Embracing Nuance - Navigating the Shades of Gray that Lie Between the Black and White of Life
Hope Infusion Newsletter - April 2022 Edition
Greetings Hope Infusion Subscribers,
April is here, temps have warmed, days have lengthened, Spring has sprung!
This month’s thematic focus is the embrace of mystery. I share two stories about journeys of learning, that taught me to be okay with NOT always having concrete answers to complex questions. I lived much of my life grounded in a black and white, order and structure, cause and effect, way of thinking.
I believed if I did X, that Y would result—most of the time. And for a few decades, things really DID work out that way most of the time.
Until they didn’t!
Life began placing me in positions to experience or observe situations that did not fit a formula, and could not be logically explained. The selected stories illustrate this paradigm, and demonstrate the relevance of understanding nuance.
The second story is interwoven with this month’s book recommendation.
Happy April Y’all! I’m glad to have you traveling alongside me on this monthly journey of story.
Navigating Shades of Gray That Lie Between the Black and White of Life
“How are your knees?”, read an incoming text.
The message was from a friend with whom I’d been out of touch for several months. I paused after reading it, momentarily puzzled as to what she was referencing.
“My knees? I paused in thought for a moment. Then I remembered.
In an instant, it was August, 2019 again, and I’d been mentally transported from my home in suburban Atlanta to a hotel room in Cancun as the soft pitter patter of rain gently wrestled me from slumber.
I made a beeline for the coffee maker, and once that day’s morning dose of caffeine was brewed, creamed, and sugared, I lifted the shade and was transfixed by what I saw. The sky had cleared, leaving a celestial arc of color hovering above the hotel.
The morning stillness whispered a knowing to my soul that the appearance of this rainbow, at this time was providential. It proved to be a harbinger of healing, foreshadowing a dam of relief that would stop the raging river of pain that had afflicted me in the preceding weeks.
A few months prior, I slid to the edge of my bed, attempted to stand, and was stunned by my inability to do so. Pain coursed through my legs, so sharp in intensity, that my knees buckled, forcing me to sit back down. It was the beginning of an arduous journey of discomfort that rendered me unable to walk in the ensuing weeks.
My doctors had no answers. They said it may be arthritis and prescribed Motrin 800. It didn't help! They switched to Meloxicam. Equally fruitless!
And what kind of diagnosis was that anyway? Arthritis that manifests overnight and renders me almost crippled???
I pushed back.
They ordered more tests, settled on “frayed meniscus tendon”, and said that if the pain persisted, they’d consider a surgical option.
And so commenced my summer of limping…
I was unable to walk upright, so I limped, hobbled, and hopped. Walking is such an integral part of human existence, I didn’t appreciate the extent to which I took it for granted....until I lost the ability.
At summer’s end, I limped into the Atlanta airport en route to Cancun, trailing my husband who rivaled a circus clown attempting to juggle luggage, carry-ons, and backpacks for us both.
I sat and waited while he checked our bags, and was NOT amused when he returned with an attendant and a wheelchair. But my annoyance was short lived. I soon discovered that setting aside pride in favor of humility sometimes offers unforeseen collateral benefits.
There was a winding TSA line, but I received priority screening. There was a layover with a long walk to the connecting flight, but I was wheeled to the gate with ease. There was a two hour wait for customs in Cancun, but my wait was only 10 minutes.
There are seasons of life during which I find myself awed by an awareness of being loved, held, and Divinely supported — this was one of them, and the timing was impeccable.
My inability to walk had been preceded by an avalanche of personal, family, and professional challenges. It felt like I was engaged in an unending game of emotional whack-a-mole. As soon as I got a grip on one issue, another one popped right up.
But Life took a U-turn in Cancun, and guided us to a treasure trove of enchanting encounters. Serial calamity was suddenly replaced with serial kindness.
Our room was unexpectedly upgraded to ocean view. A wheelchair was offered for ease of navigation. The staff overheard mention of my husband’s birthday and surprised him with decorations and a cake.
A couple who’d spent days observing my husband lifting me in and out of the pool, and wheeling me around the resort also learned it was his birthday and bought a surprise gift for a man they didn’t know.
They were so moved from watching him care for me, that they asked the resort manager to introduce them to us. Not only were they complete strangers, but the husband, who initiated the introduction, did not even speak English!
Nevertheless we enjoyed a day and a half in their company, laughing and learning each other’s stories. We refused to be impeded by language barriers. We communicated amongst ourselves in a hilarious mix of French, Spanish, and English, with an occasional assist from Google Translate.
On our final morning, I attempted to photograph the rainbow from my window, but was unable to capture a clear picture. On impulse I grabbed my iPhone and ran to the nearest exit, ecstatic when I was able to secure both still shots and video.
And then time momentarily stood still as the reality of what I’d done seeped into my awareness. I had run down the hall to take those pictures. After weeks of limping. After 7 days in a wheelchair. After a summer of agonizing pain….I ran!
Gratitude and relief streamed from my eyes as I walked back to my room fully upright. No hopping. No limping. No pain.
And I still don’t know why or how. And I still can’t explain what transpired.
