Light blue is not a color you are likely to find among the life-giving produce in the grocery store. You'll find many shades of green: lettuces, spinach, and green beans. Do you like yellow? If so, you'll find bananas, squash, and corn to add to your color palette. A range of reddish tones is also available, from apples to plums to tomatoes. I wish you luck, however, if you want to find produce that is light blue. (The closest you might get is that peculiar sheen that clouds the dark blue of blueberries.)
Despite this oddity of evolution, I've decided that light blue (the kind we see in a luminescent blue sky) might be one of the most nourishing of colors. What got me to thinking this way was not looking at the sky (although I do enjoying doing so) but singing and listening to the words of a hymn sung to the tune of Sibelius's "Finlandia."
Even though that tune's name makes it sound like the national anthem of Finland, and even though it's opening line also makes it sound like a national anthem, the hymn we sang was written by a hymn-writer named Lloyd Stone in 1934. Titled "This Is My Song," it was a very appropriate part of the worship service. Nevertheless, even though it does begin as a prayer ("O God"), it quickly turns to thoughts of nationhood:
"This is my home, the country where my heart is.
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine."
The danger that my love for my own country might turn into nationalistic self-centeredness is tempered, however, by the wider awareness of the next two lines:
"... other hearts in other lands are beating
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine."
The next verse is where the role Nature -- as well as the color light blue -- come into play. My own emotion of love leads naturally to my feeling that the things I love have to be what is most wonderful. That characteristic of passion is allowed for with the first lines of the next verse:
"My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on clover-leaf and pine;"
But immediately, any tendency towards provincialism is countered by the expansiveness of that blue sky. The next two lines ring with the wonderful recognition that:
"... other lands have sunlight too, and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine."
When our spirits and souls need to be nourished by a wider vision and a wider love for other nations, light blue might be the color we need. We may not be able to remember the words to "This Is My Song." But we can remember the spirit of its words each opportunity we have to notice that the sky is a luminescent light blue.
~~~
What helps you counter our human tendency toward provincialism?
You can read the song's entire lyrics at this external link: "This Is My Song."
3 comments:
How did you ever remember my loving that hymn? It is so meaningful and relevant for our time. I also loved your essay on color. A noted oil painting instructor once told a class I was attending, "Nothing in nature is one color out of the tube. Trees, flowers, fields, mountains and skys are always a myriad of color."
One of my favorite hymns. Thank you.
And now I will be looking for that shade of blue in the smallest of places and things. What a very meaningful reading, after the Ordinary Time theme this morning at Art as Prayer. I will venture out tomorrow in wonder and looking.
One of my favorite hymns!
For me, one of the best ways to counter the feelings of provincialism is to see more of the world and to become acquainted with many people who come from different backgrounds. This certainly makes sense, given the most literal translation of "provincial"!
I hope that if we can expand our vision to see the sky as common, we can also work to keep it clean of the toxins and gases that are causing our planet and ourselves so many problems! Everybody is downwind of someone else.
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