• About
  • Submissions
  • Store
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Twitter

Story Warren

Kindling Imagination for Kingdom Anticipation

  • Fostering Imagination
    • Valuing Imagination
    • Parenting
    • Faith & Vision
  • Resources
    • Books
    • Music
    • Movies
    • Interviews
    • Lists
  • Warren & the World
  • For Kids
    • Poems
    • Stories
    • Songs

Shadows & The Magic Of Green

June 9, 2014 by Ming Selig 12 Comments

What if you woke up one day in a world where everyone had forgotten the color green?

Can you describe the magic of green to someone who has never seen it?

Try.

Tell of the cold, new green of unfurled leaves, and the soft light of a morning sun sifting through a canopy of emerald – how it is tinted and dances happily on the ground. Explain how green is the smell of cut grass, the sound of the first bright notes of an Irish jig, and the taste of water washed in spring.

Try over and over.

Again and again.

Try and you will fail.

They must see green, experience green, to grasp the enormity of its existence.

Imagine being born into a dim, vaporous, world, able to see only sooty shadows. Unable to see, feel, or experience the reality of the solid things, only able to see their flat, inky stains. Imagine living with eyes straining to see what was behind the shroud, knowing deep down there were colors and light—but never actually seeing them, not even knowing their names.

We are all the man who has woken without his sight and forgotten who he is – save for the ache deep inside his chest.

Just as our lungs must breath and our hearts must pump, this ache must be soothed – and so the chase begins, the hunt for something to ease the throbbing pulse in the middle of our chests.

We chase either of two things, shadows or mirages, and here are their differences:

Shadows denote something real, their sooty outlines, and inky stains poured out by something solid to remind us of a reality brighter than the sun, greater than good, more than real.

We can no more imagine glory unfiltered, than we could imagine an oak tree, if all we had seen and known was the dark smudge that it cast. But we can chase those shadows, knowing deep down that the beauty we find around them – in them – is just a foretaste of the solid, untainted beauty that is coming.

Mirages are shimmery lies that entice. They hold out empty promises of thirst-quenching water and life, drawing one ever further into an arid desert where everything beautiful withers to dry, brittle bones.

I’ve chased both.

I have run after the bright things that shimmer and glisten like the image of an oasis in the desert. I have chased them down and I have felt my heart drop and shatter as I grasped handfuls of empty air.
And I’ve chased the dark outline of beauty unseen; I’ve run my hands across its seams, and heard the rustling of truth and beauty that the wind whispers to trees.

Here is where I want to stay, with the shadows of what Is But Not Yet, and the outlines of What Will Someday Be.

I’m with the shadows. I know the dark spills intimately and I know that they are real, but I also know that they are not all there is, for I have seen glimpses and heard whispers of what lies behind them, at the back of the north wind, further up and further in.

Like Puddleglum, I love the lamp and the cat, not because they are all there is, but because they remind me of the sun and the Lion, that are just beyond the crust of the world I’m in.

We should love every sunset, star and tree – not because they are the ultimate reality, but because we know they are not. What if the same is true for every person we meet? What if each one is just a shadow of what and who they really are?

If only we could see ourselves and each other as we were created to be, if only we could shake off all the chaff, burn away all the dross, leaving only the grain and gold.

What beauty would we taste, what glory could we know?

Lord, give us the eyes to see! And may we give glory and thanks for the shadows.

__________________________________
Featured image by Julie Witmer

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Ming Selig
Ming Selig
Ming believes in singing loudly in echoey stairwells, making friends with every flavor of the wind, reading books as if they were essential for life, and the magical properties of warm cinnamon rolls and cold watermelon.
Ming Selig
Latest posts by Ming Selig (see all)
  • Hope In The Shadows: Helena Sorensen’s Shiloh is Free Right Now! - October 21, 2015
  • Rabbits With Swords (and Rewards!) - November 7, 2014
  • Rabbits With Swords (and Rewards!): A Fun Contest - October 17, 2014

Filed Under: Fostering Imagination

Get Story Warren in Your Inbox

Comments

  1. Judy says

    June 9, 2014 at 11:18 am

    This is wonderful – thank you.

    Reply
    • Ming-Wai Ng says

      June 9, 2014 at 8:26 pm

      Thank you, Judy!

      Reply
  2. Helena Sorensen says

    June 9, 2014 at 12:05 pm

    AAAAAGH! Ming, you’re speakin’ my language, baby! This is exquisitely beautiful. Bravo! Bravo! I want to read it again!!!!!

    Reply
    • Ming-Wai Ng says

      June 9, 2014 at 8:25 pm

      Helena! You are such a huge encouragement. Thank you, and I’m so glad we speak the same language!

      Reply
  3. Peter B says

    June 9, 2014 at 12:49 pm

    Spot on, Ming. Reminds me of something I attempted to write earlier this year 🙂

    Thank you.

    Reply
    • Ming-Wai Ng says

      June 9, 2014 at 8:36 pm

      No, thank you, Peter. You’re the best. 🙂

      Reply
  4. Annie Barnett says

    June 9, 2014 at 9:59 pm

    So, so beautiful. Thank you for reminding me, for pointing towards home.

    Reply
    • Ming-Wai Ng says

      June 10, 2014 at 9:08 am

      Annie, thank you so, so much.

      Reply
  5. Julie @ Wife, Mother, Gardener says

    June 15, 2014 at 10:04 pm

    Love this, Ming! “We should love every sunset, star and tree – not because they are the ultimate reality, but because we know they are not.” Thanks for sharing it!

    Reply
    • Ming-Wai Ng says

      June 16, 2014 at 10:33 pm

      Thanks, Julie!

      Reply
  6. BONNIE says

    June 23, 2014 at 7:47 pm

    Look at this artist’s home outside of Paris, Claire Basler, and scroll down to the green rooms: http://www.remodelista.com/posts/claire-basler-in-france

    Reply
    • Ming-Wai Ng says

      June 26, 2014 at 9:18 pm

      Oh my goodness, Bonnie that is beautiful.

      Reply

Leave a Reply to Ming-Wai Ng Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Get Story Warren in Your Inbox

Join us on Facebook

Story Warren
  • Latest Posts
  • Store

Copyright © 2012 - 2021 Story Warren, LLC · Site by Design by Insight

Copyright © 2021 · Story Warren on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in