Noticing (Red)
I am not a big fan of the color red for one simple reason. Sports. From as far back as I can remember, every one of my favorite sports teams have had a (hated) rival who wore red. My high school’s rival - red and white. My university’s main rival - red and white. My favorite pro football team - one of the main rivals - red. Favorite hockey team - most intense rival for years - red and white.1 Specifically it was tied to my university’s main rival - during rivalry week there was no red to be worn. It goes a long way back. So, I found a bit of an irony in the fact that this whole “going back to the beginning” started with red. So now that I have confessed my red issues, let’s talk about red…
Red is one of the three primary colors (along with blue and green) and is the color with the longest wavelength of light. Different cultures have different associations with the color red. In China and many other Asian countries, red symbolizes good forture and happiness. In the United States and many European countries, it is associated with love, sexuality, and passion but also anger and death. For example in many movies and shows, if you see someone wearing red, it often hints at an unfortunate end coming for them (see “red shirts” on the original Star Trek show). I would also be remiss if, as a Star Wars geek, I did not note how red lightsabers (powered by red kyber crystals) have generally noted someone who has turned away from the life-giving aspects of The Force.
One specific usage of red is firmly in my memory - red is also the only color seen in the black-and-white film, Schindler’s List, where a young Jewish girl wearing a bright red coat is seen being rounded up by the Nazis. Later in the film, when there is a pile of bodies shown, there is the faintest glimpse of a dirty red coat. This is one of the most memorable and heartbreaking movie moments I have ever seen.2
Red is also often a primary color in sunrises and sunsets - explained best by this from Wikipedia about what is known as Rayleigh Scattering:
As a ray of white sunlight travels through the atmosphere to the eye, some of the colors are scattered out of the beam by air molecules and airborne particles due to Rayleigh scattering, changing the final color of the beam that is seen. Colors with a shorter wavelength, such as blue and green, scatter more strongly, and are removed from the light that finally reaches the eye. At sunrise and sunset, when the path of the sunlight through the atmosphere to the eye is longest, the blue and green components are removed almost completely, leaving the longer wavelength orange and red light. The remaining reddened sunlight can also be scattered by cloud droplets and other relatively large particles, which give the sky above the horizon its red glow.3
And there’s the old saying “Red sky in morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.”
In my Christian faith tradition, red is often connected with sin (Isaiah 1:18 - ...though your sins are scarlet...”), judgment/wrath (Revelation 6:4 - the fiery red horse of judgment), and also to signify wealth and abundance (Proverbs 31:21 and Exodus 26:1). So, like everything else above, it is all over the map.
So I’m curious, what does red mean to you?
If you’d like to share any red photos, please feel free to send them to me or post in the comments. I’d love to feature them in my post next week
Here’s where I saw red this week (along with some commentary as the captions for each)
This next week, I will be shifting to orange and again, I’ll post those photos next Wednesday.
And Scout…wearing the hat in the macro photo above…
Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed
That rivalry has largely faded away and our primary rival wears green and black…
I looked for red along with you last week. I don’t have all the pictures, but the first red I noticed was in a parking garage, red exit signs and a red defibrillator. Inside my mother’s room, red electrical outlets and red light switches behind her bed.
Later, red flowers blooming and red on the wings of a blackbird. Two red stone hearts by my computer.
Looking red along with you raised me beyond my worries.
Yellow, not green is a primary color.