… far from it! Life is not black or white. Life comes in all kinds of shade, far more than 50. 50 shades of grey can’t hold a torch to it! It will be much easier if things were white or black, good or bad, this or that. But it is hardly ever like that. The white has some black in it and the black has some white in it and you are not always so sure what pile to put the laundry in! There is no consistency, Some put it in the white pile, some in the black pile, others in the coloured, while some give up on the laundry all together. The ‘this’ has ‘that’ in it and ‘that’ has some ‘this’ in it. Well you guess it, ‘this’ and ‘that’ are somehow cohabiting together!
You cut a ‘black’ person and there is white underneath. A ‘white’ person is bruised and they go black. Actually there is hardly any black or white person. I am yet to see a white person, in the true sense of white and a black person is truely rare.
Few people are 100% good, I doubt any one is, the ones we call good, still occasionally do things that makes us gasp. Surprisingly the bad, throws in a couple of acts of kindness every now and then. The Mafia still goes to church! The insane man still on occasion utter some of the wisest things even heard and the Sage sometimes clearly misses the plot. The sinner does not alway sin and the saint sometimes eye the forbidden fruit! The judge sometimes make unrighteous judgement and the gang leader sometimes judge fairly. The bitter fruit leaves a sweet aftertaste and sweet fruit gets bitter when too sweet. The loved up couple sometimes fight and the fighting couple sometimes kiss. The kind person can be cruel and the cruel person can be kind! And it goes on.
So how do we handle life that is not black or white? How do we treat a good person that has a couple of bad spots? Do we white off the bad person with a white patch? What laundry pile do I put the white shirt with the black colar? How do we navigate this tricky life? A murderer does not murder 24/7, how do we relate when we encouter her, especially if in the midst of a ‘good’ deed? Do we perpetually treat her as a murderer or do we switch off every now and then?
Wow! I started a question and I don’t even know the answer! My stab at answering this, which might be a weak stab, is that we take people, life and things as we encouter them in the moment (I am not feeling this answer! It brings a lot of other questions). If we bring the baggage of our previous encounters and our projections of future encounters into the play we are most likely going to muddle the water and muddled or muddy water is staining.
I am done! I think I am gonna do a runna from this write-up before I dig myself in any deeper.
Beautiful Ivory 