Lila was visiting last weekend, and as usual, at some point, she asked Suzy for some crayons to color in her coloring book. Almost immediately, the purple crayon she was using broke off at the head. She was devastated, but Suzy quickly showed her how to peel of part of the paper and to continue to happily color with the purple crayon. I was watching all this and it brought back memories of coloring on blank paper in my Memphis grammar school over fifty years ago. The day’s project was to draw children playing in a playground. Most of us were busily coloring brown see-saws, silver slides, swings, and green grass, and among the playground equipment were children. Each of us wore out our white crayons coloring their faces. Except my friend Doug (Yes, the same Doug who made great model airplanes) had lost or chose not to use his white crayon, instead he colored the kids faces black, brown, yellow, and red. He was talented enough to use mixtures of shading and even had one child with a rainbow face. (True story – you skeptics). Yes the teacher wasn’t pleased she was a realist in art and a child of a south that resisted change. That drawing has stayed with me to this day. I wonder if Doug saw the future even then, or God helped him that day give us a glimpse of God’s own blueprint the day he began the evolution of man.
Not only has man evolved over the ages, each of us evolves in our lifetime. We can choose to go backwards, but if we do, we feel discontented and uneasy and quickly go forward once again. Once we experience the joy of evolution we are never content to go back. We may go at different paces. Some souls creep, another runs, and another soars. But we all move forward. We all evolve and we thank God every day for the joy that his evolution brings.
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