Refracted: Light and Perspective

I recently had a weird experience. During a church service I walked past a classroom full of PreK students drawing and coloring rainbows. It blew my mind...that is incorrect. I found it normal for small children to be coloring rainbows. The weird happened when the teacher and helper for the class didn't know the correct order of colors for the rainbow. For some reason I thought this was common knowledge, like which hand is your right hand or how to tie your shoes. As I brought this situation up in several more conversations throughout my day, I was continually surprised to find close to half of everyone I talked to weren't sure about the colors either. I quickly learned that there are two kinds of people in the world: those that know "R.O.Y.G.B.I.V.", and those that do not.

My reality of the world I live in came crashing down around me. What I thought to be a baseline of knowledge and information ended up to be different than I'd expected. Fortunately, there have been no known catastrophes in the wake of my day of realization. As much as this particular situation has had no real impact on my life, the underlying principle has huge ramifications for all of us. It has nothing to do with light refracted by water and everything to do with making assumptions and expectations. Not every parent is like you. Not every spouse is like you. Not everyone has your perspective on education, God, friends, sports, or your insatiable desire for every Apple product on the market. The expectations you bring into every type of relationship has an impact on it. Typically, my uncommunicated expectations within my marriage ends with me giving Amy flowers, because once again I've proven how self-consumed I am and I've learned "happy wife happy life". Our assumptions and expectations, more often than not, give evidence to our knee-jerk reaction to think of ourselves first and others with very little depth.

To sum it all up, it would benefit everyone if we periodically made a point to take a look outside of our own perspective. Truth is truth regardless of perspective, but our ability to communicate those truths is dependent on our ability to speak within someone else's perspective. I think there is a cliche that says basically the same thing, it talks about "miles" and "their shoes". Finally, just remember: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple (technically indigo and violet make up purple).