The Twilight Zone

We live in an ambiguous world, a world where there are different beliefs, opinions, meanings and interpretations.  I am ambivalent (in a state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas) about so many things.  There are so many questions confronting us for which, I, at least, do not have ready answers.  I’ve sought for clarity, for certainty, for clear and concise answers to these many questions of life, but have not discovered, or received by some sort of revelation, any definitive answers.  There are so many imponderables; so many intangibles.  Many of  us live in this gray world, a twilight zone, where we struggle to know what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is not.  Most of the social, religious, and political issues are blurred and fuzzy for us.  We have opinions and thoughts about these issues, but we hesitate to identify our fallible opinions and thoughts as the will of God (that is, the only way).  

Some folk do not have this problem. They do not dwell in a twilight zone for they “have seen   the Light.” They believe they have the Yes and the No, the right and the wrong clearly in hand.  They believe that their stance is none other than the stance of God or the authority of the Bible.  They think unequivocally that this or that issue (you name it) is right or wrong, they see only black and white, and they are certain their way is the only way and their answers the only answers to the perplexing questions of our day. This position precludes discussion, dialogue, and compromise.  

I find myself occupying an embattled middle ground—a place where the answers do not come easily, a place of perplexity where black and white are often blended together—a twilight zone.  I find even the scripture to be a twilight zone.  While some parts of the Bible are being pronounced  as the only way, other parts are being ignored.  Especially being ignored is that truth, explicitly stated without equivocation, that we should not judge or condemn.  The log in our brother or sister’s eye cannot be seen clearly, nor removed, because of the log in our own.  Our rigid positions and/or our ambivalence on the social, religious, and political issues, whatever they may be, are always flawed.  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55:8).