The Greyness Inbetween

Life is shades of grey for me.

My work being centered on interpretations of human history, at the end of the day i’m a strong believer of a pragmatic approach of dealing with life. Sometimes… tough choices have to me made, eggs have to be cracked and violent change has to be made.

Harvey Cox, one of the better (still alive) North American theologians (and a devout Baptist) made interesting observations in regards to how secularization was going to affect social structure in the not so distant future, and labled his discourse the “Secular City”. It was published in 1960′s, the height of Cold War tensions and the Civil rights movement well underway.  Prayer was soon to be removed from schools and within a decade abortion would be legalized as a result of Wade vs Roe. Violent change, now more then ever, was very obviously on the horizon, and clearly in a way that went against traditional Judeo-Christian  ethos.

Though he found it regretful that JFK-like, charismatic (yet pragmatic) rulers of the secular city would rise to control society,  he understood this as being beneficial in many, many ways.  The secular were capable of making tough choices, especially those of the “less of two evils” nature. I’ve done plenty of gray things in my life. But better people then me have. No time like November reminds me of more of this fact. Seas of black coats with red poppies cover the streets, each a mobile tribute to fallen war heroes. We “remember” the glory and victory, but war is perhaps the greatest necessary evil of all time.  I recently took a basic personality test, based on what you answered what one would do in  a series of fantasy-like scenarios.  My score came back “True Neutral”

“Some Neutral characters, rather than feeling undecided, are committed to a balance between the alignments. They may see good, evil, law and chaos as simply prejudices and dangerous extremes”

I found it very striking because it was true. I feel like the road to hell truely is paved in good intentions, that too much law is not justice, chaos equates to non-existence, and if everyone who was labeled evil actually was, the world would be a terrible place.

-E