Can you imagine a world with no color, or no variety? Can you imagine us all having the same favorite color and object – a yellow pencil? Yes, we’d all be nothing but boring yellow pencils… hehehe…(couldn’t resist)! One of the reasons  my favorite season is Autumn is because of the various colors that become prominent and all mixed up together in showers of  beauty! Wow! In part, our youngest daughter got her name because of my love for this particular season. As I sat at a stop light recently, I was literally mesmerized by the wonderful red and yellow leaves that fell like rain from a well-ordered row of trees directly across the street and thanked the Father, Son and Spirit, yet again, for sharing such complex and simple iridescence and coloration with us! Wowsa!

This is also one reason I appreciate relating with those in my denomination and local Church congregation. I appreciate and enjoy the rich variety of colors, cultures and accents that make up our genuine and regular relating together as brothers and sisters adopted into the Love and Life of God the Trinity – THE Relationship of all relationships, FILLED with unity AND DIVERSITY – the basis for various colors! 🙂

Can you imagine being literally colorblind in such a world of profound and colorific nature? Color blindness  “the inability or decreased ability to see color, or perceive color differences, under normal lighting conditions”(Wikipedia). I sure can’t imagine being deficient in seeing life in color, not to mention the danger of it (how would you know to stop at a stop light if you are the first one to arrive at it? Yikes!) Actually, in a world filled with color it could be downright dangerous to your health!)

All these thoughts have crossed my mind lately as I have heard, for the umpteenth time, a person in my presence say “When I see you and everyone else in the room, I don’t see color!” What?! How is that possible when we are such a rich variety of people with different colors displayed in the blazing glory of God the Trinity in our present humanity?! Grrrrrrrrrrr…….makes me wanna scream…ahhhhhhh… hahaha…  Okay, okay, I DO KNOW what the person  saying this to me is trying to communicate, so I give them a break, but, to be honest, in trying to help me know they are more accepting of people of other colors and not as prejudiced as they perhaps once were, they sure sound, and give me the feel of, an awful prejudice…just saying….

In the Light of the Union and Diversity of the Father, Son and Spirit (the Son even now claiming Jewishness in His very real humanity Luke 23:38!), how can we any longer look around a room filled with diverse people and colors and TRULY proclaim to be color-blind? In Jesus we see our various colors and races dignified! The problem I am pointing out is kind of like taking Gal 3:28 out of context. It’s not that Paul is saying that we no longer see people for who they are as Jew, Gentile, Black, White, Brown, Male, Female, Child, Elder, etc. It’s that we actually see IN CHRIST all of those diverse children of the Lord as our brothers and sisters, in union with us and as equally loved, liked and included in His family! Yay! (Again, I can’t help but exclaiming joyfully at such a fantastically colorant Gospel!)

I am not making a huge complaint here because I AM THANKFUL that somehow in the far-reaching love of the God revealed in Jesus Christ, all of humanity and every human person is embraced and included in His Life and Love  including every single person who struggles with the various prejudices of every type (Me and each one of you! hahaha) Prejudice is exposed as a true sin and relational problem because even those who are prejudiced against lighter skinned people seem to enjoy the white sands of a warm beach without complaint , and those who are prejudiced against darker-skinned folks still seem to love playing with black or red mulch in their flower beds. And, in fact, we exalt these colors in these moments and don’t say “I went to the beach and never saw any color! Yay” or “Look at my colorless flowerbed and mulch! Wheeeee!”…heehee…

If I am complaining (cuz honestly I have heard this kind of thing overmuch in my circles! Yikes!),  it is a complaint to see more clearly that we can be so bold as to think/voice what we see in Jesus the Jew (and Good News!) Himself – that our skin color matters and is something to celebrate and speak about encouragingly! Prejudice makes people disappear and seem not to matter. Claiming to see no color can do the same thing – besides the other person IS your [insert color] brother or sister in Christ, even as you are theirs! Ha! 🙂

You have to use good discernment, and it may or may not be proper in certain social circumstances, annddd I KNOW the situation is COMPLICATED, but every once in a while feel free to express the glory of God in a diverse friendship/fellowship and say something Gospel and “simple” like “When I see you, and everyone else in the room, I see a noble and diverse member of God’s family and my brother or sister in Jesus, including the colorific, chromatic, colorful, luminescent, tinge, tinctures and skin pigmentations that make the skin complexions stand out and blend together in His unity and present glory so beautifully!” Hahahahahahahahahahaha…

“…he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.” – Acts 25b-26 TNIV