• This month we painted Kesia’s room.  She had been complaining that her room was boring, a drab yellow white, without curtains and no pictures on the wall.  She had tried to make it her own by taping up drawings she had made, along with school papers she was proud of and pictures from magazines.  Finally in exasperation she asked one day, “When do I get to make this into my room?!” 

We painted the walls pink and purple and then made stencils of hearts and clovers and stenciled the walls.  We purchased curtain materials with big purple roses on them.  We bought a bedspread with purple and pink flowers.  We found some pictures, put them in frames and hung them on the wall.  Kesia’s room went from boring and drab, to being decidedly Kesia’s.  

• A few months ago we received a note from the teacher at the school in Montanita. The school is typical of rural Honduran schools.  There are fifty or more children in each classroom, of multiple grades, managed by one teacher.  The walls of the school building are crumbling, the roof leaks.  Students sit in broken desks, or work in small groups seated on the concrete floor.  The teacher teaches without books, pencils, or other basic supplies.  Many of the children have learning disabilities from the effects of chronic malnutrition.  But the teacher didn’t ask for school supplies, or books, or desks or help with providing nutrition for the children. The note said: 

Solicitation

La Montanita, Quimistan, Santa Barbara, 19 of August, 2004.

Doctor Linda [I know I’m not a doctor, but that is what they call me]:

I hope this finds you in good health and that the divine Creator surrounds you with rich blessings along with your family in all your daily activities. 

We are presenting you with this solicitation in hopes that you can collaborate in the donation of two pails of oil paint to paint the fence of the school in mint green or celeste blue.  We await your attention to this solicitation and are thankful for your attention to it. 

Attentively,

Teacher Alice Marquez, principal, The Dr. Miguel Paz Barahona School.

To paint is to hope.  It is to make something your own, to put your mark of color and style on a structure.  It is to say that something is to last beyond a few days.  It is to allow your creative spirit to permeate a particular place.  To paint, to create enlivens the spirit and brings beauty to the ugliness present in our world.

In the coming year may you too seek to create beauty wherever you go, to risk walking in the hope that your creative spirit can change the world.

December 8, 2004