COLOR

1 a: a phenomenon of light (as red, brown, pink, or gray) or visual perception that enables one to differentiate otherwise identical objects

It's a big day today. In a few minutes, we will have a new President. One who is not the same color I am - nor, likely, the same color you are. He's his very own color. Like all of us, he's a mixture of his mother and father. It just so happens that more people define him by his color than happens to me.

Did you notice above that the primary definition of color is that it is "a phenomenon... that enables one to differentiate otherwise identical objects?" Think about this for a moment. Color's purpose is to allow us to differentiate objects. Without color, objects look identical. We wouldn't be able to tell each other apart without color. Isn't that amazing? Color lets us see other people. How like us as sinful people to take a phenomenon designed to help us see and turn it into the only thing we see.

It makes me long, like Martin Luther King, Jr. so many years ago, for a day when people will be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. I believe today was a day that gets us closer to that. Fewer and fewer people are seeing only skin color when they look at someone. I hope I will use color as God designed it - to see the beauty of this world, not search for the ugliness in it. I hope I will see people for what we have in common and not only what makes us different.

One of the things I have loved about Barack Obama's vision for this country, both before and after he was elected, is the call for us all to do our part. I know we can't just leave our country in the hands of our elected leaders and expect all to go as we desire. Watching his speech this morning, I feel many things: called to do more, scared to step out and use my gifts, unsure how the gifts that I have can change my small world, much less impact the larger one we live in.

I loved the cleanly written inaugural poem by Elizabeth Alexander. It voiced the belief I hold that words are powerful. They help to shape the world we live in and the way we experience our world. I loved her instruction in the poem to "speak it clear." I don't have the experience, the training, the skills of Elizabeth Alexander. But what I do hope is to speak clearly what I see with these eyes that behold all the many colors in our world.