Charmed?

I was watching reruns of Charmed, the original of course and the final scene is Piper reading to her grandkids from the family book of shadows. Two things struck me suddenly. One, why call it book of shadows? Two, what Piper defines as “charmed”.

The Book of Shadows, why that name? We all have a shadow of some kind in our lives that just won’t go away, whether a small one or a big one we all have one. Also evil often doesn’t operate in the light of day, but is brought out by those who look to conquer those demons etc…The darkness and light both serve a purpose, but when the darkness takes over what guides us then we are not charmed, but rather cursed. If we are guided by base instincts , by unforgiveness then we are cursed, not charmed. The other thing is that she tells her grandchild that they are a family of survivors and hat is why they are charrmed. They each had to overcome their inner demons and also battle outer ones, had to learn important lessons about life, love, forgiveness, redemption.

I am not in any way endorsing witchcraft, and I wouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t lessons to be learned. The process can be quite messy, and often not in a straight line. Our own predisposition to be willing to learn may also determine if the process of life lessons is short, long, and with little or much pain. Part of the whole free will thing is that my choices have consequences and they will not only affect me, but also potentially those connected to me. Being charmed was not about supernatural powers, but about he human ability to be resilient, forgive, move forward etc…, hat is what makes us charmed or not. Wisdom is a lovely thing and I hope when we encounter it we embrace and are not too arrogant to think we know it all..

Amen