At Kids Club last week, there was a group of volunteers that came in from a local church to help us out. I was sitting at the craft table with a couple of them as kids starting coming in. The craft that day was a coloring page about the parable of the sower. Images of a farmer, soil, plants, seeds, and birds covered the page. Little Sergio soon came to sit between me and one of the church volunteers to color. He reached for some "colors" and began coloring the sky purple and the plants pink. When he started scribbling orange over the birds, the woman on the other side of him took notice and said, "Hmm...I've never seen an orange bird before. Here, why don't you color the birds blue? Don't you think birds are blue?"
Here's a short back story before I continue:
When I was Sergio's age, a teacher once looked over my shoulder when I was coloring a person's face orange (Peach-colored markers are hard to come by). She said, "Hmm...I've never seen an orange person before," and walked away. I was devastated. She didn't like my orange person.
It's a rare occasion that I feel physically angry. Livid is probably an accurate adjective for how I felt. My first reaction was to want to cover Sergio's ears and scold her. But I took a breath and calmly said, "Well, I've seen orange finches..." She shrugged off my words: "Oh? Well here, let's color the plants green, not pink. And this dirt should be a nice brown. And a blue sky. I like blue skies."
I felt paralyzed. What could I say? This is not your drawing how dare you crush his imagination leave him alone and by the way what planet do you live on where birds are only blue? I sat there with my hands shaking, searching for an appropriate way to redeem the situation. Finally he finished and she said, "That's much better. You can go play now," and little Sergio made a beeline for the legos.
I comforted myself with the fact that this woman will not, Lord-willing, be coming back to Fletcher very soon. I prayed and waited for the right moment to talk to Sergio. It came yesterday morning when he was playing by himself. I sat beside him and said, "Hey Sergio, remember last week at Kids Club? We were coloring and that woman was telling you how to color your birds?" He thought for a moment. "Uh...yup." "Well, I just want you to know that when you color, you can use whatever colors you want. It doesn't matter what anyone says. You can color your birds orange, okay?" He smiled and was silent. Finally he said, "Will you play with me?"
Playing with Sergio yesterday was one of my favorite moments all year. We built an awesome boat together and it was priceless to see just how rich his imagination is. Sergio comes from an especially rough family situation. His skies are not always so blue. To see him come alive in the act of play is hope beyond hope to me.
Eventually we sat down to color. He reached for a coloring page of a girl. Hesitating for a moment, he reached for a violet-red crayon. As he began scribbling her all violet-red, he glanced up at me with a smile, and I'm pretty sure he winked at me.
The topic of imagination also came up a few prior at Kids Club. We were talking about the Kingdom of Heaven.
We had a half-hour before Kids Club and I still had to come up with a craft. As one who is wary of Christianese imagery of puffy clouds and angel babies with harps, I opened up to the book of Revelation for help. In chapter 22 I read: "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations."
"On each side of the river stood the tree of life..." That phrase caught my attention. I drew the image above and made copies for the kids to color.
The kids were really excited to color this page, and began coloring away in unusual silence. Little Natalia climbed up on my lap and began to carefully color each leaf a different color. Mercedes, who had carefully begun her tree in brown and green, glanced across the table skeptically. In Spanish she said, "But leaves are neither blue nor purple nor pink." All of the children's faces around the table looked up at me to see what I would say. I replied, "But this is a special tree, the Tree of Life, in the New Jerusalem. Do you think perhaps the trees in heaven have leaves of all kinds of colors?" She thought for a moment. "Really? Like a rainbow?" "A que sí! I bet so!" someone said. A few minutes later Mercedes reached for another page and began to carefully color each leaf a different color...
May God open our eyes and help us to dream again. In every color. Like a child.
Enjoy your day, friends.
