FROM THE BOUNDARY:Colours

“Hello darkness, my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again.” These iconic words from ‘Sound of Silence’ capture, I suppose, my feelings when I sit down to start penning this Column. I may have a rough idea about substance, but it’s undeveloped and I’m not really sure where it’s going. It’s like watching clouds changing shape – one minute a horse and rider; the next, nothing. And with each strangled syllable, phrase, sentence you start wondering whether anyone will be interested anyway. Well, no matter. The star’s still in the east for us all. It’s just that my east is more north or south than yours.

It’s a bit like life really. We move from moment to moment because that’s all we’ve got, and we don’t know what the next will bring. Our thoughts and feelings – they’re all fleeting. And one minute we’ll be touched by joy, laughter, success, love, hope. The next, it’ll be loss, heartbreak, suffering, pain, death. And it’s not just you. Their ‘colours’ stretch across continents and touch everyone in our world just like us. Yes, so we’d better make the best of what we have – NOW. Strike the moment. It’s NOW. “The air that we breathe is different from any before it….it’s now.”  Thanks for that song, Incredible String Band. And yes, you’re right. You can never retrieve the un-tasted kiss. But why would you want to? You’ll be in the next moment anyway. That’s the wonder of the white bird of life, one minute mounting to the heavens, the next swooping to earth – like the wind, blowing where it will.

And so to roosters – well, you’ll remember perhaps my affection for them. On Ebay the other week I found a lovely medal with a rooster on it. I bought it and, actually, it came today. Below the rooster is the inscription ‘De Colores’, and on the back a prayer to the Holy Spirit: “Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful, and kindle in them the fire of your divine love.” Beautiful. Yes, but why ‘De Colores’? Well, it makes me feel a bit dumb because when I researched it I found it’s the name of a universally known, ancient Spanish folk song – ‘Colours’. It’s on you tube sung by all sorts of people, including Joan Baez and Pete Seeger. In one version, it’s sung by a group of kids of all races – yes, colours. It’s a song of joy celebrating the colours of nature, of people, and the beauty of life, sung in Spanish. The words are very simple, masking the profundity of it all. “In colours the fields are dressed in the Spring…colourful is the rainbow we see shining….sings the rooster with the cock-a doodle-do….and that’s why the great loves of many colours are pleasing to me.” So there, the roosters.

Some Roman Catholic religious movements have adopted the song and rewritten some of the words: “Missionaries, missionaries of Christ with His courage determined to conquer…” H’mm, I prefer the simplicity of the original.

Now, with ‘De Colores’ in mind, I invite you to go out this week and witness the relentless spontaneity of the colours of life – as I’ve been doing. There’s been the lovely receptionist – ‘C’ – in the doctor’s office, on Tuesday in a ‘don’t tangle’ city suit, but on Friday in chic California-hip in green and white, yet each time with the same irresistible smile, the same warmth and care for us patients. Colours. At ballet, my friend, fair ‘T’, had brought her little son with her, a real charmer and darker like his Dad. Love him. And then today in the coffee shop, a white girl and black fella holding hands. I’d been scribbling some of this. Their mutual affection actually brought tears to my eyes. Colours. And to think, in face of the beauty of life, the Bible instructs you not to marry outside the tribe! Really Lord? NO. One love. One love in Christ, Jew and Greek, male and female, gay and straight. You know, I regard marrying outside the tribe one of the best things I’ve done in my life – one world. one humanity. Oh, and imagine if we were all called ‘John’ or ‘Mary’. Incidentally, journeying back from UK, at 36000 feet I saw a rainbow thousands of feet below. A divine gift? Colours.

Yet colours, which should bring us joy, and speak of the wonder of creation and the glory of God, are ever used to divide us, to turn us against each other. How can that be the design of the divine? ‘I’m a Christian. I’m the best.’ ‘I’m a Moslem. I’m tops.’ ‘My God’s real, yours isn’t.’ ‘I’m white’ (effortless superiority). ‘I’m black’ (first human). Please: give mankind – and God - a break. We divide ourselves by nationality, race, religion, colour, class and then seek advantage for ourselves. Yes: great nationalists we are too – and how many wrongs have been committed in its name? Why, it’s even been said that God created nation states! Yet spiritually we’re one. Our blood is red. We all need oxygen. We all defecate. Mosquitos don’t discriminate between us. We all die. Just one God-given world – of countless colours breathing LIFE.

Go safely, then – until the next time.

Eye-opening, from the boundary:   “All colours are the friend of their neighbours and the lovers of their opposites” (Chagall).

Barbados Advocate

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