Does it really matter what color you color a tree?
My twins started taking coloring books and crayons into the car late last week. They both were coloring along happily in the car until my oldest leaned over and said “You’re doing that wrong!”
Confused, one of my twins looked at his half-colored drawing and said “What? How is it wrong?” He replied: “Trees are not purple.” My oldest went onto explain how the other colors of his drawing were also “wrong”.
“Hey now,” I shouted from the front seat. “It’s his picture. He can color it how ever he wants. It’s his imagination.”
I don’t know if my declaration of coloring freedom satisfied anyone, but they at least quieted down. The whole interaction left me thinking, however, about the “right” way to color a picture.
I’m kinda jealous of the free spirit of my youngest boy. He never fails to let his imagination run wild. He is quite okay with purple trees (which now that I write this there probably is one in nature somewhere that I’m not aware of) and green skies and rainbow colored grass.
He’s also proud of his work even if the lines aren’t perfect or he’s had to cross a couple things out and try again.
Today my prayer is that we can all give purple trees and rainbow grass and green skies a chance. May we be able to look at the world from a different perspective and imagine how another sees it. And may we be okay with our mistakes along the way as we seek to make our imaginations come alive.
(This is one of the dozens of random drawings I made this weekend… imperfect but it made me happy to draw it)