I hadn’t recited affirmations. I hadn’t prayed for healing. I hadn’t done any spiritual practice commonly associated with this type of miraculous outcome. Truth be told, I’d mostly sulked and pouted out of extreme frustration regarding the chaos in which we had been mired.
But that day the pain departed, as spontaneously as it had arrived. It’s been three years, and I’ve received no medical treatment for a ruptured meniscus tendon and had no recurrence of this issue.
So I won’t attempt to explain what happened, because I can’t! I’ll focus instead on what I learned.
Some things in life are knowable. Many things in life are not.
I’ve grown into an appreciation of nuance—the shades of gray that lie between the black and white of life. The older I get, the less I use the words “always” and “never”. Few aspects of life, are ALWAYS or NEVER any one thing. Nuance recognizes, and makes space for variations and subtleties that exist between opposite extremes.
I’ve learned to be comfortable with “I don’t know!”, three words I once strenuously avoided.
I’ve learned to be at peace with anomalies; circular events that won’t fit into a square box of common explanations.
I’ve learned to surrender to mystery at times when certainty is elusive.
I once lived a life of perceived certainty in which I was convinced I had sure and concrete answers to most of life’s mysteries. I now know that much of what passed for certainty---was actually belief. Belief and certainty are NOT the same thing.
The opposite of certainty is not uncertainty. It’s an openness, curiosity, and willingness to embrace a blend of paradox and mystery.
“My knees are fine,” I typed in a response text to my friend. “They have been since last August!”
How I Learned To Be Okay About NOT Having Answers to Unanswerable Questions
I reached a new level of inner peace when I relinquished belief in a direct cause and effect explanation for everything that happened to me or around me.
Everything Happens For A Reason And Other Lies I’ve Loved, is a book that masterfully unpacks this topic. Author Kate Bowler wrestles with a range of unexpected, unexplainable, and unfathomable tragedies that have befallen people — many of which seem random, senseless, and in some cases downright cruel.
I could cite many incidents that helped disabuse me of that mindset. One of the most pivotal occurred during my oldest daughter’s senior year of college.
She called on a Saturday night from the scene of an accident, flustered because she’d hit someone and couldn’t find the insurance card. The “accident” was actually a minor fender bender. I texted her a copy of the card, and aside from her momentary anxiety, the incident was largely a non-event.
Later that month her childhood best friend was in a Saturday evening car accident. That mother also received a phone call. But rather than it being her daughter, flustered over a dented fender, it was Atlanta police informing her that her child had been crushed, was dead at the scene, and needed to be cut out of the car with the jaws of life. Her daughter’s fiancee, who had been in the passenger seat, walked away unscathed.
The crash happened a week before the daughter’s wedding. So in one tragic instant that family went from planning a wedding to planning a funeral; Ultimately burying their daughter in her wedding dress.
What does one say, when they receive a text from a friend saying they need to talk, and they get a heads up from their daughter that the horrific situation described above is what the call is going to be about?
Religious platitudes, and scripture quoting ring hollow in the ears of a mother processing that degree of shock, trauma, and horror. I opted to listen much, pray silently, say little, and hold space for her to share as she felt led.
Sometimes you can’t do anything to change a person’s circumstances nor mitigate the excruciating pain of a tragic situation. But you can sit with them in their pain, offer the gift of presence, refuse to look away, and be a witness and source of support.
Her grieving heart had many unanswerable “Why’s”.
Why now? Why my child? Why this way?
I internalized an unspoken why of my own: Why were our two Saturday night phone calls so different?
Our lives were so similar. We were both moms of three children, both had one boy and two girls. We were the same age, practiced a shared faith, and had lived common life experiences. We were both women who believed in the power of prayer. We were both mothers who prayed diligently for the safety and well-being of our children. How was it possible that her beloved daughter, whom I’d known since she was 4 , was no longer in the land of the living?
I have a three word response to my questions: “I don’t know!”
If that situation taught me nothing else, it facilitated acceptance of a sobering reality that I didn’t want to be true: “Prayer is not a guarantee of a tragedy free life!” I had somehow naively allowed myself to believe that this kind of thing wouldn’t happen to one of us.
Yet it had!
But it didn’t diminish my faith. It didn’t stop me from praying. It did recalibrate my expectations of life. It did change how I process the possibility of tragedy.
“We live in a culture that often wants to only discuss what’s going well. Anything that’s not going well is seen as a detour from the main road. The truth is, pain is not a detour from the main road. Pain is part of the road we ALL walk as human beings.” (Susan Cain)
I love Kate Bowler’s book and podcast of the same name because of the tender way in which she tackles occurrences of excruciating and inexplicable pain, that life sometimes deals us.
It can’t always be made to make sense, and it can’t always be tied to clearly discernible reasons. I’ve learned to be okay with that…okay with not knowing, okay with not having answers.
If that’s a topic you’re interested in exploring, her book is an excellent, well written and engaging resource to that effect.
I love how your mind works and your gift for expressing the evolution of thought.
Wonderful! Your contrasting stories fit together, describing the paradox that is this life. They are something that I will carry with me and reflect upon, today. Thank you.