With deafening silence, the snow
covered the dregs of a long summer and a short fall. The strong
breath of winter fought the determination of the few remaining
leaves, as they fiercely battled their inevitable plunge into the
deepening whiteness. Indeed, it was a losing struggle, as the green,
lush, life of summer gave way to the cold, white, death of winter.
The earth tilted on its axis, slowly spinning its way to the dark
side of the sun, and as it has for as long as the generations of man
can recall, changed the scene for the inhabitants of this lonely
planet.
Indeed, the motion of these heavenly
bodies alter the scenes, and each passing year opens a new act, but
for a mere wisp of time, the players and the actors remain the same.
With each trip around the sun, the stage we call earth loses a few of
the actors, but they are soon replaced, and the new performers play
the role as well, or better than the ones who have left, and thus,
the play continues.
Huddled around the fire in the ancient
log house, I watched the man stoke his fire, then his pipe, before he
poured a measure of whiskey into his coffee cup. His age was
unknown, perhaps even to himself, but the grizzled growth on his face
and the shoulder length white hair, spoke of many years past eighty.
The eyes revealed the wisdom of those years, while the mind was as
agile as the most prominent physician.
He offered me coffee and I accepted,
but as he lifted the bottle, I shook my head with the explanation,
“I'm a Christian, you see.”
“Ah, I am sorry, I did not
understand, “ he said with a smile, as he replaced the stopper and
set the bottle on the floor between us. The smile brought out the
wrinkle lines of laughter around his eyes and at the corners of his
lips. Lines from years of laughing at the joys as well as mourning
the sorrows and pain only this life can bring.
The white-haired old man was considered
strange by the village actors. For as long as the people of the
community could remember, he had lived in his tiny log cabin on the
side of the mountain, with nature and solitude as his sole
companions. He often came to the village and watched the activity
with his distinctive smile, and always returned to the mountain
shaking his head in amused bewilderment. While the consensus of the
village was that he was truly a bizarre sort of person, I was
intrigued with his unique personality. He was in church quite often,
and always sat quietly in the back row listening intently, although
he seldom spoke. When there was a need in the community he was among
the first to respond, and yet, the thespians of our small region
spent large amounts of time ridiculing this aged man who shared his
fire with me.
Logs crackled on the grate, the storm
blew at the shutters, and the snow continued to fall. The old man
and I sat in the warmth of the comfortable silence, me sipping my
coffee, while he enjoyed the mixture in his cup. It was the
Christmas Eve of my sixtieth year, and I had determined to find the
meaning behind the acting and the reason for the performance.
In the village, the players were
preparing to act their parts. Some were walking through bar doors,
others through church doors, and still others were sitting quietly at
home. Most of them, truth be told, were using the joy of the season
to cover the quiet desperation of the life that dwelt beneath the
veil of the actor. Granted, I probably should have been seeking
answers from inside the doors of my church rather than from this
eccentric recluse, but something had drawn me to him on this, my
sixtieth Christmas Eve. For the whole of my fifth decade, I had
evaluated the people of the village one by one, and had reached the
conclusion that the man from the mountain was the most satisfied and
content person in our little world. He was also the most real....the
most alive....and I was determined to find his secret before another
year had passed.
Minutes in the cabin became an hour
before I was able to begin my inquiry. With our feet stretched
toward the hungry flame, we talked the small talk of strangers as the
wind brought us the chords of many voices singing, “Come Let Us
Adore Him,” from the church below. “Joy to the World,” and,
“What Child is This,” followed before I was able to form the
question. During the final verse of, “Silent Night,” I quietly
whispered, “My friend, what is your secret?”
His smile grew wider and the laugh
lines clearer as he stared at the leaping flames before us. “My
secret for what?” he asked, without turning his eyes from the
blaze.
“For the peace you have, for the
quiet joy, for the contentment the rest of us pretend to have. You
are most satisfied person I have ever known, and I need to know the
reason for it. I need to know the secret!” The words poured from
me with a power of their own as I laid my desire before him.
“Tomorrow is Christmas, and we
celebrate God coming to our planet in the form of a helpless little
baby,” he began. “Contentment begins and ends with that child.
It begins and ends with the Messiah, Jesus Christ....but you already
know that. You're a leader in the church down there. You have heard
it preached and taught for so many years that this is not a great
revelation to you.”
“It's not! I am a Christian!” I
nearly shouted at him in my frustration. “Many of the people down
there are Christians, but the joy and contentment seems, so often, to
be a show. They are merely actors playing the role of people at
peace with themselves and their God. Don't you see! The masks
change with every new audience, and what is authentic is slowly
covered by layers of make up. With you, it's real....it's never a
performance. You must have something we don't have. I need to know
the secret.”
