That's a quote by Oscar Wilde, by the way.
Today, Chrissy posted the following status on her Facebook page:
"Christina had a very proud 'Mom moment' this afternoon when Phil told me there was a boy at school saying 'white kids are better than brown kids' (to one of Phil's friends)... and Phil and some other kids stuck up for him and told this boy how ignorant he was. One of those times I feel like I must be doing something right raising these kids."
I'd be a proud mom, too, Chrissy (you know, if I actually had kids and was able to have said "Mom moments"). You know, people always talk about child-like faith, but they forget about all the other beautiful things about kids. I mean, kids have such innocence and naivety, imagination and wonder...they are such dreamers and they know how to believe and to trust...yet, their inquisitiveness and curiosity and readiness to explore the world is just incredible. And, on the current subject...their color-blindness.
It is sad to think that there was a child at school who has grown up in a home where that kind of value is instilled in him: to think that any color of skin is better than another. Does the color of your skin define your heart and your soul, your personality, your intellectual capabilities? No, not at all. Nothing about any of the aforementioned are pure reflections of a person's color. You don't look into a mirror and see a person's intellect or a person's athletic ability and favorite food...nuh-uh, doesn't work that way. So what is the point of judging someone based on that?
If we decided to judge based on color alone, we should just go ahead and judge people based on their height, their eye color, and how fast their wisdom teeth come in (sorry, guys...if you don't have any wisdom teeth, guess you just get rejected from the world completely). These are all things we don't decide for ourselves. Sure, we can wear high-heels and we can get colored contacts, but these are all, in retrospect, ridiculous indicators of who people are. We don't decide that someone 6 feet tall is probably studying biology and someone 5 feet tall is most likely studying psychology. We don't see a blue-eyed girl and a brown-eyed girl and automatically know what sports they play.
Now, onto this quote. Hatred is blind...obviously. It's blind to the heart. Love is blind to a lot of things, arguably, but especially to appearance. Love has the power to cross all kinds of borders and barriers...it's almost like nothing can stop it sometimes (and, of course, we hate it sometimes for that), but that's the beauty of it: Love can't see what we see. Love sees what we feel and then it creates its own door into our hearts and pushes its way inside until it completely consumes us. Alright, sometimes we let it in through the door that's already there, but not all the time...even though we should just let it in there after the first knock because it will eventually find its way inside either way.
My point is this: God made us all beautifully and wonderfully. By saying one color skin (or eye or hair) is better than another, we are assuming that God made a mistake when creating an individual...when we know that's not true. Our God doesn't make mistakes. He designed each one of us individually and took His time to create us in His own image. If He thinks we are beautiful and perfect masterpieces, then we need to believe that, too...and we need to look at others and know that they, too, are wonderful masterpieces from a wonderful artist.
Besides, we all have heard this verse before:
"...For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.'” (1 Samuel 16:7)
It doesn't matter how we look; that's just what we see at first glance. But if we would take the time to look at the heart and be like Phil, with a heart of color-blindness, then we would more easily see the hearts of other people and learn to recognize the important things...WHO we are, not WHAT we are.
Oh, this would be a good time to use one of my favorite verses of all time (sounds best in the Message, I think):
"Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original." (Galations 5:25-26)
I want to be like little Phil. Who do you want to be?
What else about children triggers your heart?
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