50 SHADES OF GREY

 No, this isn't a post about sex, but maybe another time!

I had a conversation recently about the problems of having a 'black and white' mentality.  I've had one for years - gradually getting over it!

I think it's a problem. It causes you to have a mental dictator telling you how everything life/emotions/people- should fit into your black/white paradigm, should neatly fit into one side or another, or have a proper beginning and a definitive end.  I have found this just sets yourself up for conflict, self-censure, loss of peace, dissatisfaction and a constant sense of failure.

(Moral issues aside - I believe that certain things are definitely right or wrong, like murder/lying/stealing etc, even in the light of the great mercy and forgiveness our God gives us).

No, I'm talking about the expectations of our selves or others of how we think life ought to be. Yet life is made up of a million shades of 'grey'!! When I lived in a Christian community, my B/W worldview caused me to be self-righteous, intolerant of weakness, disappointed, confused and even angry at times.  If I'd been more accepting of each person as a unique, special frail human being and rejoiced in the incredible variety of personality, ways of dealing with things, forms of expression, levels of faith etc, and not held them up to some standard that I myself wasn't even reaching, I think I would have done better.

Perhaps it's even harder to let our own selves off the hook of our expectations of how we should be, the right and wrong way of tackling a situation when decisions are often complicated by so many different emotions and experiences.  God/the Beautiful/Father/Mother understands every single aspect of who we are much better than we do ourselves, knows what we think before we even think it (psalm 139 v2).  This box we have put him in as an angry father expecting us to behave is so far from the incomprehensible depth and breadth of his embracing love for us, (which after 45 years odd I'm still only beginning to understand). God-in-a-Box is an upcoming subject but meanwhile, let's try not to put ourselves in a box too.

I guess I just want to topple the B/W tyrant and celebrate our humanity and frailty and uniqueness and the authenticity of being true to who we are in the moment that faces us.  If it's not a moral choice, (or perhaps a loving choice) then is it not the right thing to be exactly who you are? I know - maybe it's not as simple as that...

The beautiful portrait by my daughter Esther uses many shades of grey to depict the face of a homeless man she knew, who sadly recently died.  I think it's incredible and helps illustrate the point I'm trying to make.

The counsel and 'poured forth speech' of nature shows us there are millions of shades of green, of blue, or brown - every colour has hundreds of versions.  I think if we talked to God about all this, I imagine Him answering 'Good Grief, I didn't make you so fearfully and wonderfully complex so that you could try and squeeze yourself into two colours!!  I made you like a disco ball, with a myriad of different facets shining out who you are into the world, so that others may dance to your unique tune, as you do to theirs!'

Well, I'm not sure if I've expressed this very well, and maybe simplified it far too much.  And it's probably only relevant to some of you, most of you have probably worked this out along time ago!- but let me know what you think...