Painting

One snowy white morning, I was driving my kids to school when my son shared with me his friends idea of a snow covered day. She told him God decided he wanted to paint that day so by morning, he had turned everything totally white. He could start over and spend the whole day painting the world all the beautiful colors for a second time.

That's the way it works in Colorado. You wake up to the entire world covered in white and by the afternoon, all the colors are back. It's a nice image to think of God with a giant paintbrush taking his time to color all the world back the way he likes it.

If this is the way it works then God decided to start with Gray this morning. I got up at 7:00AM and went out to walk our old dog. We can't let him out by himself anymore or he wanders away. I don't really know if he's out exploring the world or if he follows his nose and ends up lost. I tend to think the latter.

It reminds me of the time when I was in high school, my mom and I were driving past an old folks home that had a wide open field next to it. Out in the field, an old woman in a robe and slippers was running as fast as her 80 year old legs would take her. Not far behind were the nurses trying to catch her. I was sure, in my infinite wisdom of 17, she was enjoying a moment of freedom. Now it occurs to me she may have been lost and desperately trying to figure out where she belonged.

For this reason, I completely enjoy giving my dog our time out in the morning. He takes his time sniffing around, as if things might have changed since the night before, occasionally looking back just to make sure I'm still there... making sure I don't get lost.

This morning while we were out I noticed the quiet, then I noticed the gray. The trees were gray and the ground was gray. The entire sky was gray, with a mist of low hanging gray clouds completely erasing the mountains we live by. I honestly couldn't see one single thing that wasn't gray.

I thought about my kid's friend for a moment, then I thought about how much I would appreciate all the colors when God got done painting later today.