La Vie En Rose

"I Believe" by Steven Price of A Sanctified Art, LLC

I feel extremely blessed to have been raised with a remarkably ecclectic musical background. Among the songs I grew up knowing nearly from birth was Louis Armstrong's version of "La Vie En Rose." Seeing the world through rose colored glasses - only the best and the brightest parts of life. It is a fabulous song, even if the worldview leaves something to be desired.

Many years later, I came across rose colored glass in the windows of churches, usually in the Southern United States. I was told is that it was intended to help us see the world through God's eyes. However, what I learned is that it was actually a memorial to remind everyone of the world when it was "at it's best," (as in before the War was lost... yes, that War).

So often, we get so caught up in imagining a world that we wish existed or one we swear did at some point (historians will remind us that they never really did for more than a fleating moment), that we cannot see what is right in front of us. Or rather, we adamantly refuse to see what is right in front of us. Especially problems that are truly within our reach.

This intentional ignorance usually comes from a place of fear. Fear of change. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the other.

On the day that Jesus died, it was fear of an Empire that truly could crush Christ's followers into dust. They ran away because of a visceral and tangible anxiety that came from a true reality built on brute force and dominating pain.

But we do not live in that world. We do not live in Stalin's Leningrad. We do not live in Hitler's Berlin. We do not live in Mao's China. We do not live in Imperial Japan nor King Leopold II's Congo.

We have the ability to speak up. To stand up. To live out our faith the way Christ has told us to.

To remember that it is Christ made flesh every time we see someone oppressed, hungry, imprisoned, thirsty, poor, sick, outcast, seeking refuge, naked, homeless, foreign, unwanted - and when we serve them, we will find that we serve God's own self.

And then perhaps the world may truly become the better place we have imagined for so long.

May we see Christ this Good Friday and every day beyond.

Blessings,

Rev. Janie