My Crayola Crayon is Granite Gray. And I like to color biiiiiiiig gray areas with it!

There was a moment in my recent memory that really hurt my feelings. I was in a group setting where I, with a bunch of other students, was learning the meaning of integrity. We did a couple of exercises: if you agreed with a statement, you go to this corner of the room; if you disagreed with the statement, you go to that corner of the room. Oh, and let me not forget--if you STRONGLY agreed or if you STRONGLY disagreed, you also go to this or that corner of the room. (By the way, this room only had four corners... in case you were wondering ;) )

Some statements: "If you are driving your car in a school zone when there are no children present, it is okay to go over the 25 mph speed limit." "If your college is offering a $300 discount to a study abroad trip for current students only, and you just graduated two months ago, it is okay to take it."

After we all nomadically moved to different corners of the room in agreements and disagreements to these statements, we had a debrief. Here's the part that hurt my feelings:

The proctor asked, "So after this exercise, do you feel that there is a gray area in integrity?"

And I rose my hand and said, "Yes, a huge one."

As usual. Naively expressing my opinion without a care for what the consequences would be. Even if it meant that everyone in that room was judging me.

And here is what she replied: "Oh really, a huge one?"

And I said, "Yeah, I do not think everything in this world is black and white. For example, pretend that I'm a student who is going to study abroad in order to teach English to underprivileged kids. Not only that, I obviously have a deep financial situation that necessitates aid. Does that mean that I shouldn't take advantage of the $300 discount, simply because I graduated two months ago?"

The proctor simply replied, "But you already graduated."

The room was pin-drop silent and I felt my thoughts scrambling out loud like a twister, about to plague the room, without even being spoken out loud. I was so hurt that someone could imply that I do not have integrity. That I would dishonestly take advantage of a $300 discount.

I tried again.

"But I am different from a student who, say perhaps, is studying abroad recreationally and going to a country just for the sake of it and just to be a tourist in a foreign nation. In fact, I am doing good by teaching underprivileged kids how to speak English."

She was cold this time.

"You already graduated."

I felt like I was personally attacked. There is no justice. Why would I exploit someone else of a discount? Are we not all worthy of that discount? Oh wait, we are only worthy if we are currently students--not graduated students, but currently students. So, that means, even though in real life we are all able to receive the discount, the simple fact that there is an expiration date on it disqualifies us.

I felt dishonest.

I am not a dishonest person.

That moment urged me to really seek out the gray areas that I battle with constantly. In my every day life, I encounter so many gray areas. So do you. Gray areas come in so many different forms, in so many different ways, directions, shapes, what have you. I mean--the fact that the room had sections of "STRONG" disagreements/"STRONG" agreements implied that there are varying shades of the "gray area."

But before I move on, I want to state: be wary of the day that you see this world in simply black and white. This will be the end of your sanity and the end of your justice.

Why? Because the gray crayon is in your hand. You decide how much of a gray area there is, whether there is one at all, and if there is--then how big or how small it should be.

When we think of gray areas, this is what we do with them to make ourselves feel better:

1. We qualify them.


2. We justify them.


3. We embellish them.

But my concern is not that we have the wrong gray areas. Or that we are shading them in too big. Or too small. My concern is twofold: (1) that we have become so caught up with how big or small the gray area is that we can occupy entire conversations talking about how the gray area should be smaller or should be bigger; and (2) we actually accept the gray areas by doing the above mentioned things, and therefore have a total disregard to the fact that these gray areas can, at times, be potentially dangerous (especially when matters of morality are considered.)

So, aside from all of this, then, I would like to propose a completely new spin on gray areas: The next time you try to think about Robin Hood and whether it is wrong to steal from the rich to give to the poor, whether it is wrong to steal in general, and whether blah blah blah blah blah.. I would like you to ask yourself:

WHICH of these gray areas really matters? Some situations are life or death, some aren't.

But think of this: I have a friend who works at Taco Bell. And she has the ability to give me a discount on my food, since I am an acquaintence of hers and she would not mind punching in a few buttons for me. Am I doing the wrong thing by taking the discount--even considering the fact that this discount is not available to everyone else? That my friend is not friends with everyone else? Is it unfair that I am taking advantage of this discount when others do not even have it available to them? How unfair, right?!

Ah-hah! So...brings me back to the question...won't you pleeeeeeeeeeease let me use the $300 discount to study abroad? Por favor?!

I'm Right and You're ... NOT

So who has it right? When a person gets into an accident and one party is at fault, whose fault is it? Who was right and who followed the law? Who was wrong and didn't follow the law? What if you were both right and you both followed the law? And what if you both were too limited in knowledge of the law to realize that neither of you were right?

