The Color Purple Lenten Post

Last night I was showing Beth my latest Goodwill purchase of a nice new sweater but I wanted to know what color it is. ‘Is this brown or is it green?”
“It’s gray’ she said.
“Are you sure?”
I got it closer to her and into a better light. “Gray” she said again. "It comes across as a charcoal gray.”

‘But I’ve been wearing it with brown pants” I said.
“Well, that’s ok.”

The problem is my color confusion. Most of the time I get all the primary bold colors right, its just the shades and blends that throw me off, and even then I've learned how to compensate and guess. I can figure out what most colors are supposed to be. And I keep my color wardrobe pretty simple. When Beth met me I had a closet full of identical blue jeans or khaki pants and plain blue shirts that were easy to mix and match. When my son,Nick, was first learning his colors, he was convinced that I could learn my colors too. One day he got the color flash cards out just so he could teach me.

But the question I consider is this: How does my color perception or interpretation match up with yours?
Is the kind of blue or green that I see , the same as yours?. And how many times do I just plain get it wrong and my brown or green, to the rest of the world is actually gray?

The Lenten spin is this. If I am guessing and seeing the world though my own color perception, I wonder how many ways, that happens in my psychological, social , and spiritual perceptions?

We even talk about how a certain mind set or attitude or a history , can “color our perception.”
Some times the only way for me to find out how my perception lines up with another, is to simply ask. “What color is this? What do you see?" And even then, it still might be just a relative, comparable use, of a descriptive word. Can I really see what you see?

Lent is time to check out realities with each other. We need conversation, community, confession., to see the colors of life. Scripture, tradition, reason and experience are part of the color conversations

By the way , the color for Lent is purple; a color meant to symbolize penance and royal dignity; of suffering and of sovereignty. I think it is a color that I see. But what does that mean, or look like to you?