Living in the grey

This week has been the busiest week I’ve had since I became an unemployed/freelance writer/pseudo tie-dye artist.

Logan and I are joining the church that we’ve been going to for the past year and I’m working on a piece about my time in Mission Year to submit to Seeds of Service, (http://seeds-of-service.blogspot.com). Needless to say, the week has been full of reflection.

Seeds of Service is collecting essays for a book about volunteer service in the United States. For my submission, I had to write about how my experience continues to shape my life. I spent 11 months in West Philly for Mission Year. It’s hard to summarize how my time in West Philly impacted me because the experience shaped me in such a profound way.

Getting out of my comfort zone, out of my bubble, taught me about compassion, love, grace, social justice and community. But if I had to summarize what I took away from Mission Year in one word, it would be grey.

Mission Year taught me how to “live in the grey.” Mission Year showed me how to dive into the tension that comes when we witness situations where there are no clearly identified heroes or villains. And where the lines between wrong and right are fine, and hard to recognize. I came to Philadelphia as 20-year-old evangelical who was confident she knew how the world should be.

But when confronted with the realities of how the world is, I realized there was lot more grey than my world view at the time had led me to believe. I quickly recognized that I didn’t have things all figured out and found joy and comfort in the reality that I didn’t have to.

Living in the grey, continues to shape me life. On personal level, living in the grey means pursing the truth as a journey, not a destination. On a professional level, living in the grey has made me a better journalist because I explore the different angles of a story to get beyond the surface. On a political level, living in the grey forces me to look at the issues not just from the perspective of a middle class WASP, but also from the prospective of the marginalized. And on prophetic level (what can I say I love alliteration. It’s the real reason I changed my name), living in the grey enables me to take joy in the subtle glimpses of the divine that I see on a daily basis- a hug from a toddler, a hand written letter of encouragement, or time to reflect during a long bike ride.

Living in the grey has freed from the need to be right and enabled me to be more relational. For that, my 11-months at Mission Year are invaluable.