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Seeing in Color


I caught a glimpse of a UTube video the other day that fascinated me. I saw home videos taken by loving family members of men who were totally color blind and had seen life only in shades of grey all their lives. Some were in their twenties, some in their forties, one was a grandpa and one a teenager. A number of the videos were taken outside around flowers or on a sunny day with a bright blue sky, a scene orchestrated by family. In each case, a family member hands the man a gift to open. He unwraps paper, tissue and a box to reveal, what appears to be, a pair of sunglasses.

Each recipient looks at the gift and casually puts on the glasses as any of us would don a pair of sunglasses. What they didn’t know is that these were special glasses called EnChroma, a new lens technology that transforms a grey world into color for those who cannot see color or depth of color with their own eyes.

To say the reactions were touching is an understatement. Each man realizes immediately that these are no common sunglasses. For the first time in their lives, they viewed their surroundings in bright, beautiful colors. Many held their hands to their mouths, speechless. One man cannot hide his joy and begins to cry. The teen, the event taking place in a botanic gardens, laughs while going from flower to flower asking his mother to define the colors he is seeing. He says, “I never knew nature was so beautiful; there are so many shades of green!” A third man takes hold of his small child by the shoulders and looks into his eyes. His wife comments off camera, “Aren’t his eyes beautiful?” A man seeing purple for the first time in a florist shop is overcome, saying he can see why it is the color of royalty. A grandpa doesn’t comprehend at all what he is seeing and asks his grandkids to try the wonderful glasses. They tell him that they see this way all the time and explain that he is color blind.

I admit that I cried as I watched, feeling a voyeur to deeply and genuinely felt emotions of joy and gratitude; not often seen or felt by others. Then the thought occurred to me that we are all, to some degree, color blind. Our existence on this plane allows us to view only what we are physically capable of seeing. I often wonder if someone else sees things more vibrantly than I. In addition, we can only see what our brains can comprehend. Those who possess spiritual gifts that allow them to see spirit must be given something extra in their physicality or beliefs that allow it. Therefore, we must be limited in what we see and comprehend around us every day. What might our lives be like if our scales of unbelief and physical limitations were to fall from our eyes and we were to see our world and one another as the Lord sees us?

I’ve read stories of people who have passed on from this plane of existence only to be sent back to finish their purpose on earth. They often speak of the clarity and colors viewed on the ‘other side’ as being beyond what words can describe. The visions of prophets who were able to see beyond the veil must have been glorious to them.

Likewise, I believe each of us has a special knack for viewing things in a unique way. If we allow it, we are able to view, with privilege, pure emotion and opinions of another born of a distinctive set of genes, experiences and circumstances. If we allow it, we are able to view, with appreciation, God’s creation in all its forms. If we allow it, the Holy Ghost can work miracles in our lives by refining our ability to see truth. As we recognize and celebrate truth, we can also offer one another unique perspectives and provide fodder for a greater vision of life; new colors as it were.


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