In this time of giving thanks and enjoying wonderful food, family, friends, good wine, better desserts… I wish for you all the goodness the season has to offer.
If I’m honest, I find myself entering this time of year feeling a little sad and melancholy. It’s my first holiday season without my mom who passed away this summer, somewhat unexpectedly.
That — and the war in Ukraine, U.S. politics, my girls growing up faster than I could ever have imagined, “fake news,” threats to democracy, homelessness, and so much more. It leaves me living in the tension between two truths: how much I have to be thankful and grateful for and how much simpler the world seemed when I was young.
As often happens with me, music finds a way of speaking to me in profound ways. These past few weeks, every time I contemplated what I wanted to share in this post, one particular song from the Monkees (yes, those Monkees — you can stop laughing now) kept playing in my head.
“Shades of Gray” is both a lament of what used to be and a surprisingly beautiful message for our world today.
It reminds us the world isn’t simple. It isn’t child’s play. Like eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we know the truth of humankind’s potential for love and hate, but in reality, our choices aren’t that polar. It isn’t always easy to “tell right from wrong” or “when a man should stand and fight or just go along.” The world is, as the Monkees put it, “only shades of gray.”
You can listen to this song in so many ways, but I share it with you because at this moment in my life, I hear it as an odd call to hope. I’m not young, life is not a simple game, and it’s hard to tell “how much to protect your heart and how much to care.”
But isn’t that the beauty of it all?
Isn’t that opportunity for discovery (and self-discovery) the whole point of life?
When it’s not about right or wrong, black or white, day or night, who to love and who to hate, it becomes about something else entirely. (My favorite illustration of this is Rumi’s field.)
The world is full, and sometimes — many times — our hearts and our minds are, too.
So here’s the bottom line: life is hard, love isn’t easy, and answers are seldom clear.
This holiday, when families too often gather to argue and be right (and make someone else wrong), perhaps the Monkees can help us remember:
Today there is no dark or light (unless we’re talking turkey — literally)
Today there is no black or white
Only shades of gray
Strive this holiday to be thankful rather than right because some of the things and people to be most thankful for leave us before we’re ready.
“Shades of Gray”
Written by Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann
When the world and I were young
Just yesterday
Live was such a simple game
A child could play
It was easy then to tell right from wrong
Easy then to tell weak from strong
When a man should stand and fight
Or just go along
But today there is no day or night
Today there is no dark or light
Today there is no black or white
Only shades of gray
I remember when the answers seemed so clear
We had never lived with doubt or tasted fear
It was easy then to tell truth from lies
Selling out from compromise
Who to love and who to hate
The foolish from the wise
But today there is no day or night
Today there is no dark or light
Today there is no black or white
Only shades of gray
It was easy then to know what was fair
When to keep and when to share
How much to protect your heart
And how much to care
But today there is no day or night
Today there is no dark or light
Today there is no black or white
Only shades of gray
Only shades of gray
Photo by Jordan Whitt on Unsplash
