As I am sure you know by now, I have 13 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. 16 grandchildren: Six of my grandchildren are white, and 10 are black. We have an interracial family. Today is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Day and in honor of this great human being I offer you, COLOR: A Fable for Our Time, which I wrote on a long past Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Day. I wrote the story for my grandchildren when they began to ask me why people are born in different colors; "why can't we all be the same color?"
One day the Master of the Universe looked down upon the Earth. Everywhere He looked, He saw His children fighting and hating each other because of the different colors of their skin.
"How is it," thought God, "that my children still fight over differences between them? Have they never noticed that I purposely created all things differently? It delights me to look upon Earth and see thousands of subtle shadings of each color in birds, animals, trees, flowers, fish, everything; including man. In all these years, why have they never understood this?
Now the Master of the Universe, being all wise, decided to teach His children to see the beauty in each other.
When the children of Earth awoke the next morning, they found everything the color grey; a flat, dull, humorless GREY. The sky, grass, water, trees, flowers, birds, animals, houses, cars-everything-was grey; except for God's children themselves. They had remained the beautiful colors they had been born with: shiny blacks; warm chocolate browns; rosy reds; sunset yellows; creamy ivory's; gardenia whites; and every possible nuance of shading in between.
The world was in shock! At first no one realized the significance that they alone had color; they were too busy adjusting to the horror their world had become.
People stepped on their pets because they blended right into the floor and furniture; books were useless because print and page were one color. Eating became a repugnant chore which some people could barely stomach: grey vegetables and fruits; grey ice cream and pies; grey meat and fish; grey bread and butter; grey milk and coffee; even soft drinks were grey-like the sludge rumored to be laying at the bottom of the soda bottle ready to plop into your mouth when you drain the last drop.
All across the world, people ceased to function as their private worlds fell apart. Businesses went bankrupt overnight; whole industries were destroyed. The fashion industry was the first to go-along with interior decorating and cosmetics. Restaurants folded; no one was willing to eat grey food prepared by another person.
And then one morning, when the world had all but died of inertia, an elderly woman made a mind-boggling discovery. Boarding a city bus behind a young Indian boy, she suddenly exclaimed, "How beautiful you are! Your skin reminds me of the color of the walls of the Grand Canyon-at least how they used to look!"
Then, suddenly, mental blinders dropped from the eyes of all the passengers on that bus; they all saw that the Indian boy's skin was indeed the dusky rose-brown of the Grand Canyon at sunrise. With great cries of joy, they began to actually look at their neighbors, and when they did, they saw for the first time, the true beauty of color. They found in the beauty of each person's skin, the remembrance of a loved vision that once had existed before the world was grey. This joy and inner vision had spread across the entire world before the next day began.
People rushed to visit a different-colored person than themselves. They clasped hands and became vibrant art; the neighbors on one New York block joined hands and created a living rainbow. And then people began to speak to one another; actually to express feelings, and find that those feelings were shared exactly by someone whom they had thought were very different.
Many years passed by, but the Earth remained grey. Then one day, the Master of the Universe looked into the hearts of His children and found that they also took delight in differences, and had come to treasure their neighbor's different colors, ideas, and cultures. Some people had even wondered aloud why God had not created blue, green or purple people; a common hope was that if Earth ever received extra-terrestrial visitors, perhaps the color of their skins would add those hues to Earth's human family.
The Master of the Universe saw all this and was pleased with His children. When dawn of the next day broke, the children of Earth found their world reborn in vivid, rapturous colors. The color grey was remembered from that day forward, only in the wings of the Dove of Discernment.
One day the Master of the Universe looked down upon the Earth. Everywhere He looked, He saw His children fighting and hating each other because of the different colors of their skin.
"How is it," thought God, "that my children still fight over differences between them? Have they never noticed that I purposely created all things differently? It delights me to look upon Earth and see thousands of subtle shadings of each color in birds, animals, trees, flowers, fish, everything; including man. In all these years, why have they never understood this?
Now the Master of the Universe, being all wise, decided to teach His children to see the beauty in each other.
When the children of Earth awoke the next morning, they found everything the color grey; a flat, dull, humorless GREY. The sky, grass, water, trees, flowers, birds, animals, houses, cars-everything-was grey; except for God's children themselves. They had remained the beautiful colors they had been born with: shiny blacks; warm chocolate browns; rosy reds; sunset yellows; creamy ivory's; gardenia whites; and every possible nuance of shading in between.
The world was in shock! At first no one realized the significance that they alone had color; they were too busy adjusting to the horror their world had become.
People stepped on their pets because they blended right into the floor and furniture; books were useless because print and page were one color. Eating became a repugnant chore which some people could barely stomach: grey vegetables and fruits; grey ice cream and pies; grey meat and fish; grey bread and butter; grey milk and coffee; even soft drinks were grey-like the sludge rumored to be laying at the bottom of the soda bottle ready to plop into your mouth when you drain the last drop.
All across the world, people ceased to function as their private worlds fell apart. Businesses went bankrupt overnight; whole industries were destroyed. The fashion industry was the first to go-along with interior decorating and cosmetics. Restaurants folded; no one was willing to eat grey food prepared by another person.
And then one morning, when the world had all but died of inertia, an elderly woman made a mind-boggling discovery. Boarding a city bus behind a young Indian boy, she suddenly exclaimed, "How beautiful you are! Your skin reminds me of the color of the walls of the Grand Canyon-at least how they used to look!"
Then, suddenly, mental blinders dropped from the eyes of all the passengers on that bus; they all saw that the Indian boy's skin was indeed the dusky rose-brown of the Grand Canyon at sunrise. With great cries of joy, they began to actually look at their neighbors, and when they did, they saw for the first time, the true beauty of color. They found in the beauty of each person's skin, the remembrance of a loved vision that once had existed before the world was grey. This joy and inner vision had spread across the entire world before the next day began.
People rushed to visit a different-colored person than themselves. They clasped hands and became vibrant art; the neighbors on one New York block joined hands and created a living rainbow. And then people began to speak to one another; actually to express feelings, and find that those feelings were shared exactly by someone whom they had thought were very different.
Many years passed by, but the Earth remained grey. Then one day, the Master of the Universe looked into the hearts of His children and found that they also took delight in differences, and had come to treasure their neighbor's different colors, ideas, and cultures. Some people had even wondered aloud why God had not created blue, green or purple people; a common hope was that if Earth ever received extra-terrestrial visitors, perhaps the color of their skins would add those hues to Earth's human family.
The Master of the Universe saw all this and was pleased with His children. When dawn of the next day broke, the children of Earth found their world reborn in vivid, rapturous colors. The color grey was remembered from that day forward, only in the wings of the Dove of Discernment.
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