Graduation...an end to the time of our lives...or the beginning of a new adventure?

A couple weeks ago I graduated from College. It was a time of mixed emotions. There is accomplishment over 4 years of rigorous studies, relief of ACTUALLY graduating, Joy of being done. But there is sadness to saying goodbye to friendships that have developed over four long and hard years, and, for me, saying goodbye to an area of the country that I have come to enjoy and love. The East Coast is a unique place that is hard to find in any other part of North America. There are also emotions of fear and anxiousness of what comes next. The great unknown of the future. What will my life look like in five years from now? or Tomorrow? 

After I had packed all my belongings into my 2001 Hyundai Santa Fe and checked out of the musty apartment that I had grown to call home I walked across campus one last time and I said to myself, this isn't so horrible. There are new adventures to be had, new stories to make, new lessons to learn, new places to see. I value everyone that I met at school, the places I saw, and the things that I learned, and I will take them with me, but there's nothing wrong with getting out there and seeing the world and making my own of it. So I say...farewell Gordon College and the East Coast (for now) and Hello World! I'm open to whatever you send my way!

Welcome to Color Our World

Welcome to my Blog. This is an experiment. I played with the idea of creating one because I didn't think much exciting happened in my life, but I realized that there is always something to say. When I discovered the name for the blog I realized that there was so much that I could share with the world. 

So how did I choose Color our World? I was in my car driving to New Jersey for Easter Break with extended family when it came to me. In my car there is a postcard stuck in that thing that flips down to keep light out of your eyes and sometimes there's a mirror in it or airbag directions. Some people put there CD's in there. Anyways, the summer after I returned from Guatemala I went to an art exhibit at a Jewish Community Center in Minnesota that was of photographs of Guatemala. The exhibit was color our world. I picked up the postcard there and it has stayed in my car since then. There is a picture of a beautiful indigenous Guatemalan in her traditional dress looking curiously at you. 

But it wasn't just the Guatemala connection that stuck out to me. The title started to resonate with other things in my life I am passionate about. The overarching thing that I am passionate about is social justice and I believe that a means towards social justice is getting to know "the other", whether the other is male, female, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, wealthy, poor, comes from the City, or rural settings, Christian, Muslim etc.. There is so much that we can learn from people that are different from ourselves. 

There are also so many colors that the earth creates. This summer I will be working on an organic farm in Minnesota and I love the different colors of vegetables and the beautiful greens of the plants. I love the blues in the ocean, the leaves in the fall are an expression of beauty. There are some colors that aren't always the prettiest color, and I think it is a depiction of people and relationships. There are things in this world that aren't pretty but when you mix the ugly with the pretty you have a mural of beauty. 

I played with the idea of changing "our" to "the" or "your" or "my", but I decided to stay with "our" because life is about relationships and community. It is about sharing life together. Living life with others is good for humanity. As one of my favorite professors said in class one day, "There's nothing more important than living together. " So let's join in this journey to color our world together. Look for more posts coming soon and leave your comments so that we can share life together. 

I don't know how to put picture descriptors, but the picture is of my with my family that lived with when I was in Guatemala. They were painters and painted that beautiful picture in the background. Carlos and Thelma are the parents and Pabel and Katherine were the children. The four gringas are myself and three others from our trip. Each and everyone of the people in that picture colored my world