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Mother’s friend, Connie, was an artist of some note in Lubbock, who had two little girls roughly my age, Jodi and Jan. Going to their house to play was a paradise to this kid who never passed up a chance to get my hands on art supplies. Mostly, we colored, sometimes with crayons. The paper wasn’t a page from a printed coloring book. Along with Jodi and Jan, I got a sheet of blank butcher paper of whatever size I chose.
While being expected to use a blank canvas was different enough from what I used at home, the most puzzling thing was that the crayons were broken. Most lacked wrappers. Some had flat sides where they’d been used for shading, others were ragged and sharp where chunks had been carved out to give a jagged appearance, still others had flat tops used for making bold lines. Then there were those who’d rubbed up against others hard enough to pick up some of their color. Using two-toned crayons didn’t make sense. To me, the lot looked like a box of damaged crayons that had morphed into a hot mess.
Connie didn’t think so. To her this messy batch of colors freed us, providing the tools to flesh out our own ideas of line, design, and color. So too, without the limitation of printed drawings of standard coloring books, what we put on our blank paper became a whole new creation.
Thinking back to Jodi and Jan’s crayons this Holy Week, I’m reminded of the Easter story. Those who followed Jesus into the city, suffered while he suffered and died, and rejoiced at his Resurrection were society’s broken pieces, those with jagged edges and torn wrappers. Their colors were mixed, and their unruly ways ate at the pristine priests of the Temple. They were scorned by the haughty, judgmental Pharisees who challenged Jesus at every step and finally tried to kill and bury his message to stop its spread.
Yet, from this box of mismatched, ragtag broken pieces of humanity was born a Jesus-centered movement that would outlast both Rome and the Temple establishment as it colored the world with a new creation of God as everlasting grace, peace, and love.
In Christ,
Karen Kaigler-Walker, HTC UWFaith Spiritual Growth Coordinator
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