"You choose your friends by their character and your socks by their color." ~ Gary Oldman
I heard another good reverence story today. This one relates to skin colors. I heard it from a Touchstone subscriber named Judi. Thanks for the permission to share, Judi. I hope you will write about it fully someday. I'm going to stick to the gist of it here.
When Judy was a teenager and got a job at the local drug store as a soda jerk, she had her first
encounter with a man of color who had also worked there. "Man of color." That's one of the ways we label Afro-Americans now. Back then, it was Black or Negro. Initially Judi felt uncomfortable around him, mostly because she had heard disparaging things about his race.
As time went on and Judi got to know him, she realized that he was very intelligent person. He was kind and did many amazingly helpful things for people. He was a good man with potential well beyond what
was being tapped in his job as a stock boy. One day they got to talking about the division between "whites and blacks," he pointed out that whites are not white and blacks are not black. We are all different shades of brown. And he wondered about his shade. Did it have a name?
He found his answer at the local paint store, on a chip that matched his skin. She may not have called it reverence
back then, but Judi observed the reverence he had for himself and others. It stirred up the reverence in her too, as it stirred out her fears and judgments about people with different languages, accents, nationalities...anything "different."
So, what's the color of your skin? Is it latte? Nutmeg? Caramel? Hazelnut coffee? We could do what that gentleman did. Go to our local paint
or big box hardware store and check out the chips. I'll do that sometime and let you know what color I am.
As Mattie Stepanek said, "Sunset is still my favorite color, and rainbow is second."
Amen,
Charlene
REVERENCE: May you appreciate the wonder that you are and
the miracle of all creation. - from The Twelve Gifts of Birth
I'm reminded of how much we love color in flowers, fashion, home decorating, art, sunrises and sunsets, crayons, and paint. Imagine if we appreciated all the different
shades of brown that we are.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/gary_oldman_470937?src=t_color
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