White

My friend Shannon would love it here. She is a designer whose home is beautifully spare. She’s painstakingly chosen every object in her home. Sometimes it drives her husband and children crazy. For example, a few years ago it took her months to decide on a color to paint the living room. Swatches of paint dotted the walls so she could see how they looked at different times of the day. One shade made her worry that it would make the winter afternoons would feel too cold. One shade made our skin too sallow. Shannon spent that summer debating between “Etiquette,” “Navajo,” “Frostine,” “Chantilly Lace,” to name a few. To the rest of us, they were all “White.” To Shannon they spanned a spectrum. We giggled behind her back, but now I get it.

I came here expecting to live in the dark, but this place is showing me Shannon’s spectrum of white. Snow comes in dozens of shades. The mountains and afternoon sky, all “white,” would put the Benjamin Moore fan deck to shame. The falling, freezing water of Guffloss was a feast of white silver grey, laced with black rock. The walls of the homes are stark white to show off the colorful artwork. The churches and most buildings are white, with pops of color on roofs and doors. The steam billows from the earth in white clouds that blush in the sunset. I imagine that I have missed a lot of texture in my life. In a rush toward the brightest, I have missed the subtle beauty of the places and people around me. In ignoring what I perceived to be a lack of color, I have missed the texture and movement of things. This strange place is waking me up.

God of light, thank you for opening my eyes to see more of the spectrum of your world. Help me to appreciate the subtle beauty around me, especially in the people I might not notice at first. Continue to give me eyes to find the treasure of your creation.