Divinely Alive - a Five-Minute meditation on "Red"

It's Friday, and my week's been a mess. We're dealing with the aftermath of a minor basement flood, which has meant days of waiting on service calls, and re-shuffling the main floor to absorb the necessities we kept in our now not-so-finished basement. There will be more to do on that front tomorrow, but it's Friday, so today I write. Linking up again with all the brave writers at Five Minute Fridays. For more information and a collection of links to wonderfully unpolished words, check out Lisa-Jo Baker's site.

This week's prompt: red. Timer's set, go:

In the Orthodox Christian tradition, colours can carry deep meanings. We change our textiles, our clothing, our candles to reflect the season the hue represents: white for the Resurrection, green for the Holy Spirit, blue for the Mother of God - the Theotokos, and, through her, all of humanity. Red is for divinity, the colour of the Cross, the colour for Christ. As a child, this dichotomy of red and blue seemed backwards. God, to me, ought to be blue, for the sky, the heavens, the ethereal sense of the other. The nitty gritty dirty of red felt more like humanity to me. More of the concrete and the real. As I've grown, I've come to see that it's me who's got it backward: it is Christ who is real, and we who, without Him, are not. The colour of victory, the colour of blood, the colour of life: this is the core of reality. For what life is there without the very source of life and immortality?

And stop.

Comments

  1. Thanks for this look into your faith tradition (hopping over from FMF)

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    1. You're welcome. Thanks for stopping by!

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  2. What a great answer to your RED prompt. I never realized the different color candles. Followed you from FMF. Have a blessed day!

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    1. Thank you :) A blessed day to you too!

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  3. Beautifully put, Rachel! :) - Pam, apples of gold, http://wordglow.wordpress.com

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  4. I am a yogi, and red is also the color of the root chakra, also symbolizing what is fundamental, true, and real. In yoga it is also true that God is real, and we are all parts of God, connected to one another, and directly to God, we just don't know it.

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    1. That's beautiful, Shannon! Thanks for sharing :)

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