by Jen Hunt
From the archive. Gray areas: I used to be afraid of them– the unknown outside and within, without the Lord
Black and white felt safe, and comfortable
Now, finding myself in gray areas again
I’m afraid, yet now I know the Lord is in the gray area. In relationship with him, it’s not the same gray as before. “I’ll never leave you nor forsake you.”
Black and white is safer and stronger
Straight, unquivering, solid, unbending, sure
Cuts deep as a wafer, offers no salve or cure
Bread without wine leaves one parched
But when the wafer is dipped,
It will bend, not chip,
Blushes, bends, turns to mush dipped in mess
Complexity’s school
And it plays with your stiff, wooden rules
Till it fashions your head, unfastens your heart
Til factoids and feeling share tea
The gray in the sky, on the steam in cloth dyes,
No more is the gray feared
Jesus is nigh
Jesus is the cashmere sweater
Hushed landscape, the mist, the palm, familiar hand, the stone
“Never will I leave you or forsake you, trust in me alone”
Abba connection conjoins the poles
Shifts me from gray to black and back again
Where monsters once crept under the bed
I find a warm, calming purr instead
Gray without Jesus, a stale misery
Gray with Jesus, sacred tryst, mystery
