A lovely summer day in late spring. A squirrel was frolicking in the Woods. He was enjoying the warm weather. MJ and I had a quick trip to Paducah yesterday. We saw our friend Jay. Jay is a wonderful man. I feel uplifted each time I am with him. We have collected several of Char’s paintings throughout this century. They are mesmerizing and a good place to spend an afternoon contemplating.

I thought about something I told a former Chancellor many years ago. I told her that success at SIU means living in the Grey. Everything is not black and white, although those who believe they are on a mission from God think so. Our brains are capable of holding more than one opinion at a time. Indeed, much of our current state of affairs results from holding fast to beliefs when they are based on myth and fable. This affects both liberals and conservatives. Albert Einstein did not come up with the theory of relativity by being close-minded. Churches do not flourish by being closed to new ideas. Nationalism does not have to be White Nationalism.

If you are accepting of all people, your mind and heart are open to new and different customs. When we think of those who are suffering, we first must accept that they are human like us. To be a lover of war, you have to marginalize those with whom you are at war. We are raised with a steady diet of rhetoric of going to war to preserve peace. Our political leaders proclaim that we are bringing peace to hurting people as we slaughter thousands of them.

The Grey Zone is where life is. Affording understanding of humans with a different opinion than you have. The person who is confident that they have all of the answers to life’s persistent questions is a narcissist. As a group, we are not all good humans or bad humans; we are humans and members of the same tribe. Communication with open ears and an open brain is the key to living in the Grey Zone.

Hateful words breed violence. Lying to people is not a badge of honor. Our ethos of violence as the means to have people love us is false. Bombing women and children in their homes in their beds is horrendous. However, we do not hear this on the nightly news. When I was a boy watching the Evening News with Walter Cronkite, the number of dead American soldiers was given for the day each evening. Also, the number of North Vietnamese was given. The Vietnamese number was much greater than the American number. Over 50 thousand Americans lost their lives in Vietnam. At the conclusion of the war, we fled to the top of a hotel as helicopters picked us up. We did not achieve our supposedly noble objective. American soldiers were catcalled and berated. Senator John McCain spent 6 years as a prisoner of war. We fought and died because President Johnson a Democrat did not want to lose face. The father of significant Civil Rights legislation sent American soldiers to war for the sake of his ego.

So it goes. We need to engage in the less flashy but positive communication with each other.

Our form of government is based on compromise or the Grey Zone. There is only one method of passing legislation, Compromise. Culure Wars have nothing to do with government. If a person is transgender or Gay or atheist is irrelevant to the 300 million of us in the United States. Humanity has always been a coat of many colors. We are more alike than we are different. Understanding is what we need. Compassion is what we need. Empathy is a required element to living in the Grey Zone.