I come today with the notion of rightness and wrongness  based on the fact that there have been, historically, only two black-and-white sides to this world. Right and wrong. Whatever happened to the gray area? Whatever happened to colors that aren't visible in the spectrum?

Case in point: We are very limited in our knowledge as human beings. It's like that saying: The more I know, the more I realize how little I know. If we could sit and read all the books in all the libraries in the world and combine our knowledge to expand to every sentence and verse that has ever been written, we would still be missing information. Why? Oh, because some deusche bags lit fire on books everywhere in different countries around the world.

So some scientists believe that they can create an invisible cloak. Even better, some have realized the power of cloning..But so far, there have been none who can actually create. We think we are so smart and so powerful because we have the ability to make touchscreen iCrap. We think we are so cool because our cars have extra sensory perception and the wipers come on at the sensitivity to rain. We think we are so knowledgeable because three letters summarized the existence of the universe, E = mc squared. Who do we think we are?

We think we are right, that's who we think we are. We're right all the time, even when nuclear bombs kill millions of people. We're right even when ethnic genocides happen, because we all know who is genetically more superior. We're right when we had guns and they had arrows. We're right through the crusades, through the holocaust, through the apartheid. We are so right, all the time. We're right to think that this earth is ours, that the trees, oil, and ozone are unlimited--so use as you please. We are so right for thinking that Democrats are better than Republicans. That whites are better than asians. That batman is better than superman.

Because, you know, we're keeping a scoreboard here! And when we die, this is all going to add up! I win and you lose!

If everyone else judges a book by its cover, Imma do it too!

So recently I began to invest my energy in a thing called Dawah. Dawah is the arabic term for extending an invitation, but it is generally put in the context of bringing the knowledge of Islam to the people. No, we aren't preachers! And no, we aren't here to convert anybody. We are simply here because we would like people to have a chance to get to know more about us.

And boy, was I in for a ride. I began the Dawah session on bruin walk as any other Friday began- waking up late, intending to go to Spanish, then missing Spanish because I couldn't decide what to wear. On Fridays, we are to put efforts in looking nice and clean, by example of the Prophet, may peace be upon him. And in girl language..that simply means..let's go all out! So anyways, on a crisp Friday afternoon, I felt the air rush through the hoops of my earrings and felt a sense of becoming. I enjoy feeling a part of nature, and this was one of those moments. I finished eating a delicious falafel pita and I was looking forward to my very first time giving Dawah.

Next thing you know there's a homeless guy on a bike. His grin spreads across his face like a clothesline hangs from wall to wall. I noticed missing teeth, and the color of his skin was cooked to a tan. I hated the fact that I assumed he was homeless. So, for my own guilty greivings, I extended a warm welcome to him and handed him a Quran, while tending to a Deustch middle-aged skeptic as I was doing this. He motioned to me as if to shoo a fly, and indicated that he was not interested in reading the Quran.

No. It was not him. It was that he was illiterate. No, he was not illiterate. True--it is fact that if one cannot read, then he is considered, by definition, illiterate. But this man, homeless or not--we will never know, proved to me that he was not homeless. Although I was not able to interact with him myself, my colleague provided an account of his two hour experience talking to him, all while he balanced his two feet on the ground, in between a bicycle, in the middle of bruin walk. As my colleague answered a phone call with "Salamu Alaikum," the homeless man replied "Wa Alaykum As Salam." May Peace Be Upon You, and to you, as well, may peace be upon.

If ever there were a moment where I could light fire on the thoughts I have in my head so that they may diminish from the existence of space and the universe, it would be then. I wished to extinguish all the conceptions we make about homeless people. I wished to express the same happiness that this man displayed, patiently, while learning about Islam. But what had this illiterate to learn? He cannot read but he can respond. He can understand, and he is among us. We are lucky to know him.

I was so fascinated. Among other things, apparently this man also knew of Muhammad and believed he was the last prophet. It takes some Muslims their whole lives to figure that out, with the help of so many aids...and this man dispelled any need for help by his sheer open mindedness and capacity to take knowledge.

I became inspired to the point that I extended another welcome to a man in a straw hat on Sunday. He had to have been over 70 years old. The wrinkles on his face had such deep crevices that I would be able to unfold them and it would be a flat surface. He approached me and I was scattered...in my thoughts and in my apprehension, I simply began talking. He had tears flowing down his cheek, as if the sun struck his eyes, already shriveled to the point where I could only see the striking blue iris and nothing more. And yet another experience. I found out that this man in the straw hat and frumpy clothes was formerly a World Religions teacher and he knew so much, that the most favorable act he did for me was leave me with a joke. He said something about the pharoah and it was a good chuckle.

So I have opened these two books and I began to read.