"Smell the Color 9..."

"I would take "no" for an answer
Just to know I heard You speak
And I'm wonderin' why I've never
Seen the signs they claim they see
Are the special revelations
Meant for everybody but me?
Maybe I don't truly know You
Or maybe I just simply believe…"
- Chris Rice

It was cold, cloudy and drippingly gray on the Cape that afternoon.  The small church seated less than 50 in its auditorium. By the time we arrived for the talk they were seating overflow guests in the Sunday School down the hall. 

I was distracted and I don't think I had ever felt so empty.  There wasn't a "reason," I couldn't put my finger on a cause.  It just felt as if all the light and inspiration had drained out of some spigot in the bottom of my big toe and I didn't know how to get it back. 

We had moved to Boston earlier that year to serve an organization we loved.  When we considered making the move from the comfort of our small university town in Colorado, it was easy to feel inspired and courageous, selfless and willing.  But once we got there and discovered that our commute was going to be about an hour and a half each way, and our work schedules were not in synch, and that I would find the tasks in my job menial and mind-numbing…well, we were not such happy campers.   All those noble motives and ideals seemed to pale in the actual light of a 15-hour work day…door to door.

The further I indulged my sense of disappointment, the less inspired I became.  What was I thinking...accepting a job as a file clerk when I had been a school principal?  Didn 't this organization realize how over-qualified I was?  Was I crazy to think that the mission of the office--and the materials I would be responsible for--would overshadow my sense of personal achievement and  job status?  Before long I was feeling an emptiness so hollow that I could hear the echo of every complaint reverberating through me like an out of tune bell.

I didn't want to feel this way.  I longed for the kind of quiet satisfaction I had felt when I'd hungered so desperately to make a difference in the world.  The kind of longing that had led me to Boston and to be willing to do the work I had accepted.   But I couldn't seem to find the heartbeat of that Soul-animated lifeforce which had impelled me to consider a life of selfless service.   The more I felt for it and was met with a cold, pulse-less silence…the more I wanted it.  And the more I wanted it, the less my work satisfied me.   It felt cyclical and bleak…and yet I still found myself waking each morning with this glimmer of hope that today some spark of inspiration would catch fire in me and reignite the passion for living with a spiritual purpose that had brought me there.  I just wanted to feel God in my life.  I wanted to hear some message of "good and faithful servant," to sense some small indication that I was on the right track with Him.

"'...Cause I can sniff, I can see
And I can count up pretty high
But these faculties aren't getting me
Any closer to the sky
But my heart of faith keeps poundin'
So I know I'm doin' fine
But sometimes finding You
Is just like trying to
Smell the color nine..."

That weekend had been particularly desolate.  I had brought work home with me and I couldn't even make myself open the manilla file folders stacked at my elbow.  I had spent hours sitting at the kitchen table looking out the window at the gray-green water lapping at the shoreline while cup after cup of untouched tea cooled in front of me.

When a friend at church suggested that we drive further down the Cape for an inspirational talk by the sister of a friend, I was really quite indifferent.  "Sure…why not…at least I will have an excuse for why I never touched those files," I thought.

But once we arrived I was thinking this was even worse.  At least at home I would be in my jammies, I could have my tea, and if I got really miserable I could turn on the TV and watch an old movie. 

Sitting in the cold Sunday School to hear a talk being given in another room seemed torturous.  It is hard enough to concentrate when the speaker is standing in front of you, but sitting in hard chairs without anything to look at except the wrinkled collar on the blue and white striped oxford cloth shirt worn by the guy sitting in front of me...was agony.  I really hoped something would penetrate my coldness, but my optimism was fading fast.  I decided I would listen for just one word or phrase I could take home with me.  I reached for an old magazine that was on the "give away" table near my chair by the door, and found a pen in my jacket pocket.  During the first 30 minutes of the talk I doodled away on the back cover of the magazine filling in all but one small square that I reserved for that one poignant message. 

When it came I was not expecting it…really.  I had been listening intently and nothing was getting through.  I felt as if I was hearing her words from under water when suddenly as clear as a bell I heard the phrase, "infinitely near."   That was it.  Infinitely near.  In thinking of God as infinite, it was always something big and "out there."  But an infinitely near God's voice penetrated deep beneath the surface of mere hope and faith to a place of oneness, a space so intimate that I couldn't sense it…any more than I can feel my own heartbeat, or find my own pulse, or see my own talents.  

This phrase "infinitely near" became a space of rest for my hope.  I no longer needed a rest from my longing for God. I rested upon that longing as the promise that God was with me IN that longing.  In fact He was the source of it.  My desire to experience Him, to sense His presence was a sure indication that I knew what He felt like and wanted to go deeper.   That He had already penetrated my complacency and dug beneath the surface of my simple senses to the place where, as Chris Rice sings, "trying to find You is just like trying to smell the color nine."  You can't sense with the senses what is part of you. 

"... Now I've never 'felt the presence'
But I know You're always near
And I've never 'heard the calling'
But somehow You've led me right here
So I'm not looking for burning bushes
Or some divine graffiti to appear
I'm just beggin' You for some wisdom
And I believe You're puttin' some here

Smell the color nine?
But nine's not a color
And even if it were you can't smell a color
That's my point exactly..."

This phrase "infinitely near" has given me a peace that is "beyond understanding"…beyond feeling, and seeing, and tasting, and hearing and touching. It is  deeper than the ocean and higher than the sky, it is nearer than my heartbeat and further than I ever hope to reach.   I went back to work not inspired to be something--a title, a mission--but to live in consonance with that deeper pulse that was so infinitely near.  No matter what...this is the rhythm I dance to...this is the beat that drives me...this is the song that sings below the surface of the quiet..."infinitely near."

It is the smell of the color 9.

With love,
Kate