Grey seems to a be a minority choice.  Talk to me about black or white … Now they are proper colours.  You know where your are with black or white.  But the greys … Who needs all that trouble?  Neither white nor black – not one thing or another.  And then figuring out all that greyscale stuff … Does anyone really want all that confusion?

“We live in a binary system of either or, black and white and we so desperately want to be white, right we still have not embraced the greyscale that allows both you and Me, Muslim and Christian to be right or wrong together.” A comment by Br Francis-Clare

How profound is that?

”… to be right or wrong together.”

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This is a greyscale.

The world – our reality – the world we live in – the reality we create around us – is not always black and white.

Night does not suddenly become day.  Day does not suddenly become night.  Wrong does not always become right and right does not suddenly become wrong (often it takes generations of gradual and imperceptible change).

Black and white – black or white?

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The greyscale is just one example of “not all black and white”.

The rainbow is another.

The different lighting, the different shading, the different “everything” all merging into the whole … that is the wonder of a scene like this.

This is the world we live in, the reality we create around us, the world we seek to live in, and the reality we create around us – and the reality we often prefer not to acknowledge (but which leaks out anyway) …

“You may be right, but that doesn’t mean I am wrong” … “Well you may be right about that, but I am right about this” … “Your strengths are my weaknesses and vice-versa and that’s why we make a great team” … “I don’t know what you see in him/her – she/he is not my cup of tea at all” … “Colour is only skin deep” … “Right is not might” … “On a scale of 1 to 10 – how much does it hurt” … “You can please some of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can never … “

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 “… we still have not embraced the greyscale that allows both you and Me, Muslim and Christian to be right or wrong together.” 

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More and more I am going off the opener “We believe in …”

Less and less does that seem like an invitation to something better.  More and more it seems a demand for my allegiance.  A demand for my acquiescence.  A demand for my conditional membership.

Because my beliefs are not static.  I have yet to meet many whose are.  And those I do are usually “stuck in the mud” – looking back and never forwards – needing to be seen to be right – always needy.

We have young grandchildren.  They are born into a black and white world.  They are always right.  They are – of necessity – always needy.  But that changes.  They are already learning the greyscale.  And they don’t like it.

They prefer black and white.  Because black and white is whatever they say black and white is.  Who is right and who is wrong is whoever they say is right or wrong.  It is a world of instant gratification and endless conflict – of endless changes of mind and heart – and with it endless disputes of who is right and who is wrong.

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Tell me … is this the world you really want around you?

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