Green

            Green is the distillation of rain and sunlight; the primeval blue and yellow that power this world. Green is the snap-crunch of celery. Green is health, growth, plenitude. It gives birth. It gives birth to the bounteousness of harvest time. Green is the first sign of hope after deadly cold. It is the winter wheat that has been making God glad since my youth. 

            Green is not, and has never been, jealousy. How can growth and life itself… spring, ever be jealous? How could it ever be in want? 

            Green is beyond emotion; elemental. It is the queen of the secondary colors. She herself is half the earth. 

            When my eyes and heart walk outdoors to see, green refreshes and renews me. She gives me back my perspective, lays her gentle hand on my bruised mind. I become still. I know that my part and place is small, but beautiful. She heals me.

            To eat green is to love myself and this good world that is given; the agricultural act that ties me to the growers from time immemorial. My body was made for this green food, for this green planet. 

            When I lay me down in sheets of lilies, green quiets and comforts. She is sister to the freshening breeze across my skin, gives the birds their transport, those birds that are barely tethered to any of our ponderousness, the weariness that goes on in the brown and grey cities. 

            Green is meek and easily ignored, yet she waits. When I remember her, and come, she does not scold—she only receives me. She receives me graciously because she has always had, and knows, her power. She is Giver, and simply, kindly gives without ostentatiousness or pride.

            She is simple, healing, beautiful, kind. 

            I am glad that I live in a world where there is green. 


**With homage to Rich Mullins, Wendell Berry, and a twisted understanding of Elton John.