boxes… let alone one single big box of EVERYTHING. Sure, maybe at some super-cosmic level some of those big boxes bear some resemblance to reality; but not at the level that matters to us as human beings.

I am not you, you are not me- we are individuals. If, on some vast ethereal level of cosmic wonderfulness we are ALL ONE, that’s fine and dandy- it just doesn’t mean diddly in the here-and-now. We have spiritual individuality. If you start interacting with me as if I’m a projection of your consciousness or a fragment of your cosmic übersoul, I’m probably going to get angry and have to walk away.

The same is true for many of the other beings with whom you are engaged, whether you acknowledge them or not. Insisting that a Habanero is a red-skinned potato will not make it hurt less. Nor will ignorance enable you to enjoy the experience any more richly or to learn the right and wrong ways to work with Habaneros. Indeed, I dare say that those who insist on pretending that a Habanero is a red-skinned potato are more likely to get burned than those who are willing to call a spade a spade.

The same goes for Powers, holy, unholy, or otherwise. To pretend that They are somehow all the same or divisible into simple camps (“good” and “evil”) is just as ignorant, dangerous, and foolhardy as to ignore Them altogether. Sure, you might find that certain Powers are generally benevolent, malevolent, or benign; but, that basic categorization is by no means the sum of the Entity in question. Many Abrahamics (Jews, Christians, Muslims) praise the benevolence and providence of Yah (the God of Abraham), of which there are many Biblical examples. Yet, if the Biblical accounts are true, this is the same deity that vaporized Sodom and Gomorrah, not to mention laying the smackdown on countless other enemies of His people.

This complexity is present in virtually all of the Powers known to humans, whether we are talking about Olympians, Aesir, Okami, Manitou, Orisha, or the spirit of that tree down by the creek.  They have spiritual individuality. Sure, sometimes Powers choose to go by multiple names.  But even those “faces” have individuality, a little like the way a friend you haven’t seen in twenty years can seem like a whole different person.

In essence, the sum of human spiritual experience tells us that these Powers, from the mightiest deities to the tiniest bacterial spirit, expect the same treatment as any other individual. They expect fairness and courtesy, and will generally give the same in return. Of course, there are exceptions- there are certainly Powers with a generally malevolent bearing, just as there are humans who would knife you as soon as look at you. I’m not suggesting that people should just throw open the metaphorical drawbridge and invite random entities home for dinner any more than I would suggest you leave your house and car unlocked. I’m suggesting that people be open the idea that these entities, these Powers, exist. I’m suggesting that it is far better to act politely and respectfully towards such beings (regardless of any objective testability) than to pretend ignorance and hope for the best.

It is far better to be aware of the existence of Habaneros (and maybe never see one) than to assume that everything is a potato.