LIVING LIFE IN FULL COLOR

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Living Life in Full Color

by Marlaina Donato

Nature concludes each day with a fiery mural, never again to be exactly duplicated and missed if we look away for a moment too long. “What color is in a picture, enthusiasm is in life,” said Vincent van Gogh, and to live with passion is to live life in full color.

As children, it was in our nature to live out loud. We sang offkey, belly-laughed and showed off our blueberry-stained tongues. Somewhere between grade school and adolescence, we learned to swim with the social current, content to blend in for comfort.

As adults, too often we are barely aware of our lives stuck in grayscale, but if we look deep inside, we long to be the brave red rose in a black-and-white world. Sometimes it takes something drastic, like being faced with a terminal illness, to throw off the shackles of, “What would they think?” and follow our own brand of bliss. Hopefully, most of us can make that decision without such a drastic wake-up call.

In many parts of the world, nature saves her best for last and pulls out all the stops. She dresses the trees in unapologetic glory, inviting us to live more boldly before it’s too late, and to express the passions we’ve held in for dear life. If we are wise, we will follow our bliss, whether it’s painting that wall in a color that might compromise resale value or dusting off the violin we set aside after high school. Autumn gives us much-needed permission to let our hair down, let our locks go silver or feisty red, let our souls blow in the wind and come in for dinner a little late and disheveled.

What parts of ourselves do we hold inside for fear of standing out a little too much? What would we wear if we defied fickle trends? How would we love if we realized that there is nothing more important than embodying love?

Here’s to living in full color, come what may.

Marlaina Donato is an author, composer and painter. Connect at WildflowerLady.com.

The Apprenticeship of Abundance

rudall30/DepositPhotos.com

by Eric Hankins

One of the many unintended social consequences of the Industrial Revolution was the loss of apprenticeship. Rather than learning a way of life by watching, learning from and living with a master craftsman, men have become tools themselves, producing widgets they don’t understand, for bosses they don’t know, to be used by consumers they’ll never meet and for whom they feel little responsibility.

For the pottage of mass-produced cheap goods, we’ve traded the birthright of work as a dimension of community, tradition, identity, art, fruitfulness and purpose. Unfortunately, this “mass production mentality” has invaded the church and the loss of apprenticeship with it.

Jesus focused most of his energy on just 12 ordinary men. He poured His life into them as a master craftsman teaching apprentices a way of life. He didn’t just impart a body of knowledge; He poured His life into them. They, in turn, poured their redeemed lives into others.

With no money, power or cultural approval, these apprentices built a kingdom that changed the world. Now, the modern church has boiled the Christian experience down to a thin soup of propositions and emotions set to music and distributed in just under an hour.

Jesus talked about a Way of life; we are producing widgets. That may slake our thirst for the cheap thrill, but it won’t give us abundant life. It’s time for a return to apprenticeship. If you’ve been taught well in the things of Christ, it is your duty to share it all with someone else. If you want the fullness of the Way, find those who are walking in it ahead of you and ask them to teach you everything they know.

Dr. Eric Hankins, Ph.D., is pastor at First Baptist Church of Fairhope, 300 S. Section St., Fairhope, AL. For more information call 251-928-8685 or visit FirstFairhope.com.

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