I realize there is much black and white in life.  There are droughts.  There are shoes that fit and those that definitely do not.  There are dreams that will never happen.  There are war lines and stop signs and consequences if you enter the do not enter places.  There are spaces of illness and health.  There are moments that shock us into the brilliance of white, sparkling light as well as moments what pull us into the depths of darkness.

But what I find over and over again more than black and white… is grey.  Black and white is, well, easy.  This or that.  Yes or no.  In or out.  Do or don’t.  Grey is, well, difficult.  Grey is all at once neither black or white… and yet it is fundamentally both.  I’ve always thought of grey as such a blah color.  I mean it’s not a color I shop for or want to paint my walls.  But standing in soulful spaces of grey are beautiful.  Grey ground is fertile and alive and pulsing.  Grey ground is never dull.  Grey ground teaches us trust and faith and urges us to keep digging, to never assume that our brilliant yet limited minds can comprehend the full truth and depth of white or the full truth and depth of black or the full truth and depth of grey… because God is always in the mix of them… in the truths of them.

Society tends to teach the black and white mentality.  Wonder what that’s really about?  School is much more about what you get right or wrong and absolute scores.  Church is often about goats and sheep.  We’ve definitely got the idea that rich is better, that thin is in, that power is about who has the most guns, and that success is synonymous with fame.  Aren’t there lots of gorgeous people and moments in between?   Isn’t it lovely to blend beliefs and gifts and thoughts and actions into an experience of layers?  Isn’t is delicious to realize that there is more than meets the eye and that we are all culminations, we are all multidimensional even before we realize it and even if we never do?

Some days, I’m really happy in this grey puddle.  Some days, I just want to ditch it, because it ever urges me to bridge the opposites and make peace with this life.  That is work, let me tell you.  But there’s something about this place that I think is worth checking out.  There are definitives we all have and can all name and actually cherish (mine being God is always loving and just).  These definitives often define who we are, but leaning into the grey can flush out and embellish our most profound truths.  When we’re called to stand in the black… then stand there.  When the white speaks the most profound truth, then be there.  But when grey invites exploration and discernment… trust that even ambiguity and tension and neutrality can blossom clarity and wholeness and life.

Once I had a dream in which I was walking through this huge, huge house full of windows and light and lots of beautiful plants and flowers.  As I continued to walk, the rooms grew more and more narrow, and darker.  Finally I arrived at this slide.  There were lots of folks climbing the ladder and sliding down through this shoot into even darker darkness.  I was also aware of the snakes in the shoot.  I actually climbed the ladder and got to the top.  I peered into this pit, and as so many of us do… tried to follow the crowd into the shute… because that’s what we’re supposed to do, right?  But amazingly what happened was that I wouldn’t fit.  My shoulders were too broad, my birthing hips too wide.  And so, I climbed down and wandered back through the house where the rooms grew larger and brighter and freer.  And when I woke from that dream, I woke with these words, “Don’t even try to fit into spaces that are too small for you.”

DON’T EVEN TRY TO FIT INTO SPACES THAT ARE TOO SMALL FOR YOU.

Mark Nepo often says it so beautifully for me:

 Breaking Surface:  From Mark's book, Suite for the Living
Let no one keep you from your journey,
no rabbi or priest, no mother
who wants you to dig for treasures
she misplaced, no father
who won't let one life be enough,
no lover who measures their worth
by what you might give up,
no voice that tells you in the night
it can't be done.

Let nothing dissuade you
from seeing what you see
or feeling the winds that make you
want to dance alone
or go where no one
has yet to go.

You are the only explorer.
Your heart, the unreadable compass.
Your soul, the shore of a promise
too great to be ignored.

 My friends, when sightless voices urge you to be less, to be small, to give up, to give in to their own fears and tightness of heart and mind… follow the truth that is free inside of you.  Follow the paths of love and light that open you time and again to your own beauty which is divine.  I am trusting with my whole heart that God made you and me and all of us in God’s image… which is joyful and wide in love and grace.  We are seen deeply.  We are valued.  We are loved.  Come down from the ladder to the open fields and flowing streams.  I’ll meet you there.