Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: GREEN (01/19/17)
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TITLE: Kermit's best line | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
01/22/17 -
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Her body shook rapidly and uncontrollably as I anchored her head of flowing red hair against my chest. Her muscles contracted and relaxed repeatedly, seizure-like. Not since she was little had I experienced such heartbreak in her petite frame. Tears soaked my favorite shirt.
“Shhhh!” I soothed.
I still remember this bony bundle as a three year old dancing in the African rain. Drought had swallowed the land in blankets of thick red dust, dust devils swallowed up life, and green was a distant memory. Kelsey took out her Little Mermaid coloring book and filled it with shades of asparagus, olive, lime, honeydew, mint, teal, emerald, jade, turquois and other blends she created with her box of 48 wax crayons.
“I’m saving the world,” she announced triumphantly.
When we endured a month of snow and ice in Canada during her seventh year she begged for pastels and oil paints and created summer landscapes filled with giraffe, zebra, lion, elephant and antelope. When the rains washed away the icescape she spent hours wooing the grass and plants out of the soil again.
“Even the grass needs to know it’s loved,” she told me shyly when I surprised her as she knelt in the muck.
Kelsey’s love for green should have warned me. By the time she entered high school she had one thing on her mind – the environment. Her passion pulled her into friendships with others who embraced the care of the planet, nonviolence, social justice and all this entailed.
“He’s got the whole world in His hands,” she declared when I looked up from my Bible and questioned her direction one late night.
Political discussions became a sensitive topic. She didn’t fit with the right or the left wing I was used to. Every conversation included something about nature, true democracy, human responsibility, economic security, mutual respect, diversity, peace or sustainability.
“Jesus didn’t just sit around in Nazareth letting the world go to pieces,” she argued when I inquired about a news item of her lobbying local politicians.
Every discussion with family or friends turned into epic dramas of life or death for God’s creation. She was “green” and she believed passionately that “greens” had to lead others toward saving the country and the world.
At least she held onto her faith… until this moment.
Stroking her hair and humming often calmed her but this election had devastated her belief in humanity – and perhaps God.
She had worn herself ragged marching, campaigning, arguing. She had slumped through the door well after midnight – eyes frozen in terror, lips mumbling in disbelief. Her dreams lay in tatters.
It’s hard to watch your daughter face reality. It was hard when we left Kenya in the drought; it was hard when we shivered through the icy winter in Canada; it was hard when Kelsey lost a boyfriend because of her dedication to her cause; it was hard now.
I remember the days when I used to be green – only my green wasn’t so good. I was envious – so envious I almost suffocated my soul.
When someone started ahead of me on a sports team I did all I could to undermine them; when someone scored higher on an exam I did what I could to question their integrity; when someone acted holier than me in our church I started rumors which ended their show. Green had a whole different meaning in my day.
My grandmother saved me from myself. She called me over for coffee and then prayed a sermon that broke me from the inside out. She never said a word after her prayer. She just held me.
While Kelsey sniffled and tried to quiet herself I remembered that moment with my grandmother long ago. I thanked God that my daughter was passionate about something positive; I thanked God that she had experienced the world in all its goodness and harshness; I thanked God that she lived in a land where she could share her voice, her dreams and her sorrows.
“It’s not easy being green!” I whispered.
She shifted slightly, rolled away from me and wiped her snotty nose on her sleeve. I handed her a Kleenex and she blew away her pain.
“You can say that again,” she answered as she got to her feet and reached for a hug.
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