Earth Day Every Day!

I'd been at my new job at my church for only a couple weeks when one day I walked into the reception area where two of my coworkers were chatting. One of them looked up at me.

"Everything you wear is green or brown," she stated, matter-of-factly.

I looked down at myself. "Yes," I replied, just as matter-of-factly.

***

One of the pastors stopped me a couple days ago.

"Kari," he said, "What's the leaf?"

I looked down at the charm around my neck, a real leaf dipped in gold and hung on a leather strap.

"A gift from my husband," I answered.

"But what does it mean?" He asked.

"I've always been inspired to worship God by his creation. I kinda like leaves...I don't know if you've noticed all my clothes are green and brown..."

He smiled and nodded, then walked away.

***

WikiHow's step #10 to celebrating Earth Day: "Wear green and brown."

I guess every day's earth day in the Faherty house!

***

ps - yesterday was John Muir's birthday.

Another recent evidence that I have the best husband in the world...

I was sitting on the couch one day reading when Stephan came deliberately out of the bedroom.

"I hope we live to be a hundred and one," he declared.

I furrowed my brow. "Why? What happens at a hundred and one?"

He smiled. "Then I'll have been married to you for 80 years."

Recent reason #1 that my husband is the best in the world

Me: "I love fairy tales...have I ever told you that?"

Him: "No, but it doesn't surprise me."

Me: "I didn't think it would."

Him: "What exactly is a fairy tale?"

Me: "I'd say it's a story with fantastic elements that has a happy ending."

Him: "Doesn't it have to have a moral?"

Me: "No, that's a fable."

...

Him: "Then we're living a fairy tale."

Me: "What?"

Him: "Yeah - because of Jesus we know we have a happy ending - and you're fantastic!"

The truth of the matter

I was at work the other day and we had to assemble some binders for a training seminar. We'd be training people to lead small groups of married couples, and small groups of single people. Each group got a different color binder.

When I started assembling the content of the binders, I put all the married materials in the green binders and all the single materials in the orange ones. Later in the process, my husband (who was helping me) noticed that I was stuffing the married binders with single content and vice versa. I stepped up to the counter and took a second look at the binders. Sure enough, the green binders were labeled "singles" in bold letters, and the orange "married". My stomach turned and I began to feel feverish and jittery.

"Who let this happen?" I said in disgust. EVERYONE knows married is green and single is orange! This was nothing less than a great a display of arrogance and disregard for the natural order. Intolerable. Absolutely intolerable. I wanted to march right into my bosses office and inform him of this terrible travesty. But I knew he would not be sympathetic. This made me feel even sicker.

"You change 'em," I said, pallid and agitated. "I can't be near them anymore."

My husband, servant that he is, changed all the binders so I wouldn't have to.

I just sat in the corner and brooded, upset that I was the only person in the world who knew the truth and had to watch it be defiled - right in front of me.

***

Synaesthesia - "From the Ancient Greek (syn), meaning "with," and (aisthēsis), meaning "sensation"'—is a neurological condition in which two or more bodily senses are coupled. In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme → color synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored."

The condition above describes how I perceive my world. To use Wikipedia's well chosen words, my 'coupled senses' are hearing and sight. When I hear music, voices, loud bangs or quiet breezes, I see color in my mind's eye. I also have strong grapheme-color synesthesia, it's so strong that 'incorrect colors' actually make me ill - like the situation described above. I still bristle and feel feverish when I have to handle those binders. When I park on level 3 of a parking garage and they've painted the walls yellow to try and "serve" me in finding my car again, I growl and grumble - because everyone knows that 3 is green. Put me in a room with another Synesthete and ask me to defend that 3 is green and I'll do it to the death. Why? Because it's the inarguable, unchangeable truth. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.

I hope you caught the reference to Martin Luther: I cannot and will not recant anything, he said. I say I'd defend the truth of 3 being green to the death - Luther was defending a much weightier truth.

"Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, died for our sins and was raised again for our justification… therefore, it is clear and certain that this faith alone justifies us…"

We are rebels deserving punishment from a completely holy God, so lost in our sin we have no hope of recovering our standing through our actions. Given our inability to work our way into God's favor, he sent his son to be punished in our place, and now commands us to put our faith in that substitution, admitting we needed someone to meet God's standard of perfection for us. Luther was defending the Gospel itself.

He came to this most important of realizations by studying God's word. In a world of growing relativism, God's word is what separates white from black. In it we find clear definitions of right and wrong, and in the unspecified areas we find clear guiding principles to help us be discerning. My church says this about the bible in it's statement of faith: "...the Bible is free of error in all it teaches." I agree whole-heartedly with this - but it's not always easy.

When I first came to my church, I had a terribly proud attitude (I can still have a terribly proud attitude) and thought I was wise. There were some doctrinal stances that the church took that I disagreed with, and I proudly said to the pastors "show me in God's word where it says that and I'll change my opinion, but not before."

And whadduya know, they did just that.

Now I had a question to ask myself: was I really and truly basing my definition of truth on scripture or was I basing it on my own opinions? I was being confronted with scripture that ran consistently contrary to my stances - what was I going to do? After living for 22 years believing that 3 was green, believing it deep down in my bones, being so convinced of it that it made me ill to think otherwise - scripture was telling me 3 was red. What now?

By God's grace, I was able to submit those things to his word, and over time, my opinions really did come to aline with his. It wasn't easy, but over time, 3 became red - and I'm so glad it did.

The battle isn't over though. I fight it every day. Every day I wake up with my green 3s - with lies that I cling to and cultivate in my sinful heart, lies that I neglect to submit to God's word. Whenever I'm bitter I'm believing the lie that I have the right to judge others. Every time I'm angry I believe the lie that I deserve to be treated better than I have been. Whenever I feel lonely I'm believing the lie that God has left me alone. When I fall into the sin of pride again and despair of ever changing, I'm believing the lie that God is unfaithful to me and won't help me grow. In these moments, I'm totally convinced that 3 is green, because it's my nature to do so. It's my sinful nature to believe lies. It's my sinful nature to believe that God doesn't rightfully have a claim to every aspect of my life. It's my sinful nature to believe that I'm an accurate judge of my own and others' character. It's my sinful nature to believe I'm good enough, and therefore don't need a savior.

And when God's world flies in the face of these lies - when it clearly states that 3 is red - it's not easy to submit to that. When bitter, it's not easy to forgive as God in Christ forgave me. When lonely it's not easy to believe that Christ befriended the sinner. When caught in recurring sin, it's not easy to believe that he who began a good work in me will carry it through to completion. It's not easy to believe 3 is red. It grates against everything in me. My very flesh wars against it - but truth is not subject to my feelings and opinions - my feelings and opinions should be subject to it - subject to God's word, the perfect standard of measure he has mercifully given us.

What are the green 3s in your life? The lies you believe that your flesh rails against submitting to God's word? I'd encourage you to root them out and submit them to the truth of scripture. It hurts, but this kind of struggle is purifying, and I can tell you life is so much freer when we aren't clinging to 3 being green, and so much more beautiful when we allow God to pick the colors.

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