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so yesterday i posted a very simple blog as a response to the wordpress challenge of the week which was a splash of colour [or ‘color’ if you’re americanese]

i found a picture of a splash of blue and posted that as the solitary post of the blog and then i gave it the title ‘red’ and then posted it at various times of the day with the following intros:

do you believe everything you see, or everything you read?

please do me a quick favour – i have just produced a blog on the theme of colour – in one word i would like you to go to my blog and in the comment section tell me which colour my blog is about… and go!

whatever your initial or thought out comment is, i would love for you to go to this blog and give a comment on the question “what colour do you see?” because there is a bunch of stuff happening here if you take a moment but just write what you see or don’t.

and as per usual, almost everyone posted on facebook and not on the blog [gotta figure that one out still] but here are some comments which stood out:

Ronnie Davis: Ah… setting up challenges for those of us of the color blind persuasion…

Ronnie Davis: I thought it a good blog about perception and labels… reality and expectation… or from an existential point of view–what is color (one I often debate as one who has a hindered visual palette)

Ronnie Davis: Just thought of something… if I take the “sucking the marrow out of life” into consideration, my thoughts move to color and blood (oxygenated vs de-oxygenated) and what type of social commentary that brings…. just saying

Byron Mountfort: my initial response is black, but this is to simplistic and one-dimensional. It’s about so much more. Red, Blue, white, purple… Neither are right or wrong. We don’t see things the way they are; we see things the way we are.

and then Georgina Beazeley who was convinced there was no colour in the blog: I think you know what I think already. I already said. The blog post is not about any colour

it was both a really simple blog [me just trying to mess with people and get a response] and a very deep blog [because there was some hidden meaning intended and i hoped people would take a bit more time to try and find some meaning, even besides that which i intended] and there are very many layers to it i think, but one thing i was thinking when i posted it was this:

what informs your opinions? so, for example, if i asked you to go and look at my blog called ‘red’ and you went and took a look and were confronted with the blue picture you might think the blue is a mistake. but if you just stumbled upon my blog and saw the blue picture and then looked at the title and saw it was called ‘red’ you might think that was the mistake.

the deeper question of perception and reality – is it the written word [red] or the visual word [blue] that informs your opinion? or can they be both right? or does one even have to be right? can they both be enjoyed despite apparent contradiction?

i have found that the older i get the more thing in the Bible and in life i have to hold in tension, not because they are as contradictionary as these two colours appear to be here but just because they seem so different and unrelated and it excites me when God opens my eyes to see how time and time again they work so perfectly together – an example being the Love of God and the Justice of God. and maybe i will look at those two later but for now, enjoy the colours, and the words…

red.

the shiny colour and disease that is red

i have a friend called Roy (or Conrad Roy)

he is one of the new students who was in our church enGAGE this year and is now part of our leadership team for next year

i really like Roy, for a number of reasons:

he says ‘awesome’ a lot. now i don’t like it when people say ‘awesome’ a lot because i personally have reserved the word ‘awesome’ for God cos it seems a travesty when you say ‘God is awesome’ and then ‘that ice-cream is aswesome’ or ‘that hockey goal you scored last night, brett, was awesome’- it’s like you’re comparing God with an ice-cream – so for me i reserve the word ‘awesome’ for God. Roy uses it ALL the time and so it should really annoy me, but it doesn’t. because he is generally just so excited about life and everything in life that i think ‘awesome’ is his way of getting it out. and so his using the word ‘awesome’ is an expression of his zest for life and i LOVE his zest for life.

not only does Roy operate on a ‘glass half full’ way of thinking about his own life, but he will see his glass as full and overflowing and will look across and see your glass (which is smashed and lying on the floor) as half full and then offer you his. Roy has come and helped out my VOB hockey team a few times and is an amazing athlete (possible pole vault contender for next Olympicals) and i am not as good although have probly been playing the hockey of my life this last year and Roy has just been such a huge encouragement on and off the field and really helped me with my self-belief which in turn has helped me play better. in fact he set up my first of two goals i scored this season and was super stoked for me when i samessed him last nite about my second goal.

he is super animated when telling stories, especially bible stories which he starts acting out even without realising i think and is really fun to watch – again just his passion for the moment.

and he is super deep – still young and still a bit loud and can be distractive at times, BUT when he goes into the zone and starts speaking about deep stuff he has been thinking about in terms of life or God or church or sports for summer camp (which he is running – so amped to hang with him!) then he really is a deep thinker and you can see the quality of his realness.

so that’s why i like Roy (or rooi) – red spirited and highly contagious – and a definite leader in the future. And very privileged right now to get to call him my friend…