The Road Less Taken is Colorful, or, How about Being a Human Being?

I’m promised great and marvelous outcomes if only I join the 10-item capsule wardrobe crowd, the minimalists, the organized and responsible ones; if I am oblivious to what I like and adore, in favor of what everyone else is liking and adoring.  My heart isn’t meant to sing, it’s meant to follow the leader in gray.  In grey (for our purposes today gray is a color, grey a state of heart and mind).

I once had a grey heart–charcoal, dead.  I saw it, lying on a weed-infested sidewalk crack.  That was the result of following, being untrue to my true self, untrue to God.  It was, and is, SIN.  Sin is, after all, defined as missing the mark, or forfeiting God’s best—color, light,  LIFE. Satisfaction.  Peace.  Trusting myself as I first trust my Maker.  

Much cleverer than heeding and trusting people who so assiduously look, talk, act and walk like everyone else.  Human, but AI.  Artificial “intelligence” is artificial, yes, but intelligent—I think not.  We are told that pink is in, blue (or is it brown?) is the new black, or whatever.  Who has time to worry about it?  Worry is unintelligent.  It’s the devil’s programming.

But I am encouraged even as I impatiently await the light to penetrate those who are, to quote the Eagles, “programmed to receive.”  Hotel California goes on to say, “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”  But people are leaving, exploring the forbidden territories of authentic living, starting with the clothes on their backs.  Floaty florals and vintage high-waisted jeans call to remembrance that pair of pastel plaid, cuffed bell-bottoms I had in high school.  The other girls didn’t look at me with jealousy, they looked with hopeful sighs, and gleams in their eyes.  They, too, were going to dress like that. With a twist—their very own spins.

So, “you can never leave” is a lie from Hell.  You can begin checking out of this Culture of Grey right now.  Go change into something that makes you feel like you want to feel today.  If that happens to be the gray of sophisticated style, thoughtful quietude and understated elegance, that’s great.  Just beware that it’s not the grey of a drizzly, damp, depressed state of mind—grey begets grey. 

I admit there are times for such as this, but cozy yourself against the elements.  Yes, go weeping and walking in the rain, but choose a red umbrella, or a bright scarf, and a good hanky. Sit alone in the darkness, but light one candle, or turn on a small lamp and begin to read a beautiful book, such as Little Women. The unutterable sadness of the death in Little Women is cocooned and made bearable by Jo’s sparkling authenticity and color-filled antics, delivering you, Dear Reader, away from the tortuous landscape of apocalypse-grey living.

And now back to the Levis and such: add lipstick, lift your head, and make like the child scripture exhorts you to become.  This means that instead of getting rid of most of your clothes, you gleefully explore the possibilities:  give something away to someone who will look great in it, put a thing or two in the trash because it’s not worth sharing, iron what needs ironing, and maybe organize by color—this is good, cheap fun.  Say, “So there!” as you ignore the mandate to “get rid of anything you haven’t worn in the past year.”

Now it’s time to shop your closet.  And if you can’t imagine going out with the wacky outfit you come up with (or if you’re like me, the Levis and white man’s shirt with big gold hoops), then stay home with your new and happier, more human self. 

If you’re feeling brave by now, Old Time Rock and Roll by Bob Seger will suit your dancing feet, or maybe begin more gently with Thank You, Jesus by Charity Gayle and some crooning with Vince Gill, or praise God with and for CeCe Winans.  What’s your almost forgotten old favorite, or that song your friend likes?  Mine would include some in-your-face-to-Grey with Dwight Yokum, or Midnight Train to Georgia.  A fine finish would be Freedom by Michael W. Smith and Soldier by Phil Driscoll.

It is, after all, a fight to be free from mindless following, so that you are of real use and benefit to those who don’t yet know how to.  It’s a call and a challenge worth meeting—being human.  A Human Being.

Human is better.  Human responds to color and light, to movement, rhythm and grace, and especially to the uniquely beautiful, enchantingly lovely, and quite colorful.  You.