Madison Jackson – Feminism and Religion

Life is full of color, and nothing is ever black and white. Mourning teaches us that no color remains alone and that every shade has its season under heaven. People often associate grief with black clothing and dreary weather, but grief isn’t simply black and white. It is greige. Not because grief is dull, but because grief is transitional. Greige is not the absence of color, but the space in which we learn to see color differently. Like mourning itself, we often dismiss neutral colors because they are not eye-catching and feel indecisive. Instead, we gravitate towards vibrant colors and complementary color combinations. Yet greige has become a staple in design because it softens its surrounding colors. Perhaps this is why greige can be associated with the season of mourning, as it does not ask sorrow to replace joy, or memory to replace hope. Instead, it simply creates space for them to exist until another season under heaven arrives.

If mourning truly had an expiration date, then wouldn’t our memories have one too? We often rush the uncomfortable moments in our lives because we assume pain prevents us from living. In doing so, we begin to treat happiness as the emotional state we are meant to preserve. Yet happiness, like grief, has its own season. It comes and goes, but our memories always stay. In fact, if we truly lived in a permanent state of one emotion then a loss would lose its significance, and our memories would not hold so much power over our emotions.

Judaism understands this paradox well. Rather than treating mourning as something to overcome, Judaism understands mourning as a practice for which the living honor the dead. As Tisha B’Av approaches, the Jewish calendar invites participants into collective grief, by refraining from life’s pleasures, including intimacy and celebration. Then six days later, Tu B’Av marks a season of love and renewal. The transition from Tisha B’Av to Tu B’Av reflects the impermanence of human emotion, as grief and joy come and go, but our memories stay. This vision of life is expressed in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. There is “a time for being born and a time for dying” (Ecclesiastes 3:2), as well as “a time to weep and a time to laugh” Ecclesiastes 3:4. While Lamentations is traditionally read on Tisha B’Av, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 complements a new perspective on mourning, as mourning is a process that occurs throughout the year, not just on particular days.