I hit forty and pink simultaneously.
Colours have always been transient, mapping phases of my life. So after four years and many shades of Pink, I waited for myself to get sick of the colour whilst wondering whether I was stuck in more ways than one!
That year I walked with friends following the river Lee from London to Luton and it was as if I was being ambushed by this colour. A pink bus, a pink billboard, a pink train, even the railings to the underground were bright pink. The further we walked the more I noticed ridiculous amounts of Pink. Silly moments like walking past a small gap in the fence and at that split second a pink bus drives past. On arrival into the racial hot bed that is Luton, the centre met us with a wall of pink flowers, pink seats and even an all pink pushchair.
It caused me to ask a question I had been avoiding, not wanting to believe that it could actually mean something! It seemed ridiculous, this girlie colour that is soft and cute and far from edgy or dramatic….it felt so stupid to even consider….but the bombardment had pushed the question reluctantly right to the front of the queue in my mind…
‘I give in…..what is it with the Pink?!’
The reply was immediate, ‘What makes pink?’
I slowly spoke the answer under my breath, ‘Red.. and.. white make pink’…. my brain began to whirr as if the mention of two more colours opened up a whole new world. It may be crazy but patterns and connections on such simple levels can open up a multitude of insights for my little brain to ponder.
White had featured earlier in the year, I had placed white roses in St Albans to signify the pure love that lays down it’s life selflessly for another as Alban had done for an unknown Welsh priest.
A white rose… and a red rose? The war of the roses?…..England in civil war…..a house divided against itself practically extinguished itself.
My ancestry traces back to both houses of Lancaster and York….that makes me inherently pink!
But that which is divided against itself cannot stand? Control always divides to conquer. Control maintains the divisions to prevent identity and destiny at every level. That which is divided must come together in order to be whole.
A red cross on a white background….a sign… not to be hijacked for a crusade but to remind us of our identity and therefore destiny.
If white is a pure love that is selfless then red is just one drop of the blood that flows when it is given for a friend…mirroring the greatest love of all, given for ALL.
If this is our identity and our destiny then it is selflessness and Living Loved.
Red…and White…make Pink and Two become ONe,
Two become ONe = Wholeness
It is ‘in the Pink’ for England. In the 16th century this meant ‘the very pinnacle of something’ and then came to mean ‘in perfect condition, especially of health’
As we, England, get ‘our house’ in order, so in turn it affect all the nations we have affected or ‘infected’….for wholeness….