What's so good about gray?  For some, particularly those who are growing old, gray is an ominous sign, a physical development to be avoided, a hair color that signals, yes, one really is old.  (On the other hand, the book of Proverbs lauds those with gray hair, saying that gray hair is a sign of wisdom.)  For others, those of a political bent, gray indicates failure to take a stand, an inability to distinguish what is really right from what is really wrong.  Similarly, for those who inhabit the halls of religion, gray is viewed as retreat, a refusal to recognize that the things of God are qualitatively and forever different from those of the world and will never be compatible with them.  Finally, for people who may view life as an open book, gray is the only way to view reality.  We should endeavor, such people say, to be always willing to embrace another perspective, experience, or viewpoint.  Life is incredibly diverse and no one has a monopoly on what it might mean.
     A highly interesting book, The Luminous and the Gray, by a British artist called David Batchelor, takes a different position altogether.  He presents gray as a useful counterpoint to color.  The latter, he says, bursts the world, makes it less understandable, renders it less hospitable to meaning.  Gray, he contends, offers a an appraisal of the world that pushes it into a kind of blurry uniformity which, rather than making it tedious, makes it more real.  Unless color is presented without any lines (which he asserts breaks it and, by extension, the world, up), it lacks any capacity to encourage meaning.  We find meaning, he suggests, in gray.
     The world is of course replete with colors, colors which many people find vastly meaningful.  Color infuses us all with a sense of existence.  In addition, there are things that can only be black and white, for instance, the existence of God.  Either God exists, or he does not.  On the other hand, black and white doesn't always explain things fully.  It makes a statement without giving solid evidence that it is true.
     That's the role of gray. When we look at the world as gray, we come to understand that the most profound--and seemingly rigid--delineations permeating existence communicate mystery, mystery that we cannot always solve in color or black and white. We must get used to the gray--and accept the reality and presence of the unknown.
     We are so finite.