Little Wren Writes

I have been thinking about colour. Which, admittedly, is not particularly unusual for me.

I like colourful things. Colourful flowers. Colourful rooms. Colourful clothes. Colourful stationery I absolutely did not need but nevertheless felt spiritually compelled to purchase.

I like the blue of a ridiculously clear sky.
The particular green of new leaves.
The pink that sometimes sneaks into the clouds just before the sun disappears.
The deep brown of tea when it has been brewed properly.
The tiny flash of blue on the back of a wren.

I like that the world has colour at all because it didn’t have to.

Things could simply *exist*.

Trees could grow without changing shades through the seasons. The sky could get dark without putting on an outrageous pink-and-orange performance first. Flowers could fulfil whatever botanical responsibilities flowers have without being purple.

But here we are. Living in colour.

And lately, I’ve been wondering about the things we attach to it.

Red can mean danger. Or courage. Or blood. Or love.
Blue can mean sadness to one person and home to another.
White can feel like a beginning.
Grey can feel like uncertainty.
Yellow can be sunshine and daffodils and ridiculous happiness.

Some colours remind us of people. Some of places. Some of particular seasons of our lives. There are colours we surround ourselves with because they make us feel safe, colours we wear when we want to feel brave, colours that carry memories we can’t quite explain.

Colour seems to hold things.

Memory.
Emotion.
Beauty.
Meaning.

And I want to notice it.

So that’s what I’m going to do for a while. I’m going to write about The Colour of Things.

Not as a grand theological exercise. Not because I think every colour secretly contains a profound life lesson waiting to be uncovered. Sometimes yellow might just be yellow. And sometimes yellow might remind me that delight doesn’t have to be useful.

I want to write about courage and sunsets. Growing and home. Softness and ordinary things. Darkness and beginnings. Rest and richness and treasure and comfort.

There will undoubtedly be God here, because I don’t really know how to write about the world without eventually bumping into the One who made it.

But mostly, I want to pay attention.

To look a little longer. To wonder why certain things make us feel the way they do. To remember that ordinary things can be beautiful simply because somebody bothered to notice them.

Maybe that’s what this series is really about.

Not colour.

Attention.

Because there is an awful lot of life happening around us that we rush straight past. The sunset that lasts ten minutes. The leaves quietly becoming green again. The familiar colour of someone’s favourite jumper. The mug you always reach for. The grey days. The golden ones. The colours we’d choose. And the colours we wouldn’t.

Maybe a beautiful life isn’t one painted entirely in our favourite colour.

Maybe it’s a life where we learn to see the whole palette.

So, for the next little while, that’s what I’m going to try to do.

To notice the colour of things.

And perhaps, along the way, notice a little more of life too.

xx