life's just easier that way. one thing is completely right, one thing is completely wrong. good decision vs. bad decision. even for viewing people too. she's smart, chinese, athletic. he's an activist, christian, latino. sticking to those all-encompassing black & white labels works much easier in my brain.
but for all humans like me :P as i live each day, most things in life seem more gray, hazy, a bit foggy. i had a conversation this week that has inspired me to write this. as i talked with her, i saw how both of us pretty much had to step out of black&white thinking. our lives seem to be revolving in a stage where gray seemed to take the dominate stage.
however, i'm beginning to appreciate the color gray a little more. only in the conceptual sense, i like purple the best. but why the heck desire gray, a much harder place to be in, a much more vulnerable place to be in? i admit, of course i'm not happy about not always knowing. but i'm appreciating. there is beauty in gray. gray times in life allows for exploration and discovery through active questioning and seeking. gray allows for growth as i realize, dang, i really don't know it all. as a Christian, i've seen overarching exploration, discovery, and growth, is a building of trust when gray is all i see.
i wonder if God allows me to walk in gray for that very reason then. to learn how to trust. in those moments where i hear/read great inspiring truths and all of a sudden the details of reality clash with these truths and i find myself in gray...i wonder if it is in gray that i learn to trust.
oh and how convenient, i stumbled upon a quote this week that relates to this topic. henri nouwen says this:
"Mostly we have just enough light to see the next step: what we have to do in the coming hour or the following day. The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go."
hmm, trusting that there's enough light for the next step. walking in gray might just be worth it.
at times Christians assume trust is passive. as if we were blind children holding the hand of our parents walking ahead of us and leading the way. yes walking in the gray is hard and trusting in God when life is uncertain is difficult, but often that walk requires boldness and a level of certainty --not in ourselves, our plans or our certainty of mind-- but in a person who is bold, radical and unpredictable. perhaps its merely not black and white versus gray...maybe its like a hot pink or burning yellow or savory magenta. bold. haha
ReplyDeletei loved that. thanks, sarah! :)
ReplyDeleteI too have wrestled with the idea of this grayness, but I think we need to start with the question: What can actually be objectively assigned a black/white color, and what is outside the realm of objectivity (i.e. something that can only exist as gray)?
ReplyDeleteI am a firm believer in a black and white morality. There are rights and wrongs.
When we describe people we cannot really do it definitively. People are infinitely unique, so calling someone an athlete or Chinese or Latino means different things for different people. We're both Chinese, but we think of the word differently. To you it may represent your cultural background, to me it is a label indicating my family's country of origin.
In the field of morality and ethics, things only become gray if we let them. The active mind is constantly thinking, sorting through his values and using Reason to figure out right from wrong. Postmodernist philosophers love the idea of moral grayness and subjectivity. This way everything can be justified.
Some things can be black and white, some things are metaphysically gray. That's my observation.
-Nick
your post was so beautiful, insightful, amazing.
ReplyDeletei totally agree- trust is something so crucial, yet its something I constantly struggle to give to my Saviour.
i adore quotes and the part about living to enjoy what we can see is so true, profound, yet sadly trivialized in society today.
i think everyone needs the reminder sometimes to put a smile on (everybody come on). =)