What Would the World Look Like Without...?

What would the world look like without orange?

I chose orange because it’s not my favorite color.

Not because of the University of Texas, even though I’m sure my Aggie blood surges whenever the burnt orange of our rival school flares across the television screen, but because it’s a color I’ve never been drawn to. I prefer pink and mauve and maroon. Yesterday, I chatted with a four-year-old girl whose favorite color is magenta! Now that’s a welcome addition to my palette of pinks!

No, I’m not much of an orange girl except to eat them. I have no orange clothes in my closet, nor do I have orange jewelry, scarves, or shoes.

So today, in the season of red and green, I chose to look for the color orange as I strolled the streets and pondered the question, “What would the world look like without the color orange?”

Hints of orange were everywhere.

The leaves of the tiniest shrubs glowed with orange, as did the grandest of trees. A river of rusty-orange ran through one backyard and down the curb of the street. The vibrant orange in the canna lilies mingled with yellow, refusing to be overshadowed, and the tangerine rose still bloomed despite the cold weather. And the lone Indian paintbrush, confused about the season, leaned stoically on the side of the road.

What would fall be like without orange anyway?

But orange is more than a fall color. The orange-brown of the faded fence posts, the rusty gate in our back pasture, the bright flares on the green wreath adorning the front door of the neighbor’s house, the orange-red stripes on the black rubber boots on the back of the white pick-up truck that almost ran me off the side of the road, and the orange-painted door of the weathered bird house on my rusty arbor – all are colored in shades of orange, regardless of the season.

The sheep and geese in the pasture were the focus of another picture I took, one that reminded me how much I love living in my small town, but the tree in the background provided a burst of orange in the more muted green and brown. It was a surprise. I didn’t realize the tree was there until its orange leaves called my attention to it.

I began watching the cars that passed, wondering if I’d see an orange one, but soon I began to pay more attention to the expressions of the drivers. Many were as intense as the flares of the sun, fiercely fixed on the road in front of them. Some were as mellow as a peach. A few had no expression whatsoever. Heads bopped back and forth, responding to the music I assumed, and many talked on the phone.  I wasn’t surprised that so many people were on their phones, but the spectrum of expressions was interesting, and I wondered what they were thinking. What their lives were like. What they were worried about. Why were some so cheerful and others so angry? 

As I looked for the color orange in my surroundings, I paid more attention to the rest of the world. The trash on the side of the road. Was it biodegradable or plastic? Should I pick it up or not?

I looked for the details, the smallest of things.

The curving, comma-like black skid marks crisscrossing the road and the orange-brown acorns clustered together, refusing to scatter and daring me to step on them and hear the crunch. I refrained. They were too pretty.

An orange pebble signaled my attention, daring me to pick it up and see how far I could throw it. I refrained. It was the only one.

And gradually I stopped looking for orange and began wondering about God, who created it. How interesting, really, the colors He put in our world. He could have designed it all in black and white, and we wouldn’t have known the difference, but He painted it with shades of orange – tangerine and melon and coral and persimmon and pumpkin and salmon – hues as pretty as the sunset and the sunrise and the reflection of light on the water.

He’s a creator of color, our rainbow-God, and the “world is charged” with his grandeur.         

I left our house on a color walk, wondering what the world would be like without orange, yet I returned full of wonder for God.

And as I climbed the hill to return home, I noticed, for the first time, how orange my house really is! Terra Cotta, the color is called, the same color it was painted by Ian’s grandparents in 1907! But really MY HOUSE IS ORANGE!!

This is the season for celebrating the birth of God’s Son. A time of love and joy, of red and green, and of gratefulness. And this season, I’ve added orange to my list of ever-growing reasons to be thankful. While looking for it in my surroundings, I grew more aware of the details that I often overlook.

Orange is part of the grandeur of God, and I’m glad it has a place in our world.

Even Frosty has orange mittens!

 God’s Grandeur

by Gerard Hopkins

 THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.        

  It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;        

  It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil        

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?        

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;               

  And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;        

  And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil        

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.        

And for all this, nature is never spent;        

  There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;               

And though the last lights off the black West went        

  Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—        

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent        

  World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.