Deeper Grays

For anyone who doesn't believe in the color gray, just sit in family court DSS day. Foster care is some of the murkiest grays Ive ever seen, and today I am heavily reminded of it: from the message of a foster mom friend who was under the impression the child would return to family today but didn't, to the message that a sweet girl who I once sang Wheels on the Bus to every night may have her biological parental rights terminated tomorrow -- and I think of how much her foster mom loves her and how much her biological mom loves her, and my heart breaks knowing that none of this is black and white, and the deepest grays are the ones I'll never fully know, the questions that may never have answers, the motives that may never be questioned. And I'm reminded today of the deep grays that are a part of Julia's story, the ones I can attempt to piece together with words and paragraphs. I can outline quite well those that affected me. But there are so many grays I have not touched, only seen from afar for my privilege cushions me in a way Julia and Julia's mom will never be cushioned. It gives me a power I take for granted, a tainted power that comes whether I want it or not, a power I would more wisely use if I understood the grays better. 

Today my heart and my head are gray. And though my title as foster mom has expired, eyes now open (albeit even a small bit) to the inside of the foster care system, it has a way of breaking theologies, or breaking tradition, or breaking routine and bubbles and worldviews that can never be put back as they once were. 
​
And for a dim moment I think of the Eucharist and how Jesus's body was broken & he taught us a tradition not for tradition's sake but so that we would remember that brokenness changes theologies and traditions and routines and bubbles and worldviews in ways that will never be the same.