Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ!

America has a color problem.

So do I.  I was told I was “color blind” in kindergarten.  One day we were given a white paper with the outline of three squirrels and told to color them in.  Squirrels?!  I love squirrels!  They were everywhere in Wooster, and all different colors!  So, I looked through my Crayola box and found the crayon I wanted and colored away.  I was proud of my work, kept within the lines and everything, but when Mrs. Garvin walked by my desk she looked down and shook her head.  “Harry, there are no green squirrels.  Here’s another paper, start over.”

No green squirrels?  They looked green to me.  I have this vague memory that I was soon whisked away to some special class for unfortunate color-blind children and, if I was, it did no good at all.  Of course not.  There is no therapy for seeing colors the way others do despite all these new color vision glasses which, by the way, do me no good whatsoever.

I remember reading about the impressionist painter Claude Monet, my favorite artist who I have tried to copy several times in learning how to paint in oils, which I have been enjoying since I was five (yes, in kindergarten!).  I never took any painting classes but figured Monet would be my teacher.  I have a large painting, a copy of a Monet, in my office to the left of my desk I did some thirty-five years ago.  To add to my love of Monet, a beloved bichon long passed was named after him thereby forever mixing up a great painter with a little white dog.

But back to the story.  In one of his works, Monet painted pink leaves on trees.  I have done similar things in many paintings because I did not know the right color.  Was Monet wrong?  Was he color challenged as some have suspected?  Or was he simply painting the leaves as he saw them in the early morning light?

What’s wrong with pink leaves?  And America, what’s the big deal about brown colored skin, or any other color? Why is there, and has been, such a ruckus over the color of our skin?

In our scripture this Sunday, Mark 6:14-16, people are talking about Jesus, but we note they don’t comment on his skin color or any other of his physical attributes. His appearance didn’t matter to the gospel writers, it is only what he did and said!  Is he John the Baptist come back to life, they wonder, asking us to turn our lives around?  Or maybe he’s a prophet like Elijah?  How disappointing it might be for some that Jesus was probably short with brown skin and dark eyes, like the rest of the Palestinian population at the time.

So, I am learning to leave the phrase “color blind” behind.  It’s not a good phrase.  I am not blind to colors.  I see them.  I just don’t see them like other folks.  And honestly, this is how it should be.  Why not celebrate the beauty of color without having to describe each one correctly?  It’s good to have some nuance and some fun sharing the differences we see.

Colors are part of the world’s grandeur, like sunsets and rainbows and animals.  How good of God to include human beings in this!  We should rejoice, be in awe, and utterly astounded by the rich palette of God.

So, I leave my kindergarten assignment behind, and my squirrels.  But if Mrs. Garvin was to give me the assignment again, I would probably not color them green again.  This time I might try blue.

Grace and peace,

Harry