In the Huffington Post, Byron Williams, a Pastor in Oakland, California wrote: To see the world in black and white is to live within the contours of extremism. This outlook neatly divides the world into right versus wrong, good versus evil, and yes versus no. When small children are learning to use words and organize their thoughts, it is normal and expected for them to see and express their world in very black and white terms. When a young child feels they are not loved, they feel they must be hated. When a child feels his or her parents don't pay enough attention to them, that child will say, "You never pay attention to me."  

Muslim extremists who saw the world in a very black and white way orchestrated the 2001 terrorist attacks, but according to Bill O'Reilly on yesterday's broadcast of The View, "Muslims killed us on 9/11." O'Reilly implies that all Muslims are terrorists and universally waging Jihad against the U.S.   Like the terrorists who saw the U.S. as all bad and totally evil.  O'Reilly's remarks reflected his feeling that all Muslims attacked the U.S. and are universally evil. This is a clear example of black and white thinking. O'Reilly's statement evoked a heated argument culminating in Whoppi Goldberg and Joy Behar walking off the set.

Unfortunately, under duress, adults often regress to primitive thinking, most often when they are having a hard time and feel overwhelmed by their own emotions. Many of us have had this regressive response to the Ground Zero Mosque, including myself initially. A regression, in psychoanalytic parlance, is a backsliding from mature functioning and thinking to immature ways of operating and seeing the world. For that one moment, when the adult starts relying on the words "always" or "never," and seeing the world in black and white terms, they are slipping back to the way they saw the world as a child.

When you learn to recognize the spectrum of gray in the difficult experiences you encounter in your life, you will be better equipped to come out on top. Regression is not a foregone conclusion when you feel stressed, angry, overwhelmed, confused, or just plain fed up with another person. You CAN start to recognize when you are giving-in to black and white thinking, as I ultimately did regarding the Ground Zero Mosque. Thinking in shades of gray allowed me to make the choice to banish those extreme thoughts in favor of remembering the cornerstone of the U.S. constitution and our tradition of religious freedom. This kind of thinking allowed me to realize that welcoming the Mosque is a powerful statement and symbol of values integral to us as Americans.

In the long term, if the United States wants to protect freedom of worship while combating the real threat of radical Islamic terrorists, conservatives and liberals will need to alter the nature of their discourse. As President Obama eloquently said, "As Americans we are not - and never will be - at war with Islam. It was not a religion that attacked us that September day - it was al-Qaeda, a sorry band of men which perverts religion."