The Beauty of Grey

It has been a pretty blah day today. The snow from the other day has for the most part melted, but the sky has been very overcast and the sun has just been a haze. I have not been able to get a hold of any friends this afternoon, so I've pretty much spent most of the day watching movies, reading, and doing some studying for a class I'm taking.

I did sneak out for a while this afternoon and was reminded of the joy Christ can bring you on even the grayest of days. The first photo I took from my back yard while letting my dog out at about 3:30 this afternoon. You can see how dark and gray it is, yet the beauty of his creation is evident even in my backyard. It's easy to get busy and preoccupied to the point that you forget to pay attention to the beauty of life that is all around us. I know that I am guilty of this quite often, as I rush from appointment to meeting to gathering, often feeling even more rushed by the fact that as usual I'm running late.

The second photo here is what caught my attention in the first place. I was bored and grumpy that I was stuck indoors but the first sight I saw as I stepped out my front door this afternoon was the flock of pink flamingos that sprang up overnight on my neighbor’s yard. I'm sure this was done as a b-day prank or something of that sort for the teenage girl that lives in the house, but just stuck me as something fun and refreshing. It got me to start looking at the day from a new perspective.

"This is not a black and white world. To be alive I say that the colors must swirl. And I believe that maybe today we will all get to appreciate the Beauty of Grey"

Ok, so I'm back to song lyrics to make a point, but I do believe that songwriters are the true poets of my generation. This particular song by Live is definitely an old favorite of mine. I mentioned earlier that I'm taking a class. This is a School of Christian Living class being offered at my church regarding a recent report focused on the "Peace, Unity and Purity" of the Presbyterian Church. There have been many battles in the church lately regarding among other things authority of scripture, and requirements of ordination in the church. As the report states, both sides have arguments very grounded in scripture as to what their sides believe. As much as people on each side want to attack the other side, it's irresponsible because the other side is striving to serve the Lord as much as anyone else. What I have read of the report so far seems to strike a balance between both sides of each issue, and seems to attempt to strike a conciliatory tone, which is important. I don't think the world operates in a black and white manner, and most of the time you can't set hard and fast rules on complicated issues. It's a grey world, and communication with respect is important while dealing with these complex issues. The questions I have been mulling over in my mind the last few days though regard the fact that eventually decisions do have to be made regarding what the church believes. Eventually some people are not going to like what is decided. It's important to recognize the gray in between the issues, and hopefully any agreement will be somewhere in the middle, but if the church can't and won't make these decisions, it will be the church as a whole to suffer in the end. Four more weeks of this class to go and I think it will be a fun and educational lesson.