“Actually,” came the reply. “You
have an ability I have never acquired. You learned to color within
the lines.” The blank look on my face and my silence brought
another smile to the ancient face as he tried to explain. “When
you are very young and you color a picture it is acceptable to go
outside of the lines. If you want a man with a purple face, you
color the face purple. If you have a fancy for pink leaves, you make
the leaves pink. If you want some of the color to go outside of the
lines, you color outside of the lines. It's the pure joy and
privilege of a child to color his picture any way he pleases. Is
this not true?”
“It most certainly is true, “ I
answered, trying to understand what a child coloring outside the
lines of a picture had to do with tranquility. He saw my
bewilderment, smiled again, and continued.
“When you reach a certain age,
someone, perhaps a parent or teacher, explains to you that faces
really are not purple, and it would be better to use flesh tones when
doing a face. So, you begin using flesh colors on all your faces,
and some of the joy of coloring is lost. Then someone else laughs at
you for making your leaves pink, so you start coloring them green,
while a little more of the delight of creating slips away from you.
Finally, the day comes when you are told that in order for your work
to be acceptable, you really need to color within the lines. Then,
as you take pains to stay within the lines, all the pleasure is gone
from the creation. I just never learned to color within the lines.”
My friend slowly rose from the chair
and added another log to the fire, while I considered the words he
had spoken. How could the coloring lessons of a child account for
the contentment and joy that flowed through this man's life? I
hesitated to ask, lest he think me slow, but I needed to understand,
and when determination overcame my pride, I voiced the question.
Again, the patient smile and the gentle
voice, “ I discovered at a young age that people, whether they be
friends, relatives, or merely acquaintances, will usually desire that
we color within the lines of their accepted behavior. Anything
outside of their narrowly drawn lines constitutes a threat, and
people do not deal well with anything that threatens them. They
react with ridicule, contempt, scorn, and often times, violence
toward anyone or anything that dares paint outside of the lines they
have drawn. Early in life, I determined to accept the negative,
rather than color within the lines of other people's prejudices and,
for me, it has proven a good choice.”
“I have often seen you in church.
The church provides us with lines we must stay within,” I reminded
him.
“Correction.” came the reply.
“This Baby, whose birth we are preparing to celebrate, provides us
with the various colors and shades we have to work with; the bible
you often carry with you, helps us define the lines and the shapes;
And finally, God's Holy Spirit in our hearts shows us how the lines
and colors of our picture are to fit together. Religion and theology
often times limit us to the boundaries of that particular religion
and its set of beliefs. It is, indeed, easier for us to stay within
the confines of doctrine rather than seeking the boundaries God has
set for the picture that is our life. Yes, it truly is easier. The
danger of coloring within those lines, however, is becoming something
less than what God has intended for us to be. Because of this, I
refuse to be forced to color within any lines other that the lines
given me by God through Jesus Christ and his Word as revealed to me
by his Holy Spirit. To live any other way buries the person the
Father created you to be underneath layers of colors and shapes
thrust on you by the world. Most people go through life with their
true identity, the person they were created to be, buried under
expectations placed on them by friends, family, religion and life in
general. Over the years, they become performers, playing a role
placed on them by others that should never have been theirs.
“You realize, of course,” I
couldn't help pointing out, “That the actors in the village
consider you to be a rather strange and peculiar person,”
“I understand that and wholeheartedly
expect it,” he said with a laugh that lit up his entire face. “I
have always understood that there is a cost to coloring faces purple
in a world that expects flesh tones, and there is a price to pay when
you have a fondness for pink leaves in a green-leafed world. And,
most definitely, you will be ridiculed when you color outside of the
lines of the defined behavior of any society. I am of the opinion
that this Child of Mary's never learned to color within the lines.
He grew to an adult coloring outside of the conventional lines of
religion, theology, and society. He used colors they never would
have dreamed of using along with shapes they had never imagined, and
because of that, He was nailed to a tree. Being judged strange and
peculiar by a few petty people is rather mild by comparison, wouldn't
you agree?”
With the fire slowly turning to embers,
and the storm beginning to die, I sat in the warmth of the cabin,
finishing my coffee, and contemplating his words. The midnight
chimes of the village church stirred me from my meditation. My
white-haired companion was asleep in his chair, the same peaceful
smile on his face.
I drew a blanket to his chin and
whispered, “Merry Christmas and thank you, old one.” Pulling on
my coat, I stepped into the cold winter air and began my descent to
the village below. I silently prayed that the layers of expectations
I had allowed to be placed on me by others would be stripped away so
that I might live out my years as the person the Creator made me to
be. Sometime during that walk, I determined that in the year to
come, I would definitely color a couple of faces purple, and a few
leaves pink.....and, if I liked what I saw, I might even start
coloring outside of the lines.
