When I came home on Friday I cam home to the first flowers of spring bursting forth. I find it interesting that each spring at least in my yard the color of the flowers are purple. Purple is historically the color of royalty but also for Christians the color of lent.
Purple was the color of royalty because it was a hard dye to make and cost a lot of money due to the time it took to create it. I tend to look at how long it took for the bulbs and seeds to generate there energy to create the blooms that bring me such joy and think how they came from the seemingly dead earth but yet are alive. We place purple on our worship spaces on ash Wednesday. Well I am not sure of the ‘official answer’ to why we do this I think it is because we are awaiting. We know the end to the story, that God was seemingly dead but came to prove that everything that we had assumed was wrong. That a royal had come not to keep there kin-dom to themselves but rather to share, so we all could be clothed in the purple of royalty.
I am also drawn to think about one of my favorite movies(I confess I have not read the book, woe to me I know) The Color Purple. Purple is a huge theme that runs through this book along with God. Purple for the main character has associated purple with negative things. A mistress/lover of her husband through their time together shows her that life rather needs to be celebrated. When they discuss this they are in a purple field of lowers and says "You must look at all the good and acknowledge them because God placed them all on earth". After this she comes to learn to love herself and to love God.
Purple for me is a sign of life, just as much as red is a sign of the spirit. Maybe if we think differently we can seek to see the extra-ordinary in the ordinary.
