Coloring

When children are little and learning to color, we often encourage them to stay within the lines.  One reason we do that is it helps teach them the fine motor skills they will need when it’s time to learn to write. 

Another way the phrase of coloring inside the lines can be used is when we have expectations of how someone should behave or even what they should believe, and it usually pertains to the expected “norm” or more truthfully, we want them to believe just as we do. 

Our expectation is that staying in the lines is the correct way to color and to behave.  And by the “correct way” it usually means our way.

Yet, there are so many questions and unknowns, and it is often the ones coloring outside the lines who have the courage to ask those hard questions and seek the tough answers.

Our world does not want to accept or make space for the messiness, the outliers.  Most of us prefer the clean lines and colors that stay within them.  We are encouraged and often expected to pick one way, to choose sides.   

While I admit I tend to like things neat and orderly, the older I get I find myself wanting to make space for us all, for those of us who prefer things nice and tidy, and for the brave souls who question and color outside the lines. 

I don’t want to choose between the two.